USA TODAY articles from July 2004

USA TODAY archives from July 2004

Fireworks have potential to blast hearing health.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The boom from Fourth of July fireworks may send shivers down a person's spine, but for a Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., audiologist, the sound rings of potential hearing impairment. "People generally underestimate the effect loud...

Summer travel checklist: childproof the vitamins.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Vacationing with the kids? Be careful where you keep the vitamins. Multivitamins containing iron--even chewable supplements for children--can be toxic to youngsters, advises Daniel Keyes, associate professor of surgery at the University of...

Travel snacks can spoil vacation.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Many parents of young children will prepare snacks for extended summer travel, but if goodies are not stored properly, a fun-filled family trip could turn into a spoiled vacation. "Millions of Americans get sick each year from foods that are...

Government is great teen job source.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... High school and college students who think the only way to make money this summer is by painting houses or flipping burgers are over-looking a wealth of exciting opportunities with some of the nation's largest employers: Federal, state, and...

Hollywood time is not geological time.(Your Life)
July 1, 2004... The cataclysmic ice age scenario depicted in "The Day After Tomorrow" gets the mechanics of global warming mostly correct, but wildly exaggerates the speed at which it might occur, reveals a Duke University, Durham, oceanographer who studies...

Barbecue tips for summer grillers.(Your Life)
July 1, 2004... Your summer barbecue won't be a flameout if you follow some basic safety tips. "Barbecue grills are designed for outdoor use only," stresses Jason Reynolds, sous chef for the Food Court operated by the Residence Hall Dining Service, Ball State...

Rising interest rates unnerve homebuyers.(Your Life)
July 1, 2004... For many American families, their home is not only their castle, it has become the equivalent of their stock portfolio, retirement account, and ATM machine. Families who do not own homes want a piece of that action, and many who already own...

Adios fuel stops; I'm telecommuting.(Your Life)(rise in gas prices may lead more people to participate in car pools)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Rising fuel prices could have unexpected benefits for some Americans. With average gas prices escalating over $2 per gallon even before the typical summer surge, John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.,...

Lightning strikes--even indoors.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Thunder booms. Lightning strikes. Quick--stop washing the dishes. While most of us have heard the warnings about swimming or boating during thunderstorms, avoiding other water contact when lightning is flashing is good safety advice, toe. That...

Local newspapers key to public opinion in war.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... When Americans die in international incidents, it is not just the big national newspapers, but also the smaller community media that influence personal attitudes and community politics, insists University of California, Davis, political...

Activity sharing with your pet.(Your Life)
July 1, 2004... Now, more than ever pets--especially dogs--are an integral part of family excursions. Hiking, jogging, biking, walking and water sports are just a few invigorating activities to share with them. Keeping precautionary measures top-of-mind can...

Sound the alarm on summer burglars.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Summer months are a prime time to consider the potential returns of a modest investment in home protection, according to Intermatic Inc., Spring Grove, Ill. It's no surprise that burglars have more opportunities to strike during summer when...

Leaving mosquitoes out of Wetland restoration.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... When it comes to restoring nature, some members of the natural world are shunned for good reason. Restoring wetlands has a foreseeable and inevitable downside: the creation of a mosquito habitat. Breeding disease-transmitting mosquitoes is not...

U.S. agricultural exports heading for a record.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The Department of Agriculture revised forecast of agricultural exports for fiscal year 2004 shows sales of $61,500,000,000, an increase of $5,300,000,000 over the previous year. This level, if realized, would be the highest ever, eclipsing the...

Carbon monoxide poisoning on boats.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Carbon monoxide poisoning on a boat? It happens, especially in recreational craft longer than 20 feet. Since 1990, carbon monoxide poisoning has killed at least 93 people while they were boating and made nearly 400 others ill. Carbon...

Protecting people inside buildings: "it is the need to defend against the next generation of potential terrorist weapons--a witch's brew broadly designated as chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) agents--that is driving the current revolution in safety systems.".(Science & Technology)
July 1, 2004... IN OUR POST-9/11 world, security experts can be compared to physicians who find themselves struggling with a new and potentially deadly disease. However, it is unlikely that such high-tech specialists ever will find a single cure for the terror...

Media bias and the culture wars.(State Of The Nation)
July 1, 2004... IT IS HARD TO SEPARATE our understanding of the media from the larger culture. Just as the cultural landscape has been altered over the past several decades, so has the media--its quality and its politics. This cannot be otherwise. Is the media...

Creating a more secure America: by employing cooperative engagement--the perfect antidote to the Bush Administration's insistence on preemptive unilateralism--the U.S. can bring its security doctrine more in line with global realities.(National Affairs)
July 1, 2004... THE SEPT. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks fundamentally altered U.S. thinking about global security. The Bush Administration mobilized for a war on terror and launched an assault on Afghanistan and an invasion and occupation of Iraq. The concept of...

The bad news is really good news: with South Korea flexing its considerable economic muscle on the world stage, the U.S. suddenly has a new competitor--and partner--in the ever-evolving global marketplace.(Economics)
July 1, 2004... THE ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, and social transformations that have occurred in South Korea in recent decades have been remarkable. That nation now is one of the most vibrant and thriving democracies in Asia. At the same time, it has become a...

The new health savings accounts.(Economic Observer)
July 1, 2004... I AM LOOKING FOR A JOB just to get company paid health insurance. Some of my clients are thinking about selling their companies since the cost of health insurance as an employee benefit has smothered their bottom lines. Face it. You are going...

How to overcome your estate planning blues: "it takes time, costs money, raises difficult family issues, and revolves around something most of us do not want to think about--death.".(Business & Finance)
July 1, 2004... IT'S A HEART-WRENCHING STORY of the disastrous consequences of failing to do even basic estate planning: The client of a financial advisor had a $2,500,000 estate and two children from his first marriage. However, he owned everything in joint...

A misplaced mania for milk: "increasing numbers of medical studies indict dairy products as contributors not only to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, but prostate cancer, allergies, and possibly breast cancer. In children, dairy products can cause chronic constipation, ear infections, colic, asthma, and skin disorders.".(Medicine & Health)
July 1, 2004... FOR MANY AMERICANS, cow's milk constitutes an icon of whole-someness. Indeed, for generation after generation, the U.S.'s $75,000,000,000-per-year dairy industry--which dates back to a few cows shipped to Jamestown, Va., in 1611--has succeeded...

A head start to nowhere? Four decades and $66,000,000,000 after Head Start was launched, "the school readiness gap between poor children and their middle-class peers remains stubbornly large ... Perhaps ... no government program ever can compensate for what a hard life takes away.".(Education)
July 1, 2004... ON AVERAGE, poor children enter school with far fewer vocabulary, literacy, math, and social skills than their middle-class peers. They start off a step behind and never catch up; the gap in academic proficiency follows them to the end of their...

Shoot first, talk later: how the U.S. has abandoned diplomacy.(Worldview)
July 1, 2004... "With the fall of the Soviet Union over a decade ago, the U.S. had a unique opportunity... to lead the world toward a period of greater cooperation through the use of diplomacy, international organization, and international law. Instead, the...

What we don't know about terrorism.(World Watcher)(Column)
July 1, 2004... HIS BOOK Worse Than Watergate, former Nixon presidential de John Dean argues that the American people know little about terrorism and the U.S. war against it. Much of this, he contends, is because the Bush Administration does not want us to...

Seurat and the making of "La Grande Jatte": viewers can "reassess the artist's unique status as a draughtsman, colorist, theorist, and 'painter of modern life,' as well as his talent in relation to his forebears and contemporaries.".(Museums Today)
July 1, 2004... TODAY, WE CHERISH Georges Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte--1884" for myriad reasons: the enveloping magnitude of the visual experience it creates; the Variety of figures with whom we can identify; the innovation and courage of its...

Picnic pests or ecological marvels? Ants--who have roamed the Earth since the days of the dinosaur--are expert farmers, fearsome warriors, voracious meat-eaters, and omnipresent socialites. Most of all, however, they are virtually indestructible.(Ecology)
July 1, 2004... THE EXHIBIT "Ants: Hidden Worlds Revealed" showcases six colonies of live ants, each of which displays distinctive nest building and food gathering behaviors. Four of the species represented--Harvester, Carpenter, Honeypot, and Argentine--are...

Death's indelible impression: "... at the base of a hickory tree was a glistening pool of dark blood. I was tempted to touch its perfectly tensioned surface. Instead, as I stared, it shrank perceptibly ... as if the Earth had taken a delicate sip.".(Focus on America)(exhibition of photography by Sally Mann)
July 1, 2004... "SALLY MANN: What Remains" is a five-part photographic series that explores the ineffable divide between body and soul, life and death, Earth and spirit. The project is organized into five sections that visually depict the eternal cycle of...

The Saudis have America over a barrel.(rising cost of oil)
July 1, 2004... IN 1970, A BUSHEL OF WHEAT could be traded for a barrel of oil in the world market. It now takes nine bushels of wheat to buy one barrel of oil. The two countries most affected by this are the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. America, the world's largest...

As the constitution color-blind? "... Class remedies, such as affirmative action and racial set-asides, assume that all members of the 'monolithic white majority' are guilty of racial class injuries and all members of 'discrete and insular' minorities are victims of such injuries.".(Law & Justice)(civil rights law)
July 1, 2004... THE 14th Amendment cannot be understood properly except in terms of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution itself was written to denote those principles. Yet. insofar as it allowed slavery to continue, the...

The influence of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X on hip hop: "... success and prosperity for the majority of black Americans in the 21st century only will be achieved by a strong coalition of Christians and Muslims who are dedicated to the values of democracy and social justice.".(Life In America)(Biography)
July 1, 2004... MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., and Malcolm X were the two most important leaders of African-American youth in the 20th century. Black Americans chose them because of their unique perspectives on civil and human rights, integration and nationalism,...

Giant media monopolies hurt everyone.(Words & Images)(Column)
July 1, 2004... IN AN EPISODE OF "The West Wing," the fictional presidential press secretary decides to make a point about the monopolization of the news media. She says that from now on, only one representative from each corporate conglomerate will be able to...

Dissent is as American as apple pie: "American citizens are torn by an ill-advised war and occupation led by leaders who, in seeking to stifle the sort of healthy debate democracy requires, do not seem to understand, indeed, who seem to shun, our nation's history.".(American Thought)(Column)
July 1, 2004... THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE in this country--and this Administration--who claim that anyone opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as well as America's continued presence there, are unpatriotic (at best) and treasonous (at worst). Indeed, the Patriot...

The corporate name game.(Sports Scene)(purchase of stadium naming rights)(Column)
July 1, 2004... LIKE ANY UPSTANDING AMERICAN SPORTS fan, I have an overwhelming desire to boo the latest trend in professional athletics--naming rights. Where once there was Boston Garden, Comiskey Park, and Tiger Stadium, facilities that gave loyal followers...

Two stars for peace: "every newly stitched American flag will declare that peace has been achieved by embracing Israelis and Palestinians as American citizens, and by welcoming their lands as unique--and equal--states.".(satire)
July 1, 2004... THE AMERICAN FLAG contains 50 stars. It has changed 26 times since 1777, when it officially was adopted with 13 stars. The principal always has been the same--add one star to the flag each time a state joins the Union. No star is larger or...

Everything is ducky.(Reel World)
July 1, 2004... A few years ago, the American Film Institute had the audacity to name "Duck Soup" (1933) merely one of the top five comedies ever made. I have no idea what they could have been thinking; it clearly is number one. Of course, I suppose I should...

Backyard security againts skeeter attack.(What's New?)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Flies don't faze us. Bees won't bother you if you don't bother them. Ants? Well, yeah--they're annoying. Yet, they hardly send us screaming into the night. Mosquitoes, though, are where we draw the line. It was bad enough in summers past to...

Cooling off the fury of sun glare.(What's New?)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The first-ever, polycarbonate, photochromatic, polarized sunglass lens has been introduced by Serengeti Eyewear, Overland Park, Kan. The new lightweight PolarMax line features technology in which the "shading"--in this case, brown or Cool Photo...

Funky cocktails.(What's New?)
July 1, 2004... We admit it. We're not so keen on summer--with one notable exception. We just love the exotic, tasty, and thoroughly refreshing lineup of funky drinks that inevitably make an appearance as soon as the days grow longer and the thermometer shoots...

Sustaining silky smooth sexy summer skin.(What's New?)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... It's true what they say: When you look good, you feel good. And when a product makes you feel good, it makes a difference in your day. With summer upon us, we are showing a lot more skin. It would be great if we had the time (and budget) to...

Burden bearing beach buggy.(What's New?)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
July 1, 2004... For those tired of feeling like a beast of burden when heading out to the beach or picnic, there's the Dunebuggy from Lifestyle Fascination, Lakewood, NJ Small enough to fit into any trunk easily, this comfy yet sturdy marvel unfolds from a...

Splish splash it's more fun than taking a bath.(What's New?)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Anyone with kids knows how popular a Slip 'N Slide Water Slide can be. Children never tire of running and diving onto the yellow vinyl mat and being propelled to the "Splash Zone" at the end. Wham-O, Emeryville, Calif., has a bevy of new...

Stow N Go is good to go.(What's New?)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
July 1, 2004... Sometimes, the hardest job involving a wheelbarrow isn't hauling heavy loads up a hill--it's assembling the unit and finding a place to store it. Not any more. Union Tools, Columbus, Ohio, has introduced the industry's first wheelbarrow that...

You've got the power of water in your hand.(What's New?)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
July 1, 2004... Each year, we go through the same thing: an entire new line of nozzles gets hooked up to the garden hose in the hopes of finally finding one that provides enough oomph to clean the gutters, remove mold and mildew from the deck, get rid of the...

An elegant solution for a music & video library.(What's New?)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
July 1, 2004... Home media centers are a modern-day wonder, allowing us to cocoon amidst our favorite movies, music, and other forms of electronic entertainment. However, we tend to be an acquisitive breed, and sooner or later we find that our living rooms,...

Museum memo.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... What's new in museums around the country? Among the more interesting exhibitions on view are: Constantin Brancusi: The Essence of Things, Guggenheim Museum, New York, through Sept. 19. That the Freedom of the Human Spirit Shall Go On:...

Three tales of starfaring visitors. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Starship Troopers," "Starman".(DVDs)(Movie Review)
July 1, 2004... CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND COLUMBIA TRISTAR HOME VIDEOS 137 MINUTES, $27.95 Writer-director Steven Spielberg's blockbuster 1977 movie about unidentified flying objects and alien beings visiting Earth put a benevolent face on...

Freethinkers: a History of American Secularism.(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... FREETHINKERS: A History of American Secularism BY SUSAN JACOBY METROPOLITAN BOOKS 2004, 352 PAGES, $27.50 Though the almighty dollar bill proclaims: "In God We Trust," the Constitution, by design, omits any mention of a deity. Article 6,...

The Heart of the Matter: the Three Key Breakthroughs to Preventing Heart Attacks.(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... THE HEART OF THE MATTER: The Three Key Breakthroughs to Preventing Heart Attacks BY PETER SALGO, M.D, WITH JOE LAYDEN HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS, INC. 2004, 256 PAGES, $24.95 Heart attacks are one of the top candidates for cause of death, as...

Loud and Clear.(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... LOUD AND CLEAR BY ANNA QUINDLEN RANDOM HOUSE 2004, 288 PAGES, $24.95 A journalist for three decades, Anna Quindlen has authored four novels, two children's books, and this, her fifth nonfiction title. Her introduction details an e-mail...

Government and religion.(Parting Thoughts)
July 1, 2004... THE MIGHTY FIRST AMENDMENT in the Bill of Rights tells us that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." The meaning and intent of that proviso seem rather clear, as well...