Noesis

The Journal of the Mega Society

August 2004 Issue 172

Officers

Editor and Publisher: Ron Yannone

189 Ash Street #2

Nashua, NH 03060

Administrator: Jeff Ward

13155 Wimberly Square

San Diego, CA 92128

Internet Officer: Kevin Langdon

P.O. Box 795

Berkeley, CA 94701

Founder: Ronald K. Hoeflin

P.O. Box 539

New York, NY 10101

no·e·sis – Greek Þ understanding – to perceive. Psychology Þ the cognitive process

The Mega Society was founded in 1982 and has been documented in the GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS during the 1980s as the most exclusive society. Mega means million and denotes the one-in-a-million status of its members. Presently, the only viable adult-level admissions test is the Titan Test, developed by its founder, Ron Hoeflin – where 43/48 correct answers corresponds to the minimum accepted IQ level of 176. See www.megasociety.org Since its GUINNESS “distinction” in the 1980’s, the Mega Society with its 99.9999 percentile member status, remains “the most elite ultra-high IQ Society.”

Editorial Introduction to NOESIS Issue #172 – August 2004

Welcome to Noesis issue #172, August! There is a wide variety in this issue.

The Brown Journal of World Affairs (summer/fall-2004) presented four articles by experienced persons in the area of espionage – in a section titled The Future of Espionage. We begin this Noesis issue with the up-to-date article presented by the author of one of these articles, Rand Lewis, Director – Martin Peace Institute – titled Espionage and the War on Terrorism: Investigating U.S. Efforts. One key issue raised is the U.S. loss of a strong HUMINT (human intelligence) posture over the decade preceding the 9/11 event – and the role the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) played/plays in the 9/11 event, Iraq war concerns, and the future of espionage.

Exciting excerpts from two of the other three articles in The Brown Journal of World Affairs section titled The Future of Espionage captures insights by Arthur S. Hulnick and Oleg Kalugin. Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick is a veteran of thirty-five years in the intelligence field, including twenty-eight years in the CIA and Oleg Kalugin is a retired Major General of the Soviet KGB. Oleg presents an after-the-fact strategy that may have prevented the 9/11 event that is very insightful.

No issue of Noesis would be complete without some mental stimulation – and this issue is rich in a variety of mind puzzles – for young and old alike. The next article Let’s Get ‘Series’-ous! covers infinite series where the reader has to tally the ‘sum’ or ‘product’ of the infinite series presented. At the end of the posed series problems, we present a table that captures a handful of the upcoming German-American Oktoberfest events. These are presented in the new August/September 2004 issue of German Life magazine. The city, date, event, phone number, and in most cases the URL, are provided for each event.

At the end of the solutions to the infinite series problems, we interject another set of mental challenges - “Number Crunchers” by David J. Bodycombe. David as authored many highly acclaimed puzzle books, and writes over 1000 puzzles a year for columns in periodicals such as the Big Issue, Metro and Ireland on Sunday. David now runs Labyrinth Games, a games design consultancy, from his base in London – www.labyrinthgames.com David’s problems are sprinkled throughout this issue of Noesis.

In Stephen Spignesi’s book “What’s Your Red, White & Blue IQ?” he shares different American holiday facts. In this article, we cover the upcoming “Labor Day” holiday with the Labor Day Quiz.

The next sections are real “motivators.” – They present well-known products and their uncanny development which will amaze readers and motivate and encourage them to consider pioneering new business areas. The first ‘product’ is Good & Plenty candy, covered in the Good & Plenty Theme Song – Quiz.

Continuing with Joey Green, we present a second product we are all familiar with, Who was the Baby Ruth Candy Bar Named After?

Laura Bush – First Lady to the President of the United States goes “public” with the release of her famous recipe everyone will want to try - Laura Bush’s Oatmeal-Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

We switch back to Joey Green a third time – with a terrific motivator - Cracker Jack Candy History and Stunning Facts.

Several readers inquired about possible articles on ways to improve their lives. With this, we introduce our readers to the article titled A “NEW START” in Life by Weimar Institute’s NEWSTART^Ò Lifestyle Program.

We next go to the puzzle archives of Mega Society member, Bill Corley – where we present Bill’s Dirty Dozen 2002 set.

We next hop tracks into another puzzle set, “Mensa Brain Bafflers,” by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell – two famous Mensa puzzle book authors.

Along the lines of ways to improve our reader’s lives and their appreciation for the quotes that appear in Noesis, we present “Thoughts on Being Happy” by History & Heraldry, Ltd of London. Here, 40 to-the-point anecdotes uplift and get you thinking – and hopefully help you become a happier person. “Every second of every day somewhere in the world an H & H product is sold …” History & Heraldry has distributors in over 50 countries worldwide.

From the Yale Law School July/August 2004 issue of “Legal Affairs” magazine, we bring you a lengthy feature titled “Want Your Kid To Disappear?” by Nadya Labi.

Back to health again, we present some ideas to extend your life – “Anti-Aging Foods” by the scientists at the USDA. They have developed a rating scale that measures the antioxidant content of various plant foods. The scale is called ORAC, which stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.

Experts in voting technology from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that four relatively simple and inexpensive steps can be taken to ensure that voting procedures in this fall's presidential election are as accurate and reliable as possible. Here we present their article “Caltech and MIT Propose Measures to Ensure Accuracy, Accessibility in Presidential Election.”

Edward Lewis, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking studies of how genes regulate the development of specific regions of the body, died Wednesday, July 21, 2004, at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena after a long battle with cancer. He was 86. We share the commemorative article “Caltech Nobel Laureate Ed Lewis Dies” by Jill Perry Caltech Media Relations.

Many readers know of gifted children and would like to see them engage in high-tech careers after graduating from college. We share three top colleges – and some of the credentials of their incoming freshman – in the article titled “Yale, Caltech, and MIT”.

Next, based on a request by the editor for articles on reader’s opinions on the Martha Stewart case, the editor presents the article “Martha Stewart – The ‘Ripple Effect’.”

Next we present a 1-liner (“Aphorism”) and brief biography by Mega Society member Richard May.

A few more puzzles are shared by the editor – “On the Light Side.”

Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin, founder and editor Emeritus of the Mega Society, sent (by Pony Express) information on two of his hi-IQ societies – “New Websites for TOPS & OATHS.”

The next article is “Good Genes Count, but not only Factor in High IQ” by Sharon Begley of The Wall Street Journal.

We close this kaleidoscopic issue with the National Security Agency (NSA) job ad – as the NSA would be a terrific “Puzzle Palace” for some of our hi-IQ readers!

NOESIS Journal – August 2004 – Issue #172

CONTENTS
#	TITLE	AUTHOR	PAGE
1	Espionage and the War on Terrorism: Investigating U.S. Efforts	Rand Lewis	5
2	The “Human Element” in the Future of Espionage	Hulnick & Kalugin	10
3	Let’s Get ‘Series’-ous!	Editor	13
4	German Life Magazine – August/September 2004 – Oktoberfest Dates	Editor	14
5	Let’s Get ‘Series’-ous! – Tentative Answers	Editor	15
6	Number Crunchers	David J. Bodycombe	16
7	Labor Day Quiz	Stephen J. Spignesi	17
8	Number Crunchers – cont’d	David J. Bodycombe	18
9	Good & Plenty Theme Song – Quiz	Joey Green	19
10	Who was the Baby Ruth Candy Bar Named After?	Joey Green	20
11	Laura Bush’s Oatmeal-Chocolate Chunk Cookies	Laura Bush	21
12	Labor Day Quiz - Answers	Stephen J. Spignesi	22
13	Good & Plenty Theme Song – Quiz Answers	Joey Green	22
14	Cracker Jack Candy History and Stunning Facts	Joey Green	23
15	A “NEW START” in Life	Weimar Institute	24
16	Dirty Dozen 2002 Set	Bill Corley	27
17	Mensa Brain Bafflers	Carter & Russell	30
18	Thoughts on Being Happy	History & Heraldry	31
19	Dirty Dozen 2002 Set	Bill Corley	36
20	Want Your Kid To Disappear?	Nadya Labi	38
21	Anti-Aging Foods	USDA	48
22	Caltech and MIT Propose Measures to Ensure Accuracy, Accessibility in Presidential Election	Perry & Richards	49
23	Mensa Brain Bafflers – cont’d	Carter & Russell	50
24	Caltech Nobel Laureate Ed Lewis Dies	Jill Perry	51
25	Yale, Caltech, and MIT	Editor	53
26	Martha Stewart – The “Ripple Effect”	Editor	54
27	Aphorism	Richard May	57
28	Mensa Brain Bafflers – cont’d	Carter & Russell	57
29	On the Light Side – Puzzles	Editor	58
30	New Websites for TOPS & OATHS	Dr. Ron Hoeflin	59
31	Good Genes Count, but not only Factor in High IQ	Sharon Begley	60
32	Solutions to Editor, Bodycombe, & Carter/Russell Puzzles	Ron/Dave/Phil/Ken	62
33	National Security Agency To Hire 1,500 People by September 2004	NSA	64

Espionage and the War on Terrorism:

Investigating U.S. Efforts

by Rand Lewis, Director – Martin Peace Institute

Published in The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. XI, Summer/Fall 2004, pp. 175-182

In the months since the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington D.C. a great deal of discussion has occurred concerning the possibility of an intelligence failure. Many have argued that the inability of the United States authorities to interdict the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. was a failure of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) intelligence systems. Some specialists and academics have, over the past two years, argued that the failure was directly the result of the Central Intelligence Agency’s lack of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities. The issue of HUMINT as an effective means of countering terrorist attacks is now a key element in the effort to protect the United States homeland.

Basic to the question of whether or not the intelligence community, particularly the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was culpable in not providing sufficient warning is the issue of information availability. Was information available to provide a reasonable analysis that would define the perpetuators and time of the attack? Were the CIA and FBI negligent in not providing important data to one another, which could have precluded an attack? These questions relate directly to the capabilities and bureaucratic infrastructures of the intelligence community.

Within the intelligence community there are a number of methods used to collect information. The most common in today’s high tech environment include signal intelligence (SIGINT), image intelligence (IMINT), measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), open-source intelligence (OSINT), and human intelligence (HUMINT). Of these, SIGINT provides the majority of raw intelligence data and is primarily the responsibility of the National Security Agency (NSA). This involves the collection, processing, and reporting of information derived from signal intercepts.

The oldest form of intelligence gathering is HUMINT. Information using this method comes from human sources and the public often views this type of intelligence gathering as specifically associated with clandestine activities. In reality, most HUMINT is gathered through overt means, such as diplomats and military attaches. The majority of this information is collected through the efforts of the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Over the past thirty-six years HUMINT, as a primary method of intelligence gathering, has undergone some profound changes. Most of these have been associated with the changing leadership at CIA, the public perceptions of intelligence abuse, and more recently, major changes in global relationships tied to the end of the Cold War and the growing issue of international terrorism and regional conflict. Much of the blame for intelligence shortfalls associated with the 9/11 attacks has been placed on the CIA. This may be an unfair assumption.

The CIA was established as part of the National Security Act of 1947. This act defined the duties of the CIA in terms of an agency responsible for the intelligence gathering related to national security. Most specialists interpret this as relating to foreign intelligence. Although this type of intelligence appears to be associated with information gathered outside of the United States, there have been instances where the Executive Branch has interpreted this authority to include foreign influences on domestic groups, which entailed data gathering within the U.S. boundaries. Many debates occurred in Congress as the legislation was being written, particularly dealing with the CIA’s overall mission and whether it included obtaining intelligence both abroad and within the United States. This discussion continued during the ensuing years and was instrumental in the evolution of the CIA roles and missions and would be major issue in the mid 1970s with the Church Committee, a U.S. Senate committee investigating the perceived excesses of the CIA in the shadowy world of clandestine activities. Many have argued that the CIA is primarily a strategic intelligence service. This means that they are most effective as a clandestine service when they are involved in finding answers to intelligence questions that tend to require a view of the “big picture” and are long range.[1] On the other hand, the CIA’s role in tactical intelligence has often been criticized, particularly by the military services, which are dependent on obtaining information that is narrow, concrete, and bound by specificity.[2] Ultimately in 1995 the defense department did, in fact, consolidate their HUMINT resources into a single entity, the Defense HUMINT Service (DHS). This, however, did not clarify the CIA’s role in HUMINT. The National Security Act of 1947 assigned the responsibility of Director, Central Intelligence (DCI) to the Head of the CIA. In essence, this authority was potentially far-reaching throughout the intelligence community. The DCI was given considerable budget authority over the entire community and if used, was a very influential tool to wield in ensuring a common effort for information gathering and analysis. Traditionally, however, since the first CIA director, this power has either not been used or only in a limited way. In fact, the head of the CIA has often demurred from accepting the overall responsibility associated with the envisioned DCI position.

The disconnect associated with the CIA’s disinterest in taking the intelligence community lead has been instrumental in the evolution of the United States capabilities. Much of this can be attributed to the historical views of the American public, mass media, and Congress when it comes to intelligence, particularly that associated with spying and clandestine activities. Between 1962 and 1970, during the Vietnam conflict and the height of the Cold War, clandestine operations played a key role in the CIA’s program. The budget for clandestine operations averaged fifty-two percent of the annual CIA budget and fifty-five percent of the full-time employees.[3]

William Colby, CIA Director from 1972 to 1975 began to shift the emphasis from clandestine service covert operations to a stronger commitment for technologically obtained information. This was driven by the increasing concerns for the quality of information obtained from HUMINT and the increasingly difficult management of resources, especially the budget, which was decreased for HUMINT for many years. Even with this shift in emphasis, by 1975 the clandestine service was still thirty-seven percent of the total CIA budget.[4]

The 1970s were difficult years for U.S. intelligence and particularly the CIA. As the United States involvement in the Vietnam conflict was winding down, there were a number of concerns within Congress over the roles played by the CIA. There were issues associated with the secret war in Laos, the Phoenix Program, the Army “spying” on U.S. citizens, the “destabilization” efforts in Chile, and the CIA’s domestic intelligence authority. These all culminated in a congressional investigation, often referred to as the Church Committee, after Frank Church, the senator from Idaho, and a sharp critic of these intelligence practices. Some have argued that this was an essential evaluation of the U.S. intelligence services and that it clarified their roles. Others, including subsequent CIA directors, suggested that this committee was instrumental in decreasing the effectiveness of the U.S. intelligence capabilities. The committee’s position was that Congress, which held the financial and legislative powers, had constitutional authority to regulate the conduct of the U.S. foreign intelligence activities. Although the Church Committee report had no legal authority, it did provide a public accounting of questionable CIA activities around the world.

After the Church Committee report was issued the CIA, led by Admiral Stansfield Turner (1977-1981), began to shift their emphasis. The agency no longer was enamored with clandestine operations. Science and technology became far more prevalent in the effort to gather information. Clandestine activities decreased as many positions were left vacant. Turner argued that these positions were no longer needed due to the quality and availability of technology.

This change from HUMINT oriented activities to a more technological approach through SIGINT fueled the criticism immediately following 9/11. A number of commentators, pundits, and national security specialists argued that there was a degradation of CIA human intelligence capabilities over the past few years. John C. Gannon, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, in remarks made at the Hoover Institution Conference on November 16, 1998, admitted that there had been a decline in HUMINT, but was clear that efforts were in place to rebuild this important clandestine capability. George Schultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, in the same meeting supported these views and also clarified the moral difficulties of dealing with “people who are not admirable.”[5]

Schultz’s comments about having to deal with unsavory characters in the world of covert HUMINT reflect an attitude resulting from an incident that came to the public’s attention in the mid-1990s. An agent recruited in Guatemala was implicated in the deaths of Americans.[6] The then-director of CIA, John Deutch, developed new guidelines that required approval for recruiting agents with unsavory backgrounds. This, of course, led to another controversy. Some saw this as a new policy, which restricted the quantity and quality of recruited agents. Others argued that this policy was not really restrictive, but ensured some quality control. The evidence since 1995 suggests that there has been some influence on recruiting. This is most likely associated with the fact that there is a perception among some CIA officers that their evaluations and promotions are affected since historically these elements were based on the numbers of agents recruited. Since September 11, 2001, this policy has been significantly loosened.

Thus over the past few years HUMINT has been at the center of a number of issues related to the CIA’s efforts to obtain and analyze effective intelligence. It is essential to evaluate how effective HUMINT is in today’s environment where threats are more apt to come from international terrorism and regional conflicts. There are a number of reasons that HUMINT is valuable as a means of obtaining information. It can provide an idea of the political, military, and economic processes of both states and non-states, particularly those, which are clandestine or closed. Hopefully an agent can obtain reasonably accurate assessments of the leader’s intentions and potential actions, as well as potentially having access to sensitive plans and documents.

On the other hand, there are severe limitations of HUMINT in the effort against terrorism. The most difficult issue that hinders effective use of HUMINT against terrorist groups is the ability to penetrate the cell structure. Modern terrorist organizations tend to organize around cells, which are compartmental units that make it extremely difficult to infiltrate. In addition, the compartmentalization decreases the ability to obtain tactical intelligence that can provide the whole picture of a potential attack. The only way to effectively counter this cell structure is to recruit in a number of cells, hopefully providing sufficient information to develop a reasonably viable view of the plan. This, of course, is extremely difficult and requires a great deal of resources in man-hours and funds, as well as providing a far more dangerous scenario for case officers. Another less desirable way to attempt to disrupt the cell structure is to try and disperse the cells, making it difficult to communicate and coordinate efforts in columns, therefore confusing the planning and execution. This hopefully decreases the organization’s capabilities to mount major attacks. This is somewhat easier than trying to penetrate the cells, but is not as effective. The cell structure also makes it extremely difficult to develop a clear and concise determination of the credibility of information that is obtained. One of the key methods used by terrorist groups is to provide misinformation. In the case of tactical intelligence, it is necessary to quickly obtain information and get it to the appropriate authorities as soon as possible. This provides the opportunity for a group to feed misinformation to case officers, making the credibility of the source questionable and causing the responding officials to react to the information before it can be effectively vetted.

These weaknesses of HUMINT to effectively counter terrorist activities are directly related to the decisions of intelligence leaders to consider alternative sources. In the late 1970s, CIA director William Colby began to place more emphasis on technological collection as a means to decrease the importance of "disinformation."[7] However, technology does not provide all of the tactical intelligence data needed for the "War on Terrorism." SIGINT was very effective in the Cold War scenario, but is hampered in the new world of international terrorism. The ability to observe the operations of cells greatly reduced the effectiveness of satellite imagery. Communications intercepts were effective only as long as the terrorist groups were unaware that their signals were being intercepted. Once this method was compromised, the terrorists have developed other means of communicating. Modern technology can be used by both the counter and anti-terrorist groups as well as the terrorists themselves. Terrorist organizations have become far more sophisticated and are often capable of acquiring technology that is as effective as that used by the counter terrorism groups. In addition, the international terrorists are adept at mitigating the technology used against them by changing their procedures or movements.

HUMINT therefore remains an important element of intelligence gathering. It is essential that intelligence services maintain a physical presence in the regions that tend to provide access or safe-havens to terrorist organizations. In addition, third party services are an important source of information, although must be evaluated carefully due to inherent biases associated with these types of sources. Iraq is a good example of the importance of physical presence as well as the problems associated with third party intelligence. Between 1991 and 2003, the United States had no primary presence in Iraq that could verify or clarify the activities of Saddam Hussein or terrorist groups. In addition, even the British were unable to provide information. The only major source of information came from the United Nations' inspection teams that were evaluating compliance of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) requirement resulting from the first Persian Gulf war. This resource was lost with the ejection of the U.N. inspection teams from Iraq. This left the third parties, which included political exiles, disenfranchised Iraqis, and scientists who tended to provide biased views based on self-interests, as the principle sources of information. There was, of course, no real verification and therefore the information was often exaggerated. This led to a number of assumptions that have plagued the Bush administration since the end of the spring 2003 offensive in Iraq. Those assumptions were part of the basis for the decision to attack Iraq. A few of the more striking assumptions included the idea that Saddam’s forces would at least present some formidable resistance, therefore developing a longer timetable for the war. Another assumption was that the final result of the war would be an Iraqi surrender and the laying down of arms. This, of course, did not occur and most of the Iraqi security forces and Revolutionary Guard just left the battlefield and took their weapons with them. The third, and one of the most dangerous assumptions was that post-war Iraq would provide a reasonably secure area where the allies could readily rebuild infrastructure and government systems. This, of course, proved to be a major flaw in the planning as the evolution of a guerilla war became the day-to-day activity in many parts of Iraq. These assumptions were predominately the result of poor HUMINT prior to March 2003. Depending on third party sources, the United States military and CIA were hindered in developing plans based on multiple scenarios and therefore became engulfed in confrontation without a good exit strategy.

In summary, the “War on Terrorism” is a new kind of conflict for the United States. September 11, 2001 brought the United States into the world of international terrorism as the homeland was attacked. The traditional ways of gathering information and analyzing the data to respond to threats became far less effective. Although HUMINT has numerous shortfalls, it still remains one of the most valuable ways of dealing with terrorist organizations. The United States must overcome its inherent dislike for clandestine operations and provide sufficient funding and authority to actively pursue more effective and reliable means of HUMINT collection. The world of international terrorism does not project a black and white image. The counter-terrorism efforts require viewing the responses in shades of gray, where intelligence resources must work together to piece the puzzle of potential attacks together to best respond and hopefully thwart, or at least mitigate the efforts of terrorist groups.

Selected Bibliography

for Rand Lewis’ article - Espionage and the War on Terrorism: Investigating U.S. Efforts

1. Bay, Austin. "In the Absence of HUMINT." The Washington Times (August 1, 2003).

2. Beal, Clifford, Editor. "Chronic Underfunding of U.S. HUMINT Plays Role in Intelligence Failures." Jane's Defense Weekly (September 11, 2001).

3. Carroll, Thomas Patrick. "The CIA and the War on Terrorism." Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 9 (September 2002).

4. Chisholm, Patrick. "Bring Back Human Intelligence." Christian Science Monitor Online (June 27, 2002).

5. Corn, David. "Did We Handcuff the CIA?" http://slate.msn.com (September 18, 2001).

6. Dishman, Chris. "Looking to Future, CIA Should Focus on Human Intelligence." Christian Science Monitor (August 6, 1997).

7. Duckworth, Barbara A. "The Defense HUMINT Service: Preparing for the 21^st Century." Defense Intelligence Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 1997), pp. 7-13.

8. Fischbach, Jono. "With A Little Bit of Heart and Soul Analyzing the Role of HUMINT In the Post Cold War Era." Paper presented at the Woodrow Wilson School Policy Conference 401a (January 6, 1997).

9. Galland, David J. "HUMINT Intelligence is Critical to Counter Terrorism." Pravda (December 15, 2001.

10. Gannon, John. "Question and Answer Session." Hoover Institution Conference on Biological and Chemical Weapons (BCW), http://www_hoover.standford.edu (November 16, 1998.

11. Human Rights Watch. "U.S. Policy on Assassinations, CIA." http://www.hrw.org (September 20, 2001.

12. Macko, Steve. "HUMINT Still Most Important When Thwarting Terrorists." ENN Daily Report, Vol. 2, No. 289 (October 15, 1996).

13. Pryce-Jones, David. "Golden Days of the Black Arts." National Review (January 26, 2004).

14. Quirk, John Patrick et al. The Central Intelligence Agency. Foreign Intelligence Press: Guilford, CT, 1986.

15. Stanton, John. "U.S. Intelligence Community Reaches Crossroads." National Defense (December 2001).

16. Treverton, Gregory F. "Intelligence--A Funhouse of Reflections." San Francisco Chronicle, Op Ed (February 15, 2004).

17. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "IC21: Intelligence Community in the 21^st Century." Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996.

18. Wise, David. "Spy Game: Changing the Rules so the Good Guys Win." New York Times (June 2, 2002).

19. Wolf, Paul. "CIA Powers and 1975 Church Committee." http://slate.msn.com (September 22, 2001).

20. Zyker, Benjamin. Paper presented: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (September 13, 2001).

The “Human Element” in the Future of Espionage

by Arthur S. Hulnick and Oleg Kalugin

Technology has advanced so rapidly that one begins to question the ability of United States officials to rely totally upon it in the world of espionage.

In summer/fall 2004 issue of The Brown Journal of World Affairs, four thought-provoking articles were presented on the Future of Espionage. The second article was kindly contributed by Rand Lewis – and was used as our opening article in this issue of Noesis. The four article titles are summarized in Table 1 below. Short biographies of the remaining three authors are captured in Table 2.

Table 1 – Espionage Articles in The Brown Journal of World Affairs
#	Title	Author	Pages
1	Espionage: Does it Have A Future In The 21^st Century?	Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick	165-173
2	Espionage and the War on Terrorism: Investigating U.S. Efforts	Rand C. Lewis	175-182
3	Terrorism and Human Intelligence: The Soviet Experience	Oleg Kalugin	183-188
4	Thinking About Intelligence Comparatively	Dr. Kevin M. O’Connell	189-199

Table 2 – Biographies of the Authors

Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick – is a veteran of thirty-five years in the intelligence field, including twenty-eight years in the CIA. He is currently Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University, where he teaches several courses on strategic and business intelligence. Dr. Hulnick is the author of Fixing the Spy Machine (Praeger, 1999) and a forthcoming book on homeland security entitled Keeping Us Safe (Praeger).

Oleg Kalugin – is a retired Major General of the Soviet KGB. A former Fulbright Scholar, he is the author of The First Chief Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West. He is currently a Professor at the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.

Dr. Kevin M. O’Connell – is the Director of RAND’s Intelligence Policy, National Security Research Division. Dr. O’Connell is also an adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. Dr. O’Connell was also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community management staff and the National Security Council staff.

Having read through all four articles, I present selected excerpts from two (Hulnick and Kalugin) of the other three articles to provide a more rounded view of the issue of the future of espionage.

Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick - “Some commentators seemed to think that all the CIA had to do was drop a handful of officers into Iraq and that they could somehow discover the reality of the situation. This assumption shows how little they understood about espionage. Espionage is a dangerous, slow, painstaking process that often yields information of questionable reliability. Yet, when a good source is obtained, the insights that source provides can be better and more useful than intercepted communications or overhead reconnaissance, which are the more commonly used (and very expensive) high-tech methods of spying.” [p.166]

Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick - “Now that the Cold War is over, and veterans of the two sides have been able to meet and compare notes, it seems clear that espionage does not vary all that much from service to service. In the twenty-first century, however, techniques that worked well in the Cold War may not be applicable against the new threat of non-state actors, such as terrorists, organized crime groups, and independent arms merchants.” [p.167]

Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick - “Often, the case officer begins by recruiting a ‘principal agent’ – someone with the right ethnic background and language who fits into the society or group the officers are trying to penetrate. The principal agent can assist in spotting and assessing likely targets. Of course, the relationship between the officer and principal agent has to be kept secret.” [p.168]

Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick - “Once agents are recruited, the case officer has to ensure that the new spies learn how to hide their operations, how to communicate securely, and how to report information they have been directed to steal. This is known in intelligence parlance as ‘tradecraft.’ Sometimes, the case officer will use a ‘safe house,’ usually a secure apartment or office, to meet with the agents, give them requirements, retrieve their reports, or deal with their problems.” [p. 169]

Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick - “Once the agent has proven to be productive, and reports begin to flow back to headquarters, then the utility of the operation has to be evaluated from time to time. The agent who appears at first to be a good reporter may turn out to be passing only low-level tidbits to the case officer, or may be fabricating information to make it appear that he or she is really ‘in the ‘know’ . . . . Clearly, there is nothing glamorous about espionage. It is painstaking and tedious work, it can be dangerous, and it requires assigning good officers to terrible places, where their tenure there has to be limited because of the toll it takes on officer’s health and family.” [p.169]

Dr. Arthur S. Hulnick - “One of the great lessons learned from the recent intelligence crises surrounding 9/11 and the Iraq war is that the U.S. intelligence system needs to move away from Cold War tactics and become more flexible, or ‘more agile’ as intelligence expert Bruce Berkowitz has written. At the same time, operations against closed or ‘rogue’ states may require techniques that have roots in the Cold War experience. In reporting about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, DCI George Tenet made clear that there were real limits to contacting sources that might have told the CIA what it wanted to know. Some of these sources lied to the CIA, just as they did to Saddam Hussein . . . . Going after terrorists or weapons proliferators who do not owe allegiance to any state, but rather only to themselves, may require different techniques. An increasing use of non-official cover for case officers may be useful because case officers no longer have to worry about the host security services. One former CIA officer has suggested that the agency set up small businesses to cover the operations of its officers. It may also be possible to have officers overseas by themselves, now that sophisticated and secure communications have rendered entire support stations unnecessary.” [p.170]

Oleg Kalugin - “A myriad of problems have to be grappled with and resolved before we feel confident that we can effectively address the difficult threat that terrorism poses . . . . Today, the most immediate problem is the need to readdress the effectiveness of our intelligence services, and ensure their readiness to protect the free world from mortal surprises in an age of nuclear proliferation and international terrorism. Napoleon is said to have noted that, ‘one spy in the right place is worth twenty thousand men in the field,’ and this adage is more true today than it was two hundred years ago. Despite the technological prowess, signal and imagery collection capabilities of the United States, there is no substitute for human penetration, and the latter has been woefully neglected over the past decade.” [p.183]

Oleg Kalugin - “Spies do not spring up by a wave of the hand inside the adversary’s backyard. They need to be carefully selected, meticulously vetted, trained, patiently nurtured, and prepared for risky assignments . . . . Intelligence collection, analysis, interpretation, dissemination should serve as a prelude to vigorous intervention into international events fraught with dangers of new terrorist attacks . . . . Time-tested covert actions to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad should become the core of the intelligence community’s response to Muslim extremists wherever they may be. These actions include subversion, sabotage, operational deception, disinformation, and massive sophisticated propaganda efforts to confuse and manipulate the targeted contingents. No country nurturing or harboring terrorists should be exempted from special operations going beyond diplomatic demarches and economic sanctions. Toward this end, human penetration – the recruitment of agents within or the infiltration of agents into vital structures of institutions, groupings and cells of potential adversaries – must be at the center of all intelligence efforts.” [p.183,184]

Oleg Kalugin – Applications of the Soviet Experience – “Like the Soviets, we should make efforts to plan and implement, when necessary, comprehensive scenarios that can win a war without major battles. As a possible scenario for Iraq (alas, too late!) where the allied intelligence services could have played a decisive role, the following program might have been implemented to achieve two objectives: Firstly, to prepare grounds for the downfall of the regime without resorting to an all-out war, or secondly, to facilitate early victory in case the war becomes inevitable . . . . The main thrust of the program would have been a destabilization of the internal situation in the country. The active measures would include the bringing together all patriotic, anti-Hussein Iraqis living abroad by setting up ‘The Coalition of Free Iraq.’ This could be followed by the announcement of the formation of a provisional government-in-exile, which publicly and loudly declares its intention of taking over Iraq in the near future, and boasts of its clandestine cells already operating inside the country. Powerful radio and television broadcasts could simultaneously be beamed at Iraq from neighboring countries that are friendly to the United States, like Turkey or Kuwait. These radio stations would also be described as operating inside the Iraqi territory and representing the provisional government. The massive radio and television anti-Saddam propaganda ought to be accompanied by frequent and regular leaflet drops throughout the country. All government controlled or pro-Saddam television and radio stations should be jammed and bombed, and pro-Saddam internet websites be blocked.” [p.186]

Oleg Kalugin – Applications of the Soviet Experience cont’d – “As part of the opposition offensive, acts of sabotage against the regime targeting government offices, the media, and power and communication lines would further the destabilizing effect. These acts should be accompanied by the organization of guerilla warfare spreading across the country and demoralizing the central government and its supporters. One million dollars and asylum in the United States could be offered to each senior official of the Iraqi government if they choose to defect or join the provisional government. Effective economic and humanitarian aid must be given to liberated areas of Iraq. Lastly, back channel overtures should be made to Iran to work together to create peace and stability in the region.” [p.186]

Oleg Kalugin – “These suggestions may be branded as immoral and an invitation to lawlessness, however, democracies perish when they refuse to resist and adjust to the cruel realities of life. While it is too late for the United States to follow this course of action in Iraq, it and Western Europe would be well advised to prioritize aggressive human intelligence in other aspects of the war against terror . . . . A collaborative approach is also necessary. Only a short while ago, most Europeans believed that the U.S. blew the international implications of 9/11 out of proportion. The recent deadly attack by Islamic terrorists in Spain and threats of more to come elsewhere is bound to change the attitudes of European governments and the public at large . . . . If Europe distances itself from U.S. security efforts by pursuing independent unilateral initiatives, it will be a folly of historic dimensions. Europe has always benefited by standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States.” [p.186,187]

Oleg Kalugin – “. . . without a reliable and aggressive intelligence service working hand in hand with its allies, our civilization may suffer immense and unsustainable losses. We cannot afford to be caught napping again.” [p.187]

Let’s Get ‘Series’-ous!

by Editor

Let’s try to compute the sum (or product) of these series with pencil-and-paper first. If all else fails, one can resort to a hand-calculator, and eventually the use of a computer. But, what’s nice about some of these exercises is you can get a feel for the value as you compute the first set of terms.

German Life Magazine – August/September 2004 – Oktoberfest Dates, etc. see pages 60-61 for many more! ¨ also their individual “ad” pages (1, 26-29) http://www.germanlife.com/index.html
1	Philadelphia, PA – September 4-6: Cannstatter Volkfest’s 132 Annual Harvest Festival. Call 215-332-0121 or visit www.cvv.philly.com
2	Chicago, IL – September 10-12: 84^th German American Fest. Call 630-653-3018 or visit www.germanday.com
3	Covington, KY – September 10-12: MainStrasse Village Oktoberfest. Call 859-491-0458 or visit www.mainstrasse.org
4	Torrance, CA – September 11: Alpine Village Oktoberfest. Call 310-327-4384
5	San Antonio, TX – September 17: Gartenkonzert. German and American culture and heritage entertainment in music, singing, and dancing, plus selling German food, beer, and wine. Call 210-222-1521
6	Rochester, NY – September 17-19 and 24-26: Oktoberfest. Call 585-336-6070 or visit www.irondequoit.org/events/oktober.htm
7	New York, NY – September 18: 47^th Annual German-American Steuben Parade. Call 732-279-0733 or visit www.germanparadenyc.org

Let’s Get ‘Series’-ous! – Tentative Answers

by Editor

Let’s Get ‘Series’-ous! – Tentative Answers (cont’d)

by Editor

Reference used for the above: “Summation of Series,” a collection made by L.B.W. Jolley; 2^nd edition; 1961; Dover Publications, Inc.; ISBN – 0-486-60023-8

“Number Crunchers” – by David J. Bodycombe

“Number Crunchers,” by David J. Bodycombe; Barnes & Noble Books; 2004; ISBN 0-7607-5469-1; David was born in Darlington, England, in 1973. Has authored many highly acclaimed puzzle books, and writes over 1000 puzzles a year for columns in periodicals such as the Big Issue, Metro and Ireland on Sunday. David now runs Labyrinth Games, a games design consultancy, from his base in London – www.labyrinthgames.com

[p.1] Jack and Jill played a competitive game several times, betting one pebble on the outcome each time. Jack won seven pebbles, while Jill won seven times. There were no ties. How many times did they play?

[p.10] Little Jimmy hasn’t brought his calculator to school. How can he find the value of the expression below just using his own brain power?

[p.25] A clock has fallen on the floor, and unfortunately, there is no indication which way ‘up’ the clock should hang. However, both hands are pointing precisely at the minute marks. You can now work out what time it is.

[p.55] Dawn was lunching with her seven friends. Everyone opted for the ₤12 set menu, except for Dawn who spent ₤3.50 more than the (mean) average. How much did Dawn’s lunch cost?

Labor Day Quiz

by Stephen J. Spignesi

In Stephen Spignesi’s book [1] “What’s Your Red, White & Blue IQ?” he shares different holiday facts. In this article, we cover the upcoming “Labor Day” holiday.

Q1 – Who said the following:

“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day . . . is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.”

Q2 – When is Labor Day celebrated?

1. The second Monday in October
2. The first Monday in September
3. The second Monday in September
4. The first Monday in October

Q3 – TRUE or FALSE: The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City?

Q4 – What was the name of the organization that proposed the first Labor Day observance?

1. The Southern Labor Union
2. The Eastern Labor Brotherhood
3. The Central Labor Union
4. The Northeast Brotherhood of Machinists

Q5 – In what year was an official day for Labor Day decided upon?

1. 1881
2. 1882
3. 1883
4. 1884

Q6 – What state was the first to propose Labor Day legislation?

1. Oregon
2. New York
3. Pennsylvania
4. New Jersey

Q7 – What state was the first to pass a Labor Day celebration law?

1. Oregon
2. New York
3. Pennsylvania
4. New Jersey

Q8 – TRUE or FALSE: To join the states in celebrating Labor Day, Congress passed a law in 1894 decreeing it a legal U.S. holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

Q9 – Which of the following are associated with Labor Day celebrations in the United States?

1. Picnics
2. Parades
3. Sales
4. All of the above

Q10 – Which is the Sunday before Labor Day known as?

[1] “What’s Your Red, White & Blue IQ?” by Citadel Press, copyright 2004, ISBN 0-8065-2625-4; USD $12.95; CAN $17.95

“Number Crunchers” – by David J. Bodycombe

“Number Crunchers,” by David J. Bodycombe; Barnes & Noble Books; 2004; ISBN 0-7607-5469-1; David was born in Darlington, England, in 1973. Has authored many highly acclaimed puzzle books, and writes over 1000 puzzles a year for columns in periodicals such as the Big Issue, Metro and Ireland on Sunday. David now runs Labyrinth Games, a games design consultancy, from his base in London – www.labyrinthgames.com

[p.60] A golfer was three shots over par at the end of the first day’s play. His score on the second day was ten shots better than the first. What was his score at the end of the second day?

[p.68] Be warned, you’ll really need to think about this one. The puzzle is to rearrange the symbols in this equation as little as possible so that it is now correct. Do you know the trick?

(11 + 1) x (11 -1) = 51.

[p.81] In Natasha’s secret sweets drawer, all but three bars are licorice, all but three bars are pure chocolate, and all but three bars are pure toffee. How many bars of candy does Natasha have stashed in her drawer?

[p.99] Which positive whole number is equal to triple the sum of its digits? Surprisingly, there is only one possible answer.

[p.100] If you reverse the digits in Deborah’s age, you obtain her grandfather’s age. As it happens, his birthday is tomorrow, when his age will become twice Deborah’s. Find both their ages.

Good & Plenty Theme Song – Quiz

by Joey Green [1, page 67]

As several Mega Society members have turned 50 and 60 years of age this year, alone, I suspect they recall the box candy Good & Plenty.

In 1893, the Quaker City Confectionery Company in Philadelphia introduced Good & Plenty candy, the oldest branded candy still being marketed in the United States. In 1950, the company began running advertisements featuring the cartoon character Choo Choo Charlie, an engineer who fueled his train with Good & Plenty. Television commercials for Good & Plenty featured the Choo Choo Charlie Good & Plenty theme song.

Warner-Lambert acquired Good & Plenty candy in 1973 and sold the operation to Beatrice Foods in 1982. A year later, Huhtamaki Oy of Finland purchased Leaf Brands, the confectionery division of Beatrice Foods, acquiring the Good & Plenty brand. In 1996, Hershey Foods Corporation bought Leaf’s North America confectionery operations, capturing the Good & Plenty brand.

See if you can fill in the missing words to Choo Choo Charlie Good & Plenty Theme Song.

________ upon a time there was an ________,

________ ________ ________ was his name, we ______;

He had an ________ and he sure _______ _______,

He used ________ _ _______ candy to make his _______ run.

Charlie says, “_______ my Good & Plenty!”

Charlie says, “Really ______ my ______!”

Charlie says, “_______ my ________ _ _______!

Don’t know any other ________ that I _______ so well!”

[1] “Joey Green’s Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions, and Elixirs of the Past and How to Make Them Today,” by Joey Green, Rodale Publisher, ISBN 1-57954-849-0; 2004, USD $14.95; CAN $21.95; paperback; 356 pages.

Who was the Baby Ruth Candy Bar Named After?

by Joey Green [1, page 56]

In 1916 during World War I, Otto Schnering founded the Curtiss Candy Company, using his mother’s Anglo-sounding maiden name for the company rather than his German-sounding surname. For his first product, Schnering introduced Kandy Kake, a confection with a pastry center topped with nuts and coated with chocolate, which met with moderate success. In 1921, Schnering reformulated Kandy Kake as a bar of caramel and peanuts, covered with chocolate. He renamed his confection the Baby Ruth bar, not after baseball legend Babe Ruth as commonly believed, but in honor of “Baby” Ruth Cleveland, the daughter of former President Grover Cleveland, who had been adored by millions. Priced at a nickel while other candy bars sold for a dime, Baby Ruth was the world’s most popular candy by 1926, selling more than five million bars a day.

In 1963, Standard Brands acquired the Curtiss Candy Company, which, in turn, was purchased in 1981 by Nabisco Brands. In 1990, Nestle bought Baby Ruth brand from Nabisco.

STRANGE FACTS:

· In 1904, twelve-year-old Ruth Cleveland died of diphtheria. Seventeen years later, the Curtiss Candy Company produced the first Baby Ruth bar, a year after baseball player Babe Ruth rose to stardom. Skeptics question whether the Curtiss Candy Company capitalized on Babe Ruth’s popularity by simply claiming that its candy bar was named for Ruth Cleveland.

· Otto Schnering advertised extensively in magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, and Open Roads for Boys, trumpeting the new candy bar with slogans like “The Favorite Candy of Over Fifty Million People!”

· Schnering chartered planes to drop thousands of Baby Ruth bars with tiny parachutes over various cities across forty states.

· In 1937, Admiral Richard Byrd and his team bought thousands of Baby Ruth bars on their expedition to the South Pole.

· When a competing candy company introduced the “Babe Ruth Home Run Bar,” with the full approval of Babe Ruth, the Curtiss Candy Company threatened legal action and forced the Babe Ruth Home Run Bar off the market.

[1] “Joey Green’s Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions, and Elixirs of the Past and How to Make Them Today,” by Joey Green, Rodale Publisher, ISBN 1-57954-849-0; 2004, USD $14.95; CAN $21.95; paperback; 356 pages.

Laura Bush’s Oatmeal-Chocolate Chunk Cookies

by Laura Bush – First Lady to the President of the United States

Laura’s Recipe – Makes about 8 Dozen Cookies

· 1 ½ C (3 sticks) butter at room temperature

· 1 C sugar

· 1 ½ C light-brown sugar

· 3 eggs

· 1 T vanilla

· 3 C flour

· 1 T baking powder

· 1 t salt

· 2 t cinnamon

· 3 C quick oats (not old-fashioned)

· 2 C chopped walnuts

· 1 ½ packages (8 oz. each) chocolate chunks (3 C)

· 2 C coarsely chopped dried sour cherries

Heat oven to 350 degrees F –

With electric mixer, cream butter and both sugars, beat in eggs one at a time, then beat in vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and oats; slowly beat until blended. Stir in walnuts, chocolate, and cherries. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake at 350 F for 12 to 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Labor Day Quiz - Answers

by Stephen J. Spignesi

A1 – Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor

A2 – a.

A3 – True.

A4 – c.

A5 – d.

A6 – b.

A7 – a.

A8 – True.

A9 – d.

A10 – Labor Sunday

Good & Plenty Theme Song – Quiz Answers

by Joey Green [1, page 67]

Choo Charlie Good & Plenty Theme Song

Once upon a time there was an engineer,

Choo Choo Charlie was his name, we hear;

He had an engine and he sure had fun,

He used Good & Plenty candy to make his train run.

Charlie says, “Love my Good & Plenty!”

Charlie says, “Really rings my bell!”

Charlie says, “Love my Good & Plenty!

Don’t know any other candy that I love so well!”

[1] “Joey Green’s Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions, and Elixirs of the Past and How to Make Them Today,” by Joey Green, Rodale Publisher, ISBN 1-57954-849-0; 2004, USD $14.95; CAN $21.95; paperback; 356 pages.

Cracker Jack Candy History and Stunning Facts

by Joey Green [1]

In 1872, German immigrant F. W. Rueckheim opened a popcorn stand in Chicago, Illinois. Brisk business soon enabled Rueckheim to send to Germany for his brother, Louis. F. W. Rueckheim & Bro. soon expanded into candy making and, at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the duo introduced a unique popcorn-and-peanut molasses-coated candy – the forerunner of Cracker Jack caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts. Unfortunately, the original candy kernels, while popular, stuck together in blocks – until 1896, when Louis discovered a secret process to keep them separate. Louis gave the molasses-covered treat to a salesman, who after tasting it, exclaimed “That’s crackerjack!” F.W. Rueckheim embraced the slang word (meaning excellent) and had it trademarked. In 1899, the Rueckheim brothers packaged Cracker Jack in wax-sealed boxes that preserved the candy’s freshness, enabling the brothers to ship their product to stores nationwide.

In 1912, the Rueckheim brothers added “a prize in every box” of Cracker Jack. Over the years, the “toy surprise inside” has included rings, yo-yos, whistles, charms, tops, plastic toys, miniature storybooks, super-hero stick-ons, and tiny tattoos.

In 1964, Borden, Inc., based in Columbus, Ohio, bought Cracker Jack Company. In 1997, Frito-Lay of Dallas, Texas, purchased Cracker Jack from Borden.

STRANGE FACTS:

· The 1902 Sears & Roebuck catalogue included Cracker Jack.

· In 1908, Jack Norworth wrote lyrics to song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during a thirty-minute subway ride, immortalizing Cracker Jack brand in the third line, “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.” Albert Von Tilzer, who composed the music to the song, did not see a baseball game until more than twenty years after the song’s release. Norworth witnessed his first baseball game in 1940 when the Brooklyn Dodgers honored him at Ebbets Field.

· In 1918, Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo first appeared on the Cracker Jack box. Sailor Jack was modeled after F. W. Rueckheim’s grandson Robert, who had a dog named Bingo. Robert, who died of pneumonia shortly after the new box appeared, is buried in St. Henry’s cemetery, near Chicago, under a headstone with a depiction of him in his sailor suit.

· In the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Holly Golightly, played by Audrey Hepburn, pays Tiffany’s to engrave initials on a ring from a Cracker Jack box.

· The Cracker Jack Company maintains an archive of all the toys ever put in Cracker Jack boxes and displays some of the best toys at its Chicago headquarters.

· Since 1912, Cracker Jack has given out more than twenty-three billion toys.

· The secret process for keeping the molasses-covered popcorn morsels from sticking together, discovered by Louis Rueckheim in 1896, is still used to produce Cracker Jack and remains a company secret to this very day.

[1] “Joey Green’s Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions, and Elixirs of the Past and How to Make Then Today,” by Joey Green, Rodale Publisher, ISBN 1-57954-849-0; 2004, USD $14.95; CAN $21.95; paperback; 356 pages.

A “NEW START” in Life

by Weimar Institute’s NEWSTART^Ò Lifestyle Program

http://www.newstart.com/what.html

http://www.weimar.org/

What is NEWSTART^Ò?

Since 1978 nearly 5,000 people from all over the world have benefited from Weimar Institute's NEWSTART^® Lifestyle Program. The goal of the NEWSTART^® team is to help guests restore their health and vitality by combining diet, exercise, stress management, expert medical supervision, and faith in divine guidance.

Men and women suffering from hypertension, angina, obesity, arthritis, high cholesterol, diabetes, allergies, stress and the toll taken on the body through the years, flock to Weimar Institute for a new start on life.

It is in fact this very quest for a new start that gave Weimar Institute's health restoration program its name, NEWSTART^® Lifestyle Program.

What can NEWSTART^Ò do for you?

Hypertension

50% of all Hypertensives successfully get off medication and return to normal blood pressure within three weeks on the NEWSTART^® Lifestyle Program.

Diabetes

80% of those suffering from painful Diabetic Neuropathy report total relief from pain in their feet and hands after 3 weeks in the NEWSTART^® Lifestyle Program.

Arthritis

Many people suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis have found part partial-to-complete relief from pain through the NEWSTART^® Lifestyle Program, which combines a low-fat diet with exercise and stress-control for health restoration.

Those suffering from Osteo-Arthritis have also found relief as joint circulation is improved.

Angina

By improving the circulation and amount of blood oxygen to the heart muscle through lifestyle changes, which include low-fat diet, exercise and stress control, over 50% of those suffering from angina reported complete relief from symptoms after 3 weeks on the NEWSTART^® Lifestyle Program. An additional 26% reported marked improvement.

High Cholesterol

The NEWSTART^® Lifestyle diet has proven to be remarkably effective in combating high cholesterol. NEWSTART^® participants showed as much as a 40% drop in cholesterol by the end of the 19-day residential program.

There are many other conditions that may also improve with the NEWSTART^® Program.

For more information regarding the NEWSTART^® Lifestyle Program, please call 1-800-525-9192.

The NEWSTART^® Acronym

Nutrition - Proper nutrition is the foundation of good health and recovery. Cooking classes, meals, and cookbooks all demonstrate the variety appeal, and satisfaction of whole plant food vegetarian cuisine. In addition physicians explain the issues that link nutrition with health or disease in their lectures.

Exercise - Action is a law of life. Muscle tone and strength are lost without exertion, but exercise improves the health of body, mind, and spirit multiplying vitality and health. Exercise therapy includes outdoor exercise, treadmill evaluations and Stretchercise. The many trails through beautiful surroundings beckon you to walk, walk, walk, but indoor exercise equipment is available.

Water - Because the body is 70% water, keeping well hydrated and knowing what and when to drink are essential to health. Hydrotherapy (water applied externally to the body) followed by massage enhances the circulation and immune system in wonderful ways.

Sunlight - The sun is the established energy source ordained by God to sustain the cycle of life for plants and animals. Abundant in California, sunlight is supremely important for the body's metabolism and hormonal balance.

Temperance - Using good things moderately and avoiding the bad is obviously wise, yet often hard to practice. Temperance can be neither bought nor earned, but is rather an important gift of God, a "fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22, 23). Moderation in all things is a thread woven throughout the fabric of NEWSTART^® Lifestyle programs.

Air - The body's most essential resource is air. More important than food or water, proper breathing and pure air are fundamental to good health. Fresh, clear mountain air surrounds the beautiful natural environment of Weimar Institute.

Rest - Restoration requires rest because sleep allows the body to renew itself Many types of rest are important for health, but the sweetest rest follows labor. "Early to bed and early to rise'' is a vital NEWSTART^® principle, and a healthy lifestyle makes this principle easier to maintain.

Trust In God - Directly linked to physical health (Proverbs 3:5-6), trust in God is a gift leading to right choices. Choosing what is right in God's sight improves spiritual health which, in turn, imparts blessings to physical and mental health. Individualized counseling, group fellowship, personal devotions, and the chaplain's Freshstart meetings in the morning develop this essential principle.

18-day Lifestyle Program

Experts say it takes three weeks to change a habit. This 18- day standard program leads the way toward healthy habits and reversal of lifestyle- related diseases such as adult-onset diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension . . . the list goes on!

• Eighteen nights lodging
• Educational program teaching the NS lifestyle:

· daily physician lectures

· eleven 1-hour hands-on cooking classes

· evening/weekend group activities

· counseling services available

· exercise evaluation and prescription at start and end

· eight 1-hour therapeutic massage/hydro therapy treatments

Program Fees:

Full Program Participant	$3950 + medical fees
Full Program Companion	$3400 + medical fees
NS Alumni	$2950 + medical fees

Medical Services Include:

· Initial Medical Evaluation - History and Exam

· Comprehensive Blood Chemistry Panel- start and end

· Treadmill exercise test- start and end

· Five physician follow- up appointments

· Allergy testing available for additional fee

Medical Fees: $1035

Medicare, no-HMO $975

NEWSTART^® Session Upcoming Dates & Fees

· September 5 - September 23 (18-day Program)

· September 26 - October 14 (18-day Program)

· October 17 - November 4 (18-day Program)

· November 7 - November 24 (17-day Program)

· November 28 - December 16 (18-day Program)

DIRTY DOZEN PUZZLES

copyright © 2002 by H.W. Corley

1. Dr. Frank N. Stein of the CSE faculty is teaching a course in fuzzy logic this semester. The eminent AI guru is notorious for his difficult tests, so the students have begged him repeatedly for a multiple choice quiz. Finally, with a devious smile, he agrees. On the next test, he asks the first question in Swahili, which no one can read. However, the following answer choices are in English.

(a) All of the below

(b) None of the below

(c) All of the above

(d) One of the above

(e) None of the above

(f) None of the above

Select the correct answer and submit only the corresponding letter.

2. A bored ME named Jason sits in his TTh 11:00 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. class checking his watch, which is not digital. As he waits impatiently for class to end, Jason formulates the following problem. From exactly noon, how long will it take the minute hand and the hour hand of his watch to be precisely 90 degrees apart for the first time? State your answer in minutes rounded off to three decimal places.

3. An EE named Nguyen Li likes to study with scented candles burning. She has two new candles of different scents that have equal lengths but burn at different rates. One is consumed uniformly in four hours, the other uniformly in five hours. If she lights them at the same time, in how many hours will one candle be exactly three times as long as the other? State your answer as a reduced fraction.

4. The nation of Griddonesia consists of eighty-one equally-spaced islands represented by intersections of the lines in the grid below. Each island is connected to all its adjacent islands by horizontal and vertical bridges. There are no diagonal bridges.

Griddonesia has a presidential election this year. In the nation’s presidential politics there are exactly two parties, the Yins and the Yangs. In a presidential election, each eligible Griddonesian can vote for either the Yin or the Yang candidate. For each island, the candidate receiving the most popular votes on the island gets that island’s one electoral vote. The candidate with the most electoral votes then becomes president. For this year’s election, each island in Griddonesia has exactly 1001 eligible voters who might possibly vote.

a) The Yin candidate is the incumbent female president. To the nearest tenth, what is the largest percentage of popular votes that she can receive and still lose the election?

b) The male Yang candidate intends to campaign by car. He will begin and end at the center island with no interim stops there. Using only the bridges, he will proceed from island to island without going to any island more than once (other than the center island). What is the maximum number of islands (with the center one counted exactly once) on which the Yang challenger can campaign during this trip?

5. A small nanotech laboratory is housed in a 38-feet long, 20-feet wide, and 10-feet high rectangular room whose walls are kept “clean” by a tiny dust-eating robot. One morning the dustbug, as it’s called, sits halfway up a 20x10 end wall, 1 foot from the closest 38x10 side wall. On the opposite 20x10 end wall, halfway up and 1 foot from the other 38x10 side wall, lies a speck of dust. What is the shortest distance in feet that the dustbug can crawl along the room’s surfaces to reach this dust? Round off to two decimal places.

6. Five biomedical engineering students decide to meet in the lobby of Nedderman Hall at noon to discuss a class project. Each student, independent of the others, is equally likely to arrive between 11:52 a.m. and 12:04 p.m. What is the probability that at least 3 of the students arrive by noon? Express your answer as a reduced fraction.

7. A materials science student named Chen Feng has developed a new alloy called tico from the elements titanium and cobalt. He stacks 1000 one-inch cubes of tico into a perfect ten-inch cube. Obviously this stack forms 1000 one-inch cubes and 1 ten-inch cube. How many cubes of any size are contained in the 10 · 10 · 10 stack?

8. Civil engineers George and his wife Laura give a dinner for 5 other married couples. At least one person in each invited couple is acquainted with either George or Laura (or both). During the introductions, no one shakes hands with someone he or she has previously met (including his or her own spouse). After the introductions, Laura realizes that each of the other 11 people shook a different number of hands. Furthermore, no one shook the same person’s hand more than once, and no one shook his or her own hand. How many hands did George shake?

9. An orbiting astronaut, an AE graduate from UTA named Naresh, simultaneously fires two projectiles A and B along two straight-line trajectories forming an angle of 100 degrees. Assume that the projectiles instantaneously attain a constant velocity, with A traveling twice as fast as B. If they are separated by a distance of 334 miles after 4 minutes, how fast is B traveling in miles per hour to the nearest tenth?

10. One spring afternoon an environmental engineering student named Praveena takes her dog and flightless kiwi bird to Square Park, which has 100-meter sides. When she is ready to leave, it so happens that Praveena, her two pets, and a stray kitten are standing at the four corners of Square Park as shown in the figure below. Praveena sees her dog’s reaction to the kitten and begins running directly toward her dog. At that exact instant, the dog runs directly toward the kitten, the kitten runs directly toward the kiwi, and the kiwi runs directly toward Praveena for protection. Assume that Praveena, the dog, the kitten, and the kiwi instantaneously attain the same constant running speed. Hence, they reach the center of Square Park at precisely the same time, each following a curved path. How many meters does each run? Round off to two decimal places.

11. A CSE student has developed a program to randomly generate (x, y) points in the first quadrant of a Cartesian coordinate system. Determine the probability that such a randomly generated point lies below the curve y = e^x. In other words, what portion of the first quadrant lies below y = e^x? Round off to three decimal places.

12. Two fraternal twins Bob and Sue, both IE students, inherit a ranch from their West Texas grandfather. Both have taken engineering economy, so they decide to do some low-tech wheeling and dealing. They sell a herd of cattle and receive as many dollars for each animal as there are cattle in the herd. Using all the proceeds of the sale, they buy a flock of sheep at $10 a head and then a less expensive lamb with the rest of the money (less than $10). Finally, the twins divide up the sheep and the lamb between them. To equalize the twins’ net monetary gains, Bob gets an extra sheep, while Sue gets both the lamb and her brother’s calculator. What is the value of this calculator in dollars rounded off to the nearest cent?

13. (Remember, it’s a dirty dozen.) A chemical engineer is taking an EE course in information theory, where he’s currently studying codes. For a homework assignment he numerically encrypts a seven-word sentence in the following table.

5	88	23	8
53	95	16	8
62	18	73	60
16	1	18	15

Decode this message. If your answer is correct, you should know immediately.

“Mensa Brain Bafflers” – by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell

“Mensa Brain Bafflers,” by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell; Barnes & Noble Books; 2004; ISBN 0-7607-5481-0

[p.92] Where There is a Will there is a Way – An Old Lady left $33,333 to be divided equally among two fathers and two sons, and each was to receive $11,111. How was this possible?

[p.93] Calendice – Some calendars are very complex, but here is a very simple system which one can, by using just 12 faces, show all of the 31 days in the month. We show you 5 faces. Your task is to find the numbers that should go on the other 7 faces. See Figure 1.

“Mensa Brain Bafflers” – by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell

“Mensa Brain Bafflers,” by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell; Barnes & Noble Books; 2004; ISBN 0-7607-5481-0

[p.126] Dice – How many times on average must an ordinary six-sided die be tossed before every number from 1 to 6 comes up as least once?

[p.164] Unique Number – What is unique about the number 854,917,632?

[p.189] Dodecahedra – I have an infinite number of regular dodecahedra, indistinguishable in appearance from each other. I have pots of red and blue paint. If each face of each dodecahedron is to be painted red or blue, how many dodecahedra that are distinguishable from one another shall I be able to produce? Dodecahedron: a solid figure having twelve plane faces.

Thoughts on Being Happy

by History & Heraldry - http://www.historyheraldry.com/

History & Heraldry Ltd. in the United Kingdom has put out a terrific small book titled “Be Happy” that measures about 2 inches wide, 2 ¼ inches long, and only three-sixteenths inch thick (actual paper thickness). Published in 1999. I do not recall where I bought it, and I know some of our readers are looking for jobs. So I capture a number of the effective-to-the-point quotes herein.

The surest way to have happiness and peace of mind is to give them to somebody else.

Happiness is within but it does not get there by itself.

Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they have.

Happiness does not come from what you have but from what you are.

He who continually searches for happiness will never find it. Happiness is made, not found.

Two things contribute to happiness: what we can do without and what we can do with.

No one can define happiness. You have to be unhappy to understand it.

Money never did buy happiness; and credit cards aren’t doing much better.

Thoughts on Being Happy – cont’d

by History & Heraldry

It isn’t your position that makes you happy or unhappy. It’s your disposition.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet we pay dearly for its counterfeit.

A lot of happiness is overlooked because it doesn’t cost anything.

For every minute you’re angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

Happy is the man who renounces everything that puts a strain on his conscience.

Some people find happiness by making the most of what they don’t have.

Happiness is home brewed.

Happiness is a healthy mental attitude, a grateful spirit, a clear conscience, and a heart full of love.

Thoughts on Being Happy – cont’d

by History & Heraldry

All we are guaranteed is the pursuit of happiness. You have to catch up with it yourself.

So live that your memories will be part of your happiness.

If ignorance was bliss, we’d all be a lot happier.

Any person who looks happy when he isn’t is well on the road to success.

To love others makes us happy; to love ourselves makes us lonely.

Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others.

Happiness is the conviction that we are loved in spite of ourselves.

To find happiness you must be willing to ignore what life owes you and think about what you owe life.

Thoughts on Being Happy – cont’d

by Editor by History & Heraldry

True Happiness may be sought, thought or caught – but never bought!

Freedom is the right all people have to be as happy as they can.

The place to be happy is here, the time to be happy is now, the way to be happy is to make others so.

Happiness is not perfected until it is shared with others.

To be happy, do not add to your possessions but subtract from your desires.

Happiness is where you find it and very seldom where you seek it.

It seems that some people can’t be happy unless they’re unhappy.

Happiness is a place somewhere between too much and too little.

Thoughts on Being Happy – cont’d

by Editor by History & Heraldry

Happiness is in the heart not the circumstances.

The plain facet is that human beings are happy only when they are striving for something worthwhile.

The surest path to happiness is in losing yourself in a cause greater than yourself.

Happiness is the result of being too busy to be miserable.

The man who gets along in the world is the one who can look cheerful and happy when he isn’t.

People whose main concern is their own happiness seldom find it.

The best way for a person to have happy thoughts is to count his blessings not his cash.

Wealth may not bring happiness, but it seems to bring a pleasant kind of misery.

DIRTY DOZEN PUZZLES - ANSWERS
copyright © 2002 by H.W. Corley

1. (e) All other answers give a contradiction.

2. 16.364. The time t satisfies t(6^o/minute) – t(0.5^o/minute) = 90^o.

3. 40/11 hours. Two equations in two unknowns yield the slower candle burning 8/11 of its length. Multiply that by 5 hours.

4. (a) 99.9 %. She gets all 1001 votes in 40 islands and loses 0-1 on the other 41.
(b) 80. The total number of bridges up from the center must equal the number down, and the number right must equal the number left. Hence an even number of bridges must be traversed. Since 81 bridges are needed to go through all 81 islands and end on the center, this many islands cannot be reached. However, it is easy to find a way to reach 80.

5. 50.00 feet. Unfold the room into the two-dimensional unfoldings that provide a surface for a line between the starting and ending points. For each, use the Pythagorean theorem to find the straight line between the two points. The shortest of the distance is the hypotenuse of a triangle with legs (5 + 20 + 5) and (1 + 38 + 1). The hypotenuse is then 50 feet. The dustbug can walk at angles from the end wall across a corner of the nearest side wall across the ceiling across a corner of the other side wall to the dust in a “straight” line of 50 feet.

6. 64/81. The probability of a student being on time is 2/3. Add the probabilities 10(2/3)³ (1/3)² + 5(2/3)⁴ (1/3)¹ + 1(2/3)⁵ (1/3)⁰.

7. 3025 = 10³+ 9³ + 8³ + … + 2³ + 1³.

8. 5. Number all except Laura as 0,1, … ,10 (the number of hands they shook). By elimination, 10 is married to 0, 9 to 1, etc.; and both Laura & George shook 5 apiece.

9. 2099.5 mph. Use the law of cosines for the distance, then divide by the time in hours.

10. 100.00 meters. The four runners always run at right angles to each other at some speed s meters per second. Hence, their positions always represent the four corners of a diminishing square that takes 100/s seconds to become a single point. The distance each runs is s(100/s) = 100. One can also integrate a parametric curve for arc length.

11. 1.000. Assume the randomly generated point lies within a square of side t with two sides along the axes and a vertex at the origin. Then by integration, the area within the square and below the curve is t2 + t – 1 – t(ln t). Divide by the total area t² and let t®¥ using l’Hospital’s rule.

12. $2.00. Let n be the number of cattle. Then n² is the number of dollars from the sale. The number of 10’s in n² is the number of sheep they bought. Since the sheep could not be divided equally, there was an odd number of 10’s in n². There are an infinite number of choices for such an n²: 16, 36, 196, 256, 576, 676, 1156, 1296, … , all of which end in the digit 6. This fact, which makes the answer unique without knowing n, could be proved or simply inferred from enough values of n. Thus the lamb costs $6, and Michael must compensate Sue with $2. He now has $8 from the sheep minus the calculator, and she has $8 from the lamb plus the calculator.

13. “Bravo, I am so smart and sharp.” As hinted by the nature of question 7 and by the student being a chemical engineer, each number represents the number of an element in the periodic table. Put the symbols in the table to give the following.

B	Ra	V	O
I	Am	S	O
Sm	Ar	Ta	Nd
S	H	Ar	P

WANT YOUR KID TO DISAPPEAR?

by Nadya Labi

From Yale Law School’s July/August 2004 issue of “Legal Affairs” Magazine

Lincoln Caplan is the editor and president of Legal Affairs. He has been on the staffs of The New Republic, The New Yorker, and U.S. News & World Report, where he served as a top editor. He is the author of five books, including Skadden: Power, Money and the Rise of a Legal Empire and The Tenth Justice: The Solicitor General and the Rule of Law. Mr. Caplan is also Knight Senior Journalist at Yale Law School and a Lecturer in Law and in English at Yale University. He has received the ABA's Silver Gavel Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. Mr. Caplan is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former White House Fellow.

For $1,800, former Atlanta police officer Rick Strawn will make that problem child someone else's problem. He even makes house calls.

Louis Boussard has hired a professional to abduct his son.

On a late evening in early March, Rick Strawn of Strawn Support Services flew from Atlanta to Tampa, Fla. He rented a Ford Taurus with child-safety locks from Avis and set off for the coastal town of St. Petersburg with his assistant, Joshua Dalton, and me. An hour later, we were driving down a street filled with one-story homes. We slowed down outside a house with an American flag hanging from the eaves and a Jaguar and a Grand Cherokee in the semicircular driveway. It was 1:55 a.m., which meant we were early. Strawn parked in a nearby lot to kill time. He went over the plan, emphasizing, "We've got to leave by 3:15."

Flicking on the lights to look for Boussard's number, Strawn dialed his cellphone. "Um, Louis. Hi. Does your house have a circle driveway with a Jag in it?" he said. "If you're ready, we'll come on in. Is he asleep?" The connection broke up. Moments later, Strawn's phone rang. "Much better, yes. No, don't wake him up. We're going to talk to you for about an hour," he said. "I'm going to help you through all that. Okay. Bye-bye."

We drove back to the house at a crawl and got out of the car, easing the doors shut. Both men wore khaki pants and dark blue shirts embossed with a globe logo and the website address of Strawn's company. Strawn walked up the stone pathway, peered in the window of the front door, and lightly rapped. No one answered. "Maybe he said go around the back," Strawn said. "Wait here for a second." He began to walk toward the back of the house when a light came on inside.

A Haitian-American man in his late 40s opened the front door and beckoned us inside. Boussard (his name and the names of his wife and son have been changed) guided us to a dining-room table covered by a white tablecloth. It held a white vase filled with artificial pink flowers and two fat red candles in wrought iron stands. The matching white cushions of the dining-room chairs were covered in plastic. Boussard sat at the head of the table, flanked by his wife, Sandra. In spite of the late hour, they were impeccably dressed—he wore a beige linen suit and she wore a scoop-necked sweater set off by a gold necklace and bracelets. The couple's formality, however, soon gave way to the urgency of the task at hand. Two rooms away on the other side of the kitchen, their 16-year-old son, Louis, Jr., lay asleep in his bedroom.

The Boussards had hired Strawn Support Services to transport Louis, Jr. to Casa by the Sea, a school near Ensenada, Mexico that seeks to "modify" the behavior of troublemaking teens. Casa takes kids who parents have decided are out of control, usually because the teens are talking back, getting poor grades, staying out late, drinking, having sex too soon, or taking drugs.

Louis, Jr.'s parents had not told him that he was going to Mexico—nor how he would be taken there. They thought he would run if he knew what was about to happen. Now they kept glancing in the direction of the kitchen. "Louis is very suspicious," Sandra whispered about her son as her husband began a hurried account of the teen's misbehavior.

The troubles had begun a year earlier when Louis, Jr. was in 10th grade. His grades fell from A's and B's to C's and below. He stopped playing basketball with his father. He started talking back when his mother wouldn't let him go out to clubs with his friends. He broke his curfew, which was 7:30 p.m. during the week and 9 p.m. on the weekends. Often he left the house by his bedroom window. The Boussards thought Louis, Jr. might be smoking pot. Then all of a sudden, his report cards improved dramatically. "I thought, something is not right," said Boussard, squinting at the memory. He discovered a bad report card in his son's backpack, and Louis admitted that he had faked the good ones.

The Boussards enrolled their son in counseling; the counselor said he was doing fine. They sent him to boot camp for a day, where he got anger-management and drug counseling. He behaved better for about a week. At around the same time, Louis was told that he had to repeat 10th grade. His parents transferred him to a vocational program in carpentry at his high school with the hope that he would find the schoolwork easier. Louis hated it.

Strawn listened to this litany of frustrations, nodding sympathetically. Then, he took a breath and started the spiel that he has honed over the course of six years and some 300 transports. "Behavior is as addictive as any drug or alcohol," he told the Boussards. Like all troubled kids, Louis, Jr. needed to recover from his bad behavior. "The way I look at it," Strawn continued, "any good recovery has three components: breaking down old habits, building a strong foundation, and building new habits." But Boussard père was not paying attention. He was still steamed about the fake report cards. "I said 'Something is not right,' " he repeated.

There was a slight noise, and he and his wife jumped.

"Do we need to have Josh go outside?" Strawn asked, referring to his assistant.

"He's very suspicious," Sandra whispered, glancing over her shoulder toward her son's room.

Strawn went outside to make sure that Louis had not climbed out of his bedroom window. The teen seemed to be asleep, but Strawn left Dalton outside to stand guard. On the air conditioner outside the window was a bottle of cologne, which Strawn guessed Louis used to freshen up before his nights out.

Strawn squeaked back into his chair and rushed through his usual script. Now was not the moment to dwell on his own recovery from alcoholism, or to lead the prayer circle that he often suggests before a trip. He ran through what his clients should expect when he entered Louis's room. Strawn advised them to introduce him to Louis, to give their son a hug if Louis let them, and then to walk away. "The hardest thing I ask a parent to do is to turn around and walk out," he said. "Don't come back, no matter what you see or hear."

The mother and father nodded, shifting in their seats. Boussard got a black overnight bag from a closet and handed it to Strawn, along with a check for $1,800. In return, Strawn asked him to sign a notarized power-of-attorney that authorized his company to take "any act or action" on the parents' behalf during the transport to Casa. The document also promised that the couple would not sue for any injuries caused by "reasonable restraint." Strawn warned them that he would take Louis away in handcuffs. The father signed the release, then seemed to have a moment of buyer's remorse. He said he'd been obsessively reading the catalogue for Casa. "All of a sudden, the intensity just takes off," Boussard said about sending his son away. "We feel like we failed."

"Let me help you out there," Strawn reassured him. "I go to families all the time with four or five siblings. Only one of them decided to take this path. If it had anything to do with your parenting skills . . . " His voice trailed off. "It isn't because of that."

"We don't want to see him go to prison or jail," said Boussard, rubbing his hands over his face again and again. "Will he understand what we're trying to do for him?"

Boussard got up from the table with a sigh. The rest of us followed close behind. He walked into the kitchen and took a dinner knife out of a drawer, explaining that he would use it to pry open his son's locked door. Sliding the knife into the crack between the door and the wall, he prepared to enter.

RICK STRAWN IS AN EX-COP WHO STARTED HIS COMPANY in 1988 to help police officers find off-duty work guarding construction sites. Ten years later, he was asked by a member of his United Methodist church to transport the churchgoer's son to Tranquility Bay in Jamaica. The school is run by the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs, a company headquartered in Utah that owns eight schools in the United States and abroad, including Louis, Jr.'s destination.

Strawn said no to that first inquiry because he knew the boy involved. But he had stumbled upon what he now believes is his calling. In his first year of business, he escorted eight teens to behavior modification schools. Since then, his company has transported more than 700 kids between the ages of 8 and 17. Strawn has gone on about half of the trips himself; on the others he has sent agents. Either way, the company generally uses two escorts for the part of a trip that's on the road. Girls are escorted by coed teams; in the early years, Strawn relied on his wife, mother, or older daughter to help him on these trips. Now his wife, Susan, runs the company's office from the family home in the Atlanta suburb of Suwanee. After every trip, she sends the client a card with the message: "Just a note to say thank you for allowing us to assist your family."

Balding and slightly soft in the gut, Strawn is a reassuring 52-year-old. He speaks with a light drawl—he was born in Lubbock, Tex.—and he seems to mean it when he drops endearments like "hon." Strawn's easy manner has won over many parents and school administrators. "He's one of the few escorts who takes the time and effort to talk to the kids," said Karina Zurita, the admissions coordinator at Casa. "He lets kids know that they'll be in good hands."

But if Strawn is decent and likable, he will also go to almost any length to get his charges to do what their parents want. He has chased kids down. He has dragged teens to the car in their underwear. He has used a choke hold, learned as a cop, to render a few others unconscious. He has taken suicidal kids from hospital treatment to reform school.

Most of Strawn's clients are genuinely concerned about their children's welfare. They believe their children are at risk and want to save them. But these parents also revel in forcing their kids to sit up, pay attention, and do what they're told. Glenda Spaulding, who took out four loans to send her 14-year-old daughter to a WWASP school in South Carolina last November, had three words for Strawn before he took the girl away: "Go get her."

Strawn's willingness to use force differentiates him from other escorts. While no one tracks the teen transport industry, those in the business estimate that more than 20 companies nationwide take kids to behavior modification schools, residential treatment centers, and boot camps. Some of the bigger companies are more selective than Strawn about what they'll do. The Center for Safe Youth in Atlanta, for example, doesn't use restraints to force a child to go anywhere. And the center won't transport kids to WWASP schools because educational consultants with whom the company works don't recommend them. Its owner, John Villines, would like to create a professional association to oversee the transport industry. The standards he proposes are rudimentary: no agents with felony convictions or histories of irresponsible driving or drug and alcohol abuse. But they set the bar higher than almost any state does.

Instead of operating by rules, the escort industry runs on trust—the trust that parents won't put their kids in harm's way. But there is no trust between parents and kids in the households that Strawn enters. It has broken down so completely that parents think it's okay, and even courageous, to send a stranger into their child's bedroom. Strawn makes his living from that judgment and he is willing to mislead a child for what he sees as the greater goal of reform.

Once parents put their kids at Strawn's mercy, for a short time he is in loco parentis—in the place of the parent—in the fullest sense of the term. He has the authority to tell a kid what to do and to punish him for failing to obey. At the same time, he is the only person left to cling to when a kid is on the threshold of a scary, unknown world.

Three years ago, Strawn escorted Valerie Ann Heron, a 17-year-old from Montgomery, Ala., to Tranquility Bay. The school is the most hardcore in the WWASP system, the one to which students are sent when they repeatedly cause trouble at other schools. The trip went smoothly, according to Heron's mother, Nell Orange, and Strawn played his role well. "He made her feel comfortable with him. She trusted him. He talked to her about what to expect, where she was going," Orange said. "She gave him a hug when she left him."

The day after that hug, Valerie rushed out of a second-floor classroom and jumped to her death off a 35-foot-high balcony.

The suicide didn't faze Strawn. He didn't ask himself whether he should have taken Valerie to Tranquility Bay and left her there, or whether she needed more help and tenderness than the tough-love school provides. He doesn't even acknowledge that she might have been upset or unhinged enough to kill herself. "We had a really good trip. We were laughing and cutting it up," Strawn recalled. "Was she suicidal? Till the day I die, I won't believe that." Without any evidence, Strawn says that Valerie must have jumped in an effort to run away or in hopes of hurting herself so that she would be sent home. She landed on her head instead of her feet, he thinks, because one foot got caught in the balcony. "My feeling is that the majority of kids who talk about suicide, they're not suicidal," Strawn said. "What they are is manipulative."

LOUIS, JR. SAT STRAIGHT UP IN HIS BED. He was surrounded by three strangers and his parents. His chest was bare, and white acne medicine stood out against the dark skin of his forehead. He grabbed his wire-rimmed glasses from the bedside table and blinked a few times. The basketball posters of Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant were still there. His childhood teddy bear sat in a low-slung armchair by the door.

"Do you have some underwear on?" Louis's father said. "They're here to help us. They're here to take you to a school."

Louis shook his head to clear it.

"The only thing we want you to know is that we love you very much," Boussard continued. He and his wife stepped forward to hug Louis, but the gesture was forced and none of them seemed to want the contact.

"Where am I going? When am I coming home?"

Louis's parents walked out the door.

Strawn broke the silence that followed their exit. He launched into what he calls "the scenario," a three-minute script that he instructs his employees to memorize and deliver, right down to a required chuckle. "Personally, I feel like I do it better than anyone else because I designed it," Strawn had explained earlier. The scenario is the key to a smooth escort, he believes. It gives teens time to cool off, weigh their options, and realize that their best course of action is to follow orders.

"I want you to know that we are not here to be bad guys and bullies. We are not here to lecture you, or right-or-wrong you to death," Strawn told Louis. "We are here to get you safely to the school and we are going to do that. But we'll absolutely give you as much respect as you allow us to give you."

Louis stared at him and drummed his leg against the bed.

"Quite frankly, cuffs do not embarrass us," Strawn continued. "But if it goes there, it will be 100 percent your choice." He concluded with the question that the scenario is designed to set up. "I have an important question for you. If you walk out of here cuffed, do you understand that it's 100 percent your choice?"

"Uh-huh," Louis said. He looked around the room. His mind was working but coming up empty. He asked if he could grab his clothes. The answer was no. Instead he was allowed to direct Dalton to hand him a gray t-shirt, a black-and-gray Fubu jersey, and black mesh gym shorts.

"Am I coming home today?" Louis was trying not to cry. He blinked rapidly behind the smudged lenses of his glasses.

"I will not lie to you," Strawn hedged. "I might not answer your questions . . . "

"So when am I coming home?"

"I mean no disrespect, but I learned a long time ago that I don't want to chase you," Strawn plowed on, ignoring Louis's question. He explained that he would handcuff Louis to Dalton. "And son, if you can drag this ugly sucker far and fast enough to get away, well, God bless you, you weren't meant to go." Strawn gave the scripted chuckle.

Louis was still trying to buy time and find a way out. "Can I brush my teeth?" he asked.

Strawn shook his head, and cuffed Louis to Dalton. Strawn wrote his script to give his charges the illusion of control, but he often cuffs the kids, especially boys, no matter what they say. He hustled Louis to the car, guiding him into the back seat along with Dalton, to whom he was still cuffed. Taking the wheel, Strawn explained to his passenger that he would stop talking—"I consider it disrespectful to talk to you in the rearview mirror," he said—until he reached the airport.
At the mention of an airport, Louis said, "Oh, God."

When we arrived at the Tampa airport half an hour later, Strawn took off Louis's handcuffs. As we walked to catch our connecting flight to Atlanta, Dalton grabbed the waistband of the boy's shorts, which rode low on his hips and might have fallen off if Dalton hadn't held fast. The teen rolled his eyes and cracked a piece of gum that Dalton had given him. He was auditioning for the part of bad boy, but the role didn't fit. He was too quick to say "Thank you" and too eager to talk. He had spent the past year bottling those impulses around his parents and chafing at the limits they had set for him. His abduction struck him as the latest outrage. "I don't listen to them, I don't like what they say," he said. "I don't listen to the curfew. I'm not doing that. It's too early."

When his parents bore down, Louis pushed back. He hung out with a crowd they didn't like and he drank and smoked pot. "I came home high once. My father said, 'I know you're high,' " Louis remembered. "Then I went to a one-day boot camp last August. You exercise and they talk to you. I came home high again and he sent me to this juvenile rehab thing that lasted two and a half days. It was pointless."

THERE COMES A POINT IN JUST ABOUT EVERY ONE OF STRAWN'S TRANSPORTS, whether he's soothing a nervous parent or bonding with an upset teen, when he will mention his six-month stint in 1997 at a halfway house for alcoholics. "Seven years ago, I entered recovery. My drug of choice was alcohol. You know far more about where you're going than I knew about myself," he told the 14-year-old girl he escorted last November to a WWASP school in South Carolina. "In my mind, I was kicking and screaming. But the loveliest day of my life was when my wife and mom dropped me off at that halfway house. I can tell you now that it's the best thing that ever happened to me."

That's Strawn's version of the story, which starts a generation earlier. Strawn joined the Atlanta police force in 1973. He'd previously been in sales, but he knew that being a cop would suit him better. "In sales, the customer is always right," he explained. "But as a cop, I'm always right." Strawn relished that authority. "It seems at times he has to have the last word," one of his supervisors noted in an evaluation early in his police career. That's a good thing in a cop, and the reviews Strawn received during this period were uniformly favorable.

Strawn worked many different beats, including patrol, drug enforcement, and homicide. He earned the respect of his colleagues for calming down troublemakers. "They have to think that you might be the toughest guy," he said of the suspects he arrested. "I was able to talk people into doing what we wanted them to do."

Strawn was losing control of his own life, however. He was drinking heavily and in 1992 he was briefly suspended for disappearing from work without explanation. Strawn said that he stayed sober on the job, but the smell of alcohol seeped from his pores. His colleagues complained. Internal Affairs investigated. Strawn tested clean.

Four years earlier, Strawn had married Susan Kyzer, a single mother with a young daughter. Strawn didn't get along with the girl. She had attention-deficit disorder and the Ritalin she took wore off by the time she got home from school. "Her behavior was like a needle point with Rick," Susan said. "He was of the view that kids should be seen but not heard, and this kid was always heard."

In 1996, the stepdaughter told a counselor that Strawn had molested her two years earlier, when she was 12. She'd just gotten home from a school football game, and she was still wearing her green-and-white cheerleader's outfit. She fell asleep on the living-room floor while watching TV with her stepfather. She said that she woke to the feel of something hard against her vagina and ran out of the room. Strawn was arrested for molestation. During the police investigation, he claimed that he'd fallen asleep after drinking, and in his dreams had confused his stepdaughter with his wife. But Susan told the investigators that just after the incident, Strawn had told her that "'it was just a weak moment.' . . . He got turned on by her laying there with a short skirt on and all, and lay down beside her and unzipped his pants against her." Strawn grew depressed and began taking medication. He also admitted to detectives that a year earlier he had fondled the breasts of his niece on two separate occasions, when she was 12 or 13.

The Atlanta police department suspended him for several months. But Strawn's stepdaughter recanted her accusation, leaving prosecutors little choice but to drop the molestation charge. Strawn was taken out of the field, however, and assigned to do desk work. He was no longer the go-to officer. "I was being tolerated," he said. "And for someone with my personality, being tolerated is enough to make you want to get drunk."

One night in January 1997, Strawn went home drunk. After arguing with Susan, he said he was going to shoot himself and he got his .38 revolver out of the garage. "I've had all I can take," he told Susan, his stepdaughter, and the couple's 8-year-old son, Jared. But his threat was, to use his word, manipulation. He fired into the air and left. When he returned home later that evening, he passed out.

The next day, Susan confronted Strawn about his alcoholism, as she had many times in the past. His stepdaughter chimed in that she had snapped a picture of Strawn in his stupor the previous night so that he could see what he'd looked like drunk. Strawn wanted to destroy the roll of film but Susan and her daughter wouldn't let him, because it included a photo of the family cat, which had since died. A struggle ensued, and Strawn kicked the girl in the groin. He then grabbed his wife by the throat, choking her while his stepdaughter called 911.

Strawn left the house and drove to a nearby park, where he continued drinking. Susan and her daughter found him there. Susan tried to calm her husband down. Her daughter called the police. Strawn was arrested and charged with family violence, reckless conduct, and four counts of simple battery—misdemeanor charges that in Georgia together carry a maximum sentence of six years. Less than a month later, he was arrested again when he was found drunk and nearly passed out in his car. He avoided jail by pleading guilty to reckless conduct and a DUI charge.

Strawn likes to say that his wife made him go to the Hickey House Recovery Community. But a judge sent him there, as a condition of his probation. He spent six months at the halfway house while his family stayed away. Strawn hadn't prayed for some time, but he started going to a small church nearby. The defensive stance that he'd adopted slipped away. "Things started loosening up," Strawn said. He felt closer to God. When he got home, Strawn set to work on mending his family. While he was drinking, Susan had considered leaving him. Jared had withdrawn into video games. Now Strawn reached out to them, and they responded. Jared gave his father a cloth bracelet stenciled with the letters WWJD, for "What Would Jesus Do?" Strawn never takes it off.

The Atlanta police department was not as forgiving. In May 1998, it determined that Strawn had "brought discredit" on himself as a police officer, on 11 different counts. His superiors decided to fire him. Strawn opted to retire instead. He left the day before he was due to lose his job after 25 years on the force.

Strawn doesn't try to reconcile his past and his present, perhaps because he is afraid to find that traces of his old self remain. It is safer for him to credit God as the way he "got from there to here." The story of redemption that Strawn spins persuades parents who don't know where to turn that they can rely on him. Strawn was lost, just like the kids he escorts, and it is both his reward and his punishment to tell how he was found. "Working with these kids is like working a 12-step," he said before a recent transport. "Behavior is as addictive as any drugs or alcohol. I plant the seed of recovery."

But Strawn knows that if he is to be trusted to plant that seed, there is no room in his history for criminal lapses of judgment. I spent hours talking to Strawn, and he never mentioned the accusations involving his stepdaughter and niece. Instead he told me about a 15-year-old girl who was apparently discredited when she insinuated that he'd molested her during a 26-hour drive from Indianapolis to a WWASP school in Montana. Strawn said that an assistant was with him and the girl for the entire transport, and that the assistant backed Strawn up when he said he'd done nothing wrong. The school believed them. "That was God watching over me," Strawn said. Otherwise, he continued, "I would not be working in this profession. The cloud of suspicion would have been there." As for his stepdaughter, when I asked Strawn about her accusation, he said that she'd made up the charge to get him help for his alcoholism. She is now 21 and, along with Strawn's niece, works as an escort for Strawn Support Services. But she will not team up with her stepfather.

"WE'VE GOT SOMETHING DIFFERENT HERE," Strawn told the ticketing agent at the checkout counter of Delta Airlines. "We've got someone here we're escorting—not a prisoner, but he doesn't want to go with us." Louis sat with Dalton off to the side, rummaging through the overnight bag that his parents had packed for him. The agent didn't pause. "That's fine," he said with a smile.

Strawn won't board a plane with a kid who puts up too much of a fight—that's why he ended up on that 26-hour drive. But when escorts do fly with protesting kids, airport officials rarely ask questions. Amanda Krassin was taken by plane from Washington to Oregon when she was 16. The escorts, who were from the California company Guiding Hands, asked that she be detained in an airport security area and handcuffed her on the plane. "Everyone ignored me at the airport," Krassin recalled. "I think they just thought I was a prisoner."

On the way to the gate for our flight to Atlanta, Strawn skipped a long line by flashing an auxiliary Coast Guard badge. (He's a member of the group's volunteer squad.) Dalton took Louis to the bathroom. The assistant, who is 25, is fairly new to the job. But Strawn likes to show off Dalton to clients because he attended a WWASP school in Western Samoa called Paradise Cove. The school shut down in 1998 after a State Department investigation into what it determined to be "credible allegations" of abuse, but Strawn doesn't mention that.

"I'm going to make two suggestions," he told Louis when the teen emerged from the bathroom. "First, try to have an open mind. I know it's hard to have an open mind when two ugly guys come and take you from your bedroom at night to a school that you don't want to be at. Second, you've got to be gut-level honest with yourself. The bad part of that is it's a 100 percent inside job."

The world according to Strawn is based on choices and consequences. The world according to WWASP is designed to reinforce the same principle. Students enter Casa by the Sea at the first of six levels. To advance, they have to earn points through good behavior and schoolwork. Until they reach level three, which takes an average of three months, they can communicate with the outside world only through letters to their parents, which the school monitors. After that, they can talk on the phone to their parents but no one else.

Casa costs nearly $30,000 for a year—as much as a year's tuition at Harvard—but offers no traditional academic instruction. Instead the schoolwork is self-paced; the students sit at tables with a workbook and take a test on a section when they decide they're ready. They can retake the same test as many times as necessary to achieve an 80 percent passing grade. According to the Casa parent handbook, the school does not ensure that "the student will even receive any credits" or that the teachers who monitor the study sessions will have U.S. credentials. The school does not track how many of its students go on to high school or college. "You're not going to have a teacher riding your back," Dalton told Louis. "It's all independent study. I just read the module, and did the test. I finished class in a week. That's how easy it is."

Students spend more time studying themselves than any other subject. They write daily reflections in response to self-help tapes and videos such as Tony Robbins's Personal Power, You Can Choose, and Price Tag of Sex. They answer questions like "What feelings/emotions did I experience today and how did I choose to respond?"

Students also attend, and eventually staff, self-help seminars. The entry-level seminar, called Discovery, encourages participants to "learn to interrupt unconscious mental and emotional cycles which tend to sabotage results." Kelly Lauritsen participated in Discovery at Casa in 2000 and said she was encouraged to hit the walls with rolled towels to release her anger. The price of tuition includes versions of these seminars for parents. Like Oprah on speed, sessions run nonstop from morning until midnight. Many parents and kids say they benefit from the self-analysis. "I didn't realize that I had so much anger inside," the 14-year-old girl whom Strawn transported in November wrote to her mother.

WWASP also pays for Strawn and his employees to attend the seminars, and Strawn has done Discovery. He enrolled in the seminar so that he could better sell parents on hiring him, but its talk-until-you're-cured approach forced him to confront buried wounds, such as his father's death a decade earlier. "God had a reason to put me there and it had nothing to do with the business," he said of the experience.

Strawn told Louis that the hardest thing about Casa would be abiding by the school's intricate system of discipline. "It's not the big rules that get you. It's all the little rules," Strawn said. Casa docks students, according to its handbook, for telling "war stories" about inappropriate experiences, for being unkind to each other, and for making "negative statements about the School, the staff, the country, or other students."

"There's a whole page of rules," said Shannon Eierman, who attended Casa last year. "That page is divided into sections of categories, into different codes, and a million subcategories. You could be there forever and the next day and learn a new rule."

Students at Casa who commit "Category 5 infractions" can be punished with an "intervention," for example, which is defined as being left alone in a room. Students say that the punishment can last for weeks, though Casa insists that the maximum penalty is three days. "I had to sit with crossed legs in a closet for three days," said Kaori Gutierrez, who left Casa in 2001. Interventions may be used to punish out-of-control behavior, drug use, and escape attempts. But they're also the way the school handles "self-inflicted injuries," which can range from cracked knuckles to self-mutilation with pens or paper clips to an attempted suicide.

At the root of this long list of punishable violations is "manipulation," which includes lying or exaggerating. Strawn repeatedly uses the word to dismiss a kid's behavior—it's the way he said Valerie Heron acted the day before her suicide. In the WWASP universe that he inhabits, manipulation is a term of art that refers to just about anything a teen does or says that the staff doesn't like.

Still, the schools' intensive monitoring has helped some students turn their lives around. Richard King of Atlanta believes that going to Tranquility Bay in 1997, when he was 17, taught him to be accountable for his actions. The experience saved him from ending up "either dead or in jail," he said. Before he went to the school, King drank, smoked pot, and battled with his parents. When he returned, he could sit down and talk to them.

CALIFORNIA IS THE ONLY STATE WITH A SEMBLANCE OF OVERSIGHT FOR ESCORTS. In response to news accounts in 1997 of a teenage boy from Oakland, Calif., who was transported against his will to Tranquility Bay, the state's legislature developed a bill to protect kids like him. The legislation would have barred escorts from using restraints that interfere with a child's "ability to see, hear, or move freely." By the time it passed, however, the bill had been amended into a toothless licensing scheme.

Nor are there federal controls. In 1923, the Supreme Court announced that parents have a "right of control" that allows them to direct their children's upbringing and education. The court has not budged from this stance since, and, for obvious reasons, it is not listening to the voices of kids who rebel against their parents' dictates. Few people want children—or, for that matter, anyone else—to have veto power over the decisions that parents make. Even the states that permit teenagers to be emancipated from their parents, allowing them to be treated legally as adults, ordinarily mandate that the parents must agree.

As many a frustrated teen knows, the legal framework means that parents get to call the shots. While teenagers can't be jailed by the state without a judge's approval, parents can confine minors against their will for reasons including their mental health. (It's harder to take away the freedom of mentally ill adults.) The Constitution has been interpreted to allow teens effectively to be imprisoned by private companies like Strawn's and private schools like Casa by the Sea—as long as their parents sign off. "If these were state schools or state police, the children would have constitutional protections," said Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, the director of the Center on Children & the Law at the University of Florida. "But because it is parents who are delegating their own authority, it has been very difficult to open the door to protection of the child."

It's even more difficult to open that door once kids have been taken to foreign schools like Casa by the Sea that lie beyond the reach of U.S. courts. "The problem is that when Americans are in another country, they are subject to the laws of that country," said Stewart Patt, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department. "Whether it's a violation of American law is not going to matter to local authorities."

There is one limit on parents: They cannot harm their children. Every state allows the government to intervene if a child or teenager is at risk. The agencies charged with protecting kids get involved if someone reports that a child is being abused. Yet by the time friends and relatives learn of a teen's disappearance and think to make a report, the escort is gone. What matters is getting the kid back from the school that's holding him. It's a nearly impossible task.

A few determined do-gooders have managed it, however. In 1998, 17-year-old Justin Goen was able to call his girlfriend before being taken by escorts to Tranquility Bay. The girlfriend's parents then called the child welfare agency in Justin's hometown of Worthington, Ohio. That set a local judge named Yvette Brown in motion. She heard evidence in juvenile court about spartan conditions, sleep deprivation, and emotional abuse at the school—and ordered Justin home.

The Goens ignored Brown's order, though, and the community cheered them on. "I hope parents are horrified that a public agency can be so intrusive into family life," one reader wrote in a letter to The Columbus Dispatch. After weeks of negotiations, the parents agreed to transfer their son to a WWASP school in Utah. Justin did not thank the state for its troubles. He insisted that his most severe punishment at Tranquility Bay was being told to write two 1,000-word essays.

Jonathan Tyler Mitchell was also sprung from Tranquility Bay. Tyler (he goes by his middle name) had lost his mother when he was young and had never gotten along with his father, Bill Mitchell. In February 2002, Mitchell married his girlfriend of eight months and Tyler moved in with his brother. Mitchell soon asked Tyler to come over for dinner. When the 12-year-old arrived, there were two strangers at the table. They worked for Strawn. Later, they roused Tyler from bed and took him to Jamaica.

What had Tyler done to deserve this wake-up call? According to his father, he had been disrespectful in class, kicked a school locker, talked about suicide, and refused to go to counseling. Tyler's account was different. "I suffer a lot of beatings from my dad," he told a psychologist who evaluated him. "The future is not looking good for me."

Tyler had several relatives, however, who were not willing to leave the boy's future in his father's hands. Gini Farmer Remines, an adult cousin on his mother's side, petitioned a local juvenile court to order his return. When the judge refused, Remines appealed her decision to a circuit court.

At a hearing that followed, three former Tranquility Bay students testified on Tyler's behalf, and what they described was a Caribbean purgatory. The food, they claimed, sometimes contained pubic hair and bugs. Raw sewage spilled over into the boys' shower area and "visible layers of dirt, grime, filth, mildew on the sides of the shower stalls" led to outbreaks of scabies. Students who broke a rule against looking out the window were placed in "observation placement"—forced to lie on the floor, sometimes for weeks at a time, and allowed to sit up only for food or a punitive round of 5,000 jumping jacks.

One of the witnesses, Aaron Kravig, reported that he was at Tranquility Bay in August 2001, the month Valerie Heron died, and that he'd been forced to use a towel that had been used to clean up her remains. The unwashed towel "had a spot of blood about, somewhere about the size of a dinner plate," Kravig testified. "There was some of her hair on it. They used it to pick her head up; I'm pretty sure. I told the staff about it and nothing was done. . . . I had to dry off with that towel for about three weeks."

Mitchell visited the school with his wife after he sent Tyler there and testified that he'd seen kids playing tennis and shooting hoops. But the judge ordered Tyler home. Shortly after his return, the boys' relatives heard that Mitchell had threatened to send Tyler back. Seven of them filed for custody. Gini Remines said that Mitchell gave up and turned Tyler over to her. "Tyler doesn't talk about what happened at Tranquility Bay," Remines said recently. "All he'll say was that it was a hellhole and he might have died in it."

"THE SCHOOL IS IN MEXICO?" Louis said when he noticed the highway signs on our drive south from San Diego. "I thought it was in California."

"I said we were coming to California, not that the school was there," Strawn said. "I was spoon-feeding you until we got here."

Louis fell silent.

Ten minutes later, Strawn drove past a sign that looked like a middle-school art project, with "Mexico" written in green, red, and white. It was now nearly noon. A Mexican flag flapped over a ramshackle collection of buildings, and a film of dust and grit seemed to cloud the bright blue day. Like a tour guide on autopilot, Strawn kept up a running commentary about the sights while his passenger stewed in the back seat. "That's a serious fence," Strawn said, pointing to a 14-foot-high barrier of sheet metal topped with electrical wires which marked the border. "The school is just north of a town called Ensenada. That's your primary cruise destination."

On the dashboard of the Buick LeSabre he had rented for this leg of the journey, Strawn had installed a portable GPS system that Susan had given him for Christmas. But it wasn't working. About a mile past the Mexican border, Strawn missed the Scenic Road exit to Ensenada and drove through Tijuana instead. We passed palm trees and squat bushes with fire-red flowers. Strawn braked at a stop sign that read "Alto," muttering to himself as he tried to find his way back to the highway.

We were back on course and heading through a purple and yellow tollbooth by the time Louis spoke.

"What's the name of the school I'm going to?" he asked as the ocean crashed against the shore near the passenger side of the car.

"Casa. Casa by the Sea," Strawn answered, and hummed the lyrics "down by the sea," from the song "Under the Boardwalk."

"Mi casa es su casa," Dalton ad-libbed.

Strawn told Louis that the Casa grounds used to house a resort. "The nice thing about resorts," he mused, "they usually have walls around them. They keep you from getting involved with the nuts around here, and keep them from you."

A huge half-finished bust of Jesus loomed on a mountain outside the car. Dalton began reminiscing about his time at Paradise Cove. He mentioned that he used to hunt for octopus in the ocean. Strawn pointed to the beach and said that students at Casa hung out there. Louis asked why it was empty.

Strawn answered by changing the subject. "You ought to get there about lunchtime," he said with determined cheer. "And I can tell you, those chubby Mexican women can do a number on some Mexican food."

When a trip is winding down and a kid has been scared into compliance, there is a moment when Strawn likes to wax philosophical. He cribs liberally from Stephen Covey, the author of the bestselling business guide Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He begins with a question: "Have you heard of counting from one to ten if you're mad? Did that ever make sense to you?" Whatever the teen's answer, Strawn says that it didn't make sense to him—until he came across Covey's idea that there is a "space" between stimulus and reaction. To Strawn, that space is the difference between lashing out and maintaining control. "I've learned to spend time in that space when I get mad," Strawn told Louis. "And in the last seven years, I haven't slapped one person upside the head."

The talk works best when Strawn has something tangible to move to—like the letters that parents often give him for their children. The kids used to tear up the letters. But they haven't since Strawn started telling them to spend more time in Covey's "space" before doing anything rash.

The Boussards hadn't written their son a letter, so Strawn did his best on his own to bring Louis around to their way of seeing things. He told the boy not to be angry with his folks. "It's absolutely a sign of love for them to take the chance on what they believe will be the best for you," said Strawn. "When you grow up and have your own family—you have to excuse me—I hope you have the balls to do what your parents are doing for you."

The off-white stucco walls and red shutters of Casa came into view, and a Mexican guard opened a red iron gate. A line of teenagers wearing khaki pants and navy blue jackets walked across the courtyard in single file. A few girls carried baskets full of laundry. The smell of fried chicken wafted through the air. A man in a white turtleneck pointed to Louis and said to Strawn, "This is the kid?" The man directed Louis to grab his bag.

Strawn handed a woman Louis's paperwork—his birth certificate, passport, and the contract with Casa that his parents had signed. When Louis turned and walked away with the man in the white turtleneck, Strawn didn't say goodbye. Then I asked if it was time for us to go and he rushed to catch up with the boy and gave him a hug. Louis looked taken aback by the embrace and there was a moment of awkwardness. Then he hugged back, hard. Strawn collects those hugs. They help him believe that he is saving, not savaging, the kids he steals away with in the night.

When we were back in the car, Strawn put on his sunglasses and lit a cigar, as he likes to do at the end of a trip. He leaned forward in anticipation of the next stops along his journey—a Cuban cigar shop in Tijuana and then a Mexican restaurant in San Diego. He blew out a ring of smoke, and it was as if Louis had never been with us.

Anti-Aging Foods

(http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/antiage.html )

Scientists at the USDA have developed a rating scale that measures the antioxidant content of various plant foods. The scale is called ORAC, which stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. They discovered that a small group of "super foods" have up to twenty times the antioxidant power of other foods. Even more amazing, these foods provide more antioxidant power than mega-doses of vitamin supplements! In studies with animals, those that were fed high-ORAC foods had lower biological ages as measured by memory, balance, and capillary strength. It is recommended that one eat foods containing at least 3,000 ORAC units a day, which is not difficult, since 1/2 cup of blueberries contain 2,400 units. So mix it up and eat the ones you like, and just a few prunes or raisins every day combined with some of the other high ORAC foods and you are easily over 3,000. And as noted in the table below, four fruits are at the top of the list.

FOOD	ORAC Score
Prunes	5,770
Raisins	2,830
Blueberries	2,400
Blackberries	2,036
Kale	1,770
Strawberries	1,540
Spinach	1,260
Raspberries	1,220
Brussels Sprouts	980
Plums	949
Alfalfa Sprouts	930
Broccoli Florets	890
Beets	840
Oranges	750
Red Bell Peppers	710
Red Grapes	739
Cherries	670

Caltech and MIT Propose Measures to Ensure Accuracy, Accessibility in Presidential Election

by Jill Perry Caltech Media Relations & Patti Richards MIT News Office

PASADENA, Calif.-- Experts in voting technology from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that four relatively simple and inexpensive steps can be taken to ensure that voting procedures in this fall's presidential election are as accurate and reliable as possible.

The recommendations are included in a new report prepared by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project for the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent bipartisan agency that serves as a national clearinghouse for information on the administration of federal elections. The report also includes several steps that the group believes are necessary for avoiding lost votes in November.

"Between four and six million voters were disenfranchised in the 2000 election," said Mike Alvarez, a professor of political science at Caltech. "Although some progress has been made these past four years, we are still concerned that millions of votes could be lost in November--particularly if the popular vote is close."

Ted Selker, associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT, says, "Procedural improvements can still be made this year to ensure that we have only a fraction of the errors that we had in 2000."

Recommendations from the Caltech/MIT team include:

- Collect the information that would be needed to audit the 2004 election. This is essential. Currently, 11 states do not report total ballots cast, making it nearly impossible to track the performance of equipment and election procedures in these states. The EAC should require a report of total ballots cast and votes cast for each federal office from each election jurisdiction. These reports should also include the number of registered voters and absentee ballots cast. The secretaries of state should include these figures in their statement of certified votes.

- Fix common ballot problems. This includes some very basic design issues that were problematic in the last election. For example, the EAC should recommend that all jurisdictions using optical scanning use the term "Someone Else (write name)" instead of the term "Write In." If the ballot has a back side, the front side of the ballot should clearly state so in large, plain letters.

- Produce provisional voting guidelines. Many people went to the wrong precinct in 2000, and were unable to vote. New provisional voting guidelines need to be developed by mid-August that give uniform procedures for allowing provisional ballots to be used when a person's registration is in question.

- Develop common complaint procedures and election monitoring processes. The EAC needs to establish a procedure for managing complaints, and should be prepared to serve as an ombudsman to receive, investigate, and follow up on complaints.

The Caltech/MIT report also makes other recommendations that insure that every step in the voting process is checked and improved upon in multiple ways. Among these is the requirement that each stage of the election process have more than one person involved in all matters that can affect voting including equipment purchasing, ballot storage, and setting up polling places.

The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project was established shortly after the controversial 2000 presidential election. The goal of the partnership is to prevent disputed elections in the future by examining potential problems in the voting process and introducing technological improvements for voting procedures.

A copy of the report can be found at http://www.vote.caltech.edu/.

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Media contact: Jill Perry Caltech Media Relations (626) 395-3631 jperry@caltech.edu

Patti Richards MIT News Office (617) 253-8923 prichards@MIT.EDU

“Mensa Brain Bafflers” – by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell

“Mensa Brain Bafflers,” by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell; Barnes & Noble Books; 2004; ISBN 0-7607-5481-0

[p.241] Equation – Correct the following equation by freely moving the given four digits but without adding any mathematical symbols. 26 = 47

[p.261] One Hundred – There are 11 ways of expressing the number 100 as a number and fraction using the nine digits once each only. For example,

How many of the other 10 ways can you find? Nine of the ways involve the use of a number above 80 (as shown in the example above, which uses the number 91): one way involves the use of a number less than 10.

Caltech Nobel Laureate Ed Lewis Dies

by Jill Perry Caltech Media Relations

PASADENA--Edward Lewis, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking studies of how genes regulate the development of specific regions of the body, died Wednesday, July 21, 2004, at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena after a long battle with cancer. He was 86.

A member of the California Institute of Technology faculty since 1946, Lewis spent his life working on the genetics of the fruit fly, with special attention to the fundamental ways in which the genes relate to embryonic development. The work had profound implications for a basic understanding of the genetic regulation of development in humans. At the time of his death he was the Morgan Professor of Biology, Emeritus, and until very recently maintained an active schedule in his campus laboratory.

In a book published on Lewis earlier this year, author and longtime collaborator Howard Lipshitz wrote that Lewis's scientific research was "the bridge linking experimental genetics as conducted in the first half of the 20th century, and the powerful molecular genetic approaches that revolutionized the field in its last quarter." Lipshitz also lauded Lewis's much less widely known work on the understanding of radiation and cancer, and the closely related issues concerning nuclear-weapons testing policy.

Born May 20, 1918, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Lewis as an adolescent became interested in the genetics of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which was already being touted as an excellent animal for research by Caltech's Thomas Hunt Morgan. Lewis performed genetics experiments on Drosophila while just a freshman in high school, and after taking a bachelor's degree in 1939 at the University of Minnesota, came to Caltech for a doctorate and remained at the Institute for the rest of his life, save for four years in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, when he worked as a meteorologist.

Lewis published several research papers while still a college student, and soon after the war was a recognized expert in the field of fly genetics. Returning to Caltech in 1946 as an instructor, he was named an assistant professor in 1948, earned tenure the following year, and became a professor of biology in 1956. He was named the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology in 1966 and retained the chair until his retirement from active faculty duties in 1988.

In a campus article appearing in 1957, Lewis described his success in causing the flies to mutate with four wings (they normally have two). "We now have a working model for picturing the genetic control of development," he said. His prognostication was indeed correct, and nearly four decades later the Nobel Committee, in awarding Lewis the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, cited his triumph in identifying and classifying "a small number of genes that are of key importance in determining the body plan and the formation of body segments." The Nobel Committee also lauded Lewis for his discovery of "how genes were arranged in the same order on the chromosomes as the body segments they controlled."

In the same article, Lewis discussed his good fortune in becoming an active geneticist at a revolutionary time in biology. After the war, the gene was still treated as an abstract entity because the techniques needed to ascertain its molecular nature were yet to be developed, he explained. "You could begin to try to see how a gene is constructed, even though DNA hadn't yet been determined to be the hereditary material. The laws of genetics had never depended upon knowing what the genes were chemically and would hold true even if they were made of green cheese."

Although the modern techniques of molecular biology were yet to be invented, Lewis was never reticent about using novel methods to better understand the genetics of the fly. He created his four-winged mutants by bombarding the flies with x-rays, thereby playing a key role in discovering and explaining the role of homeotic genes--that is, genes that influence how the undifferentiated cells in a fertilized embryo separate into a head and a tail end, and how the eyes, legs, antennae, and other organs all form in their correct positions. These genes are "highly conserved," as geneticists say, because the genes are similar in all organisms and play a role in the development of all animals, from fruit flies to mice to humans.

"Ed was the bridge between the pioneers of Drosophila work--Morgan, Bridges, and Sturtevant--to modern developmental biology," said David Baltimore, president of Caltech and also a Nobel Prize-winning biologist. "Ed saw that even a lowly fruit fly could be a key to understanding the mysterious process of how a fertilized egg turns into a fully developed organism."

Lewis became a legend on the Caltech campus, and when he returned home after his 1995 Nobel Prize was announced--he had been attending a scientific conference in Switzerland at the time--was celebrated for his 60 years of dedication to his work and his classical approach to individual research in an era when "big science" increasingly became the more prominent model.

Lewis is survived by his wife of 57 years, Pam Lewis; and two sons, Keith Lewis of Redwood City, California, and Hugh Lewis of Bellingham, Washington.

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Contact: Robert Tindol (626) 395-3631 tindol@caltech.edu

Yale, Caltech, and MIT

by Editor

Among the top U.S. colleges in law, science and engineering are Yale Law School, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and MIT, respectively.

Our avid readers have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or know of children outside their “family tree” who may be college-bound and will be pursuing education in law, science or engineering. As such, if one had opportunity, funding, and credentials, they’d likely consider these world-famous Mecca’s of academia.

Looking through the Barron’s “Profiles of American Colleges,” 2005 edition, ISBN 0-7641-2308-4, USD $26.95 book, we learn a few statistics summarized in Table 1 below. Caltech has consistently led the country’s top schools as having the highest SAT test scores by incoming freshman – for the technical disciplines. And Yale Law School has consistently led the “pack” in these scores – for law.

Table 1 – SAT SCORES for 2003/2004 APPLICANTS ACCEPTED
	SAT-1 Scores (‘best’ = 800)		ADMISSIONS
SCHOOL	VERBAL	MATH	STATISTICS
Yale [1]	3% [500,599] 23% [600,700] 74% > 700 median: 750	1% [500,599] 24% [600,700] 74% > 700 median: 750	17,735 applied 2,014 accepted 1,353 enrolled 11% accepted
Caltech [2]	1% < 500 5% [500,599] 17% [600,700] 77% > 700 median: 740	4% [600,700] 96%> 700 median: 790	3,072 applied 520 accepted 189 enrolled 17% accepted
MIT [3]	1% < 500 4% [500,599] 32% [600,700] 63% > 700 median: 710	11% [600,700] 89%> 700 median: 770	10,549 applied 1,735 accepted 1,019 enrolled 16% accepted

[1] Barron’s book for Yale MATH did not ‘total’ 100% (1 + 24 + 74)

[2] Caltech – 53 freshman were National Merit finalists; 85 graduated first in their class (45%)

[3] MIT – 241 freshman graduated first in their class (24%)

Martha Stewart – The “Ripple Effect”

by Editor

On December 26, 2001, ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal learned the FDA was going to decline to review his company’s drug application for Erbitux, told his daughter to sell her stock and tried to sell his own. Prosecutors contended Martha Stewart sold her ImClone shares after she was tipped about Waksal’s actions, which began a series of events leading to her being sentenced to five months in prison.

The Martha Stewart time-chart per the local Nashua, NH newspaper, The Telegraph, for Saturday, 7/17/04; pp.15 & 17, summarized the events spanning 2.5 years.

DATE	EVENT
12/27/01	Martha sold all her 3,928 shares of ImClone
12/28/01	FDA made decision public
12/31/01	the first trading day after the news, ImClone dropped 18 percent
1/7/02	Martha’s broker, Peter Bacanovic, tells SEC he and Stewart agreed to sell ImClone if it fell to $60
2/4/02	Martha tells SEC and FBI she had agreement with Bacanovic to sell stock if price fell to $60 per share
6/12/02	Waksal arrested and charged with insider trading
10/2/02	Former Merrill Lynch employee pleaded guilty to taking payoff to keep quiet about Stewart stock trade
10/15/02	Waksal pleaded guilty to six counts
6/10/03	Waksal is sentenced to more than seven years in prison
1/27/04	Prosecutor claimed Stewart sold stock based on “secret tip,” then lied to cover it up
2/10/04	Martha’s assistant testified Stewart altered message log on day she sold stock
2/27/04	Judge throws out securities fraud count against Stewart
3/5/04	Martha convicted on all charges; Bacanovic convicted on all but one charge
3/15/04	Martha resigned from board of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
5/18/04	Producers of “Martha Stewart Living” say TV show will be suspended after current season
6/9/04	Federal grand jury indicted Larry F. Stewart, an ink expert, prosecutors say lied on the witness stand at Stewart’s trial
7/8/04	Judge refuses to grant Stewart and Bacanovic a new trial
7/16/04	Martha and Bacanovic both sentenced to five months in prison, then five months home confinement

And so goes life. We each very likely have experienced, or know someone who has, the ripple effect of a “white lie” or an all-out lie told. Maybe during childhood we had a quarrel with a sibling or friend or neighbor – and when someone in authority (like our parent) confronted us, we shifted the blame to the other person – or attempted to defend our actions – knowing very well we were wrong.

From time to time, human nature can lose its sense of concern about the impacts a lie can have.

We get “sloppy.” Anyone who drives a car can attest to times where they went even one-mile-per-hour over the speed limit, but weren’t caught because there wasn’t law enforcement in the area at the time. Or we took a small cookie out of the cookie jar when we were a child, and because it was such a big cookie jar, mom didn’t appear to notice the missing cookie. Or we fail to work precisely the full 8-hour day at work – and we leave work 30 seconds early. Each of these may appear minor – almost miniscule to be concerned about. Yet, in God’s eyes, we violated one of the Ten Commandments. We may feel God wouldn’t be too offended by these minor events, and thus our fellow man definitely wouldn’t.

We usually develop a line-of-reasoning where we begin to “rationalize away” our actions. We may compare our actions to other people around us and feel, relatively speaking, we’re “better” persons. We may feel we “deserve” to get away with certain actions once in a while. When we are physically wiped out, or financially strapped for funds, or at an emotional low in our lives, we take actions like the “white lie” or “small lie” or even a more “outright blatant lie” because – in a sense we’re desperate – we are reaching out for help – and it’s not there when we need it! The lie acts as our “security blanket.”

If one were to look at Martha Stewart’s countenance in mid-2001 and compare it to her countenance today – three years later – you’d immediately detect a different person. Martha Stewart, and the world around her, will never be the same from the single act she committed on 12/27/01! The “ripple effect” began the moment she mentally entertained the temptation in her mind.

The mind is the rudder of our actions. The mind (our will) can squash evil thinking immediately – or it can allow evil thoughts to ‘brew.’ If we squash the evil thought(s), then the adage we read under the 40-quote article earlier becomes solidified.

“Happy is the man who renounces everything that puts a strain on his conscience.”

If we “play with,” or “entertain” the evil thought – we’re immediately straddling a fence: on one side peace of mind and security; on the other side a guilty conscience, paranoia and a sequence of possible undesired events.

The conscience is like an alarm clock. If we faithfully develop the habit of getting out of bed immediately when the alarm clock rings, we heed to the wooing of the clock – we get to where we’re headed that day on time. If we begin to gradually ignore the alarm clock, we gradually become desensitized to its ring. We reach a point where the effectiveness of the alarm clock is nullified. The secret is to heed to our conscience – execute its “woo” to uphold the Ten Commandments immediately – thus squashing any erroneous path. As we get “sloppy” in one area of our lives, it becomes easier to get sloppy in others. The “war” is a “spiritual” battle for the mind. And surely there are situations (as mentioned earlier – being in a physical and/or emotionally weakened state) that allow our mental fortification to weaken. As frail human beings, it’s not easy. I contend to say it’s impossible without the aid of Divine support. I think every reader can not only sympathize with Martha Stewart, but empathize as well. If we were to list all the “good” things she has ever done for mankind, vs. the “bad” things, I think her “report card” would be an A minus – but only God can “read” the heart – and only God will ever really know while we’re feeble mortal beings.

I close this article with excerpts from a recently purchased “special” at the book store titled “Speaker’s Library of Business Stories, Anecdotes, and Humor,” by Joe Griffith; by Barnes & Noble Books; 1990; ISBN 0-7607-1956-X; pages 152-153.

“He is most cheated who cheats himself.” Leonard Drozd

“In business today, it’s not the thief who can destroy a company. It’s the honest man who doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing.” Don Epstein

Honesty is a constant battle.

“The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.” Albert Einstein

“Honesty is the single most important factor having a direct bearing on the final success of an individual, corporation, or product.” Ed McMahon

William F. James, founder of Boys Town, Missouri, said that there are only three things necessary to success: first, normal intelligence; second, determination; and third, absolute honesty. One cannot be a little dishonest – it’s all the way or nothing.

Honesty is not always easy.

“The line of least resistance makes crooked rivers and crooked men.” Bob Murphey, humorist

“Ask any woman her age, and nine times out of ten she’ll guess wrong.” Bob Murphey, humorist

“Not only can a man be honest and grow rich, but it is almost impossible for a man to grow rich unless he is honest.” J. J. Corn

We learn honesty early on.

A schoolteacher asked a little girl where her father worked. She replied, “I don’t know. But I guess he makes rolls of toilet paper and light bulbs because that’s what he brings home in his lunch box.”

Being honest pays in the long run.

A cigar smoker bought several hundred expensive stogies and then had them insured against fire. After he’d smoked them all, he filed a claim, pointing out that the cigars had been destroyed by fire.

The company refused to pay, and the man sued. A judge ruled because the insurance company had agreed to insure the cigars against fire, it was legally responsible. So the company paid the claim. And when the man accepted the money, the company had him arrested for arson.

Honesty pays in the long run.

John J. Creedon of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company offered this story about how honesty pays:

“A salesman of ours in Pennsylvania was referred to a small businessman as a prospect. It turned out the man already had a policy. He showed it to our salesman who read it and told him it was well-written, and he shouldn’t change a thing. The businessman was flabbergasted, and very impressed. Our man didn’t try to sell what he didn’t need. He referred the salesman to his brother, who bought a $250,000 policy.”

Generally, after an incident where we told a lie, and the repercussions occur, we look back and shake our heads – as if to say – “Was it worth it?,” “Was it worth the accident, the sadness, the death, the sad act of stubbornness against our conscience’ woo?” And generally, we wish we could undo the event, be honest, accept the consequences, and have a clear conscience.

Aphorism

by Richard May – Mega Society Member

“The possibility of one's existence is too private to share with oneself.”

“Mensa Brain Bafflers” – by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell

“Mensa Brain Bafflers,” by Philip J. Carter & Ken A. Russell; Barnes & Noble Books; 2004; ISBN 0-7607-5481-0

[p.217] Letter Change – Change one letter from each word in every group to make, in each case, a well-known phrase. For example, Pet rice quack will become Get rich quick.

1. Bust she joy

2. Run any dames

3. Is lull dry

4. So life I dread

5. Rub sings abound

6.

Editor: Some of David’s cases to the left were missing letters (length) – in comparison to the “answers” he gave – found later in this issue of Noesis. I tried to align the 20 cases given here – with the answers.

Toots any sail

7. Slow hit end cord

8. Plan in works

9. Hike any seem

10. Plan wits fine

11. Tame if mood tart

12. Burm o dead jar

13. Same toe say

14. Odd gives take

15. Wish oven army

16. On she ran

17. Put an older

18. Life end lot five

19. Let I love in

20. And odd cow

On the Light Side – Puzzles

by Editor

(1) Two girls, Jane and Alice, are running on an escalator. Jane is running three times as fast as Alice, and by the time they are off the escalator, Jane has stepped on 75 stairs while Alice has stepped on 50 stairs. How many stairs does the escalator have? How is its speed related to the speed of the girls? Were the girls running with, or against, the escalator?

(2) N trucks, each having a different speed, are going along a 1-lane highway, so no passing is possible. Eventually, the trucks will accumulate in groups, with the “fast” trucks tailgating the “slow” trucks. For example, if the initial order was 1,5,2,4,3 (1 being the slowest, 5 being the fastest), we will end up with 3 groups: {1}, {5,2}, and {4,3}. Determine the average number of groups as a function of N.

(3) A famous NSA mathematician/codebreaker is locked in a dungeon, while the KGB interrogation team goes to get firewood. When the KGB team returns in 15 minutes, they will torture and kill the mathematician. The lock on the dungeon is highly-advanced. It has 4 oriented (top/bottom) spikes in a drum, arranged in a square and invisible. The mathematician can put his two hands into the drum, feel 2 of the spikes (adjacent or diagonal), determine their orientation, and change it if he wishes. If all 4 spikes end up the same direction (up or down), the lock opens and the codebreaker can escape. If not, the drum rotates quickly for 1 minute (so that the mathematician does not know which spikes he touched), then stops, and he can try again. Can the famous NSA codebreaker escape? If possible, how?

New Websites for TOPS & OATHS

by Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin

Dr. Ron Hoeflin informed me by Pony Express recently that two of the hi-IQ societies he founded now have websites: TOPS (Top One-Percent Society) and OATHS (One-in-A-Thousand Society). The second URL in each “box” below opens to a glossy, all-color, city skyline photo. Pretty impressive! Take a look. Dr. Hoeflin is half-way through developing material for his second volume (360 pages completed, 340 pages to go). I imagine his fingers need a rest!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TOPSociety/

http://www.toponesociety.com/pages/1/index.htm

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OATHSociety/

http://www.oathsociety.com/pages/1/index.htm

Good Genes Count, but not only Factor in High IQ
by Sharon Begley – The Wall Street Journal

For a trait so highly heritable, intelligence has been awfully reluctant to give up its genes.

There is wide agreement that cognitive ability at least partly reflects the influence of DNA: Dozens of studies of thousands of twins have shown identical twins, who share the same genes, tend to have more-similar IQs than do other sibling pairs, and children match the IQ of their biological more than their adoptive parents.

Together, these studies imply genes account for about 50 percent of the difference in intelligence from one person to the next. That's a high enough "heritability" that you'd think genome labs would be practically spitting out genes related to intelligence.

But they're not. And therein may lie an important clue to the biology of what Robert Plomin, a professor of behavioral genetics at King's College London, calls "the most complex -- and most controversial -- of all complex traits."

Intelligence has many meanings, but what scientists call general cognitive ability seems to reflect memory skills, verbal and spatial abilities, and abstract reasoning. Usually, if you're good at one, you're good at the others. Although that correlation may reflect not "brain quality" alone but something nonphysiological, such as differences in motivation, it has inspired a search for genes that make better brains.

Prof. Plomin and his colleagues were the first to identify a suspect. In 1998, they reported that one form of a gene called insulin-like growth factor-2 receptor was present in 32 percent of children with high IQs, but in 16 percent of kids with average IQs. It was also especially frequent in people with exceptional math or verbal talents. Experiments in other labs had shown the gene is active in regions of the brain devoted to learning and memory. But when the King's team tried to replicate its finding, it failed: The "smart" gene showed up in 19 percent of high-IQ children ... and 24 percent of those with average IQ.

That didn't deter biologists. Since 2000, teams have identified at least four more genes associated with intelligence. Two studies fingered genes for an enzyme called catechol O-methyltransferase. Others identified cathepsin D, CHRM2, or cystathionine beta-synthase as having variants that are more common in people with high IQs.

As with all such studies, you have to watch out for a chopsticks effect. Just because a genetic variant shows up more often in people adept at using chopsticks doesn't mean it causes manual dexterity: It may simply be more prevalent in Asian populations. Similarly, purported IQ genes may cluster, by chance, in groups whose culture values education, yet not actually make a brain smarter. There's another problem. Neuroscientists can't find any fundamental brain processes that distinguish Einstein from the rest of us -- not speed of neuronal transmission, not the ability to form synapses, not the quantity and quality of neurons, Prof. Plomin says. That makes it less likely that genes for those basic characteristics (even if scientists find them) have a significant effect on intelligence.

Even if the newly suspect intelligence genes hold up, they will surely turn out to be only the tip of a huge iceberg. It looks more and more as if intelligence reflects the complex interaction of scores of genes with each other and the environment. No one gene makes more than a tiny difference. Different forms of CHRM2, for instance, account for a spread of only three or four IQ points, while CTSD may account for perhaps 3 percent of the variation between people.

The heritability of intelligence may, paradoxically, reflect the importance of environment. If Susie is born with a slightly better brain than Mary, she will like school, receive more praise from her teachers, haunt the library, take more demanding courses. In short, she will bootstrap her way to greater intelligence.

That explains why the measure of heritability of intelligence rises with age, from 40 percent in childhood to 60 percent in adulthood. It isn't that genes grow stronger. Instead, says James R. Flynn of the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, a slight genetic edge at birth snowballs by nudging people to choose intelligence-enhancing experiences. The result is "a potent multiplier," he says in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Prof. Flynn discovered that IQ soared in recent decades. Since 1950, scores on one IQ subtest have risen 18 points per generation in the Netherlands, Belgium, Israel and Argentina; between 1948 and 1989, Americans gained the equivalent of 20 IQ points. The genes we have don't change fast enough to explain this "Flynn effect" -- but which genes are turned on might. Perhaps growing up with enough leisure time to play chess and even videogames, or living in smaller and more affluent families that can indulge children's intellectual curiosity, turns up the activity of genes related to intelligence. For that reason, says Prof. Plomin, the Holy Grail in this field is identifying what experiences turn on genes that influence intelligence.

Even before that happens, it's already clear that, with so many genes involved in IQ, genetic engineering for it isn't in the cards. If we care about intelligence, we must seek ways to nurture it not in the genes we pass on to our kids, but in the world we make for them.

Solutions

On the Light Side (Editor)

A1 – The length of the stairs is 100. The girls were running along the escalator which was moving with the same speed as the slow girl. In the time the first girl stepped on 75 stairs, the slow one could step on only 25, so, since she stepped on 50, she spent twice as much time on the escalator as the fast girl. Therefore, her speed relative to the ground, was half that of the fast girl, and thus the escalator’s speed was the same as the slow girl, and she counted exactly half the stairs.

A2 – For N=1, the answer is 1. When we add one truck which is faster than anything we had before, there is one-in-N chance that it will be in front of the rest, and this is the only way the number of packets can be increased. Thus, M_N = M_N-1 + 1 /N where M_N is the Nth mean. Therefore, M_N = 1 + ½ + 1/3 + . . . . 1/N (which is approximately ln(N)).

A3 – Yes, the codebreaker will have an 11-minute lead. Here’s a procedure:

1. Turn up two diagonal spikes

2. Turn up two adjacent spikes. Now he is either free or he has 3 ‘up’ spikes and 1 ‘down’ spike

3. Grab two diagonal spikes. If they are opposite, turn the ‘down’ one ‘up’ and he is free; otherwise reverse one of them – now two adjacent are ‘up’ and two are ‘down.’

4. Grab two adjacent spikes. If they are co-oriented, reverse both of them and he is free; otherwise reverse both of them anyway – now two diagonal spikes are ‘up’ and two diagonal spikes are ‘down.’

5. Reverse two diagonal spikes – he is free now!

Number Crunchers (David J. Bodycombe)

A1 – If Jack is up seven pebbles, that means he’s won seven times more than he’s lost. He lost seven times, since Jill won seven times. Hence, Jack won 7 + 7 = 14 times. Games played = Jack’s wins + Jill’s wins = 21.

A10 – In general terms, a² - b² = a² - ab + ab - b² = (a - b) x (a + b). So we can now write the equation much simpler: (34 x 100) / (2 x 100) = 34 / 2 = 17.

A25 – From midnight (or noon), the number of minutes that have passed must be a multiple of twelve because that is the only time that the hour hand points to one of the ‘ticks’ exactly.

A55 – Let the average = A. Then, A = Total cost divided by total number of diners = (7 x 12 + (A + 3.5)) / 8. 7A = 87.5, so A = ₤12.50. Therefore, Dawn’s meal cost ₤16.

A60 – If his second round is ten shots better than +3, he will be -7 for that round. The cumulative score for both rounds is therefore -7 and + 3 which is -4 overall. So, four under par is the answer.

A68 – Note that the left hand side is equal to 120. This is the same as 5x4x3x2x1 which is 5 factorial, written as 5! So, move the full stop underneath the final 1: (11 + 1) x (11 – 1) = 5!

A81 – 4 ½ bars (1 ½ of each variety).

A99 - It is not difficult to deduce that it must be a two-digit number, which we can write as 10a + b, where a is the tens value and b is the units value. 10a + b = 3(a + b), hence 7a = 2b. The only possibility is a=2, b=7 so the answer is 27.

A100 – Let Deborah’s two-digit age be 10a + b. Currently, 10b + a = 2(10a + b) – 1, which simplifies to 19a = 8b + 1. Since a and b are digits, the only possible solution is a=3, b=7. Hence Deborah is 37 and grandfather is 73, going on 74.

Mensa Brain Bafflers (Philip J. Carter and Ken A. Russell)

A92 – There were only three beneficiaries – son, father, and grandfather.

A93 – The other numbers on dice 1 are 0, 6, and 8; on dice 2 they are 0, 1, and 2. The 6 serves also as a 9.

A126 – 14.7 times (the sum of 1 + 6/5 + 6/4 + 6/3 + 6/2 + 6/1).

A164 – It contains the numbers 1 to 9 in alphabetical order.

A189 – Paint possible ways Red/Blue Faces of painting

12	0	2
11	1	2
10	2	6
9	3	10
8	4	24
7	5	28
6	6	24
96

A217

[p.217] Letter Change – Change one letter from each word in every group to make, in each case, a well-known phrase. For example, Pet rice quack will become Get rich quick.

1. Bust she joy Û Just the job

2. Run any dames Û Fun and games

3. Is lull dry Û In full cry

4. So life I dread Û Go like a dream

5. Rub sings abound Û Run rings around

6. Toots any sail Û Tooth and nail

7. Slow hit end cord Û Blow hot and cold

8. Plan in works Û Play on words

9. Hike any seem Û Hide and seek

10. Plan wits fine Û Play with fire

11. Tame if mood tart Û Take in good part

12. Burm o dead jar Û Turn a deaf ear

13. Same toe say Û Name the day

14. Odd gives take Û Old wives tale

15. Wish oven army Û With open arms

16. On she ran Û In the raw

17. Put an older Û Out of order

18. Life end lot five Û Live and let live

19. Let I love in Û Get a move on

20. And odd cow Û Any old cow

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

CENTRAL SECURITY SERVICE

FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND 20755-6000

NSA Media Advisory
7 April 2004
For further information, contact:
NSA Public and Media Affairs,
301-688-6524

National Security Agency
To Hire 1,500 People by September 2004

The National Security Agency intends to hire approximately 1,500 people by September 2004 in an effort to meet the increasing needs of the ever-changing Intelligence Community. Under the direction of the newly appointed chief of Human Resources, Mr. John Taflan, the Agency is looking to increase the number of new hires by 1,500 per year for the next five years, which would be an unprecedented event for NSA.

Mr. Taflan and his team are looking for people who are experienced in foreign language, especially in Arabic and Chinese; intelligence analysis; signals analysis; the technical fields (mathematics, computer science, engineering and physical sciences); and acquisition. Non-technical jobs are also available, and job seekers are encouraged to submit their resumes on our web site at www.nsa.gov. This is the largest recruiting effort since the 1980s, and NSA is averaging about three new employees a day with an increase to four to six a day in the summer months.

The National Security Agency offers outstanding opportunities to its employees including work affecting national security and working with the latest technology. Additional benefits include flexible schedules, travel possibilities, federal benefits, educational opportunities, and the chance to work with a diverse group of people.

Mr. Taflan is available for interview by contacting the Public and Media Affairs Office at 301-688-6524 or by emailing nsapao@nsa.gov.

America's Codemakers and Codebreakers

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[1] “The CIA and the War on Terrorism,” Thomas Patrick Carroll, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 9 (September 2002).

[2] Duckworth, Barbara A. "The Defense HUMINT Service: Preparing for the 21^st Century." Defense Intelligence Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 1997).

[3] Carroll ,"The CIA and the War on Terrorism."

[4] U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "IC21: Intelligence Community in the 21^st Century." Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996.

[5] “Biological and Chemical Weapons (BCW),” Hoover Institution Conference, Question and Answer Session, November 16, 1998.

[6] Corn, David. "Did We Handcuff the CIA?" http://slate.msn.com (September 18, 2001).

[7] Zycher, Benjamin, Public Research Institute for Public Policy (September 13, 2001).