USA TODAY articles from March 2005

USA TODAY archives from March 2005

From the publisher.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2005... "The marketplace of ideas" and "the free, unlettered flow of information" are concepts that need to be taken seriously by all journalists--we certainly do here at USA TODAY magazine. Our pages are designed to serve as an open forum for any...

Tsunami earthquake location was foretold.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... The location of the Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami across the Indian Ocean was identified--in a 10-year forecast of likely earthquake sites worldwide--almost two weeks before the tragedy by researchers at the...

Tidal waves prove technology's value.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... The tidal waves that took so many lives recently again raised the question: Why do devastating natural disasters wreak far more havoc in undeveloped nations than in advanced ones? Environmentalists often argue that disasters are caused by...

Is Bush's spending out of control?(Your Life)(U.S. President George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Pres. George W. Bush is fond of noting that Americans "are using their money far better than government would have" According to the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C., however, the President (and the Republican-controlled Congress)is spending...

Caring for parents who live at a distance.(Your Life)
March 1, 2005... Caring for an aging parent is difficult under any circumstances, but it is especially challenging, stressful, and costly for children whose mothers and/or fathers live at a distance. According to the National Council on Aging, nearly 7,000,000...

Guarding against deadly falls.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Americans have much room for improvement when it comes to preventing falls that cause serious injuries or death, a study by University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Injury Prevention Research Center staff concludes. "We found that 70% of U.S....

Guy style: making his place his space.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... It's time to add the word decorating to men's household "honey-do" lists. A study by the American Furniture Manufacturers Association, High Point, N.C., reveals that 88% of men are involved in furnishing and accessorizing their homes. Only 12%...

Growing revenue top CFO priority.(Your Life)(chief financial officers)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... What keeps financial executives up at night? Making sure their businesses are in the black. In a nationwide survey by Robert Half Management Resources, Menlo Park, Calif., 34% of chief financial officers said their company's top priority is...

Workplace inequality remains commonplace.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Black men with the same skills as white males are half as likely to rise from supervisor to manager and black women are a third as likely to do so, according to a study by sociologist James Elliott of Tulane University, New Orleans, La., and...

Workers want flexible schedules.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... What perk do today's workers appreciate most? According to 30% of chief financial officers polled by Accountemps, Menlo Park, Calif., a specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance, and bookkeeping professionals, flexible...

Being boss isn't what it used to be.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Chief executive turnover surged to its highest level since 2001, as 92 CEOs announced their departures in January, according to a survey released by the global outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., Chicago. CEO departures...

Male-on-male sex complaints escalating.(Your Life)(sexual harassment)
March 1, 2005... The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GenderPAC) states that Equal Employment Opportunity Commission statistics show that the reporting of male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace is on the rise. Claims filed by men accounted for 15% of...

Driving licence eye tests not thorough enough.(Your Life)
March 1, 2005... That good vision is necessary for safe driving is just common sense, but scientists in the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, are looking beyond the standard vision tests in the hope of developing...

DNA evidence frees falsely accused.(Your Life)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Exonerations of defendants convicted of serious crimes has more than tripled over the past 15 years as DNA and other new evidence overturned the convictions, a University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, study shows. Since 1989--when the first DNA...

Civil engineers need more education.(Your Life)
March 1, 2005... Many Americans would be surprised--if not alarmed--to learn that the people responsible for designing roads, bridges, buildings, and drinking water facilities only are required to hold a bachelor's degree while doctors, lawyers, physical...

Are Pres. Bush and the Founding Fathers on the same page?(National Affairs)(George W. Bush)
March 1, 2005... "There is, in Bush's use of... ideas, a certain ambiguity or confusion between the right to be free and the capacity to be free. The two are not quite the same." AS WE LOOK AHEAD to four more years under Pres. George W. Bush, we would do...

Who is the party of hope?(State Of The Nation)
March 1, 2005... SEVERAL DECADES AGO, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., said the Democrats were the party of hope and the Republicans were the party of memory. While the words of this eminent historian--who was an ardent Democrat--may have been an oversimplification,...

What would Patton say about the war in Iraq?(Worldview)(General George S. Patton)
March 1, 2005... WHAT CAN WE IMAGINE Gen. George S. Patton might say about the present war? Based on what he himself said and wrote, his record in the field, and what scholars have written about him, I think we have some reasonable ideas. I will begin with...

One English-speaking America.(World Watcher)(Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON, the prescient author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order again has challenged readers with another controversial thesis in Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity. The...

Isolationism: no longer is an option.(The World Today)
March 1, 2005... INTERDEPENDENCE is the governing characteristic of modern international politics. Its obvious corollary is unity of purpose. Yet, the past few years have been marked by division. The trauma of Sept. 11 and its aftermath; wars in Afghanistan and...

Economics as public policy.(Economic Observer)(Column)
March 1, 2005... EFFECTIVE ECONOMIC POLICY must go beyond conventional monetary and fiscal measures, important though they are. We need to eliminate the structural defects that depress productive capacity and productivity. These structural barriers interfere...

A tale of two Carlyles.(Business & Finance)(The Carlyle Group)
March 1, 2005... SECRETIVE: POWERFUL: politically well-connected: ex-president's club--these are words critics and the media use to describe The Carlyle Group. Successful: conservative: building value: integrity--these are words we use to describe ourselves....

Journalists under siege.(Words Images)
March 1, 2005... IT IS NOT MUCH FUN being a journalist anymore. Special interest groups have spent decades trying to convince the public that the media are not to be trusted. Government and Big Business leaders have echoed the same refrain. Top news media...

The U.S. through the lens of style.(USA Yesterday)(exhibition "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years--Selections from the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum")(Biography)
March 1, 2005... SHE WAS YOUNG, beautiful, and cultivated. She had studied European literature and art, spoke French and Spanish, and traveled abroad extensively. Her taste was impeccable--at once simple and sophisticated. She had, one might say, a modern...

Fashion's untamed wild side: whether in the form of pelts, plumes, prints, or animal symbolism, faunal apparel long has represented one of man's more primal instincts.(Museums Today)(exhibition at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York)
March 1, 2005... "WILD: Fashion Untamed" presents a historical and crosscultural examination of mankind's obsession with animalism as expressed through clothing. With more than 100 costumes and accessories on display, the exhibition focuses on the practical,...

Searching for a "Pair to Remember": a well-known shoe company has set out to find fresh faces of kids--and, apparently, canines--to be part of its latest ad campaign. Sound familiar?(Life in America)(Buster Brown Shoes)
March 1, 2005... AFTER 100 YEARS of being represented by a cartoon boy and his dog, the Buster Brown shoe brand set out looking for a new face or, more accurately, five new faces. (Actually, 10 if you count the dogs, and why wouldn't you?) The "Pair to...

The sights, smells, and sounds of the deep jungle; a giant moth with a foot-long tonque, an oversized tarantula that feast on chickens, and a band of chimpanzees capable of murder are just some of the headline acts viewers can look forward to in the upcoming PBS "Nature" mini-series.(Ecology)
March 1, 2005... AS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER of "Nature," public television's longest-running natural history series. I weed through hundreds of documentary proposals each year. Some, like the idea for a film on "homicidal animals," merit an instant pass--at least...

The nature of things at PBS.(Mass Media)
March 1, 2005... WHEN I TELL PEOPLE I am executive producer of the "Nature" series on PBS, I can tell what is going through their minds. You might call it the Indiana Jones effect. They see me trekking through the jungle with a camera on my shoulder, tracking...

A burgeoning world population.(Eye On Ecology)
March 1, 2005... DURING 2004, 133,000,000 people were born and 57,000,000 died, expanding world population by 76,000,000. This excess of births over deaths was concentrated in developing countries, which added 73,000,000 compared with 3,000,000 in the...

Helping children conquer stress: your daughter "knows about terrorist attacks and school shootings. She talks about it more than you are comfortable with.... Is she becoming the nervous type or is this simply a symptom of stress?"(Medicine & Health)(Cover Story)
March 1, 2005... YOUR CHILD IS having another meltdown. You were just about to implement your highly developed multitasking skills of starting dinner while cleaning up this morning's breakfast crumbs and arranging car pool for tomorrow. The phone rings and...

A new battlefront in the war on drugs.(Medicine & Health)(prescription painkillers)(sinal cord stimulation therapy)
March 1, 2005... SOME LAWMAKERS and various media outlets have been waging a very public war against the abusers of prescription painkillers, but they might be fighting for an unjust cause. The publicity surrounding radio personality Rush Limbaugh's personal...

Will justice be served on Andrea Yates?(Psychology)(Texas woman accused of drowning her children)
March 1, 2005... THE TEXAS STATE Appeals Court's throwing out of Andrea Yates' convictions after drowning her five children should not affect the ultimate disposition of her case. Yates should be incarcerated for the rest of her life. The evidence that she knew...

SAT 2005 quandary: natural smart vs classroom learning.(Education)(standardized educational testing)
March 1, 2005... THIS MONTH MARKS a pivotal divide in the SAT, arguably the most influential test for the nation's college-bound students, and also one of the most controversial. The elusive and once glittering perfect 1,600 score, comprised of 800 verbal and...

The limitations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.(Law & Justice)
March 1, 2005... POORLY DESIGNED corporate legislation can retard innovation and warp economic growth while good policy can create confidence in the capitalist system, encourage prudent risk-taking, and foster growth. Yet, even the most thoughtful and balanced...

A chess match with death.(Reel World)(Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal)(Column)
March 1, 2005... IN OUR LAST INSTALLMENT, I shared a tongue-in-cheek look at some American film classics. Today, I would like to focus on celebrated foreign filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and his signature "The Seventh Seal" (1957). The Swedish director is synonymous...

Major league baseball returns to the nation's capital: like many cities that have waited so long for a team, Washington, D.C., is ready to lavish its new residents with a state-of-the-art ballpark that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. However, who should foot the bill?(Athletic Arena)
March 1, 2005... DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Mayor Anthony Williams convinced Major League Baseball to move the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C.--which has been without a franchise since the Senators left town in 1971 to become the Texas Rangers--in exchange for the...

Friend of the devil.(Sports Scene)(little league baseball)(Column)
March 1, 2005... IN THAT GRAVELLY, Mafioso-style voice I'd come to know so well, my old sports editor rasped, "I'd give five years off my life to manage the [New York] Mets for just one season." He meant it, too. My reply equally was in earnest. "I'm a lot...

The making of the world series video: Boston and St. Louis took center stage for Major League Baseball Productions, with the Red Sox, previous two-time Fall Classic victims to the Cardinals, finally reversing the curse and winning their first title since 1918.(Athletic Arena)
March 1, 2005... FIRST THERE WERE newsreels, films that miraculously brought world events to wide-eyed Americans still marveling at the notion that moving pictures could be shown on a big screen in a grandiose auditorium. Years later, the creation of television...

The photography of design.(Focus)(photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White)(Biography)
March 1, 2005... MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE strode brazenly into a field dominated by men to become not only a famous photojournalist, but a celebrity personality. Trained in modernist compositional techniques, Bourke-White photographed with an artist's eye,...

It's "snow" use not being prepared.(What's New?)(socks and sunglasses for skiers from DeFect International Inc. and Julbo)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Good enough for Olympian Bode Miller, Ski-D socks from DeFect International, Inc., Hildebran, N.C., are aimed at any skier--remember, folks, there's still almost two months left to the snow-making season--serious enough to care if his or her...

Big Green Egg cooks thick red meat.(What's New?)(grill)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... The Big Green Egg "will grill, smoke, or bake literally any dish you choose, and do it better than any other type of grill at any price." Hock, we don't mind a grill with a little braggadocio in its repertoire as long as it delivers delicious...

"Jheujing" your product well.(What's New?)(mens skin care products)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Not to get all metrosexual or anything, but one vital item brought to light by shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is the importance of product, and, of course, jheujing it into your hair and skin properly. So we turned to aMenity, a...

Museum memo.(What's New?)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
March 1, 2005... What's new in museums around the country? Among the most interesting exhibitions on view are: Iraq and China: Ceramics, Trade, and Innovation, through April 24, and Asian Games: The Art of Contest, through May 15, both at the Arthur M....

Hot spots leave no spots.(What's New?)(protective blanket prevents stains from barbecuing)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Chilly weather is not a turnoff for the 60% of barbecuers who cook outdoors year round, but stains, drips, and incidental sparks can be. For between $21.95 and $34.95, you can provide reliable, lasting protection for those spots on decks,...

Break out the new leather.(What's New?)(new baseball glove from Akadema)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... For the basketball nut in your family, this month can only mean one thing--March Madness and the annual NCAA Tournament to crown the national champion. While college hoops may be drawing to a close, America's favorite sport--the national...

Believe it or not, I made that.(What's New?)(children's furniture from I Made That Corp.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... "Build it and they will come," Kevin Costner's character is told in the movie "Field of Dreams." Thus inspired, he builds a ballpark in a cornfield and Hall of Fame greats of yesteryear reunite from beyond the grave in order to play the game...

This isn't your father's Star Wars video game.(Video Game)(Mercenaries)(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 1, 2005... Mercenaries is a unique offering from LucasArts of San Rafael, Calif. This is first time the company has released a video game that is not a derivative of its Star Wars universe which existed "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." but...

The Secret in Building 26: the Untold Story of America's War Against the U-Boat Enigma Codes.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... THE SECRET IN BUILDING 26: The Untold Story of America's War Against the U-Boat Enigma Codes BY JIM DEBROSSE AND COLIN BURKE RANDOM HOUSE, 2004 273 PAGES, $26.95 The breaking of the Enigma Code virtually was as important to winning...

Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America.(by Myrna Blyth)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... SPIN SISTERS: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America BY MYRNA BLYTH ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, NEW YORK 2004, 342 PAGES, $24.95 "Spin Sisters," members of the female media elite, function as a...

Huck's Raft: a History of American Childhood.(by Steven Mintz)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... HUCK'S RAFT: A History of American Childhood BY STEVEN MINTZ HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004 445 PAGES, $29.95 George Washington never was a teenager--not because the father of our country was born at 50--but because the concept did not...

Speak Without Fear.(by Ivy Naistatdt)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... SPEAK WITHOUT FEAR BY IVY NAISTADT HARPERRESOURCE, 2004 211 PAGES, $24.95 Ever get the jitters when asked to get up before an audience to give a speech, or even present an award? You are not alone and, in our participatory democracy,...

The walking stick.(Parting Thoughts)(Column)
March 1, 2005... THE ONCE POPULAR WALKING STICK is out of style. Some say it is anachronism, as dead as the dodo bird. It certainly is true that we no longer see it on the Silver Screen--diamond-knobbed, accompanied by a flowing scarf and shiny silk top hat, a...