Tall Tale, Big Cell
The Shandaken town board unanimously adopted a wireless communications law which allows for towers to be built in town up to 180 tall following a May 25th public hearing on the subject which included some interesting information brought forward by one town councilman that claims the town would get better coverage with shorter towers than tall ones.
Coucilman Paul VanBlarcum said that his research has convinced him that the town would be better served by a wireless communication plan that included the use of shorter facilities. As a result of his work the town board passed a motion to authorize VanBlarcum to contact industry experts to discuss this possibility.
Should experts verify that idea, it doesn’t mean that the town will do anything along those lines. And that has some residents concerned.
Chuck Perez, a Big Indian resident and local fireman that hopes for cellular coverage as soon as possible, said after the meeting that while the law passed “gives the town the most flexibility” in terms of how service is brought in, it doesn’t require the service to be installed in the best possible fashion, both in terms of aesthetics and signal coverage. Despite public complaints about tall towers, the law allows them in the majority of town in 3 and 5-acre residential zones. As a result of the complaints the town capped tower height in all other zones at 70 feet.
“I’m not wild about 180 foot towers, but if 180 foot are what’s needed for the best coverage then so be it,” Perez said. “But if the best coverage comes from putting towers up at all the fire stations than we should do that. What matters is getting coverage.”
Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said after the meeting that VanBlarcum’s information was homespun material. Cross says his plan for three tall towers in town will provide better coverage for the town, and that he has the proof.
Cross claims that he has coverage maps showing “much more blue,” the color of the best areas of town coverage, if three tall towers are used.
“If we use VanBlarcum's plan it’s not going to be good for Shandaken,” Cross said.
Cross says the town ushered in a law designed make it as easy as possible for cellular service providers to come set up shop. In discussions previous to the meeting Cross has said that providers are hesitant to come to Shandaken because it is not a high use area. The goal of the law, he said, is to enable providers to bring coverage in for the least amount of expense, and right now that would be through the use tall towers.
The law itself has as it’s purpose and intent “to accommodate the need for telecommunications facilities while regulating their location and number, minimizing adverse visual impacts through proper design, siting and screening, avoiding potential physical damage to adjacent properties,and encouraging joint use of tower structures.”
The law also seeks to minimize the total number of telecommunications towers in the community by encouraging shared use of existing and future towers, and the use of existing tall buildings and other high structures, in order to further minimize adverse visual effects from telecommunications towers.

Wordplay...
At the end of last month the Shandaken Town Board adopted a new zoning map, which Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. says contains only “corrections” of long standing errors that include the omission of 16 roadways and about 3000 acres of town in the Big Indian/Oliveria area. The new map, he said, also “corrects” errors like 5 acre residential zoning in Pine Hill where, according to Cross, residential 1.5 acres zones should have been. And then there is the re classification of a high profile Phoenicia property from residential to Commercial/light industrial zone.
“It had to be done, and it was done legal,” said Cross on Tuesday after complaining that the old map was so messed up that the town was issuing logging permits for properties that were not even listed as being in Shandaken. “Things like that bother me. Wouldn’t it bother you if you were in my position?”
Sources say that even the town’s legal advisors have cautioned Cross that the recent measure may not withstand scrutiny, but the Supervisor stands firm, saying this week that the changes needed to be done and if there was a legal challenge then so be it, the town would cross that bridge when it came to it.
At a May 25th public hearing on the new map, several residents complained that the new map was never reviewed by the Ulster County Planning Department.
The town’s attorney, Paul Kellar, was on vactation this week and could not be reached for comment.

No Parking?
In response to strong community pressure, Ulster County Legislative leaders have announced that the now closed Bridge Street Bridge in Phoenicia will be repaired and reopened by the early part of next month.
That’s the good news. The bad news is this congested hamlet may end up losing precious parking in the meantime.
Bridge Street, a major artery of the Phoenicia Business district, was closed following damage incurred during severe flooding in April, in effect making Bridge Street a dead end road. With summer approaching many feared major traffic trouble in the hamlet.
During a recent visit to Shandaken, Legislative Majority Leader Michael Stock and district representative Brian Shapiro informed the Shandaken Town Board that the County, which owns the span, was doing everything it could to get the job done.
This week county crews are on the bridge with a crane hoisting trees and stumps out of the streambed where they lodged against the bridge’s support system. That debris, coupled with the strength of the flood currents, actually shifted part of the bridge off the supports. That part of the bridge, on the southern side, will be removed and replaced. At present the new steel structure is being fabricated at the County’s bridge building facility in West Hurley.
On Tuesday Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said he was crossing his fingers that the work gets completed on schedule. Cross says that Phoenicia has felt the pinch from the closed roadway, and that it is only going to get worse.
“We’re having trouble with Trailways buses and with tractor trailers that are making deliveries in town,” he said. “Right now the tractor trailers are coming into town from the other entrance and go turn around in the parking lot at the Catholic Church. It’s tight but they can do it.”
However, Cross is not sure the same feat can be accomplished once summer is in full swing.
“The real problem is the parked cars. When Phoenicia gets packed those parked cars are going to be in the way.”
As a result the town might create temporary no parking zones on Main Street. The targeted area is east of Bridge Street around the Saint Francis DeSales Church. In the summer that section of the Hamlet provides parking for dozens of vehicles as people flock to Phoenicia to shop and/or dine.
Phoenicia already suffers from inadequate parking. A plan is in the works to create more parking behind several shops, but it will be several years before that project is complete.

Meetings...
The Shandaken Town Board will continue its long trend of holding frequent, hastily called special sessions this week when it meets at 10 am Thursday to officially enter into a contract to repair the flood damage on Silver Hollow Road in Chichester. Next Month the town board will convene on the 11th, since the first Monday of the month is Independence Day. On June 29th there will be an unofficial town board workshop session at 7pm. For any other special session check daily at the Supervisor’s office or call (845) 688-7165 for any up to the minute meeting additions. Information is also available at www.shandaken.us

Casino Wars!
Ulster County legislators recently postponed voting on a measure that would let host communities approve or reject casino proposals as a groundswell of opposition to a gambling resort for Saugerties’ Winston Farm, site of the Woodstock ’94 concert, continued to surface at local meetings. A resolution on the “Home Rule” option, sponsored by Saugerties’ four representatives to the county Legislature and Majority Leader Michael Stock, R-Woodstock, whose district includes part of West Saugerties - would prohibit the county from entering into casino negotiations with an Indian tribe without support from the proposed host community.
In 2003, the legislature entered into just such an agreement with the Modoc tribe of Oklahoma after a series of closed-door sessions headed by then-Legislative Chairman Ward Todd, who now serves as director of the county Chamber of Commerce.
The Winston Farm proposal by the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma, which includes the building of a casino, hotel, entertainment center and golf course, is publicly opposed by town of Saugerties Supervisor Greg Helsmoortel and village of Saugerties Mayor Robert Yerick.
The legislative postponement was due to changes proposed for the legislation that would include removal of a public referendum option for casino approval.
Legislator Richard Parete, D-Accord, has since questioned what effect the resolution would have on the three-year casino contract with the Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma to build a gaming hall in the southern Ulster County town of Wawarsing, which was planned to bring the county $15 million per year if the casino were built.
“What’s the legal ramifications?” Parete asked. “We didn’t give the Wawarsing residents, the Rochester residents, the Hurley and Marbletown residents, which would be impacted most, the opportunity to have a say for the Modoc tribe.”
Saugerties-based opponents of the casino have formed a group called No Saugerties Casino Inc, who hosted a forum on the issue that drew about 250 people to a recent informational meeting on gambling options. At the event, a state assemblyman on recent panels overseeing gambling issues in Albany said it would be “several years” before the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma could get the state and federal approvals necessary to realize their plans to build a casino at the Winston Farm, or any other place in New York state.
Gerentine, R-Marlboro, told attendees that the county, through the Ulster County Development Corp. is holding a forum on casino gambling July 13 to help the Legislature make a decision that takes into account the impact on all of Ulster County, and that local input will be included.
“We’re doing it through UCDC to try to get the politics out of it,” said Legislature Chairman Richard Gerentine. He noted that the agency has invited two groups of speakers to the July 13 event to present the pros and cons of casino gambling.
The first group will include public officials and others from two communities in the Northeast that have Indian casinos: the town of Verona, N.Y., where the Oneida tribe’s Turning Stone Casino is located; and the town of Ledyard, Conn., home of Foxwoods.
The second group will comprise members of state and national organizations related to casino gambling, including the National Council on Problem Gambling and the Coalition Against Casino Gambling in New York on the anti-casino side, and the American Gaming Association and the National Indian Gaming Association on the pro-casino side.
The UCDC recently came under fire for getting politically involved in the review process for Dean Gitter’s Belleayre Resort proposal for the Shandaken area, when it put in a letter to the governor on the agency’s behalf without full board approval.
A fact-finding panel made up of Ulster County and local municipal officials, academics, social service providers and law-enforcement officials has meanwhile been formed by the development corporation. The Ulster County Legislature’s newly appointed Casino Impact Committee will meet for the first time June 16 to begin analyzing the potential effects of an Indian casino in the county. Legislator Wayne Harris, R-Clintondale, will chair the panel. The other members will be Legislators Michael Berardi, D-Ulster; Brian Hathaway, R-Bloomington; James Maloney, R-Ulster; Robert Parete, D-Boiceville; and Joseph Stoeckeler, D-Ellenville. Another Republican legislator will be appointed to the committee shortly so that the membership will include four Republicans and three Democrats.
Later, Gerentine called the Home Rule resolution Saugerties legislators have planned to submit for the Legislature’s June 9 session “premature,” arguing that the impact on the entire county, and not just the host community, should be considered in any such decision.
A pending state bill put in by Senator John Bonacic and Assemblyman Kevin Cahill that would authorize the establishment of three Indian casinos in Ulster and Sullivan counties includes a provision requiring county approval of casinos, but not town approval, making the counties’ positions more crucial from a legal perspective than the local view.
Some have suggested that in its current weak financial position, the county might be swayed into favoring a casino by the $15 million the Seneca-Cayugas have offered the county to form a casino compact for the Winston Farm proposal. Gerentine, however, said the county’s decision on the casino proposal will be made independently of the county’s balance sheet.

Most Extreme
A new study produced for Ulster County's Planning Board shows that declining affordability in housing countywide is at its most extreme here in Shandaken. Since 1998 the median price of single family homes in town has almost tripled to $210,000 last year, representing a county-leading 19.5% annual growth rate over the 7-year study period. Housing in Shandaken currently costs about 10% above the county average; the only town even approaching Shandaken's rate of increase was Gardiner where housing prices run about 30% higher.
According to the county's figures, to afford a median priced single family home in Shandaken today requires an income of about $70,400, equivalent to an hourly wage of about $34. The county's Housing Strategies Study is available online at www.co.ulster.ny.us/planning.

Summerscape!
The SHARP Committee (Shandaken Area Revitalization Project) is starting a new civic beautification program in partnership with Phriends of Phoenicia, The Catskill Center and the general business community. Dubbed Summerscape-2005, the primary goal of the program is to spruce up the central business district of Phoenicia for the coming tourist season. The centerpiece of the program is a series of hanging baskets. Over the Memorial Day weekend, sixteen baskets of flowers went up on utility poles on the north side of Main Street and the West side of Bridge Street – the two main avenues into town from Route 28. Each basket is mounted approximately 12’ above street level and features bright bursts of trailing flowers such as New Wave Petunias, Million Bells, and Angel Wing Begonias.
Commenting on the program, Bob Cross, Town Supervisor of Shandaken, said, “This volunteer effort is all part of our long-range program of economic development. The goal is to transform Phoenicia into something of a destination community, while preserving our Catskill way of life.”
Another part of the Summerscape program is a series of sidewalk flower pots on Main Street, particularly at the two ends of town to assure good first impressions when visitors reach the business district. For the third year in a row, Phriends of Phoenicia, an informal group of volunteer gardeners, is responsible for planting, placing and maintaining this program of flowers which has now been expanded as part of Summerscape.
Financial support for the program came from a broad community effort. A “micro-grant” from the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, funded through Senator John J. Bonacic, supplied seed money. Further support came from the Shandaken Rotary Club and the Phoenicia Business Association, followed by widespread financial backing from principal banks in the region (KeyBank, Rondout Savings Bank and Ulster Savings Bank), from many businesses in the greater Phoenicia area and from several private contributors.

Book Bans?
According to the American Library Association, which asks school districts and libraries to report efforts to ban books - that is, have them removed from shelves or reading lists - they are on the rise again: 547 books were challenged last year, up from 458 in 2003. These aren’t record numbers. In the 1990’s the appearance of the Harry Potter books, with their themes of witchcraft and wizardry, caused a raft of objections from evangelical Christians.
Judith Krug, director of the library association’s office for intellectual freedom, attributed the most recent spike to the empowerment of conservatives in general and to the re-election of President Bush in particular. The same thing happened 25 years ago, she said. “In 1980, we were dealing with an average of 300 or so challenges a year, and then Reagan was elected,” she said. “And challenges went to 900 or 1,000 a year.”

Bad Recruits
Faced with a long, tough war in Iraq, the U.S. Army is stepping up its recruitment activities in high schools, which landed them in some hot water locally of late, and begun battling to keep the new soldiers it has brought into the force.
Because more of the new Army recruits are washing out of the service before completing their first enlistment, which typically runs three or four years, the Army has told battalion commanders, who typically command 800-soldier units, that they can no longer bounce soldiers from the service for poor fitness, pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse or generally unsatisfactory performance.
Army officials say the move isn’t unprecedented. The service made a similar decision in 1998, when the strong economy and lack of a clear mission left the military struggling to meet recruitment goals. There was also a secret program that moved people directly from jails into the services during the later years of the Vietnam War.
In March, 17.4% of all new Army recruits failed to make it through training. Another 7.3% didn’t finish their first three years with their unit. The Army’s goal is to keep training losses below 12% and first-term enlistee losses below 5%.
On a local basis, Rondout Valley High School students recently objected to participating in a physical education “boot camp” led by members of the National Guard, leading to a loud school board where parents objected – and were booed by others who support all the military does… that ended p being covered by the Mainstream Media.
The root of the problem were two days of classes conducted in late April by the National Guard at the school’s invitation, where activities included running in place, relays, stretching exercises and a ball toss meant to simulating throwing a grenade into a back of a vehicle. Parents said some students who refused to participate received an “unprepared” mark for that day. They then requested the district make parents aware of “opt out” forms for all such programs.
One of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act is that all student information be made available for military recruitment purposes or the school district lose federal funding. A growing number of districts nationwide have started protesting the regs by refusing funding.
On a similar front, a growing number of organizations are concerned about privacy rights regarding a Department of Education plan that would require colleges and universities to place personal information on individual students into a national database maintained by the government. Submissions would include every student’s name and Social Security number, along with sex; date of birth; home address; race; ethnicity; names of every college course begun and completed; attendance records; and financial aid information.
Such detailed information is now provided only for students receiving federal aid, giving the department only a partial picture of higher education nationwide. The new approach, department officials say, would not only complete the picture but also help track students who take uncommon paths toward a degree.
Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said: “Once a database is created for one purpose, regardless how genuine or legitimate it is, it’s very, very hard to prevent it from being used for law enforcement or intelligence purposes. If the F.B.I. comes calling, it almost doesn’t matter what the privacy policy is. They’ll get the information they want.”

End of Oil?
The Exxon Mobil Corporation, one of the world’s largest publicly owned petroleum companies, has quietly joined the ranks of those who are predicting an impending plateau in non-OPEC oil production. Their report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, forecasts a peak in just five years. They report that the majority of non-OPEC producers such as the United States, Britain, Norway, and Mexico, who satisfy 60 percent of world oil demand, are already in a production plateau or decline. Natural gas production, despite a near doubling of drilling activity, is flat or decreasing both in Canada and in the United States—which has prompted prices to triple over the past few years.
With non-OPEC oil production reaching a plateau and frontier resources not viable, ExxonMobil proposes that increased demand be met in two ways. The first is greater fuel efficiency. The other way ExxonMobil believes demand will be satisfied is from vastly and rapidly increased OPEC production.
The report suggests that conventional petroleum production will soon—perhaps in five years, ten at best—no longer be able to satisfy demand.

Warming Trend
Mayors of more than 150 cities ranging from Los Angeles to Atlanta have signed an agreement pledging to move their communities toward the greenhouse-gas reductions laid out the Kyoto Protocol. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - a pro-business Republican - proposed cutting the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent, proclaiming: “The debate is over ... and we know the time for action is now.”
“If this continues, when you add it all up, it will be significant activity on climate change even without a national policy,” says Pietro Nivola of the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Very often that is the way policy works: When enough major states take action, then eventually the central government follows.”
That action has already begun. Nine states in the Mid- Atlantic and Northeast have already established a regional greenhouse-gas emissions-trading program. The mayors of 158 American cities - including 10 of the 30 largest - have signed the United States Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, an initiative launched by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.
Meanwhile, indigenous leaders from Arctic regions around the world called on the European Union recently to do more to fight global warming and to consider giving aid to their peoples. In their first visit to EU headquarters, leaders representing the eight-nation Arctic Council met with officials at the European Commission and several EU lawmakers to push their campaign, warning their way of life was at risk. The Arctic region is home to about 4 million people, including more than 30 different indigenous groups. A recent study undertaken by the Arctic Council said the effects of global warming on the world’s polar region were getting worse and could open up the risk of flooding and erosion as the polar ice contracts.
Created in 1996, the Arctic Council comprises Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.

Adoption Info?
An analysis of more than 50 years of international data found youngsters adopted from abroad are only slightly more likely than nonadopted children to have behavioral problems such as aggressiveness and anxiety. And they actually seem to have fewer problems than children adopted within their own countries.
The results are generally reassuring for international adoption - a growing trend involving more than 40,000 children a year moving among more than 100 countries, the researchers said. The authors of the American Medical Association study pooled results from 137 studies on adoptions by parents living in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.
The analysis involved studies on adoption between 1950 and 2005, involving more than 30,000 adoptees and more than 100,000 nonadopted children. During that time, adoption has evolved from being a “shameful secret” to being celebrated and often very visible, especially with the relatively recent phenomenon of white parents adopting Chinese children. In the United States alone, parents have adopted more than 230,000 children from other countries since 1989.
Internationally adopted children had a 20 percent higher chance of being disruptive than nonadopted children, and a 10 percent higher chance of being anxious or withdrawn. They also were twice as likely as nonadopted children to receive mental health services - results that the authors said were much better than expected given these children’s often troubled early start in life. Children adopted within their own countries had an 36 percent higher chance of being anxious or withdrawn than the international adoptees did, and a 50 percent higher chance of being aggressive or disruptive, the study found. These children were four times more likely than nonadopted children and twice as likely as internationally adopted children to receive mental health services. Also, domestically adopted youngsters had a 60 percent higher chance of having behavior problems than nonadopted children. Reserachers have theorized that children adopted domestically might suffer from the instability of living with different foster families before getting adopted.

Koran Troubles
The Pentagon report detailing incidents in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay prison desecrated the Koran is creating another public relations challenge for President Bush. After first accusations appeared in Newsweek several weeks ago, the White House responded with a verbal offensive against the media. But when the Pentagon described a series of cases of U.S. personnel mishandling the Koran last week, the White House downplayed the issue.
Joe Lockhart, former press secretary for President Clinton, said that when a news organization - such as Newsweek - makes a factual mistake, White House officials are tempted to try to discredit the entire story. “I think on this issue, they fell into a trap… They saw a way to push back on a damaging story by making it look like it was just out-of-control journalists, and now they’ve had to admit that it has happened. While the news organization got an example wrong, they got the practice right. I think certainly the public is within their right, in this case, to believe they were misled.”
The White House has declined to answer questions about whether it issued misleading statements, whether the credibility of the Bush administration had been tarnished or whether the Pentagon report would hamper Bush’s efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, President Bush said recently that the U.S. economic expansion was solid, with thriving small-business and factory sectors, despite a report showing weak payroll growth. He did not mention a recent report from the Labor Department showing U.S. employers added only 78,000 workers to their payrolls in May, the weakest job growth in nearly two years.
Bush urged lawmakers to pass some of his priorities, including a broad energy bill and the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

Trust Us?
Trust in a bottle? It sounds like a marketer’s fantasy, like the fabled fountain of youth or the wild claims of fad diets. Yet that’s what Swiss and American scientists demonstrate in new experiments with a nasal spray containing the hormone oxytocin.
After a few squirts, human subjects were significantly more trusting and willing to invest money with no ironclad promise of a profit.
The researchers acknowledged their findings could be abused by con artists or even sleazy politicians who might sway an election, provided they could squirt enough voters on their way to the polls.
Other scientists say the new research raises important questions about oxytocin’s potential as a therapy for conditions like autism or social phobias, in which trust is diminished. Or, perhaps the hormone’s activity could be reduced to treat more rare diseases, like Williams’ Syndrome, in which children have no inhibitions and approach strangers fearlessly.
Oxytocin is secreted in brain tissues and synthesized by the hypothalamus. This small, but crucial feature located deep in the brain controls biological reactions like hunger, thirst and body temperature, as well as visceral fight-or-flight reactions associated with powerful, basic emotions like fear and anger. For years oxytocin was considered to be a straightforward reproductive hormone found in both sexes. In both humans and animals, this chemical messenger stimulates uterine contractions in labor and induces milk production. In both women and men, oxytocin is released during sex, too.
In the experiments, the researchers tried to manipulate people’s trust by adding more oxytocin to their brains. They used a synthetic version in a nasal spray that was absorbed by mucous membranes and crossed the blood-brain barrier. Researchers say the dose was harmless and altered oxytocin levels only temporarily.

Teens Thwarted!
The number of adolescents nationwide looking for summer jobs is abating. Last summer, the teen employment rate was the lowest since 1948, with only 36 percent of those ages 16 to 19 holding jobs, down from 45 percent in 2000. This year, although some economists say an improving economy may boost the prospects of older teens, the latest forecast shows no budge in the overall summer employment rate.
Competition from older workers and foreigners has squeezed the market for job-hungry teens. This comes as companies, operating with ever-leaner staffs, are less prone to take on the role of mentor for young people with little or no experience.
In a parallel trend, many teens have opted out of traditional jobs in retail and recreation for unpaid internships or to enroll in sports and music camps or other activities that might buff their college applications. But for thousands of adolescents who look for work to no avail, especially those from low-income families, a dearth of summer jobs means more than a scramble for cash.
The teen employment rate typically falls with national recessions, but it is not expected to recover this summer despite an improved economy. It is attributed, in part, to immigrants and older workers turning to hourly work. Employers often perceive older workers to be more mature or reliable and still available long after teens have returned to school.

Blind Beliefs
Religious devotion sets the United States apart from some of its closest allies. Americans profess unquestioning belief in God and are far more willing to mix faith and politics than people in other countries, AP-Ipsos polling found. In Western Europe, where Pope Benedict XVI complains that growing secularism has left churches unfilled on Sundays, people are the least devout among the 10 countries. Only Mexicans come close to Americans in embracing faith, the poll found. But unlike Americans, Mexicans strongly object to clergy lobbying lawmakers, in line with the nation’s historical opposition to church influence.
The polling was conducted in May in the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Spain.
Nearly all U.S. respondents said faith is important to them and only 2 percent said they do not believe in God. Almost 40 percent said religious leaders should try to sway policymakers, notably higher than in other countries. In contrast, 85 percent of French object to clergy activism - the strongest opposition of any nation surveyed. France has strict curbs on public religious expression and, according to the poll, 19 percent are atheists. South Korea is the only other nation with that high a percentage of nonbelievers. Australians are generally split over the importance of faith, while two-thirds of South Koreans and Canadians said religion is central to their lives. People in all three countries strongly oppose mixing religion and politics.
In Spain, where the government subsidizes the Catholic Church, and in Germany, which is split between Catholics and Protestants, people are about evenly divided over whether they consider faith important. The results are almost identical in Britain. Italians are the only European exception in the poll. Eighty percent said religion is significant to them and just over half said they unquestioningly believe in God. But even in Italy, home to the Catholic Church, resistance to religious engagement in politics is evident. Only three in 10 think the clergy should try to influence government decisions; a lower percentage in Spain, Germany and England said the same.
The poll found Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to think clergy should try to influence government decisions.

On The Record
The Washington bureau chiefs at seven major news organizations are pressing the White House to curtail the use of background briefings, which administration officials regularly hold on the condition that the officials not be identified in news reports. In an e-mail message sent recently, the bureau chiefs urged other Washington editors to object to such briefings as soon as the administration, executive agencies or legislators schedule them. “Please ask your reporters to raise objections beforehand in hopes of convincing the official to go public,” they wrote. “Ask them to explain why the briefing has to be on background.”
The message followed a meeting the bureau chiefs had at the White House with Scott McClellan, the press secretary for President Bush. McClellan said that he would end the use of background-only briefings — if White House reporters would stop using anonymous sources in their reporting. He said that “people in the heartland” feel that “anonymous sources use them to hide behind efforts to generate negative publicity.” Bureau chiefs contend that the background-only briefings force them to use sourcing that is, essentially, anonymous, reducing their credibility.

Good Grief
Doctors have recently identified a condition they’re labelling complicated grief, a condition more severe than grief and different from depression that affects as many as 1 million people a year. It’s a condition that some doctors are hoping will soon be recognized by the American Psychiatric Association.
“There is a tendency with bereavement to think that anything should be normal. People see it as a private time,” said Dr. Katherine Shear, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. But with complicated grief, Shear said the feelings of disbelief, loss and anguish don’t go away, eventually affecting every part of a person’s life.
Left untreated, doctors said, complicated grief can lead to depression, suicide or suicidal thoughts, substance abuse and even illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. Researchers estimate that 10 percent to 15 percent of the surviving relatives of people who die naturally could experience complicated grief. People emotionally dependent on the person who dies are at greatest risk of suffering complicated grief.
Researchers found that 51 percent of patients treated with a therapy developed just for the symptoms of complicated grief showed improvement. Meanwhile, 28 percent of complicated grief sufferers who underwent a treatment commonly used for depression showed improvements.

Classroom Bias?
Concerned that public schools are becoming sites of liberal indoctrination, conservative activist groups have started generating a wave of efforts to limit what teachers may discuss and to bring more conservative views into the classroom. After all, they say, if related campaigns can help rein in doctrinaire faculty on college campuses, why not in K-12 education as well?
So far this year, at least 14 state legislatures have considered bills aimed at colleges that would restrict professors and establish grievance procedures for students who perceive political bias in teaching. Concerns include multicultural lesson plans that go into detail about the Muslim faith, attitudes regarding the military, and views of history. Activist means of achieving change include a move to publicize whenever a teacher “tries to shove his ideology down someone’s throat,” the denouncing of world history books that go into too much detail about Islam.
These proposed remedies will spawn their own set of problems, some observers say. Teachers who are “ideologically coloring a subject” in any direction are troublingly out of line, but “the risk is that teachers will feel even further restrained than they already do,” says Patricia Sullivan, director of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington think tank that advocates for public schools.
Current events discussions, for instance, would become next to impossible in such an environment, Ms. Sullivan says. “[It would be] very difficult to not cross the line.... A teacher could very easily in a course of normal conversation express views, and I just don’t know how you regulate that.”
Some observers envision liberal and conservative families lining up in pursuit of separate educations. Because ideological policing of the classroom may prove impossible, support could grow for vouchers for values-driven education, says Michelle Easton, president of the conservative Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute in Herndon, Va.
“Our primary approach is to promote school choice, because then parents can pick little right-wing schools, little left-wing schools, little traditional schools - whatever they want for their children,” Mrs. Easton says. “Then you get the government out the business of, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ “

CWC Grants…
The Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC) Board of Directors on May 24 authorized reimbursement of stormwater control costs for a Windham business and a Lexington summer camp, and also approved six low-interest loans valued at more than $1.8 million to businesses in Delaware and Ulster Counties.
Reimbursement of up to $12,025 to Timber Lake Corporation was approved to help pay for design and construction of an infiltration system for collection and treatment of roof runoff from a new arts and crafts building at Camp Timber Lake on Broadstreet Hollow Road, Town of Lexington.
Among loan recipients were Peak Trading, a Hurley-based supplier of stage rigging and climbing gear, who will refinance existing debt and provide working capital; Brian Batista and Sara Loughlin, who will receive a loan to help them purchase Phoenicia Motor Village on Route 28 in Phoenicia, which they will then improve to include five cottages and five motel rooms; RSJB Enterprises of Hurley, who will renovate a former church it is purchasing at 151 Sheryl Street for conversion to the Country Meadows Child Care center, a facility that will accommodate 42 children following the Montessori educational philosophy; and a loan to Kings Town, Inc. for a new stone crusher, cone crusher and related elevators for use at the company’s quarry on Route 28, Town of Kingston.
The CWC has also refurbished its website. Check it out at www.cwconline.org.