These competing cliches have become a touchstone of sorts in the case of a certain recently dethroned uber-goalie, and a number of local Canucks bloggers are hot-under-the-collar in response to journos insisting that the team’s only path forward is moving Luongo out to free up cap space.

It was with the goalie-gets-you-there hypothesis that many Canucks fans simply assumed that Roberto Luongo, with his ostensibly justified high salary, made it a foregone conclusion that the Canucks could go deep this year (and last year) into the playoffs.

But is it true?  Can you buy your way deep into the playoffs by splurging big on a marquee goalie?  I decided to test the theory. 

Here are a couple of quick tables that map out goaltender salaries, starting with Conference Finalists:

Chicago Blackhawks
	Starting Goalie: Khabibulin, Nikolai AGE:  35 $6.75 Million	Backup: Huet, Cristobal AGE:  32 $5.625 Million
Pittsburgh Penguins
	Starting Goalie: Fleury, Marc-Andre AGE:  23 $5.00 Million	Backup: Garon, Mathieu AGE:  30 $509,000
Detroit Red Wings
	Starting Goalie: Osgood, Chris AGE:  35 $1.417 Million	Backup: Conklin, Ty AGE:  32 $750,000
Carolina Hurricanes
	Starting Goalie: Ward, Cam AGE: 24 $2.667 Million	Backup: Leighton, Michael Age: 27 $600,000

… and here’s another showing the dropouts from the Conference Semifinals:

Vancouver Canucks
	Starting Goalie: Luongo, Roberto AGE: 29 $6.75 Million	Backup: Labarbera, Jason AGE:  28 $461,000
Washington Capitals
	Starting Goalie: Varlamov, Simeon AGE: 20 $155,000	Backup: Theodore, Jose AGE: 31 $4.5 Million
Boston Bruins
	Starting Goalie: Thomas, Tim AGE: 34 $1.1 Million	Backup: Fernandez, Manny AGE: 33 $4.333 Million
Anaheim Ducks
	Starting Goalie: Hiller, Jonas AGE:  26 $1.3 Million	Backup: Giguere, JS AGE:  31 $6 Million

Here’s what may have changed:  with today’s salary cap consciousness, overspending on a goalie means that it becomes more challenging to build a team in front of him.  This is a reality which, as I pointed out the other day, is hitting Gillis in the face at the moment with the Sedins asking for a fortune and more than 10% of the team’s salary budget tied up in one player, Roberto Luongo, and another big chunk presumably being allocated to The Twins.

Perhaps more interesting than the above table is this chart I whipped up (covering the regular season, 2008-2009) which shows that splurging on goalies doesn’t necessarily deliver absolutes either:

What’s the lesson from all this data?  First:  clearly, individual salary is not entirely predictive of individual performance.  Second:  When you account for outliers like Chicago, Detroit and Carolina, there is a slight inverse corresponence to goals against and goalie spending (ie. you get scored on more when you spend less on goalies) for NHL teams.  However, the margin of difference is only about 20%, and this year four of the six biggest goalie spenders were gone within the first two rounds.  Only Chicago (which is extremely top-heavy on goalie salary) and Pittsburgh (at $5.5M) remain among the big-spending playoff teams.  What makes the difference at the top end?  A hot rookie.  Or, in the case of Detroit, an underappreciated veteran with a bad agent.

Chicago found itself in a fortunate position this year with a fairly low player salary budget (so many rookies and sophomores) that it could invest in fairly known quantities in Huet and Khabiboulin.  That’s depth that may be required to take them through the next two rounds in the playoffs, and it is a strategy that is quite unique to the NHL — but shows that Chicago is the first team to truly embrace the cap and turn a limitation into a key advantage.

So for the playoffs this year, there’s a really interesting opportunity to see which strategy prevails.  What does this mean for the Canucks?  As the very sage Ben Nevile, one of my commenters pointed out the other day, Schneider could be the difference — but for now, he’s very much a wildcard.

The Canucks could indeed trade Luongo if Schneider were to make a Cam Ward-ian appearance at the beginning of next season, and this could provide the team with an immense advantage overall … but until then?  Gillis is hamstrung, unless he can throw together a deal to move Luongo and get a veteran lower-priced goalie in return as a part of the package, which is quite possible.  But few teams have the cap room, and you’d hope to move him to the East Coast so as to prevent having to deal with him on a routine basis all season long (I doubt very much he’s interested in moving to Edmonton anyway).

The major lesson of the above analysis, therefore, is that a goalie on his own might get you through a season — but not the playoffs.  That takes a broader depth chart, thanks to video preperation, off-ice scoring strategy, and the isolation of a goalie’s weaknesses that emerges from playing him 6 or 7 nights in a two-week period.  Had Luongo not been injured and had such a slow recovery when he did return, I’m sure he could have propped the Canucks up to a league-leading points total … but with modern-day goalie-busting techniques, such as he and Varlamov felt in their respective final games, teams can no longer (if they ever could) ride the goalie through the playoffs.

The Canucks in particular are at a dangerous precipice between the pipes… but from threat comes opportunity.  Do the Canucks trade their best player to address both?

Below is a chart on several key players, some relevant data, and what I think I might try to do:

	Roberto Luongo Age: 30 Salary:  $6.75mm Expires:  2010 W-L:33-13-7 GAA: 2.34
It becomes quite difficult to solidify a reputation as the best goalie in the league when you continually play for dog teams that can’t perform in the playoffs.  This team (and every team you’ve played for) leans far too heavily on your unique talent but east of Cambie street you get very little respect in this league.Giving you the captaincy (even without the C sewn on) was a bullshit PR move and could only have served to cause you to lose focus and get off the bead of what it is that you do so well.  Get back to being “just” the greatest goalie ever, stick with us through some changes, and for emotional balance leverage the two guys you have in your own back yard that have lots of mental toughness and carried weak teams through the playoffs:  Richard Brodeur and Kirk McLean.  The armchair GM would be happy to hire them as consultants to focus on the mental aspects of your play.
	Mattias Ohlund Age: 32 Salary:  $3.5mm Expires:  2009 25 points
I think we’re going to lose you to an East Coast team in bidding this summer. Vancouver fans don’t respect your contribution enough.  I think you’ve had a tough couple of years trying to fit into the Vigneault system, which has required you to take too many penalties and lose focus from your offensive play.I don’t want to lose your grit, but the budget’s tight.  I’d like to sign you to a multi-year contract at your present salary, but I doubt you’d go for that considering who’s been calling.  So I would hope to keep you here with a two-year at $2.5mm — and it’ll be hard to find room under the cap for that.  You’re a franchise player.  Stay here 3-4 more years and we’ll retire your jersey, give you a shot at a cup with some rebuilding, and you can play in front of the home crowd for Sweden in 2010.
	Sami Salo Age: 35 Salary:  $3.5mm Expires:  2011 25 points
What, are you made of porcelain?  We need you to play a whole season.  Please ensconse yourself in bubble wrap and suspend yourself with bungee rope in a lcoked room between games.  We’d like the keys to your Porsche — we’ll be sending a driver in an armoured, padded vehicle with a 7-point safety harness to pick you up for games from now on.If you can put together a full season you’re awesome — but we can’t keep backfilling you.  Fans love you.  I like saying your name with a Squire Barnes lisp.  What the hell: you can’t go anywhere, we’re not trading you… get out of my office and back to the gym (though please pick up some tensor braces and make sure you stretch thoroughly in order to prevent injury or strain).  Please do not buy a Segway or any two-wheeled vehicle.
	Taylor Pyatt Age: 27 Salary:  $1.575mm Expires:  2009 19 points
You are six-feet four, and you weigh 235 lbs.  In today’s NHL that is neither lean enough to be fast, nor thick enough to be tough.  You’re a UFA this summer.  I don’t understand why Vigneault continues to throw you on the ice in critical situations — end of the game, power plays, penalty kills, etc.  You are almost always behind the play.You were a healthy scratch several times in the past two years.  You are being given chances to showcase your skills (probably because we were hoping to trade your ass) but you’ve really let us down.  19 points in 69 games, especially given the guys you’ve played with, means you haven’t been a factor at all.You have NO grit, speed, nor puck-handling dexterity.Happy to let you go — but if you want to stay here 1) figure out what kind of player you are, 2) hire a personal trainer and develop this summer, and 3) we’ll pay you $1M on a one-year contract.  Sorry about your tragic loss, but this is a business.
	Mason Raymond Age: 23 Salary:  $833.33K Expires:  2010 (RFA) 23 points
In your case, I don’t think the stats have told the story.  You’re a hungry, fiery player with grit and I feel that AV has completely underutilized you.  For a 6’0 guy to be the team’s fastest skater is impressive.  You’ve gotten your feet wet in the league, you played your way onto this roster, and you’ve tasted the playoffs.  Now you need to play your way up to the second line.  I think you could be huge as a forechecker and your hands are awesome.This is your sophomore NHL summer.  You’re only 165 lbs. soaking wet.  Would like to see you bulk up without losing speed, just to prevent you from getting knocked around too much.  Work on the upper body, not just the legs, and eat a sandwich once in a while.  You’re great kid, now get out of my office so I can deal with the next guy.
	Willie Mitchell Age: 32 Salary:  $3.2mm Expires:  2010 23 points
Hockey loves the hometown boys.  Port McNeill is pretty close to Vancouver.  Check.OK somebody liked you last summer and gave you a pretty rockin’ deal despite a weak season.  This year you did a lot better, so she time is right to keep that momentum and own the zone.  At times this year I watched you and you seemed to have your head in the clouds, crossing over inexplicably and floating the puck when a slap-pass was required.  Your turnover stats look pretty bad.  You are, though, a big part of the breakout.  If Ohlund goes this summer, you’re a huge part of the defensive corps and the younger kids will be looking to you for leadership.  At times you seem disinterested in defensive play.  Get angry in September and find your grit.Step up, and we’ll renew next summer — no probs.  Want you to finish your career here.
	Alex Burrows Age: 28 Salary:  $2mm Expires:  2010 51 points
You have played your way onto every team throughout your career.  With 52 points in 82 games you have really delivered in 2008-2009, particularly since AV has not always played you on top lines.  You’re probably the fittest player on the team, and a role model for guys making twice your salary.Your unique attribute is your work  ethic.  You need some bulk up top, because when you eventually settle into second line left-winger status you’re going to get tossed around like a bean bag.  I think you’re going to look like the bargain of the century in two years.  We’ll get you a speedy centre to get things going.
	Kyle Wellwood Age: 25 Salary:  $998K Expires:  2009 27 points
I’ve known and played with a lot of guys like you who never got the chance to play in The Show.  You’re immensely, naturally gifted as a player but as a teenager it always came so easily to you that you never really developed a work ethic.  After a few years with the Leafs you became a guy constantly on the bubble, and nowadays that is what is driving you.Wake-up call:  We signed you and put you on waivers (for no really good reason) last year after you failed the fitness test, and nobody even called.This is it.  I’ll sign you right now for $800K for a year because I know I’m the only guy who’ll take a chance.  You’re still on the bubble.  We saw flashes of brilliance this year, but you’re still falling behind.  That’s OK if you use this summer as your time to train like crazy, make me a liar, and come back to camp in lean and mean shape with some speed that can match those hands.  Keep skating all summer.
	Mats Sundin Age: 38 Salary:  $7mm Expires:  2009 28 points
You’re no Neidermeyer.  You’ve proven that you can’t sit out half the season and expect to compete in the NHL.  You came back from semi-retirement old and slow and not nearly pissed-off enough.  You hoped the Sedins and Luongo would carry you to your ring but we did not get the leadership on the ice I’d expect to see from a guy who’s been a consistent 70-80 point-getter for 10 years — and one that we paid $4 million bucks for.So yes, this is goodbye.  There’s no role on this team for you, but I think you knew that.  I always knew you were a summer rental.  See you at the retirement press conference, and enjoy the flight back to Sweden.  And when the Rangers call?  Don’t do it.  You’ll smear your glorious Leafs legacy (choke).
	Ryan Kesler Age: 24 Salary:  $1.75mm Expires:  2010 59 points
When we originally signed you, we thought you were the next Trevor Linden.  It hasn’t exactly been an easy path, and so you were often on the bubble.  This past year you really shined.  What I’d like to see you deliver is a 75-80 point season in 2009/2010 as a center.  If so, you could be our future and we’ll hit you with a contract at least as sweet as your wild-eyed three-year, $2.475-million entry level contract a few years ago.Time to step up and deliver on the promise that we saw when we passed up Mike Richards and Corey Perry for your ass.  I’d like to think you could be the captain of the team but not yet.  One more season like this year’s and we’ll talk about it when you’re up next sumer.  You play better when you’re hungry.  You ought to be a second-line centre by now.
	Kevin Bieksa Age: 27 Salary:  $3.75mm Expires:  2012 43 points
This was the best year of your career, despite a couple of injuries that had us leery.  You’ve showed real toughness at times and delivered 43 points offensively which made you the top-scoring D-man on the team.We have however noticed your defensive play suffering.  You’ve made some brutal bets on the pinch and lost, creating momentum-killing 2-on-1s and leading to some highlight reel goals for other teams.  Luongo can only do so much to cover for a defenseman who’s not even in the play.  Additionally, while we like your grit, we hate your timing.  Pitchforking that guy in Game 5 vs. Chicago with 6 minutes to go almost definitely cost us a Game 7.Clean it up and work on your D game and you’ll be worth every penny.
	The Sedins (H D) Age: 28 Salary:  $3.58mm Expires:  2009 82 points each
You each got 82 points this year — one each per game — with no injuries.  Once again, you were absent for much of the playoffs.  You need to understand that people will key in on you and work with the Right Winger we give you.  Because you are a package deal, any team that signs you to a big contract is going to mortgage their whole future to do so.  I know the Rangers will call. Anyone who can sign you both won’t be able to field a very good team beyond your line.We have invested a lot in you and consider you to be franchise players.  I would match any offer up to $4mm each and for 3-4 years, but above that I’m pretty hamstrung by trying to surround you with the league’s best goalie and a strong D.  But ANYONE who signs you at your presumed asking price, given that there are two of you, will be challenged to surround you with a talented team.
	Alain Vigneault2007 Jack Adams award winner 2007/08: 39-33-10 2008/09: 45-27-10
Some coaches are able to work their magic in the locker room, some do it by running perfect practices, and others do it behind the bench.  In the regular season great practices, and solid locker room and off-ice leadership keep teams healthy, prepared, and in-the-game.  In the playoffs, though, coaches do their work behind the bench.As this was your first career NHL playoff run as a coach, I guess we can’t be too harsh with you for losing.  I have to be honest — watching what happened in Chicago, where the Hawks clearly changed the entire complexion of the play without any adjustment or response from the Canucks — I wanted to fire you.  But then, reflecting on the stats of the regular season, I think we just need to develop you and get you some help.Speaking of which…
	Trevor Linden Requires no introduction.
Hey Trev, ‘sup?  Feeling refreshed after a year off, freed from the shackles of watching Naslund flail as a Captain and watching the NHLPA eat itself alive trying to maneouvre with that weasel Gary Bettman?We miss you.  Fans still show up to games wearing #16 jerseys.  You cast a long shadow, my friend, and rumour from some former Canucks players has it that even thought you didn’t wear the “C” these last few years in Vancouver, you were.  Suffice to say:  You cast a long shadow.Within the next 16 months, Ryan Walter or Rick Bowness will be moving on.  I’d say you’re a shoo-in for Assistant Coach.  The salary sucks, but face it — you bleed blue and green.
	Cody Hodgson Age: 19 Salary:  $875K Expires:  2011
I think we made the smart decision growing you slowly this year, sending you to the Battallion, letting you play on Team Canada in the Canada-Russia series, and now pulling you up to the Moose.  Your play has been exceptional — now you know what it’s like to spread your wings and rock the ice and be a dominant force.Next season please arrive at camp prepared to play in the NHL.  Speed and dexterity are your biggest assets, and you’re big enough not to get tossed around.  Toughness and grit will have to come over time.  You’d make a great roommate for Burrows — only you’re a little more talented than Burrows — because he’ll keep you focused on your fitness and work ethic.  Don’t let this go to your head, we’ll give you a lot of PP ice time next year, probably playing on the Right Wing.
	Marian Gaborik MINNESSOTA Age: 34 Salary:  $3.2mm Expires:  2009
Wanted:  RIGHT WINGER who can hold his own with the Sedins, stand in front of the net when he has to, and wire shots top-corner while hapless defensemen chase the Swedes around in the corners.  Hey Marian, know anybody?Oh that’s right… your pal Pavol is on the Canucks, hit 53 points, and will be here til summer 2010.  Unless of course we can’t attract you as a free agent this summer, in which case we’re going to trade his ass (he nets a $4 million salary).  Since your injury makes you a bit of a risk, I’ll throw $3.5mm on a one-year contract to you but would discuss anything up to $4.0mm on a two-year deal.  If the latter, then you’ll be riding to games in the bubble van with Sami Salo.We’ll try you with the Sisters, and if that doesn’t work out I’m sure you’ll enjoy spinning around the ice with Demitra.  And hey, Willie’s here too… you remember him?
	Ossi Vaananen Age: 28 Salary:  $1mm Expires:  2009
I checked my magic 8-Ball: “future hazy”.  Will re-sign for 2 years at $875K.  Otherwise, seeya.  Thanks.  See you in September.  PS – there are too many vowels in your name.
	Alexander Radulov Age: 22 Salary: $919K Expires: 2009
Ok now, if ever there is a Russian player destined for first-line greatness in the NHL, it is 22-year-old Alexander Radulov.  He is, though, the centre of a huge controversy between the NHL and the Russian Kontinental Hockey League.  Last year, though he was signed to a pithy $1mm contract with the Predators, he ended up inking a three year deal worth $13mm with the KHL’s Salavat Yulaev Ufa.  This contract was signed days before a treaty agreement was reached between the NHL and KHL regarding transfer of players. The Russians view this as payback for the yanking of Ovechkin and Malkin, among a host of others, into the NHL from domestic clubs. What’s happened to the Preds now is essentially what might have happened to the Canucks had they not been able to lure Bure overseas after picking him so many years ago.  This summer, the stage is set for a Battle Royale between the NHL and the KHL’s Alexander Medvedev — the outcome of which might mean Radulov’s return to the National Hockey League as an unrestricted free agent.  This will be THE story of the summer.
	Maxim Afinogenov Age: 29 Salary: $3.5mm Expires: 2009
Building on the Russian Right-Winger theme:  Hey Max!  How would you like to play with the twins?  I know things have been sucking in Buffalo lately.  You need a change of pace!  Your scoring is off, but I think you’ve got potential.I’d throw you a three-year, $3.0mm bone to head over to Vancouver where the ladies will love ya, the Sedins will pass to you, and you can head back up the roster to the first line and net around 75+ points.  Sound good?  Sign here.

Going back over this post, I have committed the Canucks to around $50mm, give or take $2mm.  For instance I’d obviously be happy to say goodbye to Pyatt were Afinogenov to be lured to the team.  But with a cap of $56.7mm next season for team salaries, that leaves very little room and I have filled 15 of 23 roster spots.

According to HockeyBuzz O’Brien, Bernier, Rypien, and Hansen are also key free agents this year.  They will be demanding salary bumps and presently the four of them account for about $4.5mm all in.  Add to that Edler’s $3.25mm salary, Demitra’s $4mm, and various odds & ends, and that’s another $9mm unaccounted for in my planning.

The reality is that the Canucks are not going to be able to strengthen the roster substantially from within the Free Agency market.  The youth movement, as Chicago has evidenced, where underpaid young players overperform, is where teams get a solid strategic advantage these days. This places heavy emphasis on Hodgson to crack the lineup and be a dominant player in 2009-2010, as the Canucks don’t have much else under development.

That said, a couple of things happened this past year:  1)  Salaries inflated across the board, but teams are seeing revenue decline, and 2) The economy collapsed, and the NHL started talking about lowering the cap in the next few years.  This will see teams being far more conservative in their offers to Free Agents, which will be enhanced by the frankly startling diversity of talent that is set to hit the market in June.

So:  Will Ohlund take a pay cut to stay with the only NHL team he has ever known?  Will Bernier (and other teams) recognize that he’s not worth $2.5mm yet?  Will Hank and Daniel bankrupt the team that has developed them into Top 20 players by making a big cash grab, or would they like a shot at the cup?  If they reach for a $6mm salary each, as some suspect, the twins and Luongo alone could account for more than one third of the team’s salary cap at nearly $20mm.

Mike Gillis has a real problem.  If few or none of these situations plays in his favour, then I suspect it’ll be 5 or more years before they have a team in contention… and they’ll have to do something the Canucks are rarely successful at doing:  developing a group of players from the draft into top-line players right away.  It could be a very long winter indeed, even by Vancouver fans’ standards.

… all of which underpins the fact that, strong or not, this was probably Vancouver’s best chance at a Stanley Cup for the past 15 years, and at least the next 5.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: bitbitch
> Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 4:50:45 PM US/Pacific
> To: FoRK
> Subject: Male birth control that actually works (and no, this isn’t a
> spam ad)
>
> Fanfucking -tastic. As for the argument that men don’t like having
> their junk touched, to this I say, ‘Too damn bad.’ If RISUG is for
> real, I think the number of men being forced to choose between a
> little shot in the nuts versus no sex will explode like Viagra. I
> just hope its true, and it happens.
>
>
>
>
>
> About Time.
>
> http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/schulman081303.asp
>
>
> * The Sperminator *
>
> */ A new injection for men could shake up the world of contraceptives
> /*
> *
>
> <just 4
> percent of couples in Niger have access to birth control. Although the
> situation in this West African country is extreme, more than 125
> million couples worldwide — most of them in developing countries —
> cannot get contraceptives. Some of the children that have resulted
> from these couplings were wanted and some were not, but one thing is
> certain: Lack of access to birth control increases the burden on
> already strained parents and on the global ecosystem.
>
>
>
> Sujoy Guha, professor of biomedical engineering at the Indian
> Institute of Technology in Delhi, believes he has the answer to this
> problem. Highly regarded in India for his work on everything from
> disability rights to drinking-water purification, Guha has spent the
> last 25 years perfecting his invention, Reversible Inhibition of Sperm
> Under Guidance, better known (thankfully) as RISUG. RISUG, he says,
> has all the advantages of the perfect contraceptive — and, some would
> say, a surprising bonus: It’s made for /men./
>
> RISUG works by an injection into the vas, the vessel that serves as
> the exit ramp for sperm. The injection coats the vas with a clear
> polymer gel that has a negative and positive electric charge. Sperm
> cells also have a charge, so the differential charge from the gel
> ruptures the cell membrane as it passes through the vas, stopping the
> sperm in their tracks before they can even start their journey to the
> egg. RISUG doesn’t affect the surrounding tissues because they have no
> charge.
>
> Compared to the other male contraceptive choices currently available
> — abstinence, withdrawal, condoms, and vasectomies — RISUG is a
> whole new ballgame. In fact, Guha and others believe, the
> contraceptive promises to be even better than the choices available to
> women. Guha enumerates six advantages of his invention:
>
> * First, neither sexual partner has to interrupt the throes of
> passion to use it — no more running to the bathroom and fumbling
> with various ointments and plastics.
>
> * Second, the process, once it is refined and approved, will be
> completely non-surgical. /Whew,/ say a lot of men.
>
> * Third, it’s long-lasting. According to Guha, a single injection
> can be effective for at least 10 years.
>
> *
>
>
> Fourth, after testing RISUG on more than 250 volunteers, neither
> Guha nor other researchers in the field have found side effects
> more worrisome than a slight scrotal swelling in some men
> immediately following the injection. This swelling goes away after
> a few weeks. Compare that to the Pill, which even today can cause
> health problems ranging from severe migraines to blood clots.*
>
> <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/
> schulman081303.asp#toronto>, who says men’s attitudes toward
> contraception are changing. “In Canada, 10 years ago, it used to be
> tubal ligations [the more-invasive female equivalent of a vasectomy]
> to vasectomies were performed at a ratio of 2 to 1. Now that number is
> reversed.” Weiss believes a lot of men would prefer a procedure that
> wasn’t permanent. And, he says, RISUG is the most promising male
> contraceptive out there.
>
>
>
>
> Still, there’s been a lot more media fervor over the possibility of a
> male version of the Pill — even though its potential side effects for
> men include everything from liver damage and prostate problems to what
> is referred to in the literature as gynecomastia. Translation: Men
> growing breasts.
>
> Weiss thinks RISUG is preferable. “The only people who should be
> excited about the male Pill are pharmaceutical companies,” he said. He
> believes so much money has been poured into researching the Pill
> because pharmaceutical companies want something consumers will have to
> buy again and again — as opposed to an inexpensive, one-time
> injection. In the U.S., a decade of the female Pill costs about
> $3,600. RISUG would be dramatically less expensive, while
> pharmaceutical companies would have to pay $25 million to $40 million
> to bring it to market.
>
> But from the consumers’ point of view, RISUG could be a godsend during
> the approximately 30 years the average person spends trying not to
> cause a pregnancy. It would mean fewer women getting cancer from the
> Pill or having their uteruses perforated by an errant IUD. It would
> mean fewer men having to choose between the risk of a burst condom or
> the permanence of a vasectomy.
>
> And in the developing world, RISUG would mean much more.
>
> *This Little Injection Went to Market …*
>
> “Realize that overseas there just aren’t decent options,” said Elaine
> Lissner, director of the Male Contraception Information Project. “By
> the time condoms arrive there, they’re cracked by the heat. Poverty
> and lack of medical follow-up are a problem. You can’t use a diaphragm
> if you don’t have clean running water. You can’t use an IUD if no
> medical treatment exists if something goes wrong. You can’t use the
> Pill if it’s too expensive.”
>
> In the developing world, RISUG’s price tag could be brought down to
> about $22, the price at which Guha and Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals
> Ltd. (the largest Indian drug company) are planning to market it in
> India. This makes RISUG potentially affordable by even the world’s
> poorest.
>
> Studies have shown that when couples in the developing world start
> having fewer children, both the health and literacy of the children
> improve, and mothers are more likely to survive long enough to raise
> their kids. Moreover, families with fewer children have less impact on
> the natural world, because they are not as desperate for firewood,
> water, and bush meat.
>
> This “less children/healthier environment” connection has become so
> clear that wildlife organizations have started to team up with
> family-planning groups in biodiversity-rich areas of the world. In the
> Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, Conservation International
> is working with Mexfam to slow the clearing of the forests as well as
> to offer people there the option of reproductive health care.
>
>
>
>
> Inevitability, talk of providing contraceptives to people in
> developing countries raises allegations of racism — but there’s a
> huge difference between forced eugenics and offering people the choice
> to control their own fertility. According to Save the Children, 72
> percent of Sweden’s population has access to contraceptives; why
> shouldn’t the same choices be available in Niger? With the world’s
> population growing by 77 million people per year, access to
> contraceptives is not something the industrialized world can continue
> to hog.
>
> So far, what’s holding up the potential marketing of RISUG outside of
> India is safety testing. Although the Indian medical community
> maintains that its safety testing is better than that of the U.S.,
> Jeff Spieler, chief of research at USAID’s Office of Population and
> Reproductive Health, said, “The pre-clinical toxicology testing in
> India [on RISUG] was weak.”
>
> Lissner agreed that some of the older studies should be redone, but
> given the near-perfect record of RISUG so far, she noted, “If I were a
> man, I’d feel safer having RISUG injected than eating non-organic
> fruit.”
>
> RISUG will probably soon be marketed in India, but the U.S. will play
> a critical role in determining its use elsewhere in the developing
> world. Grants from U.S. agencies, corporations, and nonprofits spur on
> a significant portion of the world’s research. But, said Waller of the
> University of Illinois, “If funds from the U.S. are paying for another
> country’s research, then the research has to be already approved by
> the FDA. Otherwise it looks like we’re using the rest of the world as
> experimental subjects.” Thus, lack of interest in RISUG by the U.S.
> helps delay its use around the world.
>
> Meanwhile the developing world waits.
>
> As Lissner said, “Every month we delay means thousands more women
> dying in childbirth, more families in poverty from too many children,
> and more women dying in attempted abortions.”
>
>
> *[Correction, 14 Aug 2003: This article originally stated that birth
> control pills can cause ovarian cancer. In fact, studies show that the
> Pill can protect women against ovarian cancer.]
>
> *[Correction, 18 Aug 2003: This article originally stated Ronald Weiss
> is based in Toronto. He is based in Ottawa.]
>
>

Callers to New CEO Dial Up Sex Hotline Tue Apr 29, 9:35 AM ET Add Oddly Enough – Reuters to My Yahoo!

CHICAGO (Reuters) – American Airlines employees that used to dial 1-800-AA-CARTY to hear a message from their CEO may be in for a big surprise now that Gerard Arpey has taken over.

1-800-AA-ARPEY currently leads callers to a sex hotline.

So what will the world’s largest airline do to relay information to employees?

“We obviously will not use that number,” said American spokeswoman Tara Baten.

American employees had grown accustomed to dialing in to the hotline to hear occasional messages and words of encouragement from Don Carty, the former head of their company. Their colleagues at other airlines have similar CEO hotlines.

Baten said American is still reviewing whether it will continue to have a hotline at all. The airline also sends a daily e-mail to employees and has a monthly employee newsletter that appears on the company’s internal Web site.

“I’m sure that Mr. Arpey wants to ensure that American has the best employee communications programs and processes available,” Baten said.

It is unlikely, though, that Arpey’s communication with employees will be as colorful as the “fantasy talk” that the sex hotline promises.

When we make a phone call to London, do we say we’re about to be going onto the Global Telecommunications Net? No. We say we’re making a phone call. Insodoing, the notion of the network itself is completely abstract, which is how it should be with internet technologies.

-Ian.

——- Who Owns the Internet? You and i Do

December 29, 2002 By JOHN SCHWARTZ

SOMETHING will be missing when Joseph Turow’s book about families and the Internet is published by M.I.T. Press next spring: The capital I that usually begins the word “Internet.”

Mr. Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, studies how people use online technology and how that affects their lives. He has begun a small crusade to de-capitalize Internet – and, by extension, to acknowledge a deep shift in the way that we think about the online world.

“I think what it means is it’s part of the everyday universe,” he said.

Capitalization irked him because, he said, it seemed to imply that reaching into the vast, interconnected ether was a brand-name experience.

“The capitalization of things seems to place an inordinate, almost private emphasis on something,” he said, turning it into a Kleenex or a Frigidaire. “The Internet, at least philosophically, should not be owned by anyone,” he said, calling it “part of the neural universe of life.”

But, he said, dropping the big I would sent a deeper message to the world: The revolution is over, and the Net won. It’s part of everyone’s life, and as common as air and water (neither of which starts with a capital).

Some elements of the online world have already made the transition. Internet often appears with a lowercase I on the Internet itself – but then, spelling online is dreadful, u kno.

Although most everybody still capitalizes World Wide Web, words like “website,” and the online journals known as weblogs (or, simply, blogs) are increasingly lowercase. Of course, the Internet’s capital I is virtually engraved in stone, since Microsoft Word automatically capitalizes the lowercase “i” unless a user overrides its settings.

For Mr. Turow, the first step in his campaign was persuading his book editor to enlist. She compromised, dropping to lowercase in newly written parts and retaining the capital in older articles reproduced in the book.

Then he nudged Steven Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and president of the Association of Internet Researchers. Mr. Jones was cool to the idea, until he looked at copies of Scientific American from the late 19th century, and noticed that words for new technologies, like Phonograph, were often uppercased.

Today, Mr. Jones is a crusader himself.

“I think the moment is right,” he said, to treat the Internet “the way we refer to television, radio and the telephone.”

He shared his view with a few hundred close friends last month at a meeting of the National Communication Association, an educators’ group. “I just noticed everybody’s attention kind of snapped forward,” he said.

“I’m used to having people say nice things,” he said. “We’re scholars, not wrestlers. But this time I was struck by the number of people who were saying the equivalent of, `Right on!’ ”

DICTIONARY editors, though, have dismissed Mr. Turow politely but firmly.

Dictionaries do not generally see themselves as making the rules, said Jesse Sheidlower, who runs the American offices of the Oxford English Dictionary.

“What dictionaries do is reflect what’s out there,” he said. He and his fellow dictionary editors would think seriously about such changes after newspapers make them, he added.

That could take a while. Allan M. Siegal, a co-author of The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage and an assistant managing editor at the newspaper, said that “there is some virtue in the theory” that Internet is becoming a generic term, “and it would not be surprising to see the lowercase usage eclipse the uppercase within a few years.”

He said, however, that the newspaper was unlikely to make any change that was not supported by authoritative dictionaries.

Time to ask Robert Kahn, who is as responsible as anyone for the creation of the Internet, having helped plan the original network that preceded it and having created, with Vinton Cerf, the language of computer networks, known as TCP/IP, that allowed the vast knitting-together of systems that gave birth to the modern medium.

He cares deeply about the name, having led a fight for years to ensure that its use is not restricted or abused by the corporation that received the trademark in 1989.

A settlement was reached two years ago with the company now known as Concord EFS. The company agreed that it would not dun people who used the word, which meant that “Internet” now belongs to everybody, Mr. Kahn said.

“We defended the right of people to use the word `Internet’ for what we think of as the Internet,” he said.

THAT was the important fight, according to Mr. Kahn. “Whether you use a cap I or little I” hardly matters, he said.

Which leads us back to a profound question for Mr. Turow: Don’t you have anything better to do?

“That’s a really interesting question,” he said. “I was an English major. I’m very sensitive to the nuances of words, and I’m very concerned about the nuances, the feel that words have within the society.”

Fair enough; Perhaps the next big thing, after all, will be small. At least initially.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/weekinreview/ 29SCHW.html?ex42598268&ei=1&en·c54935904cfee7

———–

Toy Stories

*If you want to reduce serious adults to silly smiles, ask about their favorite childhood toy – the one they held onto for years, or perhaps still have. Some toys live long beyond the days of boyhood and girlhood.*

*By Ross Atkin * | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Who says that toys are just kid stuff? When mountains of gifts are opened tomorrow in homes across the US, their young owners may discover that they’ve been given passports to a world beyond any they’ve known. The toys they unwrap may transport them to distant stars and faraway countries, to a land of fantasies and imagination, where they get to be astronauts, parents, and kings or queens.

What the young recipients might not realize until much later, though, is how much of an impact those toys could have on their adult lives.

Some playthings nurture, instill creativity, or make tough times easier for a child. But the best toys open the doors to the future by fostering deep-seated interests and talents – and their effects can last for a lifetime.

Just ask Caryn Amster. When she was barely tall enough to be seen behind the cash register, Ms. Amster helped out in her parents’ Wee Folks toy store on 79th Street in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood.

Over the years she has seen, time and time again, how profoundly a toy can change a child’s life.

In fact, she is so convinced of the power of child-toy ties that she is writing a book about her parents’ store and the toy memories of some of its former customers.

She recalls two boys who often visited the store and grew up to be engineers.

“Did their meticulousness come first,” Amster wonders, “or did they learn to be meticulous by building these very intricate 450-piece boats, the battleships and sailing ships that came in huge boxes?”

No one can say for sure what the connection is, but it’s generally agreed that the how isn’t that important. The outcome is what matters, and for generation after generation, toys have taught important lessons.

*My first teddy bear*

One of the earliest lessons may be that the world, while a big and strange place, can also be soft and inviting.

Toys allow children to nurture and feel nurtured, according to Dolph Gotelli, who teaches environmental design at the University of California, Davis. That’s why Professor Gotelli gives teddy bears to the infant children of friends. Those bears provide a warm welcome to the world for their young owners, and the comfort they offer can stay with children for years.

Stewart Goodbody, a professional woman in New York, knows this firsthand. Ms. Goodbody received a Velveteen Rabbit on her first birthday and still has it. “Having my stuffed animal for 24 years has been a great source of comfort for me,” she says.

Some children, growing up in turbulent times, find solace and understanding in a particular toy. Weeble Wobbles are a good example. Created in 1969, the egg-shaped plastic people may have looked kooky, but their family ties and counterweighted bodies gave them a lovable quality.

“Weeble Wobbles were absolutely wonderful,” says Rebecca Laurie, a media relations specialist at the University of Denver. “It is the only toy set that I can think of in the late 1970s and early ’80s – during a time of mass divorce and the liquidation of the nuclear family – that seemed to promote family and togetherness.

“The Weebles weren’t perfect. They rolled around if you tipped them over and had two-dimensional faces, almost as if they were clumsy,” she says. But they allowed children to play house and deal with real-life issues while also “being injected into a fantasy world.”

Fantasy worlds, whatever form they take, aren’t just fun for children, they are valuable training grounds, say experts. They give children a chance to try on new situations and develop their values in enjoyable, low-pressure ways.

Take, for example, the Lionel electric train that Richard Culver of Salisbury, Mass., received the year he was 6.

The toy didn’t cause him to grow up to work for a railroad, but it did have a lasting effect on his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

It might be expected that it would instill a lifelong romance with rail travel, and that’s true. He takes Amtrak whenever he can, sitting in the back of the train so he can envision a red caboose like those that intrigued him as a boy.

But it was the village he created inside the tracks of his toy train that impressed him the most – and continues to influence where he lives as an adult.

“The village fascinated me – it would change each year in some way,” Mr. Culver says. “It was nothing special, just decorated cardboard houses with cellophane windows, bottle-brush trees, and the essential mirror lake with skaters, all on cotton batting.”

Still, simple as it was, “it formed my vision of what a town should be,” he says. “I’ve never been a suburbs guy. The New England village is still my ideal of the American community.”

*Creating an imaginary world*

Toys such as Culver’s train are important in children’s lives because they encourage them to draw on their imagination and creativity, says Gotelli. In many cases, he adds, such playthings reflect a desire to mimic the adult world.

When Whit Alexander was growing up at the height of the space race, he dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Playing with his Major Matt Robinson action figure, he created elaborate space adventures, using the household pets as “designated aliens.”

His wish to be a space traveler didn’t come true. The Seattle resident instead worked for Microsoft and became cocreator of Cranium, a well-known board game. But he does see the toy astronaut’s lingering influence on his life. “I recently took up flying lessons, and that sort of brings the dream of flight a little closer to reality,” he says.

Gotelli also created living-room “productions” when he was a boy. In his case, the main character was a Howdy Doody marionette, which now hangs on his studio wall. Today, he teaches a class called “Fantasy, Imagination, and Creativity,” and often uses toys from his collection in class discussions. He laments the rise of computerized toys and the demise of those that tap a child’s imagination.

*Connecting generations*

But Gotelli would wholeheartedly approve of a gift like the one Kurt Praschak of Pompton Plains, N.J., received as a child. Most of his boyhood toys have long since vanished, but Mr. Praschak continues to hold onto several hundred toy dinosaurs, many of which were purchased for him by his grandfather.

Through playing with these plastic miniature dinosaurs, Praschak developed a fascination with fossils, and he has passed it – and the toys – along to his 7-year-old son, Derek.

When Praschak was a boy, he felt that the toy figures represented power, excitement, and mystery. “Let’s face it,” he says, “most kids love dinosaurs.”

Even today, he glues himself to the TV to watch Discovery Channel specials on the prehistoric themes and devours news reports about major new fossil finds. “I suppose it all traces back to that old box of dinos,” he says.

Beyond fueling his continuing interest in prehistoric life, he sees the miniature dinosaurs connecting four generations of males in his family. When his son is playing with the toys, he’s “connecting in some way with a great-grandfather he never met,” Praschak says. “I sit in my living room and watch him having an absolutely great time with the very same toys that captivated me decades before. It’s almost like being able to open a door on the past and revisit my childhood.”

*When I grow up, I want to be…*

For some children, however, a toy doesn’t just foster an interest, it sets them on their future career path.

Tom Holland of Calabasas, Calif., can attribute not just one but two careers to toys he received as a boy. A 1964 Sears 8-mm moviemaking kit led to his becoming a television producer. But the nostalgia for a number of toys from his youth also caused him to form Windmill Press, which reprints pages from Sears and Montgomery Ward toy catalogs from the 1950s to 1980s. These are filled with nostalgia-inducing photos of such classics as Betsy Wetsy dolls, light sabers, Twister, and a tea set made from real china.

Toys “help us explore new things and shape our personalities,” Mr. Holland says.

Cynthia McKay of Castle Rock, Colo., loved Monopoly growing up, but was always struck by how some players ended up penniless at the end of the game. As a result, “I decided to attend law school, hoping to work as a pro bono or consumer lawyer, representing the ‘underdog,’ ” she says.

“With my legal background I began a corporation to assist individuals and would-be entrepreneurs hoping to make their mark in life. I finance them with no interest and watch their motivation grow into a viable living.”

Monopoly also made a difference in the life and career of Phil Orbanes of Danvers, Mass. He worked for Parker Brothers for 12 years – serving as chief judge of the US and world championship tournaments during that time – and is currently writing a history of the company. He now owns a classic games company.

Everyone can learn life lessons from Monopoly, he says – especially how to compromise and negotiate. “A player who is obnoxious or a bully or browbeater gets shut out of trades,” he notes. “But the best players handle things with such finesse…. As a result, if you lose to them, you feel like you’ve lost to a worthy opponent.”

*Girls remember ‘boys’ toys’*

There are perhaps as many lessons as there are toys, but in some cases children have learned about the ways of the world from the playthings they did /not/ receive. This was especially true for the girls in past decades who asked for toys they didn’t get.

Instead of chemistry sets and telescopes (often thought of as most suitable for boys), they were given dolls, carriages, and Easy Bake Ovens.

Ann Hatch of Texas, who grew up in the late 1950s and early ’60s, agrees that toys reserved for boys had an impact on young girls that was every bit as great as the Barbie dolls so many owned.

“I’ve always loved space and science fiction, but girls just didn’t get spaceships and ray guns and other cool stuff like the boys did,” she says. “So when I had a son many years later, and Star Wars was at its peak, I relived my childhood through my son’s space toys, movies, and Princess Leia.”

Sharon Hussey of New York City is one of many female baby boomers who, because they received only “girl toys,” reserve their fondest childhood memories for gifts given to their brothers or male friends.

“I loved playing with my brother’s Erector set and chemistry set,” says Ms. Hussey. “I was more interested than he was in those things, but those were considered boy things, and although my parents didn’t discourage me, they didn’t think to get me my own.”

Today, this experience factors into her job as a senior vice president with Girl Scouts of the USA. “My work,” she says, “is focused on making sure that girls feel valued and empowered and that their sense of curiosity and adventure is not constricted by gender.”

As the tomboy daughter of toy-store owners, Amster didn’t have to wait for a brother or male friend to get the toy she wanted. She had the pick of any product in her parents’ business. One of her favorites, she recalls, was a pair of Fanner 50 toy revolvers, which allowed her to play shoot-’em-up games with the boys in the neighborhood. With her toy gun, she could be “one of the guys.”

*Their own wheels*

But somehow the division between toys most suitable for girls and for boys didn’t necessarily extend to wheeled vehicles. Women today, therefore, are as apt to remember a favorite bike as men are.

Ms. Hussey viewed her bike as a surrogate horse when she was growing up in Brooklyn: “I remember the feeling of both adventure and self-sufficiency that came with being able to get around on one’s own.”

Bicycles weren’t the only vehicles competing for girls’ affections. Big Wheels – those funky, low-slung tricycles – were also a big hit. Not the least bit sedate – as most traditional “girls’ toys” could be – plastic Big Wheels practically screamed speed and excitement.

Liza Gutierrez-O’Neill of Boca Raton, Fla., was one of the few girls on her street who owned a Big Wheel, and she recalls relishing the daredevil instincts it brought out in her.

Heather Wilkins of West Hollywood, Calif., took part in Big Wheels competitions against friends for the best “skid out – the longest black mark on our parents’ driveway.” As an adult, she often recalls those experiences, since she handles public relations for Razor Scream Machines, the stylishly revamped “Big Wheels” of today.

Ms. Wilkins wants another generation to experience the same sense of excitement and delight that she did when riding on her Big Wheel – feelings that come from a toy that allows children to dream big and expand their horizons while having a good time.

And that, say experts, is what the best toys are all about. They open up a world of fun, a world of possibilities. That’s why just the mention of them has the power to make adults smile, even decades later.

———–

December 12, 2002 The Wi-Fi Boom By ADAM BAER

ON a brisk autumn day in Portland, Ore., Paul van Veen was soaking up some sun as he logged on to the Internet – from a spot in bustling Pioneer Courthouse Square. Mr. van Veen was looking for a job, and he was surfing the Web over a free wireless connection.

These days, Pioneer Courthouse Square is but one of some 140 public spots across Portland with free Internet access using a high-speed wireless technology known as Wi-Fi. The network of such Wi-Fi “hot spots” throughout the city was developed by Personal Telco, a grass-roots, nonprofit group devoted to blanketing the city with free access points.

Portland and Personal Telco are just part of a growing national trend. There are community groups promoting public Wi-Fi access in nearly every large American city, from NYCwireless, which “unwired” Bryant Park and Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan, to KC Wireless in the Kansas City area. They have been joined by independent cafes and restaurants, apartment houses and community centers across the country that view free, easy access to the Internet as a draw for customers.

At the same time, subscription services and pay-as-you-go Wi-Fi hot spots are springing up in cafes, bookstores, hotels and airports, put in by companies like T-Mobile and smaller, start-up competitors like Boingo Wireless and Wayport. Last week, Cometa Networks, a new company backed by Intel, AT&T and I.B.M., said it planned to put a network of thousands of wireless access points across a huge swath of the nation by 2004. The result is a growing array of options for Wi-Fi users and the emergence of a mobile wireless culture that spans business travelers, teachers and students, people relaxing in coffee shops and even moviegoers waiting for the show.

All that is needed for laptop users to wander with Wi-Fi (the name is short for “wireless fidelity”) is a piece of hardware called a Wi-Fi card – perhaps a $100 investment – and where the access is not free, a one-time or longer-term service provider. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most users are male, under 40 and comfortable with technology.

The technology is, however, becoming more accessible. People who use paid hot spots like those offered by Wise Zone, Wayport and T-Mobile simply open their browsers to log on. Users of free city networks like NYCwireless are asked to agree to the network’s “acceptable use” policy, and if they do, they are on the Internet for six free hours until they have to sign on again.

Wi-Fi is also changing the way that people – at least some young, technologically adept people – go about their work. In Philadelphia, Yvonne Jones, a 33-year-old freelance copywriter, moved her base of operations to a Starbucks about a month ago and said she quickly became “a thousand times” more productive than she was when working at home. “It’s not your house, and you are there for a specific purpose, so the ‘distractions’ aren’t that distracting,” she said.

Frank Bonomo, who is between apartments and living with his parents on Long Island after losing his job at a dot-com, spends nearly every workday at a Starbucks in Greenwich Village. Mr. Bonomo, 24, is building a freelance practice as a Web producer, managing online advertising and message boards for design firms. He uses an account with T-Mobile to stay in touch with his clients by e-mail and instant messaging. “I commute here from the Island so I can be close to the offices of my three to four regular clients,” he said.

Mr. van Veen, who is looking for work as a wireless systems engineering manager, said he was using the public Wi-Fi hot spot in Portland to research a “hot job lead” because the connection was so much faster than his home connection. “At home, you generally use a standard phone line,” he said. “This downloads at 200 kilobytes a second, which is just lightning quick.”

Actually, under ideal conditions, Wi-Fi offers even greater speeds – 11 megabits per second, exceeding those typically achieved by high-speed home connections through cable modems or digital subscriber lines. Connection speeds slow, however, as a user gets farther from the source of the signal, which has a range of about 300 feet.

Ryan Palmer, a Portland-based consultant who studies human-computer interactions, said public wireless access had allowed him to be more efficient and enjoy himself at the same time. Mr. Palmer, 27, was on a business trip to Austin and wanted to sample the authentic Texas barbecue that he kept hearing about, but he also had some work to finish. He was able to do both at Green Mesquite BBQ, a restaurant with a recently installed free Wi-Fi access point.

“It’s nice to surf the Web and enjoy some good food,” he said, adding that the Internet connection at his hotel was so slow it was “painful.” He said: “I feel empowered. I’m not a stranger in a strange land anymore.”

It took Mr. Palmer 15 minutes of fiddling with the settings on his laptop to get a connection at the restaurant. “I had to play around a little bit,” he said. “I’m still not confident that someone could walk in off the street and do it.”

Not everyone can. Jodi Avant, 41, who is studying for teacher certification at the University of Texas at Austin, uses wireless frequently on campus, where it is widely available. As part of her program, she had to buy an Apple iBook with a wireless card to do schoolwork and communicate with teachers and other students.

She tried and failed to log on to the free Wi-Fi hot spot at a Schlotzsky’s Deli near the campus. “I brought it here, set it up and played around with it for half an hour,” she said. But she did not know what settings she needed and there was no help available in the restaurant.

Ms. Avant, who lives near Schlotzsky’s, visits the restaurant with her children every Saturday. They stay about an hour and use the wireless Internet terminals provided by the restaurant. She checks her e-mail while her 7- and 11-year-old sons play games and her 8-year-old daughter visits sites like www.funjail.com. Ms. Avant said she planned to keep trying to get through to the Schlotzsky’s network on her own computer. “It’s a lot better than my dial-up at home,” she said. “The only downside is I can’t print anything.”

People who use public Wi-Fi networks have another option: they can use the same setup to connect to wireless networks at home, at the office and at school. Running a Wi-Fi network in an office is only slightly more involved. Janine Kurnoff, who runs a Portland company that trains sales and marketing professionals, has maintained her Wi-Fi network for a year and a half. “There’s a little bit of setup involved, but less than an hour of work,” she said. “You don’t have to configure anything. The computer sees your network and picks it up.”

Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, a girls’ school in Bellevue, Wash., was part of Microsoft’s Pioneer School program on incorporating technology into the curriculum in 1996. Now each student’s tuition buys a Wi-Fi-ready laptop.

“There’s a lot of instant messaging going on,” said Diane Burgess, 39, the school’s information technology manager. Ms. Burgess said classes were no longer disrupted by cellphones, parents message their children to arrange pickup times, and students regularly share files for collaborative projects. “Wi-Fi lets them do group work from anywhere on campus,” Ms. Burgess said. “It’s a really freeing experience.”

Beyond the hardware and software difficulties that users like Ms. Avant have encountered at public Wi-Fi spots, there are traffic considerations: connection speeds can slow if the number of users on a network picks up. And some home Wi-Fi users have reported that the systems, which operate on the 2.4-gigahertz frequency, are subject to interference from cordless telephones and microwave ovens. Ms. Burgess said that water, which absorbs the wireless signal’s energy much like food in a microwave oven, can interfere with a home network and that glasses, clothes and other clutter can obstruct the signal. “It actually helps me keep my home cleaner,” she said. “My kids keep their rooms absolutely streamlined now.”

Security is also a concern for open networks. Mark Malewski of NexTech Wireless, a Chicago-based nonprofit group that is trying to organize grass-roots Wi-Fi networks, said there were steps the hot spot operators could take to help. “We have an authentication server that tracks usage,” he said. “Without that, a lot of people could plug in an access point and share it with those who could conduct fraudulent activity.”

Security concerns will become more important as public Wi-Fi networks spread and more people use them. Statistics on use of the technology are elusive, but according to Gartner, a consulting company in Stamford, Conn., the number of Wi-Fi cards sold in North America this year is on track to jump 75 percent over 2001, with another 57 percent gain over this year expected in 2003. William Clark, research director at Gartner, said that the number of frequent Wi-Fi users was expected to grow to 1.9 million next year from 700,000 in 2002, with the number of public hot spots in North America likely to nearly triple by the end of next year from about 3,300 now.

In fact, this growth is responsible for casual Wi-Fi use beyond the high-tech vanguard. Sherry Bough, 56, and her husband, Bob, 59, live at the Austin Lone Star RV Resort, a gated park with a heated pool, a playground and a Wi-Fi network, for six months a year to be near their children. The Boughs used to order a phone line whenever they stayed in one place for more than a month so that they could use their dial-up Internet connection to track their investments, check e-mail and search the Web. Now they use the park’s Wi-Fi network.

“It’s amazing how fast it downloads,” Mrs. Bough said of the network, which was installed earlier this fall and offers fee-based service by the day, week or month. Still, she said, it took her a couple of hours to connect the first time. “It was a little bit confusing,” she said. “To me, that’s where they’re failing right now.” To use the wireless network, the Boughs had to buy a U.S.B. card for their computer and they updated to Windows 98; Mrs. Bough said they also needed to install more memory.

James Westberry, 55, is another part-time resident at Austin Lone Star. He works in Austin, the state capital, when the Legislature is in session, advising lobbyists for small telephone companies like the Eastex Telephone Cooperative, where he works. He goes home to Tyler, Tex., on the weekends.

“I have to have high-speed Internet wherever I’m at,” he said. “Otherwise I’d be at a hotel or have an apartment.” He uses it to download bills, attend committee meetings online and to check e-mail.

Public Wi-Fi has also begun to change the way people play. Jack Swayze, a 27-year-old technical-support worker in Vienna, Va., gathers with laptop-equipped friends at Wise Zone hot spots around Washington to team up for live-action shooting games like Unreal Tournament 2003 and Medal of Honor, which they play against other Web “posses.” “The connection is as reliable and fast as my connection at home,” he said.

At the Alamo Drafthouse North, a movie theater in Austin, wireless access is available in the four screening halls. Tim League, the theater’s 32-year-old owner, installed the Wi-Fi access in concert with Austin Wireless, which set up the system after he agreed to offer it to viewers free.

Mr. League uses the network to offer Internet-based activities to entertain viewers before movies. He is testing interactive trivia programs and audience polling contests and expects to have one running soon. “I’ve always thought it strange that the slides you see before movies still exist,” he said. “That the practice hadn’t changed in 30 years just seemed silly.” He shows animated videos that are downloaded from the Web using a Wi-Fi-equipped computer in his projection room. “Viewers also use the Web to research movie facts or catch up on their work or e-mail, though we ask them to close their laptops when the show begins,” he said.

Entertainment is the main motivation behind Shane Nixon’s experiments with public Wi-Fi. Mr. Nixon, 34, was trying to log on to a Wayport hot spot at the Austin airport last week while he waited for a flight to Bowling Green, Ky., where he lives.

A construction and maintenance coordinator who travels three weeks a month, Mr. Nixon had been using dial-up connections while on the road to chat with his wife by instant messaging and to play card games with her on sites like www .mysticisland.net. He had just installed a wireless network at home so that he, his wife and two sons could go online at once, and he was trying to connect wirelessly on the road for the first time. When he could not log on, he used his cellphone to call Wayport’s technical-support number, but his cellphone battery died. Despite the technical problems he encountered, Mr. Nixon said he would probably stick with Wi-Fi. “I’m gone all the time, so that’s a way to keep in touch and do something together,” he said.

Mr. Nixon noted another virtue of high-speed chatting. “You can talk all night long,” he said, “and you don’t have a large phone bill.”

———–

Want to find out about the anti-war movement in America? Forget network news and tune in to Jerry Springer, says Duncan Campbell

Tuesday December 10, 2002

Tom Hayden was one of the main figures in the anti-Vietnam movement in the Sixties, arrested in 1968 during the anti-war demonstrations in Chicago and charged as a member of the Chicago Eight.

So it was interesting to see him addressing a gathering at the Westwood United Methodist Church in Los Angeles last weekend, called “Beyond the Battlefield – the Real Costs of War” and comparing the national mood then and now.

Opposition to the war on Iraq was far greater, he said, than the opposition to the war in Vietnam at a similar stage. But he did not feel that this was reflected by the media. “The anti-war movement does not have a voice in the national debate equal to our numbers,” he told 1,400-strong gathering at the church. “The corporate media has ignored or trivialised the movement … the talk shows are filled with right-wing pundits or failed military officials.”

He criticised both the New York Times and the public television network PBS for underestimating the numbers at the recent anti-war demonstrations in Washington.

So does the media deliberately ignore the opponents of a war in Iraq? Two journalists, one from the New York Times and one from the LA Times, addressed this issue in a lunchtime meeting at the day-long conference.

The NY Times journalist, Bernie Weinraub, acknowledged – as did the paper itself at the time – that a mistake had been made in under-reporting the demonstration. A long article covering the anti-war movement appeared shortly afterwards. But he said that people could not expect that every small demonstration was worthy of a new story.

The LA Times journalist, Robin Abearian, said her paper had already set up a war desk and she had asked them who had been assigned to cover the peace movement, which had now been taken on board. Regarding the lack of coverage of 80,000 people marching against the war in San Francisco that same weekend, she said, “sometimes bad calls are made”.

Many in a sometimes hostile audience clearly believed that the mainstream media has been deliberately under-reporting the extent of the anti-war movement. This is delicate territory for the media. The Guardian has often been criticised over the years for not covering marches and demonstrations or for not giving them the weight they deserve. The issue has been the subject of more than one article by our readers’ editor.

But what is noticeable about the television news in the US at the moment is a lack of any of the voices to which Tom Hayden referred. The war is now covered almost as a given with whole segments devoted to scaring everyone to death with talk of smallpox or anthrax and retired military and diplomatic gents speculating endlessly at third or fourth hand.

It took Jerry Springer, of all people, to say the unsayable – that most ordinary Americans are very keen on tackling Osama bin Laden and al Qaida, but have no great interest in extending the war to Iraq. All a war would achieve, he said, would be to create a whole new generation of people who hated Americans and it was thus patriotic to oppose the war.

This week, dozens of well-known actors will sign a letter to President Bush expressing their opposition to the war. Last week, hundreds of clerics of all faiths did the same in a full page advertisement in the New York Times. It will be interesting to see whether all this now starts to get as much coverage as all the military hardware and smallpox.

Email duncan.campbell [at] guardian.co [dot] uk

———–

-Ian.

—-

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncidW8&e=6&cidV8&u=/nm/ 20021129/bs_nm/airlines_united_dc

United Air Bankruptcy Could Come in Weeks 2 hours, 55 minutes ago Add Business – Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Kathy Fieweger

CHICAGO (Reuters) – United Airlines is likely to file for bankruptcy within the next two weeks unless it can soon get a new wage-cut deal from reluctant mechanics and a crucial federal guarantee of a $1.8 billion loan, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Mechanics at United, the No. 2 U.S. airline, on Wednesday rejected $700 million in proposed pay cuts over 5-1/2 years. The rejection sharply increased the odds of bankruptcy as a $375 million debt payment comes due on Monday.

Shares of United’s parent UAL Corp. (NYSE:UAL – news) fell 31 percent on Friday, and a major credit rating agency downgraded the company’s long-term debt.

“The mechanics’ vote makes bankruptcy virtually inevitable for United and UAL,” wrote Philip Baggaley, an analyst for credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

The mechanics’ rejection jeopardizes pay-cut agreements achieved by sister unions, including those for pilots and flight attendants. All the unions involved said the givebacks were contingent on every union taking part in the sacrifices.

UAL shares closed off $1.12 at $2.51 in active trading on the New York Stock Exchange (news – web sites). The stock was the largest percentage loser on the exchange.

Various media reports have listed Dec. 2 as the likely day for a bankruptcy filing, but sources familiar with the matter said that was never the actual deadline to turn to the courts.

For one thing, United still has no debtor-in-possession financing lined up to keep operating, even though sources said it has been talking to major banks, including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM – news) and Citicorp (NYSE:C – news), along with GE Capital (NYSE:GE – news) and Boeing Capital (NYSE:BA – news).

UNITED HAS GRACE PERIOD

The debt payment due on Dec. 2 is on aircraft-backed securities called Enhanced Equipment Trust Certificates, publicly held debt that has better protection generally and under U.S. bankruptcy law than other forms of credit. There is a 10-day grace period, however, for United to make the payments to creditors without being considered in default.

In a bankruptcy proceeding, issues must be resolved within 60 days, according to section 1110 of the federal code, and after that lessors and financiers have the right to take back their planes, engines and spare parts.

During the grace period on the EETCs that runs until Dec. 12, United will work feverishly to get a new deal with union mechanics and will again press its case to federal officials weighing the loan guarantee, sources said.

The International Association of Machinists, District 141M, said on Thursday its 13,000 members rejected their portion of a $1.5 billion wage concession deal by a 57 percent margin. Some 24,000 other IAM members, including public service workers and baggage handlers that are part of a separate bargaining unit called District 141, approved their portions of the cuts that totaled $800 million.

United, based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, said it immediately began new talks with the mechanics. But union spokesman Joe Tiberi on Friday said no such talks had taken place or been scheduled.

After long negotiations, United recently secured agreements for wage cuts of $5.2 billion from the leadership of five unions as part of a financial recovery plan. That plan is a cornerstone of its loan guarantee application, which is being considered by the Air Transportation Stabilization Board.

That government board was established last year to help airlines struggling financially with the fallout of the Sept. 11 hijack attacks.

A spokeswoman for the board had no comment on United’s case. The board has not said when it would decide on United’s application but a decision was expected soon because of the carrier’s debt-payment deadline and other financial pressures.

TIME PRESSURE

Even though there still may be time for a new agreement with mechanics, analysts said on Friday it was highly unlikely United could avoid bankruptcy.

“Time is running out for UAL to come up with a restructuring package to go to the ATSB to secure a $1.8 billion loan guarantee,” said Blaylock & Partners analyst Ray Neidl, who cut his investment rating of UAL to “sell” from “hold.”

“We had expected the memberships of all the unions to approve the changes,” Neidl said. “With this setback, it looks like a bankruptcy filing cannot be avoided.”

S&P on Friday cut its long-term credit ratings for UAL and United to its third-lowest “junk” grade other than default.

“Even if an agreement is reached, the Air Transportation Stabilization Board is not likely to approve a business plan that scales back promised labor concessions from levels already challenged by some as being insufficient to help correct United’s high operating cost structure,” S&P’s Baggaley said.

The airline, bleeding about $8 million in cash daily, is willing to modify some aspects of the tentative agreement but must have the same amount of concessions from mechanics — $700 million, according to Chief Financial Officer Jake Brace.

Paul Whiteford, head of the United pilots union, said on Friday he was still hoping for a deal from the mechanics, saying: “I hope that they can continue to reach an agreement for an out-of-court recovery.”

Like other U.S. airlines, United has posted billions of dollars in losses since last year’s attacks on New York and Washington. Unlike other airlines, United is 55 percent owned by employees, and both pilots and machinists have seats on the board of directors.

———–

The struggling fast-food icon is hoping to regain its luster with a splashy new ad campaign. Don’t count on it. The problems run deep at America’s leading burger empire. McDonald’s (MCD) just announced its seventh earnings decline in eight quarters. The stock price is hovering near a seven-year low, and the CEO is warning of layoffs. It’s not just the weak economy. Toss in rising anti-American sentiment around the world and a recent report highlighting America’s child-obesity problems, and it does indeed seem like the worst of times for the Golden Arches.

The company’s response: Bring in the great persuaders. Under pressure from Wall Street, McDonald’s has retooled its top marketing team, hired some celebrity pitchers, and launched an aggressive new U.S. advertising campaign.

The McMarketers are certainly experienced. Larry Light, named chief global marketing officer last month, has logged nearly four decades in the business, including key posts at Bates Advertising and BBDO Worldwide. Longtime McDonald’s insider Bill Lamar took over U.S. marketing duties in August. And just last week, the company brought in Kay Napier, a 20-year marketing veteran from Procter & Gamble (PG). For additional consulting help, the company has even coaxed Happy Meal inventor and marketing legend Hal “You Deserve a Break Today” Schrage out of retirement.

So what’s coming out of this bunch? A reported $40 million advertising campaign touting McDonald’s new value menu. Produced by DDB Worldwide in Chicago, the “Got a Buck, You’re in Luck” theme is reportedly fronted by, among others, a real estate tycoon (Donald Trump), two tennis stars (Venus and Serena Williams), and a loudmouth lawyer (Johnnie Cochran). It also features the return of two McDonaldland characters (Grimace and the Hamburglar).

According to McDonald’s spokesman Bill Whitman, the campaign is about good food and great value. “We’re conveying that message with celebrities people know and with characters they feel good about,” he says. Little more than two weeks into the campaign, McDonald’s claims that sales have risen 2 percent. The new marketing push is the public face of a turnaround plan, announced in September, that includes a $1 billion budget to remodel stores during the next two years.

Yet while McDonald’s is certainly focused on its new message (Whitman repeated the phrase “great value” nine times during a brief chat with Business 2.0), the strategy seems misguided. With its sudden conversion to lower prices, McDonald’s is playing a desperate game of catch-up. Wendy’s, for one, has had a national value menu in place for more than a dozen years, and Burger King announced its own “99 cent” menu last month. So no points here for innovation.

But even more confounding is the choice of spokespeople. Does anyone associate Donald Trump with value? Or Johnnie Cochran? Are we to believe that either of the über-athletic Williams sisters regularly eats a Big N’ Tasty burger, at any price? And how does pairing any of these folks with mysterious fuzzy characters help get the word out?

It all feels like another desperate experiment in a long line of desperate experiments (McCafes, a McKids clothing line, a McDonald’s ketchup brand, the Golden Arch Hotel in Switzerland, the Chipotle Mexican Grill and Donatos Pizzeria, and on and on).

McDonald’s difficulties — market oversaturation, increasing competition, menu problems, disgruntled franchise owners, and more — are too big for a quick marketing fix, no matter who, or what, is doing the persuading.

———–