Tent Revival Recalls Past, Plans Future // Fast-Growing Church Set For Thousands at Camp

The spikes are sunk, the poles are up, the canvas stretched. Inthe 4500 block of South State, a traditional religious tent campmeeting starts tonight at 7.

It's nostalgic and it's old school, but it works for The Churchof God in Christ - the fastest-growing Christian denomination in theUnited States.

Picking up followers at a rate of 200,000 a year, the 5million-member-plus faith offers a message made for today, say itssupporters: clean body, clean mind, and a male-headed,family-centered support system.

The keys to its success, say black religion experts: nurturing afollowing of struggling inner city and rural blacks, buildingself-esteem, and …

Scaffold collapses at Bangkok mall; 2 workers dead

BANGKOK (AP) — A construction scaffold collapsed at a luxury Bangkok shopping mall Friday and dumped steel and cement onto a work crew below, killing two and injuring six, police said.

The accident occurred in an area being rebuilt after the CentralWorld shopping complex was set on fire as the military cracked down on anti-government protests in May.

Part of the complex reopened in September, but the accident took place in an area still closed to the public.

An initial investigation indicated that the workers were …

Israeli leader gets support in White House dispute

Members of Israel's hard-line government are lining up behind embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his dispute with the U.S. over Jewish construction in east Jerusalem.

Two Cabinet ministers, including Israel's vice prime minister, accused the White House on Thursday of unfairly pressuring the Jewish state.

Netanyahu left Washington early Thursday after a last-ditch effort to heal the rift …

This much I know: Pat Brickhouse; Marketing Consultant Lake View

Age is simply a number. Mine's unpublished.

Look your best and you make a good impression on people. It'slike chicken soup. It can't hurt.

There may be 10, 12,000 restaurants in the city and yet, you readabout some of the same ones all the time. Today the market is morecompetitive than it ever has been. And subsequently, if you want toget your name out there, you have to come up with special ideas,special promotions. And I've seen restaurants that think they have agood product -- and a lot of times they do -- open with absolutelyno budget for advertising or promotions. And I've seen them closetheir doors within a year because no one knows about them. You know,you …

AVALANCHE AWARENESS

CHAPTER CHANNEL

Carl Skustad, recreation tech and snow ranger from the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center, in Anchorage, Alaska, spends over 150 days per year in Turnagain Pass alone. As guest speaker at the Anchorage chapter's January meeting, he offered first-hand perspective on avalanche safety and the center's role in Alaska.

Skustad explained that the need for the Avalanche Information Center became particularly clear after a snow-machine-triggered avalanche killed six people in Turnagain Pass in March 1999. To get the center up and running, Skustad worked with avalanche centers in other states. He also contacted the Alaska railroad, Alyeska resort, …

Abducted Las Vegas boy is returned to his father

A 6-year-old boy abducted from his home at gunpoint was safe in his father's custody Sunday as police tried to untangle any ties the youngster's family had to the Mexican drug dealers suspected of taking him.

Police were interviewing Cole Puffinburger after he was found alone Saturday night on a quiet street outside a Methodist church in Las Vegas.

"We're speaking with the boy today," FBI spokesman David Staretz said Sunday. "I know he's being interviewed by law enforcement, and we'll probably get a better idea of where he's been."

Cole's father, Robert Puffinburger, was a picture of relief at a news conference, as he smiled, …

Plays produced from scratch in 24 hours

Before Friday night they had never met.

But by the end of Saturday six writers, six directors and 30actors had written, directed, rehearsed and performed six brand newpieces of theatre.

The 24 Hour Plays event at the Ustinov studio saw writers firstputting pen to paper on Friday night to write a series of ten-minute plays.

On Saturday morning the scripts were handed over to the actorsand directors, who had less than 12 hours to put it all together fora performance.

The writers taking part included those whose work has appeared inthe Ustinov's Script Factory programme, Gill Kirk and David Lane,along with Adrian Harris, Simon Harvey Williams, …

Louisiana Gov. Blanco Won't Run Again

BATON ROUGE, La. - Gov. Kathleen Blanco, whose popularity plummeted after two hurricanes devastated Louisiana during her term, announced Tuesday that she will not seek re-election.

The decision will let her get what she called important initiatives through an upcoming legislative session without having to worry about political considerations, she said in a television appearance Tuesday evening.

"I am doing this so we can work without interference from election year politics," Blanco said.

She had already broken the news in phone calls to legislative leaders, a meeting with her Cabinet secretaries and in a letter to her staff.

Blanco, a Democrat from the …

Ruling on F1 diffuser row could cause disarray

The Formula One championship could be thrown into disarray Tuesday when motor racing's governing body rules on the legality of a car part that has helped Brawn GP's Jenson Button win the opening two races.

Ferrari, BMW Sauber, Renault and Red Bull have all lodged appeals to FIA against the stewards' decision in Australia and Malaysia to allow Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams to race with rear diffusers that possibly breach new aerodynamic regulations.

The three teams have dominated the opening two races because the diffusers _ an under-car device that channels the flow of air from the front to rear _ help create greater downforce through corners.

…

Butternut Lake yields plenty of walleye

EAGLE RIVER, Wis. George Langley and I have been phone friendsfor a number of years. I depend on Langley for fishing reports fromthe Eagle River area of Wisconsin, where he operates Eagle RiverSports and guide service.

Last weekend, I drove the 325 miles, met Langley at the AmericanBudget Inn and planned a walleye trip for the following day withguide Lamont Roth. Roth teaches math at the local high school andguides during summer vacation. He has a sense of humor that puts youat ease and is one hell of a fisherman.

We headed for Butternut Lake in search of walleye. The wellequipped Lund boat was launched and we headed for the west shore infront of an island. …

Red Bull still the team to beat

YEONGAM, South Korea (AP) — McLaren's success in Saturday's qualifying for the Korea Grand Prix was a short-lived break in a season dominated by its Red Bull rival that clinched the constructors' championship on Sunday.

Lewis Hamilton may have started in pole position but it looked to be Red Bull's day by the end of the first lap as newly crowned world champion Sebastian Vettel passed the Englishman on turn four and teammate Mark Webber moved up from sixth on the grid to third.

Vettel, who secured the drivers' championship last weekend in Japan, never looked likely to surrender his lead and finished 12 seconds ahead of Hamilton.

"I think it is good to see that the whole …

Suicide car bomb kills bystander in Russia

Authorities in the violence-plagued Russian republic of Ingushetia say a suicide car-bomber attacked the motorcade of the region's top police official, killing a bystander.

The Interior Ministry says the attack took place Tuesday morning in Nazran, Ingushetia's principal city.

The car, laden with explosives equivalent to 40 kilograms …

US to impose sanctions on Libya

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says the U.S. is moving forward with plans to impose sanctions on Libya in response to violence there.

Obama spokesman Jay Carney says the U.S. is finalizing that process Friday. He says the U.S. is also working with European partners on additional sanctions and other multilateral actions that could be taken.

The announcement Friday comes as hundreds of Americans were evacuated from Libya following days of violence. Militias loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have been firing on protesters demanding the Libyan leader's ouster.

Carney says President Barack Obama will meet with the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Washington Monday to discuss the situation in Libya.

Norteno star denies knowing gig was for drug gang

Latin Grammy winner Ramon Ayala says he only found out that his band was playing at a drug gang's holiday party when the Mexican military raided the event.

The renowned norteno accordion player spoke publicly for the first time Tuesday since the Dec. 11 raid of a home south of Mexico City.

Ayala says Los Bravos del Norte assumed the gig would be for a birthday party at a casino or event hall. When gunfire erupted, he says the band fled into a bedroom and waited for troops.

Ayala and his attorney's office say he's been cleared of any alleged ties to drug traffickers. But a spokeswoman for Mexico's federal attorney general's office says the investigation continues.

__

Associated Press Writer Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

NY suit vs. Google seeks damages for pictures, art

Groups representing photographers and artists on Wednesday accused Internet search leader Google of copyright infringement in a lawsuit that mirrors complaints book publishers and authors have made for years about the company's attempt to create the world's largest digital library.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, seeks up to $150,000 in damages for each of tens of thousands of photographs, illustrations and graphic works that it said were copied, stored and electronically displayed without permission from copyright holders.

"Google is engaging in massive copyright infringement," claimed the lawsuit, which said Google "will continue its brazen acts of willful copyright infringement" unless stopped by the court.

Mountain View, California-based Google Inc. is confident its Google Books project is compliant with U.S. and international copyright law, company spokesman Gabriel Stricker said in a statement.

"Google Books is an historic effort to make all of the knowledge contained within the world's books searchable online," the statement said. "It exposes readers to information they might not otherwise see, and it provides authors and publishers with a new way to be found."

The lawsuit adds a new wrinkle to the dispute over whether Google should be allowed to preside over and profit from the world's largest digital library.

A judge in Manhattan has not ruled whether to accept a $125 million settlement of a 5-year-old lawsuit groups representing authors and publishers brought against the company.

The deal would let Google include in its library so-called orphan works _ out-of-print books whose writers' could not be located _ and the works of other authors who decline to opt-out of the agreement after learning about it.

The U.S. Department of Justice has said the settlement might violate antitrust laws. The deal is opposed by some Google rivals, consumer watchdogs, academic experts, literary agents and even foreign governments.

A lawyer for Google has said fewer than 10 million books of 174 million books in the world would be affected by the settlement; about half the 10 million books were out of print.

The new lawsuit said Google has scanned more than 12 million books and may eventually scan the rest of the 174 million books, along with periodicals. It said Google's plans will diminish the value of pictures and art in the books, causing the photographers and artists to lose profits and opportunities and have their reputations damaged.

The lawsuit's plaintiffs include the American Society of Media Photographers Inc., with more than 7,000 members; the Graphic Artists Guild; the Picture Archive Council of America Inc.; the North American Nature Photography Association and the Professional Photographers of America, which has more than 20,000 members in 54 countries.

Bond Star Says He's a Bit Out of Shape

CANNES, France - James Bond says his rippling muscles have gone a little flabby.

Bond star Daniel Craig told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that he had let himself go a little since putting himself through a tough fitness regimen for last year's "Casino Royale."

"I had some down time," the 39-year-old actor said Monday. "I got to enjoy myself a bit. I'm getting back into shape now, I'm kind of building myself up again."

Craig said the script for next Bond film, not yet titled, hasn't been finalized.

"Casino Royale," his first appearance as 007, "was very successful," Craig said. "But I know it's only as good as the next one's going to be. We have to make the next one, I think, better than the last one to keep people happy."

Craig was in Cannes for a preview of "The Golden Compass," a fantasy adventure that also stars Nicole Kidman. Craig portrays an explorer in the Indiana Jones vein - professorial in a beard and tweed suit, a change of pace from his Bond role.

---

On the Net:

Cannes Film Festival:

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/

Suit slams school league breakup: 'Apartheid-like' move, 'white flight' seen in south suburbs

The breakup of a large high school athletic league in the southsuburbs is an "apartheid-like" maneuver that has "revived racialsegregation in public schools" in violation of students' civilrights, according to a lawsuit that attorneys say will be filed todayin federal court.

The defection of two dozen schools from the South Inter-Conference Association amounts to "white flight," school leaders,students and parents from the Thornton Township and ThorntonFractional school systems allege in their complaint, a copy of whichwas obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The suit aims to restore the conference -- known as SICA -- to 35schools and have a judge appoint someone to monitor diversity issuesin the league for two years. It names as defendants 13 south andsouthwest suburban high school districts that have left or areleaving the league.

"The defendants, by seceding from SICA, have erected a racialMason-Dixon line down I-57," the complaint reads. "In seceding fromSICA, they are creating, to the extent feasible, separateinterscholastic competitions for white and black students -- andracial motivations are the reason."

The flap regarding the conference began in December 2004 and issparking SICA to split into three different leagues. In early 2005,five schools -- T.F. South, T.F. North, Thornridge, Thornton andThornwood -- petitioned the Illinois State Board of Education to stopthe breakup, charging that it discriminated against their students.

'WE'RE STILL SOMEWHAT TOGETHER'

The five schools withdrew that petition after efforts to find asolution through mediation failed. It is the school boards, studentsand parents from those schools who are included as plaintiffs in thelawsuit being filed today.

Officials from the school districts breaking ties with SICA saidFriday that race never motivated them to leave the league.

The breakup has been under review by Illinois Attorney GeneralLisa Madigan's office for several months, they added, and Madigan hasnot declared it discriminatory. A source in Madigan's office,however, said the issue remains under investigation.

"There are a lot of different factors that went into it -- thetravel times, the neighborhood rivalries" and enrollments of theschools, said High School District 218 Supt. Kevin Burns, whoseEisenhower, Richards and Shepard schools all will leave SICA at theend of this year for a new league that Burns will oversee.

Lincoln-Way High School District 210 Supt. Lawrence Wyllie --whose Central and East high schools began competing this year in anew conference he's helping lead -- noted that there's more todiversity than conference alignments.

"We split away because we're all big high schools, and we've allgot a lot in common, but we also play our non-conference gamesagainst other SICA schools," including those in Bloom and Thorntontownships, Wyllie said. "It's really like we're still somewhattogether."

A statistical analysis in the federal court complaint tries toprove otherwise. Before the breakup, the league's schoolscollectively were 64 percent white, 19 percent black and 17 percentother races. Now it will break down this way, according to thelawsuit:

- In the Southwest Suburban Conference, where the Lincoln-Wayteams play, the racial makeup of the schools is nearly 75 percentwhite. Of the remaining students, about half are black.

- In the South Suburban Conference, which will begin play in thefall and be comprised of schools leaving SICA at the end of thisschool year, the racial makeup is nearly 60 percent white. Of theremaining students, slightly more than half are black.

- Once those two leagues are up and running, SICA will be leftwith 11 schools, all of which are east of Interstate 57. Thoseschools are 73 percent black and 18 percent white.

The suit alleges that the racial breakdown of the three leaguesviolates state and federal anti-discrimination laws. Also included isa transcript of a March 2005 racially charged telephone message lefton a reporter's cell phone from the home phone of a white Lincoln-Way school board member.

The caller phoned the reporter but, instead of hanging up,continued to speak to someone who was with her, leaving thatconversation on the reporter's voice mail.

COMPROMISE UNRAVELS

The board member resigned after the newspaper wrote storiesdetailing how the caller used the words "poor blackie" on the voicemail and spoke disparagingly about Rich Central, East and South,three mostly black SICA schools.

"Why are they failing?" the caller said. "Because of what's in'em."

Matthew Piers, the lead lawyer representing Thornton Township HighSchool District 205, Thornton Fractional High School District 215 andthe other plaintiffs, said the federal lawsuit could have beenavoided had all 35 schools once in SICA signed off on a compromisestruck with the help of a mediator brought in by the state Board ofEducation last year.

That compromise "primarily divided these schools based on size ofenrollment," said Piers, who was involved in the discussions. "Thosethree groupings were largely racially balanced."

But when one school district balked at the proposed resolution,the deal unraveled, Piers said. At that point, schools looking topush the discrimination issue withdrew their complaint with the stateboard and began pursuing other avenues.

Among the lawsuit's supporters is South Side and south suburbanU.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). "Public education should bringgroups together, not divide them," Jackson said in a statement.

"We should not still see school boards taking actions that eitherby intent or effect separate children by race."

Chris Fusco is a Sun-Times staff reporter. Joe Trost is a Sun-Times free-lance reporter.

cfusco@suntimes.com

FROM ONE LEAGUE TO THREE:

Before the South Inter-Conference Association began breaking upinto three leagues this school year, its racial makeup was 64 percentwhite, 19 percent black and 17 percent other races. Here's a look athow the three new leagues stack up:

SOUTHWEST SUBURBAN CONFERENCE

Schools: Bolingbrook, Stagg (Palos Hills), Sandburg (Orland Park),Joliet, Lockport, Lincoln-Way East (Frankfort), Lincoln-Way Central(New Lenox), Andrew (Tinley Park), Homewood-Flossmoor, Bradley-Bourbonnais.

Racial makeup: 74.62 percent white, 13.39 percent black, 11.99percent other.

SOUTH SUBURBAN CONFERENCE

Schools: Bremen (Midlothian), Evergreen Park, Hillcrest, OakForest, Tinley Park, Eisenhower (Blue Island), Richards (Oak Lawn),Oak Lawn, Reavis (Burbank), Romeoville,* Argo (Summit), Shepard(Palos Heights).

Racial makeup: 58.31 percent white, 23.08 percent black, 18.61percent other

SICA (REMAINING SCHOOLS)

T.F. North (Calumet City), T.F. South (Lansing), Thornton(Harvey), Thornridge (Dolton), Thornwood (South Holland), Bloom(Chicago Heights), Rich Central (Olympia Fields), Rich East (ParkForest), Rich South (Richton Park), Kankakee, Crete-Monee.

Racial makeup: 72.71 percent black, 17.73 percent white, 9.56percent other.

*Romeoville has since joined the Suburban Prairie Conference butwas to be included in the SSC.

Sources: Law firm of Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick & Dym Ltd. andChicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

NEWS BRIEFS

A rare menorah on loan from the Jewish Museum in Prague will be lit during a special White House ceremony. It is set to be lit on the sixth night of Chanukah, Dec. 16, during a Chanukah event at the White House that is expected to draw about 500 guests. First Lady Michelle Obama requested the loan, according to the museum, when she visited Jewish Tbwn and the museum during an official visit to Prague by President Obama in April. The menorah was created in 1873 by Viennese silversmith Cyril Schillberger and originally was dedicated most likely to the congregation in Prost�jov, according to the museum.

Chelsea Clinton is engaged to marry Marc Mezvinsky, her Jewish boyfriend. Clinton, 29, the only daughter of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, became engaged over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to investment banker Mezvinsky, 31. Mezvinsky, who works for Goldman Sachs, is the son of former U.S. Reps. Ed Mezvinsky (D- Iowa) and Marjorie MargoliesMezvinsky (D-Pa.). The elder Mezvinsky recently served a prison term for swindling $10 million from investors in a series of Nigerian e-mail scams. He was released in 2008. Mezvinsky and Clinton met in Washington in 1993, and both attended Stanford University. Clinton, a Methodist, was seen attending Yom Kippur services in September with Mezvinsky at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

Hannah Rosenthal, the former head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, was appointed the U.S. State Department's special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. Rosenthal led the JCPA for five years and most recently was the vice president of community relations at the not-for-profit WPS Health Insurance Company. The post has been vacant since Gregg Rickman left at the end of the Bush administration. In a Nov. 20 statement, the State Department noted that "As Special Envoy, Hannah will lead our efforts to focus our diplomatic energies on challenging these deplorable [anti-Semitic] acts."

Prayers for the State of Israel and the welfare of Israeli soldiers were torn out of prayer books at the Western Wall. Yediot Achronot reported over the weekend that its investigation found that most of the Rinat Yisrael prayer books that contain the prayers had the pages ripped out or ruined. "Ripping pages from a prayer book is an act worthy of all condemnations, and I hope it is not repeated," Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz said. It is suspected that anti-Zionist haredim committed the destruction, since they do not recognize the state.

- Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Philippine gunmen kidnap businessman, daughter

Gunmen kidnapped a wealthy businessman and his daughter then warned the military to pull back after troops managed to get near their hide-out in the southern Philippines, officials said Thursday.

The late Wednesday kidnappings in Cotabato City were the latest in a rash of abductions that has sparked a new government crackdown in the country's volatile south. Cotabato lies outside three southern provinces where several kidnappings have been staged in a sign that abductions may be spreading, an official said.

William Tan, a Filipino of Chinese descent whose family owns a chain of businesses including a hotel and a commercial store, was about to enter his residence in a car with his wife and two daughters when four heavily armed men approached, police said. The men shattered the vehicle's glass windows with their rifles and then dragged Tan out.

Tan's wife tried to fight back but was hit in the head with a pistol. The kidnappers then fled in a van with Tan and one of his two daughters toward a coastal area. They set the van on fire then transferred to two waiting motor boats, Cotabato city police chief Willie Dangane said.

Investigators have not identified the kidnappers but suspect they were members of the 11,600-strong rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been targeted by a monthslong military offensive in nearby Maguindanao province, Dangane told reporters.

Cotabato Mayor Muslimin Sema said the kidnappers allowed Tan to call his family to warn the military to stop a planned rescue, apparently sensing that government troops managed to locate their hide-out. Air force helicopters hovered in the area Wednesday.

Kidnappings for ransom, fed on huge numbers of unlicensed firearms and poverty, have eased in Cotabato city and nearby townships in the 1990s. Tan's kidnapping may have been inspired by a wave of kidnappings in the southern islands of Jolo and Basilan and the nearby Zamboanga Peninsula, Sema said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered the military and police to launch a new crackdown after expressing alarm over a series of kidnappings in the south by suspected members of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group and its allied gunmen.

The Abu Sayyaf is on a U.S. blacklist of terrorist organizations for its links to al-Qaida and involvement in kidnappings, bombings and beheadings.

Dugan, Franjo

Dugan, Franjo, Croatian organist, teacher, and composer; b. Krapinica, Sept. 11, 1874; d. Zagreb, Dec. 12, 1948. After studies with Bruch in Berlin, he was cathedral organist (1912–48) and a teacher at the Cons, in Zagreb. He publ. manuals on orchestration and musical form. His compositions included choral works and chamber music.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

Irish debt worries hit credit outlook, costs

Ireland's cost of borrowing rose to the highest in the euro zone Friday _ reflecting fears it is most likely to default on loans _ as credit ratings agency Moody's warned that the country will struggle with debt for years.

Moody's said it was considering a possible downgrade in Ireland's top-rated AAA grade if the government cannot get its swelling deficit under control. The New York-based agency lowered its Irish debt-rating outlook from neutral to negative, a possible precursor to dropping Ireland to the second-highest rating of AA1.

Moody's said Ireland's September 2008 decision to insure all deposits and debt commitments in the nation's debt-troubled banks meant it had taken on alarming potential liabilities. In a statement the agency said weakened banks, government red ink and rising unemployment were "likely to significantly affect Ireland's economic strength and government financial strength for years to come."

Meanwhile, agencies that measure the cost of government borrowing worldwide noted that Ireland has just overtaken Greece as the riskiest country in the 16-nation euro zone for backing government debt.

The interest rates that banks charge Ireland for borrowing have steadily increased since the government announced its bank-insurance plan _ and surged earlier this month after the government seized control of the country's third-biggest bank, property lending specialists Anglo Irish Bank Corp., to prevent its collapse amid a loan-hiding scandal.

Protecting Ireland's credit ratings and lowering its cost of borrowing will require the government of Prime Minister Brian Cowen to reverse its current dive into the red.

Cowen has been pressing the country's major labor unions and employers to tear up their most recent national wage pact _ because the government budget cannot afford to raise the wages of state-paid workers, including police, teachers and nurses. He is seeking to cut euro2 billion ($2.6 billion) from government spending this year, chiefly by freezing wages and cutting payrolls, in hopes of keeping the budget deficit below euro10 billion.

Cowen started his Friday at the global economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, trying to reassure bankers, analysts and journalists that Ireland remained in strong financial shape. He returned to Ireland to oversee negotiations between unions and employers that were expected to run day and night all weekend.

On Thursday, the Irish Central Bank warned that Ireland's gross domestic product was likely to fall 4 percent and unemployment rise to 9.4 percent. That would mean even less taxes and greater welfare expenses for a government that, until last year, had enjoyed a decade of nearly uninterrupted budget surpluses on the back of growing employment and a property boom.

It's a bug-eat-bug world in Homewood

In Homewood, they take their trees seriously. And their bugs, too.

The village is planning to release two more species of "goodbugs"_thousands of them_to help stave off pests that can chew throughleaves and destroy trees.

Two insects_the delicate green lacewing and the tiny Trichogrammawasp_will be released in a few weeks in the south suburb. They'lljoin an already-hungry population of ladybugs the village has beencultivating for 30 years as part of its biological pest controlprogram.

The new bugs are native species and exist in smaller numbersthroughout the area. But village officials want to increase theirnumbers so the bad bugs don't take over.

"We're going to increase the numbers because, if we don't act now,there's no way we can control it," said Jim Tresouthick, thevillage's forester and landscape maintenance supervisor.

One of the biggest threats to trees in the Chicago area besidesthe Asian long-horned beetle is the gypsy moth. It preys onhardwoods, and its young_in the form of caterpillars_chew leaves soefficiently they can defoliate a tree in a single season.

Homewood has been spared a gypsy moth invasion so far, but thepests are present in big numbers elsewhere and likely to spread, saidTresouthick, who's hoping the good bugs keep them at bay.

Good luck, said Jim Cavanaugh, who oversees the gypsy moth controlprogram for the Illinois Department of Agriculture. He said nothinghas been proved to work against the moth: "It's not something theycan count on."

But the good bugs help cut down on other pests such as aphids,leaf hoppers and scale insects, and Cavanaugh allowed that when itcomes to the gypsy moth, "We might as well try anything."

Homewood is one of just a handful of communities that usesbiological pest control, said Phil Nixon, an extension specialist inentomology with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Towns must make sure to maintain a balance between good and badbugs, Tresouthick said, something Homewood plans to do.

This year, the town will spend $350 on insects, and villageemployees will release the bugs in several spots: the Izaak WaltonNature Preserve, Apollo Park, the village's old tree farm area andaround Ravisloe Country Club.

It's a cheap and easy way to deal with pests, Tresouthick said,considering the village spends $90 per tree and plants 200 of them ayear.

"It's a lot of guesswork," Tresouthick said. "But if we don't helpour trees out, they're not going to help us out."

Voter ID Rules a Hot Button Issue

The number of voters who must show identification at polling places is growing yearly, despite escalating, bitterly partisan disputes over necessity and fairness of the requirement.

Three new voter ID laws, passed in Georgia, Indiana and Arizona, could test the limits of voter verification laws and perhaps lead to a case before the Supreme Court.

Bills passed in the Georgia and Indiana legislatures this year will require voters to show only government-issued photographic ID. In Arizona, voters approved a proposition requiring voter ID. The law also stated that those lacking necessary verification could not be issued provisional ballots, the national safeguard enacted as part of the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

Voter ID opponents were quick to respond.

In Georgia, the ACLU has filed suit and the state's League of Women Voters has published letters to the editor warning of the potential for disenfranchisement. Indiana's Civil Liberties Union sued in that state as well, charging that the new requirement "puts a substantial and unnecessary burden of time and cost for some potential voters and thus clearly violates the federal Voting Rights Act."

The U.S. Department of Justice has disagreed with the ICLU's pronouncement, pre-clearing the similar voter-ID rules in Georgia, which under the Voting Rights Act must have approval for any changes in election administration. Indiana is not required to secure preclearance. In Arizona, the DOJ wavered on the no-ID, no-vote requirement, first accepting the plan, and subsequently informing the state that voters without ID had to be issued provisional ballots. The state, the DOJ letter said, could then reject any provisional ballot cast by a voter without ID.

One expert said the question of photoID will likely go to the nation's highest court.

"It might wind up in the Supreme Court and the evidence will show that it definitely has discriminatory impact," said Tova Wang, democracy fellow at the New York-based Century Foundation. "I think that there has been a perception created - not an accurate one - that somehow requiring ID will prevent some kind of fraud that's going on. Instinctively, it seems right until you look at the situation. There's very little evidence that the type of fraud that does occur can be addressed by ID requirements. At the same time, you're committing a different type of fraud by disenfranchising some people by requiring ID."

Unlike other election administration issues, the battle lines on voter ID were drawn well before the 2000 presidential race. Democrats steadfastly oppose legislation to require ID, citing a disproportionately negative impact on the poor, the elderly and minority voters. Republicans have spearheaded voter ID expansion in statehouses around the country, insisting such policies help curb fraud and ensure only valid votes are counted.

According to information gathered by electionline.org, in 2002, 11 states required voters to show some form of verification before casting ballots. Now, 22 states require voters to show ID, while two more require any first-time voter to show ID.

Indiana secretary of State Todd Rokita (R), who urged the passage of his state's voter ID law, said the new law in his state is essential to safeguarding the vote. He said he had heard stories of rampant fraud in some parts of the state, the new law would finally do something to address it while protecting those who would be affected by the cost of an ID.

"We were the first to offer all of our residents a free state-issued photo ID card from the bureau of motor vehicles," he said. "The voter ID law goes to great lengths to ensure every Hoosier's vote counts - once."

Rokita said the law exempts the elderly who live and vote in nursing homes and those with religious objections to being photographed. Indiana also allows those lacking ID to cast a provisional ballot, which would be counted up to 13 days after an election, if the voter shows up at a clerk's office and presents a photo identification.

Those exceptions have done little to quell resistance.

While the skirmishes continue, one election expert presented a potential solution. Ohio State University law professor Edward B. Foley, in a recent online commentary, suggested a system by which registrants would present ID when they registered and then had their image captured digitally. At the polls, a computer would show a picture of the voter, allowing in essence a "photo ID" without the identification card.

"The purpose of a photo ID requirement - beyond the traditional requirement of providing one's name, address, and signature - is to compare the likeness of the person seeking to vote with the photograph that is linked to the name and address of the registered voter (whom the flesh-and-blood person purports to be)," Foley wrote.

[Author Affiliation]

Dan Seligson is editor of electionline.org, a non-partisan Web site that covers voting procedures.

Hitachi to admit to fixing LCD prices

Hitachi Displays Ltd. has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to fix prices on the sale of LCD panels.

The Japan-based electronics firm agreed to pay a $31 million fine as part of its deal with the U.S. Justice Department.

Three other major producers of liquid crystal display panels have already admitted their involvement in price-fixing.

Hitachi admitted to fixing prices of the screens sold to Dell, Inc. for use in desktop monitors and notebook computers from 2001 to 2004.

LG Display Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp., and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. struck similar plea agreements last year relating to their sales of glass display screens.

A one-count felony charge was filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco.

With the Hitachi plea, the U.S. government will have garnered more than $600 million in criminal fines stemming from LCD price-fixing.

"This case should send a strong message to multinational companies operating in the United States that when it comes to enforcing the U.S. antitrust laws we mean business," Acting Assistant Attorney General Scott Hammond said in a statement.

The court papers charge Hitachi participated in meetings and communications in Japan, Korea, and the United States to discuss the prices of screens sold to Dell, at which they agreed to set certain prices.

There is a $70 billion worldwide market for LCD screens. Regulators in Asia and the European Union also have opened investigations into LCD pricing.

Last year, LG Display, a South Korean company, and its LG Display America Inc. unit agreed to pay a $400 million fine for its part in fixing prices of certain LCD panels from 2001 to 2006.

Chunghwa, a Taiwanese company, agreed to pay $65 million for its role in the scheme.

And Sharp, a Japanese company, agreed to pay $120 million for participating in separate conspiracies to fix the price of certain LCD panels sold to Dell, Motorola and Apple. Those panels were used in computer monitors, laptops, Motorola Razr mobile phones and Apple's iPod portable music players.

UN: No comprehensive climate deal this year

Outgoing U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer shot down expectations of a climate treaty this year, saying Monday that a major U.N. conference in December would yield only a "first answer" on curbing greenhouse gases.

His comments came just five months after the hyped Copenhagen climate conference failed to yield much progress despite efforts by world leaders, including President Barack Obama.

De Boer said the next major U.N. climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, in December will "not provide an answer that is good enough."

He was speaking to reporters at an international climate meeting in Koenigswinter, near Bonn, the former German capital.

"A good outcome of Cancun will be an operational architecture on climate change," he said. "And then we can decide on a treaty."

De Boer said he expects such an international climate treaty before the end of 2012, but even that will "not be the definitive answer to the climate change challenge."

De Boer's assessment comes five months after the troubled U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen. That meeting was originally intended to produce the international treaty that has been in the works since 2007. Instead, it showed a great rift between industrialized nations, new economic powers like China, and developing countries.

Germany and other countries have said they have not given up on a deal in Cancun. Germany and Mexico are hosting the meeting in Koenigswinter of more than 40 ministers and high representatives, which is aimed at getting the U.N. negotiating process back on track.

However, de Boer said these negotiations will take some time.

He said what the Cancun conference can produce are decisions on sticking points of the envisioned treaty, such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions, financial aid from rich to poor countries, technology transfers, or measures to preserve Earth's forests.

Such a "functioning architecture" would provide nations worldwide with tools to fight climate change and "increase the level of ambition," he said.

In Copenhagen, nations did agree that global temperatures must not rise above 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in comparison with preindustrial times. In order to achieve this, scientists say industrialized countries need to cut their emissions of heat-capturing gases such as carbon dioxide by 25-40 percent compared with 1990 by 2020, and developing countries must enter a low carbon path.

De Boer said industrial nations have started to act, but are not yet doing enough.

"I don't think we will get enough of an answer in Cancun to get us to the 25-40 range," he said.

Also, while nations in Copenhagen agreed on a fast-start $30 billion financial aid package, poorer nations need assurances that this package actually consists of new and additional funds, he said.

By 2020, the annual help needs to be shored up to $100 billion and richer nations need to say how they are going to do that, he said.

"There will be no action without a great deal of funding," he said.

The three-day meeting in Koenigswinter called the Petersberg Dialogue is intended to build trust between the nations badly disillusioned by the weak outcome of Copenhagen, Germany's Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen has said.

It is also trying to make some progress on the components of the future treaty and to come up with concrete projects on which to spend the $30 billion aid _ be it on emissions reduction or on dealing with the alarming consequences of climate change such as droughts, floods, or storms.

New book criticizes black movie roles, even today

New book criticizes black movie roles, even today

'"We Gotta Have It' represents twenty years of seeing a new generation of Black movies. Before this journey began in 1986, with Spike Lee's 'She's Gotta Have It,' a Black movie meant one of the increasingly mindless productions starring comedians Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy. Twenty years later - this era of film has created an explosion in the number of people recognized as Black movie stars. At the same time, there has also been a relative explosion of Black Film auteurs - director-producer-writers who, though toiling increasingly in the obscurity of the film festival circuit, have created and brought to the screen a fuller panorama of Black life.

What has happened between these two points in time is an amazing film journey referred to as the 'new wave' of Black film ... Included here are reviews (many excerpted), interviews and essays about movies that we sort of claimed as ours. Movies bring words and images to us but we also bring who we are to the movies - to laugh, to cry, to tremble with fear, to gaze in awe, to grow angry, to contemplate, and, hopefully, sometimes to learn and grow.

We do keep bringing ourselves to the movies in droves. It seems we gotta have it."

- Excerpted from the Introduction (pg. xxvii-xxx).

African Americans comprise about a quarter of the domestic movie-going audience, which translates to over $2 billion at the box office alone. For this reason, one would think that blacks would exert considerable influence over the images of themselves fashioned by Hollywood. But according to Esther Iverem, despite the significant inroads made since Spike Lee's arrival on the scene in 1986, the film industry has a long way to go in terms bf presenting authentic African American characters.

Iverem, a former staff member at the Washington Post and Newsday, is an iconoclastic film reviewer who writes from a point of view that is both black and female. "We Gotta Have It" is a collection of her insightful reviews, evocative essays and groundbreaking interviews with everyone from Lee to actors Vin Diesel and Danny Glover, author Alice Walker and director Julie Dash.

This book is worth the investment for its opening chapter alone, in which the author assesses the predicament of blacks in the United States through the prism of motion pictures. In it, she asks, "Why does a police officer feel he can get away with sodomizing us with a broomstick; shooting us, as we stand unarmed, forty or fifty times; or beating us bloody on a crowded New Orleans street?"

She argues that the answer rests with "the cinematic power of turning lies into truth." The dominant culture presumes to know black people as a consequence of watching flicks like 2001 's "Monster's Ball," for which Halle Berry won an Academy Award. However, Iverem suggests that Berry's award victory might have had a lot more to do with the actress fulfilling white male sexual fantasies than her portraying a recognizably realistic African American female.

Iverem concludes it is "the least attractive, the most criminal, the most seedy part of us, that is then made to become representative of us all." Such astute observations abound in the aforementioned intro, and only lay the groundwork for the numerous pithy comments contained in the ensuing, chronologically-arranged entries.

On "Soul Plane:" "How many different ways can a film call me a nig? Will we ever learn the difference between a film laughing with us, rather than laughing at us?"

On "Monster's Ball:" "Tries to convince us, in a raw, depressing Southern Gothic style, that a Black woman in a small Georgia town will turn to a white man, who is an open racist, for sexual comfort and companionship."

On "8 Mile:" "Blacks make an issue of race. B-Rabbit never does, and neither do the trailer park White people he comes from. How real is that?"

On "The Last King of Scotland:" "It goes on, based on who knows what, to picture African women as easy and available sexual partners . . . What looks deceptively like history writ large on the big screen turns out to be, partly, some White boy's wet dream."

A critic who can skewer so succinctly and delightfully is rare enough indeed. But when you couple that talent with an uncompromising, unique black feminist perspective, now you're talking about a sister with a seminal voice deserving of much wider recognition.

[Sidebar]

Esther Iverem's "We Gotta Have It" studies the portrayal of blacks in American film.

[Sidebar]

Remain far from other's wealth.

Neither go anywhere near it

nor cast your eyes upon it.

Never let it creep into your meditation.

Regard women with respect and affection.

Never harm a woman.

Consider her the mother of the universe.

- Swami Muktananda

Jones: Bin Laden still spends time in Afghanistan

National security adviser James Jones said Sunday that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden still spends some time inside Afghanistan.

Most recent U.S. estimates have placed bin Laden inside Pakistan. But Jones, a retired general, said the best estimate is that bin Laden "is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border."

Jones described it as a "very, very rough, mountainous area. Generally ungoverned and we're going to have to get after that to make sure that this very, very important symbol of what al-Qaida stands for is either, once again, on the run or captured or killed."

Earlier, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. hasn't had any good intelligence for years on bin Laden's whereabouts. He said he couldn't confirm reports that bin Laden had been seen recetl n fganstn.

`I, s e usec, e s n orh aziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time," Gates said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said it was important to kill or capture bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders, "but certainly you can make enormous progress absent that."

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said people in the region have told him bin Laden "moves back and forth." He said the hunt for bin Laden has prevented the al-Qaida leader from establishing bases for training and equipping terrorists, adding, "Don't think al-Qaida could not flourish without him if we give them a safe haven."

Jones appeared on CNN's "State of the Union," Gates and Clinton were on ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBs' "Face the Nation." McCain was on NBC.

Picking the perfect contractor

When Cynthia Lighty started her own real estate law practice, her first step was some real-world experience: She bought her own building, hired a contractor and spent about $50,000 to renovate it. She opened her doors in 2003.

The process took well over a year and helps Lighty empathize with her clients, most of whom are small businesses owners or contractors. Not surprisingly, she thinks the most important part of the process is to hammer out a good contract before breaking ground.

"That's where people skimp," Lighty said. "They don't take the time to sit down and lay out what they expect."

Open communication and preparation seem to be the keys to a happy …

Wales prop Jenkins to miss start of 6 Nations

LONDON (AP) — Wales coach Warren Gatland says prop Gethin Jenkins will miss the start of the Six Nations because of a knee injury and could be out for four to five weeks.

Gatland says Jenkins is a big loss to the team since "he's …

ORACLE UNVEILS WIRELESS AND VOICE INTEGRATION KIT.(Wireless and Voice Integration Kit for Oracle9i Application Server )(Product Announcement)

Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL), an enterprise software company, has unveiled the Wireless and Voice Integration Kit for Oracle9i Application Server (Oracle9iAS). Designed to provide sufficient detail on how to effectively automate the technical integration process, the Wireless and Voice Integration Kit provides pointers to key features and methodologies that will enable developers and partners to quickly and cost-effectively integrate their mobile products and services with Oracle9iAS. Complete with code samples, documentation and a set of standard integration Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), the Wireless and Voice Integration Kit supports integration in four key areas -- core server, voice, messaging and location-based services. The Wireless and Voice …

Piper PA-22-150: September 1, 2007, Modesto, Calif.(NTSB Reports: Recent general aviation and air carrier accidents)(Brief article)

The airplane was destroyed by fire after landing about 1748 Pacific time. Visual conditions prevailed. The private pilot received minor injuries; the passenger received serious injuries. The pilot later reported that within minutes following takeoff on the two flights preceding the accident flight, he had experienced smoke in …

CLINTON, AIDES DEBATE NEW RULES ON CIGARETTES.(MAIN)

Byline: Washington Post

WASHINGTON President Clinton Monday debated with senior aides two different government strategies for limiting smoking by minors: Allow the Food and Drug Administration to classify tobacco as a drug and impose new regulations, or use the threat of such regulation to extract concessions from the tobacco industry.

Sources described Clinton as leaning toward what the White House describes as the ``voluntary'' option, trying to get the tobacco industry to sign on to a series of steps that would make it harder for minors to buy or obtain cigarettes and would stop promotions aimed at young people.

Among the options Clinton …

Analysis: Lawmakers may grab wheel of auto firms

President Barack Obama calls his administration a reluctant shareholder in the nation's troubled banks, insurance companies and car makers, promising "to get out quickly" once market conditions allow. But there are 535 other important Washington stakeholders: members of Congress.

Many lawmakers have their own, more activist view about the government's ownership role, seeming at times like a Congress of CEOs.

They have made it clear they want to be active partners in rescue oversight regardless of Obama's vow to mostly let managers manage. Some are even seeking to weigh in on specific GM and Chrysler plant-closing decisions and appealing for more …

China: Growing Demand for Bag Filters

China has made adjustments to its policy in the direction to control exports of high energy consuming and heavily polluted products as well as resource products. Furthermore, China has strengthened its environmental conservation projects. As a result, there is an expanding demand for bag filters with high dust-collecting ratios of smoke and soot countermeasures indispensable for the reduction of air pollution. In addition to the elimination of secondary pollution, bag filters are highly effective in the recovery of useful substances. Sales of the bag filter industry in 2005 were 6.5 billion yuan. The production volume of filter materials in China in the same year was 40 million sq. …

Methodology.(compiling top business-to-business advertisers)(Brief Article)

To compile the 1999 Top 100 B-to-B Advertisers, BtoB used data from New York-based Competitive Media Reporting, including CMR Business-to-Business (Business Information Network numbers). Included are the b-to-b segments of selected categories and portions …

PROPOSAL THREAT TO OPEN SPACES.(State)

ALBANY -- Environmental groups banded together Thursday to protest Gov. David Paterson's plan to cut cash from the state Environmental Protection Fund, which is used to support parks, farmland protection, air- and water-quality programs, municipal recycling programs, landfill closures and zoos and botanical gardens.

Paterson wants to cut the fund from $255 million to $205 million next year, despite a 2007 law that requires the fund to increase to $300 million by 2009.

"We can understand why the Legislature and the governor want to cut state spending by 10 percent, but why are they proposing to cut environmental spending by 30 percent or more?" said Brian …

MAYOR CONSIDERS AXING PARAMEDICS.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: MIKE GOODWIN Staff writer

Mayor Brian U. Stratton, grappling with the likelihood that an increase in state aid will fall far short of the $4.7 million boost he requested this year, will consider the elimination of the Fire Department's paramedic squad.

The mayor said the city could save roughly $1 million a year by cutting the 16 firefighters positions that staff the paramedic operation while bringing in a private company, possibly Mohawk Ambulance Service, to handle emergency medical services.

``It would be a viable option,'' Stratton said Tuesday, a day after he learned the city will probably receive only $1.4 million in additional state …

GIMMICKS AND HYPE CAN'T SAVE THE WORST OF EVENTS.(Sports)

Byline: Pete Dougherty

HelmetCam, about the only memorable aspect of the World League of American Football's two-year television run, presumably is headed for the storeroom with those lime-green uniforms and portable microphones.

The one-year suspension of the WLAF - or the World League, as it became known once sportswriters dubbed it the We-Laugh circuit - shows that no amount of innovation can rescue an inferior product.

USA Network, which spent $10million for the cable rights, got a 1.0 Nielsen rating (percentage of television homes tuned in) last year. Those few who watched saw pro football in a new perspective, from the fresh insights of analyst Boomer Esiason to the unique views offered by the lipstick-size technical marvel called HelmetCam.

…

Mexicans vote elections besieged by drug violence

More than a dozen Mexican states held elections Sunday after campaigning besieged by assassinations and scandals that displayed the power of drug cartels and posed the biggest challenge yet to President Felipe Calderon.

With public discontent rising over the violence set off by Calderon's offensive against drug gangs, the opposition party that ruled Mexico for 71 years hoped to capitalize on the frustrations and gain momentum from the votes for governors, mayors and other posts in its bid to regain the presidency in two years.

The first exit polls released by TV Azteca and Televisa said the PRI, which long held on to power through a system of largess and …

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge land in Los Angeles to begin weekend California visit

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Duke and Duchess of Cambridge …

Continental Airlines forms contract agreement with mechanics.

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2002 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

Continental Airlines has ratified a new four-year contract with its mechanics and other employees.

The agreement - formed with 3,300 members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union - reportedly …

Searching for directory services. (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)

In last month's column, I described why Internet-based email, which relies on the SMTP and POP standards, will eventually replace enterprise email systems based on proprietary protocols. But that can't occur until a viable solution to the directory services problem is developed.

This isn't just an email issue - directory services are also needed for other network services, including file service, access to databases, Web pages, objects, etc. While a number of different directory solutions have been proposed, none has "caught on" in a major way. Managers in large enterprises have been frustrated by their inability to find a single, deployable, standards-based directory service that truly meets their needs.

Fortunately, there is some good news in this area; products based on the relatively new Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) will soon be available. But to understand why LDAP is so important and why it is likely to emerge as the best solution, it is important to understand the issues associated with multivendor network directory services, why previously developed solutions services such as X.500 have not achieved widespread acceptance and why solutions like Domain Name System (DNS) and Internet search engines are just partial solutions.

Unmet Requirements

If you use a telephone book analogy, directory services consist of "white pages" and "yellow pages." The former enable users to determine the location or address of a particular network resource (e.g., a particular person's mailbox account), and they assume that the user already …

AREA RESIDENTS EXPRESS THEIR SHOCK, SORROW.(MAIN)

Byline: SCOTT PATTERSON Staff writer

Bob Masters' thoughts are with the Kennedy family.

``Like that family hasn't had enough tragedy,'' said the Albany resident who, like many on Saturday, took a moment to think of the nation's ``royal family.''

``Now to have this happen on their way to a wedding, that's a shame,'' he said.

With John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane missing and its occupants presumed dead, Masters was not alone in his feelings of sympathy. Around the Capital Region, people expressed their disbelief at what the Kennedy family has been through.

``It seems like there's a black cloud hanging over that family,'' said Mark …

The new shape of manufacturing: today, the most direct path to profit is a U-shaped curve.(Cellular Assembly)

In basic geometry class, students are all taught the same rule: The most direct route between two points is a straight line. However, manufacturing engineers at Applica Inc. (Miami Lakes, FL) have discovered a different truth by applying cellular assembly cells.

When point A is a collection of unassembled parts and point B is a company's productivity and quality goals, the most direct path is a U-shaped curve.

The benefits of this theory have been tested repeatedly by Applica employees in China and Mexico who assemble a variety of household appliances, such as blenders, coffeemakers, irons and toaster ovens. In fact, the U-shape vs. straight-line theory has become the rule.

Since redesigning the Queretaro, Mexico, plant based on lean principles, total productivity has increased by 70 percent. Today, the factory produces 100 percent more products than it did in the mid-1990s. Quality, measured in defects per million opportunities, was more than 20,000 in 1994; today, it is less than 100. In 1994, the scrap rate was 4 percent; today, it is 0.4 percent.

This did not happen in a controlled environment. It would have been much easier if our product lines and customer demand had remained somewhat steady during the transition. But, Applica's former parent company shut down plants in North Carolina and Malaysia, and transferred half of that business to Mexico.

The inventory, machines and new product expectations landed in our 200,000-square-foot plant in 1998. Without cellular manufacturing, we would have been in serious trouble. But, our engineering team completely integrated the new operations within months.

Old Assembly Process

Steam irons are the main product assembled at the Queretaro plant. In the past, the shop floor …

YO VAY . . .

YO VAY . . . Are blacks and Jews still on speaking terms? STRANGERS IN THE LAND: BLACKS, JEWS, POST-HOLOCAUST AMERICA BY ERIC J. SUNDQUIST CAMBRIDGE, MA: BELKNAP PRESS. 662 PAGES. $35.

At the beginning of Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America, Eric J. Sundquist writes that it is now possible to undertake a comprehensive study of the relationship between blacks and Jews not only because the century has ended but "because their special relationship appears to have ended as well." Indeed, it has been a long time since the early days of the civil rights movement, when blacks and Jews marched together on Washington and were even lynched together in Mississippi. …

Business Appraisers; PRICE WATERHOUSE COOPERS.

Consulting Services: Bankruptcy/Turn-Around Management, Business Valuation, Litigation Support Services Industries Served: Automotive, Manufacturing/Distribution

Certifications/Credentials: CPA Website: www.pwcglobal.com State or Country: MI Category: Listing #:56709 [To receive the …

OLSON EYES NEW HEIGHTS.(SPORTS)

Byline: BILL ARSENAULT Special to the Times Union

Freshman high jumper Dan Olson of Voorheesville (Albany Academy) will compete for Wheaton College in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Division III Track and Field Tournament on Saturday in Medford, Mass., as he prepares for the NCAA Division III championships March 8-9 at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio.

Olson, a high school state indoor and outdoor champion high jumper, qualified for the NCAA meet with a 7-0 1/4 jump in winning the Saint Valentine Invitational on Feb. 9 in Boston. He followed that by winning the Division III All-New England meet (6-11) in Lewiston, Maine, and the All-New England …

Fiserv To Combine 3 Networks, But Will Bide Its Time.

When Fiserv Inc. in December acquired EDS Corp.'s Consumer Network Services processing unit and its three electronic funds transfer networks, it provided the Brookfield, Wis.-based financial-services company with more leverage to compete for financial-institution transaction-processing and network-switching contracts. But rather than follow the path of Memphis, Tenn.-based processor Concord EFS Inc. and strive to quickly operate one of the nation's leading EFT networks, Fiserv's network plans are bit more conservative.

From a network perspective, the cornerstone of the $320 million EDS deal is Bellevue, Wash.-based Accel/Exchange, the nation's eighth-largest EFT …

Safety: a profit opportunity? Companies that consider safety more than a nuisance might profit from it. (Facility Safety).(Statistical Data Included)

It is impossible today to have a discussion about safety without involving economics. The cost of safety is tied directly to the profits of a company. If it is an unsafe company, it will almost certainly pay out more in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fines, lawsuits and attorney's fees, and for increased insurance premiums than needed.

All of those payments directly affect the bottom line. This article describes how profits are lost through unsafe practices, and helps provide companies with a program to help stop the leakage. It's directed at construction and demolition (C&D) recycling businesses, both fixed facilities and mobile facilities, but can be used by all industry.

Tours of C&D recycling operations can, unfortunately, reveal unsafe situations at C&D recycling facilities. On one visit I saw three men standing next to a grinder that was in operation. That particular grinder emits out about 110 decibels of sound when it is in full operation. None of the men was wearing ear protection.

Another visit included the site of a worker on a conveyor belt while it was in operation. He's one of those "pack rats" that you see at C&D facilities who can't resist a good find. In this case, he was getting a game for his daughter, but playing a very dangerous game of his own.

Another site I witnessed on a tour was a valve sticking up from …

REALTY BUSINESS FILES BANKRUPTCY.(BUSINESS)

ALBANY -- Hit with two years of financial losses on their real estate investments, Christopher Eatz and Claire Eatz, a Saratoga County couple doing business as Creative Environments, filed for bankruptcy on Monday with debts of more than $1.29 million and assets of $741,750.

The couple's biggest creditor is Citicorp Mortgage. The bank is owed more than $866,000 for money lent primarily on property the Eatzes own on Route 9P in Saratoga.

The husband-and-wife business team are long-time state employees. Christopher Eatz, a …