New York Times Upfront articles from September 2005

New York Times Upfront archives from September 2005

As part of their graduation ceremony this spring, Iranian policewomen demonstrated their skills, rappelling down the side of a building in Tehran.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: As part of their graduation ceremony this spring, Iranian policewomen demonstrated their skills, rappelling down the side of a building in Tehran. To comply with Iran's strict Islamic dress code, policewomen...

The man behind the mask.(mummies)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Tutankhamen had just become Pharaoh of Egypt around 1322 B.C. when he died rather suddenly. The young king was in his late teens when his face was immortalized in a golden burial mask. But the Pharaoh we know as "King Tut" might not have been...

Numbers in the news.(speed of Kingda Ka, Indian economy, bid on Volkswagen)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... 128mph Top speed of Kingda Ka, said to be the world's fastest rotter coaster, at Six FLags Great Adventure, in Jackson, N.J. SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 350 million Number of people out of India's total population of 1.8 billion...

Killers that also cure.(snake venoms )(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... It's the ultimate Fear Factor nightmare: Chase down one of the world's deadliest snakes, grab it by the head, and squeeze the venom from its fangs. Bryan Fry, a biologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, does just that with...

When in doubt, sort it out.(sorting garbage)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... When residents of Yokohama recently received a 27-page booklet on how to sort their trash into 10 categories, they found detailed instructions on 518 items. Socks? If only one, it goes in the burnables bin; a pair goes into the used-cloth bin,...

Noted & quoted.(SOUNDBITES)
September 5, 2005... 'My advice is: Don't eat the cherry tomatoes.' * Douglas Ricci, who teaches dining etiquette at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Lessons on formal dining are on the rise at universities to help prepare students for the corporate...

Hard-spell advertising.(English literacy)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Even in this age of Internet pop-ups and text-message marketing, many small businesses still, advertise with low-tech, hand-lettered signs. And these often come with fractured grammar and creative spelling that provide insights into new...

The new face of Indy racing.(Danica Patrick)(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 5, 2005... When Danica Patrick was 13, she raced go-carts and dreamed of being a race-car driver. Now 23, she's made history, finishing fourth at the Indianapolis 500 in May and becoming the first woman to hold a lead in the race. Patrick, who grew up in...

How you use the Internet.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Internet users 13 to 17 are more likely than adults to use instant messaging, download music, play online games, and visit movie and music sites. TEENS ADULTS E-MAIL 79% 88%...

Should soda & snacks be suspended?(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Connecticut's Legislature has been rocked by a food fight--over a bill that would have banned soda and candy from public-school, cafeterias and vending machines in an effort to fight childhood obesity. But some school officials feared the loss...

Presidential 'Pod.(George W. Bush' iPod)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... When President Bush sets out on one of his 18-mile mountain-bike rides, he takes along a familiar motivator: an iPod loaded with country and rock tunes. What kind of music gets the presidential, heart rate up to a chest-pounding 170 beats per...

Reaching for the sky.(black students)
September 5, 2005... He lives in a part of the world where so many young people never get off the ground, but 17-year-old James Mokoena wants to be a pilot. He will fly a fighter jet, but not just to wage aerial battles. Africa is full of hungry people and people...

Globalization: the challenge to America: computers and the Internet have made the world a much smaller place--and brought foreign competition right to America's doorstep.(Cover Story)
September 5, 2005... When your computer crashes in the middle of a late-night homework session and you call a help line, there's a good chance in this era of globalization that the friendly person assisting you is on the other side of the world, possibly in...

Soldiers, but not citizens: for the thousands of Mexicans in the U.S. military, serving can be a fast track to citizenship--if they survive.
September 5, 2005... The shrine in the corner would be familiar to many American military families. The flag is folded neatly in a triangle, encased in wood and glass. A couple of medals lie in boxes. A stern young man in his United States Army dress uniform peers...

War of words: for more than 200 years, Americans have revered the Constitution. So why can't we agree on what it means?
September 5, 2005... The Constitution is a brisk little document, a mere 8,000 words, including its 27 Amendments. You can read it in half an hour, and some of its language flows like poetry: "We the people of the United States," it starts, "in order to form a more...

A town for the deaf? Would a town where sign language is the norm be a boon to deaf people--or further isolate them from the rest of society?
September 5, 2005... Standing in an empty field along a windswept highway in South Dakota, Marvin T. Miller, who is deaf, and his mother-in-law, M.E. Barwacz, who is not, envision the town they want to create here: a place built around American Sign Language, where...

1920: women get the vote: the 19th Amendment was ratified 85 years ago, after decades of campaigning by the women's suffrage movement.
September 5, 2005... When John Adams and his fellow patriots were mulling independence from England in the spring of 1776, Abigail Adams famously urged her husband to "remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors." Otherwise,...

China's leaders have a new watchdog: the Internet.(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... The Chinese Communist Party may finally have met its match--the Internet. The Internet is beginning to play the watchdog role in China that the press plays in the West. It is also eroding the leadership's monopoly on information, and is...

What's happened to America's middle class?(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960s, America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working...

What if ads could dribble?(advertising on sports uniform)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Top executives in the NBA are suggesting that they would consider allowing advertiser logos to appear on prayer uniforms--if the price was right. The NBA has kept its jerseys sacrosanct so far, staving off even the logo of Reebok, which...

Should women be allowed in combat? Women make up 15 percent of America's armed forces, but military policy prohibits them from serving in combat zones.
September 5, 2005... YES Where and how women serve in the military should be based on ability and training, not gender. Policies that prohibit the military from using the skills of all servicemembers should be changed. Today, more than 350,000 women serve in...

Helping Afghan girls get to school.
September 5, 2005... Last year, workers in Afghanistan finished construction on the six-classroom brick-and-concrete Zarghona Middle School in Kandahar, and 300 Afghan girls who had never gone to school before are now students there. The school owes its...

Cartoons.(Cartoon)
September 5, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Bruce Beattle * The Daytona Beach (Florida) News-Journal * Copley News Service [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Jeff Stahler * The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch * NEA [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Tony...

Mahender Singh, a street dentist in Jaipur, India, sells dentures and pulls teeth in his sidewalk "office.".(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: Mahender Singh, a street dentist in Jaipur, India, sells dentures and putts teeth in his sidewalk "office." Between patients, Singh douses his hands with antiseptic, although the occasional, fly might land...

Log on to gym class.(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Although many public schools offer courses like English and calculus via the Internet, it would seem that some subjects--like gym, for example--must remain in a more traditional setting. In Minneapolis, however, there is already a waiting list...

Numbers in the news.(money management in education, slaves around the world, per capita income in Iraq )(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... 80% Percentage of teens who said basic money management should be a high school, requirement. SOURCE LEFLEIN ASSOCIATES POLL/USA TODAY 12.3 million Number of people around the world who are slaves or work as forced laborers....

Gross-out goodies.(Fear Factor candies)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Die-hard fans of reality television can now try some of those grotesque stunts at home. Brand New Products, a company based in Chicago, has introduced a line of edibles based on Fear Factor. "What appealed to us was the gross-out factor and the...

Apes rule the rock.(MONKEY BUSINESS)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Legend has it that as tong as the Barbary apes roam the Rock of Gibraltar, it will stay under British rule--as it has been since 1783. The apes are actually tailless monkeys, and there are now more than 200 of them on Gibraltar, a British...

Noted & quoted.(SOUNDBITES)
September 19, 2005... 'It's OK to be healthy every now and then, but it shouldn't be forced on us.' --Shone Talbert, 16, a high school junior in Chicago, responding to his school, district's decision to replace junk food with healthier fare in the cafeteria and...

Skater takes on the Great Wall.(Danny Way)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Danny Way became the first person to clear the Great Wall of China without motorized help when he jumped over the 2,000-year-old structure on his skateboard on July 9. Way invented the 65-foot-high MegaRamp that propelled him at about 50 miles...

Turning daydreams into a best-seller.(Christopher Paolini )(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 19, 2005... At 15, Christopher Paolini began writing a story about a teenage boy and his dragon. That story became Eragon, a New York Times best-seller and soon-to-be motion picture. A second book, Eldest, reached stores in August. Paolini, now 21, spoke...

Women on the bench.(GOVERNMENT)
September 19, 2005... In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, paving the way for more women to become federal judges. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] FEMALE ...

Is there a psychic car in your future?(advanced driving simulators )(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Could vehicles that "read minds" save drivers from themselves? Renault, the French automaker, is using advanced driving simulators to study the psychology of being behind the wheel. The goat is to develop cars able to analyze a particular...

No more slide to the ride.(firehouses in New York City )(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Alarms sound, and firefighters rain from the ceiling, sliding down slippery metal. poles to reach their trucks within seconds. This scene is becoming a thing of the past, as cities build one-story firehouses and update older facilities. In New...

Justice, delayed: America revisits some of the most painful episodes of the civil rights era.
September 19, 2005... BACKGROUND This article examines recent examples of how America is revisiting some of the most painful episodes of the civil rights era. Virginia's scholarships for those who were rocked out of schools in the 1950s and a prosecution in...

Steroids: one teen's tale: Efrain Marrero wanted to bulk up for football. After his death, at 19, steroids are called the culprit.
September 19, 2005... Brenda Marrero came upon her son Efrain surfing the Internet one day, last October at their home in Vacaville, a town in Northern California. When Efrain hid what was on the screen, she asked what he had been looking at. He turned and said he...

All quiet on the home front: American troops are wondering why a nation at war isn't asking more of its civilians.
September 19, 2005... BACKGROUND During World War II, most civilians on the U.S. home front boosted the war effort through personal sacrifices like making do with rations of meat and gasoline. More recent wars, like those in Vietnam and Iraq, have engendered...

A love-hate affair: the United Nations and the United States have long been ambivalent about each other. But as the UN marks its 60th anniversary, the relationship is more complicated than ever.(Cover Story)
September 19, 2005... BACKGROUND In 1919, the League of Nations was created to promote international cooperation following World War I, but the U.S. never became a member. After it faired to prevent World War II, the League was replaced by the United Nations....

Revolutionary technology? Are cell phones and the Internet a threat to the power of China's Communist rulers--and other nondemocratic governments?
September 19, 2005... Thousands of people poured onto the streets of China in April to protest Japan's approval of textbooks that they said gloss over Japanese atrocities in China during World War II. The protesters were bound by nationalist anger but also by a more...

1906: uproar from 'The Jungle': a novel reveals foul conditions in the food industry and helps spur the reforms of the Progressive Era.
September 19, 2005... BACKGROUND The U.S. has long been the world's great model of capitalism. But there's been debate about the power and practices of "big business" since America industrialized after the Civil War. That debate continues today over issues like...

Fighting terror from within.(jihadist)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... It is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death curt in its midst. If it does not fight that death curt, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere....

In U.S. high schools, too many empty seats.(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... For those concerned about the state of leadership in America, and who wonder where the next generation of leaders will come from, I can tell you it's not likely to emerge from the millions of high school dropouts we're setting loose in the...

When Brad Pitt gets more coverage than genocide.(Darfur )(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Some of us in the American news media have hounded President Bush for his passivity in the face of genocide in Darfur, but we've behaved as disgracefully as he has. The real failure has been television's: ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of...

Should states ban junk food in schools? In response to rising obesity rates nationally, 16 states have recently adopted school nutrition policies.
September 19, 2005... YES America is facing a crisis because of our eating habits. Sixty million adults (20 percent of the population) are obese. Nearly 300,000 people die each year from complications associated with being obese or overweight. Poor eating...

Adjusting to a new home, new values.
September 19, 2005... About five years ago, when I was 14, I came to this country with my family from India. I had a very hard time when I first arrived in Connecticut. I didn't know a lot of English, and when I spoke, people couldn't understand me and made fun of...

Cartoons.(Cartoon)
September 19, 2005... I'LL TAKE QUESTIONS REGARDING THE LATEST TRAGEDY... THINK JEN WILL EVER GET OVER BRAD ?? .. Mike Luckovich * The Atlanta Journal-Constitution THE BAD NEWS IS, WE OWE $100K IN COLLEGE LOANS, A MONTH'S SALARY IN BACK TAXES, AND OUR...

Letter from the editor.(Editorial)
September 19, 2005... As the UN celebrates its 60th birthday this fall, Upfront takes a look at why the United States seems a little reluctant to join the party. While even the UN's critics acknowledge its many accomplishments, the Bush administration, along with a...

UN troops: trying to keep the peace.
September 19, 2005... Even critics of the UN acknowledge the good work it does in many areas, with peacekeeping one of the most critical. UN peacekeeping observers were first deployed in 1948 to monitor an armistice between Israel. and neighboring Arab states....

The U.S. & the UN.(cartoon analysis)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... The U.S., a founding member of UN in 1945, has hade a tense relationship with the organization in recent years. Study this political cartoon and answer the questions at right. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ANALYZE THE CARTOON 1. What...

Justice, delayed.
September 19, 2005... 1. The idea for Virginia's scholarship program a originated in Virginia's General Assembly. b was first promoted by Virginia's Governor. c is the product of a Lawsuit filed by those who had been denied an education when public...

United Nations quiz.
September 19, 2005... 1. Relations between the UN and the Bush administration became strained when a the U.S. refused to support UN aid efforts in Africa. b the UN refused to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. c the UN raised dues. d several UN...

Game show.
September 19, 2005... Use with articles identified. The statements are answers to questions {modeled after the TV show Jeopardy}, Students must answer in the form of questions. Divide the class into teams, Read the statements, Call on the first team...