URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT

1028 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 2, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

The Color of Rebellion, Once Upon a Time
BYLINE: By JENNIFER BLEYER
SECTION: Section CY; Column 0; The City Weekly Desk; URBAN STUDIES DYEING; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 437 words
PARENTS bristling over their teenagers' orange Mohawks might direct their anger at two women in Long Island City, Queens, if only the women weren't so sweet and earnest about peddling rainbow-colored hair dye.

Tish and Snooky Bellomo, sisters who grew up in the Kingsbridge area of the Bronx, are the founders of Manic Panic, a wholesale beauty supply company best known for producing four-ounce tubs of hair dye in colors like Ultra Violet, Electric Lizard and Cotton Candy Pink.

When they started their business 30 years ago in a storefront on St. Marks Place in the East Village, magenta hair was considered cutting-edge. These days strands of magenta hardly raise even an unpierced eyebrow. Yet Manic Panic has survived, and over the years it has quietly assumed the mantle as the go-to place for socially acceptable punk-style hair dyes.

The business, which they say generates $5 million in annual sales, has become what Tish jokingly calls ''the Coca-Cola of alternative hair colors.'' Its products have appeared in fashion shows for Anna Sui and Marc Jacobs and on celebrities like the British retro soul singer Joss Stone.

''We get e-mails from kids all the time saying it changed their lives, or even saved their lives,'' Snooky said. One note came from a girl who claimed to have been seriously depressed. ''Then she dyed her hair,'' Snooky said, ''and it boosted her self-esteem.''

As one of the 15 workers assembled ''Goth kits'' containing white face makeup, black lipstick and black nail polish, another placed Kiss of Death matte lipstick in a shipment for New Zealand, and two others packaged a large order of Hot Hot Pink hair dye destined for Canada.

The Bellomo sisters, who are in their 50s, were dressed this day entirely in black, with blazingly colored hair (a mixture of Vampire Red and Fuchsia Shock for Tish, and Infra Red with a little Wild Fire for Snooky). Seated among the silver hair gel and Voodoo Blue eye shadow in their showroom, they reminisced about the heyday of punk and the birth of Manic Panic.

''We had no idea how to run a business,'' Tish said of the decision to open a store. ''We just decided to have a punk rock store and sell what we liked.''

Noticing a new trend of bright hair color among British punks, they started importing hair dye from England. After their store closed in 1989. they developed their own hair dye formula and began having it manufactured in the United States.

And they are thrilled that weird hair has not died. ''I love that kids are still wearing Mohawks and coloring their hair,'' Snooky gushed like a proud mother. ''It's just great.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: HAIR CARE PRODUCTS (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (89%); WHOLESALERS (76%); COSMETICS & TOILETRIES COMPANIES (76%); RETAILERS (75%); POP & ROCK (73%); TRENDS (72%); COSMETICS & TOILETRIES WHOLESALERS (71%); FASHION & APPAREL (66%); FASHION SHOWS (71%)
COMPANY: COCA-COLA CO (55%)
TICKER: KO (NYSE) (55%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS312111 SOFT DRINK MANUFACTURING (55%); SIC2086 BOTTLED & CANNED SOFT DRINKS & CARBONATED WATER (55%)
PERSON: MARC JACOBS (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (90%) NEW YORK, USA (90%) UNITED STATES (90%); NEW ZEALAND (79%); UNITED KINGDOM (70%); ENGLAND (55%)
LOAD-DATE: March 2, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Tish Bellomo, left, with her sister, Snooky, godmothers of electric-looking locks.(PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN HANSEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1029 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 2, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

BYLINE: By RICHARD B. WOODWARD
SECTION: Section TR; Column 0; Travel Desk; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 410 words
''Eduard Spelterini: Photographs of a Pioneer Balloonist''

Edited by Thomas Kramer and Hilar Stadler

Scheidigger & Speiss, 148 pages, $85 hardcover

A century before privileged travelers were ferried through the air in the Concorde, Eduard Spelterini (1852-1931) was catering to the rich and adventurous by taking a lucky few, preferably European royals, up in the tipsy baskets of his gas balloons. These trips offered unprecedented views of the world below, everywhere from the Alps to the pyramids. From the available evidence, those who found passage on this earlier and slower mode of transport got more for their money than today's air travelers.

The King of the Skies, as the Swiss-born showman billed himself, was a canny entrepreneur whose well-publicized liftoffs were attended by thousands of paying spectators on the ground. And once the balloon reached its planned ascent of between 1,600 and 13,000 feet, he entertained his customers by popping the Champagne and singing one of the baritone arias from ''Carmen.''

Spelterini also produced, as this oversize book reveals, splendid aerial photographs. Many of the black-and-white panoramas reproduced here from his original glass-plate negatives -- images of Alpine glaciers and South African mining sites, of streets and buildings in Cairo, Zurich, Geneva and Copenhagen -- are technical as well as artistic marvels. Some pictures were shot from more than 15,000 feet. These photographs aided in promotion of his flights and of the tourist industry.

Alex Capus, one of three essayists in this book, harps on Spelterini's lowly origins. He was from peasant stock, son of an innkeeper, and born Schweizer -- family secrets he wanted hidden from his aristocratic clientele. This proved less important after history blindsided him, and his business was decimated by new technology. According to Mr. Capus, the aging balloonist ''considered the young rival, the motorized airplane, to be noisy, common, and entirely unworthy of a gentlemen.''

By reminding us of the many obstacles he overcame, the editors have performed a valuable service. Spelterini mastered his risky profession, steering these whimsical vehicles through all kinds of weather, without killing himself or others during more than 550 flights. By unearthing photographs that continue to excite our gaze, this book restores the forgotten aeronaut to his deserved place as a pioneer of luxurious travel across the heavens.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: BOOK REVIEWS (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (74%); MOUNTAINS (70%); GLACIERS & ICEBERGS (70%); SUICIDE (67%); TOURISM (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: ZURICH, SWITZERLAND (77%); GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (71%); CAIRO, EGYPT (57%) ALPS (79%) SWITZERLAND (77%); SOUTH AFRICA (71%); EGYPT (57%)
LOAD-DATE: March 2, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1030 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 2, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

As the Nation Crumbles
BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER J. DODD
SECTION: Section WK; Column 0; Editorial Desk; OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR; Pg. 13
LENGTH: 283 words
THE most pressing problems can sometimes be the dullest -- until they force their way into our attention in an instant.

On Aug. 1, the bridge carrying Interstate 35W over the Mississippi River buckled and broke. Thirteen people were killed. More than 100 were injured.

Afterward, we learned the frightening facts: 160,570 of our bridges are in just as dangerous a shape; a third of our roads are in poor or mediocre condition; some of our biggest cities depend on water and sewage systems over a century old.

With every bursting pipe, potholed road and derailed train, the conclusion became inescapable: America's backbone is decaying.

It wasn't always this way. Year by year and ton by ton -- from the great railroads to tens of thousands of miles of Interstate -- great American engineers built the foundations of our prosperity.

Why are we leaving so little for our future? Reliable infrastructure keeps economies growing and the entrepreneurial spirit vibrant.

Last summer, Senator Chuck Hagel and I proposed a National Infrastructure Bank. I hope it gets the attention it deserves on the campaign trail. It's encouraging that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both co-sponsors. John McCain should be, too.

The Infrastructure Bank would unite the public and private sectors to complete large-scale works. Funds would go to the most qualified projects, not those with the most political clout. Every $1 billion spent on highways and transit projects would create about 47,500 jobs.

This issue may never bring an audience to its feet, but it shouldn't have to.

On Jan. 21, the 44th president will face volumes of pressing challenges. Reinventing our infrastructure ought to be on Page 1.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES 2008 (90%); EDITORIALS & OPINIONS (90%); CIVIL ENGINEERING (78%); RAIL TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENTS (73%); CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (66%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (53%)
PERSON: CHUCK HAGEL (55%); JOHN MCCAIN (55%); BARACK OBAMA (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: MISSISSIPPI RIVER (92%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: March 2, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: DRAWING (DRAWING BY GREGORY NEMEC)
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Op-Ed
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1031 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 2, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Now Comes The Tough Part In Russia
BYLINE: By STEPHEN KOTKIN
SECTION: Section BU; Column 0; Money and Business/Financial Desk; OFF THE SHELF; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1971 words
DMITRI A. MEDVEDEV will be anointed president of Russia today thanks to the political handiwork of Vladimir V. Putin. But maybe the real winner is economic globalization.

From December 1999 to the end of 2007, a period overlapping the presidency of Mr. Putin, the value of Russia's stock market increased from $60 billion to more than $1 trillion. When John F. Welch Jr. ran General Electric, from 1981 to 2001, the value of the company's stock rose from around $14 billion to more than $400 billion.

Fortune magazine named Mr. Welch ''manager of the century'' in 1999. No one is suggesting that Fortune give Mr. Putin the same title -- except, perhaps, all those Russians who have consistently backed his strong-arm policies.

Most Russians do not love Mr. Putin per se, but they love Mr. Putin's Russia. They love being middle class. They love planning for the future. It is no comfort to the politically persecuted, but average wages in Russia are leaping 10 percent a year, in real terms.

The growing millions of Russian homeowners, vacationers and investors may seem inclined to authoritarianism or just apolitical. But they certainly value a strong ruble, moderate inflation, affordable mortgages, access to higher education, satellite television, Internet connections, passports, foreign visas and -- above all else -- no economic shocks.

If Mr. Medvedev, 42, a former legal counsel at a Russian pulp conglomerate, can continue all that, and occasionally make a show of standing up to the West, he'll be a hero, too. Still, a gigantic question mark hangs over this succession -- and not solely because Mr. Putin may stick around in an ambiguous capacity.

Russia stands at a crossroads bigger than the one it faced in 1998, when it drastically devalued the ruble and defaulted on its debt. That searing debacle turned out to be the prelude to a spectacular resurgence, built in part on newfound fiscal restraint and the boom in the price of oil and other natural resources. But it also was built on a relentless, China-driven rise in overall global demand that, with the cheaper ruble, helped indirectly call back from the dead Russia's vast unused capacity inherited from the Soviet era.

So after nearly 10 years of robust growth, the Kremlin faces a quandary. Expectations have been raised, and now many Russians, though wary of upsetting social stability, want not just high growth, but also a new modernization driven by innovation and broader entrepreneurialism. They want their whole country to reach a Western European standard of living -- a standard that, historically, very few countries outside the region have attained.

THAT Mr. Putin's Russia should be seen not as a failed democracy but as a triumphant market economy with a ''very rough, brutal, and cheerful capitalism'' is the argument of ''Getting Russia Right'' (Carnegie Endowment, $19.95), a short, handy book by Dmitri V. Trenin. (It is also the position argued publicly by this reviewer for more than a decade.)

''There is,'' adds Mr. Trenin, a Russian analyst in Moscow, ''a Russia beyond Putin's.'' True enough, though Mr. Trenin does not detail that Russia. Almost no one does. Russia's dynamism is spurred not only by greedy cronies at all levels operating in an unaccountable political system, but also by an explosion of consumers.

Mr. Trenin advises American policy makers to drop what he sees as their attempt to form a ''Democratic International,'' which he defines as a mirror image of the old Communist International, or Comintern, but which seeks to unite all the world's democracies. Instead, he advises banking on a new global capitalist club, which includes Kazakhstan and China as well as Russia.

How in the world did it happen that Russia, still a country grappling with problems like relatively low life expectancies and alcoholism, is also, for the first time in its history, a land of widespread property ownership and of consumers brimming with confidence and pride?

In ''Russia's Capitalist Revolution'' (Peterson Institute, $26.95), Anders Aslund, a Russia analyst (and a former colleague of Mr. Trenin's), argues that zero credit should go to Russia's most popular politician, Mr. Putin. On the contrary, Mr. Aslund, who is from Sweden and based in Washington, insists that Russia's economic breakthrough should be credited to Anatoly B. Chubais, who oversaw the government's privatization program in the 1990s, when the country lost about 40 percent of its gross domestic product.

It's a bold thesis.

But Mr. Aslund's beloved ''young reformers'' were in government only briefly -- by the way, he worked as their consultant -- and they seem to be all of three people, one of whom, Mr. Chubais, became an industrial oligarch.

Still, as in his earlier books on the same subject, whose idee fixe is the supposed superiority of hyperfast and hyperradical reform, whatever the circumstances, Mr. Aslund can claim two important achievements.

First, he again demonstrates that it was not the privatizations under Boris N. Yeltsin that set in motion Russia's egregious insider enrichment. Instead, he shows, it was a process begun under the Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and subsequently continued, to grant lobbyists preferential access to commodity export licenses at a time when there was a gap between world prices and very low regulated domestic prices -- allowing them to pocket a windfall.

This important corrective is then overshadowed by Mr. Aslund's repeated assertions that even half-baked privatization is still wonderful and that Russia's ''was close to ideal.''

Second, and more fundamentally, Mr. Aslund explodes the myth that Russia's economic growth is reducible to fossil fuel prices. (Ask Nigeria about the economic boom that is supposed to follow from a prolonged oil-price surge.)

Further, he suggests that the so-called oligarchs ''do not own that large a share of the economy'' (he identifies 30 groups accounting for one-quarter of the G.D.P.) and that they ''face severe market competition.'' No fan of Russia's state-owned companies, Mr. Aslund notes that they, too, ''are remarkably focused on their stock prices.''

Such realism about Russia's state-owned companies is refreshing, as are the reminders that a broad private sector continues to dominate Russia's gross domestic product.

Still, Mr. Aslund's grinding morality tale pitting the supposed forces of light (Russia's ''young reformers,'' as well as the jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky) against Mr. Putin, as the prince of darkness, cannot explain the extent or timing of Russia's boom. Huge factors that can explain it receive inadequate treatment. These include the global economy and the country's macroeconomic stability.

GLOBALIZATION continues to be the great opportunity for Russia. But it is an opportunity that doesn't allow for complacency.

Even if oil prices stay high, Mr. Medvedev, with or without Mr. Putin, does not have the luxury of kicking back into a bygone Soviet era when the oil-soaked elite gorged on the spoils as China still faced inward.

At home, the Kremlin may be sovereign and super-controlling, but that doesn't work globally. Even companies owned by the state are borrowing money abroad and issuing stock on international capital markets, becoming subject to investors and regulators outside Russia. And then there are those really treacherous phenomena, like credit default swap derivatives.

Book after book piles up about Mr. Putin, the Kremlin and the oligarchs, but a definitive book about Russia and globalization awaits an author. It has been more than two years since Jonathan P. Stern published his ponderous but indispensable work ''The Future of Russian Gas and Gazprom'' (Oxford, $125), which shows that Russia's gas monster is compelled to take global market considerations into account.

When it comes to China and globalization, new books shoot out the assembly line like those bon-bons in the ''I Love Lucy'' episode; workers can't box them fast enough. Though Mr. Putin and Russian elites, no less than their Chinese counterparts, grasp the power of market barometers and fiscal discipline, it is China that American analysts typically offer as an example of world-transforming economic success. Russia is portrayed almost exclusively as an authoritarian menace.

So here's a trick: A first step toward understanding Russia would be to read the press and academic accounts on China -- and then substitute the word ''Russia'' for ''China.'' (This works in reverse as well.)

China, which unlike Russia remains under Communist Party monopoly, is certainly no less an authoritarian challenge than Russia is. And, like it or not, Russia, too, is something of a world-transforming economic success.

Expect Kremlin foreign policy to become even more focused on easing the acquisition of prime assets abroad, whether for Russia's private companies or its state-owned ones. The Russian government itself, which accumulated more than $150 billion in a stabilization fund, will be getting into the game with the newly created Reserve Fund and National Prosperity Fund.

Did advocates for free trade and global integration foresee that states would end up controlling so much global wealth, especially states ruled by strongmen and sheiks? Sovereign wealth funds, the highest stage of capitalism, as Lenin might have said.

Mr. Aslund asserts that ''Russia is simply too wealthy, educated, open and economically pluralist to be so authoritarian.'' He refers vaguely to a possible new revolution. Mr. Trenin hopes that Russian oligarchs will want to permanently institutionalize their property rights, so that ''the greed of the powerful few could eventually pave the way for the rule of law.'' Fat-cat chance.

Today's awkward two-leader situation in Russia is not without precedent: think back 40 years to the era of Leonid I. Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Communist Party, and Aleksei N. Kosygin, the prime minister. But that tandem failed to adapt to a changing world. By contrast, the historic reputation of their Chinese contemporary, Deng Xiaoping, who achieved market transformation and global integration under centralized authoritarian rule, is likely to endure.

Mr. Putin, using a similar centralizing, marketizing, globalizing playbook, has helped put Russia in a position to win big. But if Mr. Medvedev -- with or without Mr. Putin's guidance -- fails to capitalize by taking the difficult next reform steps, the two Russian presidents will fade from history.

Mr. Medvedev's first presidential term, just like Mr. Putin's, will furnish a window for important, long-stalled reform measures to sustain Russia's rise. He'll need to cut some taxes and red tape and shore up the legal system. Someone will also have to ride herd over Russia's warring business clans, which are trying to devour one another and everything else in their paths. (Mr. Medvedev's mushrooming entourage has even been eyeing choice properties coveted by Mr. Putin's people.)

A bit of economic liberalization, and some brazen asset redistribution or consolidation: that's Putinism, and a picture of continuity.

But if Russia is to make the transition to a more innovative, entrepreneurial economy, as Mr. Medvedev has stated, it must make other farsighted, complex investments in Russia's human capital: education, health care, better conditions for private enterprise. It also requires a promised $1 trillion in new infrastructure investments -- something that could lead to colossal waste and that even a well-governed country would be hard-pressed to get right.

What Mr. Medvedev's Russia needs above all, but what Russia has never had, is the one thing that distinguishes all the most highly productive and innovation-driven countries: good governance.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: ECONOMIC NEWS (78%); GLOBALIZATION (78%); HOMEOWNERS (77%); MORTGAGE BANKING & FINANCE (77%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (76%); CURRENCIES (71%); DEVALUATION (66%); INTERNET & WWW (65%); WAGES & SALARIES (52%); SATELLITE TELEVISION (51%); COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES (51%); LAWYERS (50%); MIDDLE INCOME PERSONS (73%)

Download 3.51 Mb.

Share with your friends: