With intensifying climate disasters and global

economic turmoil as the backdrop, delegates

from 194 nations will gather in Durban, South

Africa, starting Monday to try to advance, if

only incrementally, the world’s response to

dangerous climate change.

To those who have followed the negotiations

of the United Nations Framework Convention

on Climate Change over their nearly 20-year

history, the conflicts and controversies to be

taken up in Durban are monotonously famil-

iar: the differing obligations of industrialized

and developing nations, the question of who

will pay to help poor nations adapt, the ur-

gency of protecting tropical forests, the need

to rapidly develop and deploy clean energy

technology.

The negotiating process itself is under fire

from some quarters, including the poorest

nations who believe their needs are being ne-

glected in the fight among the major econom-

ic powers. Criticism is also coming from a rel-

atively small but vocal band of climate-change

skeptics, many of them sitting members of the

United States Congress, who doubt the exist-

ence of human influence on the climate and

At Meeting on Climate Change, Urgent Issues but Low Expectations

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU November 2011

29th November 2011

ridicule international efforts to deal with it.

But scientists warn that this squabbling serves

only to delay actions that must be taken to reduce

climate-altering emissions and to improve vulner-

able nations’ ability to respond to the changes

they say are surely coming.

“I feel we are losing completely the scientific ra-

tionale for action,” said Rajendra K. Pachauri, di-

rector of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change, the global body of scientists and statisti-

cians that provides the technical underpinning of

the United Nations talks. He noted that the group

had recently released a detailed assessment of the

increasing frequency of extreme climate

events like droughts, floods and cyclones, and of

the necessity of moving quickly to take steps to

reduce emissions and adapt to the inevitable

damage.

COAL TRAINS near DRY FORK STATION in WYO

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 2

“All of these indicate that inaction in dealing

with climate change and delays would only

expose human society and all living species to

risk that could become serious,” Dr. Pachauri

wrote in an e-mail. He said he was afraid the

conference would “only focus on short-term

political considerations.”

The Durban meeting is formally known as

COP17, for the 17th conference of the parties

to the United Nations convention on climate

change.

Delegates in Durban will be addressing rela-

tively small and, to many, arcane questions of

process and finance. Negotiators, having en-

tered the United Nations climate talks at Co-

penhagen two years ago with grand ambitions

and having left with disillusion, are now de-

fining expectations down and hoping to keep

the process alive through modest steps.

Last year in Cancún, Mexico, delegates pro-

duced an agreement that set up a fund to help

poor countries adapt to climate changes, cre-

ated mechanisms for the transfer of clean-

energy technology, provided compensation

for the preservation of tropical forests and

enshrined the emissions reductions promises

that came out of the Copenhagen meeting.

Negotiators postponed until Durban the polit-

ically freighted question of whether to extend

the frayed Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agree-

ment that requires most wealthy nations to

trim their emissions while providing help to

developing countries to pursue a cleaner en-

ergy path. Also still on the agenda are the

structure of, and the sources of financing for,

a climate adaptation and technology fund that

is supposed to reach $100 billion a year by

2020.

One of the issues that is most contentious and

least likely to be resolved involves the future of

the Kyoto Protocol, which requires the major in-

dustrialized nations to meet targets on emissions

reduction but imposes no mandates on developing

countries, including emerging economic powers

and sources of global greenhouse gas emissions

like China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

The United States is not a party to the protocol,

having refused to even consider ratifying it be-

cause of those asymmetrical obligations. Some

major countries, including Canada, Japan and

Russia, have said they will not agree to an exten-

sion of the protocol next year unless the unbal-

anced requirements of developing and developed

countries are changed. That is similar to the Unit-

ed States’ position, which is that any successor

treaty must apply equally to all major economies.

But the European Union, the major developing

countries, and most African and Pacific island na-

tions would like to see the Kyoto process extended

as a prelude to a binding international agreement

after 2020 to reduce emissions so as to keep the

average global temperature from ever rising more

than 2 degrees Celsius, or about 3.6 degrees Fahr-

enheit, above its current level.

Todd Stern, the chief American climate negotia-

tor, said he was flexible as to the form such a fu-

ture agreement would take and even the time

frame for reaching it, though he expects it will be

after 2020, once the various Kyoto and Cancún

agreements have run their course. He said that all

countries, including the United States, must take

meaningful unilateral steps to control their carbon

dioxide emissions. The obligations are greatest

among the 20 or so largest economies, which are

responsible for more than 80 percent of global

carbon output.

29th novembre 2011 Page 3

“In reality, the most effective thing we can do

to address climate change is for all relevant

countries to act vigorously at home,” Mr. Stern

said in an interview, noting that most coun-

tries have adopted emissions targets or na-

tional action plans that will be followed re-

gardless of the status of the negotiations to-

ward a binding future agreement.

“At the same time,” Mr. Stern added, “climate

is a classic global commons problem, where

each country needs confidence that others are

acting, so international cooperation is im-

portant, and this then takes you to the core

international issue: you can’t rationally ad-

dress this problem at the international level

unless you get all the major economies, devel-

oped and developing, acting in a common sys-

tem.”

The United States has been criticized at

these gatherings for years, in part because

of its rejection of the Kyoto framework and

in part because it has not adopted a com-

prehensive domestic program for reducing

its own greenhouse gas emissions. Presi-

dent Obama has pledged to reduce Ameri-

can emissions 17 percent below 2005 lev-

els by 2020, but his preferred approach, a

nationwide cap-and-trade system for car-

bon pollution, failed spectacularly in Con-

gress in 2010. United States emissions are

down about 6 percent over the past five

years, largely because of the drop in indus-

trial and electricity production caused by

the recession.

Turmoil : a state of great disturbance, confusion

Backdrop : the setting for a scene or event

Skeptics : a person inclined to question

Squabbling: arguing, debating

Arcane: esoteric

Droughts: a drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water

supply

Enshrined: to enclose, close in, shut in

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 4

A Reporter Entangled in the Story

Last summer, Amelia Hill, a special investiga-

tions correspondent for the British newspaper

The Guardian, helped crack open the country’s

hacking scandal for all to see. Working with her

colleague Nick Davies, she pulled back the veil on

the mind-boggling hacking of the murder victim

Milly Dowler’s phone by The News of the World.

In the wake of that revelation came these results:

both Rupert and James Murdoch, the chief exec-

utive and deputy chief operating officer of News

Corporation, which owned The News of the

World, were called before Parliament; the compa-

ny decided immediately to close the 168-year-old

newspaper; more than a dozen former employees

have been arrested; the article about Milly Dow-

ler by Mr. Davies and Ms. Hill won top honors

from the Foreign Press Association in London

last week; and a broad investigation by the Met-

ropolitan Police of London called Operation

Weeting yielded more than 5,800 victims.

Oh yes, and the police have zeroed in on one

more reporter: Ms. Hill.

Last August, after the Milly Dowler story broke,

Ms. Hill wrote an article about the arrest of

James Desborough, the former Hollywood re-

porter for The News of the World. The police

decided that their investigation had been

leaked, a detective from Operation Weeting

was arrested and Ms. Hill was brought in for

questioning “under caution,” which means she

was read her rights and any answers she gave

could be used against her in a criminal case.

Ms. Hill was initially questioned on a charge

that she had induced a police official to illegally

share information. Then in September, word

came that she might be charged under Britain’s

Official Secrets Act. The police backed off that

charge after a huge outcry in the British press,

but she remained at risk of being prosecuted on

the original charge.

After the investigation into her reporting was

announced, Ms. Hill suddenly found herself

hunted, with reporters from the tabloid press

camped out at her doorstep, digging into her

personal life and following her with cameras

when she went shopping for groceries.

“I am amazed, given that what I was doing was

good old-fashioned journalism,” she said in an

interview at a coffee shop in Midtown Manhat-

tan. “I have done nothing more than speak to a

29th novembre 2011 Page 5

source, without confirming or denying who

that source is, and to criminalize that is utterly

shocking. It is beyond ‘Alice in Wonderland’

territory.”

To be clear, Ms. Hill is not being pursued on

the grounds that she paid bribes to the police

or used anything more technologically ad-

vanced than shoe leather to obtain her story.

“Amelia paid no one, hacked no one and just

did her job as a journalist,” Mr. Davies, whose

reporting broke open the scandal to begin with,

said in an e-mail.

With all of the targets of opportunity — 28

journalists have been named so far in the in-

vestigation of bribes and hacking — Ms. Hill

remains surprised that reporting that helped

uncover the illegal conduct in the first place has

made her a target.

“It shows how emotional the police have be-

come,” she said, tugging at her big multicolored

scarf. “They have let their fury and embarrass-

ment caused by my reporting distract them

from the heinous crimes that repeated investi-

gations had failed to uncover and sought to

criminalize my work as a reporter. I showed the

inner machinery of their investigation, which is

what journalists do.”

Perhaps, but the results were not typical. In a

matter of days after the article she wrote with

Mr. Davies on the Dowler affair appeared, The

News of the World was closed.

“I’m not proud of that,” she said. “I don’t think

that we need fewer papers, we need more. The

reporters there were just collateral damage,

sacrificed to save Rebekah Brooks, and she ar-

guably was being used to protect James Mur-

doch.” Ms. Brooks, the chief of News Interna-

tional, the British newspaper arm of News

Corporation, eventually resigned.

Britain is now in the midst of hearings that

are broadly looking into the conduct of the

press. Last week, the so-called Leveson hear-

ings included a red carpet full of celebrities

who testified that their private lives had been

kidnapped by tabloid aggression.

Ms. Hill believes the inquiry has value, but

she says that most of the British press was far

too quiet when it came to the allegations

raised by Mr. Davies’s reporting back in 2009.

“All of the organs of truth were in this com-

plicit silence after Nick’s stories,” she said.

“People were terrified of Murdoch and they

have every right to be terrified. With the poli-

ticians he is friendly with, the newspapers and

television stations, he was able to punish his

enemies. Remember that he was within days

of getting his hands on BSkyB when this story

finally took hold.

“This is not like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when they

pulled back the curtain and it was just a little

man sitting there. He has serious weaponry at

his disposal in Britain,” she said.

There are fewer arrows in that quiver. Just as

News Corporation was about to swallow the

majority share of the satellite service BSkyB

that it did not own, it found an enraged public

and government at its throat. The News of the

World is gone and word came last week that

James Murdoch had stepped down as a direc-

tor of two subsidiaries that publish Murdoch-

owned newspapers in Britain.

Ms. Hill, who came to The Guardian from The

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 6

Observer a year and a half ago and has a broad

range of interests as a reporter, does not want to

spend years chasing the fallout from the hacking

story, but for the time being she is very much in

the middle of it. The police have concluded their

investigation into her reporting and she anxiously

awaits word on whether the Crown Prosecution

Service will proceed with the case.

It’s a predicament she does not find amusing.

“I’m trying not to be on tenterhooks and

think about what happens if the Crown

Prosecution Service takes on the case, but

if I am honest, it’s gnawing away at me,”

she said. “It is upsetting and destabilizing.

I can’t ever quite forget the nightmare

could explode again. And this time, it

would be really serious.”

Entangle : involve in complicated circumstances

Tugging : to tug means to attract, to pull

Weaponry : the science of designing and making weapons

Quiver : to move back and forth

On tenterhooks: in a state of uneasiness or suspense

Gnawing: dilapidating

In a Surprise, Calm Prevails in Egypt’s Elections

CAIRO — Unexpectedly large crowds of Egyp-

tians on Monday defied predictions of bedlam

and violence to cast their votes in the first par-

liamentary elections since the ouster of Presi-

dent Hosni Mubarak.

The apparent success of the initial voting sur-

prised the voters themselves. After a week of

violent demonstrations against the interim

military rulers, many said they had cast their

ballots out of a sense of duty and defiance, de-

termined to reclaim the promise of their revo-

lution, even as the ruling generals said they

intended to share little power with the new

Parliament.

“The revolution started so that our voice has a

value, so we have to do what we are supposed

to do,” said Lilian Rafat, 23, who stood in line

for more than four hours, even though she put

the chances of a legitimate result at only

about “50 percent.”

But the large turnout on Monday, despite

long delays and sporadic violence, raised the

possibility that when the last phase of voting

is completed in March, the process may re-

sult in the first broadly representative Parlia-

ment in more than six decades. The opening

appeared to bring the Muslim Brotherhood,

29th novembre 2011 Page 7

a once-outlawed Islamist group, one step closer

to a formal role in governing Egypt. And, for

the first time in 10 months, it offered the prom-

ise of moving the debate over Egypt’s future off

the streets and into the new legislature.

For now, though, the act of voting itself ap-

peared to vent to the public’s anger after a week

of clashes that brought hundreds of thousands

out in Cairo to demand that the military hand

over power to a civilian government. Abandon-

ing talk of a boycott, protest leaders urged sup-

porters to go to the polls. And the diversion,

along with a swell of pride in the historic vote,

drained the continuing occupation of Tahrir

Square to just a few thousand demonstrators.

“It is like a play, it is like a sham. We are pre-

tending to be voting,” said Rabab Abdel Fattah

Mohamed, 30, a doctor demonstrating in Tah-

rir Square. “I know these elections don’t mean

anything, but I am still going.”

The military pointed to the seemingly success-

ful vote as validation. Egyptian state television

called the turnout a mark of approval for the

military’s current transition timetable: transfer

to an elected president by July, after the mili-

tary has had a chance to shape the writing of a

new constitution that it has suggested should

enshrine its power and autonomy from civilian

government.

“We are betting on the Egyptian people,” said

Gen. Ibrahim Nassouhy, a member of the rul-

ing Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, as

he visited a polling place in Shoubra, a neigh-

borhood of Cairo. “We know our people very

well. That is why we are insisting on elections,”

he said, calling the day a triumph.

But some voters said they hoped an elected

Parliament could stand up to the military coun-

cil, and some activists insisted that the new

body would become their most potent tool.

“Candidates do not go through this whole

process just to become pictures on the wall,”

said Gamal Eid, executive director of the Ara-

bic Network for Human Rights Information.

“The legitimacy of being elected will allow

them to start a political conflict with SCAF,”

he said, referring to the military council.

The outcome is not a foregone conclusion and

final results remain months away. Some

warned that violence and fraud were still pos-

sible. The first round of voting for the lower

house — including the major cities of Cairo

and Alexandria — will continue Tuesday. Af-

ter a runoff next week, two more rounds will

follow, ending in January. The elections for

the upper house are scheduled to start in Jan-

uary and be completed by March.

Adding to the uncertainty of the day, the

Egyptian authorities suggested that they

might fine people about $80 if they failed to

vote. Some voters, like Wael Ashraf, 23, said

that was why they had come to the polls.

“The revolution didn’t help — do you

think elections will?” he said.

Many polling places around Cairo, Alexandria

and other cities opened hours late because

ballots, voter rolls or supervising judges failed

to arrive — in some cases, not until 6:30 p.m.

At least 11 polling places in the cities of Cairo

and Fayoum did not open at all, according to

the Web site of the state-run newspaper Al

Ahram. And many places stayed open hours

after polls were supposed to close to give vot-

ers a longer chance to vote.

Al Ahram reported that judges in some poll-

ing places donated ink and wax (to seal the

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA Page 8

flower instead of their face on their campaign

fliers, deferring to conservative Islamic no-

tions of modesty.

Several liberal parties are competing in two

main coalitions. But most suspended or

slowed their campaigns to focus on last

week’s protests, potentially falling behind as

the Brotherhood sprinted on toward the vote.

Although the Brotherhood declined to join the

protests to avoid any delays in the elections,

its leaders have said they intend to use any

seats they gain in Parliament as a platform to

continue pushing for the military’s speedy

exit. So, the completion of the elections could

restore the unity of liberal and Islamist calls

for the generals to leave power.

Of course, in most places incumbents — for-

mer members of Mr. Mubarak’s party — are

also running, hoping past patronage and

name recognition will overcome anger at their

association with the old government.

As voters stood in long lines at the polls, the

potential for a democracy to flourish under

military rule set off as much discussion as the

contest between parties. “We are asking for

change, so we have to convey our feelings,”

said one woman, putting the chances of a

credible election at about “75 percent.”

“No, no, no!” said Magda Mokabel, 39, wait-

ing nearby. “There is no justice, no integrity,

no confidence,” she said. “But I came because

then I will have done my duty, so I will ask to

claim my rights.”

ballot boxes) because the authorities had failed

to supply them. In at least one poorer neighbor-

hood near Cairo, soldiers fired into the air to

disperse an angry crowd trying to get in to vote.

There were also reports of scattered clashes, in-

cluding a dispute in Asyut in the south that led

the family of a candidate to burn down a polling

place and kidnap a judge.

The Muslim Brotherhood demonstrated unri-

valed organization and sophistication. Teams of

young members sat with laptop computers at

strategic points, such as outside mosques,

around Cairo to help voters locate their polling

places, helping anyone but providing the infor-

mation on slips of paper advertising their candi-

dates.

Lines of as many as a dozen Brotherhood mem-

bers wearing the insignia of the group’s newly

formed Freedom and Justice Party stood outside

polling places to help maintain security, and in

some places they performed services such as

walking elderly women to designated lines.

The party’s secretary general, Mohamed Saad el-

Katatni, said on Monday night that 40,000

members had turned out to secure polling places

in Cairo, and afterward members volunteered to

clean up the litter left behind.

In the Islamist stronghold of Alexandria and

elsewhere, the Brotherhood is competing with

several new parties established by the ultracon-

servative Islamists known as Salafis. Less orga-

nized and new to the political scene, the Salafis’

relative strength is one of the major questions

hanging over the polls. Egyptian law requires

parties to nominate female candidates, and

many of the ones on Salafi lists put a picture of a

Ballots : ballot means vote

The polls : a poll is a survey

Leaflets : fliers

29th novembre 2011 Page 9

Human Nature’s Pathologist

Steven Pinker was a 15-year-old anarchist. He didn’t

think people needed a police force to keep the peace.

Governments caused the very problems they were sup-

posed to solve.

Besides, it was 1969, said Dr. Pinker, who is now a 57-

year-old psychologist at Harvard. “If you weren’t an

anarchist,” he said, “you couldn’t get a date.”

At the dinner table, he argued with his parents about

human nature. “They said, ‘What would happen if

there were no police?’ ” he recalled. “I said: ‘What

would we do? Would we rob banks? Of course not.

Police make no difference.’ ”

This was in Montreal, “a city that prided itself on civil-

ity and low rates of crime,” he said. Then, on Oct. 17,

1969, police officers and firefighters went on strike,

and he had a chance to test his first hypothesis about

human nature.

“All hell broke loose,” Dr. Pinker recalled. “Within a

few hours there was looting. There were riots. There

was arson. There were two murders. And this was in

the morning that they called the strike.”

The ’60s changed the lives of many people and, in Dr.

Pinker’s case, left him deeply curious about how hu-

mans work. That curiosity turned into a career as a

leading expert on language, and then as a leading ad-

vocate of evolutionary psychology. In a series of best-

selling books, he has argued that our mental faculties

— from emotions to decision-making to visual cogni-

tion — were forged by natural selection.

He has also become a withering critic of those who

would deny the deep marks of evolution on our minds

— social engineers who believe they can remake chil-

dren as they wish, modernist architects who believe

they can rebuild cities as utopias. Even in the 21st cen-

tury, Dr. Pinker argues, we ignore our evolved brains at

our own peril.

Given this track record, Dr. Pinker’s newest book, pub-

lished in October, struck some critics as a jackknife

turn. In “The Better Angels of Our Nature” (Viking), he

investigates one of the most primal aspects of life: vio-

lence.

Over the course of 802 pages, he argues that violence

has fallen drastically over thousands of years — wheth-

er one considers homicide rates, war casualties as a

percentage of national populations, or other measures.

This may seem at odds with evolutionary psychology,

which is often seen as an argument for hard-wired

Stone Age behavior, but Dr. Pinker sees that view as a

misunderstanding of the science. Our evolved brains,

he argues, are capable of a wide range of responses to

their environment. Under the right conditions, they can

allow us to live in greater and greater peace.

“The Better Angels of Our Nature” is full of the flourish-

es that Dr. Pinker’s readers have come to expect. He

offers gruesomely delightful details about cutting off

noses and torturing heretics. Like his other popular

books, starting with “The Language Instinct” (1994), it

is a far cry from his first published works in the late

1970s — esoteric reports from his graduate work at

Harvard, with titles like “The Representation and Ma-

nipulation of Three-Dimensional Space in Mental Im-

ages.”

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 10

dictionary we keep in our memory.

This research helped to convince Dr. Pinker that lan-

guage has deep biological roots. Some linguists ar-

gued that language simply emerged as a byproduct of

an increasingly sophisticated brain, but he rejected

that idea. “Language is so woven into what makes

humans human,” he said, “that it struck me as incon-

ceivable that it was just an accident.”

Instead, he concluded that language was an adapta-

tion produced by natural selection. Language evolved

like the eye or the hand, thanks to the way it im-

proved reproductive success. In 1990 he published a

paper called “Natural Language and Natural Selec-

tion,” with his student Paul Bloom, now at Yale. The

paper was hugely influential.

It also became the seed of his breakthrough book,

“The Language Instinct,” which quickly became a

best seller and later won a place on a list in the jour-

nal American Scientist of the top 100 science books

of the 20th century.

Dr. Pinker used the success of the book to expand the

scope of his work. “It gave me the freedom to return

to these much larger questions, informed by what I

could learn about real humans,” he said.

For the past 17 years, he has alternated between

wide-ranging books on human nature, like “How the

Mind Works” (1997) and “The Blank Slate” (2002),

and books focused on his research, like “Words and

Rules” (1999), about irregular verbs. He writes at the

apartment he shares with his wife, the novelist Re-

becca Goldstein, and at a house on Cape Cod.

Cause for Optimism

As a public intellectual, Dr. Pinker has engaged in a

series of high-profile debates about evolutionary psy-

chology. In 1997, the Harvard paleontologist Stephen

Jay Gould accused him and other evolutionary psy-

chologists of seeing fine-tuned adaptations in every

facet of human existence.

From Irregular Verbs, a Career

He came to Harvard after graduating from McGill Uni-

versity in 1976. At the time, he was convinced that a life

in psychology would allow him to ask the big questions

about the mind and answer them with scientific rigor.

“It was the sweet spot for me in trying to understand

human nature,” he said.

But he quickly realized that such explorations would

have to wait. “You can’t do a Ph.D. thesis on human na-

ture,” he said. “So I studied much smaller problems —

academic bread-and-butter problems.”

He began by studying how we picture things in our

heads, looking for the strategies people use to make

sense of the visual information continually flooding the

brain. As he worked on his dissertation, however, he

recognized that many other scientists were also tackling

the same problems of visual cognition.

“There were a lot of people studying them who were

doing a better job than I could,” he said. So he looked

for another problem.

The field he settled on was language, and it proved to be

consuming. For Dr. Pinker, it was “a window into hu-

man nature.” Linguists have long debated whether lan-

guage is a skill we develop with all-purpose minds, or

whether we have innate systems dedicated to it.

Dr. Pinker has focused much of his research on lan-

guage on a seemingly innocuous fluke: irregular verbs.

While we can generate most verb tenses according to a

few rules, we also hold onto a few arbitrary ones. In-

stead of simply turning “speak” into “speaked,” for ex-

ample, we say “spoke.”

As a young professor at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, he pored over transcripts of children’s

speech, looking for telling patterns in the mistakes they

made as they mastered verbs. Out of this research, he

proposed that our brains contain two separate systems

that contribute to language. One combines elements of

language to build up meaning; the other is like a mental

29th novembre 2011 Page 11

Evolutionary psychology, Dr. Gould wrote, “could be

quite useful if proponents would trade their propensity

for cultism and ultra-Darwinian fealty for a healthy dose

of modesty.”

Dr. Pinker gave as good as he got. He declared that Dr.

Gould was “scrambling things so that his opponents

have horns and he has a halo.” (Dr. Gould died in 2002.)

Then there is the question of male and female minds. In

2005, Lawrence H. Summers, then president of Har-

vard, caused an uproar by speculating that one reason

for the underrepresentation of women in tenured sci-

ence and engineering positions was “issues of intrinsic

aptitude.”

Dr. Pinker (who had moved from M.I.T. to Harvard in

2003) came to Dr. Summers’s defense, and ended up in

a high-profile debate with a fellow Harvard psychologist,

Elizabeth Spelke.

Dr. Pinker argued that there were small but important

biological differences in how male and female brains

worked. Dr. Spelke argued that these differences were

minor, and that evolutionary psychology had no part to

play in the debate.

“The kinds of careers people pursue now, the kinds of

choices they make, are radically different from anything

that anybody faced back in the Pleistocene,” Dr. Spelke

said at the close of the debate. “It is anything but clear

how motives that evolved then translate into a modern

context.”

In a way, “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” is a re-

sponse to this kind of critique. He says the idea for the

book took root in his mind around the time of his debate

with Dr. Spelke, when he stumbled across graphs of his-

torical rates of violence. In England, for example, homi-

cide rates are about a hundredth of what they were in

1400.

In 2006 Dr. Pinker was invited to write an essay on the

theme “What Are You Optimistic About?” His answer:

“The decline of violence.”

The reaction to the essay was swift and surprising.

“I started hearing from scholars from fields that I

was barely aware of, saying, ‘There’s much more

evidence on this trend than you were aware of,’ ” he

said.

Researchers sent him evidence that violence had

declined in many other places, and in many differ-

ent forms, from the death rate in wars to rates of

child abuse. “I thought, ‘This is getting to be a con-

spiracy.’ It was beyond my wildest dreams. I real-

ized there was a book to be written.”

Dr. Pinker set out to synthesize all these patterns

and find an explanation for them. And in the pro-

cess, he wanted to rebut stereotypes of evolutionary

psychology.

“There’s a common criticism of evolutionary psy-

chology that it’s fatalistic and it dooms us to eternal

strife,” he said. “Why even try to work toward peace

if we’re just bloody killer apes and violence is in our

genes?”

Instead, Dr. Pinker argues that evolutionary psy-

chology offers the best explanation for why things

have gotten better, and how to make them even

better.

Civilization’s Effect

“Better Angels” has impressed many experts on

historical trends of violence.

“Steven Pinker’s great achievement is to weave the-

se trends into a much larger pattern of reduced

violence, greater empathy and, indeed, a compre-

hensive civilizing process,” said Nils Petter

Gleditsch, a research professor at the Peace Re-

search Institute Oslo in Norway.

Human violence started dropping thousands of

years ago with the formation of the first states, Dr.

Pinker argues. For evidence, he points to archaeo-

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 12

their powers of language to generate new ideas, those

ideas could spread. “If you give people literacy, bad

ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and

lessons will accumulate,” Dr. Pinker said. “That pulls

you away from what human nature would consign

you on its own.”

And these ideas helped drive down violence even

further. Ideas about equality led to women gaining

power across much of the world, and “women are

statistically more dovish than men,” Dr. Pinker said.

Reviews for the new book have been largely enthusi-

astic, though not unmixed. In The New Yorker, Eliza-

beth Kolbert called it “confounding,” “exasperating”

and “fishy.”

“Hate and madness and cruelty haven’t disap-

peared,” she concluded, “and they aren’t going to.”

Dr. Pinker’s response was equally scornful. “No hon-

est reviewer would imply that this is the message of

the book,” he wrote on his Web site.

Though violence has indisputably declined, he says,

it could rise again. But by understanding the causes

of the decline, humanity can work to promote peace.

He endorses the new book “Winning the War on

War” (Dutton/Penguin), by the political scientist

Joshua S. Goldstein, which argues that the slogan “If

you want peace, fight for justice” is precisely the

wrong advice.

If you want peace, Dr. Goldstein argues, work for

peace. Dr. Pinker agrees.

“It’s psychologically astute, given the massive

amount of self-serving biases,” he said. “In any dis-

pute, each side thinks it’s in the right and the other

side is demons.”

The moral of his own book might be, If you want

peace, understand psychology.

logical studies and observations of stateless societies

today. With the birth of the first states, rates of violence

began to fall, and they have dropped in fits and starts

ever since.

Dr. Pinker grants that these results may be hard to be-

lieve, but he thinks that is more a matter of psychology

than of data. The emotional power in stories of violence

— whether on the nightly news or on “Law and Order”

— can distract us from the long-term decline.

He acknowledges, of course, that the past century pro-

duced two horrific world wars. But he says they do not

refute his argument. Statistical studies of war reveal a

lot of randomness built into their timing and size. The

20th century, he argues, suffered some particularly bad

luck.

Dr. Pinker finds an explanation for the overall decline of

violence in the interplay of history with our evolved

minds. Our ancestors had a capacity for violence, but

this was just one capacity among many. “Human nature

is complex,” he said. “Even if we do have inclinations

toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to

cooperation, to self-control.”

Which inclinations come to the fore depends on our

social surroundings. In early society, the lack of a state

spurred violence. A thirst for justice could be satisfied

only with revenge. Psychological studies show that peo-

ple overestimate their own grievances and underesti-

mate those of others; this cognitive quirk fueled spiral-

ing cycles of bloodshed.

But as the rise of civilization gradually changed the

ground rules of society, violence began to ebb. The earli-

est states were brutal and despotic, but they did manage

to take away opportunities for runaway vendettas.

More recently, the invention of movable type radically

changed our social environment. When people used

Arson : the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas

Gruesomely : Causing horror and repugnance; frightful and shocking

Spurred : to promote, advance, boost / Cod : to deceive, betray

29th novembre 2011 Page 13

Grievance : a real or imagined cause for complaint

Astute : having an ability to assess situations or people accurately

Withering: from the verb wither which means humiliate someone with a scornful look or manner

NASA rover launched to seek out life clues on Mars

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An un-

manned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Florida on

Saturday, launching a $2.5 billion nuclear-powered

NASA rover toward Mars to look for clues on what

could sustain life on the Red Planet.

The 20-story-tall booster built by United Launch

Alliance lifted off from its seaside launch pad at

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:02 a.m. EST

(3:02 p.m. GMT).

It soared through partly cloudy skies into space,

carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on a 354-

million mile (556 million km), nearly nine-month

journey to the planet.

"I think this mission is an important next step in

NASA's overall goal to address the issue of life in the

universe," lead scientist John Grotzinger, with the

California Institute of Technology, told reporters

shortly after the launch.

The car-sized rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is ex-

pected to touch down on August 6, 2012, to begin

two years of detailed analysis of a 96-mile (154-km)

wide impact basin near the Martian equator called

Gale Crater.

The goal is to determine if Mars has or ever had en-

vironments to support life. It is the first astro-

biology mission to Mars since the 1970s-era

Viking probes.

Scientists chose the landing site because it has

a three-mile-high (4.8-km high) mountain of

what appears from orbital imagery and mineral

analysis to be layers of rock piled up like the

Grand Canyon, each layer testifying to a differ-

ent period in Mars' history.

The rover has 17 cameras and 10 science instru-

ments, including chemistry labs, to identify

elements in soil and rock samples to be dug up

by the probe's drill-tipped robotic arm.

'LONG SHOT'

The base of the crater's mountain has clays,

evidence of a prolonged wet environment, and

what appears to be minerals such as sulfates

that likely were deposited as water evaporated.

Water is considered to be a key element for life,

but not the only one.

Previous Mars probes, including the rovers

Spirit and Opportunity, searched for signs of

past surface water.

"We are not a life-detection mission,"

Grotzinger said. "We have no ability to detect

life present on the surface of Mars. It's an inter-

mediate mission between the search for water

and future missions, which may undertake life

detection."

With Curiosity, which is twice as long and three

times heavier than its predecessors, NASA

shifts its focus to look for other ingredients for

life, including possibly organic carbon, the

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 14

"sky-crane" to gently lower Curiosity to the crater

floor via a 43-foot (13-meter) cable.

"We call it the 'six-minutes of terror,'" said Doug

McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration

Program, referring to the landing. "It is pretty

scary, but my confidence level is really high."

Curiosity is powered by heat from the radioactive

decay of plutonium. It is designed to last one Mar-

tian year, or 687 Earth days.

building block for life on Earth.

"It's a long shot, but we're going to try," Grotzinger

said.

Launch is generally considered the riskiest part of a

mission, but Curiosity's landing on Mars will not be

without drama.

The 1,980-pound (898 kg) rover is too big for the

airbag or thruster-rocket landings used on previous

Mars probes, so engineers designed a rocket-powered

Rover : a vehicle that explores the surface of an astronomical body

Probes : to investigate, to look into

Drill: cut

For Giants’ Defense, Getting to Brees Is Imperative

The Giants’ defensive game plan rarely wavers from

week to week. It starts with rushing the passer. The

rest trickles down from there.

And it remained that way heading into Monday

night’s game in New Orleans against the Saints, one

of the N.F.L.’s top offenses, the stiffest test yet for

the Giants’ defense. A few hours after practice last

Friday, its coordinator, Perry Fewell, only chuckled

when asked to list the Saints’ offensive weapons.

“Too many,” Fewell said, adding something like a

sigh. But in offering the keys to stopping them, Few-

ell started by reiterating the team’s mantra.

“The front four is vitally important,” Fewell said.

“We’ve said to them, Hey, if we’re going to be suc-

cessful in this ballgame, you’ve got to come through

for us.”

This is the company line, so ingrained even the de-

fensive backs rattle it off without hesitation. Giants

safeties Kenny Phillips and Deon Grant said pres-

suring quarterback Drew Brees was the defense’s

primary objective Monday.

“Can’t let Brees sit back there and get comfortable,”

Grant said. “We definitely have to rattle him and

make sure to keep somebody in his face.”

That did not happen two years ago, the last time

these teams met, when the Giants were unable to

sack Brees in a 48-27 victory by the Saints.

New Orleans (7-3) may have an even stronger of-

fense than it did that season, when it went on to win

the Super Bowl. Heading into Monday night’s

game, the Saints led the N.F.L. in yards per game

(436.9), third-down conversion percentage and first

downs per game.

Brees has already passed for more than 3,000 yards

and is on pace to break Dan Marino’s record of

29th novembre 2011 Page 15

5,024 yards set in 1984. (He began Monday be-

hind only New England’s Tom Brady, who has

3,627 yards passing, and Green Bay’s Aaron Rodg-

ers, who has 3,475.) Brees also led the N.F.L. in

completions (299) and trailed only Brady in yards

passing per game (332.6). He had also thrown for

23 touchdowns.

“He’s been with the same quarterbacks coach, the

same coordinator, he’s in the same offense,” Few-

ell said. “He knows that offense to a science. He

knows exactly where he’s going with the football

when he takes the snap.”

The Giants were unable to put pressure on Phila-

delphia quarterback Vince Young in the key mo-

ments of last Sunday’s loss, when their defense

allowed Young to lead an 18-play drive in the

fourth quarter. The Giants are tied for the N.F.C.

lead with 31 sacks but have only five in the last

three games.

“The bottom line is we get paid to get after the

quarterback and recently, we haven’t done that

like we expect ourselves to,” defensive lineman

Dave Tollefson said.

The Giants’ defensive line planned to try to attack

Brees without blitzing, to give the rest of the de-

fense the ability to focus on covering some of the

weapons Fewell alluded to. They include running

back Darren Sproles, a seven-year veteran who is

averaging 6.8 yards a rush and has caught 60

passes, third most in the league. Tight end Jimmy

Graham, a former basketball player at the Univer-

sity of Miami, is an emerging star whose size (6 feet 6

inches) and speed make him a nightmarish matchup

for linebackers. He had 62 receptions and 6 touch-

downs through the first 10 games.

“They definitely have options,” Giants linebacker Ma-

thias Kiwanuka said. “And they use them well. Their

alignments, the way that they come out and distribute

their receivers, that’s something we have to pay atten-

tion to.”

The Giants were also without the veteran linebacker

Michael Boley for a second consecutive game because

of a hamstring injury.

The rookie Mark Herzlich is expected to play more in

Boley’s absence. Herzlich earned praise from Fewell

for his performance last Sunday, but the youth of the

team’s depleted linebacker corps is unmistakable.

Kiwanuka is the only player with more than one sea-

son of experience.

“Our young linebackers have got to grow up real fast,”

Fewell said. “We’ve been emphasizing that to them all

week.”

Many of the players said they watched Dallas beat

Miami on Thanksgiving Day, if only because they will

face the Cowboys twice in the final six weeks of the

season. It incited some urgency, too, with Dallas mov-

ing into first place in the N.F.C. East and the Giants

having lost two straight games.

Even so, the Giants will stick with their defensive sta-

tus quo.

“We know the definition of our defense,” Grant said.

“We just have to make sure we show it to them.”

Wavers: to fluctuate, vacillate, swing

ingrained: deep-seated, implanted

rattle : shake, agitate

The rookie : a rookie is a player who is in his first saison.

Depleted : consumed, exhausted

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 16

Militants Turn to Death Squads in Afghanistan

SABARI, Afghanistan — As targeted killings have risen

sharply across Afghanistan, American and Afghan offi-

cials believe that many are the work of counterintelli-

gence units of the Haqqani militant network and Al

Qaeda, charged with killing suspected informants and

terrorizing the populace on both sides of the Afghani-

stan-Pakistan border.

Military intelligence officials say that the units essen-

tially act as death squads and that one of them, a large

group known as the Khurasan that operates primarily

in Pakistan’s tribal areas, has been responsible for at

least 250 assassinations and public executions.

Another group, whose name is not known, works

mainly in Afghanistan and may be responsible for at

least 20 killings in Khost Province over the summer

alone, including a mass beheading that came to light

only after a video was found in the possession of a cap-

tured insurgent. The video shows 10 headless bodies

evenly spaced along a paved road, while their heads sit

nearby in a semicircle, their faces clearly visible.

It is another indication that the Haqqanis, a mostly

Pakistan-based faction, remain the most dangerous

part of an insurgency that makes full use of a porous

and often ill-defined border, as the NATO strike that

killed 24 Pakistani soldiers over the weekend showed.

Though the circumstances of that strike remain murky,

it has now further upset relations between Pakistan

and the United States, even as it once again demon-

strated how havens inside Pakistan remained a critical

part of the insurgent strategy.

The Americans have geared their offensive around

bloodying the insurgents as they enter Afghanistan.

But the new wave of assassinations shows that, even as

NATO portrays the insurgents as a weakening force,

the Haqqanis can still assert their influence, not only

with headline-grabbing bombings but also through

intimidation and by controlling perceptions.

One chilling case attributed to the second death squad

came after American forces captured the senior Af-

ghanistan-based leader for the Haqqanis, Hajji Mali

Khan, and killed his top deputy this summer. Just

days later, the bodies of two men accused of helping

the Americans turned up near the village where Mr.

Khan was captured. Scalding iron rods had been

shoved through their legs. One victim had been dis-

emboweled, and both had been shot through the head

and crushed by boulders. Fear shot through the entire

village.

“You could hardly recognize them,” said a witness who

viewed the bodies.

Across Afghanistan, assassinations have jumped 61

percent, to 131 reported killings, through the first nine

months of this year, compared with the same period in

2010, according to NATO statistics. United Nations

officials say they began noticing a sharp increase in

2010, with 462 assassinations according to their rec-

ords, double the number from the previous year. The

figures may not include many killings in remote areas,

like the mass beheading, because fearful villagers nev-

er reported them.

American intelligence officials say the Afghanistan-

based group and the Khurasan seem to operate in

29th novembre 2011 Page 17

much the same manner. The Khurasan is believed to

have formed in early 2009 in the North Waziristan

area of Pakistan, the Haqqanis’ headquarters, in re-

sponse to intensified drone attacks by the United

States. The group is said to wear black clothing with

green armbands bearing its full name, Itihad al-

Mujahedeen Khurasan, and works closely with Al

Qaeda in the region. Estimates of its size range from

100 to 2,000 members.

During his interrogation, Mr. Khan suggested that

other weapons were involved in the battle for influ-

ence, as well. According to four officials familiar with

the questioning, the Haqqani leader told his interro-

gators that the Taliban had been approaching Afghan

government and military officials throughout the

summer, persuading them to sign a five-page docu-

ment secretly pledging their loyalty to the Taliban

leadership. Mr. Khan boasted that he had signed up

20 officials himself.

“They tell the officials that the Taliban is going to be

back in power within 20 days of NATO leaving, so if

they want to live, they’ll sign,” said one of the Ameri-

can officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymi-

ty to discuss the classified interrogations. Officials

say they have found no confirmation of such oaths,

however.

In places like Sabari, a rural district in Khost that sits

about a dozen miles from the Pakistan border, the

targeted killings are producing their intended effect.

After a daylight execution of three men in a bazaar in

the village of Maktab about four months ago, shop

owners were so traumatized that they never reported

the killings to the authorities.

Often, the victims may have had little more than

passing encounters with coalition forces, or no in-

volvement at all, according to officials, witnesses,

and friends and relatives of victims.

American and Afghan officials learned about the kill-

ings only later when a video of the episode was found on

a captured insurgent’s cellphone. Even then, American

officials who showed the video to a New York Times re-

porter could cite the place where the killings had taken

place but believed that they had occurred in October,

about three months after witnesses say the actual epi-

sode happened.

The video showed a number of gunmen shooting to

death two men as shop owners scrambled for cover. The

militants then shot a third man as he sat in a white plas-

tic chair in front of his shop. As the man fell backward,

one of the gunmen shot him 10 more times in the face

and chest.

“Whoever tries to help the Americans and spies for them

will face this,” one of the men shouted after the killings,

according to a witness, Ahmadullah, 25, a shop owner

who like many Afghans goes by one name.

Ahmadullah said no one dared report it, even the men’s

families, who carried the bodies away. “We just had to

watch and stand quiet and watch what was happening to

these poor people,” he said.

“I knew those men,” he added. “One was just a shop

owner, the other two were laborers. They were inno-

cent.”

An American military official who saw the video said he

was not surprised that local villagers failed to report the

episode.

“People in Sabari are living in abject terror, 24 hours a

day,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity

because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the

death squad. “When we conduct a raid on a Haqqani

leader,” he said, a group of about 15 death-squad mem-

bers “go in and massacre people.”

Last month, insurgents killed another man in the bazaar,

about two days after a night raid in the village by Afghan

and American troops. This time the victim was a visiting

merchant from Khost City named Nasib, who was pulled

out of his car as his 5-year-old son watched from the

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 18

passenger seat. His abductors dragged him to the ba-

zaar and killed him in broad daylight.

Yet when asked about the killings, the district governor

and the local police chief in Sabari said they knew

nothing about them. “I totally deny such reports,” said

Dawlat Khan Qayoumi, the district governor. “I can tell

you in the last five months we have not seen any such

incidents.”

Questions also surround the videotaped beheadings.

Muhammad Zarin, the commander of a special under-

cover police unit that has been investigating the death

squads, would say only that the men were from Khost

and were killed about three months ago in the Mangal

area in the province’s mountainous Musa Khel district,

where Mr. Khan was active. Neither NATO nor the

United Nations, both of which track assassinations,

had any record of the mass beheadings, of the Maktab

Bazaar killings or of the two men killed after Mr.

Khan’s capture, reflecting the intense secrecy with

which villagers have guarded the deaths.

After an earlier raid that failed to capture Mr. Khan in

the Musa Khel area, coalition forces got a report that

three village elders had been kidnapped and three

teenagers had been beheaded. “When we went up to

investigate, we could never get any bodies or any

proof,” said Col. Christopher R. Toner, commander of

the First Infantry Division’s Third Brigade Combat

Team, based in Khost and Paktia Provinces. “But there

was enough going around that I suspect it was true.”

Public health officials likewise say they hear of dozens

of such killings but are seldom able to confirm them.

“People don’t bring the bodies in to the hospital for

fear of the Taliban,” said Dr. Fazal Mohammad Man-

gal of the Khost provincial hospital.

Zabit Amen Jan, a former Musa Khel resident, has lost

four brothers to insurgents, including two students in

their 20s whose bullet-ridden bodies were found in

June. A hand-scrawled letter found on one of the bod-

ies said the men had ignored repeated warnings to

stop working with the coalition forces. “There was no

other way except doing this,” the letter said.

Mr. Jan said his younger brothers had no connection

to the coalition and were killed only because he and

another brother had been involved in politics.

“People used to come to our district for picnics be-

cause our area is full of mountains and covered with

pine and walnut trees,” he said. “Now people are flee-

ing to Khost City or Kabul or Pakistan, because there

are so many killings and they know the government

can’t protect them.”

Counterintelligence: refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intel-

ligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting information against them

Beheading: decapitate

murky : shaded, not clear

Geared: oriented

Scalding : attack, round, assail, lash out, snipe, assault

Boulders : a boulder is a rock

29th novembre 2011 Page 19

wife, Barbara (Marcia Gay Harden). His accuser is

his old nemesis Tommy Molto (Richard Schiff),

while his longtime friend and lawyer, Sandy Stern

(Alfred Molina), is in charge of the defense.

It’s an improbable plot set in a rather tame, do-

mesticated version of Mr. Turow’s fictional Kindle

County, a little like the Chicago area. It’s not the

stuff of a high-stakes action-adventure movie. But

it’s a cleverly wrought mystery that fits well on the

small screen, helped by a strong cast and dimin-

ished expectations.

And that’s the formula behind TNT’s “Mystery

Movie Night,” a collection of six made-for-

television films based on best sellers, of which

“Innocent” is the first. TNT has a good track rec-

ord for resurrecting crime stories that grown-ups

can’t easily find in the movie theaters anymore.

(“The Lincoln Lawyer,” a recent theatrical release

based on a Michael Connelly thriller, is a rare ex-

ception that proves the rule.)

The formula doesn’t always work. TNT has chosen

novels by well-known authors like Mary Higgins

Clark and Carol Higgins Clark (they’re mother and

daughter), Richard North Patterson and Sandra

Brown for other installments in the series. But the

TV version sometimes fails to do justice to the

words. The reworking of Ms. Brown’s mystery

“Ricochet,” on Wednesday, stars John Corbett as a

homicide detective who becomes romantically in-

volved with a beautiful suspect, and it’s a dead

bore, weighed down by bad writing and a plodding

performance by Mr. Corbett, who is to film noir

what saltpeter is to sexual attraction.

Mr. Pullman is not Harrison Ford, obviously, but

he is a gifted character actor persuasive as a guilt-

ridden husband who maintains that he is innocent

Prosecutor Who Can’t Avoid Trouble

There is probably no more sobering measure of the

changing landscape of on-screen entertainment than

the downward trajectory of Scott Turow’s legal thrill-

ers.

Alan J. Pakula directed the film inspired by Mr.

Turow’s first blockbuster novel, “Presumed Inno-

cent,” a 1990 box office hit that starred Harrison

Ford, Raul Julia and Greta Scacchi.

“The Burden of Proof” went straight to television as a

1992 ABC mini-series with Hector Elizondo.

“Reversible Errors” became a two-part television

movie with Tom Selleck on CBS in 2004. And

“Pleading Guilty,” published in 1993, didn’t find a

home until 2010, when Fox ordered a pilot for a se-

ries with that title that never made the air.

It’s a path that leads inexorably to cable. Yet in the

case of the TNT selection on Tuesday, “Scott Turow’s

Innocent,” that’s a step up.

This movie is an engaging adaptation of Mr. Turow’s

2010 sequel to “Presumed Innocent,” which picked

up the hero of that novel, Rusty Sabich, more than 20

years after he was cleared of the murder of his mis-

tress and fellow prosecutor.

Bill Pullman plays Sabich, now a judge and once

again romantically involved with a colleague and on

trial for murder: This time he is accused of killing his

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 20

of murder. Mr. Molina is a lively foil as his flamboy-

ant lawyer, and Mr. Schiff is strong, bringing a dose

of rueful self-awareness to the role of put-upon

prosecutor. And Ms. Harden makes the most of her

thankless role as a mentally unstable wife, at one

point tearing apart a judge’s robe like a latter-day

Readers were also invited to post comments,

and they didn’t hold back, venting their frus-

trations about flying with children in more

than 280 responses. (See Letters on Page 2

for two views.) While some had good things

to say about foreign airlines, which tend to

offer more family-friendly benefits, most

wrote in to complain about how miserable it

has become to fly with children on domestic

airlines.

And the main culprit, according to many

readers? The parents who fail to manage

their children while flying. Responses ranged

from annoyed to downright hostile, with

many calling for parents to keep their chil-

dren off planes entirely.

“I, for one, would like priority boarding for

free, special food for free, with special dis-

pensation to scream, yell, run and joyously

disturb my fellow high-fare, stressed-out,

paying passengers without being hauled off

the plane in handcuffs,” wrote Brian Barr, a

frequent flier from Chicago, expressing his

view of parental attitudes on planes. Families

Downward: descending

Burden : charge

Plot: paln , project

Diminished: decreased

It’s Not the Carriers, It’s the Kids (with resume)

HORRIBLE. Annoying. Distasteful. Miserable.

These are a few of the words used by readers to

describe traveling with children — whether their

own or someone else’s —.

n an informal online poll that ran with the arti-

cle, more than 800 readers graded airlines (A

for excellent, F for fail) on how they were treated

as a family on their last flight. The highest grade

was a C, which readers gave to Continental, Del-

ta, JetBlue, Southwest and Virgin America. The

rest (US Airways, United and American) re-

ceived D’s.

version of Mr. Rochester’s mad wife, Bertha.

Not all the films on “Mystery Movie Night”

are equally good, but “Innocent” is one of the

better choices.

29th novembre 2011 Page 21

with small children, he went on, “should be

charged EXTRA for all the havoc they inflict

with their ‘Baby on Board’ entitlement atti-

tude on the rest of full-fare paying society

while traveling. Keep them home until they

turn 7 or drive, oh selfish parents.”

Sound harsh? Nearly 200 readers who

“recommended” Mr. Barr’s comment seemed

to agree, voting it to the top of the pile of re-

sponses.

The no-kids-onboard comments drew equally

passionate responses from readers with chil-

dren. “Parents don’t expect everything for

free, and we accept that we have to fight for

luggage space and pay for perks just like eve-

ryone else these days,” wrote Jeffrey from

Washington. “It may surprise you to learn

that we actually want our kids to behave

well, especially on planes. We’re doing every-

thing we can. If you don’t like children on

your flights, rent a car.”

There was one thing all readers seemed to

agree on: it doesn’t make sense to separate

family members onboard. Putting a child next

to strangers instead of a parent is traumatiz-

ing not just for the child, readers pointed out,

but also for the passengers stuck next to the

kid. And forcing passengers to sort it out

themselves is far from a solution.

A reader with the screen name Ellen from

Boston gave up her aisle seat on a recent

flight from San Francisco to Washington so a

mother and her 5-year-old who had been as-

signed two center seats several rows apart

could be together. She summed it up this way:

“It shouldn’t be left to the good graces of fel-

low passengers to help families with young

children sit together. This practice is bad for

business all around.”

Airlines say they try to accommodate families

with separate seats as early as possible, but

they can’t force passengers who have selected a

seat in advance to move. Besides, those passen-

gers have just as much of a right to get their

seat preference as the next person onboard.

Some readers offered suggestions on how air-

lines might make flights with children onboard

more accommodating for all passengers. “Can’t

all families with kids under 10 be seated at the

back of the plane?” asked Dolores McCar-

thy from Manhattan. “And perhaps more

soundproofing there (like the baby rooms in

some churches)?” Alternatively, she suggested

in a subsequent comment, airlines could desig-

nate one child-free flight a day.

It’s not the first time such notions have been

raised. Last year, a survey on the subject

by Skyscanner, a fare-comparison Web site,

gained attention from the news media — in-

cluding from this newspaper in the arti-

cle“When Passengers Push for Child-Free

Flights.” Of the 2,000 travelers polled, 59 per-

cent supported creating special sections on

planes for families. Nearly 20 percent said they

would like airlines to offer child-free flights.

So what’s stopping the airlines from doing

that?

When I put this question to major United

States carriers, few responded. Those that did

pointed out logistical hurdles, like how to de-

cide where onboard to put a designated family

section and the difficulty in re-accommodating

passengers when flight schedules inevitably

change.

“A child-free flight would be tough if we were to

experience irregular operations, weather delays

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 22

already charging for everything from the best

coach seats to checked bags.

“There’s nothing to hold back U.S. airlines

from expanding the list of à la carte items even

further to include those that would appeal to

families — assuming that the market actually

exists,” said Jaime Baker, an airline analyst

with J. P. Morgan. “This could include reserv-

ing five-abreast seating sections on certain

widebodies for groups traveling together, for a

fee.”

At issue, he added, is “whether a family of five

would be willing to pay $100 for preboarding,

guaranteed seating together, and some sugary

drinks for the kids.” That’s $400 extra for a

family of four.

or cancellations,” said Chris Mainz, a spokesman

for Southwest, adding that the airline’s open seat-

ing policy would not allow for a family section.

“Neither are in the cards for us,” he said.

Barring children from a designated flight or rele-

gating families to a particular section of the plane

could limit passenger choice, said Steve Lott,

spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a

trade group representing the nation’s largest car-

riers. “Airlines aim to offer as many flights as

possible to the broadest section of the popula-

tion,” he said. Trying to reconfigure the aircraft

or even schedule a child-free flight, he added,

“would be tremendously complex and would

probably present more problems than it solves.”

There is also the question of price. Airlines are

Summed: stated

Burden : charge

Widebodies: A wide-body aircraft is a large airliner with two passenger aisles

Resume

This article is about flights with children on board. An online poll ran and more than 800 people

responded. Opinions are divided. Indeed, on one hand we have those who are against it. They

believe that children are noisy, annoying, sow disorder and that parents should pay more. They

think that the parents fail to manage their children while flying. If some were just annoyed, oth-

ers were completely hostile and they did not want to travel with children on board at all. They

found unfair the fact that only because you have children you have some advantages like priority

boarding for free or special food for free. On the other hand, we have obviously the parents.

They argue that they would like their children to behave well on the plane, they do their best to

avoid all the problems and if people see an objection to traveling with children, they should in-

stead take the car. We can see that quite everybody is frustrating and no one is about to change

his opinion on the question.

29th novembre 2011 Page 23

At least there was one thing on which everyone agrees: the family members should not be sepa-

rated. Indeed, it could be traumatic for both the child and the passengers sitting next to him. But

what if family members have separate seats? Airlines try to accommodate families with separate

seats as early as possible, but they can’t force passengers who have selected a seat in advance to

move.

Several proposals were made to facilitate flights with children. The two most common proposals

are that family with children should be seated at the back of the plane or that there should be a

child-free flight per day. But what about the airlines' position on the issue? Only a few airlines

companies gave their opinions. For them, the problem is quite complex and it’s not tomorrow

that they will manage to satisfy everyone. Indeed, finding a special section in the plane for fami-

lies, raise prices for passengers with children or having a child-free flight per day are not an

easy operation and would be somehow disadvantageous for them.

LOGBOOK—CISSE PAPA AMADOU Page 24

Slam text—Coded language by Saul Williams

Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic community to its

drum woven past.

Whereas the quantised drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to calculate the ever

changing distance between rock and stardom.

Whereas the velocity of the spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and re-released

at the same given moment of recorded history , yet at adifferent moment in time's conti-

nuum has allowed history to catch up withthe present.

We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.

Statements, such as, "keep it real", especially when punctuating or anticipating modes of

ultra-violence inflicted psychologically or physically or depicting an unchanging rule of

events will hence forth be seen as retro-active and not representative of the individually

determined is.

Furthermore, as determined by the collective consciousness of this state of being and the

lessened distance between thought patterns and their secular manifestations, the role of

men as listening receptacles is to be increased by a number no less than 70 percent of the

current enlisted as vocal aggressors.

29th novembre 2011 Page 25

Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize

We have found evidence that hip hops standard 85 rpm when increased by anumber as least half the

rate of it's standard or decreased at � of it'sspeed may be a determining factor in heightening cons-

ciousness.

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of theunchanging, the remaining con-

tradictions will parallel the truth.

Equate rhyme with reason, Sun with season,

Our cyclical relationship to phenomenon has encouraged scholars to erase thecenters of periods,

thus symbolizing the non-linear character of cause and effect

Reject mediocrity!

Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which as been given for you to unders-

tand.

The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to thediet of an infant.

The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformativesymptoms and could not

properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed pears.

Light years are interchangeable with years of living in darkness.

The role of darkness is not to be seen as, or equated with, Ignorance, butwith the unknown, and the

mysteries of the unseen.

Thus, in the name of:

ROBESON, GOD'S SON, HURSTON, AHKENATON, HATHSHEPUT, BLACKFOOT, HELEN,

LENNON, KHALO, KALI, THE THREE MARIAS, TARA, LILITHE, LOURDE, WHITMAN,

BALDWIN, GINSBERG, KAUFMAN, LUMUMBA, GHANDI, GIBRAN, SHABAZZ,

SIDDHARTHA,

MEDUSA, GUEVARA, GUARDSIEFF, RAND, WRIGHT, BANNEKER, TUBMAN, HAMER,

HOLIDAY,

DAVIS, COLTRANE, MORRISON, JOPLIN, DUBOIS, CLARKE, SHAKESPEARE,

RACHMNINOV,

ELLINGTON, CARTER, GAYE, HATHOWAY, HENDRIX, KUTL, DICKERSON, RIPPER-

TON,

MARY, ISIS, THERESA, PLATH, RUMI, FELLINI, MICHAUX, NOSTRADAMUS, NEFERTI-

TI,

LA ROCK, SHIVA, GANESHA, YEMAJA, OSHUN, OBATALA, OGUN, KENNEDY, KING,

FOUR

LITTLE GIRLS, HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI, KELLER, BIKO, PERONE, MARLEY, COSBY,

SHAKUR, THOSE STILL AFLAMED, AND THE COUNTLESS UNNAMED

29th novembre 2011 Page 26

We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter.

We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.

We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.

We are determining the future at this very moment.

We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone,

Our music is our alchemy

We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full of minerals, thus reali-

zing that those very buckets turned upside down supply the percussion factor of forever.

If you must count to keep the beat then count.

Find you mantra and awaken your subconscious.

Curve you circles counterclockwise.

Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.

Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.

Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for today we are determi-

ned to be the channelers of these changing frequencies into songs, paintings, writings, dance, dra-

ma, photography, carpentry, crafts, love, and LOVE.

We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.

Every so-called race, gender, and sexual preference.

Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to

uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World.

Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed - two rappers slain!

This Slam text is written by Saul Williams. He is considered as the best Slam Poet

in the word. And this text is such an amazing landmark that shows the spirit of

slam poetry.

Titled CODED LANGUAGE. Coded language for you to read under the lines.

Coded language for the reader to get his own cipher to decipher and appropriates

it!

Performance can be watch by clicking on this link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzY2-

GRDiPM

Notes