Newsweek articles from March 2004

Newsweek archives from March 2004

Undone by Destiny; An Afghan rebel may have been able to stop Osama--and 9/11.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Steve Coll, From "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001," by Steve Coll. To be published by Penguin Press. (c) 2004 by Steve Coll. By summer 1999, only...

The World According to Trump; Just a decade ago, he was a punch line, a combed-over relic from the decade of greed. But he's back, and bigger than ever, thanks to his new hit reality show 'The Apprentice.' Why we still love to ogle his houses, his helicopters and his hair--and to hear him say: 'You're fired'.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... Byline: Keith Naughton and Marc Peyser, With Barney Gimbel and Vanessa Juarez Like the gold-encrusted doors to his Fifth Avenue apartment, everything Donald Trump says is over the top, outrageous and in desperate need of being toned down...

Reality Check: 'Can I Have a Few Weeks Off?'; The lure of shows like 'Apprentice' is a headache for bosses.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... Byline: Daniel McGinn with Keith Naughton For "The Apprentice" contestants, high drama usually happens in Donald Trump's boardroom. But reality shows can create different conflicts: the kind that erupt when an employee tells the boss she...

Help Not Wanted; Jobs: Where did they go? Offshoring's a problem, but there's a bigger culprit.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Daniel McGinn, With Jason McLure, Barney Gimbel and Joan Raymond It's a set of questions that would make any cubicle dweller a bit nervous. "Exactly how do you do your job? Would you mind writing it down?" When Hank Williamson, a...

Mail Call: A Firestorm Over 'The Passion'; More than 900 readers debate Jesus Christ's last hours and Mel Gibson's new film.
March 1, 2004... Our Feb. 16 cover story on the crucifixion of Jesus, and the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ," drew hundreds of responses. Many thanked us for tackling the subject. "I haven't read such an unbiased and...

Start Your Steamrollers; The Senate passed its highway bill as a presidential aide was being pelted with dead cats for the sin of truthfulness.
March 1, 2004... Byline: George F. Will Genuine alarm was excited throughout the country by what was for the first time widely recognized as a German menace. In the end a curious and characteristic compromise was reached. The Admiralty had demanded six...

Shiites Unbound; George H.W. Bush feared the rise of Shiite power in Iraq, and worried that civil war would shatter the country. That's why he didn't topple Saddam. So what has changed?
March 1, 2004... Byline: Christopher Dickey and Rod Nordland, With Tamara Lipper in Washington and Babak Dehghanpisheh in Tehran Saddam Hussein had something against bananas and taxed them heavily. You rarely ever saw them for sale when he was in power. Now...

In Iraq, It's Time For Some Smarts; The lesson here is not that the U.N. is always right or competent. It isn't. The lesson is that America needs to exercise power shrewdly.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Fareed Zakaria, Write the author at comments@fareedzakaria.com. As the war in Iraq was coming to a close, many people--from Tony Blair to Joseph Biden (and even this writer)--urged Washington to give the United Nations a central...

The Editor's Desk.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Mark Whitaker I've always gotten a kick out of Donald Trump. When I edited NEWSWEEK's Business section in the late '80s, one of my first covers was on the flamboyant king of Manhattan skyscrapers and Atlantic City casinos. "Trump:...

So What's the Good News? The debate over 'The Passion' may be less harsh than the film.
March 1, 2004... Byline: David Ansen I have no doubt that Mel Gibson loves Jesus. From the evidence of "The Passion of the Christ," however, what he seems to love as much is the cinematic depiction of flayed, severed, swollen, scarred flesh and rivulets of...

What I Never Learned At 'Mommy and Me'; The world seems to get scarier every day, and, for the first time, I don't know how to comfort my son.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Kathy Stevenson, Stevenson lives in Haverford, Pa. My son sits tensely on the couch watching the nightly television news while words are spoken that no 17-year-old child should hear: "Because of heightened security concerns, the...

Smiles To Go; Power Drive: Edwards looms in the rearview mirror. But Kerry's got his foot on the gas, and the Bushmobile's wobbly. Revving up for Super Tuesday.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Howard Fineman and Tamara Lipper, With Richard Wolffe and Arian Campo-Flores John Kerry assumed that the book party was his to work, and his alone. After all, he was Massachusetts's junior senator, and the host was Ted Kennedy,...

The Firm of Edwards & Edwards; If you think John Edwards is a true believer, get a load of his better half.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Melinda Henneberger Elizabeth Edwards is flying solo on the stump for her husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, and hoists her own bag into the overhead bin. Yet the wife of the self-described "people's senator"...

The Donald and The Democrats; To win over 'The Apprentice' audience, the Dems are out to invent something new in American political history--a friendly, patriotic, positive populism.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... Byline: Jonathan Alter Twenty years ago Donald Trump unveiled a plan to end the cold war. In 2000, he flirted with running for president, though his distaste for shaking hands (he fears germs) posed a problem in politics. Now "The Donald"...

'I Talk About Things People Care About'; Vox Pop: John Edwards speaks out--on trade policy, his electoral strategy and his take on President Bush.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Jonathan Alter and Arian Campo-Flores He's notoriously on-message, and relentlessly upbeat. But Sen. John Edwards is beginning to go beyond the well-worn grooves of his successful stump speech and air his plans to defeat John Kerry...

Newsmakers.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Nicki Gostin, Devin Gordon KEISHA CASTLE-HUGHES At 13, New Zealand's Keisha Castle-Hughes is the youngest actress ever nominated for a best-actress Oscar, for her role as Pai, the spirited Maori girl in "Whale Rider." She spoke...

Perspectives.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Quotation Sources From Top To Bottom, Left To Right: Associated Press, New York Times, Associated Press, Fox News, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Daily News, Union Of Concerned Scientists, New York Post, Details, BBC News "It's...

Conventional Wisdom; Two-Man Race Edition.
March 1, 2004... JOHN EDWARDS FINALLY HAS THE TWO-MAN RACE HE WANTED AND HE'S GOT AN ALLY IN THE PRESS, WHICH DOESN'T WANT ALL THE FUN TO END JUST YET. Bush - Veers right, ramming another "Christian values" judge down Senate's throat. No wonder he's...

Rogue Nukes: A Swiss Connection to a Pakistani Bomb Racket?
March 1, 2004... Byline: Mark Hosenball Did Abdul Qadeer Khan, the notorious Pakistani nuclear proliferator, get help from a prominent Swiss family? Investigators have been unraveling the maze of connections that allowed Khan to supply the budding...

Colorado: Shattered Reputation.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Paul Tolme As president of the University of Colorado, Elizabeth Hoffman hoped to build the school's reputation as a center for science and technology. Now she's just hoping to preserve the school's reputation, period. With the...

Haiti: A Neighbor on the Brink of Another Disaster.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Joseph Contreras Is it too late for Haiti? As a brush-fire revolt spread across the country last week and relief workers fled in planeloads, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said he would yield to U.S. demands that he form a...

Daughters: Like Father...
March 1, 2004... Byline: Susannah Meadows Last week while their fathers were trying to distinguish themselves from one another, Alexandra Kerry, Vanessa Kerry and Cate Edwards found a common cause. At a Glamour-magazine-sponsored panel in New York City,...

Movies: Here's the 'Anti-Christ'.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Devin Gordon Call the Broken Lizard Comedy Troupe goofy. Call them low-brow. But don't call them cowards. Each weekend in Hollywood is a box-office grudge match, but this coming weekend is about as strange as it gets. In one...

Study Aids: Guided 'Passion'.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Elise Soukup As Mel Gibson battles controversy from "The Passion of the Christ," a spate of study guides timed to the movie's release seek to offer some sensitivity training--though they differ on how to go about it. Zondervan, the...

Monuments: Thou Shalt Display?
March 1, 2004... Byline: Elise Soukup Though last year's federal-court ruling ousted both an Alabama Ten Commandments monument and Judge Roy Moore, it didn't set the issue in stone. Despite the Alabama flap, Commandments are still being upheld and...

Kids Will Be... Daytraders? Internet games are a fun way to get students interested in stocks. But then what? Let's teach them diversification, not the art of short selling.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Jane Bryant Quinn, Reporting Associate: Temma Ehrenfeld Who are those kids hanging out by the school computers and shouting, "Buy Cisco, sell Intel"? They might be yours, using play money to bet on stock prices in class. During the...

Outlaw Vows; A brash young mayor issues marriage licenses to same-sex couples and opens a new front in America's culture wars.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Karen Breslau and Brad Stone, With Debra Rosenberg and Tamara Lipper Moved by news footage of thousands of same-sex couples waiting patiently in the rain for hours for the chance to get a marriage license, Mike Trevinson boarded a...

Couples: State Of Our Unions; If marriage is in trouble, don't blame gays. Straights changed the rules.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Barbara Kantrowitz, With Pat Wingert, Karen Springen, Julie Scelfo, Joan Raymond and bureau reports Amber Settle, a 35-year-old associate professor of computer science at DePaul University in Chicago, is eight months pregnant and...

Editor on The Attack; A top woman journalist strafes her colleagues.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Peg Tyre Sometime between editing features on Jell-O molds, tummy taming and "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" longtime Ladies' Home Journal editor Myrna Blyth learned how to lob hand grenades. Two years after retiring, Blyth, 64, has...

Revenge of the Potato.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Bret Begun The tater has become one seriously maligned tuber. The notion that eating potatoes will make you look like one reaches far beyond even the roughly 32 million Americans on low-carb diets. The biggest insult? Fry sales are...

Design: A Garden Of One's Own.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Cathleen McGuigan Michael Arad almost didn't win the competition to design the World Trade Center memorial. His original design, featuring deep pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers, was austere; the jury insisted he...

Home: Giving Your TV A Lift.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Jason McLure Ads for flat-panel TVs show them hanging effortlessly on a wall. In real life, the larger models are too heavy to suspend without reinforcement. And who wants to bother drilling through Sheetrock and threading cable...

Food: Tomato Sauces.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Julie Scelfo There's nothing like a bowl of pasta with homemade sauce to warm your soul on a cold winter day. But if you don't have time to spend hours stewing tomatoes with chopped onion, ground beef and the requisite bay leaf,...

Road Test: Mitsubishi Lancer; Fun, But No Frills.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Tara Weingarten Some cars seem to have no purpose other than to impart sheer delight to the driver. The Lancer Evolution RS is just such a car. You wouldn't know it from the outside: the design has all the personality of an...

Finance: Stop Uncharitable Behavior.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Jennifer Barrett If you recently gave money to a charity, you may be wondering why your mailbox is suddenly filled with solicitations. Nonprofits, just like for-profits, make money by selling your address and phone number to other...

Money: Many Happy, Free Returns.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Raina Kelley Tip Sheet is so clever, we even dug up a little good news about taxes. To encourage electronic filing, the IRS is sponsoring a free online tax-preparation program, dubbed Free File. Some 60 percent of taxpayers may...

Technology: Good Memory.
March 1, 2004... Byline: N'Gai Croal Despite the popularity of digital cameras, film had an edge: it was much cheaper than flash-memory cards. Not anymore. SanDisk (sandisk.com ) recently introduced the Shoot & Store line of $14.99 memory cards (in the...

Travel: Weekend In Milan.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Michelle Jana Chan With Milan's Fashion Week in full swing, Tip Sheet finds out where to see and be seen--from behind your shades, of course. SHOP the high-end stores in the "Golden Quadrangle," from Prada to Frette (for bed...

Health: Have A Heart (And An Apple).
March 1, 2004... Byline: Mary Carmichael Everyone knows fiber is good for you: it's well established that a fiber-heavy diet can ward off colon cancer. But according to the new issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the fiber found in fruits and...

Ask Tip Sheet.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Kyle Monson Where does all the rubber go that wears off car tires? With the billions of miles logged, shouldn't there be drifts of rubber dust on the sides of the road? --Bob Chadderdon, York, PA. The rubber is everywhere,...

Must-Haves; Just don't call them cute.
March 1, 2004... Byline: Anna Kuchment You've moved into a new office and need to decorate. Or your dorm room, plastered with those Che Guevara posters, could use a more personal touch. Go shopping for a "designer toy." These collectible figurines,...

Mail Call: Run, Dean, Run?
March 1, 2004... Most readers responding to our Jan. 12 cover story on Howard Dean's presidential run supported his candidacy. Said one, he brings "a breath of clean Vermont air to a stale Democratic Party." Another insisted "he must be taken seriously." Many...

Fast Chat: Baby, You're a Rich Man.(Interview)
March 1, 2004... Byline: Marc Peyser What do Broadway's most beloved milkman and "Spider-Man's" next villain have in common? They're both played by Alfred Molina. He talked to Marc Peyser about Tevye, Dr. Octopus and the people who sing along with "Fiddler...

Tests: Certified Superfreak.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Byline: Lindsey Gerdes Think you have supernatural powers? "The Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge" is for anyone who can "show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power." According to...

Buses: Dogging Greyhound.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Byline: Jason McLure Few travelers who have ridden a Greyhound bus would consider the experience luxurious. But a hotly competitive group of so-called Chinatown bus companies are moving in on the company's biggest East Coast routes by...

At the Left Hand of God; From same-sex marriage to Mel Gibson's gory take on the Crucifixion, the new wedge issue is religiosity, not to be confused with faith.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Anna Quindlen Recently, a man who was enraged by my column sent an e-mail with an exultant sign-off line. He said that in closing he was not only going to mention God, he was going to capitalize the G because he knew it made...

Two Lives To Live; A transsexual who bent minds, not just genders.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Malcolm Jones Gordon Kenneth Ticehurst. Gordon Hall. Dawn Pepita Langley Hall. Dawn Langley Hall Simmons. That's a lot of names for one person, although to be strictly accurate, it won't do to insist on the singular. Our hero began...

A Sly Symphony of Self-Loathing.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Dorothy Kalins Sometimes living to eat does not seem the most far-fetched of all life's rationales. But living to smoke? For Hugo Whittier, "to live without smoking is no life." Even though it's killing him. Welcome to the perverse...

Will He Survive? Angry investors are pressuring Disney directors to replace Michael Eisner. A crucial vote this week may force the board to act.
March 8, 2004... Byline: David J. Jefferson and Johnnie L. Roberts, With Jennifer Ordonez Once upon a time, when Michael Eisner took the throne at a Disney shareholder meeting, he held court over polite family affairs across the street from the Magic...

Conventional Wisdom; LEFT AT THE ALTAR EDITION.
March 8, 2004... Key Republicans have already annulled Bush's proposed gay rights constitutional amendment. So it's all just politics. CW Bush = Gives Dems a wedgie on gay marriage, but it exposes him as nakedly pandering to his base. ...

Mail Call; Marching to Different War Drums.
March 8, 2004... As the presidential campaign heats up, so does the debate on the candidates' roles during Vietnam, the subject of our Feb. 23 issue. Many readers praised John Kerry for having "willingly stepped up to the plate to serve his country," as one...

The Ghosts of War; Pro-government vigilantes loot and murder, as rebels with a dark past storm toward the capital. Can Haiti be saved?
March 8, 2004... Byline: Joseph Contreras, With John Barry in Washington and Malcolm Beith in New York Even before the rebels reached Haiti's capital, corpses began turning up. Photographers found two men's bodies on Friday morning near John Brown Avenue,...

'We Never Had a War'; German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on repairing his ties with President Bush, and future cooperation in the Mideast.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Lally Weymouth After more than a year of strained relations caused by President Bush's anger at Germany's opposition to the war in Iraq, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder received a warm welcome at the White House last Friday. According...

The Master Operator; You might think Ahmad Chalabi is discredited and despised. But he's still growing more powerful.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Christopher Dickey Nobody seems to love Ahmad Chalabi anymore. From the moment he flew into Iraq last year with a band of U.S.-trained militia at his side, many locals saw him as an interloper, a pretender and, in some eyes, an...

The Editor's Desk.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Mark Whitaker In this suspicious age, some people may wonder how we came upon this week's story about John Kerry and Agent Orange, and why we're running it now. The first answer is simple: smart reporting. Jamie Reno was looking...

Sexy, Solo And Out Of Sync; Boy-band singer J. C. Chasez goes it alone.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Lorraine Ali He is not cute. In fact, 'n Sync heartthrob J. C. Chasez is looking more Benicio Del Toro haggard than Justin Timberlake fresh these days. He's extremely thin, with bad posture and frizzy hair that resists any...

Jesus Christ Movie Star; Mel Gibson's 'The Passion' defies expectations and opens to a flood of tears--and ticket sales. That may not stop it from being the most divisive movie in history.
March 8, 2004... Byline: David Gates, With Sean Smith in Los Angeles, Julie Scelfo in New York, Mark Miller in Dallas, Jason McLure in Boston and Patrick Crowley in Cincinnati Whatever you think about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," it's clear...

Proud Bachelor Turned Marrying Man--Sort of; Helping gay couples get hitched gave me a new respect for a tradition I've been happy to escape.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Sean Captain, Captain is a journalist living in San Francisco. I'm a straight, single man, who, during Valentine's weekend and for several days that followed, performed weddings as a deputized marriage commissioner for the city and...

On Main Street; Fault Lines: Gay rights may grab headlines, but in Canton, Ohio, the race is about jobs.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Howard Fineman, With Tamara Lipper Neal Locke, 49, worries about his marriage and the prospects of the company he works for. Yet his story isn't as typical as it sounds. Like many a native of Stark County, Ohio, he went to work for...

A Falling Out Among Friends; Love Lost: They were Bush's biggest gay GOP fans. But he's losing the Austin 12.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Debra Rosenberg and Mark Miller, With Tamara Lipper David Catania has been one of George W. Bush's most loyal supporters. The Washington, D.C., city councilman has raised nearly $80,000 for the president's re-election. He's a Bush...

Policing a Rural Plague; Meth is ravaging the Midwest. Why it's so hard to stop.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Dirk Johnson There is trouble on music Mountain Road. In the wooded hills at the edge of Hot Springs, Ark., a red pickup truck and a white SUV pull into a gravel driveway. Out of the vehicles jump six big men, moving like they mean...

Kerry and Agent Orange; Mists of time: Agent Orange doused the Mekong Delta in the late 1960s. Lieutenant John F. Kerry was there. How his men have coped--and how Kerry feels about his brush with a deadly toxin.
March 8, 2004... Publisher correction: March 24, 2004 In "Kerry & Agent Orange" (March 8) a caption accompanying a photo incorrectly identified a boat patrolling the Mekong Delta. The vessel is an assault-support patrol boat, not a Swift Boat. Also, in "A...

Interview: 'I'm in Perfect Health'; John Kerry speaks out on the Agent Orange wars and his own feelings about fighting in contaminated battlefields.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Michael Isikoff It has been a subject of passionate interest for John Kerry throughout his Senate career. But the Democratic presidential front runner has not spoken publicly about his own brush with Agent Orange in Vietnam until...

Newsmakers.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Marc Peyser and Sean Smith, Devin Gordon The Pirate's Booty If you have a Johnny Depp fantasy, you're in good company. After "Pirates of the Caribbean" grossed $305 million (more than Depp's previous 11 movies combined), he's...

Perspectives.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Quotes from top to bottom: New York Daily News, Florida Times-Union, Associated Press, Concord Monitor, New York Daily News, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Variety, New York Times, Associated Press (2) "This is my brand-new...

Exclusive: Plane? Found. Cash? Still Missing.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Mark Hosenball Before the first bomb fell on Baghdad, the Bush administration announced it was launching a campaign to find and seize what were believed to be billions of dollars squirreled away by Saddam Hussein and his cronies....

Columbine: The Questions Linger.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Paul Tolme Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold leer into the camera and promise to murder bullies. "If you ever touch him again, I will fricking kill you," Harris yells at an imaginary thug. The newly released videos were filmed by the...

Spying: The United Nations of Wiretaps?
March 8, 2004... Byline: Adam Piore There was outrage at the United Nations last week when a former member of Tony Blair's cabinet claimed that British intelligence had conducted electronic surveillance on Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the lead-up to the...

Taliban: They're Ready for Their Close-Up.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau One of the Taliban's many oppressive idiosyncrasies was its prohibition of photographs or of any kind of reproductions of the human face and body. But now, in a desperate effort to enliven its drab...

Oklahoma City; On Trial, Again.(Brief Article)
March 8, 2004... Byline: Holly Bailey Before 9/11, the 1995 bombing of the federal Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil, killing 168 people, including 19 children. Timothy McVeigh, a veteran of the 1991...

Abusive Priests; A 'Shameful' Failure.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Julie Scelfo The National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel formed by the U.S. Conferenceof Catholic Bishops, last week announced its review of the causes of the priest abuse crisis. It also issued a long-awaited study by the John...

Star Trek: Ready to Beam Up.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Brad Stone The Star Trek: Borg Invasion ride, opening at the Las Vegas Hilton next month, promises something called "4-D." It's not a technically accurate term--guests are not, actually, sent through time--but it's still a heck of...

Canada: Don't Drop Me, Eh?
March 8, 2004... Byline: Rebecca Sinderbrand Canadian studies have long been the redheaded stepchildren of international-relations research at American universities. "People are usually driven to area studies out of concern," says Christopher Kirkey,...

Obits: May I Rest in Peace.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Rebecca Sinderbrand When Thomas Dahlberg passed away last fall he got a grand send-off, the sort of obituary befitting a distinguished CIA agent, two-star general and Pulitzer Prize finalist. But after it was printed in a...

Protecting the Welfare State; When Alan Greenspan suggested future cuts in Social Security, politicians howled. But the more we postpone, the greater the dangers.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Robert J. Samuelson One great project of the late 20th century was the construction of vast welfare states in wealthy nations to protect people against the insecurities of the business cycle and the injustices of unfettered...

Snap Judgment; Our critics set you straight on three new movies.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Devin Gordon, David Ansen Starsky & Hutch Directed by Todd Phillips This spoof of the 1970s buddy-cop TV show is the movie equivalent of a Barcalounger: it's not about working hard. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson have become...

The War on Strokes; They strike out of the blue, insidious and deadly, killing brain cells, destroying lives. Now a new wave of research offers hope to millions. Inside the search for treatments that work.(Cover Story)
March 8, 2004... Byline: Jerry Adler, With Andrew Murr in Los Angeles, Anne Underwood in New York and Joan Raymond in Cleveland Until the day he collapsed, John Kelly, 57--an exceptionally fit, nonsmoking, retired Marine officer from Kansas City, Kans.--had...

Rehabilitation: How A Brain Heals; Stroke victims used to face a lifetime of disability. Now, near-total recovery is possible. But it takes a lot of work.(Cover Story)
March 8, 2004... Byline: Mary Carmichael, With Nadine Joseph in Los Angeles It was a truism, conventional wisdom, a nasty fact of life. For years, doctors insisted that after the initial six-month recovery period, stroke victims could not improve...

Out of Bounds; As an NBA ref, Violet Palmer is the only woman in a man's game. On the job, she's surrounded by a court full of stampeding giants. They don't get in her way.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Vanessa Juarez When Violet Palmer is wearing her daytime Nike gear, ponytail and infectious smile, she reminds you of Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts, a pal you'd like to hang out with. But once the curtain goes up, she's all...

Shocking the Jocks; Clear Channel suspends Stern, and dumps Bubba.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Peg Tyre The fallout from nipple-gate continues. Four weeks after singer Janet Jackson's naked breast sparked a public uproar over indecency on the airwaves, the country's largest radio chain, Clear Channel, cleaned house. Feeling...

Travel: Nailing Your First 'Bogey'.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Barney Gimbel At 4,000 feet over the Pacific, the pilot started yelling, "Pull up! Pull up! There he goes!" With my right hand on the plane's stick and my left hand holding on for dear life, I craned my neck to spot my enemy. I...

Home: Seed Starting.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Raina Kelley Spring is weeks away but stir-crazy gardeners don't have to wait. Planting seeds indoors is fun, cheap and you can do it now. Some great resources: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: Source of old-fashioned plants from...

Luxe On The Cheap.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Tara Weingarten Who says luxury doesn't come cheap? Certainly not Volvo. The new $25,000 S40 is urbane, with exterior design cues yanked from the company's top-tier S80, and sleek interior aluminum accents. Darting through freeway...

Technology Almost (Too) Real.
March 8, 2004... Byline: Peter Suciu After an impressive outing as Spider-Man's nemesis on the big screen, Willem Dafoe gives a truly animated performance as a villain in James Bond's latest outing. But you won't find 007: Everything or Nothing ($50;...