New York Times Upfront articles from March 2005

New York Times Upfront archives from March 2005

A headache.(news & Trends)
March 7, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: A headache that lasted four years finally drove a South Korean man to go for a checkup in December. X-rays showed a two-inch nail in his skull. The nail, which was surgically removed, may have entered the...

'Texting' takes its toll.(technology)
March 7, 2005... Text-messaging by cell phone, or "texting," is a convenient way to stay in touch with friends. But it can also run up a huge bill. High school and college students who are used to sending and receiving unlimited instant messages via computer...

Numbers in the news.(news & Trends)
March 7, 2005... 140 million Nusic tracks legally downloaded and purchased in 2004, up from 20 million in 2003. SOURCE: NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN 3 Hours spent online each day by the average Internet user in the United States. SOURCE: STANFORD INSTITUTE...

Should Maggie move?(Alaska)(elephant, Alaska Zoo)
March 7, 2005... She plays in the snow. She plays the harmonica. She snacks on hot-dog buns and hay. But is Alaska's only elephant happy? Maggie, a 22-year-old African elephant, has lived at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage since 1983. And whether she is depressed...

Ball of contention.(Baseball)
March 7, 2005... The baseball that clinches the WorLd Series Lands in your glove. Now, what do you do with it? It happened Last October to Doug Mientkiewicz, the first baseman who snagged the ball that ended 86 years of torture for Boston Red Sox fans....

Noted & quoted.(Soundbites)
March 7, 2005... 'Being bilingual is like going to a brain gym.' --Ellen Bialystok, a psychologist at York University in Toronto, whose 2004 study found that learning two languages in childhood helps keep people mentally fit and better prepared for...

Video visits reunite families.(Immigration)
March 7, 2005... Immigrants in some American communities have begun using videoconferencing technology to visit with the families they left behind. Jesus L., a 42-year-old construction worker and immigrant from Ecuador, had not seen his three children for 11...

Helping the troops stay connected.(Q&A)(Brittany Bergquist)(Interview)
March 7, 2005... Last April, after hearing about a U.S. soldier who ran up a $7,624 cell-phone bill calling home from Iraq, Brittany Bergquist, 14, and her brother, Robbie, 13, started Cell Phones for Soldiers, a not-for-profit that gives prepaid calling cards...

Fewer foreign students.(Education)
March 7, 2005... The number of foreign students applying to U.S. grad schools has decreased. Reasons include post-9/11 visa issues and competition from foreign universities.

Cant' U rite a compleet sentence!!!(Business)
March 7, 2005... A study of 120 American companies by the College Board's National Commission on Writing found that a third of the employees in the nation's top firms have poor writing skills. One result is millions of poorly written, misspelled e-mail messages...

One phat phiddler.(Music)(Daniel Bernard Roumain)
March 7, 2005... When Daniel Bernard Roumain was growing up in South FLorida, playing the violin was definitely not cool. In fact, says Roumain, he risked getting beaten up. "But the violin catted to me," he says. "It wasn't even a choice. I just knew I was...

Olympic quest: an athlete's attempt to become the first Iraqi to compete in the Winter Games.(International)(Faisel Ghazi Faisel)
March 7, 2005... High in New York State's Adirondak Mountains, deep in snow-covered pine forests, Faisel Ghazi Faisel of Baghdad works and waits to make his contribution to his war-torn homeland. He does it on an icy chute a mile long, his face inches from the...

Beggar, serf, after two years in Senegal, a Times correspondent tells why much of Africa is an appalling place to be a child.(Cover Story)
March 7, 2005... They stand at my taxi window, scrawny and unwashed, holding up empty tomato tin cans. They scratch their scabby arms. They wipe their running noses. Listlessly, they chant verses from the Koran. More often, they dispense with me formalities and...

How long is too long? Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life. But the founding fathers didn't imagine 80-year-old Justices and terms lasting 30 years.(National)
March 7, 2005... Lifetime tenure for judges is "the best expedient which can be devised in any government," Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 78. Of the wisdom of that proposition, he added, "there can be no room for doubt." But an...

Teens, drug abuse, and AIDS: the deadly connection: teens who abuse drugs face a risk of getting AIDS and (get this!) of passing it on to the friends they love.(Heads up: real news about drugs and your body)
March 7, 2005... World AIDS Day takes place every year on December 1. On that day, people all over the planet focus on the challenge of trying both to cure and control its spread. When you think about what a terrible disease AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency...

1970: tragedy at Kent State: with the Vietnam War escalating, Ohio National Guard troops fired at a crowd of student protesters, killing four of them.(Time Past)
March 7, 2005... On May 4, 1970, a flash of gunfire catapulted a typical Midwest college campus onto the front lines of America's war over Vietnam. In 13 chaotic seconds, Ohio National Guardsmen fired their weapons at antiwar demonstrators, killing four and...

Refusing to let evil triumph.(Opinion)
March 7, 2005... Iraq's Erection Day was an act of mass heroism. What we've witnessed is a people's zigzag efforts to climb back from nihilism toward normalcy, from a universe in which the ballot is already fitted out for you to a universe in which you make...

A growing divide between 'blue Europe' and the U.S.(Opinion)
March 7, 2005... Why are Europeans so blue over Bush's re-election? Because Europe is the world's biggest "blue state." Aside from, maybe, the ruling party in Italy, there is nothing in Europe that corresponds to the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-tax, openly...

Why America will continue to succeed.(Opinion)
March 7, 2005... What's the secret to long-run success? For a person, a political, party, and a nation, the element essential to success is character. The British historian D.W. Brogan wrote 60 years ago that the unique achievement of Americans--forming a...

Should Supreme Court Justices continue to have life tenure? The Constitution says justices may serve until death or retirement, but some question whether that still makes sense in the 21st century.(Debate)
March 7, 2005... YES Stripping life tenure from the Supreme Court would "fix" a nonexistent problem, would require a constitutional amendment, and would threaten our independent judiciary. There is no evidence that Supreme Court Justices need to be...

Cartoons.(Comic)
March 7, 2005... Can you give us a hand? We're trying to contain a democracy spill... Jimmy Margulies * The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHY DIDN'T YOU VOTE MY POLLING PLACE WAS DESTROYED BY MORTAR FIRE. IT RAINED....

Letter from the editor.
March 7, 2005... Our cover story looks at why much of Africa, according to Somini Sengupta, "can be an appalling place to be a child." In her two years as West Africa bureau chief of The New York Times, Sengupta reports, "Children here reflect their...

Africa's AIDS orphans.
March 7, 2005... One of the results of the AIDS epidemic that has swept across Africa is the orphaning of millions of children who have lost one or both of their parents to the disease. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 12 million children under age 18 have been...

Drug abuse and AIDS: how young people are at risk.(Heads up: real news about drugs and your body)
March 7, 2005... Dear Teacher: More than ever before, teens today are at risk for the deadly blood-borne illnesses AIDS and hepatitis C. We know for a fact that drug abuse is the single largest factor driving this troubling trend. How is that so? We...

Artist John Cerney stood on a ladder to put the finishing touches on his sculpture The Farmer and the Irrigator last month in Salinas Valley, Calif.(news & Trends)
March 28, 2005... Artist John Cerney stood on a ladder to put the finishing touches on his sculpture The Farmer and the Irrigator last month in Salinas Valley, Calif. For more than 20 years, Cerney has been creating figures of giant people in fields and on...

Is the siesta over?(Spain)
March 28, 2005... For much of Spain's recent history, a siesta has made long days bearable. A workday that begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m. makes more sense when it's broken up by an afternoon nap. But some Spaniards question whether a workday interrupted by...

For a fee, iPods get their fill.(Technology)(sound recording, Loadpod)
March 28, 2005... The rising popularity of Apple's iPod has created a new kind of entrepreneur: the professional iPod loader. For $1 to $1.49 a CD, this person will take on the time-consuming task of loading an entire music collection onto an iPod or other...

Perils of piercings.(Health)
March 28, 2005... Tattoos and body piercings have become so commonplace that they barely attract notice. But hearth officials say they are increasingly worried about the potential risks, including disfigurement and infections. Of primary concern are brood-borne...

Numbers in the news.(news & Trends)
March 28, 2005... 75% Portion of all 2004 e-mail traffic that was spare, up from about 50% in 2003, before a federal anti-spare law went into effect. SOURCE: NUCLEUS RESEARCH 1,418 Calories in a Hardee's Monster Thickburger--a beef, bacon,...

Noted & quoted.(Soundbites)
March 28, 2005... 'We are truly sorry if we hurt anyone with this bear.' --Vermont Teddy Bear Co. president and CEO Elizabeth Robert, who halted the production of the straitjacketed "Crazy For You" teddy bear after receiving complaints from mental-health...

Overprotection under the law.(Law)
March 28, 2005... Florida has struck down a law that forbade unmarried women from parachuting on Sundays. Texas women no longer face 12 months in prison for adjusting their stockings in public. And the ladies of Maine can now legally tickle a man under the chin...

Speaking out for old-growth forests.(Interview)
March 28, 2005... When Hannah McHardy, 18, moved from Arkansas to Seattle in 2003, she was so inspired by the forests of the Pacific Northwest that she joined the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental group that opposes the logging of old-growth forests....

Earth's little sister?(Huygens probe on Titan finds it similar to ancient earth's conditions)(Brief Article)
March 28, 2005... In January, data from the European Space Agency's Huygens probe showed that conditions on Saturn's moon Titan could be similar to those on ancient Earth; this may provide scientists with clues as to how life began on our planet.

Who does, and doesn't, buckle up.(aircraft seat belts)(Brief Article)
March 28, 2005... Men ages 19 to 29 are three times as likely as women in the same age group not to wear their seat belts, according to a study by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Teens 16 to 18 are among those most likely to use their...

High-decibel frogs.(Hawaii)(Brief Article)
March 28, 2005... It's tiny, it's cute--and its mating call sounds like a smoke alarm. Meet the coqui, a frog native to Puerto Rico whose shrill "ko-kee" blends in with the other frogs and night noises of its homeland. But ever since the coqui arrived in Hawaii...

China starts to give girls their due: decades of population controls and a societal preference for males have led to a 'boy glut.' The government is trying to reverse the imbalance.(International)
March 28, 2005... For farming families in the lush mountains of coastal Fujian Province, the most popular crop is oolong tea and the favorite source of labor is sons. The leafy bushes of tea fill the hillsides the same way young boys fill the village streets....

An obsession the world doesn't share: many countries see the war on terror as a U.S.-imposed distraction from critical issues such as poverty, crime, and AIDS.(National)
March 28, 2005... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand why people in many countries see the American focus on terrorism as dismissive of economic and social problems they see as more pressing. CRITICAL THINKING: Examine the proposition that...

Social insecurity: Social Security is much more than the retirement program people think it is. A look at its creation, the debate over privatization--and why it matters to you.(Cover Story)
March 28, 2005... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand the current debate over Social Security: whether to keep the 70-year-old government-guaranteed retirement and social-insurance system basically as it is, or to allow workers to invest part of...

Divided over evolution: Darwin's theories are nearly 150 years old, but the debate over how schools should teach the origins of life continues.(National)
March 28, 2005... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand the debate between those who favor teaching evolution in school science classes and those who want to teach an alternative explanation of the origin of life, which they call intelligent...

Abuse of inhalants and prescription drugs: real dangers for teens: overall drug use among teens is down, except for three dangerous substances.(Heads up real news about drugs and your body: a message from scholastic and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA))
March 28, 2005... Listen up. There's some good news, and bad news, about teens and drugs. First, the good news: Drug use among teens has decreased. A 2004 NIDA-sponsored study called "Monitoring the Future" found that the number of U.S. students in grades...

1925: the 'monkey trial': John Scopes was charged with violating Tennessee law by teaching evolution in a public school. His trial transfixed the nation.(Times Past)
March 28, 2005... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand the Scopes trial, a landmark legal battle between science and religion. CRITICAL THINKING: Note Darrow's unusual move of calling prosecution attorney Bryan as a defense witness. Should...

As questions arise, Pope sees his frailties as affirming life: can John Paul II continue to do the work necessary to lead a worldwide institution with a billion followers?(Religion)
March 28, 2005... For the last five years, Pope John Paul II has presented the face of a hearty man in decline: A tongue that speaks seven languages slurred from Parkinson's disease. A skier and mountain climber who now needs help to fall to his knees to pray....

The best bet for 'regime change' in North Korea.(Opinion)
March 28, 2005... The most dangerous failure of U.S. policy these days is in North Korea. President Bush has been startlingly passive as North Korea has begun churning out nuclear weapons like hotcakes. This is a regime that is not just menacing, but monstrous....

Can Iraq set an example for the entire Arab world?(Opinion)
March 28, 2005... There is much to criticize about how the war in Iraq has been conducted, and the outcome is still, uncertain. But those who suggest that the Iraqi election is just beanbag, and that all we're doing is making the war on terrorism worse as a...

Ads that poke fun at men.(Opinion)
March 28, 2005... Are today's men incompetent, bumbling idiots? Judging by portrayals in some recent ads, the answer seems to be yes. Among them are ads for Domino's, Hummer, and Verizon. In the campaigns, which critics consider misandry (the opposite of...

Watching your dad go off to war.(Voices)
March 28, 2005... The news came so suddenly. My dad has been in the New Jersey National Guard for a long time, so he had always talked about the possibility of being called up to active duty. But still, I never thought the day would come when I would have to say...

Should Social Security be partly privatized? President Bush wants to let workers invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts.(Debate)
March 28, 2005... YES If we don't fix Social Security, our children will pay the price--literally. Consider my daughter. At 18, she has just started nursing school and plans a career working with sick children. Retirement is the last thing on her mind,...

Cartoons.(Comic)
March 28, 2005... And then one day... I'M HERE FOR THE RUG. Tom Toles * The Washington Post * Universal Press Syndicate Ed Stein * Rocky Mountain News (Denver) * Newspaper Enterprise Association THE UN SAYS WORLD POVERTY CAN BE HALVED IN TEN...

Letter from the editor.
March 28, 2005... Many of you have asked how Scholastic is contributing to the tsunami relief effort. Given Scholastic's commitment to education and the promotion of literacy among young people, the company is focusing on long-term relief efforts by contributing...

Social Security: crunching the numbers.
March 28, 2005... Early in his second term, President Bush's top domestic initiative is his plan to revamp the 70-year-old Social Security system. The most controversial part of the President's plan: allowing younger workers (currently defined as those under age...

Trends in teen drug use: good news and bad news.(Teacher's Edition)
March 28, 2005... Dear Teacher: There's both good and bad news about teens and drug abuse. The latest numbers are in from NIDA's annual "Monitoring the Future" survey, and they show that in the past three years there's been a record-setting 17 percent drop...

Lesson plans for student activities.
March 28, 2005... Preparation: Before beginning the lessons, make two photocopies for each student of Student Activity Reproducible 1 as a pre- and post-assessment quiz (see the Assessment Guide below for more information). Lesson 1: What Do You Know About...

What do you know about teen drug trends?(Heads Up Real News About Drugs And Your Body)
March 28, 2005... Test your knowledge of teen drug trends, and three substances that present a special risk for teens right now, by answering the questions below. 1. Between 2001 and 2004, the percentage of teens in grades 8, 10, and 12 who used illicit...

How inhalant abuse damages the brain.(Heads Up Real News About Drugs And Your Body)
March 28, 2005... Spray paint, paint thinner, and paint remover. What do they have in common? They are three very dangerous and commonly abused inhalants that contain a solvent called toluene. There is plenty of evidence that solvent abuse leads to brain damage....

Game show.
March 28, 2005... Use with articles identified. Divide the class into 2-4 teams. Read the statements below, which are answers to questions. In this game, modeled after the TV show Jeopardy, students must give their answers in the form of questions. After reading...