Month: July 2005


  • Business Wire

    At 1,667 feet, Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan is the world’s tallest building.


    July 27, 2005
    The Desire for Tallest Building Persists
    By ROBIN POGREBIN

    Given the haunting image of the collapsing twin towers, it’s hard for many Americans to fathom the enduring urge to build tall.

    Yet now come plans for the nation’s tallest skyscraper, a condominium and hotel building designed by Santiago Calatrava for Chicago’s Near North lakefront. At 2,000 feet, the building, the Fordham Spire, would beat out the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower planned for ground zero.

    Internationally, both of these designs are dwarfed by the Burj Tower under construction in Dubai, which is expected to reach 2,300 feet. Once completed, the Burj will overtake Taipei 101, a 1,667-foot office tower, as the world’s tallest. And the Taipei building is certainly a short-time record holder; only in October did it surpass the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

    “There are real bragging rights to being the tallest that go back 3,000 years,” said Carol Willis, the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum in Manhattan. “Exceeding or exalting for spiritual reasons or a demonstration of power dates back from Babylon on – wanting to take a place in history, reserve a place in the timeline. Height is a fixation.”

    For all the talk about jitters deterring potential tenants of a future Freedom Tower, the 9/11 terrorist attack has done little or nothing to diminish a global appetite to touch the sky. “The number of tall buildings being built around the world is at an all-time high,” said Ron Klemencic, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a professional group.

    Chicago already has three of the 15 tallest buildings in the world: the Sears Tower, the John Hancock Center and Aon Center.

    “The skyscraper was born in Chicago,” said Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, director and president of the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. “The whole concept of the skyscraper has always been indigenous to the city.”

    Developers are planning four buildings of around 80 stories in the city, Mr. Klemencic said. (The Fordham Spire is to rise to 115 stories by 2009.) Miami, San Francisco and Las Vegas are also in the midst of bustling high-rise construction.

    David M. Childs of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, the architect who designed the Freedom Tower, said he was not at all troubled by the notion that its height would be eclipsed by that of Mr. Calatrava’s building. “More power to him,” he said.

    Mr. Childs pointed out that under current Federal Aviation Administration rules, Mr. Calatrava’s proposed 2,000-foot tower is as tall as any building is allowed to be. And the Freedom Tower was not meant to be higher, given the patriotic symbolism of 1,776 feet mandated by Daniel Libeskind’s master plan. Mr. Childs designed the roof and rooftop parapet to match the height of the two original World Trade Center buildings (1,362 feet and 1,368 feet); the antenna completes the distance to the top.

    But the developer behind Burj Tower, Balfour Beatty, has made clear his intention to set – and keep – the record for the world’s tallest building. “If anyone comes close,” Ms. Willis said, “they’ll build a taller spire.”

    That, of course, raises that perennial question in the skyscraper world: Does the spire count? Isn’t it kind of cheating?

    The Council on Tall Buildings, which certifies the tallest structures, has determined that the spire counts if it is “integral to the architecture of the building,” Mr. Klemencic said.

    “If you take off the top of the Chrysler Building, it doesn’t look like the Chrysler Building anymore,” he explained. “But if you take the antennas off the Hancock Tower, it still looks like the Hancock Tower.”

    The Freedom Tower’s spire is expected to set off some squabbling. “I’m sure there will be heated debate,” Mr. Klemencic said.

    The 2,000-foot-high Calatrava building in Chicago, to be built by the developer Christopher T. Carley, would be 1,458 feet without its spire – only eight feet taller than the Sears Tower.

    Architecture buffs revel in the lore of such competition, recalling how the Chrysler Building beat out the Bank of Manhattan tower in 1929 with the last-minute hoisting of a secretly planned stainless steel top. In 1931, of course, the Chrysler was bested by the Empire State Building, which yielded the title to the World Trade Center four decades later.

    While the Calatrava building may be major news for the country, experts say it is old hat for much of the rest of the world, particularly Asia. Hong Kong, with its notorious population density, has more skyscrapers than New York, Ms. Willis said, and its residential buildings typically reach 60 stories these days.

    Along Shanghai’s jostling skyline, plans are under way for an 1,614-foot tower, China’s tallest, as part of the Shanghai World Financial Center. “They’re not afraid of height at all,” Ms. Willis said of developers in Asia. “There is no anxiety. They both need the space and want the attention.”

    Some New Yorkers no doubt remain deeply wary of living or working in skyscrapers in the aftermath of 9/11. More than any other building, the Freedom Tower is a natural locus for fears of a violent recurrence.

    But architectural experts say that in general, plenty of people and institutions will succumb to the spell of an architecturally prominent tall building, not to mention the view. “All you need is the right number of people with sufficient money,” Ms. Willis said.

    Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Back to Top

  • Ferocious Heat Maintains Grip Across the West


    By JOHN M. BRODER


    PHOENIX, July 22 – A relentless and lethal blanket of heat has settled on much of the western United States, forcing the cancellation of dozens of airline flights, threatening the loss of electrical power, stoking wildfires and leaving 20 people dead in Phoenix alone in just the past week.


    Fourteen of the victims here are thought to have been homeless, although the heat also claimed the life of a 97-year-old man who died in his bedroom, a 37-year-old man who succumbed in his car and two older women who died in homes without air-conditioning.


    Daytime highs in Phoenix have remained near 110 degrees for more than a week, and municipal officials acknowledge that it is almost impossible to deal with the needs of the estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people living on the streets. The city has barely 1,000 shelter beds, and hundreds of them are available only in the winter.


    The lack of preparation for the homeless here is obvious to those sweltering on the sidewalk outside the Society of St. Vincent de Paul relief center in a zone of desolation between the office towers of downtown Phoenix and the State Capitol.


    “I’m dying out here,” said a homeless man in his 40′s who goes by the name of Romeo, crouched in a sliver of shade on a littered sidewalk while waiting for a handout meal and a bottle of water. “The police are making us move all over the place. Where do they expect us to go? They need some more shelters.”


    The Phoenix police and private social service agencies have been passing out thousands of bottles of water donated by grocery chains and individuals. But the fierce heat continues to take a toll.


    “We’ve not seen anything like this before,” said Tony Morales, a Phoenix police detective. “We get heat-related deaths every summer, usually 5 to 10 deaths through the whole summer, but nothing like this.”


    In Maricopa County as a whole, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs, 21 people died of heat exposure all of last year, just one more than the city’s toll in the last several days.


    Officials of the National Weather Service estimate that more than 200 heat records have been broken in the West during the last two weeks. On Tuesday, Las Vegas tied its record for any date, 117 degrees. Reno and other locations in Nevada have set records with nine consecutive days of temperatures at 100 or higher. The temperature in Denver on Wednesday reached 105 degrees, making it the hottest day there since 1878. The highest temperature for the entire region during the heat wave has been 129, recorded at Death Valley, Calif.


    The weather forced airlines to cancel more than two dozen flights this week, remove passengers from fully loaded planes, limit the number of tickets sold on some flights and take other measures to withstand the heat.


    The reasons for that are related to engineering. Aircraft manufacturers have customarily set temperature limits at which their planes can be safely operated. (The limits are lower at higher altitudes, as in the Rocky Mountains, and higher at lower altitudes, as in the desert that surrounds Las Vegas.) High temperatures mean aircraft engines must take in more air in order to create the greater thrust the planes need to leave the ground. But airplane makers also have limits on the amount of thrust that an engine can produce. If the engines exceed those limits, they may not perform properly. At that point, aircraft manufacturers advise, the airlines should remove weight from planes – either passengers or cargo – or, in the worst cases, not fly at all.


    United Airlines canceled seven United Express flights out of Denver on Wednesday, when the record-tying temperature there exceeded the operating limit for the carrier’s propeller planes, said a spokesman, Jeff Green. “It was just so extreme, and stayed on so long, that we had to cancel flights,” Mr. Green said.


    America West canceled 22 flights out of its Las Vegas hub this week, 11 each on Monday and Tuesday. The temperature of 117 there was approaching the limit for America West’s regional jets: 117.26, above which they should not fly, said Linda Larsen, a spokeswoman for Mesa Airlines, which operates the flights for America West.


    On the other hand, Southwest Airlines, one of the biggest carriers operating in Las Vegas and Phoenix, has not canceled any flights because of the heat, a spokesman said. And Frontier Airlines merely refused to fly any pets.


    The extraordinary heat has lasted for many weeks in the Southwestern desert, where it has exacted a high price in lives along the Mexican border. Officials of the United States Bureau of Customs and Border Protection say 101 illegal migrants have died of heat so far this fiscal year, which runs from October through September. That compares with 95 heat-related deaths in all of the previous 12 months.


    Twenty-one border crossers have died in Arizona just since July 1, said Salvador Zamora, a spokesman for the border agency. The agency has stepped up its efforts to rescue migrants from the heat, using trucks and helicopters to aid people in distress in the brutal sun.


    Here in Phoenix, where the issue of rescue involves the homeless, Moises Gallegos, the city’s deputy director of community services, said that space was available in downtown shelters but that some of the homeless refused to use it. Some are drug or alcohol abusers who do not want to be tested and treated, a condition for entry, and others are mentally ill and refuse all offers of help, Mr. Gallegos said.


    But some private social service agencies contend that there is a critical lack of shelter space here, and criticize officials for not opening a 500-bed city-owned homeless shelter that is used only in the winter.


    “We need a year-round overflow shelter,” said Terry Bower, director of the Human Services Campus Day Resource Center.


    Elsewhere in Arizona, firefighters are struggling to contain a swarm of 20 wildfires around the state, most sparked by lightning, including a 60,000-acre blaze northeast of Phoenix that shut several major highways. Across the West as a whole, 32 large wildfires are burning, fueled by the heat, dry conditions and a profusion of brush created by the winter’s heavy rains, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.


    And in California, the state’s Independent System Operator, which handles the flow of power to three-quarters of California customers, declared a Stage 2 emergency on Thursday and Friday, the first in two years. Stage 2 means that utilities are within 5 percent of their maximum production of electricity and that interruption of power to some customers is possible.


    Stephanie McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Independent System Operator, said the emergency was in effect for Southern California and asked residents to conserve electricity. Ms. McCorkle said the system had experienced 14 consecutive days in which demand in Southern California was near capacity.


    “The Bay Area is not hot, and that has been our saving grace,” she said. “L.A. is sizzling.”


    Craig Schmidt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s regional headquarters in Salt Lake City, said records had been falling across the Western states since the heat wave started on July 12.


    In Phoenix, it was at least 110 every day from July 11 to 19; on Friday the temperature peaked at 108.


    There may be some relief in sight, though: monsoons are moving into the area. The rain and cloud cover will cool things down a bit, officials said, but humidity will rise, prolonging the misery.


    “Throughout the Western states – you have to estimate, but more than 200 records have probably been broken, and that’s just talking daily records,” Mr. Schmidt said. “These records are no fun to break.”


    Among the most remarkable was the one in Las Vegas, where the 117-degree reading on Tuesday matched the record for any date, set in 1942. The 95-degree low on Tuesday was also a record for Las Vegas, as was the average temperature that day, 104 degrees.


    In Death Valley, meanwhile, the temperature never dropped below 100 degrees in two 24-hour periods.


    Mr. Schmidt attributes the heat to a high pressure system that refused to budge.


    “This one went on for so long, because there’s a very strong ridge of high pressure centered over Utah and Arizona,” he said, “and it kept the monsoon moisture from working its way northward. That usually cools things off with thunderstorms and clouds.”


    Andy Bailey, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Las Vegas, said: “It’s probably fair to say what just wrapped up was probably the most intense heat wave the city’s ever seen. We had a string of four days where it was 115 or above.”


    Now, however, the region is facing a new threat from the expected summer monsoons and thunderstorms, Mr. Bailey said.


    “We’re concerned with flash flooding today and tomorrow,” he said.


    Micheline Maynard contributed reporting from New York for this article, Katie Zezima from Boston and John Dougherty from Phoenix.






  • July 25, 2005

    Below Ground Zero, Stirrings of Past and Future


    By DAVID W. DUNLAP


    Having endured the construction and destruction of the World Trade Center above, the 96-year-old Hudson Terminal – now a colossal underground ruin at ground zero – will soon give way to a new transportation hub.


    The ground that is to be broken in September for a new trade center terminal on the eastern side of the site includes some astonishing infrastructure: the two-block-long passenger platform level of the Hudson Terminal, later used as loading docks; cast-iron railroad tubes that were turned into truck ramps; a vault where tons of gold and silver were stored; and structural hints – geometrically patterned flooring here, chocolate-colored brickwork there – of the once bustling trade center shopping concourse.


    In their place will be the lower levels of the PATH terminal and transportation hub designed by Santiago Calatrava, new pedestrian passageways, shops, parking spaces, loading docks and the basement of the third office tower planned for the site.


    For now, there is nowhere else at ground zero where time is more palpably suspended than in the tubes and tunnels and truck bays that once served the World Trade Center and, before that, the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, predecessor to PATH.


    Almost four years after the attack, signs still command truck drivers who have long since vanished: “No Idling.” “Not for Service Vehicles.” “30 Minute Parking Only for Deliveries. Offenders Will Be Autoclamped and Fined.”


    Within the cavernous gloom of the deeply ribbed 15-foot-3-inch-diameter tubes, the quiet is broken every few minutes by the disembodied rumble of a PATH train passing nearby.


    “It makes you think we should get out of the way, that a light will come down from the end of the tunnel,” said Kenneth J. Ringler Jr., executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as he stood last week at the mouth of the tubes.


    Mr. Ringler said elements of this subterranean realm – perhaps some cast-iron tube rings, certainly some ornamental flooring – would be salvaged.


    The authority is committed to preserving the travertine-clad hallway leading to the E train terminus at Chambers Street. It plans to relocate the cruciform steel column that was found at 6 World Trade Center. What the authority does not save, it will document in written descriptions, drawings and large-format photographs.


    “It’s important that we attempt to preserve some of this for history,” Mr. Ringler said. “This is part of the story. It is not necessarily integral to 9/11, but there is history here.”


    Tangible history on the eastern third of the trade center site may date to the second half of the 18th century, since the blocks between Greenwich and Church Streets were always on dry land, unlike the western part of the site, which was landfill.


    Excavation of areas along Vesey and Liberty Streets could conceivably uncover privies, cisterns, wells or cesspools from the 1750′s through the 1850′s, according to the environmental impact statement for World Trade Center redevelopment project.


    In any case, the milestone year of 1909 is abundantly recalled. That was when William G. McAdoo, founder of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Company, opened the Hudson Terminal, an underground complex that stretched from Fulton Street to Cortlandt Street, ushering in three-minute rail service between Jersey City and Lower Manhattan. Above the terminal were two 22-story towers, nearly twins.


    Trains approached the Hudson Terminal through the southern tube, which branched into five tracks that looped among six passenger platforms, studded every 20 feet or so with white-tiled columns. They headed back under the river through the northern tube.


    In 1962, the bistate Port Authority took over the bankrupt Hudson & Manhattan line – renaming it Port Authority Trans-Hudson – in return for the support of New Jersey officials for a huge trade center in New York. The authority had planned to build the center on the East River, but moved it to align with the Hudson Terminal.


    During construction of the center, the U-shaped track array was shifted about 450 feet westward to a new PATH terminal, which opened in 1971. The vestigial Hudson Terminal platform area was turned into loading bays for the two low-rise trade center buildings on Church Street, served by Ramp L (the south tube) and Ramp J (the north tube).


    These loading bays look today much as they must have on Sept. 10, 2001. There are still rubber bumpers along the edges of the four-foot-high truck docks. Columns and ramp walls are still color coded: green for 4 World Trade Center, purple for 5 World Trade Center. But Ramp L bears deep scars from Sept. 11, 2001. Steel reinforcing bars embedded in the concrete walls have been twisted into Medusa-like tangles. Steel column flanges are bent like wilting leaves. The tunnel ceiling is bowed and braced.


    Nearby, a door with a shattered window leads to the vestibule of the Bank of Nova Scotia vault. Inside the vestibule is a massive steel door with six-inch-thick hinges. Behind that door, the bank was storing about $200 million in gold and silver when the World Trade Center came under attack.


    “The vault was intact and all the silver and bullion was taken out,” said Peter L. Rinaldi, general manager of the trade center site in the Port Authority’s priority capital programs unit. He witnessed the recovery operation, a month and a half after the attack, and remembers more than 100 armored trucks making their way out of Ramp J.


    Directly above the loading bays was the long north-south corridor of the trade center shopping concourse. The most distinctive remnant of the mall is the banded flooring pattern from the crossroads once occupied by a Warner Brothers Studio Store, a Tourneau watch store and Casual Corner and Strawberry clothing stores.


    Very little remains of the rest of the concourse except for a small field of 8-by-8-inch floor tiles just south of the crossroads, directly under the steel cruciform.


    This was where Benjamin Books once did business, succeeded by Innovation Luggage. Because Innovation’s target customer is a 35- to 50-year-old business traveler, the trade center store was in “the center of our demographic,” said David R. Petroski, the company’s regional director. “Volume-wise, it was headed toward being one of the top two stores.”


    Briefcases and attaché cases were big sellers. The store featured a large metal globe and five television monitors tuned to business channels.


    Mr. Petroski, 39, who was then district manager for New York City, happened to be in the trade center store that Tuesday morning to catch up on work before the staff arrived to open up. Because he left the door unlocked, a customer had already come in to check out a bug-eye-green Timberland knapsack.


    The concourse started to shake. Mr. Petroski figured it was the subway. But then came a roar. And then, visible through the plate-glass storefront, a stampede. “Businessmen were running for their lives in huge packs,” he said. “My first thought was that there must be a shooter in the hall. I couldn’t comprehend why hundreds of people were running.”


    The customer dropped the knapsack. Without saying a word to each other, the two men joined the flight. After finding sanctuary in the park at 1 Liberty Plaza, Mr. Petroski heard a rumor that the explosion had been caused by a faulty boiler.


    “The store’s a bank vault – a quarter million dollars of inventory,” he said. “Responsible district manager that I am, I went back into the World Trade Center. Security is saying, ‘Get out!’ But I’m smarter than that. I know it’s just a boiler. I lock everything up.”


    After leaving the concourse again, Mr. Petroski heard a noise getting louder and louder and louder as he crossed Church Street. “In retrospect, it must have been the sound of the engines,” he said. “I turned. That’s when the second plane crashed.”


    Dazed, terrified but uninjured, Mr. Petroski made his way home by subway to Brooklyn. He tried to return to work the next day in the store on the Avenue of the Americas at 21st Street. “But I just spent the morning crying in the stockroom,” he said.


    At the trade center, of course, one locked door made no difference.






  • Space shuttle Discovery mission specialist Charles Camarda, left, commander Eileen Collins and mission specialist Stephen Robinson after practicing landings in the shuttle training aircraft on Sunday at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla

    Countdown for Discovery Enters Final Hours
    NASA Says it May Bend its Safety Rules for Faulty Fuel Gauge

    By MARCIA DUNN
    The Associated Press
    Monday, July 25, 2005; 4:48 PM
    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — With the countdown entering its final hours and a fuel gauge problem still unexplained, NASA said it is prepared to bend its long-standing safety rules to launch the shuttle Tuesday on the first flight since Columbia’s doomed mission 2 1/2 years ago.

    Discovery and a crew of seven were set to blast off for the international space station at 10:39 a.m., after a two-week delay caused by a malfunctioning hydrogen fuel gauge in the spaceship’s giant external tank.

    Nature, rather than the fuel gauge, culd ultimately decide whether Discovery takes off. Forecasters put the odds of good launch weather at 60 percent, with rain and storm clouds both posing threats.

    A had the paperwork ready to go in case the equipment trouble reappeared and the space agency’s managers decided to press ahead with the launch with just three of the four fuel gauges working. That would mean deviating from a rule instituted after the 1986 Challenger explosion.

    “There’s very little in life that is 100 percent guaranteed, and there’s probably less in rocket science that’s 100 percent guaranteed,” deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said over the weekend. “That is part of the risk we take.”

    The fuel gauges are designed to prevent the main engines from running too long or not long enough, in case the fuel tank is leaking or some other major breakdown occurs. An engine shutdown at the wrong time could prove catastrophic, forcing the astronauts to attempt a risky emergency landing overseas, or leading to a ruptured engine.

    Both Hale and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin noted that multiple failures would have to occur in multiple systems for the worst-case scenario to come true.

    Only two gauges, or sensors, are needed to do the job. But ever since NASA’s return to space in 1988, the space agency has decreed that all four have to work to proceed with launch.

    NASA test director Pete Nickolenko said Monday he did not remember the last time one of the “launch commit criteria,” as the rules are called, was waived. But he expressed confidence in NASA’s game plan and said the space agency had done everything possible to understand the fuel gauge problem, which first cropped up during a test in April and resurfaced during a launch attempt July 13.

    Over the past few days, NASA rewired two of the sensors to try to diagnose the trouble and repaired faulty electrical grounding aboard Discovery in hopes that would solve the problem.

    “Bottom line is we’ve performed a lot of analysis and understanding and I think we’re smarter in understanding exactly what we have on the condition and what we’ve got with our systems,” Nickolenko said.

    But a retired agent in NASA’s inspector general office, Joseph Gutheinz, said the space agency does not appear to have learned its lesson with Columbia.

    “It is clear to me that NASA continues to put mission over safety,” Gutheinz said. “I fear that if NASA is wrong this time, as they were for Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, manned space missions may be halted for a very long time in the United States.”

    Randy Avera, a former NASA engineer who helped develop the shuttle’s inspection program, also questioned the space agency’s willingness to bend the launch rule. He said it reminds him of the thinking that led to the Challenger accident, which was blamed on a cold-stiffened O-ring seal in a booster rocket and NASA inattention to safety.

    Columbia was doomed by a a chunk of foam insulation that broke off the fuel tank at liftoff and damaged the wing. The shuttle disintegrated during its return to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The accident was blamed, in part, on NASA’s “broken safety culture,” or a tendency to downplay risks.

    Some family members of the fallen Columbia astronauts planned to return for launch try No. 2. The VIP list was topped by first lady Laura Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, her brother-in-law.

    NASA is down to the last week of its latest launch window for Discovery.

    Discovery has until the beginning of August to fly to the space station on a 12-day supply and repair mission; the next launch opportunity will not come until Sept. 9.

    The launch window is dictated by the space station’s position and NASA’s insistence on a daylight liftoff to provide good views for the more than 100 cameras that will be checking for any Columbia-type launch damage.

    While in orbit, Discovery’s crew will inspect the most vulnerable areas of the spacecraft, using a new 50-foot, laser-tipped boom, and practice repairing samples of deliberately damaged thermal tile and panels.

    © 2005 The Associated Press


  • Drivers presentation: Michael Schumacher
    F1 > German GP, 2005-07-24 (Hockenheim): Sunday pre-race


  • Willi Weber
    F1 > German GP, 2005-07-24 (Hockenheim): Sunday pre-race


  • Paddock beauties
    F1 > German GP, 2005-07-24 (Hockenheim): Sunday pre-race


  • Raikkonen on pole for German GP
    Racing series F1
    Date 2005-07-23

    By Nikki Reynolds – Motorsport.com

    As many people expected, McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen breezed to pole position in qualifying for the German Grand Prix, the Finn over four tenths quicker than his nearest rival with a time of 1:14.320. BAR’s Jenson Button will start alongside in second and the Renaults of Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella were third and fourth respectively.

    The conditions were still quite cool but fine and dry, with a track temperature of around 30 degrees at the start of the session. Newly promoted to the ranks of F1 race drivers rather than testers, Minardi’s Robert Doornbos was the first man out and recorded a time of 1:18.313 on his debut qualifying run. A rather cautious lap for the Dutchman.

    Jordan’s Narain Karthikeyan had a couple of off-track excursions and aborted his lap. The second Minardi of Christijan Albers made a good effort and clocked 1:17.519, eight tenths up on Doornbos. Tiago Monteiro’s Jordan completed his lap without incident but was a second slower than Albers, so both Minardis were ahead of the Jordans.

    BAR’s Takuma Sato, unsurprisingly, was two seconds up on Albers to take the top spot with a time of 1:15.501. Christian Klien was the next runner and he held the Red Bull’s good pace from the morning practices to take second, just over a tenth down on Sato. The track temperature had climbed to the mid thirties after 15 minutes.

    Jacques Villeneuve was the first Sauber out and had a few lock ups, which put him behind Klien. David Coulthard couldn’t outdo his teammate but put his Red Bull comfortably in front of Villeneuve. Nick Heidfeld’s Williams had a good start and carried it through to take provisional pole, 1:15.403, a tenth up on Sato.

    Mark Webber followed on in the second Williams and was fractionally faster through sectors one and two, and crossed the line just over three tenths up on Heidfeld, 1:15.070. Sauber’s Felipe Massa made a bit of mistake at the hairpin but managed to just sneak ahead of Villeneuve by a couple of thousandths for provisional sixth.

    Jarno Trulli’s Toyota had a reasonable lap to slot in behind Sato for fourth and teammate Ralf Schumacher was a couple of tenths slower for seventh. Rubens Barrichello led out for Ferrari and could only manage tenth. The earlier cars were suspected to be running quite light but even so, Rubens didn’t look particularly happy out there.

    Michael Schumacher, on softer tyres and a lighter fuel load than his teammate, took a surprising provisional pole, 1:15.006, just six hundredths quicker than Webber. It didn’t last long for Michael though, as Button went out a posted 1:14.759 to demote the Ferrari by a couple of tenths.

    Fisichella slotted his Renault in behind Button and Raikkonen was out next. The McLaren was comfortably faster through all three sectors to take provisional pole by over four tenths, 1:14.320. Championship rival Alonso couldn’t match it and went third after making a mistake at turn one which lost him time.

    That left Juan Pablo Montoya as the last to run. He was on Raikkonen’s pace through the first two sectors but he pushed just a bit too hard and the McLaren spun off into the gravel at the final corner. The car sustained some damage but Montoya was fine. But bad news for the team’s constructors’ title hopes as Juan Pablo will now have to start at the back.

    “I just lost it,” Montoya shrugged. “My car was a bit nervous in the corners and in the last sector it was very understeery. I can rescue some points but I just want to win races. I think I can get a podium here, we have the pace.” McLaren boss Ron Dennis was not happy. “There was one corner to go, he only had to get round it,” he grumped.

    So, once again it’s Raikkonen and Button on the front row of the grid, with Alonso and Fisichella looming behind. Michael finished fifth, which was not too bad but we will have too see how everyone’s strategies pan out tomorrow. If Raikkonen can hold the lead at the start there’s a good chance the speed of the McLaren will be unbeatable.

    “I am happy to be on pole which is the position that the team deserves after all the hard work,” said Raikkonen. “Surprisingly the car wasn’t handling as well as in free practice this morning. My qualifying performance wasn’t perfect as I had a short moment when I slid a little too much at the second to last corner due to oversteer. Anyway it’s good to start from pole position, but I expect a tough race tomorrow.”

    Button is hoping to take advantage of his front row start. “I’m obviously delighted to be on the front row again — for the second race in a row,” he commented. “We have made progress since Silverstone but not quite enough to challenge the front runners yet, I don’t think. We will be closer though and happy with that because it provides us with momentum to keep moving forward throughout the year.”

    Alonso was happy enough with third. “I knew I was down after the first sector, and really pushed after that to make up some time, which I managed to do,” said the Spaniard. “We know that qualifying speed is our weak point at the moment, but the R25 is much quicker in race trim. I hope to make up a place at the start, and I am sure we have the right strategy. I want at least a podium — and perhaps we will be able to fight for the win.”

    Both Williams drivers were in the top ten, which is what they were aiming for, and Sato’s lap turned out to be good enough for eighth. The Toyotas were a bit disappointing, Trulli ninth and Ralf 12th, but the Red Bulls looked quite good, Klien 10th and Coulthard 11th. The Saubers were pretty much where one would expect, Massa 13th and Villeneuve 14th.

    Barrichello ended up a lowly 15th, a full 10 places behind Michael so it’ll be interesting to see how their strategies work out. Alonso will need to get ahead of Button at the start to be in with the chance of challenging Raikkonen — it looks hopeful for a good race. Final top eight classification: Raikkonen, Button, Alonso, Fisichella, M. Schumacher, Webber, Heidfeld, Sato



  • And that’s why I won’t have sex with you


















    (idea) by Kailen (1.6 y) (print)   ?   3 C!s Fri Jun 16 2000 at 20:39:10

    why I won’t have sex with you


    I agree sex between two consenting adults is fun. In my not always humble opinion, sex can be so much more then just fun though. It seems everywhere I look people accuse and rant about Puritanical influences ruining the fun of sex or rather influencing many people to not engage in sex for fun. I’m not saying these influences don’t exist, or that I myself have not felt their hold over my opinions of sex. I would like to suggest though that these influences seem to hold little sway over the general population.


    The Free Love Era pretty much took care of that. I can only think of a few people who are not over the age of 30 and are of age to be having sex that have chosen to wait until they are married to have sex. Do these people lack the notion of fun, have they been brainwashed? I submit that no, this is not the case for many of them. The few virgins or people who are saving themselves for marriage that I have talked to, have thoughtfully and painstakingly made a deliberate choice based on their own personal beliefs. It’s not that they are afraid of a good time, or that some church manufactured propaganda holds them in bondage. These are the brave ones, the ones who are willing to miss out on bodily instant gratification in search of something better. Their not afraid that if they don’t nail everything that moves that they might be missing out on the hottest sex ever. Their willing to stake a few missed opportunities on the premise that sex between two married souls has more meaning, will be more open and honest if they share their sex only with each other. What is wrong with that?


    I myself made the conscious choice at 16 to give up that right, opting for “fun” and experience. There are times when I wish I had not taken that path. It’s not that I feel overly guilty or doomed to hell for my actions. Sometimes I feel like I missed out on something very special by choosing instant gratification over waiting for someone I truly trusted and loved. These times when I think about sex as something more then just fun, I realize that I missed a golden opportunity, the ultimate experience in gratification. The union between two people totally willing to share themselves with only each other for the rest of their lives have something very special and dear that I will never truly know. I say that because I have carnal knowledge of others so my future experiences will always have some sort of foundation laid down by others that I have been with.


    I can’t ever go back and wipe the slate clean. I can live with that though, I not going to hide my head in the sand and wish my sex life away because I have made some poor choices in my life. I have begun to come to terms with my own Puritanical background and my choices to ignore it. I’m not sure of all of my feelings on the subject, I don’t know if I ever will have a clear and concise opinion on all of the differing facets of sexual relations.


    There are a few things that I am fairly certain I do have a solid opinion on though. These opinions are subject to change but for now they work for me. First of all what someone else decides is right for them is fine by me, we are all individuals and so have individual needs and desires. Who am I to try and force or coerce my own ideas on them? If they ask or want to know my opinions I’ll gladly share them with them but I will not condemn someone for not holding the same opinions as myself.


    Secondly I feel as though casual sex for me can only occur under certain circumstances. These would include some sort of agreement between me and my partner that neither of us would hold the other one to any sort of long lasting, or more in depth meaning in our relationship. Meaning that we agreed to be intimate, passionate but wouldn’t expect that to mean we were going to spend the rest of our life together or any such commitment. It’d also have to be understood that indeed the relationship would change. I feel that no matter how I might like to think sex is just sex it just simply isn’t true for me. I feel some sort of connection to every man I have ever been with. Not necessarily a deep or profound connection but in every case our relationship changed slightly or in some cases dramatically because we’d had sex. Another definite requirement would be precautions against disease and pregnancy. This is a major step in casual sex that I have always previously ignored. In retrospect I consider myself lucky that I’m not diseased or worse simply because I was too impatient for sexual release. All of these stipulations require discussing in depth with the casual partner, which suggests to me it wouldn’t be so casual after all. For myself trust is a big part of sex, so I doubt I could just go to bed with any stranger. One night stands have never appealed to me, I’ve tried them. In my experience I suck at casual sex, I crave more.


    Intimate sex between myself and the one I love is what I long for and need. A long lasting, in-depth relationship accompanied by sweet physical love. This is what turns me on most. The idea of surrendering my body to one and only one man, maybe not in marriage but in a monogamous relationship where both parties intend to make a go for the long haul. Once again this would need to be deliberate and discussed before we began our oddessy.


    Am I selfish to put these types of requirements on myself and my partner? You bet I am, it’s a matter of pride and knowing what I want for my own body. I can no longer just brush off the intimacy that sex invokes in me. I seem to have out grown the want for instant gratification with the first man that walks into my life, just because I can have it. I desire so much more and know that I deserve to be respected for my own beliefs, desires and needs. If this makes me a prude or beyond being able to just have sex for fun then so be it. It’s my body my choice, right?


    I happen to be married to a man I no longer love, trust or desire. This makes sex an awkward proposition for me most of the time. Once again those old church bound beliefs come into play in my life. I was raised to be a submissive and pleasing wife. For years I struggled with this in my marriage. As a wife I felt it was my duty to do as my husband asked in the bedroom and elsewhere. Over time however I have come to realize that God the one whom I put my faith in never intended for me to be sad , hurt or angry during sex or because of it. Simply because I’m married does not mean I have to only consider my husbands desires and needs. I am allowed to have feelings and desires all my own too. Unfortunately this means that my husband and I don’t always agree when it comes to what should and shouldn’t happen behind closed doors. I think perhaps more then anything though our discord comes form the rest of our marriage and not from our sexual preferences. Our conflicts however definitely effect our bedroom experiences.


    At present time I can not find it within myself to even engage in casual sex. I have tried, but I find sex between us tends to only confuse what is really going on between us. Yeah, sex is fun and feels great and there are times when my sexual tensions go above and beyond what I can do for myself. Those times I’ve gone to him saying we might try to have sex just for the sake of sex. He being one that considers sex a major part of his life always agrees. I find though that afterwards he suddenly thinks all is well between us, and I’m hurting inside because I feel as though I didn’t make the right decision. So there we are back at square one where I have to explain to him that I still don’t love him, nor do I particularly want him to kiss me, hold me even touch me most of the time. Confused? I sure as hell am.


    My husband even though he professes to be able to have sex without requiring more of me really needs and desire more as an outcome from hot sex just as I do. I know for myself at least that kind of intimacy is a long ways a way in our relationship, if at all possible. I feel guilty at not being able to ease his sexual frustrations and my own, we are after all married and are supposed to be able to easily and joyfully be able to fulfill these needs. I know I have failed him in many ways, I can not be the woman he wants anymore then he can be the man I want to be with. Our mutual failure is a painfully difficult reality we are slowly beginning to understand and deal with. I don’t know if we will ever find a common ground to stand on again, or if we will continue to try sometimes to find a way to have a sexual relationship without needing more form each other. I guess this is a mystery of life that only time will give us the answer to.


    For the moment though I do know it would be wrong for me and my needs to cave in to my bodies craving for sex just for the sake of sex. I’m a complex woman with complex needs. Right now I have to follow my heart, stay true to what feels right for myself. I can no longer just ignore the selfish woman who wants that deeper connection with whomever I choose to be intimate with. Until there is a time where I feel comfortable, all of my being knowing that the moment is right for me to let loose my sexual beast I intend to keep it on a very short leash. I no longer wish to let sex be a confusing and emotionally draining, painful experience just for the sake of feeling physically good for awhile. There’s too much emotional baggage, and a higher internal price for me to pay.


    …and that’s why I won’t have sex with you



    printable version


    chaos





































    anger sex How to tell if a girl’s interested in you Human seminal plasma hypersensitivity And that’s why we don’t have sex in the nose
    Sex for fun Men who make love like lesbians one-night stand Josie and the Pussycats
    I did not have sexual relations with that woman Sexually transmitted disease sex in public Guitar strings don’t make good tattoo needles
    She makes sniffing sounds, and I don’t know if she’s snorting coke or weeping emotional baggage How I nearly killed myself masturbating Dance of the Drunken Master
    robots.txt Drake Equation The eternal welfare of your soul post coitum omne animal triste
    Avoiding sexually transmitted disease /dev/null Sex is a gift of pleasure between friends There are no good contraceptives

  • The Crucible (idea)


    (all of The Crucible, there are 4 more in this node)















    (idea) by Sondheim (6 hr) (print)   ?   Wed May 05 2004 at 1:22:36




    C! info: 3 C!s given by: Timeshredder, Simulacron3, Infinite Burn


    The Crucible: More than an allegory



    “It is not for me to make easy answers and come forth before the American people and tell them everything is all right, when I look into their eyes and see them troubled…my criticism, such as it has been, is not to be confused with hatred. I love this country, I think as much as any man, and it is because I see these things that I think certainly traduce these values that have been in the country that I speak”

    - Arthur Miller


    Everyone knows, or thinks they know about The Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Unfortunately, most of what they know comes from Arthur Miller‘s play The Crucible. While Miller’s play is a dramatic and engrossing dramatization of some of the events that took place in Salem in 1692, it is not entirely accurate. What occurs then is sort of a modern day legend much akin to Homer‘s Iliad or The Odyssey, stories that incorporate real people and places in fantastic situations. This story then becomes, like the Greek classics, a morality play, where cause and effect plays out before our eyes, and we see what becomes of a society when people make the wrong decisions. Again, like many of these stories, the truth is always stranger than the fiction. The Crucible, while generally considered to be a thinly veiled allegory of the reign of terror held by the House Un-American Activities Committee under Senator Joseph McCarthy, is much more than that. It is deeply tense dramatic work that includes issues of sexuality, religion, hypocrisy, enlightenment, sexism, feminism, politics and redemption. It’s allegory reaches far before 1692 and far after 1953.


    When The Crucible first opened at The Martin Beck Theater in New York on January 22, 1953, it was met with a lukewarm reaction. Many critics, like Walter Kerr, thought it was too much allegory and not enough substance. Brooks Atkinson, in his New York Times review, liked the play, but stated that it “lacked universality” and that “On a lower level of dramatic history with considerable pertinence for today, it is a powerful play….” 1 Even Arthur Miller himself wasn’t very impressed with the production. As a result, it only ran for 197 performances. This was not a very long run of performances compared with his other plays, Death of a Salesman ran for 742 performances on Broadway. The country was in turmoil, people were afraid to even entertain open criticism of what was going on at the time. The effect was even more pronounced after Miller actually appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956. Like John Proctor, Miller refused to name names, and was cited for contempt and sentence to a prison sentence. Both, however, were defeated by an appeal. His next play, A View from the Bridge, only ran for 149 performances. It seemed as though his allegory was haunting him. 2


    Miller later wrote the screenplay for the 1996 film of The Crucible, which was less of an allegory and more of a dark retelling of the tale in verisimo style. The film’s realism takes the McCarthy allegory out of the story and lets the viewer draw his own connections to the story. Through the film, we can see the many other facets of the story that resonate with us today. It paints a very clear picture of Puritan life in 17th century New England. At that time, “These men were, after all, not only Salem Villagers: they were also men of the seventeenth century; they were New Englanders; and finally, they were Puritans“3 All of these monikers held a specific connotation and it’s own sense of pride. In each capacity, these men had a duty to perform. As the men of Salem Village, they had a duty to keep a community together that was quickly fragmenting. The charter of Salem Town and Salem Village was revoked, due to a bloodless coup d’etat between officers of King George III and the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, making any legal dispute almost impossible to arbitrate. This was also why so many of the accused witches spent so much time in jail between their arrest and trial. “The basic problem was that while more and more suspected witches and wizards were being arrested, not one trial had yet been held. Indeed there could be none…Massachusetts was without a legally established government! The authorities had no official recourse except to throw suspects into jail without a trial.”4 The town was also in the throes of a war between two factions of what Hawthorne would later call “Violent Churchgoers” as to their new pastor, Rev. Parris. The Salem Villagers were indeed left adrift by having no official government, they did, for once, have a chance at the freedom to attempt to govern themselves. A group of men grabbed at the chance to take control of the church by appointing a new pastor, for they knew that if they controlled the church, they controlled Salem.


    “On June 18, 1689, a `general meeting of the inhabitants’ of Salem Village…agreed to hire Mr. Parris as a minister….On October 10, another `general meeting’ voted to give outright to Samuel Parris `and his heirs’ the Village parsonage together with it’s barn and two acres of land!”5


    This went against a decree made at a village meeting in 1681 stating that the pastor did not have ownership of the Village parsonage. It was later discovered that the “general meeting of the inhabitants” was really a meeting of only a few men, all related to the influential Putnam family. This dubious appointment of the Rev. Samuel Parris created a rift in the community instantly. The Village became divided into Pro-Parris and Anti-Parris factions. These factions transferred almost person for person into the accused and accusers during the witch outbreak. Almost every accuser was related to the Putnam family either by blood, service or business; and almost every defender or accused person was related to the Proctor family by blood, service or business.

    This schism of public opinion imbued every aspect of Village life in Salem. Public opinion in colonial England was a very strong thing.


    “In American, the majority has staked out a formidable fence around thought. Inside those limits a writer is free but woe betide him if he dares to stray beyond them. Not that he need near an auto-da-fe but he is victim of all kinds of unpleasantness and everyday persecutions. A political career is closed to him for he has offended the only power with the capacity to give him an opening. He is denied everything…before publishing his views, he thought he has supporters; it seems he has lost them once he has declared himself publicly; for his detractors speak out loudly and those who think as he does, but without his courage, keep silent and slink away. He give in and finally bends beneath the effort of each passing day, withdrawing into silence as if he felt ashamed at having spoken to truth.”7


    The above quote could have been written by someone watching the struggle of John Proctor in Miller’s play, but in reality it was written by Alexis de Tocqueville, a French writer and political theorist who lived in colonial Pennsylvania for some time. However, he did not set foot in Salem. Such a strikingly appropriate observation from a man who, to all accounts, knew nothing of the Salem Witch Trials, affirms that fact that this could have happened at any place in the colonies at the time, or in fact any time. To be sure, if looked at closely, one can find truths in de Tocqueville’s statement after September 11, 2001. The country was engulfed in this frenzy of patriotism, and all nay-sayers were quashed by the overwhelming public opinion.


    It is also necessary to look at the community of Salem in it’s religious context. Puritan society was a very controlled society, repressive, unflinching in it’s use of the Bible as it’s sole authority of correct behavior. Such a community also lent itself to reactionary behavior, meaning outbreaks of behavior that were directly contrary to the beliefs of the society. The girls involved in the “crying out” were especially vulnerable to this kind of “counterculture” behavior, as they were presented with a unique situation. These girls, at the brink of adolescence, with their changing bodies and their budding sexuality, were crying out to express themselves in some way.


    Miller captures this consummately in the character of Abigail Williams by raising her age from 11 to 16, she embodies the essence of repressed Salem. Miller gives a reason for her outbreak in her affair with John Proctor.


    Abigail: John – I am waitin’ for you every night…I know how you sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! I have a sense for heat…and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness.8


    In John Proctor, Abigail has an outlet for her repressed desires, and once released it cannot again be stifled.


    In addition to sexual release, John Proctor is in a sense Abigail’s intellectual savior. He has “taken her from her sleep and put knowledge in her heart.”9 When Proctor ends the affair, Abigail reels with confusion and torment:


    Abigail: I never knew what pretense Salem was…the lying lessons I was taught…and now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes?”10


    John has become her father figure, he has treated her as a woman and consequently she feels like one, perhaps prematurely. She is left adrift searching for a place in a community that will not accept her or treat with even a shred of the dignity that was given to her by Proctor. She has no father of her own, only her uncle Rev. Parris, who, to say the least, has his own problems. While Abigail is often portrayed as a malevolent force in Miller’s play, it doesn’t take much to see how she indeed could have gone mad placed in such a situation.


    In addition, at the time a fad was sweeping through New England: Occultism. All over the colonies people were fashioning crude crystal balls, tarot cards, performing all sorts of divination. To the everyday folk of the colonies, whose views were not as strict as those of the Puritans, but still strict enough to give this simple fashion of occultism an air of danger, this was the new thing to do. Slowly, this crept into the homes of Salem Village.11


    Contrary to Miller’s play, in reality, there were indeed quite a few adult women besides Tituba who were involved in the rituals that the girls were performing.


    Again, it is not hard to find a modern counterpoint to this situation either. The traditions of the Middle East have created somewhat of a theocracy, including systems of repression of women. In Azar Nafisi‘s book Reading Lolita in Tehran, she writes about a group of girls who created a sort of secret “dead poet’s society” of their own and read banned books, one of them being Vladimir Nabokov‘s Lolita. Nafisi goes on to talk about the effect that this reading had on the girls. When Lolita first appeared in print in America in 1955 (right in the middle of the McCarthy hearings) it was immediately banned from many libraries and it caused an incredible uproar. Later, in 1962, when Stanley Kubrick directed the film version of Lolita, it was so controversial that the tag line for the film was “How could they make a film of Lolita?“12 If we have taboos that even our modern so-called “free” society has trouble dealing with, one can only imagine the incredible affect that it would have on the ultra-repressed society of the Middle East. By this comparison, we then see how these occult activities, however harmless, had an effect on the girls in Salem and the Salem community at large.


    In conclusion, it is clear that The Crucible is much more than just an allegory of McCarthyism. If that is what one seeks, it is better to watch the film The Manchurian Candidate. Miller’s dramatic masterpiece resonates on many other levels. Contrary to Brooks Atkinson’s original review in 1953, The Crucible does not lack universality, it is indeed universal, and it’s visceral tale of society gone mad is as chilling as it was when first produced.


     1 The New York Times – 1953 – Crucible review – Brooks Atkinson 

    2 Introduction to The Crucible – Christopher Bigsby


     3 Salem Possessed – Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum


     4 Ibid


     5 Ibid 6 Ibid


     7 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America and Two essays on America, Volume 1, Chapter XV, trans. By Gerald Bevan 


    8 Arthur Miller The Crucible Act one 


    9 Ibid 


    10 Ibid 


    11 Charles W. Upham Salem Witchcraft 


    12 http://us.imdb.com