Byline: By armand limnande section: Section mm; Column 0; T: Men's Fashion Magazine; Pg. 76 Length

1097 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 7, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

6 City Schools Designated By the State As Failing
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 507 words
Six New York City public schools, five of them middle schools, were newly placed on the state's list of schools performing so poorly that they are at risk of being shut down. Four other city schools, state officials said, would have been added to the list, released on Wednesday, had the city not already decided to close them.

Four city schools improved enough to come off the list, the State Education Department said, bringing the total to 32 New York City schools on the list. Of the 32, the city is already planning to close five.

The five middle schools added to the list are clustered in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. They are Intermediate School 286 (Renaissance Military Leadership Academy), Middle School 326 (Writers Today and Leaders Tomorrow), Public School-Intermediate School 224, Middle School 201 and the New Millennium Business Academy Middle School.

To be designated by the state as failing, or among the ''schools under registration review,'' a school must fail to meet rudimentary performance benchmarks. If it does not improve in three years, it risks being closed.

The SURR list, as it is known, is different from the list of schools designated as failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which considers not only overall test scores but factors like attendance and the performance among subgroups of students, including those who are black or Hispanic.

The state also judges schools by a different standard than the city does for its new A through F school report cards; one school just removed from the state list, Legacy School for Integrated Studies in Manhattan, received an F on its city report card.

Andrew Jacob, a spokesman for the city Education Department, said in a statement that the city had ''fewer SURR schools than ever before.'' Last year, the city had 35 schools on the list, some of which have since been closed.

Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, suggested that city officials were too quick to close schools rather than try to improve them.

''We believe that closing schools should be the last resort, not a first step,'' she said in a statement. Ms. Weingarten noted that fewer schools were removed from the list this year than in 2005, when 16 were removed, and 2002, when 12 were removed. She said that the new additions to the list showed that ''our middle schools are not getting the supports they need.''

The sixth city school added to the list is Bushwick Community High School, a transfer school for students at risk of dropping out. The schools that would have been listed had the city not decided to close them are Walton High School and the Business School for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Bronx, and Junior High School 49 (William J. Gaynor) and South Shore High School in Brooklyn. The other schools removed from the list are Intermediate School 117 (Joseph H. Wade) and Intermediate School 219 (New Venture School) in the Bronx, and Junior High School 265 (Dr. Susan S. McKinney Secondary School of the Arts) in Brooklyn.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: PRIMARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION (90%); EDUCATION SYSTEMS & INSTITUTIONS (90%); EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS (89%); STUDENTS & STUDENT LIFE (89%); EDUCATION (89%); SCHOOL PERFORMANCE (89%); BENCHMARKING (78%); ACADEMIC STANDARDS (78%); CITIES (78%); PRIMARY & SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS (78%); CITY GOVERNMENT (78%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); BUSINESS LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT (76%); EDUCATION LAW (73%); US NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT (73%); TEACHING & TEACHERS (70%); BUSINESS EDUCATION (89%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (96%) NEW YORK, USA (96%) UNITED STATES (96%)
LOAD-DATE: February 7, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1098 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 7, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

Drop Down and Give Me More Than She's Doing
BYLINE: By ABBY ELLIN
SECTION: Section G; Column 0; Style Desk; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 1138 words
JOE DUFFY, a cross-country skier who skis marathons, considers himself fit and motivated. About three years ago he decided to focus on strength, balance and endurance. He knew his workouts would be more interesting if he had people to compete against. So instead of visiting the gym on his own, Mr. Duffy and his wife, a former marathoner, exercise twice a week with a group of seven to nine people and a personal trainer at 501Fit in Minneapolis.

''It's an hour and a half workout, and if I did it on my own it would seem like three hours,'' said Mr. Duffy, 58, the chairman of Duffy & Partners, a design firm in Minneapolis. ''When I do it with the group, it seems like it's 30 minutes.''

Though it sounds like an oxymoron -- personal training in a group? -- it is a growing trend at large health clubs and small gyms alike. A survey by the IDEA Health and Fitness Association, an organization for fitness professionals, showed that 71 percent of personal trainers had two or more clients per session in 2005, up from 50 percent in 1999; 44 percent said they had groups of three to five clients, up from 43 percent nine years ago.

Groups can be made up of friends, couples or strangers, and the average number of participants is around six. Besides the significant cost savings -- depending on the size of the group, it can cost as little as $20 a session, compared with as much as $100 for individual training -- the group dynamic can help foster camaraderie and lure more people into the club. While trainers and patrons say that it's a lot of fun, group training sessions can also feel a bit like being back in the proverbial sandbox. Competitive streaks can turn friendly companions into huffy ones. Those hoping to impress the trainer cut corners to complete assignments first. And a ''boys against the girls'' dynamic explains quite a bit of the behavior.

For the last three months, Russell Bryant, 31, a Denver entrepreneur, has been training in a group of six to eight people led by Courtney Samuel, the owner of Bodies by Perseverance, in Denver. He pays $30 for an hour session. ''The competitive part of me wants to finish first for personal reasons,'' he said. ''There's one girl that's in really good shape -- she was a dancer for a pro team -- so I'm always trying to compete.'' If he sees a woman doing much better than him, ''I'm like, 'You better step it up, Russ.' ''

Casie Collignon has been exercising with her best friend, Emily Ahnell, for a year and a half on Monday and Wednesday nights with Mr. Samuel. ''Emily and I are both naturally competitive people and it helps our work out,'' said Ms. Collignon, 30, a lawyer.

But one time, the routine had been especially grueling and Ms. Collignon thought that her friend had outperformed her. ''I got a little pouty,'' she admitted, so much so that she stormed out of the gym instead of catching a ride with Ms. Ahnell. ''I didn't want to talk to her so I just walked home, '' Ms. Collignon said. (Mr. Samuel says this happens a lot with his group-training clients.)

Mr. Samuel said he was especially fascinated by how behavior breaks down by gender. ''Men want to win by any means necessary, even jeopardizing their form,'' he said. For example, if the task is to complete two rounds of 20 push-ups, instead of doing the exercise properly, they'll go halfway down to finish first, he said. His female clients, on the other hand, are usually slower, have great form and don't cheat. But, he said, ''Their competitive spirit begins to rumble if they see someone cheat.''

There is plenty of research on teamwork and competition to explain why the desire to be seen as ''the best'' supersedes the need to get into shape. ''You don't want to be last, so you ratchet it up -- that's the human spirit,'' said Dr. Leonard Zaichkowsky, a sports psychologist at Boston University.

Julie Rennecker, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist in Austin, Tex., has examined group interactions in the workplace. Typically, she said, people try to differentiate themselves at all costs. They also compare themselves with one another. According to a 1998 report in the journal Leisure Sciences, this social comparison can inhibit people who are embarrassed by their limitations, or who don't like to display too much of their bodies.

Not all group sessions devolve into tournaments. People who work out together can feel accountable to their peers -- what psychologists call social facilitation -- and they are helpful and motivate one another. Sylvia Burrell, a trainer at Lady of America in Manor, Tex., sees this behavior at her gym.

Ms. Burrell has two group sessions of five women, each of whom pays $30. The women in one session check in with one another daily. ''They go down the list until the last lady calls the first, a kind of pay it forward,'' Ms. Burrell said. Those women are more successful than the other group, and have collectively lost 23.5 pounds since December.

For group personal training to truly work, experts say, instructors must place like-bodied people together. This makes sense: who wants to work out with someone who bench presses 180 if you're at 30? Many trainers say they do group people by ability, but often friends and family members would rather work out with someone they know.

''Pitfalls can occur if the group is not homogeneous,'' said Carol Scott, the chief executive of ECA World Fitness Alliance, an industry organization that offers training and workshops for fitness professionals. She also recommends that groups be no larger than six; other experts say smaller is better.

Some say true homogeneity in workout groups is impossible. ''Two people are not going to be equal,'' said Joe Dowdell, the founder and an owner of Peak Performance, a personal training gym in Manhattan. ''So a danger is that the one person who doesn't have the capabilities may push themselves in a manner that's not conducive to a good training effect.''

Much of the way a person reacts depends on personality. Type A's might find friendly competition energizing; others might wilt. Rich Roe, a certified personal trainer who does individual and small-group training in San Diego and Los Angeles, said group training can be a ''disaster'' for noncompetitive people. He recalled a weight loss contest between two clients. For a while it worked, then one took a big lead and the other felt like giving up.

But sometimes disparities can be exhilarating. For four years, Doreen Goniu, 49, has been working out at Form and Fitness in Mequon, Wis., with three men whom she did not know before. She finds the male-to-female ratio exciting. ''By the 10th or 12th rep I can feel myself failing,'' she said, ''but then I'll look over and see a guy doing it and I think: 'I can do it. I'm not going to be wimpy because I'm a girl.' ''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: EXERCISE & FITNESS (91%); SKIING (90%); SPORTS (90%); TRENDS (72%); POLLS & SURVEYS (69%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, USA (79%); MINNESOTA, USA (72%) UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: February 7, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: IN THIS TOGETHER: Brandy Hendelman, foreground, and Courtney Gordon motivate each other when they train at a health club in Armonk, N.Y. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ALAN ZALE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1099 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 6, 2008 Wednesday

The New York Times on the Web

From Prince Andrew, Critical Words for U.S. on Iraq
BYLINE: By STEPHEN CASTLE
SECTION: Section ; Column 0; Foreign Desk; Pg.
LENGTH: 891 words
While Prince Andrew declares himself a fan of the United States -- and his cellphone ring tone comes from the American TV drama ''24'' -- the man who is fourth in line to the British throne has some critical words for America's Iraq policy and thinks that Washington should have listened to advice from London.

In a rare Buckingham Palace interview ahead of his departure Tuesday for a 10-day U.S. trip to support British business, the prince described the United States as Britain's No. 1 ally but conceded that relations were in a trough. There are, he added, ''occasions when people in the U.K. would wish that those in responsible positions in the U.S. might listen and learn from our experiences.''

The prince has a full-time role as a trade envoy for Britain but for 22 years he was in the Royal Navy, serving as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands conflict, and Iraq is a preoccupation.

Because of its imperial history, Britain has experienced much of what the United States is going through, Prince Andrew said.

''If you are looking at colonialism, if you are looking at operations on an international scale, if you are looking at understanding each other's culture, understanding how to operate in a military insurgency campaign -- we have been through them all,'' he said. ''We've won some, lost some, drawn some. The fact is there is quite a lot of experience over here which is valid and should be listened to.''

Prince Andrew's view that post-invasion chaos in Iraq could have been avoided if President Bush's administration had listened more is widely shared in Britain. Geoff Hoon, the former British defense secretary, has said that British views on Iraq were ignored in the decisions to outlaw the Baath Party and dissolve the Iraqi military.

The fallout from Iraq has fueled, the prince argues, ''healthy skepticism'' toward what is said in Washington, and a feeling of ''why didn't anyone listen to what was said and the advice that was given.''

After all, British views had been sought -- ''it's not as if we had been forcing that across the Atlantic.''

The prince, 47, says it was an adjustment to go from a life in the navy to being a figurehead for business as special representative for international trade and investment, the role he took on in 2001. His office has reminders of his former life, including paintings of 19th-century naval scenes.

''I was the glamorous one dressed in a uniform who flew his helicopter and I was there to defend, to be an instrument of Her Majesty's government whenever and wherever they so chose. And I thought it was frightfully glamorous,'' he said.

He added, ''When you then come out and go into the business world, actually you realize that the real people who are actually making the United Kingdom what it is are the people who are doing business.''

The Falklands War in 1982 was a formative experience and one that, he says, changed him ''out of all recognition'' and left ''a different view of life.'' Since then he has been to Argentina, visited the country's navy and found himself at a memorial to the Belgrano, an Argentine warship sunk by the British that resulted in the loss of 368 lives.

Prince Andrew says he was very fortunate to marry Sarah Ferguson; they divorced in 1996 after their 10-year marriage ''didn't go quite according to plan.'' The prince speaks warmly of his ex-wife and praises her success in the United States, where her weight-loss campaigning and other activities are reported to have cleared her substantial debts.

''We have managed to work together to bring our children up in a way that few others have been able to do and I am extremely grateful to be able to do that,'' he said.

Though periodically portrayed by the British tabloids as a playboy, Prince Andrew is regarded as the most affable of the queen's children.

The only faint signs of irritation in the interview last week appeared when asked about his travel expenses, which have been criticized by the British media. They are, he says, a ''little tiny spot in the ocean by comparison to many people.''

The trauma that followed the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales, underlined the need for the British royal family to modernize, and Prince Andrew's transformation into a trade envoy seems part of that process.

His role involves helping small British businesses make the right contacts, meeting influential trade partners, sometimes lobbying on specific contracts and selling the merits of his country as a location for investment. Britain, he says, is ''probably the most open free market economy in the world.'' That is a message he will carry to Florida, California, Georgia and New York.

Since he does not close deals, it is difficult to quantify the value of his work. But Sir Digby Jones, the British minister for trade promotion who will accompany him, describes the prince as very effective.

''He gets in to see people because he is the son of the queen. The U.K. would be foolish not to use this.''

Ironically, it falls to a member of the royal family to dispel the image of Britain as an old-fashioned, class-ridden, society. British businesses are, Prince Andrew says, ''a good deal more discreet -- they're not as brash as perhaps U.S. companies are -- so you might not see the outward vestiges of entrepreneurialism that is actually going on here.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: NAVIES (88%); INTERVIEWS (76%); TELEVISION PROGRAMMING (73%); REBELLIONS & INSURGENCIES (70%); DEFENSE DEPARTMENTS (67%); FOREIGN INVESTMENT (65%); INTERNATIONAL TRADE (65%); BRITISH MONARCHS (77%)
PERSON: GEORGE W BUSH (53%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LONDON, ENGLAND (92%) UNITED STATES (99%); IRAQ (94%); UNITED KINGDOM (94%); ENGLAND (92%); FALKLAND ISLANDS (79%)
LOAD-DATE: February 6, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1100 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 6, 2008 Wednesday

Correction Appended

Late Edition - Final
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a Guide On the Beatles' Spiritual Path, Dies
BYLINE: By LILY KOPPEL
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 10
LENGTH: 1149 words
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced transcendental meditation to the West and gained fame in the 1960s as the spiritual guru to the Beatles, died Tuesday at his home and headquarters in Vlodrop, the Netherlands. He is believed to have been in his 90s. Steven Yellin, a spokesman for the organization, confirmed the Maharishi's death but did not give a cause.

On Jan. 11, the Maharishi announced that his public work was finished and that he would use his remaining time to complete a long-running series of published commentaries on the Veda, the oldest sacred Hindu text.

The Maharishi was both an entrepreneur and a monk, a spiritual man who sought a world stage from which to espouse the joys of inner happiness. His critics called his organization a cult business enterprise. And in the press, in the 1960s and '70s, he was often dismissed as a hippie mystic, the ''Giggling Guru,'' recognizable in the familiar image of him laughing, sitting cross-legged in a lotus position on a deerskin, wearing a white silk dhoti with a garland of flowers around his neck beneath an oily, scraggly beard.

In Hindi, ''maha'' means great, and ''rishi'' means seer. ''Maharishi'' is a title traditionally bestowed on Brahmins. Critics of the yogi say he presented himself with the name, which he was ineligible for because he was from a lower caste.

The Maharishi originated the transcendental meditation movement in 1957 and brought it to the United States in 1959. Known as TM, a trademark, the technique consists of closing one's eyes twice a day for 20 minutes while silently repeating a mantra to gain deep relaxation, eliminate stress, promote good health and attain clear thinking and inner fulfillment. Classes now cost $2,500 for a five-day session.

The TM movement was a founding influence on what has grown into a multibillion-dollar self-help industry, and many people practice similar forms of meditation that have no connection to the Maharishi's movement.

Over the years since TM became popular, many scientists have found physical and mental benefits from mediation in general and transcendental meditation in particular, especially in reducing stress-related ailments.

Since the technique's inception in 1955, the organization says, it has been used to train more than 40,000 teachers, taught more than five million people, opened thousands of teaching centers and founded hundreds of schools, colleges and universities.

In the United States, the organization values its assets at about $300 million, with its base in Fairfield, Iowa, where it operates a university, the Maharishi University of Management. In 2001, disciples of the movement incorporated their own town, Maharishi Vedic City, a few miles north of Fairfield.

Last March, a branch of the organization, Global Financial Capital of New York, moved into new headquarters it bought in Lower Manhattan.

The visibility and popularity of the organization can largely be attributed to the Beatles. In 1968, the band, with great publicity, began studying with the Maharishi at his Himalayan retreat, or ashram, in Rishikesh, in northern India. They went with their wives, the folk singer Donovan, the singer Mike Love, of the Beach Boys, the actress Mia Farrow and Ms. Farrow's sister Prudence.

They left in the wake of rumors of sexual improprieties by the Maharishi, an avowed celibate, though no sexual-misconduct suits were filed and some of the participants later denied that anything untoward had occurred.

Nevertheless, public interest in the movement had been aroused in the West, and it continued to grow in the 1970s as the Maharishi took his movement around the world and as its techniques gained respectability in the medical world.

Later in life, the Maharishi refused to discuss the Beatles. Another one of his disciples was the Indian spiritualist Deepak Chopra, who was a friend of the former Beatle George Harrison and who promotes his own teachings based on traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine and meditation.

The Maharishi's movement began losing followers the late 1970s, as people were put off by the organization's promotion of a more advanced form of TM called Yogic Flying, in which practitioners try to summon a surge of energy to physically lift themselves off the ground. They have never gone beyond the initial stage of flying, described as ''frog hops.''

Mahesh Prasad Varma was born near the central Indian town of Jabalpur, into a scribe caste family. Called Mahesh, he studied physics at Allahabad University and for the next 13 years became a student and secretary to a holy man, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, who the young disciple Mahesh called Guru Dev.

''Right from the beginning the whole purpose was to breathe in his breath,'' the Maharishi wrote in his ''Thirty Years Around the World: Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment,'' published in 1986. ''This was my ideal. The whole purpose was just to assume myself with Guru Dev.''

After the death of his master in 1953, Mahesh went into seclusion in the Himalayan foothills. He emerged two years later and began teaching a system of belief, which grew into the worldwide TM movement.

''It would appear that Maharishi cobbled together his teaching after his master died, when he found himself unemployed and out-of-grace with the ashram,'' said Paul Mason, a critic of the Maharishi and the author of a biography, ''The Maharishi: The Biography of the Man Who Gave Transcendental Meditation to the World.'' ''He reinvented himself and became a 'maharishi' and wanted to be seen as a messiah.''

Since 1990, the Maharishi had lived in Vlodrop with about 50 of his adherents, including his ''minister of science and technology,'' John Hagelin, a Harvard-educated physicist, who is expected to oversee the organization in the United States.

Late in life, the Maharishi tried to breathe new life into TM, establishing in 2000 his ''Global Country of World Peace,'' with the goals of preventing war, eradicating poverty and promoting environmental sustainability. One effort tried to reach young people across the United States with the support of celebrities like Donovan and the filmmaker David Lynch, who went on a speaking tour of colleges to promote the cause.

The Maharishi also sought to rebuild the world according to Vedic principals. He called for the demolition of all toxic buildings and unhealthy urban environments, even the demolition of historic landmarks if they were not built according to ''Vedic architecture in harmony with Natural Law.'' The Maharishi contended that the White House was wrongly situated. He said that a more suitable location for the capital of the United States was the small town of Smith Center, Kan.

In the last years of his life he rarely met with anyone, even his ministers, face-to-face, preferring to speak with followers almost exclusively by closed-circuit television.

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