Beauty Myths – Busted!

Get the facts on looking fabulous.

by Tracey Middlekauff Posted: Tue., Sep. 25, 2007 , 4:21 pm EDT

Myth: Chocolate, sweets, and fried foods cause acne.
Fact: Don’t blame that last slice of pizza for your pimple; blame your genes and pesky hormones instead. Hormonal fluctuations brought on by your period, menopause or even stress can spark increased sebum (oil) production, leading to bacterial growth that can cause a “plug” in your pores. Result: a pimple. Those food cravings you get around your period or when you’re stressed are probably what are behind this myth — eat greasy food, touch your face, plug your pores and presto! You’ve got a blemish. To fight acne, Diane Madfes, MD, a New York dermatologist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology, recommends cleansers with salicylic or glycolic acid and topical creams with vitamin A or retinol. Got sensitive skin? Look for products that contain lactic acid.

Myth: Drinking lots of water will “plump up” your fine lines and wrinkles.

Fact: Dr. Madfes calls this one a “partial myth.” The skin on your face does need to get moisture, both internally, from the fluids you drink, and externally, from your moisturizer. But you don’t have to gulp down H20 exclusively — it turns out, things like juice and tea will also get the job done. While drinking liquids won’t eliminate those fine lines and wrinkles, drinking enough to keep your skin well hydrated — about six to eight glasses per day — will allow it to regenerate and look its healthy best. And in a pinch, you can always apply a topical cream to temporarily plump up those fine lines.

Myth: The higher the SPF in your sunscreen, the better.
Fact: A higher SPF number is not necessarily better. The most important thing is that your sunscreen is broad-spectrum, meaning it protects against both the UVA (aging) and UVB (burning) rays of the sun. If you reapply often, a broad-spectrum SPF 30 sunscreen is just as effective as an SPF 50 one; the 50 might just buy you an extra 20 minutes in the sun.

Myth: You can repair a split end.
Fact: While certain products can temporarily “seal” split ends, the only way to get rid of them is to cut them off like a freeloading boyfriend. To prevent (or at least delay) them, try to cut back on the heat abuse from flat irons, curling irons and hair dryers.

Myth: For shiny hair, brush it 100 times each night.
Fact: It may have worked for Marcia Brady, but it’s not going to work for you. Brushing can pull out hair that wasn’t ready to fall out, and it can weaken or even break individual strands. For shiny hair, you’re much better off using a good conditioner and shine serum. And never brush your hair when it’s wet — always use a wide-tooth comb.

Myth: If you have cellulite, you must be overweight.
Fact: Anybody can get cellulite, regardless of weight. That dreaded dimpled look is actually caused by tiny fibrous bands under the skin, which pull down around pockets of fat. It can get worse as you age, because the collagen in your skin loosens, but the fibrous bands don’t. Exercising to increase muscle and reduce fat can help, but there’s no permanent, easy solution. According to Dr. Madfes, firming creams such as Clarins Total Body Lift (link) can temporarily reduce the appearance of cellulite by causing constriction in the skin — good to know if you really want to don that miniskirt and paint the town red!

Myth: Cocoa butter prevents stretch marks.
Fact: Actually, anything from baby oil to hand lotion will work. It’s not the cocoa butter, it’s the massaging and gentle stretching action when you smooth in the cream that preps your skin to stretch without leaving telltale “marks” behind. If you already have stretch marks, Dr. Madfes suggests prescription retinoid creams — but you can’t use these while you’re pregnant.

Myth: Green tea boosts your metabolism.
Fact: Despite all the hype over green tea — which does have many health benefits — there’s still no magic weight-loss bullet. Recent studies have indicated that roughly six to 11 cups of green tea per day may increase the rate at which you burn calories after a meal, but that’s not the same as raising your metabolism. According to Suzanne Farrell, registered dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, the only proven way to do that is to exercise, build muscle and eat throughout the day. As for green tea supplements? Farrell doesn’t recommend them: “You’re just being a guinea pig,” she says.

Cool sports for hot days.

Tracey Middlekauff

Summer’s here and the time is right for getting out of doors and into shape. “Exercise has to be fun — not just work,” says Grace De Simone, national fitness expert for Gold’s Gym. First, prepare your body. “You want to be in shape to perform at your best and lower your risk of injury,” De Simone says. So get into the habit of exercising and stretching to make sure your body is up for a new physical activity. Read on to find the sport that’s perfect for you.

Serve It Up on the Sand
Want a great set of gams? Think Gabrielle Reese and beach volleyball. Thanks to the lateral movements and quick bursts of speed, this cardio-intensive sport also delivers a serious core muscle workout to sculpt your quads, calves and glutes. “Beach volleyball is a combination of strength and quickness,” says Danalee Bragado, a pro-level coach and owner of the Aloha Ball Club in California. Run on the beach to get your “sand legs” and do circuit weight training. Then get a ball; many beaches already have nets set up. Look online for a beach volleyball club in your area.
Calories burned per hour: 480

Make Some Waves

“It’s much more fun to be skiing than to be in a gym,” says Lisa St. John, former world champion and competition director for USA Waterski. Not to mention that water-skiing looks really, really cool. Locate a qualified instructor near you through USA Water Ski. Lessons will last around half an hour; expect to stay up on the water for eight or nine minutes at a stretch. “It’s very physically demanding,” says St. John. “It uses every muscle group, and it’s cardio-intensive.” De Simone recommends prepping by doing wall sits — lean your upper back against the wall and slide down until your thighs are parallel to the floor. For more intensity, hold a medicine ball out in front of you.
Calories burned per hour: 360

Rule the Court
All you need for the civilized sport of badminton is a net, a couple of rackets, a shuttlecock (also known as a birdie) and a partner. “Badminton is much easier to start playing than tennis, so you can have more fun early on,” says Martin McGrogan, women’s badminton coach at Irvine Valley Community College in California. You set the aerobic intensity — anything from slow volleying to a lightning-fast exchange. Along with the cardio benefits, De Simone says badminton will help “stimulate your ability to react quickly.” Check out the Web site usabadminton.org to find local classes.
Calories burned per hour: 300

Take the Plunge
Quit lounging poolside — dive in and swim! “It doesn’t matter how ugly or beautiful your stroke is; you’ll get a cardiovascular workout,” says Kay Smiley, specialty consultant for aquatics and scuba for YMCA of the USA. “And if you do perfect your stroke, you’ll get the breathing down better.” Anyone can sign up for swim lessons at the Y or visit the community pool. (Just make sure the instructor is also certified as a lifeguard.) Start with three 20-minute sessions weekly, adding two to four lengths each time, says Smiley. Swimming is great for overall tone and, depending on the stroke, will also work your lats, pecs and/or delts.
Calories burned per hour: 360 to 660, depending on stroke and pace

Power Up With Paddling
Water, a lovely view and a canoe all add up to a great workout where you control the intensity. “Start with nice, calm, protected water,” suggests John Edwards, executive director of the United States Canoe Association (USCA). “Shallow water is good because you can stand up if you tip over.” You can find an instructor who is familiar with proper safety procedure through the USCA or the American Canoe Association. Even at a leisurely pace, canoeing will work your lats, upper body, shoulders and core muscles, according to De Simone. The downside? If you get serious, you’re going to have to buy a boat — which can run anywhere from $500 to $3,000 — and outfit your vehicle to tow the thing.
Calories burned per hour: 300 to 420, depending on intensity

Hit a Homer
Joining an amateur softball team is a great way to make friends. But ask yourself: “Am I competitive, or do I just want to have a good time and hang out?” says Glenn Moore, women’s softball coach at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Then honestly assess your fitness level to choose the right league. On the field, the squatted and semi-squatted fielding positions are great for the hamstrings, quads and core abdominals. (Note that you’ll want to strengthen your back to avoid injury.) For the serious softballer, Moore recommends water activities to get you in prime condition, such as a water aerobics class or (with supervision) moving laterally in fielding positions in neck-deep water.
Calories burned per hour: 300

Get a Green Thumb
Believe it or not, gardening not only helps you get in touch with Mother Nature — it helps you stay fit, too. All that digging, weed-pulling, squatting and reaching will burn a bunch of calories! But be careful not to hurt yourself, especially your back, warns De Simone. To build strength, do some Pilates plank exercises. (Click here for an example.) Other suggestions to get into good shape to garden: upper-body twists, wall push-ups and squats. Remember to do a series of stretches before and after gardening and to protect your knees with a kneeling pad.
Calories burned per hour: 300

Enjoy Some High-Flying Fun
Time to test that endurance with Ultimate Frisbee! Most fast-paced games last between 70 to 90 minutes and work the legs, core muscles and arms. Think of it as “a combination of football and soccer in terms of field space, passing, scoring and running,” says Michael Degnan, spokesperson for the Ultimate Players Association, the sport’s national governing body. Many cities offer summer leagues captained by seasoned players, and Degnan says beginners are always welcome; it may boost your social life as well as your body! “Ultimate Frisbee is a great way to meet people,” Degnan says. “Everybody is happy to be there.”
Calories burned per hour: 480 to 600

Domestic Violence

29 January 01

by Tracey Middlekauff

Get off me baby,
Get off and leave me alone
I’m lonely when you’re gone

but I’m even lonelier when you’re home
A blues song by Holly Near

Rosa Schirripa is a full-time student at the City University of New York, a part-time intern in social work and a full-time mother of two teenage boys. She is also a former victim of domestic abuse.

She accepted the beatings for years. “I thought marriage is not about happiness, it is about starting a family and raising kids,” she says. ”My father used to hit my mother, so I thought that is the way a husband and wife treated each other.”

In 1999, New York City’s domestic violence hotline received more than 95,000 calls. These included reports of child abuse, elder abuse, abuse of a partner in a gay or lesbian relationship, and other crimes.
But the majority were from women who are abused by their husbands or boyfriends. An estimated 49 percent of all women who are murdered in New York City die at the hands of their intimate partners. In Brooklyn alone, from 1998 to 1999, domestic violence homicides nearly doubled (from 14 to 25 by September).

New Yorkers are now facing the problem in several ways. The city recently enacted two landmark laws designed to help both former and present victims. Private groups provide victims with shelter and educating them. School programs try to reach young girls before they become victims. New York’s court system will soon become somewhat less Byzantine, thanks to a new plan that will allow each domestic violence case to be heard by a single judge, rather than in a series of often unrelated courts, as is now frequently the case.

The efforts are going on in Washington as well. In her final days in office Attorney General Janet Reno issued a ruling that could make it easier for foreign victims of domestic violence to receive asylum in the United States.

Still, life is not easy for people like Rosa Schirripa. She left her husband when she read an article about wife abuse and recognized her own life story. She contacted a counselor, who helped her move out. Her first hurdle was to find a place to live, initially an apartment, then a house in Staten Island. Now she continues to struggle, with school, with work, with childrearing – and with the constant temptation to go back to her ex-husband. She deals with the stress, she says, by eating and crying.

THE NEW LAWS

In December, Mayor Giuliani signed into law a bill — the first of
its kind in the country — that gives domestic violence victims the
right to sue their former abusers for compensatory and punitive damages.
The federal Violence Against Women Act had included such a provision,
but it was overturned by the Supreme Court, which ruled that such
protection should be left up to states and municipalities. The New
York City law is partly a response to the court.

This “provides one more avenue for women to use, especially women
who are economically dependent on their abuser,” says Bea Hanson,
vice president of domestic violence services at Safe Horizon, a nonprofit
victim assistance, advocacy and violence prevention organization.

Far more controversial was a bill that aims to prevent employment discrimination against victims
of domestic violence. It would, for example, require an employer to
grant an abused woman leave to pursue her case in court.

Elisa Velazquez, deputy counsel for Public Advocate Mark Green, who
introduced the bill two years ago, says one aspect of domestic violence
distinguishes it from other crimes. “It is an ongoing crime,” Velazquez
says. “Home is not a haven. That is very different from someone who
is a victim of a one-time act.” She also explained that “there is
a stigma associated with domestic violence, which is why we specifically
targeted it.”

Mayor Giuliani initially opposed the bill but reversed himself and
signed it on January 5 — with reservations. While stressing the positive aspects of the legislation, Giuliani called for amendments to clarify the definition of a domestic violence victim and to require that employers be given proof than an employee seeking relief under the measure is, indeed, a victim of domestic violence.

GETTING OUT

One perplexing question for people who have never been in an abusive situation is why someone would “choose” to stay. Schirripa herself does not know why she let her ex-husband hit her for years: “If I ever figure it out, I will be happy to tell you.”

One problem is that the victims are often financially dependent on their abusers. Even a “wealthy woman” can feel trapped, with limited options, if she has no access to the family finances.

To remedy that, organizations in the city try to expand those options, by offering counseling services, shelter and education. Safe Horizon, has a contract with the city to run its 24-hour domestic violence hotline (1-800-621-HOPE) and oversees 25 percent of the city’s emergency beds, as well as its own shelter facilities, transitional
programs and counseling services.

Its services seek to help women achieve independence, both financially
(by hooking them up to job training) and emotionally (by building
their self-esteem). “Independent living arrangements are important
as well,” Safe Horizon’ Hanson says.

Hanson admits that there are never enough shelters to fill demand.
She would also like to see more supportive, permanent housing for
abused women. “Women who do not have many Resources often go back
to their batterers,” she says.

Rosa Schirripa agrees that there should be more housing options for
women who are trying to get out of desperate situations. “I wish once
the victim felt strong enough to leave, there would be some kind of
public housing with a reasonable rent,” she says. “Not a shelter;
that’s a joke. I was given a choice — ‘There is room for you, but
not for your kids.’”

EDUCATION

The best approach, of course, is to stop abuse before it starts.
This includes prevention programs in the schools. “It’s important
to reach people before they’re stuck in violent relationships; People
who grow up with abuse don’t see it as a problem until it’s too late,”
says Rona Soloman of the Center for the Elimination of Violence in
the Family, which is working in 13 city high schools to teach the
fundamentals of a healthy relationship.

The city also sponsors public education campaigns such as the Teen
Relationship Abuse campaign, which seeks to teach the public that
patterns of abuse often start early. At present, though, there is
no citywide program in the public schools to teach self-esteem to
girls.

CALLING THE POLICE

Rosa Schirripa remembers that things got so bad with her husband
one holiday that she called the police. “Why don’t you just kiss and
make up for the kids,” an officer told her.

Attitudes since then have been changing. In 1994, Mayor
Giuliani established the Mayor’s Commission to Combat Family Violence,
which places specially trained domestic violence prevention officers
(DVPOs) in every precinct. These officers take complaints seriously,
follow up on them and make it clear that they are available to be
contacted for further assistance.

In potentially violent family situations, the police must fill out
a domestic incident report that can be used in court if a victim needs
to seek an order of protection against her abuser.

One problem with this program, some critics says, is that while the
domestic violence officer may be well trained, they are not always
the ones who respond to a call, leaving the situation up to the particular
sensitivity of the officer in question.

But Bea Hanson says that, despite its shortcomings, “the domestic
violence prevention officer has pushed the domestic violence agenda
ahead light years.”

TOO MANY COURTS

After a case leaves the hands of the police, it often goes to the
courts, where reforms are also being made.

One program, to be launched in two Brooklyn precincts with high
rates of reported domestic violence, will place key evidence in a
domestic violence case onto a secured Web site that will be available
to judges within hours of an
attack. This will provide the judge with pictures and sounds from
the incident as well as information about the defendant’s criminal
record and whether the couple has previously been involved in Family
Court. Now, most misdemeanor domestic-abuse cases in New York are
dismissed, many because of poor evidence.

In a further attempt to make the judicial system more responsive,
New York State’s chief judge, Judith S. Kaye, announced a plan on
January 8 that would allow domestic violence cases to be heard by
a single judge. Currently, as many as four courts can be involved,
with the Supreme Court handling the divorce aspects, Family Court
resolving custody issues and Criminal Court hearing any criminal charges.
Surrogate Court also sometimes plays a role.

By this spring, integrated Domestic Violence Courts will be established
on a trial basis in four counties, including the Bronx. The plan should
eventually be implemented statewide.

HOPE

Rosa Schirripa says she still loves her ex-husband. But for her own
sake and the sake of her sons, she says, she is firm about one thing:
She will never return to him. She knows she will make it through the
tough times. “I want to teach my kids that we are not quitters. It
might not be easy, and it might not be today, but it can be done if
you have the will.”

###

Pro wrestler Bill Goldberg is a fierce competitor in the ring but, as seen here in Atlanta, Ga., with a kitten named Mo, he’s got a soft spot in his heart for furry creatures.

Bill Goldberg, by his own admission, is a man of extremes. The 33-year-old World Championship Wrestling pro is known for signature moves that have names like “the Spear” and “the Jackhammer.”

At 6′4″ and 285 lbs, Goldberg, a former pro football player for the Atlanta Falcons and the L.A. Rams, seems custom-built for his over-the-top profession. But underneath all those muscles, he’s really just a big softy — especially when it comes to animals. In fact, he’s the official spokesperson for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). “Deep down inside, a lot of these tough-image guys have pets at home and adore them like they’re their children,” he says. “I can tell you for sure a lot of the guys in the WCW feel the same way.” Lately, Goldberg has had plenty of time to hang out with the pets he loves so much (not to mention long-time live-in girlfriend Lisa Shekter) because of a wrestling-related injury he sustained last December. While attempting to shatter a car window, he severed tendons and muscles in his arm, coming within a centimeter of hitting a crucial nerve. He admits that “the scar from the 190 stitches doesn’t look too good.” A recent return to the ring resulted in another injury. Fans might be surprised about his love of furry creatures, but he says those who know him well have long seen his sensitive side. “I’m an extremist in my difference of emotions,” the surprisingly soft-spoken Goldberg says. “I go from the bottom of the spectrum all the way to the top. People who know me expect nothing less.” He understands he may “shock” the average wrestling fan with his charity of choice but offers, “I’m a human too, just like anyone else.”   The wrestler’s interest in animals was sparked way back when he was a kid in Tulsa, Okla. “All the memories I have of the dogs the family had when I was a kid are all so positive,” he says, adding that it was when his sister gave him his own pup that he “learned the true meaning of the relationship between man and animal.” Then, when Goldberg’s parents — Jed, an obstetrician, and Ethel, a former concert violinist who’s now a professional orchid judge — were going through a tough divorce, he says he turned to his dog for comfort. “My dog Rocky, my Rottweiler, became my best friend at that point,” Goldberg confides.

A few years ago, after achieving so much success as a wrestler, Goldberg figured it was only natural to give something back. So in 1998 his agent, at Goldberg’s request, contacted the Humane Society. “To do nothing with [my success] would be worse than not having it,” Goldberg says. “So I turned my energy into doing as much as I could for the community.” One of the first official duties Goldberg performed for the Humane Society was in February 1999, when he spoke in front of Congress about illegal animal fighting. According to the HSUS’s Pat Ragin, senior director of campaigns and planning, “Capitol Hill was electrified.” In fact, Ragin couldn’t be more thrilled with Goldberg. “He’s very gentle and caring,” she gushes. “Kids love him. He stands and patiently signs every autograph for hours and hours . . . I’ve gotten letters from people who have joined the Humane Society because of him. He really cares about beings who can’t speak for themselves.” Right now, Goldberg says, he’s working on creating Bill Goldberg Pet Adoption Day. While he’s adamant about the importance of getting pets spayed and neutered, he believes, “If you can’t immediately raise awareness about neutering your animals, the No. 1 priority is to get good homes for the ones that are out there.” Goldberg’s other pet peeves include fur (”How bad is it to know that you could have a stuffed animal with cat or puppy fur on it?”) and pet stores (”I don’t think that should be legal. It kills me to walk into a mall and see a dog displayed behind a glass wall.”). His intense love of animals notwithstanding, Goldberg hasn’t taken the plunge into vegetarianism — yet. “I watch what I eat. I stay away from certain things,” he says. “I’m getting towards the idea that it doesn’t taste as good as it used to because I really think about where it came from.” The sensitive man of steel pauses for a moment. “I’m becoming aware of everything now.” — TRACEY MIDDLEKAUFF Posted on June 29, 2000 Copyright © 2000 Time Inc.

The Six Hottest New Workouts

Tired of the same old?
Jump-start your fitness
regimen with these sizzling routines.

by Tracey Middlekauff

Denise Weighs In
	Here’s something to sneak into your smoothies: deep red, purple or blue foods (think blueberries, cherries, strawberries or raspberries). They contain phytonutrients called anthocyanins, which have been linked to lower heart disease and cancer risk.

Yesterday’s Moves: Yoga Today’s Routine: Disco Yoga If you’d rather take a nap than do one more Downward Dog, maybe you need a healthy dose of the Bee Gees when you strike a pose. With Disco Yoga at Crunch Fitness, “Participants hit poses and hold them, like John Travolta in ‘Saturday Night Fever,’” says Donna Cyrus, director of Crunch National Group Fitness. You’ll get all the benefits of a regular hatha yoga class — core strengthening, flexibility and balance — plus more of a cardio element, because Disco Yoga moves quickly between poses, says Cyrus. The extra oomph will help you burn between 200 and 400 calories an hour. Yesterday’s Moves: Step Aerobics Today’s Routine: Circus Acrobatics All that stepping up got you down? Defy gravity with circus acrobatics. You’ll learn to fly through the air while simultaneously working all the major muscle groups. Repeatedly climbing up to the platform and kicking off works the shoulders and thighs, and after six months on the trapeze “women develop beautiful arms and lats,” says Jonathon Conant, founder of Trapeze School New York. Unlike the muscles you develop at a gym, Conant says, working against gravity gives you a natural musculature. More muscle means you’ll burn calories more efficiently, too: up to 221 an hour. “Moving your total body mass rhythmically can also make it a real cardio challenge,” adds exercise physiologist Michele S. Olson, Ph.D. Yesterday’s Moves: Boot Camp Today’s Routine: Dodgeball 101 Dump the drill sergeant: It turns out you can do interval training without the barking orders. Dodgeball at Crunch is just like you remember it from childhood, only now nobody is going to throw the ball at your head. After a 20-minute warm-up, participants play four 10-minute, high-intensity rounds. If you get “out,” you’re sent to the corner to do push-ups or sit-ups. “There are huge cardio benefits,” says Dr. Olson. “Plus the breaks help reenergize you so you can work harder.” Cyrus says dodgeball particularly targets the thighs, upper body and abs; and thanks to all that jumping and reaching, you can burn up to a whopping 500 calories in this action-packed hour.

Yesterday’s Moves: Kickboxing? Today’s Routine: Stage Combat or Body Combat? You’ll pick up real fight choreography in a stage combat class, challenging your brain as well as body. Broadsword fighting (using a hefty curved weapon) starts after a three-week safety phase, says John Ficarra, a certified fight instructor and owner of New York’s Combat Incorporated. (Visit www.safd.org to find local instructors.) “You’ll immediately feel it in your forearms and legs,” he says. “As you get more advanced, you change levels and use your core to twist.” Or try Body Combat at Gold’s Gym, in which you learn choreographed fight routines put to high-energy music. “You’ll see significant results in your cardio capacity and muscle tone,” says Lori Lowell, national group fitness director for Gold’s Gym International. Expect to work off 450 to 600 calories per hour. Yesterday’s Moves: Jump Rope? Today’s Program: Hula Hoop? Drop that jump rope: The hula hoop has made a comeback! Actually, today’s exercise hoops are bigger and heavier than your old one, which makes it easier to keep them continuously spinning. It’s a great low-impact aerobic workout, plus you can get creative and twirl the hoop around your arm. “Isolating different muscle groups for a high number of reps mimics weight training,” says Olson. Just remember to switch directions so you get an even workout! Visit hooping.org for more info. Or check out Bally’s Total Fitness, which offers cardio-intense hoop workouts using specially constructed Heavy Hoops (www.heavyhoops.com). You can burn approximately 600 calories an hour. Yesterday’s Moves: Walking? Today’s Routine: Qigong Walking? Adding qigong — sets of simple, repetitive movements designed to promote healthy energy flow — makes walking more of a total body workout with its swinging arm and torso movements, says Olson. A very popular form is called Fragrance qigong, which consists of three sets of five movements each. The key is to keep your walking rhythm smooth and relaxed, never straighten your arms, and repeat each motion 36 to 45 times, according to New York tai chi and qigong instructor Tzyann Hsu. Get a taste of what it’s all about by trying the following: Bring hands together at waist level with fingers softly touching; gently swing arms left to right. Then, with hands still together, swing them vertically so that your fingers point up toward your chin, and then down toward the floor, just below waist level. Next, separate your hands; let your arms swing down naturally and then up to just below chin level, with your palms facing each other, forming a reverse V shape. Modifying your walking effort this way will help you work off 264 calories an hour. Find out more at the Qigong Association of America (www.qi.org). .

By Tracey Middlekauff

When Marjina, a young Bangladeshi woman working as a live-in housekeeper
for an Indian family in Dubai, was invited to accompany the family
to live and work in the U.S., she jumped at the opportunity. To her,
America meant money and freedom. But soon after she arrived to begin
her new life, Marjina says her dreams quickly dissolved.

“I thought they would treat me like a family member,” she says, speaking
in her native Bengali through an interpreter. “But I was lied to.”

At the time, Marjina was unaware that she, like any domestic worker
– documented or undocumented — was legally entitled to a work environment
free from exploitation and abuse. But unfortunately, employers often
thumb their noses at the law and ignore the rights of their domestic
help.

Indeed, Marjina describes a grueling work schedule with little or
no compensation. 18-hour days on Monday to Friday, 8-hour days on
her “days off” during the weekend. She says she was never allowed
to eat until the family was finished, she was forced to sleep in the
basement with no mattress, and she was made to shovel snow in the
cold Teaneck, N.J. winter wearing the only shoes she brought with
her from Dubai: sandals. During this time, she says “I didn’t even
know what a U.S. dollar looked like.”

Marjina found an advocate in one of her employers’ friends, who located
a Bangladeshi family in need of her services. But according to Marjina,
things went from bad to worse.

Her new employers forced her to work similar backbreaking hours,
Marjina says, and promised to pay her a meager $400 per month, most
of which she never received. She was never allowed to leave on her
own, and alleges she was physically abused by the couple’s mentally
impaired son. After three months, Marjina finally demanded payment,
upon which she was locked in a basement, then ordered to leave with
only $375 cash.

Distraught and frightened, with no English and little money, Marjina
got on a bus, where she finally found some luck. The driver spoke
Hindi, and he took Marjina to an Indian store where the owner called
for help. Subsequently, Marjina was put in contact with Andolan, a
Queens-based South Asian workers’ rights group. Last fall Marjina
filed a lawsuit against her former employers, who deny all her allegations.

LONG HOURS, LOW WAGES

Marjina’s story is not an isolated one, according to many advocates
for workers’ rights, or even a particularly extreme example of the
abuse that many immigrant domestic workers face on a daily basis.
Ai-jen Poo, program director at the Women Workers Project of the Committee
Against Anti-Asian Violence in Manhattan, says that, “It’s the
norm that people are subjected to long hours, little or no overtime
pay, low wages, little privacy and a difficult environment.” For live-in
domestic workers, things are even worse. “(These workers) are often
on call 24-7,” Poo says.

The problem is extremely difficult to quantify accurately, because
several groups, including the New York City-based South
Asian Workers Rights Project, are only now starting to gather
the hard data.

Experts estimate that ninety-five percent of immigrant domestic workers
are women of color, half of them undocumented, and in many cases they
work for people of their own ethnicity. Typically, Caribbean and Latin
American immigrants will find jobs with white families through an
agency, whereas Asian women, particularly South Asian women, will
find jobs in upper class Asian families through direct ads in South
Asian newspapers. “The Asian-American community is much more insular,
and tends to hire more undocumented workers,” says Chaumtoli Huq,
an attorney working with the South Asian Workers Rights Project. When
an Indian family hires an Indian domestic, Huq says, what separates
them is not ethnicity, obviously, but class.

USING THEIR IMMIGRANT STATUS AGAINST THEM

The worker/employer relationship is inherently based on an imbalance
of power, an imbalance which employers often use to intimidate their
employees and prevent them from leaving. “If employers can, they will
use immigration status as an added weapon,” says Nadia Marin-Molina
of Workplace Project.

This can take the form of an employer confiscating a worker’s passport,
keeping a worker in the house to keep them ignorant of their rights
and out of contact with potential allies, threatening to turn an undocumented
worker over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and holding
out false promises of a green card. Molina tells of one worker who
was promised green card sponsorship by her employer. After 10 years
of working for low wages, she found out that her employer had never
even taken the first step to sponsor her. And in any case, according
to Chaumtoli Huq, getting a green card rarely happens at all for a
domestic worker, and even if it does, it takes from ten to 15 years.

One might assume that even the most vindictive employers would hesitate
to turn an undocumented employee over to the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, because they could be fined thousands of dollars for having
violated the law by hiring the worker in the first place. But the
standard to determine if an employer should be fined, Huq says, is
whether the employer knowingly hired an undocumented worker. All the
employer has to do is say they were ignorant of their employee’s work
status.

Ai-jen Poo believes that employers take advantage of their domestic
workers simply because they can. “We have to change the culture where
all the power lies in the hands of an employer,” she says. Poo points
out that domestic work is traditionally seen as women’s work, which
is devalued. “The work these women are doing completely enables every
other industry to function — it’s crucial,” she says. “But it’s not
seen that way.”

WORKERS’ RIGHTS

Whatever society’s perceptions of the value of domestic work, one
fact is certain: domestic workers, both documented and undocumented,
are legally entitled to the same basic rights any U.S. citizen should
expect. According to a pamphlet for workers put out by the Women Workers
Project, these rights include (but should not be limited to) workers’
compensation insurance, short term disability benefits, minimum wage,
overtime, meal breaks and one full day off each week.

The problem is, many workers are not aware of these basic rights,
and even if they are, fear of employer retribution may prevent them
from seeking help. In New York, several groups provide representation,
education and outreach to domestic workers in need.

The Women Workers Project has recently initiated an effort to institute
a standard, industry-wide contract for domestic workers. While Ai-jen
Poo admits that such a contract may be difficult to enforce, she stresses
the need for a standard model and organized support. Such an effort
is dependent on numbers; the more workers who are armed with the contract,
the better. Although the contract effort is in its infancy, Poo says
thousands of copies have already been distributed to workers.

Chamtoli Huq cites two important elements in creating a better work
environment for domestic workers. One is to support the contract campaign
and the viability of enforcing such a contract, and the second is
to push for legislative change, such as the bill passed in the House
May 9 which would offer protection from deportation to domestic workers
who sue their employers. The bill, authored by Congressmen Christopher
Smith (R-Trenton) and Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn), is currently awaiting
a Senate vote.

But community outreach organizations remain a crucial element in
the fight for domestic workers’ rights, because before a worker can
take advantage of any of their rights, they must first learn what
those rights are.

MARJINA

Shortly after Marjina met Andolan’s co-founder, Nahar Alam, she found
work with a new family, and says she is now “very happy” with them.
But even though she currently makes $1,000 a month, Alam points out
that this is not even minimum wage given the hours Marjina works.
Marjina still gets no holidays. “It’s still not enough,” Alam says.

Marjina says that she knows her rights now, and “will tell other
people to go to organizations (like Andolan) when they come to this
country.” As for what she endured when she first arrived, she says,
“Until the day I die, I’ll remember this experience.”

Tracey Middlekauff is a journalist living
in Brooklyn.

###

8.29 a.m. ET (1329 GMT) November 12, 1999

By Tracey Middlekauff

NEW YORK —

“Five years ago, a man’s fantasy became a reality …”

So begins Iron Chef, one of the most bizarre and wonderful shows ever to pop out of the oven.

Gil Jawetz   Turning fantasy into reality: Iron Chef

Filmed in Japan, Iron Chef is a cross between game show, cooking show and Monday Night Football. The premise is that a mysterious and eccentric gourmand, played by Kaga Takeshi — aka Chairman Kaga — lives in his palatial mansion with his stable of four Iron Chefs. These chefs represent the best the world has to offer in four cuisines: Chinese, Japanese, French, and Italian.

In the beginning of each episode, Kaga reflects upon a worthy challenger for one of his Iron Chefs. The chosen will then do battle in a giant arena, known as Kitchen Stadium. Before the cooking begins, Kaga, usually dressed in ruffles and sequins, unveils the day’s theme ingredient in a whirl of dry ice and smoke. The games begin with Kaga intoning “Allez cuisine!” (start cooking), accompanied by the Gong of Fate.

Challenger and Iron Chef then have one hour to create a multi-course meal that best embodies the theme ingredient. Past cooking battles have included Battle Abalone, Battle Lettuce, Battle Potato and Battle Frogfish, to name just a few. During the cooking battle, announcer Ota Shinichiro delivers a blow-by-blow account from the trenches, occasionally interrupting announcers Hattori Yukio and Fukui Kenji to deliver his tidbits of insider information with a machine-gun staccato.

Once cooking ends, the food is tasted by a panel of four judges, two males and two females. The judging panel consists of some combination of a Japanese politician (identified as a lower house member), a food critic, a fortuneteller, a photographer, an actor and/or an actress. The winner is announced with a great deal of ceremony — for as the show’s opening voiceover informs the viewer, “If ever a challenger defeats an Iron Chef, he will win the acclaim of the people for all time.”

The best part of all this is, except for the voice of Chairman Kaga, which is subtitled, the show is dubbed. Very dubbed. Combine the surreal effect of the dubbing (announcer Ota sounds as if he has a Chicago accent) with the theme music — from Glory and Backdraft — and you’ve got the makings of one of the hottest cult hits around.

The show, produced by Fuji International TV, began airing in Japan in 1993; the Food Network acquired the rights to broadcast it this past July. And although the last episode (barring specials) was filmed in Japan in September, American audiences can still look forward to many never-before-seen cooking battles.

Gil Jawetz   Allez cuisine!

Matthew Stillman, manager of program development at the Food Network, says he was aware of the show’s cult following in New York and L.A., when it was broadcast on the International Channel, before the Food Network purchased the rights. “There was also a big Internet cult following,” he says. In fact, Food Network gets more feedback about Iron Chef than about any other show, according to Stillman.

When asked to explain the show’s appeal, Stillman says, “I think people like the thumbprints of Japan.”

Or maybe its those nutty chefs. There’s Chin Kinichi, Iron Chef Chinese, generally regarded as the sweetest chef. Kirsten Lawton, a huge fan of the show, says “He is such a teddy bear. He’s a cartoon puppy dog.” Then there’s Iron Chef French, Sakai Hiroyuki, whom Kirsten describes as the one “with the best hair.” Iron Chef Italian, Kobe Masahiko, can get a little — saucy. In Battle Mango, Kobe fought against a challenger who was an expert in Mexican cuisine. The two Japanese chefs engaged in a heated debate about the various cultural merits of Italy versus Mexico.

And then there’s Iron Chef Japanese, Masaharu Morimoto, the newest of the Iron Chefs. Morimoto, who is the third Iron Chef Japanese, has a reputation as the renegade, the bad-boy Iron Chef.

Part of this reputation is because Morimoto does not make traditional Japanese cuisine, but rather what he calls Japanese fusion. Morimoto, the executive chef at New York’s famed Nobu, wears a silver uniform festooned with American flags on the show, and the judges often do not appreciate his lack of adherence to traditional Japanese cooking.

It also doesn’t help that, in one battle, he stole all the good asparagus from the challenger as soon as the Gong of Fate sounded.

But the real problem may be the guy who dubs his voice. He comes off as cocky, even a touch arrogant.

But in person, the real Iron Chef Japanese is sweet as can be.

Iron Chef Chinese combines sweetness with bite

He came to be on Iron Chef, he says in his heavily accented English, because he once cooked in Japan for Hattori Yukio and the show’s producer, who was searching for the third Iron Chef Japanese at the time. The rest is Iron Chefhistory.

“The first battle, I never forget,” Morimoto says. “Red snapper. … I don’t know what (I’m doing) yet. I’m in the same condition as the challenger.” Nonetheless, Morimoto won his first battle in Kitchen Stadium.

And being on the show consistently brought its share of stress, Morimoto confides. “I couldn’t eat. But I could drink. I gained weight. After I finish, I take stress off: more fat. I gained 15 pounds.”

As to his feelings regarding the judges’ occasional dissing of his non-traditional food, Morimoto is unruffled. “I’m a professional cook, they’re not professional judges. I’m a Japanese Iron Chef, I don’t mind. … This is not traditional cuisine. If they don’t understand, OK. If they understand, OK. My food is my food. But the judging is always very close. They like both.”

Morimoto uses Battle Bell Pepper (which he lost) to explain his theory of what the dishes should be about.

“The challenger made dishes using bell pepper. I made bell pepper dishes,” he says.

Although the show has ended, Morimoto says he will be returning to Japan in December to film an Iron Chef special. About? “No one knows,” he says. And, he admits, “I do miss it. But mostly I feel like I did it.”

And if the renowned Iron Chef Japanese had to do battle and could only have three utensils, what would they be?

“Only knife,” he responds emphatically. After a moment, he adds, “And arms.”

Finally, Morimoto hits his chest, smiles, and says, “And strong spirit.”

By Tracey Middlekauff

NEW
YORK — To a biography addict,
J. Randy Taraborrelli is undoubtedly a familiar name.

Iake Eissinmann Taraborrelli has written books about a host of celebs including Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Frank Sinatra

He has chronicled the lives of a host of celebs in books like Michael
Jackson: The Magic and the Madness, Call Her Miss Ross: The Unauthorized
Biography of Diana Ross and Sinatra: Behind the Legend (renamed
A Complete Life after the crooner’s death).

In his latest work, Taraborrelli tackles celebrity of a different sort.
Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (Warner Books, $25.95, 528
pages) deals with the lives of the spouses of three Kennedy men: Jack,
Bobby and Ted. While much has been written about the Kennedy clan, Jackie,
Ethel, Joan is the first book to explore the dynamic among the three
sisters-in-law.

The idea first came to Taraborrelli nearly 20 years ago when he did
an interview with Coretta Scott King, the author says. King, who was on
the plane with Jackie and Ethel after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, told
Taraborrelli stories about the women he had never heard before.

Taraborrelli spoke to Fox Bookmark about his discoveries, the difficulties
of uncovering heretofore unknown information about the lives of the Kennedys,
and the empathy he grew to feel for Jackie, Ethel and Joan throughout
the course of his research and writing.

Fox Bookmark: You’ve written a lot about pop stars and celebrities.
Did you approach Jackie, Ethel, Joan in the same way, as if you
were writing about, in a sense, pop stars?

Taraborrelli: Well, the similarity of my [other] subjects is
that they all willingly and by design have lived their lives in the light
of public scrutiny, and we’ve been able to watch them win and lose and
be successful and fail and grow old. But the difference is that —
unlike … other people I have written about before, the Kennedy women
were reluctant celebrities in the sense that they didn’t know what they
were in for, and they were blindsided, in effect, by the Kennedy legacy
and the powerful family that they married into.

So, I had to approach it in a different way, because there wasn’t a
lot of so-called grapevine information out there about these three women.
This has never been written about before, and it was as if they had taken
an oath of silence to not discuss these things with other people on the
outside. And so, being a new subject and really sort of the final frontier
of Kennedy books, I had to do many, many years of serious investigation
and ask a lot of questions of a lot of people to get the complete picture.

FB: A lot has been written about Jackie, but not so much about
Ethel and Joan. What new information did you feel you could bring to the
Jackie persona?

Taraborrelli: Well, the fact of the matter is, if you look at
any Jackie Kennedy biography, in the index under ‘Ethel’ and ‘Joan’ you’re
going to see something like page 42 and page 73, and the references are
going to be ‘Ethel was also at the party,’ or it’s going to be ‘Joan was
there as well.’ And that’s the extent of what’s been written about Jackie’s
relationship with Ethel and Joan.

But they were sisters-in-law, and they had a long, 40-year history of
good times and bad times. And what this book does is, it doesn’t focus
on so much the stories about Jackie that we’ve all known about and her
spending ways and all that superficial stuff. This focuses on how she
dealt with the two sisters-in-law and how the three of them dealt with
their three unfaithful husbands in three completely different ways.

height=250 border=0 alt=”Photo”> Warner Books

And then it also explains Jackie’s relationship with Marilyn Monroe
for the first time, and how she pretty much ended her husband’s affair
with the movie star — and that’s a revelation as well. But the important
thing in the book is really the interpersonal dynamics between the three
sisters-in-law.

FB: How hard is it to do a biography when you don’t have access
to your subjects? What were some of the difficulties that came up in trying
to portray certain moments when they’re alone?

Taraborrelli: It’s easy to do when you are talking to people
who you trust were closely connected to the women. What I try to do with
my book is I try to find people to quote who have not told their stories
time and time again. And I try to build my story around the memories of
people who don’t have a specific agenda. And then this often leads me
to unmined sources whose memories are perhaps more accurate and who have
more to say than just the standard party line.

And so if ‘Jackie has tears in her eyes,’ it’s because somebody was
there to either witness it, or she later explained to somebody I trusted
that this was her reaction to a specific event.

FB: I like the way the book has certain specificities like they
’sat down and ate tuna sandwiches,’ or ’she had this color scarf on.’

Taraborrelli: … That doesn’t come easy. That is pounding —
it’s pounding away at a person’s memory, you know, and often they won’t
remember something inconsequential. But I always ask. Nine times out of
10 they won’t remember. But that one time they might recall the specific
food that was being served. For instance, I interviewed a gentleman who
was Jackie Kennedy’s chef. The Greek chef.

… I found him, and I interviewed him, and he actually remembered the
menu because he kept a diary of all the foods that he cooked for Jackie
Kennedy so that he wouldn’t repeat certain foods. And he maintained this
diary, and he still has it. So I said, I need you to find out, if you
can, what was being served that day. This was an important day. This was
the day in 1968 that Joan Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy went to Jackie to
have sort of an intervention about the fact that she was dating Aristotle
Onassis.

‘Ethel, generally, did not want to acknowledge the fact that Bobby was unfaithful to her. So, there weren’t heart-to-heart discussions with Jackie about it’

Ethel felt strongly that Onassis’ presence in the Kennedy kingdom was
going to be a detriment and a political liability, and so the three women
had a luncheon in which this was discussed. The meeting did not go well,
and Jackie asked them to leave, it appeared. But I was able to find —
ironically enough because Jackie didn’t know why they were coming —
it was ironic I thought and funny that she had her chef, this gentleman
I interviewed, prepare a Greek feast for the three of them. Which was
sort of the last thing I think Ethel Kennedy expected to find when she
went there.

FB: It must have been tricky trying to explain how they felt
about their husbands cheating on them. How comfortable do you feel with
the conclusions that you drew about how they must have felt and how they
must have been dealing with these things? Especially Ethel, since she
seems very hard to read?

Taraborrelli: It’s interesting that you say that because you
have a better impression of how Jackie and Joan dealt with it than you
do with Ethel, because Jackie and Joan discussed it with each other …
as well as [with] close family members, and so you have that to go by.

With Ethel, she rarely discussed it because she didn’t want to know
it existed. That was the way she handled it, whereas Jackie confronted
JFK, and Joan also confronted Teddy, but allowed it to consume her. Ethel,
generally, did not want to acknowledge the fact that Bobby was unfaithful
to her. So, there weren’t heart-to-heart discussions with Jackie about
it. And that’s why … we know a little bit less about it [Ethel's reaction]
then we do about the way Jackie and Joan dealt with it.

FB: And so was it hard to get inside her head?

Taraborrelli: The conversations that she did have with people
and the way that she acted — it was clear to me as a spectator and
as a chronic lover of human nature, that she just didn’t want to address
it. She took after Rose Kennedy in that respect. … I guess what I am
trying to say is that the fact that she never addressed it made it clear
that she didn’t want to.

FB: With Bobby and Jack in the book, there was a certain understanding
that these weren’t all bad men, and they weren’t all good men. With Ted,
it seemed like you were really just angry with him. You just really didn’t
seem to like Ted at all in the book.

Taraborrelli: At the end of the book I tried to make it clear
what an amazing politician he is. And I tried to separate myself … to
become personally involved from what Ted had done to Joan. But as a writer,
and as someone who had to live with this project for so many years, and
who feels compassion for his subjects, it was a little difficult for me
because I saw what Joan went through.

And this book isn’t really about Ted’s politics. It’s about what kind
of a husband he was. So, I have to say in Ted’s defense, that Bobby and
JFK were taken from us, and we don’t know how they would have treated
their wives had they lived. Ted had a lot longer to be abusive. That’s
what I’m trying to say, and he took full advantage of it, unfortunately.
… I think it’s an accurate image, but I don’t think it’s his fault as
much as it is background and the way he watched his older brothers act
around women and the way that his father was. And it was practically genetic
that he wasn’t going to be a good husband at that time.

In Ted Kennedy’s defense, what I understand is that he’s an excellent
husband today. It was almost as if Joan was his relationship experience,
and his present life gets all of the good stuff that Joan didn’t get because
Ted just didn’t know how to give it.

The irony is that Ted asked Joan for an annulment of that marriage in
order that he marry his second wife in the Catholic Church. And those
in the Kennedy family who felt for Joan for all that she’d been through
with Ted and had such compassion for all that she went through, found
it astonishing that Ted would have the nerve to sort of try to invalidate
all of that.

FB: When you’re researching subjects you start to get attached
or feel an affinity for them. Since you were doing these three women,
was there one in particular you felt like you were really starting to
understand or empathize with over the other two?

Taraborrelli: I’ve not been asked [that question] before. So
let me just sit here and think about it. What I really think is that I
felt that empathy for each woman as the story evolved in a different way.
For instance, how could you not feel so compassionate for Jackie Kennedy
when JFK is killed and she’s witnessed this horrible thing and she says
that her life is over and it will never be the same? And how can you not
feel compassion for Ethel when the same thing happens to her? Same thing.

… And then how can you not feel compassion for Joan when she is going
through so much in her marriage to Ted and then she comes out a winner
at the end of the book. And the interesting thing is that none of these
three women are the same women at the beginning of the book that they
are at the end. And when JFK died it was a new beginning for Jackie. As
tragic as it was, it was a new beginning for her and she went on to wonderful
things.

When Bobby died it was the end of many things for Ethel, and nothing
was ever the same for her. It was not a new beginning. It was as if her
life froze in 1968. And Joan goes through such a transformation in this
book from very much a helpless alcoholic to, by the time the book is over,
you feel very sure that she will never have those problems again and that
she learned from her experiences and that she is a stronger woman today
as a result of them.

So, I felt great compassion and passion for the three of these women
throughout the whole time I worked on this book. It’s a little difficult
for me to let them go right now. It’s a little difficult for me to just
say enough of that because it’s been a part of my life for a long time.

Lead Poisoning

16 April 01

by Tracey Middlekauff

Over the years, Cordell Cleare had complained about the state of
her apartment in central Harlem, and city inspectors had cited her
landlord for over 40 violations. The presence of lead paint, however,
was not one of them.

Then, in 1994, a pediatrician found that Cleare’s son, not yet two
at the time, had been poisoned by lead.

When a child is found to have levels of lead in his blood in excess
of 20 micrograms per deciliter, the
target=new>Department of Health gets involved. It ordered Cleare’s landlord
to remove the lead paint from her apartment.

Cleare says that her landlord picked “10 random guys” to work on
her apartment; they followed no safety procedures. “They were burning
paint off the walls with flames,” she says. To make matters worse,
Cleare had not been directed to a lead “safe house” for the time the
work was being performed. Her son was re-poisoned. Cleare called the
Department of Housing Preservation and Development, who told her to
call the Department of Environmental Protection. Finally, after two
years, HPD performed the work that should have been done immediately.

Tragically, it took a “painfully long time,” Cleare says, to get
the level of lead in her son’s blood back to normal. He lost his ability
to speak, which he eventually regained through therapy. Now eight,
her son has had to overcome many challenges, Cleare says, and still
gets speech therapy and other support to help with the learning disability
she is convinced was caused by the lead poisoning. Her son is now
performing at his grade level, and she remains hopeful that things
will work out. “I believe my child will eventually be functional without
help.”

A PREVENTABLE ILLNESS

Lead poisoning is widely recognized as one of the most serious childhood
health problems in New York City, and one that is preventable. Found
in about 30,000 New York children, it can cause serious problems such
as mental retardation, neurological damage, and developmental disorders.
If detected early enough, and if the lead contaminant is properly
removed from the environment in which the child lives, the problem
is fully treatable. However, it is not as easy as: test, remove (the
lead), and treat. Along every step in the process, dealing with lead
is a hotly-contested political issue.

Activists call for strict regulations covering testing for lead and
removing it. They insist that landlords should be held strictly liable.
Their opponents say that the demands are financially unrealistic and
draconian. Both see right on their side; neither seems willing to
compromise.

The primary cause of lead poisoning in children comes from lead dust
and paint from peeling or deteriorated lead paint. New York City banned
the use of interior lead paint in the 1960s; the federal government
banned lead paint altogether in 1978. While lead paint can be found
in dwellings in any neighborhood–wealthy to low-income–lead poisoning
is primarily a problem in low income neighborhoods, where apartment
buildings have not been well-maintained, and lead paint has been allowed
to peel and crack due to lack of proper maintenance. While not confined
to any one geographical area, activists have located what they call
a lead belt, which runs through Red Hook, Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant
in Brooklyn, and Jamaica in Queens.

Carol Hill, co-chair of the New
York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning, explains, “Apartments
that are well-kept, where the paint is not disturbed, do not have
a problem. But when less affluent people move in, generally speaking,
the landlords do not care as much.” Hill explains that any breach
or crack in paint that may contain lead poses a threat, and lead dust
is even more dangerous. “Paint has to go through the stomach,” she
says, “dust goes right to the lungs.”

Hill believes the best ways to prevent lead poisoning is to educate
people in any community about the risks of lead paint, and to make
sure that testing is wide-spread and frequent. There are measures
to lessen the impact if a child is exposed to lead, such as what she
calls nutritional intervention: While a well-balanced diet does not
make high levels of lead absolutely safe or desirable, a diet rich
in iron, calcium, and vitamin C can help prevent a child’s body from
absorbing lead. A law enacted in New York City in 1992 mandates testing
every year for children ages one and two, and every year until age
six for at-risk children. But Hill advocates testing every six months
for at-risk children. That way, she says, if a child does contract
lead poisoning, they will not have it that long before something is
done.

Even something as seemingly simple as childhood testing is not without
controversy. This month, the New
York Public Interest Research Group sued the State Health Department,
claiming that officials have refused to release their statistics on
the number of New York children who have been tested for lead poisoning.
The watchdog group feels that not enough children have been tested,
and they are therefore not receiving the
proper care.

Controversy aside, when a child is tested, levels under 10 mcg/dcl
are considered safe by the Centers for Disease Control. A level of
10 is considered to be the beginning of lead poisoning, but it is
not until the level of lead concentration in a child’s blood reaches
20 that the New York City Department of Health is required to take
action when a child under six is involved. When he was just under
five years old, in 1993, Carol Hill’s grandson was diagnosed with
a level of 49. Luckily, an emergency repair team from HPD came in
a timely fashion and covered the walls with dry wall and plasterboard
while Hill and her grandson stayed in a safe house. He suffered no
long-term effects.

But unfortunately, things do not always go as smoothly as they did
for Hill, and just what laws and regulations should govern lead abatement
is the subject of much controversy.

LAW AFTER LAW

Until 1999, lead abatement (removal) was covered by Local Law 1.
At just half a page, the law was not specific in its proscriptions,
and various regulations were imposed to expedite and clarify it. According
to Matthew Chachére, an attorney for the Coalition to End Lead
Poisoning, there were often problems enforcing the law. “Roughly 40
percent of lead paint violations were still on the books a year later,”
he says. Chachere says that these violations were supposed to be fixed
within 24 hours. “The city was ordered to have time frames, and was
held in contempt over and over.”

Ostensibly with the purpose of consolidating, clarifying, and codifying
lead paint regulations and abatement, the City Council passed Local
Law 38 by a 36-15 vote in June of 1999, replacing all other legislation
dealing with lead.

Lead poisoning activists were incensed. Local Law 38, they charged,
was nothing more than a “landlord protection bill, ” one which would
decrease landlord responsibility in dealing with lead paint hazards.
Supporters of the bill maintained that it was a practical way to serve
the public interest.

In October of last year, Justice Louis York struck down the new law,
ruling in favor of the Coalition, who had brought the lawsuit against
the city. Justice York ruled that the city did not properly address
the bill’s environmental impact before voting on it. The city has
since appealed this decision; a ruling will probably be made early
next month. Chachere feels that there is almost no chance the decision
will be overturned. He says that those who are in favor of Local Law
38 “try to make it sound like something new, when it curtailed prior
responsibilities. … It eradicates lead dust as a hazard even though
all experts agree that lead dust is dangerous.”

Frank Ricci, the director of government affairs with the Rent
Stabilization Association, sees things differently. He believes
that most critics of Local Law 38 are trial lawyers who are afraid
that, under this new law, they would have has a much higher burden
of proof when bringing cases against landlords. “Under 38, the lawyers
would have to prove that the child got poisoned in the apartment,”
Ricci explains. “Some advocates are very sincere, but trial lawyers
are often masquerading in sheep’s clothing. That’s as plain a truth
as you’re going to get.”

Andrew Goldberg, an attorney for NYPIRG, feels the new law was deeply
flawed for a number of reasons. First of all, he says the new law
would only have addressed lead-poisoned children under the age of
six, when “Health Department records show that ten percent of lead
poisoned children are over the age of six.”

Even more disturbing, according to Goldberg, is that the new law
did not address lead dust as a potential hazard. The law also failed
to require a clearance test–a dust wipe test–to determine if a once-contaminated
area is free of lead dust. “This testing is the gold standard,” Goldberg
says. “It is the only way of knowing if an area is safe.” Instead,
the new law contained provisions for a limited clearance test, to
be done only if work was done on windows or doors.

Finally, Goldberg explains that who actually performs the lead abatement
is an
target=new>extremely important issue. The work must be done by trained workers,
he says, because “they know how not to poison themselves, how not
to contaminate the apartment further, and how not to contaminate their
own family.” Local Law 38 did not contain a provision that the work
be performed by trained workers. “The landlord lobby knows that clearance
testing and trained workers is a one-two punch,” Goldberg believes.

But Ricci feels that claims such as Goldberg’s are not grounded in
fact. He says that 99 percent of lead dust is tracked into an apartment
from outside due to its presence in soil from years of using leaded
gasoline. The dust-wipe test that advocates like Goldberg call for
simply “doesn’t correspond to the condition of the apartment,” according
to Ricci.

Ricci also says that lead abatement would still require trained experts,
but that Local Law 38 calls for specific cleaning procedures, which
could be done by the landlord, that constitute preventive maintenance.
He points out that the city, HPD, and owners’ groups have been running
training courses for landlords and supers.

Councilman Archie Spigner (D-Queens) strongly supported Local Law
38, and says he “would rather bet on a horse race” than guess whether
Judge York’s decision will be overturned. As for the critics of 38,
he says “people are entitled to their opinions.” He says he believes
Local Law 38 would “safeguard the health of children without placing
a fiscal burden on housing that is already on shaky fiscal ground.”

Spigner defends Local Law 38’s various specific provisions, which
he says were passed “after exhaustive testimony.” But he also feels
that legislation alone is not enough: “I think education is as important
as legislation … one without the other will never do the job.”

NOW WHAT?

What do activists advocate in lieu of Local Law 38? Carol Hill feels
the city needs “something kinder than Local Law 1, but more strict
than 38.”

Matthew Chachere believes that one good alternative was Intro 205,
which was written a few years ago by Councilman Stanley Michels (D,
Manhattan). “People will say that Local Law 1 is over-the-top,” he
admits. “But 205 says to take the appropriate action on a case-by
case basis.” NYPIRG is currently drafting a new proposal to cover
lead issues. Goldberg believes that it is important to have a strong
mandatory enforcement program, health-based standards, and liability;
in other words, if a landlord is negligent in his duties, he should
be liable.

Frank Ricci, however, doesn’t see any possibility of compromise.
He says, “They will never be happy. Thirty-eight was the compromise.”

But some important issues have not been covered by legislation. For
example, residents of buildings with fewer than three apartments have
no protection or recourse until a child is actually lead poisoned.
And some feel that small-time landlords should be offered monetary
compensation as an incentive to do the right thing. One solution,
according to Andrew Goldberg, is to offer tax breaks to landlords
who do building upgrades and repairs. This would help encourage landlords
who may not otherwise be able to afford it to maintain their buildings
properly.

The (relatively) good news is that, according to Goldberg, given
the age of New York City housing, the prevalence rate of lead poisoning
is lower than in many other cities. This, he says, is a credit to
the programs that have existed. “New York City is not the worst place
in the world,” he says, “but still we are talking about thousands
of children a year.”

To Cordell Cleare, even one lead-poisoned child is too many. Her
son deals with the results of his lead poisoning every day. That is
what led her to the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning,
which she now co-chairs. Her activism has been ignited, in fact; she
also serves as Council member Bill Perkins’ director of constituent
services. She believes that lead poisoning has a ripple effect. “It
costs us all around,” she says. “Housing, education, medicine. I feel
fortunate that I got in touch with a good group. But there are people
for whom it never worked out.”

###

By Tracey Middlekauff

Timothy Stack has seen some sickening acts perpetrated against animals in his 12-year career as a humane law enforcement officer with the New York-based American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, including people burning or stabbing their pets, or throwing them off the roof. But Stack knows that animal abuse does not have to be so blatant. Some owners abandon their pets. Some neglect them. Some simply do not spay or neuter them. And he knows that no form of abuse is without consequences; the results can be not just ugly, but deadly.

When a group of stray dogs late last year broke into the Staten Island Zoo and killed several animals, and then two days later another group attacked and mauled two people on the boardwalk in the Rockaways, the press focused on the “bloodthirsty strays” going on a “bloody rampage.” News accounts made no mention of where these dogs came from – that they were abandoned pets, or the offspring of abandoned pets – and so did not finger the real culprits.

The same has happened again and again with the pit bull, a breed once owned by Theodore Roosevelt and Helen Keller, but now often associated in the public mind with viciousness. “There’s no way to determine that any breed of dog is more dangerous than another,” says Jane Berkey, founder of Animal Farm Foundation, which takes in abandoned, adoptable pit bulls, a breed she describes as “so trainable, so soft.” The pit bull’s negative image began in the 1980’s, Berkey believes, when sensational coverage of dog fighting, which is a felony in New York, focused on the dogs themselves rather than the inhumane owners who instigated their behavior. “It’s about what’s at the other end of the leash,” Berkey says, “never the dog.”

But last month, blame was placed where it belonged, when in a highly publicized case a jury in San Francisco found Marjorie Knoller guilty of second degree murder because her two dogs, both Presa Canarios, had mauled to death a neighbor named Diane Whipple. “They were dangerous dogs, but it wasn’t the dogs’ fault,” jury foreman Don Newton said. “They were never trained, never properly conditioned to be around people.”

In New York, educating the public about responsible pet ownership is high on the agenda of animal welfare groups, as is making sure that New York has a humane and effective shelter system, and ensuring that felonious acts of abuse are recognized and prosecuted. There are plenty of laws already on the books, but much more could be done to combat the abuse and neglect of animals by human beings.

POPULATION EXPLOSION

Since November of 2000, a city law has required that all animals adopted from shelters be spayed or neutered. But the law has not done much good in curbing the growing problem of pet overpopulation. Not everyone gets pets from a shelter. The law would have required pet stores as well to sterilize all animals before selling them, but state law specifically prohibits this; proponents of more widespread mandatory sterilization laws point out that animal breeders typically resist such regulations.

The city could take steps to make spaying and neutering more convenient and inexpensive for pet owners, says Lisa Weisberg, policy director of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. One way to do that is with roving vans that go into underserved neighborhoods. The society has two such vans, and is soon to get more. The Center for Animal Care and Control, the agency which has been contracted by the city since 1995 to round up strays, has another two vans, though they do not rove; they remain parked in their lot and used to alter the dogs just from their own shelters.

Another initiative in the attempt to curb overpopulation was the recent passage of a law allowing residents of New York City public housing to own pets, at the discretion of each building manager. It is too soon to tell if the legislation has had any impact on the stray population. But it cannot hurt to have more potential homes for animals, and less incentive to abandon them.

Pet abandonment is a misdemeanor in New York, but Samantha Mullen of the regional office of the Humane Society of the United States says that often people would rather abandon their animals than take them to a shelter. “What an ignorant and inhumane way to give up your animal,” she says. They are afraid that in the shelter, the animal may be euthanized.

THE EUTHANASIA DEBATE

Many animal activists are not happy with the shelter system as it exists now, criticizing the Center for Animal Care and Control, which runs shelters in Brooklyn and Manhattan, for a policy that, they claim, emphasizes euthanasia (i.e. killing) over adoption.

Julie Van Ness of United Action for Animals charges that Mayor Rudy Giuliani was never motivated by concerns for animal welfare when he contracted with the Center for Animal Care and Control, but rather simply wanted “to get animals off the street and euthanize them so they wouldn’t bother anyone.” (It is unclear what Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s position will be regarding animal welfare issues).

But Samantha Mullen of the Humane Society believes that often people see euthanasia as the problem, rather than the symptom. And Doris Meyer of the Center for Animal Care and Control says that they run an “open admission shelter. Every animal that shows up at our door is accepted.” Such a situation can lead to some difficult choices, she says, but “no animal is euthanized until the staff vet confirms that it’s legitimate.”

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL BEHAVIOR

Debate over euthanasia often boils down to personal convictions. There are other issues on which everyone agrees, at least in theory, such as animal cruelty. But it is sometimes difficult to convince lawmakers, prosecutors and police to take animal cruelty cases seriously.

The Humane Society’s First Strike campaign makes the connection between violence done to animals and to humans. In many cases, it demonstrates, animal abusers also engage in domestic violence.

The ASPCA is also working to educate police officers about their duties regarding animal cruelty. “Police need to be trained in detecting and dealing with the problem, and not always deferring to the ASPCA,” says Barbara Stagno, northeast director of In Defense of Animals. Though some police officers are responsible and responsive, many seem unaware that they must pursue animal offenders just like any other crime, and as a result the ASPCA’s Humane Law Enforcement unit ends up with an overwhelming caseload. “There’s no other law where the police abdicate their responsibility to a private agency,” says Jane Hoffman, of the committee on animals of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

While Hoffman says that she would like to see stronger penalties in abuse cases, she is more interested in seeing the current laws enforced. The Humane Society’s First Strike manager, Virginia Prevas, says that cruelty reporting is up across the nation due to greater public awareness, but Hoffman points out that whether or not the case is pursued depends on the individual prosecutor. Lisa Weisberg says that enforcement of current dog licensing laws would also help, as such enforcement would demand accountability for abused and abandoned animals.

But dogs are not the only domestic animals to suffer from abuse and neglect in New York. Packs of roaming cats do not make the front page, but Timothy Stack says that he receives at least as many calls about cruelty to cats as to dogs. Weisberg says that there is a tremendous cat overpopulation problem, but there are not that many laws governing felines. Last year, the ASPCA drafted legislation that would penalize New York cat owners who let their cats roam outside, thereby contributing to overpopulation, but such laws would be difficult to enforce.

Trying to protect every pet in New York City is a daunting task. Some say that education will be the key. Barbara Stagno points out that New York City has an old law on the books mandating humane education in public schools, but it is generally ignored. This is too bad. “It starts in the schools,” Jane Berkey says. “We should teach compassion and love of all life from the very beginning.”