Delivery companies switch to hybrids

from the November 30, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1130/p03s02-usec.html

Coca-Cola this week introduced them in New York in a bid to save fuel and cut emissions.

By Ron Scherer Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

New York
Every day, Coca-Cola trucks slowly weave their way through New York traffic, eventually stopping at up to 18 grocery stores, restaurants, and bodegas. As a truck makes a delivery, the engine idles, burning fuel and spewing fumes.

But as of Wednesday, Coca-Cola Enterprises started to do things differently in New York. It is using hybrid delivery trucks, which operate just like the cars, using a combination of batteries and horsepower. When the trucks are unloading, there will be no fumes and idling diesel engines.
Instead, the shiny new red-and-white trucks will have 32 percent better fuel economy. And the hybrids' greenhouse-gas emissions will be 90 percent less than those from regular trucks, according to the manufacturer of the new vehicle.

"It's a small step, but it's one of those steps that if we keep taking, we will be leaving a better world for our kids," says Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Coca-Cola's transition to hybrid trucks is part of a push by urban delivery companies to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions. As with the hybrid cars, demand for the green trucks is so strong that companies such as Coca-Cola are willing to pay a 35 to 40 percent premium over the cost of a normal delivery truck. Both FedEx and UPS are also building hybrid fleets in urban areas. In return, the companies cut their fuel consumption.

"You get a return on the investment, but more importantly, it's the right thing to do," says John Brock, president of Coca-Cola Enterprises in an interview at the company's giant distribution center in the South Bronx.

Environmental groups, who have pressed for cleaner air to deal with various health issues, are pleased to see the shift. The Coca-Cola distribution center, for one, is in a heavy industrial area with many trucks on the road. Medical testing has found high rates of asthma among local residents.

"That area has some of the nation's highest asthma rates, so looking for ways to reduce vehicle emissions is good," says Jason Babbie, senior environmental policy analyst at NYPIRG, a nonprofit policy lobbying group in Albany. "This is definitely a positive step."

Groups trying to promote corporate responsibility think it's a good example as well. "It's managing a regulatory risk," says Allison Hannon of the Climate Group, which tries to get businesses and government to work together on climate issues. "There is going to be a price on carbon, the cost of energy is going to go through the roof, and for some companies, it will catch them by surprise."

Cutting down on greenhouse-gas emissions in urban areas is considered an important step in slowing climate change, since urban areas account for as much as 80 percent of the gases. "It's where you can make the biggest difference," says Ms. Hannon, who is based in New York.

Shifting over to the hybrid delivery trucks could be one way to cut down on emissions. For example, the average Coca-Cola truck in New York logs 44,000 miles a year on the city's streets. Because of traffic, it frequently does not get above 30 miles per hour, which is hardly fuel efficient.

"This really is a big deal," says Mr. Bloomberg, who has his own plan to dramatically reduce New York's greenhouse-gas emissions.

UPS, with one of the largest truck fleets in the nation, has purchased 50 hybrids for short-haul deliveries. It estimates that on an annual basis, it will save 44,000 gallons of fuel and will cut emissions by 457 metric tons of carbon dioxide. FedEx is also operating 75 hybrids for short hauls.

By the end of the year, Coca-Cola will have five hybrid trucks on the streets. By the end of next year, it will have 120 nationwide. It would like to add more, but, Brock says, "it's a question of capacity" by the manufacturers.

The Coca-Cola trucks are made by International Truck and Engine Corp., and the hybrid system is supplied by Cleveland-based Eaton Corp. Eaton went into full production in July and says it's now ready to produce as many as companies want to order.

"But there are some limitations with the OEMs [original equipment manufacturers, such as International] and how many they can build," says Ken Davis, vice president of light/medium duty transmissions at Eaton Corp. in Kalamazoo, Mich.

As more companies buy the hybrids, the cost will start to come down, says Mr. Davis. "We have a very aggressive program to get the cost down over the next three years," he says.

The potential market for the hybrids, Davis estimates, is about 15,000 trucks per year, or about 10 percent of 150,000 trucks produced annually. "But who knows. It could go to 15 to 20 percent depending on the cost of fuel," he says.

Coca-Cola and its archrival PepsiCo are starting to push each other on a green agenda. Earlier this year, Pepsi announced a significant investment in renewable power – equal to the total amount of energy used by the company's US operations. And Pepsi is now testing hybrid delivery trucks, Davis says. "Stay tuned," he says.

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Flight risk: more of America's birds are in danger

from the November 30, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1130/p02s01-usgn.html

Some 178 species are endangered or in decline, new list says. That's up 11 percent from five years ago.

By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

With birds increasingly hammered by climate change, habitat loss, and a host of other threats, the list of US species in dire trouble is getting longer.

Unlike many still common "backyard bird" species whose notable declines were documented in a national study this spring, the much-less familiar species on the new "2007 WatchList for US Birds" released yesterday are considered in danger of extinction or in very serious decline.
Some 178 species made this year's watch list, up 11 percent from five years ago.

The masked booby, wandering tattler, and Mexican chickadee are among 12 new species added to the US watch list, which is compiled every five years by the National Audubon Society in New York and the American Bird Conservancy in Washington, both of which are conservation groups.
"The watch list sounds a real warning," said David Pashley, director of conservation programs for the American Bird Conservancy and a coauthor of the list, in a statement.

Many consider the ultimate warning list to be the federal Endangered Species list maintained by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which provides taxpayer-funded recovery plans and habitat protection. But with federal listing rates at historic lows, the new watch list functions as the next best "call to action" to highlight troubled species and halt their decline before it worsens, experts say.

Take, for instance, the saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow, which is restricted to a narrow band of salt marsh along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. On one side of the marsh is intense human development and on the other the threat of rising sea levels. Even a one-foot rise in sea level due to global warming would be devastating to the sparrow.

The black-capped vireo in central Texas remains on the list, its slender population threatened by development and the nest parasitism of the brown-headed cowbird.

Yet there is some good news included in the watch list's bird call to arms: 27 species are coming off the list this year – a number of those because of population increases due to habitat protection and other conservation efforts, experts say.

"Certainly some bird species are doing better, and their absence from this new list reflects that," says Gregory Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society.

Among those soaring off the list are the ferruginous hawk, Wilson's phalarope, the worm-eating warbler, and the black oystercatcher, all of which are doing better than they were just five years ago thanks to focused attention, Dr. Butcher says. The Wilson's phalarope, for instance, nests in sloughs of North Dakota where conservation work for waterfowl also helped it recover.

In a few cases, studies found bird populations to be healthier than earlier believed, such as with the McCown's longspur. The small ground-feeding bird, whose warbling call used to be common on the northwestern Great Plains, was listed in the "red" category of the 2002 WatchList – in imminent danger of extinction – but is not listed this time. A closer analysis finds that it is more widely distributed than earlier believed.

Despite continuing growth in the number of bird species in trouble, this year has been notable for some successes. In June, the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list – a victory for the federal law that protected it during recovery.

Add the whooping crane, too. While still listed as endangered, the species has rebounded from the brink of extinction – with just a few dozen left – to more than 200 today.

Even so, many species on the watch list should be federally listed as endangered, a protection Butcher says is being more widely recognized for its positive impact.

"The bald eagle, peregrine falcon, the California condor, and the whooping crane all used to be on the endangered list at one time but are doing really well now," he says. "If we take good care of these birds, they can rebound."

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No need to wait till spring for baseball

from the November 28, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1128/p13s02-litr.html

In seven Caribbean nations, warm weather and high-quality baseball welcome visitors who can't wait for professional play to resume in the US.

By Rick Feingold Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Baseball season isn't over; in fact, it's just begun – in Latin America, that is. There, baseball is a winter sport, and the months of December and January are the perfect time for planning a trip to follow the local action in the Caribbean.

Just as jazz, the original American musical art form, has been exported throughout the world, so has baseball. Within Latin America, baseball leagues are found in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela.

Major League Baseball scouts travel to each of these countries in search of prospects, hoping to find the next David Ortiz or Pedro Martinez. Teams such as the Los Angeles Dodgers have established baseball academies in the Dominican Republic to develop the skills of young athletes so they are prepared to compete in the United States upon signing a major league contract.

Baseball in the Dominican Republic is actually a purer form of the sport than fans now see in the US. The professional game is played as it was in the early and mid-20th century, when it was considered America's national pastime.

Players are accessible at the baseball stadium. "You are closer to the field and the players, compared to a game in the US," says John Lenihan, an auto industry executive who has traveled from New Jersey to Santo Domingo to watch Dominican League baseball. "You can walk down to the dugout and talk to the players."

The Dominican Republic is the most successful country in the world outside the US at cultivating professional baseball talent, so the quality of play is high. Dominicans have regularly been stars on American baseball teams since Ozzie Virgil debuted with the New York Giants in 1956.

Today, many Dominicans are household names among American baseball fans. Albert Pujols was elected the National League Most Valuable Player in 2005. Manny Acta manages the Washington Nationals. This year, Dominicans made up 10 percent of all players in the American major leagues , more than all other Latin American countries combined. So, part of the fun of a visit is watching players who may become the next big stars in the US.

Located on the eastern half of the island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic shares its western border with Haiti. Santo Domingo is the capital of this country of about 9 million people. The economy is poor, and poverty is widespread. For better or worse, baseball is considered the "Dominican dream" and a means out of poverty for many young men.

For tourists, baseball in the Dominican Republic is best experienced during the winter season of November to January, although a second season featuring rookie teams runs from June to August.

Games are played at Quisqueya Stadium in Santo Domingo, which is located off Avenida Tiradentes.

During the regular season, you can buy tickets from the ticket office at the stadium before most games. Seats are inexpensive, compared with the cost in the US. They range from $2 for seats in the outfield bleachers to $10 to $15 for infield seating. Tickets for championship games may be more difficult to come by, although scalpers usually have seats for events that are officially sold out.

Part of the reason for the excellent quality of baseball here is that some major leaguers from the Dominican Republic – often younger players – sharpen their skills by participating in the league during the off-season in the US.

These players are also a big reason that being at the ballpark feels like a family affair. Many of the fans grew up and went to school (or played childhood baseball) with the major-leaguers who are once again playing at home. Also, the players' family members often attend games. I sat with Mrs. David Ortiz at a game in 1999, when he was a rookie with the Minnesota Twins.

"The Dominican Winter League is considered the major leagues of the Caribbean and the best baseball league outside of the US and Japan," says Carlos Sanchez, a sportswriter for the El Caribe newspaper in Santo Domingo.

"In the Dominican Republic, prospects and some veterans play in November and December," he adds. "The best players, usually major league stars, play in January during the time of the championship tournaments."

Fun off the field as well as on

The activity off the field is sometimes as interesting as the game itself. Outside the stadium, vendors sell everything from team pennants and caps to baseballs used in prior games.
Inside Quisqueya Stadium, every seat is close to the field of play, a big improvement over what US fans often experience in major league ballparks.

Frequently there's even excitement between innings. "The Dominican baseball cheerleaders who dance on top of the dugouts to merengue music generate a lot of enthusiasm," points out Mr. Lenihan, the US tourist.

"The fans are always in a good mood at the games," notes Mr. Sanchez. "You can see the scouts at the game and you have an opportunity to meet the players."

How long should a Caribbean winter league baseball visit be? "Five days is the right amount of time for a vacation like this," estimates Lenihan. "You can [also] tour historic churches, Parque Colón, and shop on El Conde. Plan to stay longer if you want to visit the beaches."

Although hurricane Noel did cause damage to the Dominican Republic, all Santo Domingo hotels are again operating at full capacity. Tourist infrastructure is fully functional, and Dominican League Winter Baseball continues to play a full schedule.

Two more choices

Beyond the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Venezuela have winter baseball leagues that attract US visitors:

In Venezuela, the professional league includes eight teams from the cities of Caracas, La Guaira, Maracaibo, Valencia, Barquisimeto, Maracay, Puerto La Cruz, and Porlamar, in a season that runs from October to January. Games are played in the baseball stadium at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas.

The Mexican league is the largest professional baseball organization outside the US. It has a 16-team nationwide league that competes during the summer at the same time as the US leagues. But an eight-team Pacific league competes on the country's west coast between late October and January.

Mexican baseball stadiums are among the largest and best maintained in Latin America. During the winter season, look for games in Mexicali, Mazatlan, and Hermosillo, among other cities. Home schedules are available in English at http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/winterleagues/?league=car.

All these winter baseball venues are worthy of a vacation and will provide an opportunity to create your own baseball memories under the warm tropical sun.

If you go

Travel to the Dominican Republic: Santo Domingo is about a four-hour flight from New York or two hours from Miami.

Thestadium: Estadio Quisqueya is located at Ave. Tiradentes at SanCristóbal. A taxi from downtown will be about $5 to $8, and regularseason game tickets cost $2 to $15. (January playoff games are moreexpensive.) Phone: (809) 540-5772.

Game times: Evening games begin at 7:30. Sunday afternoon games begin at 5.

Whereto sit: Major League Baseball scouts can usually be found behind homeplate in Section A-15. These are considered the best seats in thestadium. Seats between first and third base are generally in amplesupply and cost $10 to $15.

Weather: The country enjoys atropical climate – warm and sunny. Daily high temperatures are usuallyin the upper 80s and nightly lows are in the high 60s to low 70s.

Formore information, see the website of the Dominican Republic TouristBoard at www.godominicanrepublic.com or e-mailinfo@godominicanrepublic.com. Find Caribbean League schedules at http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/winterleagues/?league=car.

The Caribbean League Championship Series

For the annual Serie del Caribe, the major baseball powers in theCaribbean region – Venezuela, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic –challenge one another for the championship of Latin America.

Here'show it works: The baseball teams with the best record in each countryadvance to postseason playoffs, which end with a national champion.Each country's champion team is then allowed to select from the bestplayers remaining in its league to form a national "all-star" team.
Thesenational teams travel to the host country, where they play around-robin series of six games (a daily day-night double-header forsix consecutive days).

If two teams are tied with thebest record after six games, they compete in a playoff game todetermine the Caribbean League Champion.

La Serie delCaribe rotates each year among the countries. The next one will takeplace Feb. 2-7, 2008, in Santiago, Dominican Republic,

TheChampionship Series is a festive event. Opening night includes livelyceremonies much like those held at US All-Star games. The president ofthe host country is usually in attendance.
A troupe of dancers and musicians is sent by each country to present a display of native song and dance.

Mexicois traditionally represented by a large mariachi band. The DominicanRepublic and Venezuela compete to outdo one another with colorfulcostumes and spirited dances.
Each show is presented on the infield and, as befits a championship series, ends with a big fireworks display.

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Military chaplains: a Presbyterian pastor patrols with his flock of soldiers in Iraq

from the November 27, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1127/p20s01-usmi.html

Army Capt. Ron Eastes carries a big responsibility - but no weapon - in his 'ministry of presence' with the 82nd Airborne.

By Lee Lawrence Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Baghdad

Vendors and shopkeepers are gearing up for business along a market street in the northeastern neighborhood of Adhamiya, when a platoon of American soldiers disgorges from Humvees. The soldiers fan out up and down the street. Even on a low-key patrol to make their presence known and gather intel, the soldiers have to stay on the qui vive. Eyes dart up to rooftops and down side alleys; while one soldier smiles and nods greetings to a vendor, another peers to the back of the store.

From a distance the soldiers are indistinguishable: domed helmets, dark glasses, and tight-fitting armored vests in camouflage grays and greens. But closer inspection reveals differences. From the back of one soldier, a radio antenna quivers: platoon leader. Across the chest of another, only gloved hands – no rifle, no side arm strapped to thigh: chaplain. In orbit around him, another soldier, rifle ready: chaplain's assistant and bodyguard. Should fighting break out, he'll shove his charge behind a wall, to the ground, under a vehicle.

Chaplain Ron Eastes is on this patrol with members of his 82nd Airborne Army unit not because he is helping with the platoon's mission, but because the platoon itself is his mission.

"I've heard it said that a shepherd needs to smell like his sheep," he explains, "and if I'm going to care for these guys, I need to be where they are."

And being where they are can mean joining soldiers in a ritual of cigars and banter as a distant mullah chants the call to prayer and the sky darkens beyond the concertina wire at their combat outpost (COP) in north Baghdad. Or playing cards with troops visiting from a smaller outpost. Or walking, outside "the wire," among stalls selling housewares and food in a Baghdad bazaar.
The smell of sheep, Chaplain Eastes knows, comes with more than a whiff of risk.

• • •

Eastes, a captain, isn't new to the military. As an enlisted soldier in the '90s, he served two years in this same battalion in Fort Bragg, N.C. But there was something missing. Eastes says he felt that "eternal significance wasn't there, and I longed for that."

So, in December 1999, he left active duty and enrolled at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, N.C., always thinking that, if he could just "marry the military and ministry, that could be my niche." Five years and two children later, he joined the chaplain corps.

Although one of his primary duties is to provide religious services, Sunday mornings aren't the best gauge of his effectiveness. Fighting the whir of the mess hall air conditioner one Sunday last May, the soft-spoken West Virginia pastor dissected the Book of Job to a congregation of four.

Sure, this conservative Presbyterian would love to look up one Sunday and find the room packed. But, unlike a civilian minister, he can't count on the soldiers at COP War Eagle to share his theology. So Eastes applies his denomination's notion of grace. "We differentiate between common grace and sovereign grace," he explains, sitting in a cubicle inside the camp's former gym. On the wall behind him, the faces of his children stare back, the third only 2 years old.

"God causes the rain to fall on the righteous and unrighteous [and] the sun to shine on the wicked and the righteous." That is common grace, he says. "Sovereign grace: the Gospel. Probably 95 percent of my ministry is common grace."

Capt. Jon Harvey, an energetic officer who heads a battery called The Bulls, has a more secular term for this: "This isn't going to sound nice, but Ron is like background noise. And that's exactly what a chaplain should be."

The value of this "background noise" comes clear on a day when soldiers detain an Iraqi sniper suspected of wounding a high-ranking US officer. After poring over intel reports, they decide to apprehend the suspect at his workplace during what looks like a routine patrol. From the operations center back at War Eagle, Eastes follows the soldiers' reports and is pleased that no shots are fired, no doors kicked in. And, within hours, the soldiers are back, and the detainee is shut in a cell with plywood walls and padlocked door. A soldier sits on a stool beside the door while two others watch from nearby. The prisoner and soldiers wait in silence.

Well aware that a soldier's anger can flare at the sight of a man thought to have shot one of their own, Eastes strolls over with calm concern and pauses by the guard. From a distance it's impossible to hear what the chaplain and soldier are saying – but the words exchanged aren't what is important. What matters is that Eastes is getting the soldier to talk; if there is pent-up anger, he can spot and, he hopes, defuse it.

"There's probably a little venom that boils up," Eastes later says with characteristic understatement, "but I've been impressed by the way [detainees] have been treated [here]."
He volunteers that this hasn't always been the case in this war. "We aren't going to run from that. But these guys know the difference between right and wrong." And Eastes aims to keep reminding them.

It is a classic example of what chaplains call their "ministry of presence." Its effect is as impossible to quantify as that of a guardrail on a mountain road: Nobody can know how many accidents – if any – are prevented because of its presence, but we believe it makes a difference. In war, when a sense of right and wrong can disappear into the fog of adrenaline and anger, the chaplain can act as a "guardrail," and officers who rely on them as such talk about the value of troops having a safe place to let off steam and regain equilibrium.

"There's a switch that a soldier has to flip somewhere mentally and emotionally that allows [him to consider] an individual to be a target," Eastes explains. In war, "there's something healthy about seeing someone as an enemy."

By doing so, soldiers can overcome what some psychologists term an innate resistance to kill. What makes this war especially difficult is that the switch can't stay permanently flipped because, as Eastes says, they're "dealing with folks day in and out." Should a sniper open fire during a fact-finding mission, military training will kick in and flip that switch; and, at the end of the day, Eastes will be on the lookout to make sure it has "unflipped." And if soldiers have pulled the trigger or seen comrades killed or wounded, he's there to help them process the experience or to get them other help.

Even on missions deemed too dangerous for Eastes to accompany, he tries to provide a presence. When the platoon headed out to capture the suspected sniper, Eastes joined them in the motor pool to offer a prayer for those who wished it. In a semicircle of bowed heads, he read Psalm 91, popular verses of protection. He then prayed: "If they have to make a split-second decision, I ask you to give them wisdom; if they have to make the decision to shoot, to engage another individual, I ask that the bullet goes straight."

The issue of prayer has been politicized in recent years, with the focus entirely on when and how chaplains can pray in Jesus' name without excluding or offending non-Christians. But this overshadows another important question: Should chaplains ask for divine intervention in the outcome of war or limit prayers to petitions for protection and the right conduct of war?

Often a line only becomes visible when a chaplain crosses it, and Eastes's own prayer could be said to come close. Some might interpret it as a request that God favor his unit's mission; others might hear a request that no innocent bystanders be hurt. As an officer, Eastes makes no bones about wanting US soldiers to be successful; he is equally clear that his concern is the conduct of war, not whether God endorses it.

Even well-defined lines are sometimes contested. In the US, chaplaincy historian John Brinsfield notes, Civil War generals defined chaplains as noncombatants long before the Geneva Conventions. In 1909, the military designated a specific position to assist and protect the chaplain.

Still every war has chaplains who break the rules. In 2003, a convoy came under attack in Iraq, and the chaplain picked up a rifle and joined the fray. Like many chaplains, he had prior military service and was no stranger to firearms.

Chaplains generally agree that they shouldn't fight, but some would like to see chaplains, like noncombatant medics, have the right to carry a weapon for self-defense. Eastes's grandfather, a World War II chaplain, "was given the option to carry a .45. He chose not to. But," Eastes adds, "this is not our grandfathers' war." Chaplains have no guarantee that, if captured, they'll be treated as noncombatants.

Every Army chief of chaplains since World War II has argued that arming chaplains would detract from their primary focus of caring for soldiers and open the way for commanders to use them as combat assets.

Eastes agrees that there are powerful arguments for the interdiction, but he says that, as a father and husband, he would like to see the senior leadership reopen the debate. In the meantime, he is neither crossing the line nor letting the risk it entails stop him from meeting his men where they are – on the streets of Baghdad.

•On Dec. 4: Part 6. A steady presence and cornball humor makes National Guard Chaplain Kurt Bishop a team-builder in a combat hospital in Afghanistan.

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In New Hampshire, the swing voters who count first

from the November 20, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1120/p01s04-uspo.html

In New Hampshire, undeclared voters dominate the political landscape and may hold the key to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

By Ari Pinkus Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Manchester and Nashua, N.H.

As schoolteacher Betty Ward evaluates the 16 candidates running for president, uppermost in her mind is: Who will get US troops out of Iraq? She's mulling over whom to vote for.
Donna Richards will vote for someone who can be trusted and whose aim is to bring about peace. Her choice: undecided.

Attorney Andre Gibeau is seeking a candidate with courage to return to Congress much of the power he believes was usurped by President Bush.

Meet some of New Hampshire's freethinking and increasingly dissatisfied independents, who quite possibly hold the key to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. They dwarf the ranks of registered Democrats or Republicans in this state. What they're thinking may well signal which themes will strike a chord with the roughly 20 percent of voters nationwide who consider themselves independents.

"New Hampshire will be a good test to see what [independents] find attractive on both sides," says Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Despite their diversity, New Hampshire's independents share some characteristics. They tend to be among the most fiscally conservative of the state's voters. The bad feelings they harbor toward the Bush administration's runaway spending have moved them further away from the GOP, and state polls consistently show they've been tilting toward the Democrats. But they're frustrated with the polarization in American politics and are increasingly dissatisfied with both parties for their inability to tackle America's most intractable problems.

"More than anything they have a lack of confidence in the political leadership," says Dick Bennett, head of American Research Group, a nonpartisan polling firm in Manchester.

Russ Ouellette is among those who have lost faith in political professionals and wants to hear candidates talk about wide-ranging reform. "We can't respond to hurricanes," says the business consultant from Bedford, N.H. "We're at war with an enemy that seems almost made up. We're supposed to live in fear all the time, yet go shopping to solve the problem."

In general, voters are feeling insecurity in nearly every area of their lives, Mr. Bennett says. "People go to work and when they return home they find gas is 7 cents higher."

In the current political environment, the message that resonates most is one that promises hope for a better future and solves such problems. A recurring theme in presidential elections, it's a far more important point to stress this time "because the world we live in is more complex," he adds.

Independents here say that they want a leader who is not only a problem solver but is also forward-thinking.

"I think whoever gets elected now will have a lot more responsibility to the future than presidents of the past," says Ms. Richards. "Before, the focus was on the economy: 'What can I have now?' I think with things like global warming, the depletion of our oil resources, Medicare and Social Security, the next president needs to be forward-thinking, a steward of the planet and the people on it and the programs so we're not headed for a wall ... down the road.

But this can-do spirit should not come at the expense of empathy, she and others agree.

"I would like to see somebody who cares more about the country than the party, someone who really cares about the future of our children and the children I teach, like what does the future look like 15 if not 20 years down the road," says Ms. Ward, who voted for Republican John McCain in the 2000 primary and Democrat Howard Dean in the 2004 primary.

Independents are especially strong here because state rules allow them to pick up a ballot from either party on primary day, cast their vote, and then return to undeclared status before they leave the polls. Their numbers are growing. In 1992, they constituted 22 percent of the state's electorate, according to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University in Washington. Now at 44 percent, they're far more numerous than registered Democrats (26 percent) and Republicans (30 percent).

Those numbers translate into real power. In 2006, independents helped unseat the state's two US representatives, reelect a Democratic governor, and give Democrats control of both houses in the state legislature for the first time since 1912.

But lately independents have become disenchanted with the Democratic Party because of a lack of action in Congress on a withdrawal plan from Iraq since the 2006 midterm elections, Bennett says.

"What our country is doing does not represent me as an American," Ward says. "I think there's a disconnect between what our policies are and what people want. In 2006, the election was to stop the war. To take the majority rule and make some impact.... Now we might be going to Iran. The war hasn't stopped in Iraq."

Many of independents' votes are still up for grabs in the upcoming primary, which has not yet been officially scheduled. While 41 percent of the state's voters say they plan to vote in the Democratic primary, another 40 percent haven't decided which primary they will vote in, according to a poll taken last month by the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. Just 19 percent plan to participate in the GOP primary, the poll reported.

The growth of independents is mirrored nationwide. In 1960, only 1.6 percent of the electorate identified themselves as independent; in 2004, they accounted for 21.7 percent in the 28 states and the District of Columbia that register voters by party, according to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

Their numbers have swelled because many voters have become "dulled" by or have stopped believing in politics, says Curtis Gans, the center's director.

As the state waits for New Hampshire's secretary of state, Bill Gardner, to set the primary date, independents, in particular, say they are thankful that the election isn't tomorrow since they haven't found their candidate yet.

"I'm glad I don't have to decide yet. I have one little vote but to me it's very important," Richards says.

Independent voters of all stripes share what kind of president they seek.

Betty Ward, schoolteacher:

"There's so many tiers of handlers. Like a corporation within itself. They're so guarded. They're so worried about winning. I just don't think all of this is real; it's almost surreal. I would like something really authentic. I want to feel that somebody up there has hope.... I want to be inspired."

Andre Gibeau, attorney:

"I want the professor candidate. I want the person who takes it all in and thinks about it and puts together the people to think about it."

Russ Ouellette, consultant:

"There are bigger issues to talk about than who are you voting for. Let's talk about reform."

Donna Richards, small-business owner:

"What I'm looking for ... has to do with who they are as a person and what their policies are, as well. It has to be someone who ... will speak the truth and act according to what he or she has set forth as their core values or principles or policies. I think we've lost that ... trust in our leaders. I think that's not only important to us as citizens of this country, but on the world stage they need to be credible." .

Since independents aren't organized or listed on any party's Rolodex, they play a special role in Granite State politics. They're observers rather than activists, says Arnie Arnesen, a New Hampshire TV and radio talk-show host.

So campaigns reaching out for their support are tailoring their message – with varying levels of success.

Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has focused on appealing to female voters, has the support of 45 percent of women who are likely to vote in the Democratic primary, according to a poll released by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion on Nov. 11.

Barack Obama is targeting the 18-to-24 demographic, which tends to register as undeclared, says Dick Bennett, head of American Research Group. Mr. Obama leads Ms. Clinton by 13 percent among first-time voters, according to the Marist poll. Overall, he is closing a 20-point gap with Clinton, the Democrats' front-runner.

But "There's been no clear candidate for change. No one's grabbed that mantle, not even Obama," says Dante Scala, a political scientist.

Former Democratic Sen. John Edwards hopes that he will. "My message runs across party lines and ideological lines," he told reporters after a recent speech.

On the Republican side, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani garners 24 percent of independents, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona captures 22 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney draws 19 percent in the Marist poll. Giuliani receives more backing from moderates than his rivals.

At the same time, GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has piqued the interest among some people here by talking about limited government and withdrawing troops from Iraq. He has polled as high as 7 percent.

"He's the only [Republican] who doesn't scare the daylight out of me," says attorney Andre Gibeau, mostly because of Mr. Paul's focus on constitutional rights. "I don't think any enemy from the outside can do the damage to the United States that we can do internally if we change the nature of our democracy."

Senator McCain's campaign is seeking to revive the magic McCain had when he courted and won voters in 2000. In that New Hampshire primary, the antiestablishment candidates McCain and Bill Bradley (D) competed for support among independent voters, who turned out by a significant margin to help McCain trounce George W. Bush by 19 points.

Although polls show independents are poised to vote in the Democratic contest this time, Mr. Scala cautions that if the Democratic primary looks as if it's going to be a rout, they may vote in the Republican contest instead.

Betty Ward says she's likely to decide which ballot to choose on Election Day and make her final decision in the voting booth. "I really don't know at this point because it's just too far off," she adds.

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Democrats take defensive tack with Bush

from the November 21, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1121/p02s01-uspo.html

They keep the Senate open this week to block high-level White House appointments.

By Gail Russell Chaddock Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

The Senate wrapped up its business with unusual dispatch on Tuesday. Sen. Jim Webb (D) of Virginia, the designated presiding officer, called the chamber to order. "Under the previous order, the Senate stands in recess until Friday," he said. He banged the gavel, and then he left. It took 22 seconds.

But what the session lacked in depth, it made up for in political purpose. By keeping the Senate in session, however briefly, Democrats prevent President Bush from making high-level appointments while Congress is in recess, thus avoiding the process of Senate confirmation.
"We're preserving the Constitution," Senator Webb said, after the pro-forma session. "It's appropriate given how [the Bush administration] is abusing the confirmation process."

From confirmations to annual spending bills and war funding, Mr. Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress are at odds – with both sides settling into procedural trench warfare.
Democrats are playing defense since they lack the 60 votes to prevent a Senate filibuster or the two-thirds in both chambers needed to overturn a presidential veto.

A pro-forma session to block recess appointments is a new tactic for lawmakers. Since the late 1980s, party leaders have talked about the possibility of using such sessions to stop recess appointments as well as pocket vetoes, which allow the president to keep a bill unsigned until the legislative session is over. But this week marks the first time it's been carried out.

"It's one of those small things that can be instantly effective," says Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "It also reflects the utter lack of trust that Democrats have vis-à-vis the president and the belief that he will exploit every opportunity provided him."

The White House wants the Senate to take up some 200 executive branch and judicial nominations, including those for two Cabinet secretaries, three members of the Federal Reserve, and the US surgeon general.

Democrats worry that Bush may use the two-week Thanksgiving break to fill some of them, especially with people who are controversial. One is James Holsinger, who is being considered for surgeon general and has drawn criticism for a 1991 paper on the "pathophysiology of male homosexuality."

Bush's previous recess appointments include John Bolton as UN ambassador and Judges Charles Pickering and William Pryor to the US Court of Appeals. With 165 recess appointments, President Bush ranks No. 4, behind Presidents Reagan, Truman, and Eisenhower. President Clinton made 140 recess appointments, according to the US Senate Historical Office.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid says Bush is stalling on nominating Democrats for bipartisan oversight agencies.

"The Senate will be coming in for pro-forma sessions during the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments. My hope is that this will prompt the president to see that it is our mutual interests for the nominations process to get back on track," said Senator Reid.

On Tuesday, leaders on the House Appropriations Committee stepped up the war of words with the White House – and fellow Democrats in the Senate – over stalled Iraq war funding. The Pentagon says that Bush's $196.4 billion request is needed by January to avoid the shutdown of US bases and some 100,000 layoffs.

"Rather than working with Congress on a responsible war-spending package, this administration is executing a plan to plunder from these essential base budget accounts in order to fund a continuation of the president's misguided war," said Rep. John Murtha (D) of Pennsylvania, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, in a press briefing.

He and Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D) of Wisconsin say that they will not move another war-funding bill this year, unless it includes three conditions: a requirement that all troops deployed into combat be fully trained and equipped, a ban on torture, and a goal of getting out of a combat role in Iraq by December 2008. President Bush threatens to veto any bill that includes conditions that restrict the Pentagon and commander in chief.

Before the Thanksgiving nonrecess, the Senate rejected two war-funding bills. The Democratic version, which also passed the House, provided $50 billion toward Bush's $196.4 billion request, but with a "goal" of completing a transition out of a combat role in Iraq by December 2008. It fell seven votes short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. A GOP version, which provided $70 billion without a timetable for withdrawal, failed 45 to 53.

In response, Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, who chairs the Defense appropriations subcommittee, said they would work on a version of the bill that is less restrictive.

Nearly two months into the new fiscal year, Democrats have passed only two of 12 annual spending bills. Last week, the House failed to override a presidential veto of the biggest domestic spending measure, the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education bill totaling $606 billion. The White House threatens vetoes on all but one of the remaining bills unless Democrats meet his budget limit.

"Democrats face a tough situation: a Republican president who was just unwilling to compromise on many policies, even if it meant plummeting popular ratings, and a very effective and disciplined Republican minority," says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J.

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Stem-cell advance opens up the field

from the November 23, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1123/p01s01-uspo.html

With a new technique's lower cost and scrubbed-up ethics, more labs are likely to enter the arena.

By Peter N. Spotts Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Colonies of tiny cells flourishing in petri dishes in the US and Japan are reshaping the political and ethical landscape surrounding human stem-cell research.

In the process, these diminutive colonies also may level the playing field in stem-cell research – internationally and domestically.

These are some of the effects analysts say they see coming out of this week's announcements that two teams have genetically reprogrammed skin cells so that they take on the traits of embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are the subject of intense medical interest because of their ability to develop into any of the major cell types in the human body. Over the long term, these stem cells could become the foundation for therapies for a range of diseases, scientists say. This week's announcement suggests it will be possible for scientists to study these cells without the ethical and political difficulties of harvesting them from unused human embryos.

For the emerging field of stem-cell research, "this is enormous," says Jesse Reynolds, a policy analyst at the liberal Center for Genetics and Society, based in Oakland, Calif. "I can't think of another development "that has been this big,"

"This is a paradigm shift," agrees Rev. Tad Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. "This will have a huge impact on the ethical debate."

That debate has centered on the sources for human embryonic stem cells – especially those that have the potential to be patient-specific. For research purposes, scientists have turned to fertility clinics where patients either have donated their nascent embryos to research or no longer need them to start a family. But the process of extracting the stem cells destroys these soon-to-be embryos, technically called blastocysts. The destruction is abhorrent to those who hold that human life begins at conception.

The ethical debate grows more heated when cloning – the most controversial idea for generating patient-specific stem cells – enters the picture. In 1997, a team in Scotland led by Ian Wilmut cloned Dolly the sheep from adult tissue by extracting the DNA from nucleus of adult cells and injecting it into the emptied nuclei of unfertilized sheep eggs. The eggs were fertilized, then implanted into ewes.

The approach is banned in humans. Last week, however, scientists from the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton, reported for the first time that they had used the technique to generate embryonic stem cells cloned from an adult primate – a macaque monkey. This strongly hinted that eventually the approach could work with humans.

But the technique, which in principle could draw on a patient's own cells to generate new tissue for treatments, is highly inefficient – requiring many eggs to yield one successful clone from which stem cells can be drawn and nurtured. It implies generating nascent embryos exclusively as stem-cell factories. And it raises the concern among many people that the approach will lead eventually to cloning humans as a means of reproduction.

By contrast, the US and Japanese teams discovered genetic triggers that could in effect turn back the clock on already-developed cells. Working independently, each team found four genes that, when introduced into the nucleus of skin cells, yielded cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells. The Japanese team, led by Kazutoshi Takahashi at the University of Kyoto, used the approach on mice last year. His lab, and one led by the University of Wisconsin's James Thompson, essentially tied for the race to test the approach using human cells.

For now, the two groups' work "changes everything and changes nothing; and caution is warranted," says Dr. Thompson. "This changes everything because these are not from embryos." But, he adds, it changes nothing because scientists still don't know how embryonic stem cells morph into the wide variety of cell types in the body. The caution comes because without that information, it's unclear if the new cells can live up to their promise. Thus, research on human embryonic stem cells is still vital, he emphasizes.

Still, some labs appear to be doing that. In Scotland, Dr. Wilmut announced earlier in the week that his lab is dropping the cloning approach and focusing on the genetic reprogramming approach as well.

If this is any indication, a shift in stem-cell research could follow. The new technique's relative ease, lower cost, higher output, and scrubbed-up ethics are likely to draw more labs into the field, Thompson suggests.

Moreover, such an expansion might further invigorate US research in the face of aggressive competition from countries like Britain and Japan.

The advance could trigger some interesting political shifts, some analysts suggest. For example, US restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research could become harder to change in light of these discoveries, according to Alta Charro, a University of Wisconsin law professor.

Already, the issue appears to be losing traction, Mr. Reynolds adds. Earlier this month, for instance, New Jersey voters rejected a plan to borrow $450 million for the state's stem-cell research program.

Indeed, the defeat, the discoveries, and the prospect that a new administration might loosen the federal purse strings for human embryonic stem research could add an element of uncertainty to existing or planned state stem-cell programs.

"Right now, all of the activities on the pro-stem-cell front in the states has been driven by the lack of federal funding for this research," says Patrick Kelly of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. "So if a new administration comes in and approves more federal funding, the need in the states is going to be diminished." But in states with existing programs "I don't think they'll ever be redundant."

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Shifting expectations game for '08

from the November 23, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1123/p01s03-uspo.html

The Iowa caucuses are now clearly up for grabs on the Democratic side, among three top candidates.

By Linda Feldmann Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

When news broke this week that a major poll put Sen. Barack Obama four points ahead of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa, the political world stopped and took notice.

Here was confirmation that the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest in the 2008 presidential elections, are indeed up for grabs – and that the clear Democratic front-runner in national polls, Senator Clinton, is far from a sure thing in the crucial first race. The Washington Post/ABC News poll of 500 likely Iowa caucusgoers also put former Sen. John Edwards within striking distance, four points behind Clinton. In short, factoring in the 4.5-point margin of error, Iowa is a three-way statistical dead heat.

Other data in the poll provided warning signs to Clinton. Iowa voters are demonstrating growing interest in a candidate who provides a "new direction and new ideas" over strength and experience, and Senator Obama wins handily among those voters.

But for Clinton, there's a bit of a silver lining in the news: Because she is not the clear favorite in Iowa, she does not face an expectation that she will win. And if she pulls out a victory, that's big news.

On the Republican side, former Gov. Mitt Romney has led the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first primary state, for months – and thus he is expected to win both. If he does, it's important but not earth-shattering. If he loses one or both, the earth shakes.

"That's the key: Whatever expectations are, you always want to do better than expected," says Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Every campaign, from the highflying front-runners to the lowliest long shots, faces the same calculations. And each, in its own way, is playing off those expectations. Sen. John McCain – the early GOP front-runner, now averaging fourth place in national polls – has pulled back his efforts in Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire, which he won big in 2000.

So if Senator McCain does poorly in Iowa on Jan. 3, it will not be big news. But it would raise the stakes for him in New Hampshire. Conservative pundit William Kristol argues that McCain should run TV ads in Iowa anyway and try for at least a third-place showing there, which could give him a bounce heading into the New Hampshire primary (probably five days later, on Jan. 8). Polls show McCain averaging 6.6 percent in Iowa, currently fifth place. Typically, only three candidates from each major party come out of Iowa viable.

In a way, the biggest maverick in the race is former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He has a healthy lead in national polls for the Republican nomination, but he trails in Iowa and New Hampshire. His stated strategy is to hold his campaign firepower for the big-delegate primaries where he expects to do well, such as Florida (Jan. 29) and California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois (all Feb. 5).

While playing down his effort in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Giuliani has nevertheless campaigned in both places, though not much until recently. Through Nov. 21, he spent 19 days in Iowa this year, versus 60 days for Mr. Romney, according to the Iowa Democratic Party.
(Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has surged into second place among Republicans in Iowa in the past month, has visited 58 times.) Romney has also spent big in the early states, building an organization and airing television ads early and often. Giuliani, in contrast, has husbanded his big war chest, airing his first TV ad of the campaign just this week – in New Hampshire.

The Giuliani campaign insists it can lose the first several contests and still win the nomination.
"What we see is there's the possibility of two paths" to the nomination, campaign director Mike DuHaime told reporters last week. He acknowledges that the early states can help a candidate build momentum, which is why Giuliani has made some effort in those states. "But we also recognize that with so many large delegate-rich states moving up so early in the process, that it's impossible to think that it [will] be over after only three states vote," he says.

By dampening expectations for the early states, Giuliani is holding open the possibility of a "surprise" victory in an early state – perhaps Michigan or South Carolina, where he and Romney are neck and neck. Still, by not making the concerted, long-term effort that the early states have come to expect, Giuliani may indeed be shut out there. Yet if he still goes on to win the nomination, he will have broken the mold: Since the advent of the modern primary system in 1972, no candidate has lost the first three contests and still won the nomination.

As for Romney, the only way he can beat expectations in the early going is not just to win, but to win convincingly.

In 2000, George W. Bush won the Iowa caucuses in a multicandidate field with 41 percent of the vote. "If Romney were to hit one-third or more, that looks pretty good," says Mr. Goldford, the political scientist. "But if he stays around 27 or so, then you have to ask, has he peaked?"

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Pentagon is left scrambling to pay for war

from the November 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p02s01-usmi.html

Secretary Robert Gates says Congress's failure to fund war operations means furloughs at US bases are likely.

By Gordon Lubold Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

Congress's failure last week to agree whether and how to fund the war puts the onus on the Pentagon, at least for now, to find a way to cover expenses in Iraq, potentially forcing the Defense Department to close dozens of domestic military bases and imperil the livelihoods of tens of thousands of defense workers.

The congressional inaction may trigger Secretary Robert Gates to carry out his threat last week to furlough as many as 200,000 civil servants and defense contractors this winter, raising the stakes for Democratic lawmakers determined to tie war funding to a drawdown of US troops from Iraq.

Before lawmakers left town Friday for their Thanksgiving recess, they did approve the Pentagon's $470 billion base budget, but not a supplemental funding request to pay for war operations. Democrats don't want to fund that $189 billion defense request from President Bush unless the money is tied to deadlines, or at least goals, to bring the bulk of troops home from Iraq by the end of 2008.

One Democratic measure, to provide $50 billion for war operations as long as the Pentagon aims to all but finish the redeployment of troops by December 2008, failed in the Senate on Friday. Another measure backed by Republicans, to provide $70 billion with no such deadline language, also failed, leaving the Pentagon uncertain about how to pay for the next several months of operations in Iraq.

That leaves the Pentagon with no choice, according to Secretary Gates, who said bluntly last week that the furloughs would be "the least undesirable" of the limited options if it runs out of money. The Defense Department would begin laying off nonuniformed defense workers, effectively shutting down all Army bases by February, followed by at least some Marine bases a month later.

The urgency stems from federal laws that require workers to be notified 60 days in advance that they might be furloughed in another month.

Though Gates is considered one of the least partisan members of the Bush Cabinet, some see his strategy as politically shrewd. It may well force congressional Democrats to back away, at least for now, from their strategy to tie war funding to a troop-withdrawal deadline, says Loren Thompson, a senior analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank near Washington.
Otherwise, Democrats could be seen as not supporting troops in the field, even though the furloughs would not affect troops directly at first.

"If this is yet another cat-and-mouse game over war funding, people should be clear that Gates is the cat, because in the end the Democratic mice are not going to be able to have their way," he says.

At the Pentagon Thursday, Gates complained that an uncertain funding stream at best creates busy work for defense planners – and at worst negatively affects the troops.

"The high degree of uncertainty on funding for the war is immensely complicating this task and will have many real consequences for this department and for our men and women in uniform," he said.

Unlike during last year's budget showdown with Congress over war funding, the Pentagon this time has little wiggle room for moving money around, said Gates. The Pentagon currently can move only about $3.7 billion into accounts for war operations – roughly the equivalent of one week's worth of war funding.

That's largely true, says Rep. Joe Sestak (D) of Pennsylvania, a former Navy admiral who worked on the Pentagon's Joint Staff before retiring and running for Congress. "Money is only so fungible among various accounts," he says. "Congress makes it that way."

Representative Sestak voted in favor of the ultimately unsuccessful proposal to fund war operations at $50 billion as long as troops start leaving soon. But he says he doesn't want Congress to micromanage the war via its purse strings and says the better option for Democratic lawmakers is to put such goal-post language in an authorization bill instead of insisting that it be part of an appropriations bill. The distinction would give Pentagon planners a date to work toward, without directly affecting their ability to spend the money Congress appropriates for war operations.

"It makes Congress a less blunt instrument," Sestak says.

Only when lawmakers end their rancor over the war can the two parties come to an agreement about how to proceed, he says. "I don't think we sit down enough with the other side to work things out."

This is not the first time the Pentagon has threatened severe consequences for delayed or insufficient war funding. Earlier this year during budget negotiations for fiscal 2007, the Defense Department said it would have to curtail critical predeployment training for troops and other procurement programs if Congress didn't provide enough money for the war. But the situation was different then, because the Pentagon already had what's called "bridge supplemental" funding that allowed it more flexibility to get through budgetary dry spells. This year, no such supplemental funding exists – hence the Pentagon's threat to begin shutting down US bases.

Ultimately, gridlock over war funding may not end until after the '08 election, says think tank analyst Mr. Thompson.

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Merkel's jet-setting: what cost?

from the November 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p04s01-woeu.html

Two years into office, the German leader is popular but her coalition is in a standoff.

By Jeffrey White Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BERLIN

As tensions have steadily mounted in her delicate power-sharing government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has maintained a rigorous travel schedule that has taken her to nine countries since August – jetting off to Liberia one week, Greenland another.

Beginning her third year in office this week, Mrs. Merkel enjoys a 70 percent approval rating largely because Germans believe she has elevated the country's clout on the world stage – presiding over international summits, meeting with heads of state on their own turf, and playing tough on key issues such as climate change.

But with her "grand coalition" now near collapse midway through its term, some are questioning whether Merkel's jet-setting has come at a price at home. Following a week of bitter political fighting, its two main parties – the liberal Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – are locked in a standoff, jeopardizing myriad domestic reforms.

"While others represent the country, we work for the people in Germany," wrote SPD member Peter Struck in a letter recently reprinted in the influential news magazine Der Spiegel, a barb widely read as a swipe against Merkel. "Numbers will decide the next elections, not foreign visits and red carpets."

Now the question facing Merkel is whether she, praised as a consensus-builder abroad, can mend the deep divisions within her coalition and stave off early elections that some say are growing increasingly hard to avoid.

"What she has done is very beneficial for her own reputation with the public," says Rainer Stinner, a member of parliament for the Liberal Party, which has aligned itself at different times with the CDU and SPD. "But she has not been very visible in the coalition," he adds, comparing the partnership to a marriage. "If you are married, and you talk to each other in this way, well, that must be the end of the union."

Reforms hang in the balance

Merkel returned last week from talks with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, to preside over an emergency meeting between the CDU and SPD. The parties agreed to extend full unemployment benefits for older people, which the SPD has fiercely backed and the CDU resisted, but that news was overshadowed by the resignation of Franz Münterfering. The leader of the SPD, Mr. Münterfering was one of the chief architects of the grand coalition and enjoyed good relations with Merkel.

Both parties remain at loggerheads over a national minimum wage, commuter tax breaks, child-care benefits, domestic security, and the privatization of the state railway Deutsche Bahn (DB), whose conductors' strike – expected to resume Tuesday – is being billed by Western media as the worst in DB's history.

Experts suggest that Merkel, cognizant of the difficulties of two historic rival parties governing together, may be biding her time.

"Merkel has a clear mind," says Jüngen Falter, a political science professor at Johannes Guttenberg University in Mainz. "She knows that under the circumstances of a grand coalition, with two partners that are almost exactly equally strong, she cannot govern, she cannot rule as she might do in another coalition."

With a strong CDU showing in next year's state elections, Merkel could be emboldened to call for early elections after which she could form a new coalition. But with strong popularity – helped, no doubt, by the fact that unemployment is down to its lowest levels in 14 years – Merkel may be better off waiting until 2009, as planned, others argue. "She would be in a much better position campaigning as the ruling chancellor," Professor Falter says.

Experts point to last week's agreement on unemployment benefits as an example that Merkel can win compromises inside the parliament. The CDU opposed the measure, saying it did not encourage job-seeking, but still voted for it after getting assurances that it would not be costly to implement.

Merkel's partner moving away

But despite Merkel's efforts, the SPD, under the leadership of new party boss Kurt Beck, is likely to continue to move away from the coalition in an effort to win back its traditional liberal voting bloc, which has become disenchanted in recent years by what it sees as the SPD turning its back on social welfare reforms.

"During the last two years the major objective of the SPD was to be involved in the government. Now, with the resignation of Münterfering, that involvement is over," says Joerg Himmelreich, an analyst in the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. "For me, that's a turning point. The last strong supporter of the government for the SPD has left the boat, and now it's all about the next election, two years from now."

For the CDU's part, it needs to win at least 40 percent of the vote to have a chance at forming its own government in 2009. It's in a good position, already governing eight of the country's 16 states, and cogoverning another four with the SPD.

The reforms that hang in the balance will form the campaign platforms of both parties in the next two years, experts say.

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Aid pours into Bangladesh after cyclone

from the November 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p07s02-wosc.html

Cyclone Sidr is the country's deadliest storm in a decade.

By Parveen Ahmed The Associated Press

Dhaka, BANGLADESH

Survivors are scrambling for food as rescue workers struggle to reach remote villages three days after cyclone Sidr battered Bangladesh, leaving more than 2,200 dead and thousands homeless.

Although Sidr has not been as devastating as previous cyclones that have pummelled storm-prone Bangladesh over the years, it is the country's deadliest cyclone in a decade, and relief officials are warning the death toll could jump sharply as rescuers reach more isolated areas.

Still, the death toll could have been much higher were it not for an early warning system that allowed at least 1.5 million coastal villagers to flee to shelters before the storm hit.

Teams from international aid organizations are now working with Army troops in a massive rescue effort that is attracting help from around the world. But on the devastated coast, rescue workers struggled to reach many survivors.

"I've been here waiting for hours for something to eat," said Asad Ali, a 45-year-old farmer in Barguna, one of the hardest-hit districts. "What I've got so far are a few cookies. Not enough."

Squatting on a muddy field with his wife, Mr. Ali said their only child, a 5-year-old girl, was crushed and killed beneath their toppled thatched hut.

Disaster Management Secretary Aiyub Bhuiyan met Sunday with representatives from the United Nations and international aid groups to discuss the emergency response.

"The donors wanted to know about our plan and how they can come forward to stand by the victims," Bhuiyan told reporters. "We have briefed them about what we need immediately."

The government said it has allocated $5.2 million in emergency aid for rebuilding houses. Many foreign governments and international groups have pledged to help, including the United States, which offered $2.1 million, and the UN, which promised $7 million. The US also plans to ship 35 tons of nonfood items such as plastic sheeting and hygiene kits, said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

Additionally, the USS Essex and the USS Kearsarge are en route to Bangladesh to assist in operations there. An 18 person Department of Defense medical team that was in Bangladesh prior to the storm is there to help with current medical needs.

Other governments and organizations that pledged to help include the German government, which offered $731,000, the European Union with $2.2 million, and the British government with $5 million. France pledged $730,000 in aid, while the Philippines announced it would send a medical team.

The Rome-based World Food Program is rushing in food, and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society is sending thousands of workers to stricken areas.

Many survivors have returned to find their bamboo-and-straw huts flattened, their roofs missing, their crops ruined.

Government officials defended the relief efforts and expressed confidence that authorities are up to the task.

"We have enough food and water," said Shahidul Islam, the top official in Bagerhat, a battered district close to Barguna. "We are going to overcome the problem."

Cyclone Sidr - How to help

Some of the agencies accepting donations for cyclone victims in Bangladesh:

International Red Cross: 202-3030054 or www.ifrc.org.

Save the Children: 800-728-3843 or www .savethechildren.org.

World Vision: 888-562-4453 or www .worldvision.org.

Adventist Development & Relief Agency International: 800-424-ADRA or www.adra.org.
Catholic Relief Services: 800-736-3467 or http://crs.org.

Source: Wire services, aid organizations

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In Pakistan, can Bhutto distance herself from Musharraf?

from the November 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p06s01-wosc.html

As the former prime minister tries to unify the opposition to Pakistan's president, many wonder if her past dealings with him will make her unpopular.

By Shahan Mufti Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Islamabad, Pakistan

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's long political balancing act between President Pervez Musharraf and his political opposition seems to have finally come to an end, observers here say, despite Washington's continuing effort to resuscitate a deal between the two leaders.

But even as Ms. Bhutto appears to throw herself into convening a unified opposition movement against President Musharraf, her prolonged negotiations to reach a powersharing agreement with him have earned her the distrust and skepticism of many other leaders in the opposition ranks.

In the same way, Washington's repeated urging for Musharraf and Bhutto to reconcile may have scuttled the former prime minister's political viability by causing her to appear, like Musharraf, to be an intimate of Washington.

"The deal" between Pervez Musharraf and Bhutto "is redundant," says Hassan Askari Rizvi, a political consultant. "Any politician who sits with Musharraf, their political career is over."

After a visit last weekend by US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in which he articulated Washington's reluctant but continued support for Musharraf, Bhutto is faced with a stark choice between a path to potential power that either runs through power politics or popular politics.

"She may feel the advantage lies with Musharraf" after America's newest diplomatic gesture, says Shafqat Mahmood, a political analyst. "But as far as public opinion goes, she would lose enormous popular support," by joining ranks with him.

With the country under effective martial law, and as Taliban-inspired militants wage war against the Pakistani Army in the region bordering Afghanistan, top US envoy Mr. Negroponte suggested "reconciliation between political moderates" would be "the most constructive way forward" to maintain Musharraf as an ally in the war on terror.

But in separate conversations, both Musharraf and Bhutto conveyed to Negroponte that there was little space for negotiations left.

While Bhutto, Mr. Rizvi says, was able to bounce back from her initial contacts with Musharraf earlier this year, his declaration of a state of emergency this month has substantially raised the stakes.

"The substance of Negroponte's visit seems to be that, even though the US disagrees with the imposition of emergency [rule], they are still willing to work with him," says Rizvi. Negroponte's attempts to revive Bhutto-Musharraf talks, he says "is totally out of step with the ground reality in the country."

Bhutto's friends in opposing places

Bhutto has spent the past week networking with all elements of Musharraf's opposition – political parties of all ideological stripes, civil society groups, lawyers, and students – in the hopes of leading a strong alternative bloc.

Such a unified political force could be presented to her sympathizers in the West, who are now being forced to consider a post-Musharraf Pakistan as an alternative to the military ruler.

In her own press conference in Lahore, after her three-day house arrest ended, Bhutto made
her new stance clear. She called Musharraf "an obstacle to democracy" and termed a new interim government appointed by the president to oversee the election period "unacceptable" and "biased." She threatened to boycott general elections scheduled for January.

Last week, Bhutto had demanded that Musharraf resign from the Army and the government – a far cry from her stance a month ago, when she wished to work with the general to restore democracy in the country.

Bhutto also used her time under house arrest to reach out to estranged opposition leaders, including her sometime rival former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who lives in exile in Saudi Arabia. She has also begun working with Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the leader of the Islamist political party Jamat-e-Islami.

In an apparent attempt to win back her estranged secular liberal vote bank, Bhutto also met with Asma Jehangir, a leading human rights lawyer active in the lawyers' street movement against Musharraf and chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Careful calculations

Bhutto's decision to start a campaign against Musharraf, analysts say, could be the result of some hard calculations, including weighing how much power Musharraf will truly wield if he does quit the Army as promised and begin his second term as a civilian president.

Bhutto may also be banking on support from Washington– if the US is presented with a choice between the military leader and her.

"If Benazir puts her foot down now, the US might just decide that their plans to keep Pervez Musharraf in place are scuttled," says Mr. Mahmood.

For his part, Musharraf has appeared, for now, to have thrown all his chips back with his own loyalist party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.

A newspaper quoted Musharraf telling party loyalists that "I am your team, and you are mine."

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In conformist Japan, workers find courage to expose illegal actions

from the November 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p12s01-woap.html

A policeman who blew the whistle on colleagues' fake expenses gets compensation.

By YURI KAGEYAMA Associated Press

TOKYO

It's not easy for an individual to call attention to illegal or unethical behavior in the workplace in any culture. But in Japan, where conformity is seen as a virtue, it can be especially difficult.

When officer Toshiro Semba revealed that his bosses in the police department were forging receipts in order to wine and dine on the public's money, they took his gun away.

He was decreed too emotionally unstable to carry a weapon – a humiliation, he says, designed to corner him into quitting. For 500 days, he was ordered to sit alone in a tiny room at the Ehime Prefectural Police.

"I became a policeman because I wanted to help powerless people. But when I got in, I learned it was totally different," says Mr. Semba.

He was passed over for promotions after he refused to fake receipts and is still a sergeant after 34 years. "I wear that title proudly — like a medal," Semba says.

Whistle-blowers like Semba have been especially solitary in Japan, where conformity and respect for hierarchy are venerated as tradition. They have been labeled as traitors.

But that attitude is gradually changing. As Japan modernizes, people increasingly see themselves as individuals and consumers, with a duty to speak up against wrongdoing.

In fact, whistle-blowers are behind the spate of recent scandals embroiling a pastrymaker that forged manufacturing dates, a builder that cheated on fireproofing tests, and a meat processor that sold a mixture of meats and chicken as pure ground beef.

Reports to the government of suspicious food manufacturing, nearly all from insiders, have skyrocketed from some 100 a month last year to 697 last month, food safety official Yosuke Abe says.

Policeman Semba won personal vindication in September when a court awarded him $8,800 in damages, ruling that his on-the-job treatment was retaliation for his 2004 exposure of police corruption. The police are appealing the ruling. Semba couldn't hold back tears when his court ruling was read. "I felt there's justice in this world," he says.

Although the award is small by American standards, it is a major victory in Japan, where court-ordered damage compensation tends to be minimal and the value of whistle-blowers is only starting to be recognized.

The first law to protect whistle-blowers passed last year, but critics say it's inadequate. It requires whistle-blowers to first tell their employer and wait before going public if they hope to get any protection.

Whistle-blowers have been rare because Japanese companies, even major ones, are run like families, and individual workers don't see themselves as hired by contract as do American workers, says Koji Igata, business administration professor at Osaka University of Economics. "Whistle-blowers are seen as eccentrics who've turned on their parents," he says.

Japan modernized over the past half-century by fostering corporate loyalty in return for secure employment. So when a company runs into trouble, good workers are expected to defend it; exposing wrongdoing is viewed as betrayal.

Only in recent years, as Japanese companies hire lower-paid younger workers and drop job guarantees in response to global competition, has the idea of criticizing an employer started to catch on, says Professor Igata.

An influx of part-time workers has also contributed to eroding the ties of loyalty. Akafuku, the pastrymaker targeted as a result of a whistle-blower, employed about 250 part-time workers, half of its workforce. It was shut down after it was found to be reselling unsold pastries shipped back from stores as new ones.

Calls to strengthen corporate ethics are on the rise, partly from grass-roots movements but also from companies eager to catch up with the rest of the world in governance standards.
Semba, still a railway policeman, says he is donating his lawsuit money to an ombudsman charity because money was never the goal of his battle.

But what made it all worth it was an elderly woman who recognized him at a highway rest stop where he had stopped for a cup of coffee.

"She told me, 'You made sacrifices for us. I must thank you,' " he says. "She understood everything."

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OPEC's lost sway over oil prices

from the November 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p01s01-wogn.html

This weekend's summit focused mostly on poor nations, climate change, and the euro vs. the dollar.

By Dan Murphy Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Cairo

A rare meeting of the heads of state of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Saudi Arabia this weekend was predictably focused on prices. But the price most often discussed wasn't the cost of oil, but rather the plummeting US dollar.

As oil hovers near $100 a barrel, it's causing global jitters. Some economists worry that price, which depending on whose math you use is either near or above an inflation-adjusted record, could push many world economies into recession.

But the organization that was created in 1960 to stabilize prices, today wields less clout than it once did over the cost of crude. The 13-nation cartel once controlled prices often by just talking about pumping more or less oil. But now its leaders say booming world demand – largely from India and China – and concern over a possible US attack on Iran are driving prices.

"OPEC is still a major force, but it's certainly far less influential that it was in the 70s or 80s," says Mustafa Alani, at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. "What we saw at this conference is that the leaders of OPEC were giving assurances that they'll do all they can to maintain the stability of the oil supply. But can they do it? We don't know."

OPEC's biggest producers – Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors – say they'd like prices to be a little lower but are pumping near capacity now. After all, their currencies are pegged to the dollar, so a weak US economy hurts them, too. Analysts say that while Saudi Arabia and others might be able to squeeze out an extra 1 million barrels a day, that's only 3 percent more than estimated current OPEC production of 31 million barrels a day.

The new reality facing OPEC left the ministers over the weekend discussing once peripheral issues: pricing oil in US dollars, climate change, and developing nations. Political opponents of the US – Iran and Venezuela – have been pushing for the market to be moved from the US dollar into stronger Euros. While analysts say that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, the fact that such issues – not oil prices – got so much attention reflects changing times.

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said earlier this week that he did ask OPEC members to increase supply, though he said that the request seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

Anyone hoping that the OPEC Summit – the first meeting of the leaders of its member states since 2000 – would bring relief from gas prices that have jumped 25 percent this year to above $3 a gallon in the US, is going to be disappointed.

On Friday, crude oil traded in the US rose $1 to over $95 a barrel after Venezuela's Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez said, "OPEC can't do anything about the price ... there is enough oil in the market."

Venezuela – whose leftist President Hugo Chávez appears to revel in tweaking the nose of the US, which he alleges backed a failed coup against him five years ago – has been pushing for higher oil prices in tandem with Iran, as well as a move away from the US dollar.

In this, both countries failed. Saudi Arabia – which accounts for about 30 percent of OPEC production – clearly signaling its opposition to what it views as the politicization of the commodity.

After Mr. Chávez urged OPEC's leaders to use their oil wealth to become an "active political agent" and warned that oil prices would rise above $200 a barrel if the US takes military action against his ally, Iran, Saudi King Abdullah dismissed his arguments.

"Oil ... should not become a tool for conflict and emotions," he said. "Those who want OPEC to become an organization of monopoly and exploitation ignore the truth."

The joint OPEC statement released at the end of the summit said that the "stability of the oil market is essential," which oil analysts said was a repudiation of Venezuela's and Iran's aims.

Chávez also called on oil producers to sell to poor countries at prices at about one-fifth of the current market price, an idea that gained no traction and appeared designed to bolster his populist credentials. The only support for this idea came from Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa. Even Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who Chávez was scheduled to meet later Sunday in Tehran, failed to back to him on this suggestion.

Mr. Ahmadinejad has portrayed himself as a man of the people and the promise of his 2005 election campaign to spread Iran's oil wealth to every dinner table struck a chord with voters.
During a visit to Venezuela last January, Ahmadinejad kept that populist touch, announcing with Chávez the creation of a $2 billion anti-US fund. And on Sunday, after meeting with President Correa, Ahmadinejad promised to use his country's oil wealth to fight "imperialism."

But his promises remain unfulfilled for most Iranians, though Iran has seen its oil revenues surge in the past five years. Despite the cash boom, Iran's economy is struggling under the weight of high unemployment and rising inflation, not to mention US sanctions. He simply isn't in a position to back up his rhetoric, analysts say.

"Iran can't even think about this case [of cut-rate sales to poor countries], because the oil price works in the market economy," says Abbas Maleki, a former deputy foreign minister of Iran, and chair of the International Institute for Caspian Studies.

"The best way for Iran is to establish a fund for development, to support development projects," says Mr. Maleki, who was recently a fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. "OPEC already has a development fund for Africa and Third World countries … Iran wants to spend all oil revenues in Iran."

Indeed, though OPEC made it clear it isn't in a position to lower prices, a silver-lining for the US is that Chávez's efforts to build a populist bloc within OPEC fizzled.

"There are basically two camps, Iran and Venezuela and one led by Saudi Arabia," says Mr. Alani, the oil analyst. "What happened at this conference was that the leaders of OPEC – Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states – made it clear they oppose the use of oil as a weapon, so the radicals within OPEC were isolated.

"What's going to happen now is the leaders will do everything they can to maintain supply. But there's very little they can do if there's an attack on Iran or something of that nature. In that case, prices will double, perhaps go to $300 a barrel." Scott Peterson contributed reporting from Tehran, Iran.

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Oil-spill helpers galore, but limits on their use

from the November 13, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1113/p01s02-usgn.html

When 58,000 gallons of oil spilled into the San Francisco Bay last Wednesday volunteers came out of the woodwork, but officials were unprepared for their help.

By Ben Arnoldy Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Marin Headlands, Calif.

When a shipping accident last week dumped 58,000 gallons of oil in San Francisco Bay, it washed onto shores that are home to a great concentration of America's environmentalists.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that volunteers poured forth to help – yet officials still seemed flummoxed when it happened.

Callers overwhelmed a volunteer hot line within an hour. Public meetings devolved at times into heated exchanges when officials told would-be volunteers essentially "Don't call us, we'll call you" if their help was needed. And other residents armed with rubber gloves and pooper-scoopers stormed the closed beaches, calling their oil cleanup work a form of "civil disobedience."
Officials want volunteers off beaches citing concerns about public health and the safety of frightened wildlife, but some residents question whether the extensive coastline can be cleaned quickly without more help. Partly a culture clash between a bottom-up, crowd-sourcing culture and a top-down, litigation-conscious government, it's also indicative of a national lack of planning for volunteers during crisis, say experts.

"People doing crisis-management planning who don't understand that there will be volunteers – they aren't doing crisis-management planning," says Susan Ellis, president of Energize Inc., a consulting and publishing firm specializing in volunteerism. "There's this strange feeling that somehow it's easy, or when volunteers come we'll deal with it. It's so complex that they oversimplify it."

The organizational blind spot showed during the Sept. 11 aftermath when emergency leaders in New York overlooked calling in experienced volunteer managers, instead tapping one volunteer to handle the others, says Ms. Ellis. Since Sept. 11, some community disaster plans have incorporated volunteer coordinators. However, it's still common even in major crises for the coordinator to be saddled with several other tasks as well, she says.

Authorities have their hands full with the Bay Area spill, from the oil-soaked birds to the coastline to the questions.

The Cosco Busan, a cargo ship bound for South Korea, hit the Bay Bridge amid fog on Wednesday morning. One of the ship's tanks ruptured, dumping thick fuel into the bay. The National Transportation Safety Board announced Sunday it was opening a criminal investigation.
The US Coast Guard has taken heavy criticism for its early handling of the incident – including waiting two hours before swinging into full action.

Cleanup efforts now involve 81 vessels, three helicopters, and 1,048 people as of Monday. Some 12,000 gallons of oil had been collected and an additional estimated 4,000 gallons had evaporated. But about 42,000 gallons remain.

Where volunteerism surrounding beach cleanup seems to be in disarray, an extensive volunteer system is helping to save oil-covered birds. Officials created a public hot line for reporting birds, which are collected by trained experts. So far they've retrieved 402 dead birds, and 511 live, but messy, ones.

The birds are carted 30 miles inland to a special rehabilitation center. The permanent facility, run by the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN), is drawing on a list of 1,000 previously trained volunteers, many from wildlife organizations.

"With the potential magnitude, we are now starting to integrate the general public," said Mike Ziccardi, director of OWCN, a partnership between Fish & Game and the University of California Davis.

Staff and trained volunteers examine and wash each bird.

Walk-in volunteers are given less technical tasks such as cleaning equipment, laundering towels – and fetching lunch.

"We haven't fed a bird, but we feed the people," says Katrina Pearson, who came over the weekend to volunteer with her daughter, Kate Pelto. "You feel so helpless when you see it. We were able to do something, and that felt good."

Frustration, however, ran high at three area volunteer meetings held over the weekend by California Fish & Game. Some came in old clothes thinking they would be heading out to the beaches, but officials just collected people's contact information and answered questions.

"Here we have a golden opportunity, a three-day weekend right after the spill, and I can't do anything to help," says one attendee, Barbara Hogan, who has experience working at the local Marine Mammal Center. "They don't even have us put our skills on that form."

During a packed session in Marin, one woman raised her hand and explained she was a veterinarian who had tried in vain to reach someone to offer her expertise.

It's common for agencies to view volunteers as only bringing "hearts and hands" to the table, says Ellis. The goal is to ask "Are there some of you here who can do exactly what we need [or] bring a skill we didn't expect?"

Yvonne Addassi, an environmental specialist with California Fish & Game, asked for patience at the meeting. "We've never gone to public meetings like this because we usually have to work very hard to get people to volunteer," she said.

She presented a recent scientific study which found that there were health problems associated with oil cleanup workers and volunteers. Fish & Game experts also explained hazards of helping without proper full-body gear and noted that there are state regulations known as HAZWOPER that require a 24-hour training course for participants of hazardous materials cleanups.

San Francisco resident Beth Brown questions how the effort can be done by just above 1,000 professionals, "[The number] sounds like an office Christmas party," she says, "It does not sound like a major operation to clean up the Headlands all the way to Ocean Beach."

Ms. Brown and a friend donned rubber gloves and used a cat litter scoop to pick up oil off a local beach before a policeman ordered them to leave.

Coast Guard Capt. William Uberti said Sunday that they are working with the state to get training to volunteers and to tap people who already have it like EMTs.

In the meantime, volunteers have been asked to help clean debris from beaches not yet hit by oil. Some have taken it on themselves to place booming, a type of protective barrier, across local harbors not yet protected by professional efforts.

"You just have to do it. Otherwise it won't get done," says Doreen Gounard, harbor manager at Galilee Harbor in Sausilito. She and about 20 residents scrambled to procure booming, ultimately saving their local marsh from contamination. "There's too much coastline here, there's not enough professionals to take care of it."

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