US leaders rethinking Iraq tactics

from the October 26, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1026/p01s03-usfp.html

Some have indicated flexibility on troop levels, but stop short of any major changes, experts say.

By Peter Grier Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON

The Iraq war can still be won.

That may be the basic message that US officials have been trying hard to convey to an uneasy American public this week.

From President Bush on down, an unusual array of administration and military leaders have stepped up to podiums in recent days and talked about the precepts of the US approach to Iraq. Among other things, they've indicated flexibility on such things as troop levels, and said they don't foresee any US withdrawals for at least a year to 18 months.

But nothing they've said indicates major changes in US strategy, say some experts. And even top generals say that Iraq's ultimate outcome won't fully depend on military power.

There can't be any long-term security in Iraq "without the political decisions and accommodations that must be made in that country," said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a press briefing on Monday.

This week's parade of press appearances has included an unusual joint briefing in Baghdad by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George Casey, the top military commander in the region. General Pace followed with his own media conference at the Pentagon in Washington. On Wednesday, President Bush himself took questions at the White House.

Mr. Bush acknowledged that the spike of violence in Iraq has been worrisome. "The events of the past month have been a serious concern to me and a serious concern to the American people," he said.

Bush said that he would send more US troops if General Casey requested them. But he added that it would be dangerous to set a fixed timetable for the eventual withdrawal of American forces.

The US will set benchmarks for the current Iraqi government on such critical tasks as cracking down on private militias. But Bush added that Washington won't put more pressure on the Iraqi government than it can bear.

The administration will carefully consider any proposal that might help achieve victory. But "there is tough fighting ahead," said Bush. "The road to victory will not be easy. We should not expect a simple solution."

Though mid-term elections are now less than two weeks away, the administration denied that it was engaging in a concentrated media campaign on the Iraq war that involved American military commanders.

That said, the overall message of the appearances might best be summed, not as "changes will be made", but as "changes might be made, at some time in the future," according to some experts in the US.

The discussion about possible changes in troop levels, for instance, was not particularly new, says Michele Flournoy, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who was a Department of Defense planner during the Clinton administration.

"I didn't interpret anything they were saying as a change in strategy," says Flournoy.

Casey has been musing in public about possibly bulking up US forces for some time. But few additional troops may be available.

The readiness of non-deployed military units in the US is now at an all-time low, says Flournoy of CSIS. Calling up additional units from the Guard and Reserve might be politically difficult.

Real changes in strategy might be such things as appointing former Secretary of State James Baker to carry out shuttle diplomacy in the region, or increasing by ten-fold the number of US military advisors embedded with Iraqi military units.

"Those are the kinds of things it would take" to make a real difference in the region, says Flournoy.

Troop levels have long been one of the most-discussed aspects of the US military approach in Iraq.

Critics have said that the current level of US forces there, about 144,000, is too low, and reflects an obsession on the part of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others to prove their own theories about the power and flexiblity of light forces.

Secretary Rumsfeld has heatedly denied this charge. He and other Bush officials say that troop levels in Iraq reflect the requests of US generals. Bush himself reiterated on Wednesday that the military is in charge of military matters.

"That's how I've run this war," he said.

Yet more troops might allow the US to better implement the so-called "ink spot" theory of stabalization in Iraq, said Council on Foreign Relations fellow in Middle Eastern studies Steven Simon at a recent forum on the way forward.

Two more divisions - which Simon admitted would be hard to find - could allow stabalization of Baghdad, and then a gradual, step-by-step process of stabalization of remaining restive areas.
The western province of Anbar, hotbed of the insurgency, might be left for last.

"You try and get as much of the country under control and get the Iraqi government's influence embedded in those areas," said Mr. Simon. "And with more troops, you might be able to do it."

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GOP slips at Foley scandal's epicenter

from the October 27, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1027/p02s01-uspo.html

Florida's red-tinted 16th District may swing blue after US Rep. Mark Foley resignation.

By Warren Richey Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
HOBE SOUND, FLA.

Florida's 16th Congressional District is a classic political gerrymander drawn to favor Republican candidates over Democrats. Shaped like a squashed plumber's wrench, it meanders across eight counties to link Republican strongholds on Florida's east and west coasts.

But even the fanciest handiwork of Republican line-drawers in Tallahassee may be of little comfort to Joe Negron this election season. He is the former state representative from Stuart tapped by the Republican Party to run for the seat left vacant by disgraced US Rep. Mark Foley amid the Congressional page scandal.

Mr. Foley's former seat is one of the four most vulnerable Republican congressional seats in the Nov. 7 election, says the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. It is considered a key contest in a national push by Democrats to gain 15 or more seats to take control of the House of Representatives and elevate Nancy Pelosi to House speaker.

Although Florida's 16th Congressional District is designed to produce Republican winners, analysts say this year may be different.

"It is going to be a very tough go for Negron to win," says Del Ali of the independent polling firm Research 2000.

Two weeks ago, a poll by Mr. Ali showed Mr. Negron trailing Democratic candidate Tim Mahoney by 7 percentage points. The pollster says Democrats are more fired up than Republicans, and that independent voters in the district - a critical voting bloc - favor Mr. Mahoney by 30 points.

"If Negron becomes competitive with independents, that is how he would pull it out," Ali says. "He has got to take it to within five or six points."Democrat hits hurricane insurance
Mahoney, who runs a financial- services company, is critical of the local economy and skyrocketing hurricane insurance rates in campaign appearances and ads. He is also pushing the need for change in Washington.

Negron is hoping to capitalize on campaign stops by Gov. Jeb Bush, who is said to enjoy a 60-plus percent approval rating among district voters.

Both candidates can stake legitimate claims to the political center. Mahoney is a former Republican, while Negron is a former Democrat.

But Negron faces a particularly difficult obstacle - he must find a way to win an election without his name appearing on the ballot.

Because Mr. Foley resigned so late, Republicans were barred from changing the ballot. Election law in Florida establishes a strict deadline for ballot changes. If a candidate withdraws after the deadline, the original candidate's name remains on the ballot, though a replacement candidate receives any votes cast for the original candidate.

A similar situation arose in 2004 when the Democratic challenger in a race in nearby Palm Beach and Broward counties suddenly pulled out for health reasons. Although the new candidate's name did not appear on the ballot, signs were posted in each precinct to help clarify the situation.

Following Foley's departure from the current campaign, elections officials were discussing the possibility of posting similar precinct signs. The proposed signs were designed to explain that a vote for Foley would be counted as a vote for Negron. The signs also explained that a vote for the Democratic candidate, Mahoney, would be counted as a vote for Mahoney. The balanced wording on the posted signs was intended to avoid granting an unfair advantage to any one candidate, while at the same time preventing voter confusion.

The state Democratic Party sued to block not only precinct signs but any verbal communication between poll workers and voters concerning Foley's name on the ballot or Negron's candidacy. Last week, a state judge granted the Democratic Party's request for an injunction. Circuit Judge Janet Ferris barred election officials in the 16th District from posting special signs or verbally explaining why Negron's name was not on the ballot and why Foley's name was still on.

Poll workers can't help voters

The ruling marks the first time a judge has ever interpreted Florida election law so broadly to bar any mention of a candidate in response to a voter's question. State officials are appealing Judge Ferris's ruling. Some poll workers are referring to Judge Ferris's ruling as a preelection "gag order."

Early voting began this week. Negron campaign workers are positioned outside the polls to stress to voters that a vote for Foley is really a vote for Negron.

David Levine, a Republican committee member in Martin County, has been manning the parking lot outside the polls at the Hobe Sound Library. "There is a very high rate of awareness" of the ballot issue, he says. "There was only one person I had to explain the whole situation to. Everyone else knows it."

Political analysts say that early voters tend to be more politically aware. The real test will be on Election Day when independent undecided voters arrive at the polls, analysts say.

When Hobe Sound poll worker William Harrington was asked about the Foley-Negron-ballot issue, he said, "I can't answer any question about that. We're under tight restrictions."

He added: "We received on Monday morning a sheet saying we could give no assistance as to candidates and we were warned that there might be people like you testing what we do."

One voter, Anita Hunt, said she overheard a man complaining loudly to officials manning the Hobe Sound precinct. "He was saying all kinds of four-letter words and 'I don't understand this,' " Ms. Hunt said. She said she heard the poll worker suggest that the man should ask his wife for help with his question. She said she heard the poll worker tell the man, "I can't advise you."

Despite the incident, voters emerging from the polls at Hobe Sound said they had no problem voting for the candidate of their choice - including many who said they voted for Negron.
"It is not confusing at all," said Jean Aldridge, after casting her ballot for Negron. "Anyone listening to the news or reading the paper should know."

Kevin Conway said he wasn't confused by the ballot. "I wouldn't vote for either Foley or Negron," he says. But he added that he saw no reason why new ballots couldn't be printed "for the dumb Republicans who want to vote for Negron."

Some voters interviewed after casting their ballots said they were disappointed with Foley, but that they wouldn't hold the scandal against the Republican Party or Negron. Others aren't so willing to forgive.

Marilyn Budensiek, a Negron campaign volunteer, says she's seen angry voters. "I do think Mark Foley has hurt the Republican cause," she says. "That may be more of a burden than Joe Negron not being on the ballot."

Robert Page, a self-described independent voter, said the scandal "swayed me all the way" to vote Democratic. "It is like a decaying process from the top down," he said of Republican elected officials.

How the corruption cloud may affect contests for House seats

Three House seats were left open by lawmakers now under investigation. Democrats are taking advantage.

• Ohio, 18th District: Democrat Zack Space is ahead in the polls to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Bob Ney (R), who pleaded guilty this month to taking favors in return for official actions on behalf of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients. Mr. Ney's hand-picked candidate is state Sen. Joy Padgett.

• Texas, 22nd District: The seat held by former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R) is expected to shift to Democratic control. Mr. DeLay resigned from Congress in June amid money-laundering charges in Texas, and Republicans, barred by law from substituting a name on the ballot, must pin their hopes on a write-in campaign. The Democrats' Nick Lampson, a former congressman, is running strong.

• Arizona, Eighth District: Rep. Jim Kolbe (R), who recently came under scrutiny for taking a 1996 camping trip with congressional pages, is retiring. Democrat Gabrielle Giffords leads Republican Randy Graf.

Some House incumbents under investigation are running for reelection. They deny wrongdoing.

• California, Fourth District: Rep. John Doolittle (R) accepted campaign money from Mr. Abramoff and used the lobbyist's luxury sports box for a fundraiser without initially reporting it. Mr. Doolittle faces little-known Democrat Charlie Brown in a strongly Republican district and appears poised for victory.

• California, 41st District: Rep. Jerry Lewis (R) accepted $60,000 from San Diego defense contractor Brent Wilkes, who hired a lobbying firm to push the powerful Appropriations Committee chairman for federally funded projects. An investigation by federal prosecutors became public weeks before the primary, too late for Mr. Lewis to attract strong opposition.

• Louisiana, Second District: Rep. William Jefferson (D) was the target of an FBI raid in May at his Capitol Hill office as part of an investigation into whether he took a $100,000 bribe in 2005 - all but $10,000 of which was alleged to be found in the freezer of his Washington home. Jefferson faces a long list of challengers, and the state Democratic Party has endorsed his closest competitor, Karen Carter.

• Pennsylvania, Seventh District: The political future of Rep. Curt Weldon (R) is in doubt amid allegations he used his influence to help his daughter's lobbying firm secure contracts worth $1 million from foreign clients. The FBI raided his daughter's home and office this month in what Mr. Weldon termed a politically motivated inquiry. Weldon faces Democrat Joe Sestak.

• West Virginia, First District: Rep. Alan Mollohan (D) faces a stiff challenge from Republican Chris Wakim, who has support from the national Republican Party and big names such as first lady Laura Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Mollohan is the subject of an investigation into federal money given to nonprofit groups that contributed to his campaigns.

- Associated Press

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For many, the voting is already over

from the October 27, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1027/p01s02-uspo.html

A rising number of Americans are casting ballots early, well ahead of final campaign drives.

By Linda Feldmann Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON

It's nearly Election Day, and campaigns are strategizing about last-minute tactics. In some races candidates are preparing for their final debate. And election officials are working overtime to make sure voting machines and ballots are ready by Nov. 7 - especially after all the problems with new equipment that emerged during some states' primaries.

But here's the catch: Millions of Americans already have voted, either by going to early- voting sites or by sending in absentee ballots. What began as a trickle in the 1980s and '90s has turned into a flood, as more and more states adopt pre-Election Day voting mechanisms. In 1980, 1 in 20 voters cast a vote early. By 2004, nearly one-quarter of the total vote took place early. In 2006, a nonpresidential election year, overall turnout will be lower than in 2004. But given the expansion of early voting practices in many states, including a big rise in "no excuses" absentee ballots, experts predict the percentage of early votes will rise.

"It's regional, it's specific states, but there are some indications that we are, even in this midterm, going up," says John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and author of a new book on absentee and early voting. "And certainly in '08, we'll probably be 30 percent or so."

Voters love the convenience of early balloting. They can avoid lines, bad weather, and last-minute hitches that might prevent turning out on Election Day. With absentee ballots they can consider their choices in the comfort of their homes and avoid questions about the accuracy of electronic voting machines.

But even if early voting is here to stay, election experts raise concerns about the trend. Voters are making their selections on incomplete information, they say, and even potentially voting for someone who will not be a candidate on Election Day (as happened in the 2002 Minnesota Senate race, when Sen. Paul Wellstone died less than two weeks before Election Day). Absentee ballots filled out away from a polling place - while an important option for shut-ins, students, and out-of-town travelers - leave voters open to coercion or even fraud, and subject to the vagaries of the postal service.

And to those who appreciate the community aspect of gathering with one's fellow citizens at the neighborhood polling place on Election Day, the advent in many states of an "election period" as opposed to a single day of voting represents a sad trend. The Northeast is an exception, as most states have no early voting at polling places. Some voters appreciate the communitarian aspect of Election Day as a teachable moment for children.

"I have kids, and I like to go to the polling place with them, and say, 'Isn't this fun, this is democracy and this is coming together for the common good,'" says Rob Richie, executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy in Takoma Park, Md. "In the ideal world, we would see more of that, but that's not the way trends are. Partly when we run such shoddy elections - run on the cheap - people then have more faith in the US mail than in their local polling place."

Rules for voting vary from state to state and even vary among localities. For a breakdown of early and absentee voting options in each state, go to www.electionline.org. In 1998, Oregon voters passed an initiative requiring that all votes be cast by mail, though voters have the option of dropping off their ballots at official sites. Washington is now about 90 percent vote by mail, and election analysts expect the state to go 100 percent mail-voting.

When states began offering early voting one of the hoped-for effects was more turnout. That has not materialized except in local elections held not on the usual November election day. "You see some jumps in turnout in, say, local races in May," says Mr. Richie. "Turnout might go from 5 to 19 percent."

Candidates and political parties love early voting because it gives them a way to lock in their votes early. But those who vote early are typically those who have a fixed partisan view and are not weighing their options until the final days. Still, in states that are showing strong growth in early voting, such as California, analysts find it hard to believe that all those voters are strong partisans not prone to changing their minds at the last minute based on new information.

In the end, there's no denying the popularity of early voting among voters themselves.
Eric Veltri of Davie, Fla., says the early voting process is a snap. "I was in and out in five minutes," he said Thursday morning. "There was no line."

Paulette Brown just moved to Broward County from Maryland, which has no early voting, just absentee ballots. "There was no line," she said, amazed at having emerged from the polls in minutes rather than hours. "In Maryland, Election Day was only one day. Rain or cold, you would be standing out in the cold in a long line. Some people are discouraged not to vote by that. So now (with early voting) there is no reason not to vote."

• Staffer Warren Richey contributed to this report

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N.J. boost for gay couples buoys GOP

from the October 27, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1027/p01s01-uspo.html

Wednesday's ruling in favor of full legal rights for gay couples may galvanize certain voters.

By Alexandra Marks Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
NEW YORK

The political fallout from Wednesday's New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in favor of full rights for gay couples could ripple far beyond the borders of the Garden State.

With control of the House and Senate at stake in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Republican leaders are hoping the ruling will give their wavering conservative base - who would see the court's move as another attack on traditional marriage - a reason to go to the polls.

The New Jersey outcome could suddenly give impetus to voters in eight states where the ballot includes measures to ban gay marriage. In some of these states - Tennessee and Virginia, especially - the races for Senate seats are too close to call. Others, namely Arizona and Colorado, have hotly contested House races that may give a boost to Republican candidates.

The ruling, which found that gay couples in New Jersey are entitled to the same legal and financial protections as heterosexual couples, could tip the national balance, many political analysts say.

"The Republicans are thrilled and the Democrats are furious with those judges, and that tells me all I need to know," says Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia. "Both sides understand this is a boost for Republican turnout among social conservatives, many of whom were very discouraged and probably were not going to vote because of the [Mark] Foley scandal and Iraq."

Some analysts, though, disagree. Gay marriage has lost some of its salience as a galvanizing issue, they say, in part because Americans are so focused on the war in Iraq.

"The country seems very, very centered on Iraq, and ... it's very unlikely that something that happened in New Jersey is going to energize social conservatives," says Cliff Zukin, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "Every poll I've looked at suggests that Iraq remains the defining issue."

In backing full rights for gay couples, New Jersey's high court gave the state Legislature 180 days to expand existing laws or to adopt new ones that will guarantee gay couples equal rights. But it stopped short of requiring use of the word "marriage" to define gay-couple unions, leaving that decision to the Legislature. Some analysts suggest that makes the issue less compelling for conservatives, for now.

"I'm sure the extreme right would very much have preferred the court have said we get marriage," says David Buckel, senior counsel for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who argued the case for gay marriage before the New Jersey court. "That is one of the ironies of where we are now politically. The court did not take the constitutional promise the entire way.
And since we're in abeyance now and have to wait for the Legislature to act, it's hard to see what kind of impact it will have outside of New Jersey, at least on elections."

Eight thousand gay couples have been married in Massachusetts, and civil unions are commonplace in Vermont and Connecticut - developments that Mr. Buckel says may have made some Americans feel less threatened by the issue. "Not one volcano popped its lid, the weather patterns did not dramatically alter," says Buckel. "I think America sees that in the end, whatever anxieties there were, a few families were helped immensely by getting things like medical coverage and no families were hurt."

Opponents of gay marriage say the ruling will put the issue back on the front pages - and energize the most conservative voters. "New Jersey is a key state, and the papers are covering this, word is spreading," says the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition in Washington. "This raises a level of awareness. It takes away the negatives from the Foley scandal and the war, and reminds people that the family is an important issue."

Mr. Sheldon, whose public-policy think tank is supported by 43,000 churches, is urging voters to find out where their candidate stands on the gay-marriage issue and to vote. "This underscores the urgency for Congress to act on a constitutional amendment that truly defines marriage as between one man and one woman and doesn't give away the rights and privileges through civil unions and domestic partners," he says.

To date, polls show Democratic voters have been more energized than Republicans this election cycle - a reversal from the past few elections when Republicans were gung-ho and Democrats lackluster.

"Republicans haven't dropped off the map, but their interest in voting is lower than it usually is," says Thomas Patterson, a political analyst at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "This is the kind of issue that can give them a reason to vote, and they haven't had many. This might be enough to get them to think, 'Ah, I'll get out of my chair,' at least for those on the margins."

In New Jersey, where Republicans see their best hope of taking a Democratic Senate seat, the ruling is not expected to affect the close race between incumbent Sen. Robert Menendez (D) and Tom Kean Jr. (R) - in part because a majority of voters there favor gay marriage.

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An eye on the road - and a box of cereal

from the October 13, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1013/p18s02-hfes.html

By Katherine Gustafson

People always want to know what it was like to ride my bicycle across the United States. And I always wonder how I can encompass such an incredible experience in the few sentences they are patient enough to hear.

It isn't enough to tell them that your legs get tired. Or that you get thirsty. It isn't even enough to describe the deflation of turning a steep corner on your way up a winding mountainside road in the Appalachians only to see yet another turn in the road leading to another steep incline. Or the elation of seeing a water tower in the distance across the massive stretch of the Great Plains. Or the extreme exhaustion that takes over during the last miles of a 120-mile day when riding across the desert.

Perhaps people can picture me in these moments: sweat-covered, dog-tired, despairing, or celebrating. But these "snapshots" don't really tell what it is like.

The trip took seven weeks, for which the 12 of us, traveling as a pack, carried everything we needed. Jars of peanut butter were stuffed into the panniers next to dirty T-shirts. Pots and pans, tents, and sleeping bags were strapped to the back racks of the bicycles with bungee cords.

In the desert, we shipped our cold-weather clothes home to make room in our bags for gallons and gallons of water.

We rode from Virginia to California, traveling an average of 85 miles every day, crossing four mountain ranges, the Great Plains, and the Mojave Desert. We slept in tents wherever we could get permission to set them up: in schoolyards, churchyards, and children's parks, and on baseball diamonds and the lawn of a county jail.

Perhaps the best way to describe what it was like to cross the US by bicycle is to relate an experience we had while traveling along the edges of the Mojave Desert in western Arizona.

Visualize a day in August, hot and made hotter by a ferocious wind. Twelve bicyclists emerge over the crest of a low hill, slowly, in a tight line. Beside the lonely road, scraggly bushes give way to a vast expanse of golden sand, which is whipped into giant clouds by a vicious swirl of wind far from the road. Our lips are gritty with dust, and the wind is constant and head-on.

It has been like this all day. After 80 miles, we continue to struggle onward, each pedal stroke an effort of stamina and will. We are in a draft line, each person close behind the next to cut the wind.

I am behind someone with a bag of bread strapped onto her bike. Sunbeam, I think to myself, Sunbeam, Sunbeam, Sunbeam. The head wind must be 50 miles an hour, and frustration rises inside me as "Sunbeam" repeats in my mind.

My legs are aching with fatigue, and I falter, losing the draft for a second, allowing a space of a few feet to open up between me and the bread.

My frustration rises as I try to move ahead, and the wind beats me back. Frowning, I make a desperate effort to surge forward, but fall farther back, exhaustion creeping over me.
Someone sprints by me to fill in the gap I've created. "How're you doing?" he asks as he goes by, his pedals pumping in their lowest gear.

"Bad!" I reply, unable to control my feelings as I struggle to keep up with him. This boy has a box of cereal from breakfast strapped onto his bike. Rice Krispies, my mind repeats like a mantra. Rice Krispies. I smile. It's pretty funny, after all, to be riding through a windstorm in a desert behind a box of Rice Krispies.

As soon as I have smiled, I understand the mistake I had made. My earlier frustration made it impossible for me to keep up, which frustrated me even more. It was a vicious cycle. But now, as I chuckle to myself, it isn't all that difficult to keep pace with the cereal ahead of me.

I continue to smile with my gritty lips, allowing blowing sand to collect on my teeth, and I continue to keep my gap in the line closed.

My good attitude turns out to be a cycle, too - a benevolent one. Once I have one amusing thought, everything about the situation seems funny: that our leader's calf muscles seem to have grown as big as pumpkins. That I have somehow been nicknamed Bubba. That our bags are filled with gallon jugs of water that is now warm and no one wants to drink. That we are doing this at all.

Now I am the one to fill someone else's gap and call "How're you doing?" as I sprint by.
That is what it is like. It is about reconciling your inner self with your external circumstances. It is about your attitude. It is like thinking about the cereal ahead of you when you could be dwelling on the wind.

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Eating polenta with a side of bird song

from the October 13, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1013/p12s01-litr.html

Jerry McIntire recently spent a few days in the Mount Baker Wilderness.

Where did you go?

The Mount Baker Wilderness in the northern Cascades range of Washington, hiking the Chain Lakes trail between the glaciers of Mount Baker (about 10,780 ft.) and Mount Shuksan (about 9,130 ft.). It was our son's first backpacking trip.

Where did you stay?

At a primitive campsite on Iceberg Lake, where we hung our food high from a tree branch to keep it from bears.

What did you do?

We scrambled to the lake's namesake snowfields to slide and make snowballs in the hot August sun, swam in less-chilly Lake Mazama, and, on our final morning, experienced the calving of giant snowblocks into Iceberg Lake. Swift waves raced through the mirror-calm waters and raucously rolled through the talus slopes along the shore.

Where did you eat?

After quieting the hearty roar of our backpacking stove (no fires allowed), we enjoyed our polenta or noodles with chicken in blessed silence with sides of pine scent, bird song, and the distant backdrop of cascading waterfalls - which later lulled us to sleep.

• Where have you been? What did you do?

Write us at Weekend

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New 'e-passports' raise security issues

from the October 19, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1019/p13s02-litr.html

Despite official assurances, some worry that thieves might read chip-toting US passports.

By Gregory M. Lamb Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

A new generation of United States passports, equipped with short-range radio tags, are arriving in mailboxes across the country. More than 15 million Americans are expected to apply for and receive the high-tech document in the next year. Within a decade, every US passport will contain an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip.

But privacy advocates are voicing concerns that the passport makes Americans more vulnerable to attacks from thieves and terrorists - and perhaps will allow the government to snoop on them as well.

"It clearly is not a secure document," says Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty project at the American Civil Liberties Union. The new "e-passports," he says, provide "one-stop shopping for terrorists who want to single out Americans for kidnapping or worse."
The State Department, which issues US passports, insists that these kinds of concerns are groundless.

"It's the most secure passport we've ever issued," says Ann Barrett, acting deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the State Department. "It has the next generation of security features."

In August, Denver became the first regional passport office to issue the new passports. Other regional offices will switch over in stages in the weeks ahead. By February or March, all new passports will contain the RFID feature, Ms. Barrett estimates.

The tiny chip, embedded in the back cover of the passport, contains in digital form the same information printed on the biographical page of the passport: the person's name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, issue and expiration dates, and the person's passport photo. When the e-passport is opened and placed within a few inches of a passport "reader" at a US Customs station, it reveals its information.

By displaying the personal data in two forms, print and digitally, an e-passport should be much harder to alter or forge. The digital file is "locked" and unable to be changed even if accessed, the State Department says. Metallic shielding material in the cover and spine make the chip impossible to read illegally, or "skim," unless the passport is opened, and then only from a few inches away.

But not all privacy advocates and security experts have been won over. At a security conference in August, a German hacker showed how he could copy and transfer information from a German e-passport that employs similar RFID technology. And tests made by the American security company Flexilis show how the RFID signal can be read even if the e-passport is opened only a fraction of an inch, such as might happen while it was being carried in a purse or briefcase.

As part of an international agreement, more than two-dozen countries are converting to similar chip-bearing passports - an effort that has been pushed along by the US, Mr. Steinhardt says.

So-called "visa waiver" countries – those whose citizens in most cases don't need visas to visit the US – must begin issuing e-passports by Oct. 26. The Department of Homeland Security is in the process of installing e-passport RFID readers at airport security checks around the country. [ Editor's note: The original version incorrectly stated the requirements of the Oct. 26 deadline.]

Even though a thief might not be able to decipher the contents of an encrypted RFID chip, simply being able to learn that a person is carrying a passport constitutes a security breach, a Flexilis report says. It also may be possible to identify a unique property of the RFID signal that would indicate it came from an American passport. What if over the 10-year life of the passport, critics ask, remote RFID readers become more powerful and hackers become more expert at breaking in? A proposed worst-case scenario imagines using an American e-passport to set off a hidden bomb as it passes in close proximity.

"The security experts out there and the academic community that studies RFID have raised, I think, some very serious and legitimate questions about whether it's a good idea to have this [passport] information accessible in this way," says Katherine Albrecht, coauthor of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Governments Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move."

Unfortunately, she says, the State Department has gone ahead with the e-passport program despite receiving public comments that were more than 98 percent negative.

The proposal didn't receive the kind of open, public discussion that "I think would have led to more acceptance," says Ms. Albrecht, a privacy expert who has tracked how businesses and government use RFID tags for several years.

The apparel company United Colors of Benetton decided it was going to ship its clothing laced with RFID tags a few years ago, but changed its mind after a consumer boycott began.

"If it's a company, you can choose not to buy their products," Albrecht says. But if you need a passport, you'll have to carry the electronic version, like it or not. "You can't boycott the State Department," she says. "It's not like it's a free market where there's somewhere else to go if you don't like the policy."

As an extra layer of security, the e-passports first have to be touched to a conventional bar code-type scanner, the same kind used at grocery stores and on current passports, before the RFID chip can be read. This Basic Access Control "acts like a PIN number" to guard the chip, Barrett says.

But Steinhardt wonders, then, why bother with the contactless RFID scan? The State Department says the chip can contain more information than a bar code can, such as a digital photo. Some have speculated that it eventually may contain a fingerprint image, an iris scan, or other data as well.

Or does the chip have a more sinister purpose?

The State Department reneged on a promise to the ACLU that it could bring in independent experts to take a close look at the e-passport before it was issued, Steinhardt says. "There's clearly something else that they have in mind here, and we believe that they want the ability to track people without their knowledge," Steinhardt says. "That's the only explanation for why an RFID chip is in this passport."

Others who are familiar with RFID technology say the scenarios cooked up by e-passport opponents are far-fetched.

"A lot of these concerns, when you think about them in the real world, they start to become really silly," says Mark Roberti, editor of the RFID Journal. "Are there some scenarios where you could possibly skim some data? Well, yes, maybe. Anything's possible. But, logically, what's the real threat here?"

Terrorists, he says, have much easier ways to identify and attack Americans abroad than to try to employ e-passports. If they're close enough to skim the chip, they're close enough to read "United States of America" on the passport cover, he says.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there," Barrett says. "There are a lot of different RFID technologies, and we're certainly not using Wal-Mart inventory-tracking technology. It's a whole different technology."

For example, when read, the e-passport generates a random ID number. If someone is trying to track the movement of a passport by repeatedly scanning a chip, they'd get a different ID number each time.

"So they really wouldn't know it was you again," she says. "We really have put a lot of safeguards in place to protect the information that's on that ... chip."

If a government were to misuse the passport chip, say, to identify someone who had attended an antigovernment protest, Mr. Roberti concedes that "I think that is a legitimate concern."
The State Department's handling of the e-passport introduction has been "less than ideal and a negative for the RFID industry," he adds.

But the situation also been instructive. Companies that plan to use RFID tags to carry sensitive information need "to think about what data is on the tag, how it could be abused ... and then address those issues," Roberti says.

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Stop digging Down Under?

from the October 16, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1016/p04s02-woap.html

A zinc mine in Australia meets resistance among Aborigines concerned about the environment and a 'rainbow serpent.'

By Nick Squires Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

SYDNEY

A professional fisherman for 40 years, Stephen Johnston likes nothing better than heading out to sea in a boat to hunt dugong, the slow-moving marine mammals related to the manatee or sea cow of the Americas.

The docile creatures may live in salt-water and graze on sea grass, but they taste nothing like fish, the Aborigine says. "If I served you some, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from beef. It's good red meat, mate, very tasty."

But Mr. Johnston, an elder of the Yanyuwa tribe who spoke on the phone from an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia, worries his dugong hunting days could be numbered. Like many Aborigines in the region, he is concerned that a Swiss company's plan to establish a massive open-cut lead and zinc mine near the coast will kill off not just the dugongs and the sea grass but turtles, fish, and prawns, too.

While Australia's economy is booming, thanks largely to Chinese demand for coal, iron ore, and other resources, the increased prospecting and the establishment of new mines is causing friction with indigenous communities in many remote parts of the country.

After months of controversy, the firm Xstrata was granted permission Friday by the Northern Territory regional government to go ahead with the lead and zinc mine.

"This has been a difficult issue, there is no doubt about it, [but] we have rigorously followed due process to ensure that economic gains are coupled with environmental integrity and community benefit," said the head of the Northern Territory government, Chief Minister Clare Martin.

The lead, zinc, and silver deposits lie beneath the McArthur River, so Xstrata will have to divert it by three miles and alter the course of two connecting creeks.

The Yanyuwa and their neighbors, the Gudanji tribe, say the McArthur River development is fraught with risk, including the danger of the mine's dams being inundated by floodwaters, releasing toxic materials into the environment.

During the annual wet season the McArthur becomes swollen with monsoon rains and discharges into the sea a volume of water equal to seven times the capacity of Sydney Harbor.
Another concern among the indigenous populations is a spiritual one. Aborigines worry that the diversion of the river will stir the ancient spirits said to inhabit this timeless landscape of savannah grassland, crocodile-infested swamps and billabongs (ponds).

The Gudanji believe the McArthur River is home to a giant "rainbow serpent" from the ancient Dreamtime era, when mythical beings roamed the continent. Upsetting the river serpent will bring storms, cyclones, and other disasters, they claim.

"People believe that they'll slowly die if that rainbow serpent is disturbed," says Fraser Baker, a Gudanji elder, also reached by phone. "If you start messing with it, something bad is going to happen. People think sickness will come down the river. Xstrata has done nothing for our communities, and we don't want the mine to go ahead."

While Aboriginal beliefs have stood in the way of development projects in the past, the Xstrata project appears to be set for final approval. The company said that had it been denied permission to convert its existing decade-old underground mine into an open-cut operation, it would have had to withdraw from the site, abandoning an estimated 3 percent of the world's zinc reserves. And, it said, nearly 300 local employees would have lost their jobs.

China's voracious appetite for raw materials has sent the price of zinc soaring to $3,300 per ton from $700 per ton three years ago, and mining companies like Xstrata are scrambling to exploit new reserves.

The firm said that the mine, 550 miles southeast of the Northern Territory capital Darwin, will be surrounded by a 40-foot-high wall. It insists the $63-million river diversion will safely channel floodwaters away from the site.

"There would have to be a flood many times greater than in the past to go over the top of the wall," says general manager Brian Hearne. "We're confident there'll be no issues with flooding."
But environmentalists worry the project is fraught with risk.

"A river like this has never been diverted before in Australia," says Stuart Blanch, of environmental group WWF-Australia. "It's a gamble, an experiment without precedent. These tropical rivers are very complex - it's not like building a cement canal to drain storm water in a city."

Xstrata's first application to establish the mine was refused by the Northern Territory government in February when an independent report found there was a danger that the stretch of diverted river could overflow its banks during monsoon season.

"The mine is right in the middle of the flood plain," says Felicity Chapman, the head of the Mabunji Aboriginal Resource Association in the nearby town of Borroloola, where 85 percent of the population of 2,000 is Aboriginal. "Floods can be 20 meters high; they go right over the tree-tops. There's no way you could protect a mine from the river when it's flooding and four kilometers wide."

Contamination of the river would jeopardize the area's lucrative game-fishing scene, which each year draws 30,000 enthusiasts from as far afield as Sydney and Melbourne in search of the elusive barramundi. "We're not antimining in principle," says Ms. Chapman, "but with this one, the price to pay is too high. When Australia is facing a water crisis, we shouldn't be damaging our great rivers."

Final approval for the mine has to be granted by the federal government in Canberra. Prime Minister John Howard recently threw his support behind the mine and said that it would create jobs. "It's in the national interest that this country continues to be welcoming to mining operations," he said. "It would be a great shame if it did not take place."

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Look at what the cargo ship dragged in

from the October 18, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1018/p14s01-sten.html

With invasive aquatic species costing billions yearly, lawmakers seek to stop their spread by clamping down on the discharge of ballast water from cargo ships.

By Moises Velasquez-Manoff Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

In June, a Chesapeake Bay crabber made an unusual - and possibly ominous - catch. John Delp hauled up a trap holding a crab with what appeared to be fur on its pincers.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) caught wind of Mr. Delp's find and, after an examination, concluded it was a Chinese mitten crab, an exotic species native to East Asia and well established in San Francisco Bay, but never before seen on the East Coast.
Immediately, the DNR issued an alert. One male crab wasn't proof of a breeding population, but it was cause for vigilance.

In August a second animal, caught years earlier and preserved in a waterman's freezer, came to light. Exactly how two Chinese mitten crabs - both male and both a continent away from the nearest known population - found their way to Chesapeake Bay is a mystery, but scientists suspect an old villain: ballast water.

Before setting sail, cargo ships take in vast amounts of water for stabilization, and then discharge the water at their destination. Only nominally filtered on uptake, this water, known as ballast, inevitably contains a host of organisms, ranging from algae to the larvae of various mollusk species to (at least in one case) an entire school of fish.

"Considering that there are over 30,000 ships at sea this morning," writes James Carlton, director of the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program, in an e-mail, "the total number of organisms and species in this global 'bioflow' on the morning your readers read your piece could be staggering - billions of individuals, and thousands of species."

Indeed, scientists have long considered ballast water the primary way invasive aquatic organisms are introduced. From the zebra mussel's arrival in the Great Lakes, to an American jellyfish severely disrupting Black Sea fisheries, the potential costs of accidental introduction of a species to new homes can be tremendous. Aquatic invasives cost the US $9 billion yearly, according to estimates by David Pimentel, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Zebra and quagga mussels (a cousin to the zebra) alone cost the $1 billion annually.

As the cost of invasive species has become increasingly apparent, the adoption of - and technology for - ballast water management has become more pressing. California passed tough ballast-water standards in September, and last week the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN body charged with formulating international standards, met in London to discuss the issue. Meanwhile, companies worldwide are rushing to provide solutions for what may become a billion-dollar industry: the shipboard sterilization of large amounts of water.

Currently, the Coast Guard requires all ships entering US waters to exchange their ballast at least 200 nautical miles from shore where the ocean is at least a mile deep, or face a fine of up to $27,500 per day. Adapted to the lower salinity of coastal waters, organisms found in ballast water theoretically won't survive the higher salinity of the open ocean.

Enforcement of these measures since they became mandatory in 2004 - previously, they were voluntary - has reduced the number of organisms carried in ballast by 90 percent, says Gregory Ruiz, a marine ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., who works with the Coast Guard on ballast water management. "Ships have radically changed the way they behave."

The problem of NOBOBs

But others emphasize that ballast water exchange was meant to be an interim fix on the way to a more effective solution. Studies conducted in the Great Lakes, where mandatory ballast exchange has been in effect since 1996, indicate no slowdown in the introduction of exotic species, says Edward Mills, director of the Cornell Biological Field Station in Bridgeport, N.Y.
The problem, he says, are NOBOBs, an acronym for ships with No Ballast on Board, which are exempt from current regulations. Although their tanks don't contain water, they carry a layer of sediment that may harbor an array of organisms. When ships do take up ballast, after they have delivered their cargo, they inevitably "dribble the sediment throughout the lakes."

For this reason, environmental groups have long pressed for national guidelines specifying what discharged ballast water can and cannot contain. "We're not trying to dictate what kind of technologies they use," says Jennifer Nalbone, campaign director of Great Lakes United, a coalition of organizations dedicated to preserving and restoring the Great Lakes. "The standard is most important."

Shippers urge global standards

In a rare convergence of interests, the shipping industry - worried by the prospect of having to comply with standards that vary from country to country and even state to state - has also pushed for universal standards. "Ours is an international industry," says John Berge, vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. "To suddenly be in a situation where you have to meet different standards throughout the world, it can create an untenable situation."

That situation may soon change. National ballast water discharge standards are "the No. 1 regulatory project for the Coast Guard," says Lt. Keith Donohue of the Guard's Environmental Standards Division, although he declined to specify a date beyond "very soon."

In 2004, the IMO announced its intention to provide international guidelines. And although the conventions have yet to be ratified by the 30 member nations, the mere suggestion of global regulation gave birth to a $10 billion to $15 billion industry overnight. "It just catapulted progress," says Allegra Cangelosi, a senior policy analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to the environmental quality of those regions.

Frustrated by what they see as lethargy at the federal level, and viewing proposed IMO standards as lax, some states have moved ahead alone. (The National Aquatic Invasive Species Act, itself an update of the 1996 National Invasive Species Act, has languished in Congress since 2003.)

Michigan enacted legislation in 2005 to require all incoming vessels to prove that either they will not discharge ballast water or that, if they do, they possess the technology to prevent the escape of aquatic organisms. The law takes effect in 2007. And in September, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill widely viewed as the country's most stringent. By 2020, ballast water discharged in California must contain no living organisms.

How that goal will be achieved is still unclear, but possible technologies run the gamut from filtration and biocides - substances that kill living organisms - to techniques with no long-term residue like ultraviolet radiation and heat treatment.

Once universal standards are in place, ballast water treatment solutions won't be difficult to develop, says Andrew Cohen, a marine biologist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute. "The basic problem is, how do you kill or remove organisms in a tank of water? And that just doesn't seem that daunting a challenge in the 21st century."Better ships increase invasions
Improved shipping technology, more ships, faster voyages, and antipollution efforts over the past 100 years have contributed to the accelerating rate of exotic aquatic species appearing worldwide.

The use of seawater as ballast became widespread with the advent of steel-hulled steamships a century ago. Wooden sailing ships had used rocks, cargo, and other dry ballast to stay on an even keel.

Significantly faster, the new ships shortened the time stowaway organisms had to survive in order to arrive in - and colonize - new environs. In the 1850s, a trip from New York to San Francisco took up to three months. By the 1950s, it was weeks.

More trade has meant more ships. According to the International Maritime Organization, the number of ton-miles logged - a gross ton shipped one mile - quadrupled between 1965 and 2004. In 2004, a world trading fleet of 46,200 ships moved 6.76 billion gross tons 4 million miles.

In the same period, new canals linked previously isolated bodies of water. In 1952, the Volga-Don Canal joined the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea. In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. The 1992 completion of Europe's Rhine-Main-Danube Canal linked the Rhine and Danube Rivers, permitting direct travel between the North and Black Seas.

Ironically, efforts to clean polluted waterways beginning in the 1980s may have helped disperse exotic species in Europe and North America. Toxic pollution levels may have served as a barrier before.

The infamous zebra mussel, which has spread throughout freshwater systems east of the Rockies over the past 18 years, is a case in point. Native to the Caspian Sea and long established in northern Europe, it colonized the Great Lakes only in the late 1980s, 30 years after the St. Lawrence Seaway opened, but just as pollution was abating.

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Honesty at age 10

from the October 18, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1018/p18s01-hfcs.html

A Christian Science perspective on daily life

My young daughter and a friend and I were traversing a back road in Yellowstone National Park. At one point we got out of the car to examine the rocks and bones that had gathered in a water runoff area. Suddenly my daughter paused - eyes lit, mouth ajar, overcome by sheer delight. She had discovered a rectangular piece of rock with painting on it.

We were stunned. It was the find of a lifetime. It also brought into focus a dilemma. Keep this rock or turn it in?

My daughter knows that America's national parks have strict rules about not removing items from the land. I felt that this experience had the potential to be a valuable lesson for her, the kind she would take through life. So rather than ordering her to hand the rock over to a park ranger or to put it back where she'd found it, I waited and let her come to the right conclusion on her own.

She is only 10, and she really wanted to take that rock home. I couldn't blame her. I could picture it sitting in a prominent spot in our house. I could also picture the sadness we'd feel every time we remembered that we had taken something that wasn't ours.

My daughter wants to be honest and decent and expects to find those characteristics in others as well. Mary Baker Eddy stated, "What holds us to the Christian life is the seven-fold shield of honesty, purity, and unselfed love" ("The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," p. 200).

As a parent, I knew that I could give her some space and count on her divine Father-Mother to provide the guidance that she needed. We continued to look around the area while she thought about her decision.

This wasn't just a moment to learn some lessons about honesty; it was a moment to see the value of this spiritual quality to the rest of the world as well. We hear a lot today about kids lacking moral structure, about people acting selfishly. This was an opportunity to counter those beliefs as misconceptions.

God's law alone determines an individual's ability to be truthful and upright. Psalm 100 says, "Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture."

It was time for us to go. I asked my daughter, "What do you think God wants you to do?" This question brought it all into focus for her. Her desire to be good jelled with her willingness to follow God. She had her answer.

"Give it to a ranger," she replied with certainty. In fact, she told me later that as soon as she heard my question, her thought became clear and she felt a rush of peacefulness.

A ranger was stationed at a park entrance close by. She confirmed that it looked like the rock painting done in the area by the people who had lived there long ago. She was excited to have us turn it in. We wrote down exactly where we had found it so that a specialist could go back and study the area more thoroughly. My daughter was confident that she had made the right decision and was pleased that the ranger had validated her discovery.

It was a step forward in my daughter's spiritual growth and a reminder that honesty isn't something we go out and get. It's an innate part of each of us, a God-given quality that is accessible and permanent. When we act with integrity, we help ourselves and we play an important part in building a stronger community.

Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee. Psalms 25:21

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Milk shoppers get a new choice - kinda organic

from the October 17, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1017/p01s03-usgn.ht

By Ben Arnoldy Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

STARKSBORO, VT.

It "does a body good" and can leave a funny white mustache. But few shoppers invest much thought into milk beyond whole, low-fat, or skim.

That's changing. A new choice is hitting shelves: milk from cows not injected with artificial growth hormones. This option - long a selling point for organic labels - is increasingly offered by mainstream brands.

Organic milk requires different cow feeds, among other things, that sharply raise the price. Cutting out growth hormones is a cheap step toward organic, but it's not organic.

The trend is strongest in New England, where the new option sells for about a half-dollar more than conventional milk but still about two dollars below organic. This fall, two regional giants, HP Hood and Garelick, announced that more of their plants won't take milk from cows injected with the hormone. Major labels on the West Coast and in Arizona, New Jersey, and Texas have made the same move. And Vermont's agricultural commissioner this month urged dairy farmers to drop the practice that has been widely used since 1994 to boost milk yields.

The shift demonstrates the growing impact of the organic movement - not necessarily in market share but in mind share. The sight of organic food on supermarket shelves has prompted consumer concern about quality and safety, both in products themselves and during production. Processors say this new product addresses those concerns, but many farmers and scientists argue that the companies are simply bottling fear for profit.

"Everyone recognizes that there's a lot of demand for organic now and in all foods, not just dairy," says Chris Galen, spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation in Arlington, Va. "Retailers [want] a product that can compete."

Nothing could be more frustrating for eighth-generation dairy man Eric Clifford and his wife, Jane. They rely on growth hormone to make ends meet with their 350-cow business in Starksboro, Vt.

"They're trying to tell the consumer that there's a difference when there is no difference," says Mr. Clifford, on his dairy farm. Alongside him, a computer tracks the amount of white liquid - the farm's literal revenue stream - squeezed from each cow in a brown barn next door.

The Cliffords can extend the number of days their cows give milk with rBST, a synthetic version of a growth hormone present in all cows to varying degrees. The net gain for the Cliffords is an extra $45,000 to $50,000 a year. That's critical for a New England dairy business squeezed by profits that have remained flat since the late '70s, says Mr. Clifford. High fuel prices will cause the farm to lose money this year.

"My issue comes to having a tool in a tool box that has been approved, and that is managed, and fits my business model, being taken away because of someone's misperception of it," says Mrs. Clifford.

Most dairy scientists concur that the FDA-approved injections are safe, according to William Condon, a bovine endocrinologist. In fact, he says, there is no test to tell the difference between milk from cows injected with rBST and milk from those that aren't. Farmers are asked to sign a pledge in lieu of a cost-effective testing regime. Milk from a cow with naturally higher levels of hormones would be identical to milk from a cow boosted to the same level with additional hormone shots, he says.

"The public is afraid of the word 'hormone,' so when they think the milk contains no hormones they'll pay extra money. All milk contains hormones," says Mr. Condon, a professor at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

However, rBST has critics. "There are a whole host of differences" between the milk of cows receiving growth hormones and that of cows that aren't, says Samuel Epstein, professor emeritus of environmental medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.

For one, injected cows are more likely to experience mastitis, an udder infection, he says. The disease and the antibiotics used to treat it contaminate the milk of these cows, he adds. Farmers counter that cows must be removed from the milk supply during treatment for the infection.

For another, rBST milk contains high levels of IGF-1, a natural growth factor. Dr. Epstein, author of a new book "What's in Your Milk?," points to research that shows an association between high IGF-1 levels in humans and certain cancers. Other scientists say no direct link between milk and cancer has been proved.

Condon notes human breast milk also has high levels of IGF-1, but "we don't go around telling people not to drink [human] breast milk because it contains higher levels of IGF-1," Condon adds.

Critics like Dr. Epstein, as well as doubtful consumers, also point to bans in Europe, Canada, and Japan for some validation of their concerns.

Milk processors shy away from the debate, preferring to emphasize that it's consumers who have concerns.

"We don't believe there is a difference in the milk, but ... more consumers are asking us to do that, so we knew we needed to do something," says Lynne Bohan, spokeswoman for HP Hood of Chelsea, Mass.

Ms. Bohan says consumer research reveals that the No. 1 reason for buying organic is concern over hormones. But it's still a minority worry. Only 30 percent of all consumers have even heard about the hormone issues, and of those, 70 percent say it doesn't concern them, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.

Organic milk accounts for only 4 percent of sales, but demand outstrips supply by about 40 percent, according to the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance. The group says that by the end of 2007, organic production capacity in New England will double.

Oakhurst, a processor in Maine, decided early on to avoid rBST milk. "That allowed our company to provide some of the benefits of organic milk without the cost difference," says Stan Bennett, president of the Portland-based company. The choice, he says, also gave the company increased market share over other non-organic competitors.

"Underlying all of this is the whole idea that ... milk has been a nameless, faceless market for years. Basically, [processors] are all selling essentially the same product, so how are they going to differentiate their brand?" says Mr. Galen.

"Really, at the end of the day, this is just marketing."

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Hey, nice clothes. But are they ethical?

from the October 13, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1013/p01s02-woaf.html

By Stephanie Hanes Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

MASERU, LESOTHO

Last year, Anna Tsoeu was unable to send much needed money to her family after being laid off from her textile factory job in this poor southern African country.

Lesotho's key industry was collapsing as factories cut about 10,000 jobs after Chinese imports flooded the market.

Now Ms. Tsoeu is working again, packaging shirts for brands like Old Navy.

She's part of a remarkable turnaround spurred by Lesotho's increasing attractiveness as an origin of "ethical clothing." More than 7,000 jobs have been restored recently, thanks mainly to a growing demand for sweatshop-free clothes, like the Product Red label, which rock star and founder Bono will promote on Friday's Oprah Winfrey show.

Gap or Levi's - or any of the myriad brands that source here - can promise customers that T-shirts and jeans made in Lesotho were not produced by sweatshop labor, and that working conditions met high safety standards.

And in these days of socially conscious consumers, this sort of promise sells.

"The ethical image has value," says Christian Kemp-Griffin, CEO of Edun Apparel Ltd, a self-described "socially conscious clothing company" with a factory in Lesotho that was started last year by Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson. "A company doesn't have to sacrifice its margins to sell its product because it's doing it ethically. It actually adds value for the consumer."

The rebirth of Lesotho's textile business spread a sigh of relief throughout this country of 1.9 million, where there is almost no other industry besides textiles and hundreds of thousands of people depend on factory workers' incomes.'

Guilt free' clothing becomes chic

According to the ComMark Trust, a group working to develop Lesotho's textile industry, British shoppers spent almost $50 billion on ethical goods and services in 2005 - a high percentage of which was on clothing. Julia Hawkins, of the London-based Ethical Trading Initiative, says the demand in the US is just as high.

Consumers are willing to spend a bit extra, she says, if they know that their purchase is "ethical" - and even more if profits go directly to a good cause. If the funds help Africa, even better. And while the trend might have grown from the anti-sweatshop movement of the 1990s, with its university protests and company boycotts, today's ethical buying is decidedly mainstream, even yuppie.

"There has been a huge surge in interest in ethical fashion," Hawkins says. "There definitely seems to be an appetite from consumers - the clothes are well made, look good, and they can ease their conscience a bit."

Earlier this year, Gap, Emporio Armani and other high-end brands launched their Product Red lines in Europe - red T-shirts, cellphones, sunglasses, and other goods. A portion of Product Red profits goes to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria - a way to save Africa by shopping, the brands suggest. The line has been featured in fashion publications such as Marie Claire and Vogue.com, and promoted by celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashley Judd, and George Clooney.

Last month, Edun introduced the ONE Campaign T-shirt, made at its Lesotho factory, advertising that $10 of the $40 price tag would go to a new program that brings HIV testing and treatment to Lesotho's textile workers, an estimated one third of whom are HIV positive. More than 30,000 shirts have sold since Nordstrom introduced them Sept. 11.

"It's become a trend," Mr. Kemp-Griffin says. "Like with food, there's a trend of traceability and acknowledging where your stuff comes from."

And this makes it worthwhile for companies to make T-shirts in Lesotho. Companies produce their clothing at factories scattered throughout the world. It is good publicity, and economics, for them to say that a certain percentage of goods comes from "guilt free" countries.

Textiles key to Lesotho's economy

Lesotho's textile business began in the early 1980s, when South African companies set up factories here to avoid apartheid-era sanctions. In recent years, the industry boomed because of international incentives and subsidies - in particular the World Trade Organization's Multi-Fibre Arrangement's quotas on China and other countries, and the US African Growth and Opportunity Act. By the early 2000s, Lesotho's economy was dependent on its textile industry, which at its height employed 53,000 workers, around 85 percent of whom are women.
According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, textiles account for about 40 percent of Lesotho's GDP.

Then, at the beginning of 2005, the Multi-Fibre Arrangement's quotas expired. Analysts from around the world predicted the demise of textile industries in countries such as Lesotho since brands could make all of their clothes in cheaper, more productive Chinese factories. And true to those predictions, in 2005, a number of brands closed or reduced their operations in Lesotho. Textile employment dipped to around 40,000. That's when Tsoeu lost her job.

But at the same time, an alliance of companies, NGOs, government representatives, and others were trying to find ways to protect the country's industry. Already, some brands had improved working conditions in Lesotho to answer concerns about sweatshop labor. The group realized that if Lesotho could start aggressively marketing itself as an ethical source of clothing, it could retain and even grow business.

"Ethical trading gives you a competitive edge," says Andy Selm, regional textile and apparel specialist at ComMark Trust. "You can attract a better quality of customer."

The companies listened. While there are other factors in Lesotho's recent textile upswing - softening currency, for instance, and other international trade limitations on China - the ethical trade boom plays a huge role. Gap makes its Product Red line here, for instance. Edun Apparel chose to build its factory in a remote part of Lesotho. And Mr. Selm says that some of the brands that left during 2005 are looking to start making clothing here again.

Not only does Tsoeu have a job, her working conditions are far better than in other countries.
Selm says he expects the factories to employ 50,000 people - almost the industry's peak - by the end of the year.

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Will green power fizzle if oil prices keep slumping?

Posted October 02, 2006 - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1002/p25s01-wmgn.html

The first oil shock of the 21st century has eased since the summer's highs, allowing motorists and businessmen to breathe a little more easily. But that's not the case for those in renewable energy, whose fortunes have waxed and waned with the price of oil. Will those stocks fare better this time around? To find out, the Monitor's Laurent Belsie sat down with two Boston-based experts on green energy: Jack Robinson, founder of the Winslow Green Growth Fund, and Eric Becker, portfolio manager of Trillium Asset Management.

Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Green-energy stocks have pulled back in recent months. Are you worried?

Robinson: About a third of our portfolio is committed to that space. Obviously, with the stocks pulling back, almost directly correlated to the price of oil pulling back, our overall portfolio has declined a bit. But over the long haul, we think the trends are in place so it really makes a lot of sense to have a lot of exposure.

Becker: This pullback is probably an opportunity for long-term clean energy investors. Speculators have probably been driven out of the market.... But if you have a longer term horizon there's probably money to be made from here. The Department of Energy forecasts a gap of 14 terawatts of power globally between now and the year 2050. That's the equivalent of 14,000 1-gigawatt new energy plants. If you opened one a day, it would take 38 years to get there. So the problem is not going to be solved with nuclear and fossil fuels alone.

Such predictions were made in the early 1980s, too, but green-energy stocks crashed. Is this era really any different?

Robinson: From our point of view, it is actually very different. There are multiple factors at work here. Eric has mentioned one, which is the demand-supply equation is going to continue to be out of whack.... Another factor ... and new to the equation - is global warming and our overall awareness of that. We simply have to come up with ways to reduce our carbon output - not only in this country but around the world. And that in and of itself is going to be a major, major driver for green-energy stocks.

But the United States and China have refused to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Becker: I think the political will is building for action. There are bills in Congress for carbon-emissions caps in the US. You've now got the eight Northeast states and California agreeing to cap their emissions. And you've got 165 countries signed on to Kyoto. I think there's no doubt, given the data we're seeing on climate change, that all the countries on the planet are going to have to deal with this issue.

Are there any particular industries that get you excited?

Becker: Certainly solar gets me excited. When I started in the social investment world about 13 years ago, solar was viewed as a technology that was too expensive. It wasn't really going to have an impact.... But solar has made great strides and with the increase in fossil fuel prices, it's now much more competitive and is much more compatible with a world where energy is created in a distributed way. Distributed energy [means] producing it where it's used as opposed to in central locations and then distributing it across a grid. Particularly in the developing world where you can build a new power plant quickly, cleanly, and at the right scale with solar, and you don't need to build a grid, that's pretty attractive compared with the big cost of plunking down a new, large power plant and building a distribution grid for it.

Robinson: There are multiple answers to the problem here. Solar is a key one. Wind today is producing probably half of the green energy that's produced in the world. But besides that there's a broad range of things going on: things like ultracapacitors, which is basically a super battery that doesn't have toxic issues and is being used in hybrid cars. There are a couple of manufacturers of these around. It's a whole new industry that's blossoming.

Do any green-energy companies stand out?

Robinson: I just mentioned ultracapacitors. And there's a company in California called Maxwell Technologies. This is a very core part of their business. Ultracapacitors are being used on wind turbines. They're being used in hybrid cars as they're being advanced. And they're going to be used in forklift trucks. Think about a simple forklift truck - the amount of power you take to lift up the fork is huge. But when you lower it down, you're not recapturing it. And what an ultracapacitor can do is capture the energy as you're going down.... Another large holding in the fund is a company called Zoltek. You've never heard of it, but they make carbon fiber.... It's very strong and it's very light. It's also very expensive. But it is now being used in wind turbines. The force at work there, fiberglass can't absorb it. So carbon fiber is being mixed in [to the blades].

Becker: There are some profitable companies. One that I like is a geothermal company called Ormat Technologies. It's like a utility. It's an independent power producer selling to utility companies using this clean energy.... That's one to look at because it has very stable earnings.

Should ethical investors plunge into this field - or test it cautiously?

Robinson: That's a tough question to answer. As part of your portfolio, and depending on your personal level of understanding and commitment to it, certainly a portion of your portfolio should be in green energy. The growth itself in green energy is in excess of 20 percent annually in the aggregate. There's very little unit growth frankly in fossil fuel energy today. If you're looking for growth and you're looking for green alternatives, a diversified portfolio in green energy makes sense.

Becker: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. A lot of these stocks are speculative. [But] the PowerShares exchange-traded fund, called the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Portfolio, represents about 40 stocks in one security. [It's] a way of quickly diversifying one's portfolio into clean energy. But again, it should be viewed in the broader [context of] one's portfolio. Clean energy should be a portion, but it's still a risky area.

Watch the conversation online at csmonitor.com/ethicalinvesting.

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How the Foley scandal unfolded

from the October 06, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1006/p02s01-uspo.html

The ex- congressman's e-mails to teenage boys have sparked FBI and House probes, hurting GOP leaders.

By Linda Feldmann Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON

One week after Rep. Mark Foley (R) of Florida resigned over sexually explicit electronic messages to teenage boys, the firestorm rages. The scandal has unleashed furious finger-pointing among Capitol Hill Republicans, the resignation of a top House aide, and Democratic charges of a coverup - all as the Nov. 7 congressional elections draw near.

Thursday, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee met behind closed doors to discuss Mr. Foley's actions and the House GOP leadership's handling of early warnings that Foley was behaving inappropriately toward former pages, high school students who work on the Hill as messengers. The committee, which launched an investigation, approved four dozen subpoenas for witnesses and documents.

Both the FBI and Florida law enforcement have started preliminary inquiries, in advance of a possible full criminal investigation into whether Foley violated any laws. House officials have been ordered to "preserve all records" relevant to the matter.

Here are the facts so far:

Why did Foley resign?

The six-term member representing Florida's 16th district abruptly quit last Friday after ABC News presented to him the texts of lewd instant-message conversations he had carried on with male former pages in 2003. After resigning, Foley checked into an alcohol-rehab facility in Florida, citing alcoholism and "other behavioral issues." Through his lawyer, he also announced that he was gay and had been abused by a clergyman as a young teen, though he had "never attempted to have sexual contact with a minor."

Foley has not disavowed any of the e-mail and instant-message exchanges that have come to light, and has offered no excuses, his lawyer said. At least one exchange suggests an effort to meet in person with a former page, though it is not known how old the ex-page would have been at the time.

Why are Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and other House GOP leaders in political trouble?

Critics, both Republican and Democrat, say the leaders had received enough evidence earlier this year that Foley was behaving inappropriately to warrant further investigation. The incident that critics say should have triggered concern centered on an e-mail exchange last fall that Foley had had with a former page sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R) of Louisiana. The e-mails, which the boy's family had brought to the attention of Mr. Alexander's staff, were not overtly sexual, but rather "over-friendly," according to Alexander's office. Still, the content - including a request from Foley that the boy send a picture of himself and asking him what he wanted for his birthday - had made the boy uncomfortable.

Alexander's staff then contacted the office of Speaker Hastert about the e-mails, but did not reveal their exact content, citing the family's request to keep the matter quiet. Hastert's office referred the matter to Rep. John Shimkus (R) of Illinois, chair of the House Page Board, which oversees the page program. The other two members of the board, including a Democrat, were not informed. Mr. Shimkus and the clerk of the House, who runs the page program, told Foley to stop contact with the boy.

In spring 2006, Alexander mentioned the Foley situation to the No. 2 House Republican, John Boehner of Ohio, who suggested he contact Rep. Tom Reynolds (R) of New York, who heads the House's GOP campaign committee. Reps. Boehner and Reynolds say they discussed the matter with Hastert, but the speaker says he does not recall such a conversation. Hastert maintains that he knew nothing of any inappropriate behavior toward former pages by Foley until last week.

Why did Reynolds's chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, just resign?

Mr. Fordham, who had been Foley's chief of staff for 10 years, until 2004, quit Wednesday over a dispute with Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer. Fordham says he had brought concerns about Foley's behavior to Mr. Palmer before 2004. Palmer denies the allegation. Fordham told reporters he resigned so he would not become a political liability to Reynolds, who is in a tough reelection battle. Fordham has pledged to cooperate with the FBI investigation.

Besides ABC News, what other news outlets and watchdog groups knew of the Foley allegations?
Last fall, the St. Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald received copies of Foley's e-mail exchange with the Louisiana boy. Their sources have not been revealed. Both papers looked into the matter, but decided not to publish anything, because no sources would speak on the record and because the e-mails were ambiguous.

Brian Ross of ABC News told The New York Times he received the "overfriendly" Foley e-mails in August, and published a story on Sept. 28, the day before he presented the more explicit exchanges to Foley. The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, run by former Democratic congressional aides, got copies of Foley's overfriendly e-mails in July, and forwarded them to the FBI, which chose not to act. The website www.stopsexpredators.blogspot.com, run by a blogger who has not revealed his or her identity in public, was also among the first media outlets to post the overfriendly e-mails.
After that initial wave of publicity, it appears that former pages came forward with the more-sexual material.

What is the page program and what problems has it had in the past?

Pages are high school juniors who come from all over the country to work on Capitol Hill as messengers. They live in supervised dormitories and attend a special school for pages. In July 1983, the House Ethics Committee found that Reps. Dan Crane (R) of Illinois and Gerry Studds (D) of Massachusetts had both engaged in sexual relationships with 17-year-old congressional pages - Mr. Crane with a female and Mr. Studds with a male. Both members were reprimanded. Studds went on to win reelection to Congress several times until his retirement. Crane lost reelection in 1984.

How is Hastert continuing to defend himself?

Thursday, the speaker took responsibility for the scandal, but held his ground against pressure to resign.

"I'm deeply sorry this has happened, and the bottom line is we're taking responsibility," Hastert said outside his district office in Batavia, Ill. "Ultimately, the buck stops here."

He also praised the ethics committee's actions and said he would instruct his attorney to cooperate with the panel.

Before Thursday, the speaker had been making the rounds of conservative talk-radio shows, maintaining he had no knowledge of any inappropriate behavior by Foley until last week and blaming the media and Democrats for fanning the flames of scandal.

"The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros," Hastert said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday. Mr. Soros is a billionaire benefactor of liberal causes.

But it appears at least one source of information is a Republican. The Thursday edition of the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill reports: "The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley's (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide. That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote."

The Hill reporter writes that the source showed him public records supporting his claim.
Also, some conservatives who had called on Hastert to resign earlier in the week have now backed away from that call, including Paul Weyrich, the founding president of the Heritage Foundation. In a Monitor interview on Tuesday, Mr. Weyrich said he believed Hastert should resign. The next day, he told National Public Radio that he had changed his mind, pending further investigation of the Foley situation.

• Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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Union blocks foreign healthcare plan

from the September 29, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0929/p02s01-usec.html

Despite opposition, other companies are looking to send workers abroad for medical treatment.

By Patrik Jonsson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

ATLANTA

Carl Garrett, an Appalachian paper mill worker, had hoped to go to India this month for medical care - but it didn't work out that way.

The planned journey to New Delhi by Mr. Garrett, a Leicester, N.C., resident wasn't just about fixing his aching left shoulder. His employer, Blue Ridge Paper Products of Canton, N.C., wanted to send a message to American hospitals: Control costs or we'll give our insured workers the option of going overseas for quality, but low-cost care.

Garrett, who belongs to the United Steelworkers, would have been the first union member to go overseas for medical care. But after his pioneering trip became public, the union stepped in and threatened to file an injunction to stop it.

In response, Blue Ridge Paper withdrew the proposal to send its employee to India for surgery. So two days before Garrett was to leave, he had to unpack his bags.

The union, which recently negotiated a new contract with the milk-carton factory containing healthcare provisions for its members, worried that volunteer trips overseas to receive medical care would soon become mandatory even for children and the elderly as companies seek to cut costs and increase profits.

Garrett's case shows how the tug-of-war between labor and corporations on healthcare options "is having a tremendous impact on how we live on a day to day basis," says Norm Solomon, a labor expert at Fairfield University in Connecticut. "If costs keep going up the way they have, it's going to be difficult to maintain them in unionized firms."

American workers' healthcare costs have risen 60 percent in the past five years, according to a new study by HR consultants TowersPerrin. Those cost increases are not only being borne directly by employees, but companies are cutting an average of 1 percent off annual raises to contain healthcare expenditures, TowersPerrin concludes.

Garrett's trip was intended to be a test case for Blue Ridge Paper's plan to offer its employees and their dependents the option of seeking medical care overseas beginning in 2007. For several years, the company failed in its attempt to obtain discounts from healthcare providers for its 5,000 covered workers.

The self-insured company decided to contract with IndUShealth, a Raleigh, N.C., firm that sends patients to Indian hospitals for major savings compared with American hospital care.

Garrett quickly volunteered, mostly for the financial incentive. The operations he was scheduled to have would have cost $20,000 in India compared with about $100,000 in the US. The trip was expected to save the company $50,000, and he was being given a share of the company's total savings. Aside from not retiring in medical debt, Garrett was eager for the opportunity to see the Taj Mahal as part of a two-day tour before his procedure.

But the plan alarmed the USW. "We made it clear that if healthcare was going to be resolved, it would be resolved by modifying the system in the US, not by offshoring or exporting our own people [to receive medical care]," says union representative Stan Johnson, who stepped in to stop Garrett's trip. The USW has more than 850,000 members.

In mid-September, USW president Leo Gerard used the Blue Ridge example in a letter to Congress, calling the possibility of health insurance plans forcing workers and their families to travel overseas for care "frightening."

USW's protest comes at a time when insurance companies from Michigan to Florida, and even the state of West Virginia, are researching overseas healthcare options in order to reduce costs.
At the Blue Ridge Paper plant the union's reaction was met with dismay, says Garrett, who has worked at the company for 40 years. "People had given me so much encouragement, so much positive response, and they're devastated," he says. "A lot of people were waiting for me to report back on how it went and perhaps go themselves. This leaves them in limbo, too."

But Tom Keesling of IndUShealth calls the defunct trip an "isolated incident."

"The basic motivation of this kind of offshoring is not to take US jobs, but to preserve US jobs," says Mr. Keesling. "The challenge is there's a giant freight train called healthcare that is barreling down, so someone has to do something."

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The best view isn't always from the top

from the September 29, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0929/p18s03-hfes.html

By Leigh Ann Henion

My palms began to sweat as I studied the steep incline of the path. The smooth sandstone spine of Australia's Ayers Rock was fitted with metal posts, and thick chains were provided along the narrowest passages. Still, I was nervous about climbing.

Aborigines do not climb this rock, known to them as Uluru, because they believe it to be part of the sacred path their ancestors traveled when the Earth was formed. They do not climb out of respect for those who went before them, and they ask that tourists also refrain.

Because of the stories handed down to them, Aborigines see Uluru as a sacred monument to their ancestors and the Earth. But to me - and to the hordes of tourists fresh off a clustered fleet of air-conditioned buses - the officially open-to-the-public mount was a challenge. I was 15 years old and hungry for new experiences.

At points during my ascent, I clung to the chains affixed to the stone's spine. At other sections, where the stone path widened, I almost skipped along.

I finally reached the top, where the view I felt I'd earned spread out as an endless red sea of sand. I had an urge to take pictures of myself with this view, magnificent because of what it was lacking rather than for what it held. The photo would be proof that I conquered this strange, mountain-size desert stone.

Once I'd crested Uluru, it seemed I had been successful on the outback leg of my Australian journey. Only on the steep trek down did I begin to contemplate the offense of what had, at first, seemed such a harmless amusement.

I began to feel ashamed that I had hesitated to climb out of fear rather than out of respect for local lore.

It has been more than 10 years since I climbed Uluru, but my breach of travel etiquette haunts me still. When I think back to that day and the dry heat of the Australian outback, it is a conversation with an Aborigine artist - not the view from a conquered stone - I remember most vividly.

The artist, a woman with wild, graying hair, had been dour-faced when I approached her outdoor art booth after my climb. As I ran my hand across canvas surfaces covered in scattered dots that rose like Braille, she called out the prices to let me know she was watching me.

The one I finally chose to purchase was a small piece of prestretched canvas bearing half-moon shapes surrounded by a blizzard of paint. It was composed of earth tones - hues of mud and saffron.

"What are these shapes?" I asked her, pointing to the crescents, and the woman's face softened at the sincerity of my interest.

"Those represent people sitting around a campfire," she told me. "Stars are the campfires of our ancestors."

The night before, I'd lain under a Milky Way so thick that I had finally understood how it had gotten its name. Stars seemed to flow through the sky like a liquid vein of white diamonds through an onyx stone. Holding the painting, I considered how comforting it must be to see all those brilliant lights as the warm hearths of loved ones.

"You have a lot of stars here," I told her.

"A lot of campfires," she corrected me.

I can't remember the last time I looked at the picture of myself standing on Uluru, smiling against a backdrop of sapphire-blue sky. But I look at that painting every day, and when I look up on star-encrusted nights, I am reminded of the story its artist shared with me.

If I were to visit Uluru today, I am certain I would not climb. I've come to realize that the best views found while traveling often appear later - in the mind at the prompt of a local's story. They are the views that slowly reveal themselves like campfire-stars at dusk, the stories that give meaning to the patch of land on which I stand.

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