MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010 Copyright © 2010 The New York Times

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Sped. abb. postale art. 1legge 46/04 del 27/02/2004 — Roma

LENS

The value of many things has plum-meted lately, but value itself comes in many forms. There are those who

want a bargain,but there are also those who are willing to pay for something else: feeling special.Businesses are betting big on thistype of spender.

Perhaps it’ssomething as simple as the differ-ence between an ordinary sofa and

one with vintage cigar leather that has undergone an intensive hand-finishing process. You can now makethat choice at Restoration Hardware, the American furniture chain that re-cently created an exclusive and more expensive line featuring handmade reproductions based on Western Eu-ropean and American antiques.

“With the unsettled economy, a lot of retailers are going down-market,” Gary Friedman, the company’s chief executive officer, told The Times. “We decided to go in the opposite direc-tion.”

Saks Fifth Avenue also went in thatdirection when it invested tens of mil-lions of dollars in projects like open-ing a boutique in the middle of the recession that sells Kiton, an Italian luxury men’s wear line with $7,000handmade suits and $1,195 trousers.

“I do think the man who wants to present himself in a certain way, he’sstill out there,” Ronald L. Frasch, president and chief merchandising officer for Saks, told The Times.

And he may be right, judging fromthe new wave of “customania” at all in-come levels. People want “something

special made by someone who knowshis craft,” wrote The Times’s DavidColman.

The trend is widespread. There are now blended-to-order fragrances, design-your-own dress shirts and pick-your-own-complication watch-es, said The Times. Or choose yourfetish: custom surfboards, sneakers or bicycles.

And stores these days are no longer just selling a collection of merchan-dise. They “curate” their merchan-dise, said The Times. The word “curate” has “become a fashionable

code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling andselecting,” wrote The Times’s Alex Williams.

Department stores have pop-upshops “curated” by special guests. Everything from music at a nightclub to wine at a wine club is now curatedor hand picked with purpose, signify-ing its uniqueness.

“It’s an innocent form of self-infla-tion,” John H. McWhorter, a linguist

By LOUISE STORY, LANDON THOMAS Jr. and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

WALL STREET TACTICS akin

to the ones that fostered sub-

prime mortgages in America

have worsened the financial crisis shak-

ing Greece and undermining the euro by

enabling European governments to hide

their mounting debts.

As worries over Greece rattle world

markets, records and interviews show

that with Wall Street’s help, Greece en-

gaged in a decade-long effort to skirt

European debt limits. One deal created

by Goldman Sachs helped obscure bil-

lions in debt from the budget overseers

in Brussels.

Even as the crisis was nearing the flash-

point, banks were searching for ways to

help Greece forestall the day of reckon-

ing. In early November — three months

before Athens became the epicenter of

global financial anxiety — a team from

Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient

city with a very modern proposition for

a government struggling to pay its bills,

according to two people who were briefed

on the meeting.

The bankers, led by Goldman’s presi-

dent, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing

instrument that would have pushed debt

from Greece’s health care system far

into the future.

It had worked before. In 2001, just after

Greece was admitted to Europe’s mon-

etary union, Goldman helped the gov-

ernment quietly borrow billions, people

familiar with the transaction said. That

deal, hidden from public view because it

was treated as a currency trade rather

than a loan, helped Athens to meet Eu-

rope’s deficit rules while continuing to

spend beyond its means.

Athens did not pursue the latest Gold-

man proposal, but with Greece groaning

under the weight of its debts and with its

richer neighbors vowing to come to its

aid, the deals over the last decade are

raising questions about Wall Street’s role

in the world’s latest financial drama.

On February 16, European officials

demanded detailed explanations over

Greece’s use of complex financial instru-

ments to mask its rising debt.

Financial derivatives played a role in

the run-up of Greek debt. Instruments

developed by Goldman Sachs, JPMor-

gan Chase and a wide range of other

banks enabled politicians to mask ad-

ditional borrowing in Greece, Italy and

possibly elsewhere.

Banks provided cash upfront in return

YIORGOS KARAHALIS/REUTERS

Wall Street deals similar to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in the United States allowed Greece to overspend, fueling a crisis.

Feeling Special, for a Price

Con tin ued on Page IV

V VIIIMONEY & BUSINESS

New directions for

Warner Brothers.

ARTS & STYLES

Reclusive guitarist

set for world tour.

Skirting the Rules

INTELLIGENCE: Opportunit ies beyond borders, Page II.

IIIWORLD TRENDS

Russians hope for

European getaway.

Con tin ued on Page IV

Repubblica NewYork

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O P I N I O N & C O M M E N TA R Y

II MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010

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Visiting Yemen and watching thesmall band of young reformers there struggle against the forces of sepa-ratism, Islamism, autocracy andterrorism, reminded me that the keyforces shaping this region today werereally set in motion between 1977and 1979 — and nothing much haschanged since. Indeed, one could say Middle East politics today is a strug-gle between 1977 and 1979 — and 1979is still winning.

How so? Following the defeat ofEgypt and other Arab armies by Is-rael in the 1967 war, Nasserism, a k a Arab nationalism, the abiding ideol-ogy of the day, was demolished. In its wake came two broad alternatives:The first, manifested by PresidentAnwar Sadat of Egypt in his 1977 tripto Israel, was a bid to cast the Arabworld’s future with the West, eco-nomic liberalization, modernizationand acceptance of Israel. The weak-ness of “Sadatism,” though, was that it was an elite ideology with no cul-tural roots. The Egyptian state made peace with Israel, but Arab societies never followed.

The second Arab-Muslim response emerged in 1979. To start, there was the takeover that year of the Grand

Mosque in Mecca by Islamist ex-tremists who challenged the reli-gious credentials of the Saudi ruling family. The Saudi rulers respondedby forging a new bargain with theirIslamists: Let us stay in power andwe will give you a free hand in settingsocial norms, relations between the sexes and religious education inside Saudi Arabia — and abundant re-sources to spread Sunni Wahabi fun-damentalism abroad.

The Saudi lurch backward coin-cided with Iran’s revolution in 1979,which brought Ayatollah Khomeinito power. That revolution set up acompetition between Shiite Iranand Sunni Saudi Arabia for who was the real leader of the Muslim world,and it triggered a surge in oil prices that gave both fundamentalist re-gimes the resources to export theirbrands of puritanical Islam, through mosques and schools, farther thanever.

“Islam lost its brakes in 1979,” saidMamoun Fandy, a Middle East expertat the International Institute of Stra-tegic Studies in London. And therewas no moderate countertrend.

Finally, also in 1979, the Sovietsinvaded Afghanistan. Arab andMuslim mujahedeen fighters flockedto the cause — financed by SaudiArabia at America’s behest — and inthe process shifted Pakistan and Af-ghanistan in much more Islamist di-rections. Once these hard-core Mus-lim fighters, led by the likes of Osama bin Laden, defeated the Soviets, theyturned their guns on America and its Arab allies.

In a smart essay in The Wall Street Journal, titled “The Radical Legacyof 1979,” the retired U.S. diplomatEdward Djerejian, who led the po-litical section of the U.S. Embassyin Moscow in 1979, noted: “Last yearwe celebrated the great historicachievements marked by the 20thanniversary of the fall of the BerlinWall and the subsequent unification of Germany. But we should also re-member that events in the broader

Middle East of 30 years ago have left, in sharp contrast, a bitter and dan-gerous legacy.”

In short, the Middle East we aredealing with today is the product of long-term trends dating back to 1979.And have no illusions, America pro-pelled those trends. The United Stateslooked the other way when Saudi Ara-bia Wahabi-fied itself. Ronald Reaganglorified the Afghan mujahedeen andthe Europeans hailed the revolution in Iran as “liberation.”

I believe the only way the forcesof 1979 can be rolled back would bewith another equally big bang — anew popular movement that is truly reformist, democratizing, open tothe world, yet anchored in Muslimculture, not disconnected. Our besthopes are the fragile democratizing trends in Iraq, the tentative greenrevolution in Iran, plus the young re-formers now coming of age in every Arab country. But it will not be easy.

The young reformers today “donot have a compelling story to tell,”remarked Lahcen Haddad, a politi-cal scientist at Rabat University inMorocco. “And they face a meta-nar-rative” — first developed by Nasser

and later adopted by the Islamists —“that mobilizes millions and millions.That narrative says: ‘The Arabs andMuslims are victims of an imperial-ist-Zionist conspiracy aided by reac-tionary regimes in the Arab world. Ithas as its goal keeping the Arabs andMuslims backward in order to exploittheir oil riches and prevent them frombecoming as strong as they used to bein the Middle Ages — because that isdangerous for Israel and Western in-terests.’ ”

Today that meta-narrative is em-braced across the Arab-Muslim po-litical spectrum, from the secular leftto the Islamic right. Deconstructing that story, and rebuilding a post-1979 alternative story based on responsi-bility, modernization, Islamic refor-mation and cross-cultural dialogue, is this generation’s challenge. I thinkit can happen, but it will require the success of the democratizing self-government movements in Iran andIraq. That would spawn a whole new story.

I know it’s a long shot, but I’ll con-tinue to hope for it. I’ve been chew-ing a lot of qat lately, and it makes me dreamy.

The ChallengeOf China

Relations between the United Statesand China have turned chilly in recentmonths as the two countries wrangle over Taiwan, Tibet, Iran and China’s continued manipulation of its cur-rency.

President Obama is right to pressBeijing to behave more responsibly— toward its own people and interna-tionally. China is certainly pushing its sense of grievance too far and under-estimating the fear and resentmentits growing power is provoking in Asiaand the West.

There is little hope of progress — onthe global economy, global warmingor Iran’s nuclear ambitions — unless Washington and Beijing work harder to manage their differences.

President Obama’s decision lastmonth to sell Taiwan $6.4 billion inhelicopters, Patriot missiles and other defensive items elicited a harsh reac-tion: Beijing has threatened to punish American arms companies that sell toTaiwan, presumably by cutting off ac-cess to China’s huge market.

Mr. Obama told President Hu Jintao of his intentions at their summit in No-vember in Beijing. The arms were partof a package approved by former Pres-ident George W. Bush, and Mr. Obama left out the most controversial items:F-16 jets and diesel submarines.

Rather than encouraging Taiwan’sindependence, as Beijing claims, the arms sales will give Taiwan’s presi-dent, Ma Ying-jeou, the confidence to continue his efforts to improve rela-tions with the mainland. It is absurd for China to think that any Taiwaneseleader would not want to bolster his

country’s defenses when Beijing ismodernizing its arsenal and station-ing more than 1,000 missiles across theTaiwan Strait.

Beijing’s threat to punish Americancompanies is a dangerous game, espe-cially when criticism is rampant about China’s unfair trade practices.

Beijing is also complaining bitterlyabout President Obama’s plannedmeeting this month with the DalaiLama, warning it would “damage trustand cooperation” between the coun-tries. American presidents have regu-larly met with the respected Tibetan religious leader. And China’s leaders would have more chance of calming tensions in Tibet if they sought seriouscompromise with the Dalai Lama.

China is alienating not only the Unit-ed States but also France, Britain andGermany by resisting tougher UnitedNations Security Council sanctionson Iran. Beijing’s view is frustratinglyshortsighted. Any conflict over Iran’snuclear program would drive up oilprices and disrupt China’s purchases.

The Obama administration is smartto try to line up backup suppliers forChina as part of its bid to get Beijing tosupport tougher sanctions.

The administration also was smart not to overreact when Beijing declaredthat the Taiwan arms sales will “causeseriously negative effects” on contacts and cooperation between the two coun-tries.

American officials say they seesigns that Beijing doesn’t want to pushthings too hard. Outside experts worrythat China may overplay its hand. Thatwould not be in anyone’s interest.

Mr. Maliki’sDangerous Ambition

E D I T O R I A L S O F T H E T I M E S

To resolve a recent dispute withthe Tikrit provincial council, PrimeMinister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraqdid what any good autocrat would do: He sent in the army. The problem is,Mr. Maliki isn’t supposed to be an au-tocrat. And the United States didn’ttrain Iraq’s Army so it could be usedfor political coercion.

This is just the most recent exampleof thuggery by Mr. Maliki, who is de-termined to do anything he can to winre-election next month. If he and hisShiite-led government continue thisway, the vote will not be seen as legiti-mate and opposition groups may well

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

1977 vs. 1979

Thirty years ago,the stage was setfor Islamic extremism.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Followers of Ayatollah Khomeini marched in Tehran. A revolutionbrought him to power in 1979, furthering a trend of militancy.

return to violence. That would be a di-saster for Iraqis and the United States,which is supposed to be on its way out of Iraq.

The Tikrit dispute began last fallwhen the newly elected provincialcouncil voted to dismiss the provin-cial governor, Mtasher Hussein Ulai-wi, claiming negligence. Mr. Ulaiwirefused to step down and was finallyremoved from office.

Eager to curry favor with Mr. Ulai-wi’s Iraqi Islamic Party, Mr. Malikiordered the army to occupy the pro-vincial council’s office for two weeksto block the seating of a new governor.

Talks led to the appointment of anacting governor, but Mr. Maliki is stilltrying to influence the choice of a per-manent governor. In early February, he sent the troops back.

Meanwhile, in Diyala Province, gov-ernment forces have arrested a lead-ing candidate from one of the mainblocs challenging Mr. Maliki’s coali-tion. The arrest came just days afterthe candidate participated in a debate in which he criticized those securityforces.

We were relieved when an Iraqi ap-peals court overturned the ban andsaid it would review each candidate’seligibility. The court then spent onlya few days on that review, and it now appears that fewer than one-quarter of the 500 banned candidates will beallowed to run.

This is a very dangerous game. Mr. Maliki has a responsibility to put hiscountry’s interests above his ownpolitical ambition. If he doesn’t un-derstand that, Washington needs toremind him.

Repubblica NewYork

W O R L D T R E N D S

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010 III

EL PASO, Texas — At the foot of a bridge that helps bind El Paso andCiudad Juárez, a United States Bor-der Patrol officer warns two pedes-trians not to stray once they reach the

Mexican city. Stay on the main road. Avoid side streets. Very, verydangerous city. O.K.?

The pedestrians nod and join the back-and-forth human flow be-tween one of the safest

cities in the United States and one of the most violent in the world — get-ting worse by the month. Including a pause to take in the Rio Grande, their walk takes five minutes.

On the other side, boyish Mexican soldiers stand about, weapons inhand. Men linger before empty store-fronts. Beggars pull at your coat. Then a taxi driver steps up to ask ifthe visitors need a ride to the morgue.

A legitimate question, perhaps, in a city whose latest massacre — 16 dead, most of them teenagers — occurreda few weeks ago. A city with nearly 250 homicides last month; about one every three hours. A city where homi-cides have jumped from about 300 in2007, to about 1,620 in 2008, to about 2,660 last year.

The drug-cartel war that broke out in Juárez two years ago, killing thousands and giving birth to a gen-eral air of lawlessness, has clarified the muddy Rio Grande as the divide between violence and peace. And ElPaso has become a kind of sanctuary city, for the businesses and peopleand even the culture of Juárez.

El Paso, with a population of 740,000, and Juárez, with one of 1.4 million, have long been urban sisters,as tens of thousands of people movebetween the two every day, to work, or shop, or visit. But the cartel war has complicated things here: the vio-lence in Juárez can seem so far away, and yet so close.

Here is Carlos Spector, 54, an im-migration lawyer with dual citizen-ship who once had both an office and

a television show in Juárez. But after receiving threats from the Mexican military, he says: “I just don’t go. I cannot go.”

Here, too, is Omar Herrera, whowith two brothers recently openedMaria Chuchena, one of the manysleek Juárez restaurants resurfacing in El Paso. He recalls how business in Juárez plummeted after the drug war began. He often finds himself reminiscing about the vibrant Juárez of yesterday, and he is only 26.

“No one in Juárez came to El Pasofor anything,” he says. “It was the other way around.”

And here in downtown El Paso isyet another Juárez light: A woman whose name will not be shared. She lifts her shirt to reveal fresh confir-mation of the bullet life in her homecity, a few kilometers from where she hides.

She is 36 and her husband, 40. Her daughter, 12, did not go to school again; having seen her mother shot, the girl wants her close by.

The familiarity of the woman’s Juárez story makes it all the more harrowing. A Wednesday evening. A working-class family relaxing infront of their home. Masked men withguns darkening the view. Gunfire.

Her brother: dead. A sister-in-law:dead. The sister-in-law’s stepfather: dead. Though hit several times, the woman rolled under a pickup truck and played dead.

The woman spent two months in a Juárez hospital, but her health contin-ued to decline after her release. She was then admitted to the UniversityMedical Center of El Paso, becoming one of 83 victims of Mexican violencetreated by the hospital last year.

The husband shakes his head. Heknows they are not here legally, and their chances of being granted asy-lum are slim. Still, he says in Spanish,“We cannot go back.”

Back to a house less than a half-hour’s drive from where he and his family hide.

This is how it is now in El Paso.

By STEVEN ERLANGER

DRANCY, France — Hassen Chal-ghoumi, 38, is the imam of PresidentNicolas Sarkozy’s dreams. He sup-ports a ban on the full facial veil, theso-called burqa; he opposes religious radicalism and promotes a “republi-can Islam” focused on France; and he favors dialogue with France’s Jews.

But Mr. Chalghoumi has also re-ceived death threats for his public posi-tions and in particular his support for aban on facial veils, including the black niqab, which reveals only the eyes.There are voices of dissent among the 2,500 worshipers at his mosque here inDrancy, just northeast of Paris. ’

Twice, bands of young men demon-strated angrily at the mosque.

One young man, Karim Hachani,had seen a video of Mr. Chalghoumi ata Jewish ceremony and was shocked.“They said to Chalghoumi, ‘You are part of us,’ and it frightens us,” he toldrue89.com, an Internet newspaper. “Arapprochement with the Jews, whynot? But not to such an extent.”

Born in Tunisia, Mr. Chalghoumicame to France at the end of 1996, at 24.Asked if he is nervous for his safety, he smiled almost shyly. “It’s my mother

who worries,” he said, and laughed a little. “My mother told me, ‘Bin Laden and his team will never set you free.’ ”

Still, he had two police bodyguards with him during an interview.

He regards the veil as a symbol of in-equality with no justification in Islamor the Koran. Those who support thefull veil in France are ignorant, hav-ing absorbed an angry street Islam ina time of rising radicalism, he says.

The debate on the veil is a distrac-tion from the real needs of FrenchMuslims, he said, citing problems ofpoverty and racial prejudice.

Asked if the choice to wear the fullveil was not also an expression offreedom, Mr. Chalghoumi said sim-ply, “Freedom has limits,” adding: “If some ‘acts of freedom’ stir hatred, it’snot good.”

He grew excited. “People think

Islam is a dark, closed religion, thatwomen are imprisoned and men think only about sex. What an image! This isthe perception I refuse!”

His wife, a Frenchwoman of Tuni-sian origin, herself wears the hijab,a head scarf, he said. But he sees the niqab as a sign of growing radicalism, not just in France, but throughout the Arab world.

While Mr. Chalghoumi is praised by

the government and French Jews, he is viewed skeptically by other Muslimleaders .

“What he’s doing is honorable; itmeets a need,” said M’hammed Hen-niche, who runs the Union of MuslimAssociations in nearby Seine-St.-Denis. But he said that Mr. Chalghou-mi “wants to gain a following through provocation,” and should instead focuson teaching. “His voice is very listenedto in the media, but little by Muslims.”

Mr. Chalghoumi dismisses thecriticism. What frightens him are ig-norance and radicalism. He supportswhat is now unacceptable in constitu-tionally secular France — voluntaryreligious education in public schools.“When it comes to teaching Islam, ifwe don’t do it ourselves, others will,”he said. “They will take our children.”

DAN

BARRY

ESSAY

Ignorance, not a veilban, is the enemy ofIslam, a leader says.

A French Imam Fears Growing Radicalism

Sister CitiesAre Worlds Apart

MONICA ALMEIDA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

A bridge connects Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to El Paso, Texas, a sanctuary for Juárez residents fleeing violence.

OWEN FRANKEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Full veils make outsiders fear Muslims, HassenChalghoumi says.

Maïa de la Baume contributed report-ing.

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

MOSCOW — The winter holidayshave only just ended here, but manyRussians are already planning their next European getaway, buyingplane tickets and reserving hotels.

They are also compiling bank state-ments, gathering insurance forms,paying fees, taking photographs,making photocopies, waiting in long lines and being interrogated by em-bassy officials — all to receive a Eu-ropean visa, a kind of permission slipto enter the rest of the Continent that like little else underscores the walls still dividing Russia from the West.

While Estonians and Bulgarians,Latvians and Poles can traipse about Europe unimpeded by the bordersand bureaucracy that once boundthem to Moscow, Russians mustseek permission. To obtain a visa isfrustrating and at times degrading,travelers here say, leaving manywondering why Russians seem sounwelcome.

“Maybe Russia is just too big, ormaybe it is because of our past con-flicts,” Mikhail Poponin, 21, a profes-sional skateboarder, said while liningup in subzero temperatures outsidethe Estonian Embassy for a visa.“Maybe they just think that Russia isa backward country.”

In Russia, internal restrictions on foreign travel melted away with the Soviet collapse, and the freedom to goabroad, especially to the 27 countries of the European Union, is cherished.The European Union, however, hasbeen a reluctant host.

Russian officials have been press-ing their European counterparts for years to at least ease restrictions on Russian travelers. The visa issue has attracted renewed attention in recentweeks as European officials havesuggested that they are now willing

to consider doing so.The Spanish foreign minister,

Miguel Ángel Moratinos, said in avisit to Moscow that Spain, whichholds the rotating European Unionpresidency, would use its position to push for a less restrictive visa policy.

European officials have made simi-lar promises in the past, though most have gone unfulfilled.

A visa to enter the EuropeanUnion can cost as little as $50, but itis not the money that bothers manyRussians. Travelers must providebank statements showing theycan afford the vacation. They mustshow proof of employment and hotel

reservations and plane tickets pur-chased beforehand, the implicationbeing that every applicant is a pos-sible illegal immigrant. But the Eu-ropeans end up rejecting very fewapplicants.

Europeans (as well as Americans)have to obtain visas to enter Russia, but the process for getting a basictourist visa often is much simpler.

“The current visa regime repre-sents a clear illustration of the factthat Russia and the European Union are actually not the partners thatthey often declare themselves to be,”said Arkady Moshes, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. “For the common Russiancitizen, nothing more clearly repre-

sents this lack of partnership like the visa regime. It is not just symbolic. Itreally affects people.”

Most galling to many Russians isthe need to get permission to enterEstonia, Latvia and Lithuania, for-mer Soviet republics that are alsonow European Union members. InSoviet times, all three countries werefreely visited .

Albina L. Marshalkina, a 70-year-old pensioner, traveled by slow econ-omy trains two days to Moscow fromher home in Veliki Novgord to apply for a visa at the Estonian Embassy.The train ride, along with piles of pa-perwork, fees and a weeklong wait fora visa now separate Ms. Marshalkinafrom her daughter and grandchildrenin Estonia. A tense political relation-ship between Estonia and Russia has made any unilateral easing of thevisa process unlikely.

“They are there and we are here,and it is so difficult for us to go there and expensive,” she said outside the embassy. “I am not concerned withwhat is going on in Estonia. Let themsolve their own problems, but let ussee our children and grandchildren.Open the border.”

Still, people are willing to put upwith the process of getting to Europe, where many now conduct business.But the hassle can be trying.

“I need to immediately go on a busi-ness trip and I have a visa, but my as-sistant, who I need to bring with me, has to wait six days for a visa,” saidVladimir Drigant, 60, who was at the French Embassy visa center helping his grandson with a tourist visa for a separate trip.

Later, Mr. Drigant’s grandsonwalked by, looking dejected. He didnot have photocopies of all 37 pages inhis passport as required, and he was told to come back another day.

Russians Halted at Europe’s Door

VALERI NISTRATOV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Hurdles face Russians who wish to travel. Some waited in Moscow recently to get a European visa.

A journey through stacks of paper greets visa seekers.

Repubblica NewYork

W O R L D T R E N D S

IV MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010

for government payments in the fu-ture, with those liabilities then left off the books. Greece, for example, tradedaway the rights to airport fees and lot-tery proceeds in years to come. Critics say that such deals, because they arenot recorded as loans, mislead inves-tors and regulators about the depth of a country’s liabilities.

Greece owes the world $300 billion,and major banks are on the hook formuch of that debt.

“Politicians want to pass the ball for-ward, and if a banker can show thema way to pass a problem to the future,they will fall for it,” said Gikas A. Har-douvelis, an economist and former gov-ernment official.

Wall Street did not create Europe’sdebt problem. But bankers enabledGreece and others to borrow beyondtheir means, in deals that were perfect-ly legal. Few rules govern how nations can borrow the money they need forexpenses like the military and healthcare. The market for sovereign debt — the term for loans to governments — isas unfettered as it is vast.

“If a government wants to cheat,it can cheat,” said Garry Schinasi, aveteran of the International MonetaryFund’s capital markets surveillanceunit, which monitors vulnerability inglobal capital markets.

Banks eagerly exploited what was,for them, a highly lucrative symbio-sis with free-spending governments.While Greece did not take advantage of Goldman’s proposal in November 2009,it had paid the bank about $300 million in fees for arranging the 2001 transac-tion, according to several bankers fa-miliar with the deal.

Such derivatives add to the uncer-tainty over how deep the troubles go inGreece and which other governments might have used similar off-balancesheet accounting.

For all the benefits of uniting Europewith one currency, the birth of the euro came with an original sin: countries

like Italy and Greece entered the mon-etary union with bigger deficits thanthe ones permitted under the treatythat created the currency. Rather thanraise taxes or reduce spending, how-ever, these governments artificiallyreduced their deficits with deriva-tives.

Derivatives do not have to be sinister.The 2001 transaction involved a type ofderivative known as a swap. One such in-strument, called an interest-rate swap,can help companies and countries copewith swings in their borrowing costsby exchanging fixed-rate payments forfloating-rate ones, or vice versa.

In Greece, the financial wizardrywent even further. Greek officials es-sentially mortgaged the country’sairports and highways to raise much-needed money.

Aeolos, a legal entity created in 2001, helped Greece reduce the debt on itsbalance sheet that year. As part of the deal, Greece got cash upfront in re-turn for pledging future landing feesat the country’s airports. A similardeal in 2000 called Ariadne devouredthe revenue that the government col-lected from its national lottery. Greece,however, classified those transactionsas sales, not loans, despite doubts bymany critics.

In 2005, Goldman sold the inter-est rate swap to the National Bank ofGreece, the country’s largest bank,according to two people briefed on thetransaction. In 2008, Goldman helpedthe bank put the swap into a legal enti-ty called Titlos. But the bank retainedthe bonds that Titlos issued, accord-ing to Dealogic, a financial researchfirm, for use as collateral to borroweven more from the European CentralBank.

Edward Manchester, a senior vicepresident at the Moody’s credit rating agency, said the deal would ultimately be a money-loser for Greece because of its long-term payment obligations.

Referring to the Titlos swap, he said: “This swap is always going to be un-profitable for the Greek government.”

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — It is no secret that President Obama desperatelywants Congress to pass legislationto overhaul health care. But recently,when Mr. Obama convened Congres-sional Democratic leaders at theWhite House for a marathon negoti-ating session, another priority inter-vened. His 11-year-old daughter, Ma-lia, had a band recital.

Thus did the president of the UnitedStates ditch his own health care talks— temporarily, at least — to slip off toSidwell Friends School for a few hoursto listen to Malia play the flute. Whenthe recital was over, he returned to theWhite House, and everybody wentback to work. The talks wrapped upat 1:30 a.m., and if the House speaker,Nancy Pelosi; the Senate majorityleader, Harry Reid; or anybody else had anything to say about the delay,they held their tongues.

“There are certain things that are sacrosanct on his schedule — kids’ recitals, soccer games, basketballgames, school meetings,’’ DavidAxelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser,said in an interview the day after thesession. “These are circled in red onhis calendar, and regardless of what’sgoing on he’s going to make those. Ithink that’s part of how he sustains

himself through all this.’’When Mr. Obama and his wife, Mi-

chelle, arrived in Washington littlemore than a year ago, Mrs. Obamapromptly declared herself the mom inchief, and mothers across the nation watched as she juggled her duties asfirst lady with her responsibilities asa mother. But her husband, the presi-dent, conducts an unabashed jugglingact of his own.

He knocks off work at 6 p.m. eachevening to have dinner with his fam-ily, and has given his schedulers strictinstructions that, if he must havenight-time activities, they are to takeplace after 8 p.m. That includes mat-ters of war; in November, as the com-mander in chief wrestled with sendingmore troops to Afghanistan, he calledan 8 p.m. meeting of his national secu-rity team, in deference to his role asfather in chief.

He squeezes in parent-teacherconferences, soccer and basketballgames, and broke away from an eco-nomics briefing to call his youngerdaughter, Sasha, on her eighth birth-day. (She was in London with her mother.) And when the White House

announced that Mr. Obamawould be traveling nextmonth to Indonesia and Aus-tralia, the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs,

confirmed that the trip was timed tocoincide with the girls’ spring break.

“We spend a lot of time coordinat-ing the girls’ holidays and vacation time,’’ said Valerie Jarrett, another senior adviser. “It doesn’t just drive Michelle’s schedule, but it drives thepresident’s as well.’’

Yet even in today’s father-friendly world, Mr. Obama’s balancing actis not risk-free — especially in aneconomy where so many ordinaryAmericans are struggling. Criticscould accuse him of slacking off whenthe country is in need. And this city isfilled with politicians who have sac-rificed their families for their jobs, soMr. Obama must be careful not to gen-erate resentment among those whoseschedules must meet his own.

“People elect you not to be a goodfamily man, they elect you to fix theirproblems, and that’s the cold-heartedreality of it,’’ said John Feehery, a Re-publican political strategist. “And allthose folks on the Hill, they’ve left alltheir families at home; they don’t havethe luxury of skipping back home inthe middle of the meeting to catchtheir daughter’s recital.’’

By DEBORAH SONTAG

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Theforeign doctors who performed thefirst amputations after the earth-quake used hacksaws. They relied on vodka for sterilization, substituted lo-cal numbing for general anesthesia,jury-rigged tourniquets from rubbergloves. Working around the clock inimprovised operating rooms, theysacrificed limbs and lost patients toinjuries that are no longer supposed tobe disabling or deadly.

Now back in their antiseptic, high-tech offices in the United States andelsewhere, the medical professionals who initially flew to Haiti’s rescue are haunted by their experiences, “over-whelmed by conflicting feelings of ac-complishment and guilt,’’ as Dr. Louis-don Pierre described it.

They witnessed what Dr. LaurenceJ. Ronan of Massachusetts GeneralHospital described as a “mass casual-ty horror show.’’ They practiced what Dr. Dean G. Lorich of the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan called“Civil War medicine.’’ They savedlives, probably by the thousands. But their accomplishments were limitedby the circumstances, and then theyleft, uneasily, before conditions start-ed improving.

Most of the doctors interviewed saidthey were committed to returning toHaiti and to marshaling the medicalcommunity’s resources to deal withthe thousands of Haitians who sus-tained permanently disabling injuries.The needs are staggering: from basic

wound care to skin grafts, revisionsurgery, physical and occupationalrehabilitation, prostheses and traumatherapy.

“Everything that everyone didduring those first two heartbreak-ing weeks will have been for nothingif these patients don’t get continuingcare,’’ said Dr. Elizabeth Bellino, a pe-diatrician based at Tulane Universityin New Orleans who worked in Haitiright after the earthquake.

In Uganda now on a project, Dr.Bellino, 34, said she closed her eyesand saw the beaming face of a 12-year-old Haitian boy named Mystil JeanWesmer who ended up comforting her when she dissolved into tears. As she recounts it, Mystil smiled gently and,sensing that she was overwhelmed bythe need around her at a field hospitalrun by Americans, said: “ ‘Go takecare of the sicker kids. I’ll be O.K.’ ’’

He himself was waiting to have his leg amputated.

“All he wanted to know was howhe was going to walk to school andchurch,’’ Dr. Bellino said. “I said,‘Well, we’ll figure that out.’ But nowI’m so worried about him, about all the kids.’’

Dr. Pierre, a Haitian-American who is the director of pediatric intensivecare at the Brooklyn Hospital Center,said he thought constantly about the patients he left behind, too. Even as heplans his next trip — he and Dr. Ste-phen Carryl, the chairman of surgery at his hospital, will be returning with a prosthetics maker — a few memories

LYNSEY ADDARIO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS

Foreign Doctors Haunted By the Plight of Haitians

Wall Street Skirted RulesTo Hide Debts in Europe

He BreaksFor BandRecitals From Page I

plague him.Back in Brooklyn, he still hears the

loud, shrill cry of a mother at the mo-ment her small son died of a raging in-fection on the lawn of a hospital in the Carrefour neighborhood. The mother and father, one child already lost to the earthquake, had implored Dr. Pierreto help their 4-year-old, who had been eviscerated by a concrete block andhurriedly stitched back together by a local doctor.

But the boy, lying in a crib under atree, his heart rate racing, his breath-ing way too fast, was clearly suffering septic shock, and Dr. Pierre, equippedonly with his stethoscope, could donothing.

“I felt so helpless,’’ he said, and not long afterward, while he was deeplysedating another patient for surgery,

he heard the wail that told of the boy’s death.

Later, amid the patients strewnacross the hospital’s grounds, Dr.Pierre spotted a wrapped bundle inwhat appeared to be an abandonedincubator. The bundle, mewling, was a premature infant whose mother had died in childbirth. Dr. Pierre and a pe-diatric nurse from Brooklyn, SharonPickering, frantically tried to find away to hydrate the baby.

“This is something we know how to do,’’ he said they told each other. Final-ly, they managed to insert a needle in a bone cavity and get the baby some flu-ids. But the next morning, Dr. Pierrefound the incubator empty.

Such losses were shattering but itwas hard to react at the time, the doc-tors said. There was too much to do,

and the circumstances weredisorienting. Dr. Lorich, anorthopedic trauma surgeonat the Hospital for SpecialSurgery, said it was hard toadjust to the grim reality ofmass amputations. “I am inthe habit of saving legs,’’ hesaid.

In Uganda, three weeksaway from her return to Hai-ti, Dr. Bellino said she couldnot stop wondering how the12-year-old Mystil had faredafter his amputation.

Through an uncle, the boywas found at the World Har-vest Missions/New Life or-phanage, where American

volunteers are looking after wounded children who have been dischargedfrom field hospitals.

Mystil was lying on a mattress onthe concrete floor of a church with aroof damaged in the quake. On hisplaid shirt he wore a SpongeBobsticker, which a volunteer said he had earned by doing several laps around a mango tree on his new crutches. SarahWimmer, a paramedic from Arizona,said that Mystil’s wound was healing well, and that he was receiving some physical and emotional therapy. Whenhis stitches are removed, he will besent home to his parents, who are liv-ing outside their cracked house, but he will be considered an outpatient, Ms. Wimmer said.

Reached in Africa, Dr. Bellinosighed. “I can breathe now,’’ she said.

and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Times.

And self-inflation is what the air-line industry is counting on. Extraperks and more pampering helpmake fliers feel special and persuadethem to fly more. Korean Airlines is

spending $200 million to put in high-end seats, upgrade its entertainmentand serve organic food, while CathayPacific, the Hong Kong Carrier, plansto have new cabins on its jets and abusiness-class lounge at the airportin Kauala Lumpur, said The Times.

Whether it’s a roomier airplane seat or a custom jacket, it’s to each

his own for that inexplicable sense of worth.

“At the end of the day the custom-er is searching for value,” Tom Ott, senior vice president and general merchandise manager for men’s wear and home furnishings at Sakstold The Times. “And value isn’t just in the price.” ANITA PATIL

Mystil Jean Wesmer, 12, an earthquake victim,was in a Port-au-Princehospital after his leg was amputated.

Feeling Special, for a Price

From Page I

President Obama insists that his schedulemakes ample room for time he can spend withhis daughters, Malia, 11, left, and Sasha, 8.

Repubblica NewYork

A M E R I C A N A

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010 V

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By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

LOS ANGELES — The tour orga-nizer received assurances, he says, from four gangs that they wouldnot harass the bus when it passedthrough their turf. Paying custom-

ers must signreleases warn-ing of potentialdanger. Andafter carefulconsideration,it was decidednot to have resi-

dents shoot water guns at the bus andsell “I Got Shot in South Central” T-shirts.

Borrowing a bit from the Holly-wood star tours, the grit of the streetsand a dash of hype, LA Gang Tours isa 12-stop, two-hour journey through what its organizer calls “the history and origin of high-profile gang areas and the top crime-scene locations” of South Los Angeles.

On the right, Los Angeles’s biggest jail, “the unofficial home to 20,000gang members in L.A.,” as the tourWeb site puts it. Over there, the po-lice station that in 1965 served as theNational Guard’s command post inthe Watts riots. Visit the concreteriverbed taken over by graffiti tag-gers, and later, drop in at a graffitiworkshop where, for the right price,a souvenir T-shirt or painting can beyours.

Alfred Lomas, 45, a former gangmember and the creator of the tour($65, lunch included), said thisdrive-by was about educating peo-ple on city life, while turning anyprofits into microloans and otherinitiatives aimed at providing gangmembers jobs.

But aside from its unusual logisti-

cal challenges — the liability waiver describes the tour as “inherentlydangerous” and warns of the risk of death — the venture has also gener-ated debate about its appropriate-ness.

“Everybody says we are the gang capital of the world, and that is cer-tainly true, no denying that,” said theReverend Gregory Boyle, who hasspent decades trying to steer peopleout of gangs into legitimate work.“It’s hard to gloss over that. But thereare two extremes we always need to avoid. One is demonizing the gangmember, and the other extreme is ro-manticizing the gang.”

Others fear that the tour, which ini-tially is to be conducted monthly, may

conjure up the so-called slum toursof shantytowns and impoverishedareas of Rio de Janeiro and Soweto, South Africa, which bring touristsclose, but not too close, to misery,with questionable benefit.

But Mr. Lomas’s supporters saidthe tour would raise awareness ofneeds in depressed communities.

Mr. Lomas rejected initial plans to drive through two housing projects, a concession, he said, to critics con-cerned it would be insensitive.

To some, it is no wonder that, in acity known to have more street gangsthan any other, as well as a close as-sociation with theme parks, some-body would come along and tap thetourism potential of gang culture.

“What the heck, market whatyou got,” said Celeste Fremon, whowrites the criminal justice blog Wit-ness L.A.

Although she disputed whetherseveral of the sites had a solid gangassociation, she said, “if it makesmoney for a good cause, more power to them.”

Like a Hollywood star tour, key spots inhistory of gangs.

By JASON DEPARLE and ROBERT GEBELOFF

Food stamps, a program oncescorned as “welfare,” enjoys broadnew support in a struggling economy.

Following deep cuts in the 1990s,Congress reversed course to expandeligibility, cut red tape and burnishthe program’s image, with a special ef-fort to enroll the working poor. These changes, combined with soaringunemployment, have pushed enroll-ment to record highs, with one in eightAmericans now getting aid.

“I’ve seen a remarkable shift,” saidSenator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana

Republican and prominent food stampsupporter. “People now see that it’snecessary to have a strong food stamp program.”

The revival began a decade ago, af-ter tough welfare laws chased millions of people from the cash rolls, many in-to low-wage jobs. Newly sympathetic officials saw food stamps as a way to help them. For states, the program hadanother appeal: the benefits are feder-ally paid.

The drive to enroll the needy canbe seen in the case of Monica Bostick-Thomas, 45, a widow in New YorkCity’s Harlem neighborhood whoworks part-time as a school crossing

guard. Since her husband died three years ago, she has scraped by on anannual income of about $15,000.

But she did not seek help until shegot a call from the Food Bank of New York City, one of the city’s outreachpartners.

The worker projected a benefit of$147 a month. “That’s going to help!”she said. “I wouldn’t have gone and ap-plied on my own.”

Since its founding in 1964, the foodstamp program has swung betweenseasons of bipartisan support andconservative attack. George McGov-ern, a Democrat, and Bob Dole, aRepublican, were prominent Senatebackers. But Ronald Reagan toldstories about the “strapping youngbuck” who used food stamps to buy a“T-bone steak.”

By the 1990s, the program was sweptup in President Bill Clinton’s pledge to “end welfare.” While he meant cashaid, the 1996 law that restricted cashbenefits included major cuts in foodstamps benefits and eligibility. Some states went further and pushed eligi-ble people away.

But as attention shifted to poorworkers, food stamps won new sup-port. Wisconsin’s former governor,Tommy G. Thompson, a Republican,boasted of cutting the cash rolls, butadvertised the food stamp rise. “Lead-ing the Way to Make Work Pay,” a 2000news release said.

In a given month, nearly 90 percent of food stamp recipients still haveincomes below the federal povertyline, according to the Department ofAgriculture. But among families withchildren, the share working rose to 47percent in 2008, from 26 percent in the

mid-1990s, and the share getting cash welfare fell by two-thirds.

“This is all federal money — it drivesdollars to local economies,’’ said Rus-sell Sykes, a government consultant inMilwaukee, Wisconsin who warns thatthe aid encourages the poor to workless and therefore remain in need.

‘’It’s going to be very difficult withlarge swaths of the lower middle class tasting the fruits of dependency to beweaned from this,’’ he said. The ten-sion between self-reliance and reliefcan be seen at the food bank’s office inHarlem, where the city lets outreachworkers file applications.

Juan Diego Castro, 24, has a month-ly stipend of about $2,500 and initially thought food stamps should go to

needier people, like the tenants he or-ganizes. “My concern was if I’m tak-ing food stamps and I have a job, is itmorally correct?” he said.

But a food bank worker urged him to apply, arguing that there was enoughaid to go around and that use woulddemonstrate continuing need. “Thatmeeting definitely turned us around,”Mr. Castro said.

While Mr. Castro seemed contem-plative, Alba Catano, 44, appeareddejected.

A Colombian immigrant, she hasspent a dozen years on a night jani-torial crew but fell and missed threemonths of work after knee surgery.

Last November, she limped into astorefront church in the Queens bor-

ough of New York, where a food bankworker was taking applications besidethe pews.

About her lost wages, she strucka stoic pose, saying her san cocho —Colombian soup — had less meat and more plantains. But her composurecracked when she talked of the effecton her 10-year-old daughter.

“My refrigerator is empty,” Ms.Catano said.

Last month, Ms. Catano was backat work, with a benefit of $170 a month and no qualms about joining 38 million Americans eating with governmentaid. “I had the feeling that workingpeople were not eligible,” she said.“But then they told me, ‘No, no, theprogram has improved.’ ”

In Recession, Food Aid Loses Some of Its Stigma

A Voice for Hmong HuntersGanglandBus Tour, With Waiver

PHOTOS BY STEPHEN CROWLEY/NEW YORK TIMES

In New York, patrons recently lined up their grocery carts to wait for a food pantry to open.

By MALIA WOLLAN

SACRAMENTO — On the barrenairwaves of AM radio in Northern Cali-fornia, between gospel music and traf-fic updates, Yia Yang can be heard tell-ing his devoted listeners to always beaware of their gun muzzles.

A 50-year-old Hmongimmigrant from northernLaos, Mr. Yang is the host of a regular all-things-huntingprogram on KJAY 1430-AM.The station serves one ofthe nation’s largest Hmong populations — one for whomthe link between hunting and survival is still palpable.

“In Laos a main source of food was wildlife,” said Mr. Yang, who owns acar lot in Sacramento, a city with more than 16,000 Hmong residents.

He said hunting brought backmemories of the wilds of Laos, where his older brother, who he said was asoldier trained by the Central Intel-ligence Agency, taught him to shootraccoon-like creatures out of trees.

During the Vietnam War, the C.I.A.covertly trained the Hmong to fight,unsuccessfully it turned out, against a Communist takeover in Laos. After the war, many Hmong fled to refugee camps in Thailand. From there, more than 200,000 immigrated to the UnitedStates, settling largely in the Central Valley of California and in Minnesotaand Wisconsin.

“In Laos, a big part of the traditionalrole for men was to provide meat,” saidPaul Hillmer, a professor of historyand director of the Hmong Oral His-tory Project at Concordia University inSt. Paul. “The adjustment for Hmong men in this country was getting used tothings like private-property boundar-ies, hunting licenses and regulations.”

So Mr. Yang patiently answers asteady stream of callers from all over the Sacramento Valley, whose ques-tions range from the mundane — Do I need a special license to hunt deer witha bow and arrow? (No, but a hunting

license is required, as is a deer tag for archery.) — to the exotic. How, exactly,one hunter wanted to know, was he to deliver the severed head of the blackbear he had shot to the State Depart-ment of Fish and Game, as required

by law. (Present the skull— even if damaged — to adepartment office or officer within 10 days of killing thebear.)

State officials praise Mr. Yang for translating the ba-sics of fish and game law forpeople from an ethnic group

that can be wary of authority figures.Captain Roy Griffith, who runs the

fish and game agency’s hunter educa-tion program and has been an on-airguest of Mr. Yang, said Mr. Yang pro-vided “a huge service to the state.”

State agencies overseeing huntingand fishing in Minnesota and Wis-consin have hired Hmong speakers to work as cultural ambassadors to theLaotian immigrant population.

California depends on about 850volunteer instructors, including Mr.Yang, to teach the 10-hour hunter edu-cation and gun safety course requiredfor anyone seeking a hunting license.

There is a waiting list of more than30 people to take the next class offeredby Mr. Yang .

KJAY 1430-AM broadcasts from arundown mobile home by the Sacra-mento River, on the city’s west side.The station plays Hmong program-ming during the day with hourlongsegments dedicated to traditional mu-sic and Hmong international news.

In the winter when bear and deerhunting seasons are closed, Mr. Yang’sprogram is heard less often, but occa-sionally he does take to the air withtalk of hunting wild pigs, ducks andsquirrels.

“People are calling on the radioasking me, ‘How many squirrels can I bring home?’ ” he said. “I tell themfour. Squirrel soup with a lot of hot pep-pers is very popular.”

Politicians endorse a program they once scorned.

MICHAL CZERWONKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Alfred Lomas created LA Gang Tours. He says profits will go toinitiatives to help gang members get jobs.

Repubblica NewYork

M O N E Y & B U S I N E S S

VI MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010

By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — Jeff Robinov,president of the Warner Brothers Pic-tures Group, has become one of the most powerful people in moviedomover the last two years and is becom-ing even more so. He is the heir appar-ent for the company’s top movie job when Alan F. Horn, chief operating officer of Warner Brothers Entertain-ment and overlord of film production,retires next year.

With its corporate gentility and sta-bility in a highly unstable business, Warner has long been Hollywood’sgold standard. By sticking to “theWarner way’’ — star-driven pictures,effective marketing — and keeping executive churn to a minimum, the studio of Batman and Harry Potter has sold more than $1 billion in ticketsat the domestic box office for an un-paralleled nine years running.

But Mr. Robinov, taking notice of changing industry economics andshifting consumer tastes, has been modifying that blueprint. His strat-egy involves making fewer but moreambitious movies, cutting back onsweetheart producer deals and atlong last integrating its corporate sib-ling DC Comics more tightly into themovie division.

Mr. Robinov, in close alliance withhis president of worldwide marketing,Sue Kroll, is also moving Warner outof its stately comfort zone by pursuingmore provocative advertising cam-paigns (“Rock Out With Your GlockOut’’ is the slogan for a forthcoming title) and raunchy comedies like “TheHangover.’’ Mr. Robinov pressedto make “The Hangover’’ over Mr.Horn’s objections. The $35 millionmovie, co-produced with Legendary

Pictures, has sold about $467 millionin tickets. “There are movies thatdon’t necessarily speak to my genera-tion,’’ Mr. Horn, 66, said, “but Warnerneeds to speak to all audiences.’’

Mr. Robinov has more on his handsthan just continuing to show Hol-lywood who’s boss. The studio’sslimmed-down corporate parent,Time Warner, is relying more thanever on its motion picture arm to mintprofits that will impress investors.And he must accomplish that withoutthe Harry Potter franchise, whichends next year.

Operating income for the studio

rose 61 percent to $436 million in thefourth quarter. Even so, Wall Street’sattention is currently focused else-where, namely on 20th Century Fox’s“Avatar,’’ which has become the top-grossing movie of all time.

Premium-price 3-D tickets are onereason “Avatar’’ has attracted over $2 billion at the global box office, andWarner is hopping on the 3-D band-wagon in a big way. It has announcedplans to release “Clash of the Titans’’and the final two “Harry Potter’’ filmsin 3-D. Warner will have as many asnine 3-D releases next year, accordingto Dan Fellman, president of domesticdistribution.

Driven by its need to replace Harry

Potter, not to mention the continued appeal of superheroes, Warner re-cently announced a major reorga-nization of DC Comics. The goal is toquickly and more fully exploit its char-acters, something Time Warner’s cor-porate bureaucracy has hampered inthe past.

The Walt Disney Company’s recent$4 billion purchase of Marvel Enter-tainment has increased the pressureon Warner to succeed this time.

Central to Mr. Robinov’s approachto DC is to avoid cookie-cutter rep-resentations and take risks when itcomes to hiring directors and choos-ing a cast. Fully backing a filmmaker’svision has become a hallmark of his style, ranging from the odd “Watch-men,’’ which was a modest success,to the candy-colored “Speed Racer,’’which was a flaming disaster, to “TheDark Knight,’’ a major success.

“He is trying not to cling to thethings that have worked in the past,’’said Christopher Nolan, who directed“The Dark Knight’’ and is working onanother Batman sequel.

While it tinkers with its formula,Warner Brothers Entertainment, thestudio’s umbrella company, is alsoconfronting the distracting issue of corporate succession for only the fifthtime since 1967, when the Warner fam-ily ceded control. Speculating about who will replace Mr. Horn and BarryM. Meyer, the company’s departing chairman, has become one of Holly-wood’s favorite parlor games.

“Every ship picks up barnacles overtime, but as Barry and I ride into thesunset, I firmly believe we’re leav-ing it better than we found it, and wefound it in pretty great shape,’’ Mr. Horn said.

By DAVID BARBOZA

CHANGSHA, China — With a fewquick keystrokes, a computer hackerwho goes by the code name Majia calls up a screen displaying his latest vic-tims.

“Here’s a list of the people who’vebeen infected with my Trojan horse,’’he says, working from a dingy apart-ment on the outskirts of this city incentral China. “They don’t even knowwhat’s happened.’’

As he explains it, an online “trap-door’’ he created just over a week ago has already lured 2,000 people fromChina and overseas — people whoclicked on something they should not have, inadvertently spreading a virus that allows him to take control of their computers and steal bank accountpasswords.

Majia, a soft-spoken collegegraduate in his early 20s, is acyberthief. He operates secretlyand illegally, as part of a commu-nity of hackers who exploit flaws in computer software to breakinto Web sites, steal valuabledata and sell it for a profit.

Internet security experts sayChina has legions of hackers just likeMajia, and that they are behind anescalating number of global attacksto steal credit card numbers, commitcorporate espionage and even wageonline warfare on other nations, whichin some cases have been traced back to China.

Recently, Google blamed hackersthat it connected to China for a series of sophisticated attacks that led to the theft of the company’s valuable source

code. Google alsosaid hackers had in-filtrated the privateGmail accounts ofhuman rights activ-ists, suggesting theeffort might havebeen more than just

mischief.In addition to independent criminals

like Majia, computer security special-ists say there are so-called patriotic hackers who focus their attacks onpolitical targets. Then there are the in-telligence-oriented hackers inside the People’s Liberation Army, as well asmore shadowy groups that are believedto work with the state government.

Indeed, in China — as in parts ofEastern Europe and Russia — com-

puter hacking has become something of a national sport, and a lucrative one.There are hacker conferences, hacker training academies and magazineswith names like Hacker X Files andHacker Defense, which offer tips onhow to break into computers or build a Trojan horse, step by step.

And with 380 million Web users inChina and a sizzling online gamingmarket, analysts say it is no wonderChinese youths are so skilled at hack-ing.

Computer hacking is illegal inChina. Last year, Beijing revised and stiffened a law that makes hackinga crime, with punishments of up toseven years in prison. Majia seems to disregard the law, largely because it isnot strictly enforced. But he does take

care to cover his tracks. Partly, he admits, the lure is money.

Many hackers make a lot of money,he says, and he seems to be plottinghis own path. Exactly how much hehas earned, he won’t say. But he does admit to selling malicious code to oth-ers; and boasts of being able to tap intopeople’s bank accounts by remotelyoperating their computers.

Financial incentives motivate manyyoung Chinese hackers like Majia, ex-perts say. Scott J. Henderson, author of “The Dark Visitor: Inside the Worldof Chinese Hackers,’’ said he hadspent years tracking Chinese hackers,sometimes with financial help fromthe United States government. “They make a lot of money selling virusesand Trojan horses to infect other peo-ple’s computers,’’ Mr. Henderson saidin a telephone interview. “They alsobreak into online gaming accounts,and sell the virtual characters. It’s big money.’’

By HIROKO TABUCHI

TOKYO — The broiled meat is ten-der and the rice is silky-smooth. Butas Japan’s economic recovery falters,beef bowls have come to symbolize one of its most pressing woes: deflation.

Japan’s big three beef bowl restau-rant chains, the country’s answer tohamburger giants like McDonald’s,are in a price war. It is a sign, manypeople say, of the dire state of Japan’s economy that even dirt-cheap beefbowl restaurants must slash their al-ready low prices to keep customers.

The battle has also come to epito-mize a destructive pattern repeatedacross Japan’s economy. By cuttingprices hastily and aggressively toattract consumers, critics say, res-taurants decimate profits, squeezeworkers’ pay and drive the weak outof business.

“These cutthroat price wars couldusher in another recessionary hell,”the influential economist NorikoHama wrote in a magazine article.

Deflation is back in Japan as it strug-gles to shake off the effects of its worst recession since World War II. While

prices have fallen elsewhere duringthe global economic crisis, deflationhas been the most persistent here:consumer prices among industrial-ized economies rose by a robust 1.3percent in the year to November, but fell 1.9 percent in Japan.

In the decline, companies that un-dercut rivals too aggressively are be-ing chastised as reckless at best, or astraitors undermining the country’srecovery at worst. Every markdownof beef bowl prices by the big threerestaurants — Sukiya, Yoshinoya and Matsuya — has been promptly broad-cast by the national news media here.

Japan has reason to be worried. De-flation hampered Japan from the mid-1990s, after the collapse of its bubbleeconomy, to at least 2005. Households held back spending on big-ticketgoods, knowing they would only getcheaper. Companies were unsure ofhow much to invest. At the time, the

three beef bowl chains were in a simi-lar price war.

Now that deflation is back, Japan iswary. Unemployment remains nearrecord highs, and wages are falling.Mounting public debt is also a problem,causing Standard & Poor’s on Tuesdayto cut its outlook for Japan’s sovereign rating for the first time since 2002.

Moreover, the population is shrink-ing, making demand inherentlyweak.

Matsuya, the smallest of the threechains, set off the price war by cutting the price of its standard beef bowl to320 yen, or $3.55, from 380 yen in early December. The market leader, Sukiya,followed suit that month, lowering its price to 280 yen, from 330 yen.

This month, the No. 2beef bowl chain, Yoshinoya,lowered the price of its beef bowl to 300 yen, from 380yen, though it says the cut istemporary.

In a sense, the beef bowlhas always been about lowprices. Yoshinoya, the beefbowl pioneer, helped bringbeef to the Japanese work-ing class with its first res-taurant in Tokyo in 1899.

Eikichi Matsuda, theYoshinoya founder, keptprices cheap by buying inbulk, and serving as manycustomers as possible fromhis tiny stall. The same prin-ciples still apply at Yoshi-noya. At a branch in central Tokyo, servers rarely takemore than a minute to fill an

order. The average customer spendsjust 7.5 minutes on a meal, and a small restaurant can serve more than 3,000customers a day.

But making a profit has been in-creasingly difficult. The companysuffered a 2.3 billion yen net loss inthe nine months to November, and the next month, before Yoshinoya slashed prices, its sales slumped 22.2 percent.In contrast, sales at Sukiya, whichserves up the cheapest beef bowl,surged 15.9 percent that month fromthe previous year.

Yoshinoya is not considering furtherprice cuts. Squeezing out more savingsis “like wringing a dry towel,” said aspokesman, Haruhiko Kizu.

Meanwhile, labor disputes at Su-kiya show how falling prices can hurtworkers. A string of former workershave sued the chain over withholding overtime pay. Sukiya denies the accu-sations.

Daring to Change the ‘Warner Way’

RON BATZDORFF/WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES; BELOW, MONICA ALMEIDA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Valentine’s Day,” a movie featuring 18 stars, including Jennifer Garner, isdrawing strong interest for the Warner Brothers Pictures Group. Jeff Robinov isguiding the studio to make fewer but more ambitious films.

JACKSON LOWEN/

THE NEW YORK TIMES

KO SASAKI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A small Yoshinoya restaurant can serve more than 3,000 beef bowl meals like thisa day. A meal costs less than $3.50.

Deflation is back, and even cheap food gets cheaper.

A rising player nudges studio toward a new era.

A Beef Bowl Price War Illustrates Peril in Japan

Hacking in China’s Underworld Scott Henderson’s “The Dark Visitor” exposes the exploits of young Chinese hackers who can work from home.

Repubblica NewYork

S C I E N C E & T E C H N O L O GY

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010 VII

John Skidmore doesn’t care about3-D TV. Should you?

In early January, Mr. Skidmore, a 24-year-old from Chicago, boughttwo Panasonic plasma TVs for

a total of $2,700,even after hearingthe news from therecent ConsumerElectronics Show inLas Vegas that 3-DTV was just around

the corner. He didn’t think that thenew 3-D sets, scheduled to arrive instores in the next few months, wereworth the premium he would pay forsomething that he expected to userarely.

“I couldn’t see myself wearing 3-Dglasses every time I watched any-thing on TV,” he said.

As with most technological ad-vances, the hype seems to havetaken over the conversation when itcomes to 3-D TV technologies.

But when 3-D TVs do becomeavailable in the next few months,should you invest in one? Let’s lookat some of the common questionsmost consumers have.

Do I still have to use those dumbblue-and-red glasses?

No. Those glasses are used insomething called anaglyphic 3-D.They use two colors — red and blue(sometimes green) — to createtwo different “views” of an image.Popular in the 1950s and 1960s, theyare going the way of the dodo. Nowyou have to use newer, sleeker dumbglasses.

Can I just keep the glasses I usedwhen I watched “Avatar” and “Up”in the theater?

Technically you should be able to— those are passive 3-D glasses andthey use a system of polarizationthat splits the image on screen intotwo separate images. This is fine fora large room when everyone is seat-ed in front of the screen. But 3-D TVmanufacturers can’t tell what your room will look like and, more impor-tant, don’t want to sell 3-D glassesfor a few pennies when they can sellfancier “active” glasses for $70.

Active? $70? What’s so special?

Active glasses allow light to reachonly one eye at a time. As you watchthe video, the display shows one sideof the image, then the other in rapidsuccession. The glasses sync up withthe image, alternately darkeningover one eye. In this way, the displaypresents a different perspective for each eye. This also allows you towalk around the room and still get afairly good 3-D effect.

The glasses flash? Are they elec-tronic? That means you have tocharge them, right?

Yes. As if there weren’t enoughwires in your family room.

So how cool is it, really? Be honest.Set makers from Sony to Philips

in their various showrooms aresure to bombard you with pitches tocheck out their 3-D TVs. Arguably,seeing an “Avatar” trailer on a 3-DTV will be cool the first time, but the

bloom goes off the rose quickly. Withthe right content, it’s great, but it’sdoubtful many will be excited by“My Dinner With Andre” in 3-D.

So if I wanted to take the plunge,what would I need?

To watch 3-D TV, you have to havea 3-D-capable home entertainmentcenter (for example, a 3-D TV and a3-D Blu-ray player).

“2013 is the tipping point for adop-tion,” said Richard L. Gelfond, thechief executive of Imax.

When will I be able to watch 3-DTV without the silly glasses?

Presumably this will happen after3-D becomes ubiquitous and manu-facturers are forced to sell theirinventory of 3-D TVs. Maybe 2020?After all, by then they’ll have to lookfor another cash cow. Rememberthe consumer electronics motto:A.B.O.— always be obsolescing.

By CAMILLE SWEENEY

A new crop of hand-held aestheticdevices has been crowding the bath-room shelf.

The gadgets often come with heftyprice tags and the promise of resultsthat sound too good to be true: a skincare brush that reduces wrinkles, aunit that beams away unwanted hair,a skin plumper that creates a moreyouthful appearance.

The newest of these devices are tak-ing aim at acne. Products like the Tan-da Skincare System ($250), the Claro ($275) and the No!No! Skin ($180) use heat or light, or a combination of both. They represent one of the top threecategories of home-use aesthetic de-vices sold globally, after skin rejuve-nation and hair removal devices, saidMichael Moretti, founder of Medical

Insight, an aesthetic market researchfirm.

Consumers and skin care profes-sionals alike are wondering: Do these things even work?

Industry experts predict that these new acne devices — many of whichare similar to some of the technologies used in dermatologists’ offices — are poised to become a viable part of acneregimens.

Reviews of the devices, though, are mixed.

Tom Seery, founder of RealSelf.com, an online aesthetic community, re-ported that user reviews of home-use acne devices on his site were “a mixed bag of responses.”

Despite the fact that some of the de-vices have been cleared by the Foodand Drug Administration, medical

professionals are divided as to wheth-er to recommend them even for spottreatments or between office visits.

Among the earliest consumer gad-gets was the Zeno ($100), which came out four years ago and used thermaltechnology. Its efficacy has alwaysbeen questioned.

“It is true that heating an acne lesionwill melt the oil in the oil gland, andthis will have a very modest anti-in-flammatory effect,” said Dr. MacreneAlexiades-Armenakas, a dermatolo-gist in New York. “But this is, at best, a short-term solution, mildly effective for existing pimples and time consum-ing because you would have to zapeach pimple one at a time for at leasttwo and a half minutes twice a day.”

The newer devices — like No!No!Skin, which emits green and red light,

as well as heat, and claims to eradicateacne lesions by about 80 percent; and the Claro, which uses intense pulsedlight technology and claims a 94 per-cent acne clearance rate — may havesome validity, Dr. Alexiades-Arme-nakas said. “But since studies are sosmall-scale, the devices have yet toprove their efficacy objectively,” shesaid.

At issue is the fact that in order tokeep devices consumer-safe, without risk of burns or eye damage, manufac-

turers must keep the intensity of their technologies very low.

“We tested photodynamic therapyon acne patients that was a hundredtimes stronger than what you’d findin a home-use device, and only 40 per-cent of those patients responded,” saidDr. Robert Weiss, a dermatologist inBaltimore and a past president of the American Society for DermatologicSurgery. “From that clinical experi-ence, I’m very skeptical about whatthese devices can do.”

By LIZ GALST

Last year, when Jonathan Smithwas still the president of Earth911.com, a Web site dedicated to recycling, he said he would often board a planeafter a speaking engagement or a day of meetings with a dead cellphone inhand.

With limited recharging optionsavailable, “it was really frustrating,’’he said. “Having access to a working port or finding an open plug duringlayovers at the airport was just too un-predictable.’’

Hoping to solve his problem, Mr.Smith bought a portable solar char-ger he could prop up in the windowof a plane. “I’d plug it into my phoneand when we landed, I was ready to go again.’’ The charger meshed well withhis environmental values, of course.Still, “when I first started using solar to charge my devices,’’ he said, “it wasout of convenience.’’

In fact, Mr. Smith is one of a grow-ing number of business travelers who, out of practicality or concern for theenvironment, use portable renewable energy devices — primarily portablesolar panels, but also hand-crankedelectricity generators known as dy-namos or freeplay devices — to power up their electronics when they work inplaces that offer little or no access toelectricity.

“Basically, this technology makesour work possible,’’ said John Pouls-en, a tropical ecologist who inves-tigates logging’s effects on animalpopulations in the forests of centralAfrica. Often, data collection takesMr. Poulsen as much as 40 kilometers from the nearest road. “The research we do requires being in the forest for two to three weeks at a time. And ifwe had to go back to the village every two or three days for batteries, we just couldn’t do it,’’ he said.

Generally speaking, portable re-newable energy devices cannot power large equipment, like desktop comput-ers or printers. But they can generate enough electricity to operate laptops,satellite telephones, movie and stillcameras, sound-recording equipment,GPS equipment and camp lighting,said Stuart Cody, owner of Automated Media Systems in Allston, Massachu-setts. The company customizes por-table solar arrays and battery backupsystems for business travelers andadventurers.

The devices have improved signifi-cantly since they were first introducedin the mid-1990s. That was about thetime the tree kangaroo conservationprogram, administered by the Wood-land Park Zoo in Seattle, began using portable solar power at its field sitesin Papua New Guinea. “Initially, wegot panels that didn’t work very well,’’

JAS LEHAL/REUTERS

TREE KANGAROO CONSERVATION PROGRAMS

MARTIN J. GRABER

A wondrous new dimension to TV. Do you care?

TravelersWho Tap The Sun

The Pluses, and Oddities, Of 3-D TV

Hand-Held Devices Use Light and Heat Against Acne

Lisa Dabek,above right, and Toby Ross usedsolar panelson a kangarooconservationproject in Papua New Guinea. A doctor employeda solar-powered lantern in Kenya.

JOHN

BIGGS

ESSAY

TONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

said Lisa Dabek, the zoo’s directorof field conservation. Now, the solarpanels used to power laptops, naviga-tion devices and satellite phones “are much smaller and much more porta-ble,’’ she added.

The organization uses this technol-ogy for reasons that have as much to do with practicality as with environ-mental concerns. Fuel-powered gen-erators, Ms. Dabek said, are “veryheavy. And to hike uphill with themfor two days is not really an option.’’Moreover, generators “make a lot ofnoise that would scare away the treekangaroos.’’

Mr. Cody said users should be real-istic about how much power portablesolar panels could create.

“People who are starting fromscratch don’t realize that solar pan-els don’t always put out a consistentstream of energy,’’ he said. “The sun comes and goes. There’s a shadow thatreduces the current flow.’’ As a result, Mr. Cody suggested using the devices to charge internal or external batter-

ies, rather than to run electronics di-rectly.

The occasional intermittence ofthese devices’ energy supply can be a drawback. But for some users, they areliterally lifesavers. “We have lions andelephants nearby here,’’ said MartinJ. Graber, a doctor and internationaldevelopment consultant who works inthe Narok district of southwest Kenya.Dr. Graber uses a solar-powered lan-tern when he goes to the outhouse atnight. “I want to make sure there areno animals.’’

“I’ve never had any trouble goingthrough airport security with thesechargers,’’ said Mr. Smith, addingthat security personnel were often in-trigued by the devices.

“When you find these devices that are innovative and socially respon-sible,’’ he said, “it’s fantastic.’’ Busi-ness travelers who work in remotelocations “have this very real neces-sity that’s solved by these renewable devices, and it enables us to practicewhat we preach.’’

Reviews of the new anti-acne

gadgets are decidedly mixed.

Sports fans at a pub

in Londonrecently

wore 3-D glasses

to watch a soccer

game.

Repubblica NewYork

A R T S & S T Y L E S

VIII MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010

By LARRY ROHTER

LOS ANGELES — At 65, with a dis-tinguished career that dates back tothe earliest days of the British Inva-sion, Jeff Beck remains the greatestguitarist that millions of people havenever heard of. But the master instru-mentalist in him has resisted making the concessions that would allow him to be heard more widely in an era inwhich his craft has been reduced to a video game with colored buttons.

The creators of “Guitar Hero” in-vited Mr. Beck to be an avatar in thegame, but he declined. “Who wants to be in a kid’s game, like a toy shop?” he asked dismissively during an inter-view.

With a new manager and a forth-coming record on a new label, Mr.Beck is instead trying to resolve hisdilemma the old-fashioned way. Mr.Beck and his new band are headingoff to Australia, Hong Kong, Japanand South Korea before returning tothe United States in April, when hisfirst studio recording in seven years,“Emotion & Commotion,” is scheduledto be released by Atco.

“I was almost a recluse, and nowyou can’t get rid of me,” he said. “It justseems like I’ve picked the right mo-ment to move. There’s a commitmentI’ve made over the last year really,”prodded by his new manager and mu-sicians he respects, “and now you’reseeing the results of that.”

Originally Mr. Beck was one of what Jan Hammer, the jazz and fusion pia-nist and drummer who is a friend and collaborator, calls “the holy trinity” of British guitar players to emerge from the 1960s. Like Eric Clapton and Jim-my Page, the founder of Led Zeppelin, Mr. Beck first came to prominence asa member of the Yardbirds.

As a solo artist for the last 43 years,Mr. Beck has built a reputation as the guitar player’s guitar player. Thoughnotoriously self-effacing, even in-secure, about his own talent, he hasbecome a major influence on three

generations of players, particularlythrough his use of harmonics and the whammy bar on the Fender Strato-caster he prefers.

Mr. Beck’s career has followed acurious path. Periods of engagementwith the commercial side of the musicworld have given way to interludes of withdrawal, during which he retiresto his home in the English countryside to work on his collection of hot rods,listen to obscure records and practicein his living room.

“If you were to plot my success orfailure, it goes,” and here Mr. Beckmade a series of up-and-down handgestures, accompanied by the sounds of a car stopping and starting. “It veryseldom stays on a high plateau.”

Even today Mr. Beck remains suspi-cious of the machinery of the pop in-dustry, expressing both puzzlement and disgust at the way the celebrityculture has swallowed other musi-cians.

“It’s a diabolical business,” he said. “I can’t imagine how hellish it must beto be hounded like Amy Winehouseand people like that. I have a littleperipheral place on the outskirts ofcelebrity, when I go to premieres and that sort of stuff, which is as close as Iwant to get. I cherish my privacy, and woe betide anyone who tries to inter-fere with that.”

By DENNIS LIM

Like many films in the career of Ro-man Polanski, “The Ghost Writer,” his 18th feature, is likely to be overshad-owed by the man who made it.

Critics and viewers have long been tempted to link Mr. Polanski’s workto his life — to view one through theprism of the other — not least because the life has been so public and so un-commonly eventful. “There’s nothing about human nature that would sur-prise him,” the novelist Robert Har-ris, a co-writer of “The Ghost Writer,”said recently. “He’s a sort of walking microcosm of history.”

Mr. Polanski’s biography could dou-ble as a summary of the 20th century.Born in 1933, he spent part of his boy-hood scrambling to stay alive in theKrakow ghetto. He was reunited withhis father after the war, but his mother died at Auschwitz. A precocious actor,he started plotting his escape fromCommunist Poland at a young age. Hisaward-winning early films were histicket out, and he arrived in London onthe eve of the Swinging ’60s.

He made it to the United States intime for the summer of love, only tobecome a tragic symbol of the end ofthe ’60s, when his pregnant wife, theactress Sharon Tate, and four other

people were slaughtered by followers of Charles Manson. The countercul-ture hangover continued; one might even say it never went away. In 1977Mr. Polanski pleaded guilty to “unlaw-ful sexual intercourse” with a 13-year-old girl. Last September, more than31 years after he fled Los Angeles toescape sentencing, he was arrestedin Zurich by Swiss authorities. But

on February 12, the Swiss ministry of Justice announced that he would notbe extradited to the United States untilthe courts in Los Angeles determinedwhether or not he would need to facesentencing in person.

He came to prominence as part ofthe European art cinema of the ’60s:“Knife in the Water” (1962), his poisedfirst feature about the triangle among a married couple and a young hitch-

hiker, earned an Oscar nomination forbest foreign-language film. In Amer-ica he directed “Chinatown,” one ofthe crowning achievements of Holly-wood’s most recent golden age.

Based on “The Ghost,” a best-selling2007 novel by Mr. Harris, “The Ghost Writer” unfolds from the point of viewof a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor)hired to whip into shape the memoirof a former British prime minister(Pierce Brosnan), an American allyunder investigation for war crimes.

Watching this twisty thriller —which for long stretches finds Mr.McGregor’s character sequesteredin a Massachusetts beach house inthe dead of winter — it is hard not tonote that the film was completed by its director while confined under housearrest to his chalet in Gstaad, Switzer-land.

It’s also tempting to observe thatMr. Polanski used a ghostwriter (the journalist Edward Behr) for his 1984autobiography, “Roman by Polanski.”“The Ghost Writer” is Mr. Polanski’sfirst post-exile film to be largely — andpointedly — set in the United States.Exteriors were shot on the Germancoast; the palatial vacation home wasbuilt on a Berlin soundstage.

The film, which premiered in Berlin

on February 12, gives us a quintes-sentially Polanskian me-against-the-world setup, in which an isolatedprotagonist succumbs to increasingparanoia. In Mr. Polanski’s moviesparanoia can be a symptom of mad-ness (“Repulsion”) or the only proof ofsanity in a crazy world (“Rosemary’sBaby”). Sometimes it appears to beboth, as in “The Tenant” (1976). Inthat film, Mr. Polanski plays the titlecharacter, a Pole who rents an apart-ment in Paris and comes to suspectthat his neighbors are conspiring toturn him into its previous resident, a woman who threw herself out of herwindow. Mr. McGregor’s unnamedcharacter in “The Ghost Writer” is also

haunted by his dead predecessor: the writer he’s replacing drowned undermysterious circumstances.

The stories of Mr. Polanski’s brutalon-set perfectionism have been re-placed by a picture of a marginalizedbut respected industry elder whomjournalists and collaborators have de-scribed as reticent and not especially prone to introspection.

Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscarfor his screenplay of “The Pianist,”has been in regular contact with Mr.Polanski by telephone these past few months.

“I ask him how he is, and he says he’sfine,” Mr. Harwood said. “But I don’t know how he is. No one really does.”

To paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis,there is a whole lot of art making go-ing on right now. All different kinds.But you’d hardly know it from the contemporary art that New York’s

major museums havebeen serving up late-ly, and particularly this season.

The current exhibi-tion of Gabriel Orozcoat the Museum of

Modern Art along with the recentones of Roni Horn at the WhitneyMuseum and of Urs Fischer at the New Museum have generated a lot of comment pro and con. So has the Tino Sehgal performance exhibi-tion now on view in an otherwiseemptied-out Guggenheim rotunda.But regardless of what you thinkabout these artists individually, their shows share a visual austerity and coolness of temperature that aredispiritingly one-note.

The goal in organizing museumexhibitions, as in collecting, run-ning a gallery and — to cite the mostobvious example — being an artist,should be individuation and differ-ence, finding a voice of your own. In-stead we’re getting example after ex-ample of squeaky-clean, well-made,intellectually decorous takes on thatunruly early ’70s mix of Conceptual,Process, Performance, installationand language-based art that is mostassociated with the label Post-Mini-

malism. Either that or we’re gettingexhibitions of the movement’s mostrevered founding fathers: since2005, for example, the Whitney hasmounted shows of Robert Smithson,Lawrence Weiner, Gordon Matta-Clark and Dan Graham. We cannotlive by the de-materialization — orthe slick re-materialization — of theart object alone.

What’s missing is art that seems made by one person out of intensepersonal necessity. A lot but not all of this kind of work is painting, which

seems to be becoming the art me-dium that dare not speak its name where museums are concerned.

Why hasn’t there been a major New York show of Philip Taaffe,whose layered, richly colored paint-ings are actually taking the mediumof painting in a direction it hasn’tbeen before? Why has a retrospec-tive of the painter Chris Ofili — withhis volatile mix of color, pattern,popular culture and identity politics

— opened at the Tate Britain but not yet been scheduled for a New Yorkmuseum? And why not see what a survey of the work of an artist asendlessly varied and yet dauntingly consistent as Joe Zucker might look like? If the public can handle anempty museum as art, it can dealwith some paintings made of cottonballs. I, for one, would rather see a tightly organized overview of Mr. Zucker’s work than Marlene Du-mas’s warmed-over Expressionism,which was recently displayed in bulkat the Museum of Modern Art.

The Guggenheim doesn’t play it assafe as the Modern or the Whitney.With its Sehgal show, as with its“Theanyspacewhatever” exhibitionin 2008, it acts like a place where any-thing can happen. But shows where we encounter an artist’s single-minded pursuit that proceeds oneobject at a time tend to feature past masters. The Guggenheim’s recent,fantastic Kandinsky exhibition wasan example (as was the Modern’sEnsor show). Yet there are plenty of artists working this way now.

Museum curators have a respon-sibility to their public and to history to be more ecumenical. They needto think outside the hive-mind, bothdistancing themselves from theirpersonal feelings to consider what’sbeing wrongly omitted and tapping into their own subjectivity to show us what they really love.

The Very Public Trials of a Director

GUY FERRANDIS/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT GERARD JULIEN/

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jeff Beck, rehearsing in Londonfor a tour with his new band.

ROBERTA

SMITH

ESSAY

New York Exhibitions: Post-Minimal to the Max

This season, museums rarelytranscend sameness.

In Polanski films,paranoia is proof ofmadness or sanity.

The guitar player’sguitar player hits the road again.

A Guitar Hero WhoWon’t Play the Game

EDEL RODRIGUEZ

Roman Polanski’s new movie, “TheGhost Writer,”stars EwanMcGregor, left.

Repubblica NewYork