USA TODAY articles from March 2003

USA TODAY archives from March 2003

Families should develop a disaster plan. (Your Life).
March 1, 2003... Should disaster ever strike, there is a proven way to help families find calm and reassurance, suggests Patrick Tiner, a faculty associate in psychiatry at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He recommends that they...

Welfare reform fails single mothers' kids. (Your Life).
March 1, 2003... Welfare reform successfully has moved millions of single mothers into the workforce, but has failed to improve living conditions for their young children, according to findings by researchers from Stanford (Calif.) University; Columbia...

It's tough to be a teen. (Your Life).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Adolescents are taking longer to become fully productive members of society, Reed Larson, professor of human development, University of Illinois, Champaign, told the World Future Society, Bethesda, Md. "What we expect of young people is...

Babysitting is a serious job. (Your Life).
March 1, 2003... Caring for someone else's child is the way thousands of stay-at-home mothers, retirees, empty nesters, and teenagers make a living. Yet, many of those who watch other people's kids aren't trained in basic first aid and emergency care, including...

Creating the comfort zone of your dreams. (Your Life).(living room)
March 1, 2003... Since it is where you and your family do most of their living at home, the living room is perhaps the single-most-important area in your residence. We're not talking about the living room of yore--the hands-off room that, as a child, you...

Happy Birthday to you. (Your Life).
March 1, 2003... With more than 5,000,000 birthdays occurring each week in the U.S. (or over 700,000 each day), they are America's No. 1 reason to celebrate. Here is a bit of history on birthday celebrations and traditions, supplied by The Pillsbury Company:...

Scents help find Mr. or Ms. Right. (Your Life).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Singles will have a much better chance of meeting the man or woman of their choice with perfumes and colognes containing human pheromones, maintains Gary Havel, president of Intimate Research Inc., a Worth, Ill., company that specializes in...

Sabotaging your financial future. (Your Life).(Financial Planning Association,)(Financial Planning Association)
March 1, 2003... According to the Financial Planning Association, Denver, Colo., Americans frequently mismanage their finances. The organization specifically cites eight ways families can rail into this fiscal trap: Don't plan. Many people earn, spend,...

Job hunting can be serious and funny. (Your Life).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Employers are now taking an average of 65 days to fill management positions, 60 for sales positions, and 40 to hire customer services positions, according to a survey of over 400 companies conducted by Caliper, a Princeton, N.J.-based human...

Companies still believe in philanthropy. (Your Life).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Even in an uncertain economy, companies still place a high priority on giving back to the community, a survey developed by Robert Half Management Resources, North America's largest consulting services firm providing senior-level accounting and...

How to avoid overwork burnout. (Your Life).
March 1, 2003... Achieving work-life balance is particularly challenging for managers in the creative industry, a survey by The Creative Group, a specialized staffing service that provides market, advertising, creative, and Web professionals on a project basis,...

Do you know how your pay is determined? (Your Life).
March 1, 2003... Just about 40% of employees and managers in a North American survey said they know how they can increase their base pay or cash bonuses. The results suggest employers lose much of the value of the pay raises and bonuses they distribute by not...

Confronting the problem of illegal Mexican migration to the U.S. (National Affairs).
March 1, 2003... AMERICA'S immigration laws are colliding with reality, and reality is winning. Today, approximately 8,000,000 people live in the U.S. without legal documents, and each year the number grows by an estimated 250,000 as more enter illegally or...

New campaign financing regulations may already be a failure. (National Affairs).
March 1, 2003... THE ADDITION of Pres. Bush's signature to the campaign finance bill passed by Congress amounted to an antidemocratic triple play for advocates of heightened regulation of political activity. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) will make...

A year of decision. (State Of The Nation).(George W. Bush presidency)
March 1, 2003... IN ALL LIKELIHOOD, the fate of George W. Bush's presidency will be decided by the events of 2003. He has surprised many by his steady leadership in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Consequently, his approval ratings stayed at remarkably high levels,...

Coping with a crisis century: while it is impossible to prevent all crises, organizations that are prepared in advance recover substantially faster and at much less cost to themselves and others than those that aren't. (American Thought).
March 1, 2003... FROM THE PERSPECTIVE of crisis management, the first few years of the 21st century have been extraordinary. As a society, we went from the Ford/Firestone fire debacles (May to September, 2000) to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. These...

Lawsuits are drowning America. (Law & Justice).
March 1, 2003... IN 2001, New York City was hit with a $14,000,000 judgment because a subway train didn't stop in time to avoid hitting someone who was lying on the tracks, apparently trying to commit suicide. That is just the kind of shocking verdict that...

Job creation requires risk-taking. (Economics).
March 1, 2003... RISK-TAKING is one of the essential ingredients in any nation's ability to expand and advance its economy. It was in the spirit of risk-taking that Christopher Columbus set off to discover the New World. It is what led our forefathers to break...

Becoming a value-added employee boosts job security. (Business & Finance).
March 1, 2003... ECONOMISTS CLAIM the recession is over; politicians take credit for its demise; financial planners urge caution; consumers believe little of it; and workers continue to eye their job security with skepticism. Has the post-Sept. 11 recession...

Tax competition spurs globalization. (Worldview).(countries develop low-tax strategies to lure business)
March 1, 2003... GLOBALIZATION is steadily and inexorably knitting separate national economies into a single world economy. Basic economic forces so far have outweighed political efforts to slow this trend. Efforts to buck the effects of economic integration...

Mahathir bin Mohamad: America's best Muslim friend. (World Watcher).(Malaysian Prime Minister)(leads racially divided country)
March 1, 2003... MOST AMERICANS have never even heard of Mahathir bin Mohamad, the Prime Minister of the relatively small state of Malaysia. Yet, he is America's best friend in the Islamic world. First, he has guided his country successfully for more than 20...

Obstacles to accessing mental health care. (Psychology).
March 1, 2003... UNLESS you have faced it in your own family, it is difficult to describe the upheaval and pain that accompanies mental illness. So, let us paint a picture. Imagine your daughter or wife suffers from anorexia and bulimia. She weighs just 92...

Union monopoly is bad for teachers. (Education).
March 1, 2003... FROM AN ECONOMIC point of view, teacher unions are producers of representation services and teachers are consumers of such services. Since the emergence of teacher unionization in the 1960s, the National Education Association (NEA) and American...

If you refinanced in 2002, watch out for the tax hit. (Economic Observer).
March 1, 2003... SOMETIMES, you really do have to suffer the pain to get the gain. It may feel lovely to knock your mortgage rate from, say, 9% to 6%, but make sure you've planned for the tax hit. (Let's make this simple. Unless you itemize, the rest of this...

Degas and the art of the dance. (Museums Today).(French Impressionist Edgar Degas)(Museum of Art exhibit)(Cover Story)
March 1, 2003... IN AND AROUND the bars below Montmartre in Paris, where the sometimes melancholy artist could be seen hanging out with his Impressionist contemporaries, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was known as "the painter of dancers." In literal...

How to furnish a perfect patio: homeowners are turning this once-humble backyard area into the utmost in beauty, convenience, and luxurious living. (Lifestyles).(Gloster Furniture Inc.)
March 1, 2003... DURING THE 1840s, the cry of "Manifest Destiny" was at the lips of American politicians, setting forth the need to continue westward expansion until the U.S. occupied all land coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico. This was accomplished in...

A Pocono paradise for two: Caesars Resort's suite full of luxuries is the perfect tonic for couples looking for quality time together. (Going Places).(Pocono Palace)(Hotel Review)
March 1, 2003... LAST SPRING, our family got its first taste of resort living when we vacationed at Caesars Brookdale in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. (See USA TODAY's "Going Places," September 2002). The ultra-large suites, all-inclusive amenities, in-house...

Cheap similes make for lazy journalism. (Words Images).(taking potshots at celebrities)(Editorial)
March 1, 2003... IT HAS BECOME COMMONPLACE for journalists to take cheap potshots at celebrities when writing stories that have nothing to do with them. Derogatory and often mean-spirited, these seemingly minor offenses tarnish the profession of journalism and...

Taking a realistic look at tourism in a time of terrorism: the travel industry must come to grips with the fact that it is caught in the middle of a war in which its clients can all too easily become victims. (Americans Abroad).
March 1, 2003... THE MISS WORLD RIOTS that took place in Nigeria were more than a mere fight between what some might call religious fanatics and others might call a trivial indulgence of beauty. The Nigerian conflict is symbolic of the cultural wars raging...

Disaster planning for pets. (Life In America).
March 1, 2003... IN THE OVERWHELMING tragedy of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, while workers frantically tried to find and save possible survivors in the rubble, another rescue effort was underway as well. In the evacuated apartments surrounding...

Stem cells and the new future of medicine. (Medicine & Health).
March 1, 2003... DIABETES, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's--all are deadly and often incurable, until now. In the near future, stem cell treatments could relegate them to history. Those aren't the only conditions that may end up being cured by the...

Unconventional fantasies. (Sports Scene).(sport fantasies)
March 1, 2003... THERE'S THE LONG-HELD MYTH that most sportswriters are nothing more than frustrated athletes who turned to the lettered keyboard as a way of compensating for their deficiencies on the field. "Hrrumphh!," is my reply. I wanted to cover sports...

Don't fool yourself about getting in shape. (Medicine & Health).
March 1, 2003... IF I SEE one more article or watch another news special about how Americans are so overweight due to fast food and all the other foods now available to them, I think I'll be sick from the stupidity alone. I grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s,...

Reassembling the dust: the art of biography. (Reel World).(great interest in chronicling of lives)
March 1, 2003... WHILE MY DAY JOB IS TEACHING FILM STUDIES at Ball State University, my real passion is writing. Though that often involves genre studies, such as my recent cinema criticism text, Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference, the...

Building a DVD library--the Warner way: the Warner Home Video backlist, with more than a dozen of the American Film Institute's 100 Best American Films, is a treasure trove for collectors. (Entertainment).
March 1, 2003... THE DVD REVOLUTION may have reached the point where it can be said to have conquered VHS as the dominant home video medium. Already, major studios are announcing that many of their new releases will be exclusively in DVD format, and numerous...

Treating the environment as a commodity. (Ecology).(experiments in conservation finance)
March 1, 2003... IN 2000, Adam Davis showed us a business plan by which he sought to save the world and make his fortune doing it. However it was the method he proposed that caught our attention. A committed environmentalist, Davis dreamed of quitting his...

Pest management: not for amateurs. (Science & Technology).
March 1, 2003... HOMEOWNERS who try to save a few bucks by using the do-it-yourself approach to controlling the pests in their residences sometimes risk their wallets as well as their health. The average homeowner's lack of experience and training can inhibit...

Profile of a computer. (What's New?).
March 1, 2003... * Beginning with their shipping cartons emblazoned with random black spots on a white background to resemble the hide of a cow, the people from Gateway, Inc., North Sioux City, S.D., have marched to the beat of a different drummer. Many...

A treat for the eyes. (What's New?).(home video)(MW24FM1 TV/DVD/VCR television set)
March 1, 2003... * The buzzword for the 21st century seems to be synergy, broadly defined as combined action or operation. One area in which the concept is making rapid inroads is home video. Where shelves around the television set once were laden with an...

See who you talk to. (What's New?).(Phone Video Station)
March 1, 2003... * Once again, the world of science fiction has intruded upon the commercial marketplace. All those spaceship control-room scenes with characters talking to other characters while their images appear on a video screen sort of fell into the realm...

Fighting winter dryness. (What's New?).
March 1, 2003... * We've long held that the world of winter provides the best living conditions possible, with one notable exception--we hate what it does to our family's skin, especially the kids'. What with the oil burner and fireplace going full blast inside...

Tunes to cook by. (What's New?).
March 1, 2003... * As glamorous and exciting as TV cooking shows may make it seem, working around the kitchen is an often-boring activity. Listening to music as you work helps to make chores less tedious, but counter space is usually at a premium, and room for...

Plug it in. (What's New?).(Extend-a-Cord from Arista Enterprises Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... * If there's one guarantee around the home, office, or any other place you use electronic devices, it's that you will never have enough outlets. Adding multiplug devices or extension cords often creates the danger of shorting out the outlet,...

Garage gear. (What's New?).(from Rubbermaid Home Products)
March 1, 2003... * Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines the noun "garage" as "a shelter or repair shop for automotive vehicles," which may have been the original purpose, but it's one that has changed considerably over the decades. The dictionary's...

Snake in the grass. (What's New?).(from Coil Solutions Inc.)
March 1, 2003... * Gardening season is rapidly approaching, as spring looms just over the horizon. Those who have spent a seemingly endless winter gazing out the window at snow-covered landscapes, bare trees, and a total lack of colorful foliage rejoice at the...

Feminizing snowboards. (What's New?).(from Burton Snowboards)
March 1, 2003... * It used to be that all snowboard gear was "unisex"--in other words, designed by men, primarily for men. As more and more women started getting into the sport, the manufacturers saw the potential market and started to produce boards with...

Scream down the slopes. (What's New?).(Salomon S.A.)
March 1, 2003... * Unlike the sport's early days, 21st-century skiing is definitely not just strapping on a couple of barrel staves and pointing yourself downhill. Take, for instance, the Scream 10 Pilot from Salomon, Beaverton, Ore., which the manufacturer...

In the mix. (What's New?).(Handblender from Braun Inc.)
March 1, 2003... * Until recently, the blender was the ultimate kitchen tool, performing a multitude of functions. The only trouble was that it was heavy, took up quite a bit of room, and was so powerful that using it frequently turned into overkill. Miniature...

Multi-brew drinks. (What's New?).(from Meiman Enterprises Inc.)
March 1, 2003... * We've never really bought into the philosophy that hot drinks are best in cold weather while cold drinks are intended for hot weather. We're not adverse to a steaming cup of coffee when it's 92[degrees] in the shade, nor do we shy away from a...

Beach-ed in the kitchen. (What's New?).(Hamilton Beach Inc. )
March 1, 2003... * One of the blessings (or curses, depending on your point of view) of having a great cook for a spouse is that every conceivable holiday and celebratory feast brings famished family members and hungry friends to our door. While the guest list...

Can do. (What's New?).(can opener from Cuisinarts Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... * There probably isn't a single kitchen appliance, no matter how long its concept has been out there, that hasn't been retrofitted and redesigned to make it irresistible for gadget-wild American consumers. Why should the can opener be any...

Perfect pasta pots. (What's New?).(from Gourmet Standard)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... * It's possible to be a magnificent chef even if saddled with mediocre cookware, but why go down that road if you don't have to, especially when Gourmet Standard, Kent, Wash., is ready to step into the breach with the perfect cooking...

A toast to toast. (What's New?).(from DeLonghi America Inc.)
March 1, 2003... * When the first pop-up toasters came into being many decades ago, they were a simple operation. You put in the bread, depressed the lever, and a couple of minutes later, the bread popped up, now at some degree of brown-ness and crispness....

Slice like a pro. (What's New?).
March 1, 2003... * Sure, your homemade roast beef may be just as delicious as the one behind the counter in the supermarket or delicatessen. Nevertheless, no matter how deft you might be with a carving knife, you just can't seem to cut off perfect slices the...

A cool spin. (What's New?).(from Beer Chiller Enterprises, Inc.,)
March 1, 2003... * Imagine going to the refrigerator on a hot day in search of a cold beer or soda, only to discover that the last one is gone and whoever took it neglected to restock the shelf. All of your anger and anguish will not help to quench your thirst,...

The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... BY DAVID FRUM RANDOM HOUSE 2003, 286 PAGES, $25.95 A few days after resigning as economic speechwriter for Pres. George W. Bush, having served from Jan. 20, 2001, to Feb. 25, 2002, David Frum received a call from a respected reporter asking...

Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... BY ANN COULTER CROWN 2002, 205 PAGES, $25.95 The dust jacket of Slander acknowledges that the book "continues where Bernard Goldberg's number one best-selling Bias left off," and indeed it does. Both books point to liberal unfairnesses and...

Creeping vulgarity at the Gallop. (Parting Thoughts).(social behavior)(Editorial)
March 1, 2003... THERE'S NO QUESTION ABOUT IT--refinement is out and vulgarity is in. Long gone are the Victorian days, when piano legs were skirted so as not to offend the sensitive. During the 1940s, the following joke about Pres. Harry S. Truman was...