Newsweek articles from May 2006

Newsweek archives from May 2006

The Sign Of the Times; The first adolescent superpower is meeting the immovable force of the world's most populous nation, with the fastest-growing economy.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Anna Quindlen It is disconcerting, even a little frightening, to be in a place in which it is impossible to read the signs. As citizens of the world's most dominant culture, Americans often manage to avoid the feeling. They are now...

Pilgrims' Bloody Progress; Nathaniel Philbrick takes on Mayflower fairy tales.(Mayflower)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... Byline: David Gates When vacationers see those signs for First Encounter Beach on Cape Cod, they may imagine tall-hatted Pilgrims and befeathered Indians passing around beads and peace pipes. In fact, before reaching Plymouth, a scouting...

The Old Guy's Hits Keep On Coming.(Everyman)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... Byline: David Gates Let's not crank up the suspense. He's done it again. Philip Roth was already a shoo-in for the pantheon when he began that series of vigorous novels--starting with "Sabbath's Theater" (1995) and "American Pastoral"...

The Long and Grinding Road; The rat race is turning into a marathon. Inside the lives of 'extreme commuters.'.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Keith Naughton (With Hilary Shenfeld, Raina Kelley, Nadine Joseph and Jennifer Ordonez) At 5:40 a.m., the alarm blares news-talk radio and Bill Small rolls out of bed. With a two-hour commute ahead of him, the Chicago doctor wastes...

A Starbucks Jolt to the Big Screen.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Johnnie L. Roberts "Akeelah and the Bee," opening on 2,800 screens this Friday, is an inspiring little film. It's about a precocious 11-year-old girl, Akeelah, who copes with her father's murder by becoming a spelling whiz. Played...

Severe Gas Pains Edition.
May 1, 2006... The difference between the CIA woman canned last week and President Bush? Her classified leak helped win a Pulitzer. Bush - You're the oil prez. So why can't you do something about gas prices? Try getting serious about our...

Letters to the Magazine.(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... Katie Takes On the Evening News Our April 17 cover story on Katie Couric, who recently announced she will become the anchor for the "CBS Evening News," drew a mixed response. Couric herself had no shortage of fans. One, who took issue with our...

Stuck in the Hot Zone; Don't dream about full exits. The military is in Iraq for the long haul.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Michael Hirsh (With John Barry and Mark Hosenball in Washington, Michael Hastings in New York and Scott Johnson in Baghdad) Maj. Micah Morgan fondly pats the nose of his Predator drone, much as a cavalry officer of old might have...

A Dangerous Dance; Lebanon's P.M. rips Israel and criticizes Syria. He wants President Lahoud to quit, but that could be a death sentence.(Interview)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Lally Weymouth Lebanon's new prime minister, Fuad Siniora, visited President Bush last week to appeal for support. Lebanon is struggling to emerge as a democratic country--free from Syria's grip. Yet Damascus still wields vast...

The Editor's Desk.(Editorial)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Mark Whitaker It's been 11 years since senior writer Susannah Meadows graduated from Duke. A month ago, she returned to her alma mater to report the tawdry but riveting story of a lacrosse-team party gone bad, with a stripper...

This Week Online.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Jessica Bennett; For Jessica Bennett's full interview, go to xtra.NEWSWEEK.com on MSNBC NEWSWEEK: You and Sen. Tom Harkin have proposed legislation that would require schools to replace fast-food fare with healthy alternatives. Why...

Pearl Jam Comes Alive; The reluctant rockers return with a new CD that might just bring back the fame they love to hate.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Lorraine Ali Eddie Vedder writes songs on a manual typewriter, carries important papers in a 1940s suitcase, keeps his credit cards in a plastic Batman wallet and wears his beat-up lumberjack boots over a pair of blue argyle socks....

Flight of the Intruders; Re-creating the terrifying ordeal of United 93.(Movie review)
May 1, 2006... Byline: David Ansen A feeling of dread permeates "United 93." It starts even before you enter the theater--unless for some reason you are unaware that you're about to see a movie about the one hijacked plane on September 11, 2001, that...

We've Overlooked One Of Our Greatest Assets; I believe that our community and junior colleges can help America regain its competitive edge.
May 1, 2006... Byline: William D. Green; Green is CEO of Accenture. If you had told me back in 1971--the year I graduated high school--that I'd be going off to college soon, I would have assured you that you were sorely mistaken. I was the son of a...

Bush Pops His Bubble; ON THE MOVE: The White House spring cleaning continues. But will it matter?
May 1, 2006... Byline: Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey No matter how powerful he grew inside the Bush White House, Josh Bolten always came off as just one of the guys, a smart, hardworking wonk who ducked publicity and rewarded his staff with a night at...

What FDR Teaches Us; Long Shadow: A new book relives his first 100 days. Have a look, Mr. President.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Jonathan Alter; Adapted from The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days And The Triumph Of Hope by Jonathan Alter, to be published by Simon & Schuster on May 2. On one level, it's unfair to compare a sitting president to his...

What Happened at Duke? Sex. Race. A raucous party. A rape charge. And a prosecutor up for re-election. Inside the mystery that has roiled a campus and riveted the country.(Cover story)
May 1, 2006... ***** CORRECTION: Editor's Note: In our cover story on the Duke lacrosse team, a description of lacrosse players closely tracked language in a story on the lacrosse culture that appeared in Slate, the online magazine. The language was...

Newsmakers: Eva Longoria.(Interview)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Nicki Gostin, Marc Peyser That desperate housewife Eva Longoria is trading in her yoga mat for a gun in "The Sentinel." As her hair was being done, she chatted with NEWSWEEK's Nicki Gostin. I heard you're a really good shot....

Perspectives.
May 1, 2006... "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."George W. Bush, on his role as president, in response to calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation "Destroy private American aircraft... We call upon all Muslims to follow and...

Hu's Visit: Bush's Chinese Diplomacy--Lost in Translation.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Melinda Liu in Beijing and Richard Wolffe with the president President Hu Jintao can take comfort in one thing: most Chinese didn't see the excruciating reception he got at the White House. Not right away, that is. The...

Iran: The Intelligence Reports vs. the Hard-Liners.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Mark Hosenball Some neocon activists have urged a sharp increase in U.S. efforts to undermine Tehran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen told NEWSWEEK: "The people hate [the...

Iraqi Nukes: Fallout From U.S. Strikes.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Michael Hirsh The administration may be making contingency plans to bomb Iran's nuclear sites if diplomacy fails. Apart from the geopolitical fallout of such a strike, there's reason to worry about the environmental impact. The...

Into Thin Air.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Malcolm Beith A power struggle between the monarchy and Maoist rebels has paralyzed the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal for more than a year. Finally, after 16 consecutive days of violent pro-democracy protests in the capital of...

Health Risk: Swimming Pool Or Cesspool?(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Elise Soukup The state of evacuees' swimming pools might seem like a low priority in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but they could pose a substantial health threat. There are thousands of abandoned pools in New Orleans alone--each...

Fast Chat: Getting Hostile.(David Sirota)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Jonathan Alter David Sirota is the author of "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back." He spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jonathan Alter: How has Big Money corrupted the government?...

Physics: From Time To Time.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Mary Carmichael Ronald Mallett, a University of Connecticut physics professor, thinks time travel is possible--and he's designed an experiment that could do it. Basically, he wants to "swirl" empty space the way you'd swirl coffee...

Television: 'Sopranos' Takes a Hit.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Marc Peyser "The Sopranos" is the most-watched show on cable, but is it still No. 1 with a bullet? Average viewership on Sundays is off by a million compared with last season's, to about 8.8 million viewers. Of course people don't...

Videogames: Playing It Smart.(Brain Age)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Mary Carmichael Parents who worry about violent video-games would have loved last week's rankings on Amazon. Holding steady at No. 2 was Brain Age, a Nintendo DS game that features no shooting and lots of studying. It's been out...

Books: For Children, Some New Looks at Past Horrors.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Karen Springen Anne Frank's 1947 "Diary of a Young Girl" is the most famous of its genre, but it's not the only one. With Holocaust Remembrance Day this week, there are dozens of new kid-lit titles about the war's atrocities. While...

It's Policies, Not People; Shuffling top advisers can't compensate for an agenda that seems driven more by partisan preferences than by important national needs.(George W. Bush)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Robert J. Samuelson The second-term white house shake-up is an old tradition, driven variously by scandal, exhaustion and ambition. Presidents need to be protected and reinvigorated. Scapegoats for past failures need to be dumped....

Snap Judgment: Movies.(Movie review)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Devin Gordon, David Ansen Akeelah and the Bee Written and directed by Doug Atchison Finally, a "Hoosiers" for the utterly unathletic. Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett are the big names in this irresistible tale of an...

'Vintage' Bugs Return; Mumps? Whooping cough? Rickets? What year is it?
May 1, 2006... ***** CORRECTION: In " 'Vintage' Bugs Return" (May 1) we incorrectly reported that an adolescent booster vaccine for pertussis was introduced in October 2005. It was introduced in June of that year. NEWSWEEK regrets the error. *****...

See You in Bible Class; Georgia plans to teach the Good Book in schools.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Sarah Childress Fresh from a bruising federal court fight over the teaching of evolution, Georgia marched back into the culture wars last week when Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a bill allowing Bible classes in public high schools. An...

Why Don't We Do It on the Internet?(the Beatles)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Steven Levy Go to itunes or Rhapsody and search for "Beatles" and where do you wind up? Nowhere, man. The greatest rock group ever doesn't sell its songs online. That's why the managing director of the Beatles' record label, Neil...

BlogWatch; A mainstream-media snapshot of what's hot (and what's not) in the ever-widening world of web logs.
May 1, 2006... Every time Blog Watch plans a road trip, prices at the pumps go sky- high. The wonks at theoildrum.com debate the whys and wherefores. When the Leader of the Free World and Chinese President Hu Jintao get together, it's time for some...

Summer Gift Guide.
May 1, 2006... How will you spend your summer vacation? Whether it's at the beach or Buenos Aires, camping out or in a luxury hotel), there's one cardinal rule: pack wisely. To help you on your many adventures, Tip Sheet tested the very best summer gear. From...

Mission: Possible? Paramount CEO Brad Grey is racing to turn around his struggling studio. Now his involvement with the Affair Pellicano is making his task a lot more difficult.
May 8, 2006... Byline: Johnnie L. Roberts In March 2005, Brad Grey, the heavyweight producer of "The Sopranos," chose to accept a difficult mission--to become CEO of Paramount Pictures and mastermind its rebound. He began triumphantly enough. In his...

'I Want to See Most Of the Planet Online'.(Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems)(Interview)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Brad Stone In 2000, Sun Microsystems billed itself as the "dot in dot.com," the firm whose technology powered the first generation of Internet firms. But when many of its customers went broke or pulled back during the bust, Sun's...

Russian Roulette for Unflinching Investors.
May 8, 2006... Byline: Allan Sloan Ah, May, that glorious month when spring is upon us. A month that used to start with Russia's unveiling its newest and biggest weapons at an enormous parade celebrating communism. So there's no better time for us to...

Snow Job Edition.(satirical comments on current events)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Since White House TVs are all tuned to Fox anyway, no one inside will be able to tell the difference when Tony takes the podium. Bush = Finally gets the message on our insane energy policy, but does he have the right stuff to...

Letters to the Magazine; Issue dated May 8, 2006.(Letter to the editor)
May 8, 2006... Oh, Those Sleepless, Restless Nights Readers commiserated with women who can't sleep, the subject of our April 24 cover story, and offered suggestions. One woman who lay awake composed a letter. She wrote, "I'm not sure which is worse, not...

Many Strange 'Emergencies'; A poll shows that approval of the job Congress is doing has plunged to just 22 percent. One wonders: who are those 22 percent?(Column)
May 8, 2006... Byline: George F. Will Before 1977, no snowstorm had ever been declared a federal disaster by a U.S. president. Twelve inches of powder overnight in Syracuse? We've handled that sort of thing for generations without hand-wringing on CNN....

Iran: A Rummy Guide; To borrow a phrase used for Iraq, there are 'things we now know we don't know.' NEWSWEEK sorts it out.(Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld )
May 8, 2006... Byline: Christopher Dickey and John Barry (With Kevin Peraino in Jerusalem and Mark Hosenball and Dan Ephron in Washington) Back in June 2002, as the Bush administration started pushing hard for war with Iraq by focusing on fears of the...

Osama Needs More Mud Huts; Global Islamic terrorism is the product of scattered groups. It has much less support in the Muslim world than people think.
May 8, 2006... Byline: Fareed Zakaria (Write the author at comments@fareedzakaria.com.) Imagine if a few months after September 11 someone had said to you, "Five years from now, in the space of a single week, Osama bin Laden will issue a new call for...

'I Demand a Timetable'; Moqtada al-Sadr on war, peace and occupation.(Interview)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Scott Johnson Variously described as a populist Shia cleric, a violent militia leader and a political kingmaker, Moqtada al-Sadr is all of the above. His growing power--and his stance against the American occupation--helped impede...

This Week Online.(Interview)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Jac Chebatoris; For Jac Chebatoris's full interview and for clips from the new CD, go to xtra.NEWSWEEK.com on MSNBC NEWSWEEK: The musical community in New Orleans is such a tight-knit group. How has it been affected by Katrina? ...

The Editor's Desk.(Editorial)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Mark Whitaker As we were closing the magazine last week, our Media Relations Manager, Jan Angilella, received an urgent call from The Dallas Morning News. Was it true, they wanted to know, that NEWSWEEK's annual list of America's...

Summer Movie Preview: Hollywood's 15 Most Wanted; Blockbusters are like candy: you can enjoy a few, but pretty soon you need some real nourishment. Here, in order, are the summer films that we're most excited about--big or small, right or wrong.(Movie review)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Devin Gordon, Sean Smith and David Ansen three years ago, almost everyone predicted that "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" would be a cheesy also-ran in the big summer box-office race. Pirate movies had tanked...

Q&A: This Summer's Stars; NEWSWEEK talks to headliners from 5 upcoming films.(Interview)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Devin Gordon, Sean Smith TOM HANKS You are familiar with his work, possibly. And possibly you are also familiar with "The Da Vinci Code," the novel upon which his new movie is based. Hanks spoke with Devin Gordon. How do...

OK, You've Almost Sold US; How could we leave out 'X-Men'? Didn't we hear the kinda good buzz on 'Poseidon'?! More worthy movies--and our reservations.
May 8, 2006... Poseidon: Wolfgang Petersen dredges up the '70s disaster genre for this Titanically expensive rethinking of "The Poseidon Adventure." Nagging question: With no Shelley Winters in sight, will it be any fun? MAY 12 X-Men: The Last Stand: In...

What Does It Take to Coach Girls' Track? Once I thought it was as simple as sharing my enthusiasm for running, but now I know better.
May 8, 2006... Byline: Linda Head Flanagan (Flanagan lives in Summit, N.J.) I'm not going to the track!" The teenager threw herself to the floor and pounded her fists. "I had tacos and ice cream for lunch!" I told her we needed to do a hard workout of...

Whistling Dixie; Mark Warner test-drives a new strategy for the Dems in '06.(United States Democratic Party, congressional elections 2006)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Jonathan Darman When you're an out-of-work Southern governor with time on your hands and your eye on the presidency, driving a NASCAR pace car around a deserted speedway should probably come naturally. Or at least it did for former...

White House: A Mind of His Own; Tony Snow says what he thinks. Which is why the press is excited--and fans of message discipline are on edge.(news pundit and radio show host takes on job of press secretary under George W. Bush)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Holly Bailey and Richard Wolffe It started as a lunch between old colleagues--and ended as a job interview. Tony Snow and Josh Bolten had been friendly for years. The two worked together in George H.W. Bush's White House and had...

Back on the Stand; Rove's latest trip to the grand jury leaves his fate in the Plame leak case as mysterious as ever.(presidential aide Karl Rove and the investigation into leaked identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas (With Mark Hosenball) It was August 2004, and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was zeroing in on I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby as the leaker in the Valerie Plame case. Fitzgerald had been quizzing...

Rehabbing Rush; A high-profile probe of painkiller addiction ends with a slap on the wrist. Inside Limbaugh's road to recovery.(radio commentator Rush Limbaugh)(Biography)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Arian Campo-Flores and Evan Thomas (With Mark Hosenball) Rush was on a roll. He made fun of polling showing that Hillary Clinton has a higher rating when she uses the last name Rodham instead of Clinton. He lambasted a Republican...

Newsmakers.(Interview)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Nicki Gostin, Marc Peyser Miley and Billy Ray Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter Miley play dad and daughter in Disney's new hit show "Hannah Montana." The duo spoke to NEWSWEEK's Nicki Gostin. Billy Ray, is it true you...

Perspectives.(quotations drawn from current events)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... "There is a Zionist-Crusaders war on Islam." Osama bin Laden, criticizing Western efforts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government, from a newly released audiotape "Americans should know... if they invade Iran, their interests...

Politics: New Orleans: Wooing the White Vote.(mayoral election, New Orleans, Louisiana)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Arian Campo-Flores Hardy Fowler is not one to waver. The managing partner of KPMG's New Orleans office, he's accustomed to the business world's demands for decisiveness. But when it comes to choosing a candidate in the Big Easy's...

If You Paint It ...(artists paint abandoned homes, Detroit, Michigan)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: David Gerlach To call attention to the vacant, dilapidated houses that are ruining the view from Detroit's freeways, a group of anonymous artists have been secretly painting the eyesores bright orange at sunrise. Thousands of empty...

Transition.(urban planner Jane Jacobs)(Obituary)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: David Gates JANE JACOBS, 89 In the late 1950s, "slum clearance" (re-euphemized as "urban renewal"), high-rise housing projects and city-slicing expressways were progressive urban planning. Jane Jacobs, an editor at Architectural...

Mideast: No Money for Hamas.
May 8, 2006... Byline: Dan Ephron After the Islamic Hamas group swept to office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip earlier this year, one of Washington's first moves was to halt most aid to the Palestinian Authority. Now the United States is working to...

Language: 'Y' Is for Branch.(research into the structure of alphabets)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Mary Carmichael Mark Changizi, a theoretical neurobiologist at Caltech, recently started pondering the "deep structure" of the alphabet--or, more precisely, all the characters in all the major written languages. He suspected that...

Videogame: Over the (Border) Line.("Border Patrol")(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Jamie Reno Links to a bloody new Flash videogame called Border Patrol, whose object is to kill as many illegal immigrants as possible, are making the rounds through e-mail forwards. The game, which comes at a time when U.S. leaders...

Duke: New Questions About Credibility.(sexual abuse investigation concerning lacrosse team at Duke University)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Susannah Meadows A report from the alleged victim's own mother was the latest bombshell in the Duke lacrosse rape scandal. The mother told Essence magazine that her 27-year-old daughter was raped by several men years ago. The...

Broadway: A Sleeper Musical.("The Drowsy Chaperone")(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Marc Peyser Some guys get wasted at their bachelor party. Some hire a stripper. At Bob Martin's stag, his buddies gave him a musical. It was called "The Drowsy Chaperone," and it was a perfectly wholesome show about a 1920s actress...

TV: Singing in The ... Gym.(made-for-TV movie "High School Musical")(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Ramin Setoodeh Now there's a schoolhouse that really rocks. Disney Channel's made-for-TV movie "High School Musical," which debuted in January, has turned into a cultural phenomenon with 36.5 million viewers so far. Next it's being...

Fast Chat: 'Talking' Points.(novelist Marti Leimbach)(Interview)(Brief article)(Biography)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Susan Greenberg In Marti Leimbach's new novel, "Daniel Isn't Talking," Melanie Marsh loses her husband, her savings and very nearly her sanity after her toddler son is diagnosed with autism. It is a battle Leimbach knows well: her...

A Guarantee? It'll Cost You; There's magic in the idea of a check for life, where the dollar amount can rise but never fall. But now comes the question of what you'll pay for it.(Column)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Jane Bryant Quinn (Reporter Associate: Temma Ehrenfeld) I hear you're looking for investment guarantees. You want your retirement money to grow but without the risk of market loss. To make you happy, new "safety net" products are...

The Oil Factor; Our columnist on why gas prices are soaring--and why they haven't hurt the brisk U.S. economy. Yet.(Column)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Robert J. Samuelson The United States has the energy policy it deserves, although not the one that it needs. Having been told for years that their addiction to cheap gasoline was on a collision course with increasingly insecure...

What Makes a High School Great; Gold stars: The answer depends on the school, and the student. With its annual list, NEWSWEEK honors top schools that help regular kids succeed in college.(Cover story)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert (With Dan Brillman, Michal Lumsden, Le Datta Grimes and Dave Kotok) If you want to understand what's happening in some of America's most innovative public high schools, think back to your own...

Why AP Matters; Test wars: Behind the debate over how we should judge high schools.(advanced placement high school classes)(Cover story)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Jay Mathews On the surface, Fanny Frausto looks like any other teenager laughing and jostling in the crowded halls of one of America's urban public high schools. It is only when asked about her schoolwork that Frausto, 18, begins...

The Public Elites.(Best High Schools )(Cover story)
May 8, 2006... NEWSWEEK excluded these high performers from the list of Best High Schools because so many of their students score well above average on the SAT and ACT. Benjamin Franklin Senior H.S., NEW ORLEANS: A rigorous high school with competitive...

Health: Does 'Milk' Hurt Kids?
May 8, 2006... Byline: Mary Carmichael In 1997, Kelley Scanlon, an epidemiologist, and her colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control received a call from Georgia health authorities with disturbing news. The parents of two infants had weaned their...

The Checklist; Our top picks for the week ahead.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... RENT 'Match Point' and 'Shopgirl.' Two of the most underrated love stories of last year. Well, yeah... they're not all rosy. But Jonathan Rhys Meyers (above) is a babe. ORDER 17-inch MacBook Pro ($2,800; apple.com). A one-inch...

Road Test: Subaru Legacy; A Collectible Car.(Product/service evaluation)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Tara Weingarten I spied a little metal plaque on the console of my tester: "2/500," it read. Oh, a limited edition, I thought. Was it a Picasso lithograph or a Ferrari Enzo? Not exactly. Would you believe a Subaru Legacy? Don't...

Home: Your Old House.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Linda Stern Now that winter is over, it's time to fix up your home. But how do you find a contractor who won't rip you off? Here's a hint: he's probably not available now. Home improvement is as hot as real estate was two years...

Money: On a High Horse?(equestrian store Dover Saddlery)(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Linda Stern Just in time for the Kentucky Derby, here's a whole new way to bet on the horses. Buy shares of Dover Saddlery (doversaddlery.com), the only purely equestrian company to go public. The Boston-based group says it intends...

Style: Let Your Bra Show.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Jordana Lewis Most women spend a lot of energy trying to cover up their pesky bra straps. Wouldn't it just be easier to show them off? That's the idea behind two new brands of designer brassieres and accessories. The Z-Bra...

Food: Berry Good Fruit.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Ramin Setoodeh Berry-picking season is here. Time to celebrate--with your mouth. But first, follow these fruit tips from James Parker, a produce expert at Whole Foods Market. Blackberry PEAKS: LATE MAY Is it ripe? You...

Spirits: Tequila.(Product/service evaluation)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Raina Kelley Cinco de Mayo is May 5, and if you haven't had tequila since 2-for-1 shots in college, here's your excuse. It's not the new vodka yet, but it does have a devoted following. Here are our choices: Price Tasting...

Family: 'I Call The Top Bunk!'.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Karen Springen Nicholas Santoro, 9, and his brother, Joey, 6, love going to the Chicago Park District's summer day camp, says their mom, Sue. But like many of the nation's estimated 19 million campers, they started out reluctantly....

Travel: Leave the Light On.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Konnie Lemay This summer, you could still go to the lighthouse without Virginia Woolf. As technology diminishes their navigational roles, some lighthouses are turning into bed-and-breakfasts. But while they offer breathtaking...

Gardening: A Greener Backyard.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Raina Kelley Spring has sprung, which means a little work now will give your lawn the root system it needs to stay lush all summer long. Here are our tips: the Craftsman Dethatcher ($60; sears.com) attaches to most riding lawn...

Ask Tip Sheet.(Brief article)
May 8, 2006... Byline: Marc Bain Who writes the movie synopses on the Netflix DVD sleeves? Do they actually watch the films? --A. Matsuoka, Volcano, Hawaii The sleeve synopses, which Netflix calls "bobs" ("back of box"), are written by an...