New York Times Upfront articles from November 2004

New York Times Upfront archives from November 2004

An artisan puts the finishing touches on a sand sculpture of the elephant-headed god Ganesh on a beach in Puri, India, during a recent Hindu festival.(news & Trends)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: An artisan puts the finishing touches on a sand sculpture of the elephant-headed god Ganesh on a beach in Puri, India, during a recent Hindu festival. Ganesh is revered by Hindus as the god of wisdom; his...

Shades of Star Trek.(Science)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Scientists have teleported individual atoms for the first time. In physics, "teleportation" means creating a replica of an object at some distance from the original. Teleporting always destroys the original--not unlike the transporters in Star...

Numbers in the news.(news & Trends)
November 1, 2004... $5,000 Price of a piece of gum chewed by Britney Spears offered for sale on eBay--part of a growing market in celebrity "keepsakes." SOURCE: THE NEW YORK POST 24 Estimated number of women among the 1,000 U.S. troops killed in...

Tackling a new role.(Music)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... When Morris Robinson played offensive guard at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., his nickname was "Massive." He dreamed of a career in the NFL--until he was informed that he was "too small" for pro football. Now, it turns out that the most...

How much do you tip the president?(Television)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... "You can see how politicians took corrupt from their faces," says the passenger, complaining to the taxi driver. "But I don't see that took on your face yet." The remark makes little sense until you realize that the driver is no ordinary...

Tuning in: young voters are showing intense interest in this year's presidential election. But will they show up at the polls?(National)
November 1, 2004... Four years ago, the presidential election did not even reach the level of white noise for Marie Reyes. She had bigger concerns--like, just about anything other than what Al Gore and George W. Bush were talking about. "There was nothing in that...

World Affairs Annual.(Atlas)(Cover Story)
November 1, 2004... Even the most far-flung parts of the world don't seem as remote as they used to. In the age of the Internet, 24-hour news channels, and global, terrorism, it's neither possible nor wise to ignore what's happening around the globe. These days,...

Snapshots.
November 1, 2004... Major Religions of the World Christianity 32.9% Judaism 0.2% Islam 19.9% Sikhism 0.4% Hinduism 13.3% Chinese folk religions 6.3% Buddhism...

The world in focus.(Almanac)
November 1, 2004... On the 10 pages in this almanac, you'll find facts on 193 independent countries. Compare, for example, the life expectancy of people in Mozambique (38 for males and 42 for females), with that of Norway (77 and 82); or India's per capita GDP...

Hard-working families that can't get ahead.(Opinion)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... A new study, titled "Working Hard, Falling Short," shows how tough a time American families are having in their struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. The problem for millions of families is that they have jobs that...

Why democracy is a great insurgency buster.(Opinion)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... The reason we should work for full democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is not just because it's noble, but because it's practical. Over the past 30-odd years, democracy has spread at the rate of one-and-a-half nations per year. It has spread...

The rise of China's techies.(Opinion)(Brief Article)(Excerpt)
November 1, 2004... Workers aren't just making tennis shoes in Dalian, one of the Chinese cities that are grabbing business as knowledge centers as well as manufacturing hubs. It has become a center for outsourcing by Japanese companies that want to tap China's...

Should the minimum wage be increased? Depending on which expert you ask, raising the minimum wage (now $5.15 an hour) will help or hurt low-income workers.(Debate)
November 1, 2004... YES The main purpose of minimum wage laws is simple: to ensure that working people do not have to raise their families in poverty. But what you can buy with a minimum-wage income has fallen precipitously in the U.S. Today's $5.15 minimum...

Cartoons.(Comic)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... I'M NOT SURE I WANT A CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATIONS. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] RELAX, LENO STILL HAS FIVE MORE YEARS. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dana Summers * Orlando (Florida) Sentinel * Tribune Media Services TRY TO THINK OF IT AS...

Letter from the editor.(Editorial)
November 1, 2004... This special issue of UPFRONT's World Affairs Annual contains an atlas and an almanac with information on 193 countries (plus a page of charts and graphs that answers, among other questions, which countries drink the most soda). We hope...

Young voters stay away on election day.
November 1, 2004... The news that record numbers of young Americans have registered to vote in the 2004 presidential election is evidence that the Bush Kerry race has seized the interest of people who haven't been politically involved in years past. Whatever...

Game show.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Use with articles identified. Divide the class into two to four 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...

"Any kid could do that!".(news & trends)(Illustration)
November 15, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: "Any kid could do that!" is a typical reaction to abstract art, which focuses on ideas and emotions rather than realistic images. One of the paintings above * is the work of 4-year-old Marla Olmstead, of...

Too many photos?(Health)(high-frequency sound waves can cause danger during ultrasounds)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... It's a rite of passage for many expectant parents: showing off fuzzy images from the first ultrasound exam. Hoping to capitalize on this trend, some companies now offer nonmedical "keepsake" ultrasounds using 3-D technology to produce...

Vacations in space.(Science)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... SpaceShipOne, a sleek combination of rocket and glider, may have brought space enthusiasts one small step closer to their dream vacation. On October 4, the ship shot into space for a third time, winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize--a...

Seeds of peace.(Africa)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Wangari Maathai (wan-GAH-ree mah-DHEYE), a woman from Kenya who started an environmental movement in Africa, and who has campaigned for women's rights and greater democracy, has been awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai is the first...

Numbers in the news.(news & trends)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... 160 Number of ethnic groups in Russia--more than in any other European country. (See p. 8.) SOURCE: 2002 RUSSIAN CENSUS 55% Percentage of working Americans who say they would keep working even if they won a $10 million lottery jackpot....

Noted & quoted.(Soundbites)
November 15, 2004... 'The camp is like an old-fashioned cortege campus-without the freedom, of course.' --Martha Stewart on Alderson Prison in West Virginia, where she is serving a five-month sentence for lying about a stock trade. (Marthatalks.com, Oct. 15)...

Average dog or canine Einstein?(Science)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? At least one senior canine is a quick study when it comes to vocabulary. Researchers in Germany have found that Rico, a 9-year-old border collie, listens and learns much like a human child. In one...

Science for the mind, music for the soul.(Q&A)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 15, 2004... After fourth grade, Alia Sabur, of Northport, N.Y., went straight to college. Now 15, she's the youngest Ph.D. student in the U.S., doing research at Drexel University in Philadelphia through a Pentagon fellowship. She spoke to UPFRONT about...

How long will the oil last?(Energy)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... Why is the U.S. worried about energy? Because it now relies on imports for more than 60% of its oil, and its reserves will run out far sooner than in oil-rich places like Iraq. [GRAPHICS OMITTED]

Just don't let them catch you dialing ...(Education)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... In hundreds of high schools across the U.S., students may now bring cell phones to school--as long as they don't use them in class. Many schools had banned the phones outright, regarding them as the tools of drug dealers. But most teens use...

Hedging their vows.(Society)(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... "Till death do us part." It sounds solemn and permanent--perhaps too permanent for some. Many couples are replacing this marital, promise-which dates from the 1500's--with something more realistic, say, "as long as our love shall last."...

The new czar? President Putin at his second inauguration, at the Kremlin in Moscow in May. Since becoming President in 1999, he has rolled back democratic reforms.(International)(Cover Story)
November 15, 2004... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand why Russia's President Vladimir Putin says that in order to combat terrorism it's necessary to roll back democratic reforms that had swept the country after the collapse of Communism and the...

The Bush philosophy: resolute, no matter what; in his second term, President Bush will read a nation increasingly divided over both foreign policy and domestic issues.(National)
November 15, 2004... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students better understand President Bush's character and some of his goals for a second term. CRITICAL THINKING/DISCUSSION: The article says Bush chose "resolve" as the characteristic to apply to himself....

The power of fake news.(National)
November 15, 2004... Midway through The Daily Show's coverage of the September 30 presidential debate, the host, Jon Stewart, called on his "correspondents in the field for some in-depth analysis. "Ed, how are the Kerry people feeling?" "Ecstatic, Jon,"...

We the jury ...: secretive by design, juries are increasingly the object of public and media scrutiny. Is that good for America's legal system?(National)
November 15, 2004... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand how the jury system works and why juries are increasingly the subject of public and media scrutiny. ROLE-PLAY: Tell students to assume that they have been hired as jury consultants and...

Cyberbullies: cell phones, instant messaging, and the internet are giving bullies new ways to harass their classmates, even they're not at school.(National)
November 15, 2004... The fight started at school, when some girls in the eighth grade stole a pencil case filled with makeup that belonged to a new classmate, Amanda Marcuson, and she reported them. But it did not end there. As soon as Amanda got home, the...

1989: when the wall came tumbling down: the Berlin Wall's fall signaled the end of the Cold War and the division of Europe.(Times Past)
November 15, 2004... TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand the history behind the Berlin Wall, which divided East and West Germany and the city of Berlin for 28 years and served as a symbol of East-West tensions during the Cold War. CRITICAL...

Surf's up! Hawaii may soon become the first state in the nation to recognize surfing as an official high school sport.(Sports)
November 15, 2004... When Heather Masters, 16, moved from Oklahoma to Hawaii last year, she set out not only to learn surfing but also to compete--until she found out she couldn't, at least not on a team at her school, Moanalua High, in Honolulu. "It would be cool...

Sounding the steroids alarm.(Brief Article)(Column)
November 15, 2004... The death of Ken Caminiti at age 41 should have sounded an alarm for every baseball, prayer and anybody else who has used illegal anabolic steroids. Caminiti used steroids heavily in 1996 when he was the National League's Most Valuable Player,...

In Sudan, stuck in a war zone with no way to flee.(Brief Article)(Column)
November 15, 2004... Hawa Moussa Abdullah was lucky enough to survive the first round of murder in Darfur, but she was heavily pregnant and could not make the journey to Chad, where most of Sudan's survivors have escaped to. So she hides with her children in the...

A paralyzed soldier asks, 'what was our purpose?'.(Brief Article)(Column)
November 15, 2004... Army Staff Sgt. Eugene Simpson Jr., at age 27, is wheelchair-bound and spends a lot of time watching TV. His expertise is tank warfare. When Simpson's unit was deployed from Germany to Iraq, the tanks were left behind and he ended up bouncing...

Should there be reparations for slavery? Two views on whether the U.S. should provide compensation for the past suffering of slaves.(Debate)
November 15, 2004... YES The United States must acknowledge the horrors of slavery and apologize for it and the government-supported terror inflicted on African-Americans after slavery. Reparations are a remedy for a past wrong. In this context, reparations...

Living with disabilities, outliving expectations.(Voices)
November 15, 2004... Last January, I turned 18. This is a milestone age for most kids, but it is especially important to me because I was not supposed to live very long. I was born with several diseases that affect my muscles, bones, and joints. Around my...

Cartoons.(Comic)
November 15, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: YO MOM'... TELL ME YOU PACKED MY LUNCH TODAY... Patrick Corrigan * Toronto (Canada) Star * Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate Tony Auth * The Philadelphia * Universal Press Syndicate Kevin...

Letter from the editor.(Editorial)
November 15, 2004... It's just after noon on Wednesday, Nov. 3, and as I write this letter at Scholastic's headquarters in New York (with one eye on my computer screen and the other on the TV screen), the rest of the UPFRONT staff is putting the finishing touches...

Can you say that in Russian, please?
November 15, 2004... Say "Russia," and most people think of the country that emerged from the ashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. "Russia" is actually short for the country's official name, the Russian Federation. That's a clue to the fact that...

Game show.(Brief Article)
November 15, 2004... 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....

A plane flies past large clouds of dust and smoke rising from a volcano on Grimsvotn Mountain in eastern Iceland earlier this month.(news & Trends)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... A plane flies past large clouds of dust and smoke rising from a volcano on Grimsvotn Mountain in eastern Iceland earlier this month. The volcano's eruption, violent enough to set off earth tremors, sent ash and gas more than 40,000 feet into...

One ID you can't lose.(identity chip)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... The unconscious patient arrives in the ER, and the physician uses a handheld radio scanner to gain instant access to vital medical information--from an identity chip implanted under the patient's skin. This scenario is no longer the stuff of...

Numbers in the news.(news & Trends)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... 28% Percentage of teens who said they had read a newspaper when asked about their activities the day before--while 90 percent had watched TV. SOURCE: GALLUP POLL $804,129 Winning bid in 10-day online auction for San Francisco...

A royal burial for prized pets.(Ancient Egypt)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... When ancient Egyptians wanted to express their devotion to certain leaders or gods, they often did so with dead cats. Egyptians produced mummies of cats (and of hawks, ibises, falcons, and other animals) by the millions, particularly during the...

Of lice and men.(Science)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... The human louse finds people so delicious that it accepts no substitutes and cannot live more than a few hours away from the sustenance of the human body. The history of these pesky parasites dovetails with that of humans, reflecting several...

Noted & quoted.(Soundbites)
November 29, 2004... 'Happy Heats provide kids with the nutrients they need. From the emotional. side, it really does help them get better.' --Ken Barun, a McDonald's vice president, on the benefits of having branches of the fast-food chain in hospitals. (The...

Talk radio comes to Baghdad.(Iraq)(Radio Dijla)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... A woman calls to talk about a broken sewer pipe. A student calls to talk about a lost love. A shopkeeper cars to say what he thinks of the violent insurgency sweeping his country. They have art reached Iraq's first talk-radio station, Radio...

Helping Rwanda deal with its painful past.(Q&A)(Sara Brown, senior at Clark University)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 29, 2004... Sara Brown saw the scars of the 1994 Rwandan genocide with her own eyes. The senior at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., spent last summer in Rwanda, training the staff of its local courts to handle the trials of thousands of genocide...

Think before you toss.(wastes that accumulate in the sea and cause marine pollution)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
November 29, 2004... 7.5 million pounds of debris was removed from beaches in 91 countries during the 2003 International Coastal Cleanup. Here's a look at what washed ashore. Cigarettes & Filters 29.5% Food Wrappers & Containers 9.7 Caps &...

Are snoozers losers?(Health)(sleeping customs)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Pushing the snooze button to delay the day is part of the modern wake-up ritual But for some people, a bumpy arousal. for 30, 60, or even 90 minutes may be a recipe for exhaustion, new research suggests. When someone who is already...

Joystick wizards play for pay.(playing video games for money)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Matt Leto, 20, also known by his screen name Zyos, is no ordinary gamer. Last year, he won the top prize of $20,000 at the World Cyber Games in Seoul, South Korea. Johnathan Wendel, 23, who specializes in PC games, has racked up more than...

Wal-Mart nation? Its size, power, and low prices have helped make it an American success story. So why are some people today so fearful of War-Mart?(Cover Story)
November 29, 2004... Adeyemi Adeduro is 18 years old and works part-time in a Wal-Mart supercenter in Roswell, Ga., just north of Atlanta. Adeduro works as a cashier and a sales clerk, among other roles. He says he signed on to work at the Roswell Wal-Mart,...

A perilous journey: every year, thousands of migrants take great risks trying to get to the U.S. Here's how 205 from Ecuador began their odyssey.(International)(educational literature)
November 29, 2004... A red light, just barely visible on the horizon, made Hector Segura. the captain of the William, turn as mean as the devil. It was the fourth day of an illegal sea voyage, and Segura was at the helm of a creaky old fishing boat overloaded with...

The little Floresians: the discovery of a new species of archaic humans in Indonesia offers a whole new take on human evolution and adaptation.(Science)
November 29, 2004... There once lived a race of people whose adults stood just three-and-a-half feet high. Despite their stature--and and chimpanzee-sizebrains--they were mighty hunters. They made complex tools with which they speared rats, clubbed giant lizards,...

On TV, juicing up replays with noise from nowhere.(Opinion)(television)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Throughout the baseball postseason, Fox has been adding sound effects to make otherwise silent replays pop with the audio of bats hitting balls. The sound effects seem artificial. All other natural sound has been stripped out. The crowd has...

The best political news of 2004: the Afghan election.(Opinion)(presidential elections)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... Against all dire predictions and threats from terrorists, Afghanistan held the first presidential election in its bloodstained history. The winner was Hamid Karzai, 46, a politician of the majority Pashtuns, who emerged with 55 percent of the 8...

A death cult with no reason.(Opinion)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... We should by now have become used to the death cult that is thriving at the fringes of the Muslim world. This curt attaches itself to a political cause, but parasitically strangles it. The death cult has strangled the dream of a Palestinian...

Should the U.S. adopt a national ID card system? Many countries issue national ID cards. Post-9/11 security concerns have prompted a debate about whether the U.S. should too.(Debate)(identification )
November 29, 2004... YES Adopting a national ID card system would significantly increase our security with a negligible cost in freedom. Many people oppose this. But more than 100 nations have some kind of national ID card. And we're already moving toward a...

Cartoons.(Comic)
November 29, 2004... Clay Bennett * The Christian Science Monitor Tom Toles * The Washington Post * Universal Press Syndicate Gary Markstein * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel * Copley News Service Mike Luckovich * Atlanta Journal-Constitution Dana...

Letter from the editor.(Editorial)
November 29, 2004... Immigration has played a key role in American history and development and continues to do so today. We hear from teachers that it's a topic of great interest to them. In this issue, we have included two immigration stories, one contemporary,...

Wal-Mart's market (stock market, that is).(Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)
November 29, 2004... Shoppers cram Wal-Mart's aisles in search of low prices on everything from barbecues and baby clothes to blue jeans and even bananas. But as a publicly traded company, Wal-Mart has more than its customers to satisfy. It must also satisfy its...

News & trends.(Quiz 4)(Brief Article)
November 29, 2004... 1. Cortege student Sara Brown says it is important for Rwandans to face the problems engendered by the 1994 genocide in that African country because a punishment for the perpetrators of the genocide is the only fair course of action. ...

Game show.(Jeopardy)
November 29, 2004... Use with articles identified. Divide the class into two to four 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...