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Doc: 00026408 DB: research–d–2006–1 Date: Fri Jan 6 16:06:18 2006

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AD8EVDNIG2 01-06-2006 16:06:18*F BC-asap-Lifestyles-Mustachioed Like Me, 1s

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^BC-asap-Lifestyles-Mustachioed Like Me, 1st Ld-Writethru,1351<

^Mustachioed like me<

^Why did a harmless patch of hair above the lip become so maligned? JONATHAN DREW tries one on for size – and wonders if the 'stache can make a comeback.<

^By JONATHAN DREW=

There was a time when the mustache was an emblem of rugged masculinity, required equipment for karate-chopping street punks in a back alley or outrunning the county sheriff with a tractor-trailer full of contraband booze.

But the prime-time appeal of that thin patch of hair went off the air in 1988 along with the last episode of "Magnum, P.I." Now, fraternities force new members to grow mustaches as a form of humiliation. The most famous mustache in the world these days probably belongs to Saddam Hussein. Grow one, and you'll be treated to the frightened stares and stinging ridicule of friends and co-workers.

Some middle-aged men still sport the 'stache with the nonchalance of Errol Flynn mowing down rogue pirates with his sabre. But as a facial accessory among 18- to 35-year-old men, the mustache by itself is about as common as lipstick.

"When you come down to it, it just doesn't look hip, modern, fashionable or good – and I think that's a recipe for staying away from any facial hair style," says Eric Malka, author of a book on shaving. Malka rarely sees mustachioed men of any age in his The Art of Shaving salons in New York, Miami and Las Vegas.

Two recent exercises in organized mustache-growing have served only to highlight how far out of favor it remains.

Mustaches for Kids – a six-year-old group of charities in about a dozen cities – trades on the social stigma of mustache-growing to raise money for children's social services. Mustache-growers collect money for their sacrifice from sponsors.

And when a filmmaker recruited a couple dozen acquaintances last year for a documentary about reviving the grooming style, most of them found it difficult to keep the mustache for a month. A handful succumbed to the anti-mustache sentiment and shaved it off before the four weeks were up.

"I had to get down on my knees and beg for people to keep their mustaches at some points," says documentarian Jay Della Valle, who premiered his "Glorius Mustache Challenge" last month in New York.

So how did the once-elegant mouth-mane become so reviled?

–––

To find out, I phoned experts and talked whiskers with strangers on New York streets. But I soon realized that I, a fully bearded man, still had little to say about the plight of the mustachioed man. I felt it my duty to find out firsthand what makes the mustache such an unbearable burden to the faces of contemporary men.

I stood over the wash basin in my apartment, my mind flooded with snippets of Magnum P.I. episodes. As I lifted a razor to my lathered face, I imagined Tom Skerrit's mustachioed Viper poignantly confiding in Maverick that his father had been a damn fine fighter pilot.

Like fashion trends, grooming styles come and go in cycles. By that logic, the mustache – unpopular for about 20 years -- would seem primed for a comeback.

Experts say the mustache has been dying a slow death since its 1950s heyday on the faces of men like Flynn and Clark Gable. In the 1960s, its popularity was eroded by the full beard of the hippie; it was later supplanted by the 1970s sideburn; and it had all but disappeared by the 1990s when the goatee ascended to the top of the facial hair food chain. These days, just about any facial hairstyle will do – as long as it's not the lone mustache.

Image experts offer various reasons as to why the mustache is still being denied its turn on the fashion merry-go-round. The most compelling of which is this: Hollywood has done its share to assassinate the character of the mustachioed man, allowing the strip of hair over the lip to become closely associated with the guy tying the damsel to the train track.

"We equate mustaches more with villains than heroes," says Gordon Patzer, an expert on physical attractiveness and dean of the Walter E. Heller College of Business Administration at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

In rare cases when it's the protagonist sporting the 'stache, results are often damning. Recent examples have included "Anchorman," in which Will Ferrell's facial hair added to the ridiculousness of his character; and "The Aviator," in which Leonardo DiCaprio's mustache hogged the screen as he squinted and rubbed his hands until they bled. Meanwhile, no leading men this side of Jack Black are wearing a mustache offscreen.

Image consultant Judith Rasband says the mustache has been squeezed out of the spectrum of men's style by competing trends. Currently, the most popular look for men is clean-shaven and youthful. Patzer points out that the mustache detracts from the full lips and clean white teeth that are modern symbols of beauty.

If men reject the clean-shaven look, they're more likely to go for perpetual stubble or even a full beard. The mustache is too sculpted for those seeking the rugged look, Rasband says, and too distinctive and mature-looking for those wanting a more youthful style.

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Once my beard had been shorn, I made sure no one would miss seeing my mustache by brushing in brown Just For Men hair dye. I was calm, lucid, but most of all frightened. Sure, my mustache had been there ever since I grew a full beard. But removing the rest of the whiskers felt a little bit like changing out of khakis and into a speedo in the middle of the workday.

As soon as I walked into the office, a fellow reporter's eyes bugged out and he shouted, "Is this a joke? Do you need attention that badly?" Later, the editor who had assigned me this story remarked, "I can't take you seriously with that mustache."

The most common reaction among my acquaintances was a completely startled, mostly blank expression – the look of someone on the verge of choking on a chunk of carrot.

To gain a broader sense of what people – including strangers – thought of the mustache, I turned to a form of cutting edge, computer-aided empirical research – www.hotornot.com. There, I posted pictures of myself with and without the mustache, allowing random Web surfers as well as friends of mine and about a dozen co-workers to vote on which look they liked better. The clean-shaven me won out handily, with 95 people rating it a 6.1, on average; while 83 people gave the mustachioed me a 4.4 on average.

A buddy of mine who saw the pictures put it succinctly: "Dude – you look like a douchebag with the mustache ... no offense."

The reaction was similar when I headed to a bar on a recent night.

"It was great in it's heyday, but it's just not fashionable any more. Let it die," says Michelle Volpe, 32, of New York. "Whenever you see a man with a mustache, it's either a policeman or a pervert, and you've got to stay away."

While it's debatable whether I'm the latter, I'm certainly not the former, so the 'stache had to go. Within a week, I had trimmed the whiskers down to the length of the short stubble that was sprouting over the rest of my face. Surprisingly, I didn't immediately feel better. Instead, a somber feeling overtook me – similar to how I felt while watching Maverick chuck the dogtags of his mustachioed partner Goose into the Indian Ocean.

Surely somewhere, on someone's home entertainment system, the wistful strains of Harold Faltermeyer's "Top Gun Anthem" were playing.

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Newly clean-shaven, asap writer Jonathan Drew is taking his recovery from the mustache one day at a time.

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Want to comment? Sound off at mailto:soundoffasapap.org.

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Doc: 00385747 DB: research–d–2005–3 Date: Tue Sep 27 14:54:29 2005

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AD8CSPAP80 09-27-2005 14:54:29*F BC-asap-Money & Gadgets-Airport to eBay:Lo

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^BC-asap-Money & Gadgets-Airport to eBay,0745<

^Lost your stuff at the airport? Get it back on eBay<

^By JONATHAN DREW=

One at a time, or sometimes by the handful, they land in the cardboard box, hitting the pile with a clink. Once 40 pounds accumulates, the matted, glistening cobweb of steel scissors is ready to go on eBay – courtesy of airline passengers who had them taken at security checkpoints.

Weeks earlier, most of these scissors were stashed in the front pouch of a backpack, tangled in embroidery floss or wedged between manila folders in a briefcase. Along with hundreds of lighters and pocket knives, dozens of chain saws and even a six-foot-long spear, they wound up in the hands of federal airport screeners who had no use for them and no practical way to get rid of them.

Now several states have turned the contraband into a booming business, collecting the castoffs, sorting them out in warehouses and selling them on the Internet. Pennsylvania has earned almost $130,000 since it began selling the stuff on eBay about a year ago. Illinois made $33,000 last year selling airport checkpoint leftovers on its own online auction site.

"You'd be surprised at the number of people who travel around the country with furry handcuffs in their carryon. That's like a regular item for us," said Frank Kane, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of General Services. Kane says the state recently sold a purple sombrero left behind at an airport for $80.

States aren't the only ones making money off airline travelers' absent-mindedness. A North Carolina company has set up FedEx-style kiosks near checkpoints in 30 airports that allow people to mail themselves items they can't take on the plane.

Heather Lowry, CEO of Checkpoint Mailers in Kernersville –, N.C., said she was initially afraid her two-year-old company's business would flatten once people became acquainted with the list of prohibited items. Instead, she said the revenues grew 200 percent in its first two years, and she expects 100 percent growth this year.

"People are just not getting it. They are still bringing these items to the airport," she said. Lowry added that people have used her company to return cans of bear repellant spray, ninja stars and nunchakus.

The Transportation Security Administration Web site offers five pages of instructions on what can and can't be carried on. In addition to listing about 70 prohibited items, the document says a screener "may determine that an item not on the prohibited items chart is prohibited." That may explain why Pennsylvania wound up with a bottle of cologne shaped like a hand grenade. Banned carryon items range from swords and cricket bats to fireworks and cattle prods.

The TSA said it regularly asks travel agents to remind clients of what not to bring and holds media events around heavily traveled holidays where it displays surrendered items – such as the six-foot spear – hoping to curb the glut of items that wind up in the hands of screeners.

In the meantime, Pennsylvania sends trucks to airports in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. to haul loot to its warehouse in Harrisburg –, Pa. The largest airports, including New York's LaGuardia, each send Pennsylvania nearly 7,000 pounds of checkpoint leftovers each month.

On a recent day, Pennsylvania had 47 items up for auction on eBay. Bidding for a box of 100 name-brand pocket knives had reached $203, while bidding for 30 pounds of plastic-handled scissors was at $31.

At airports equipped with Checkpoint Mailers, travelers can keep their goodies off eBay by handing over $8 to have it shipped home. Major airports served by the company include those in Boston, Dallas, Las Vegas and Cleveland.

"People are just nervous about traveling, and they just don't think about what they should or shouldn't be taking," Lowry said.

–––

asap staff writer Jonathan Drew never brings spears to the airport.

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Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasapap.org.

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Doc: 00347003 DB: research–d–2005–3 Date: Mon Sep 19 12:14:25 2005

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AD8CNE7O80 09-19-2005 12:14:25*F BC-asap-News-American Anarchy, 1st Ld-Writ

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^ESSAY: In post-Katrina America, a question: How strong is our armor against chaos?<

^By JONATHAN DREW=

It's a strangely familiar vocabulary of armed men marauding, pointing guns at doctors and shooting at helicopters – like a language we studied in high school but mostly forgot. But the phrases regain their currency with each successive description: a policeman who shot himself, sunburned refugees on a crumbled highway, corpses surrounded by trash.

Details like these normally warrant a brief pause, a split second before switching to SportsCenter, just long enough to figure out which developing country is in trouble. But this time, the descriptions hit like a surge of nausea. Americanness, comfortable as an SUV's bucket seat, was soaked in bacteria-filled water, and we can't flip the channel. The policeman, the refugees and the corpses are our neighbors.

The floodwaters that spilled through New Orleans' levees perforated a boundary that many Americans place between themselves and disturbing images from TV news. In the world's richest country, we armor ourselves with each BlackBerry, Chevy truck and iPod. If someone suffers somewhere else, we can ignore it because they probably don't live like we do, and we've never been to their country.

"The more time you spend pursuing the American Dream, the less time you have to consider how it can go off track," said Stanley Renshon, a psychologist and political scientist who teaches at the City University of New York. "Americans never spend a lot of time worrying about the possibility of what can happen."

That damn-the-torpedoes world view was evident during the Katrina disaster. Thousands stayed behind in New Orleans, thinking they could tough out the storm. Others expected government would protect or rescue them. Some of the poorest simply had no choice.

Allen Light, a New York – University professor who recently led a survey of 1,500 Americans' attitudes toward catastrophes, says the poorest Americans tend to be the least prepared to handle an emergency. In his survey, one-fifth of Americans with annual incomes under $25,000 said they simply wouldn't know what to do if terrorists attacked their community.

The study, to be released in October, also indicated that while Americans consider terrorism and natural disasters inevitable, few expect to experience such events themselves. "Most Americans," Light said, "think that catastrophes will happen anywhere but home."

It's human nature, wired into our subconsciousness, to wake up from nightmares before we dream our own deaths. Similarly, asking people to think seriously about hurricane consequences – and thus their own mortality – is a difficult psychological leap to make.

But for hurricane survivors, New Orleans has become less like home and, in their words, more "nightmare," "war zone" or "Vietnam." Katrina etched upon New Orleans a frightening facsimile of a battleground convincing in every detail, right down to the giant army trucks rumbling through debris-filled streets.

"I just never thought in a million years we'd be here, in this position," one resident who stayed, Evelyn Redman, said as she sat outside a French Quarter bar last week. "Living here in the dark like this, it's like we're living in some Third World country."

Even people far from New Orleans are experiencing frayed nerves, much as they did after Sept. 11 and the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003. "It leaves people feeling a little more anxious, a little more uncertain, a little more stressed," said Russ Newman, the American Psychological Association's executive director for professional practice. The association has sent about 200 volunteer psychologists to the affected area and shelters around the country.

As evident as physical damage is to the region – an estimated $200 billion dollars' worth – the structural damage to the American identity may be just as keen, if not as permanent.

Americans have always derived confidence from their own resilience and the strength of their union and moved on to the next challenge, whether out of rugged determination or simple tunnel vision. But this remarkable series of blows – storm, flood, chaos and evacuations, all duly chronicled in the dizzying imagery of the 24-hour news cycle – overwhelmed our ability to cope and cast doubt on the ability of the system we created to keep us safe, dry and alive.

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Jonathan Drew, an asap staff writer, is a frequent visitor to New Orleans.

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Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasapap.org.

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Doc: 00084190 DB: research–d–2006–1 Date: Wed Jan 18 17:49:04 2006

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AD8F7CBO01 01-18-2006 17:49:04*F BC-asap-Money&Gadgets-Eco Cleaning:Profess

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^BC-asap-Money&Gadgets-Eco Cleaning<,0996<

^Dry cleaning and the environment<

^Professional cleaners are moving away from a chemical the EPA says is harmful to the environment. JONATHAN DREW explains where the industry is going.<

^By JONATHAN DREW=

Perchloroethylene. It's a dry cleaning agent better known in industry circles as "perc" – and if the nickname makes it sound like an addictive drug, you shouldn't be surprised.

The solvent, used by more than 80 percent of the professional cleaners in the country, does a fantastic job on dirty clothes but has been labeled as a pollutant and possible health risk by the Environmental Protection Agency.

About a year ago, Chicago-area dry cleaner Tom Ustanik decided it was time for the industry to shake the habit. Ending a practice entrenched at his own business for over 40 years, Ustanik's Lansing Cleaners got rid of the chemical. And with federal and state regulators making it harder for cleaners to use the solvent, many other businesses are rethinking the way they clean clothes.

"Perc has too much environmental baggage," Ustanik said. "It has too much of a perceived health baggage."

In some states, perc users pay heavy taxes on the chemical. And last month, the EPA proposed stricter rules governing the use of the solvent across the country, including regular maintenance and the phase-out of older machines that are more likely to emit vapors.

Some of the strictest rules are in –Southern California: Air quality regulators there have required dry cleaners to stop using the chemical altogether by 2020.

As rules are ratcheted up, dry cleaners are slowly trying other cleaning methods, and some are abandoning perc entirely. The proportion of cleaners who use the chemical has fallen from about 90 percent of the industry to between 80 and 85 percent in the last five years, estimates Mary Scalco, executive vice president of the International Fabricare Institute.

Perc is not without its supporters, though. They argue that improvements in dry-cleaning machinery allow the chemical to be used safely, and even those who have switched to other solvents concede that perc is a superior cleaner. Modern equipment reuses most of the cleaning agent from load to load, minimizing risk of leaks and containing vapors.

"In today's times, there are responsible ways of handling it without any risk of contamination," said Arthur Weiss, owner of Betty Brite cleaners in Windsor, N.J. "I sense that there's a little bit of a phobia now, where much of the contamination problems are from past practices where people didn't know any better."

Weiss, whose family has been in the dry cleaning business since 1933, said he has no intention of switching from perc.

Here's what the EPA says about the dangers of perc:

– The chemical is classified as an air and water pollutant that's "moderately toxic" to humans.

– It's harmful to plants, and in the atmosphere, perc vapors can break down into harmful chemicals.

– Exposure to humans in high amounts can cause dizziness, headaches and nausea.

– It's a suspected carcinogen, as it has caused cancer in lab rats, although its cancer causing potential in humans hasn't been determined.

– Residual amounts of perc in dry-cleaned clothes aren't believed to be harmful to consumers.

Businesses moving away from the chemical are choosing machines that use liquefied carbon dioxide, new petroleum-based solvents, cleaners made out of silicone and machines that use water but are far more advanced than washers found in people's homes. The Textile Care Allied Trades Association estimates that fewer than half of all new professional cleaning machines sold are ones that use perc.

Cleaners that still use perc are also consuming less of it these days than they ever have, thanks largely to more efficient machines. Consumption of the solvent fell to 37 million pounds in 2004, down from 260 million pounds in 1985, according to a survey by TCATA, which represents vendors of dry-cleaning equipment.

In Southern California, San Clemente Natural Cleaners abandoned perc two years ago in favor of the new generation of wet-cleaning machines, a technology that became available in the mid 1990s. These computerized machines use special detergents, carefully controlled moisture levels and delicate agitation cycles to clean clothes that aren't considered safe for home washers.

Leonard Lee, who runs the store for his parents, said they switched to wet cleaning to save money. The cost of perc was rising, perc machines use more electricity than wet cleaning machines and complying with environmental regulations was also expensive. Still, the store sends expensive suits to a cleaner who uses perc.

"Personally, I like regular dry cleaning better. I'm a younger guy and for me the health issues aren't a big deal," said Lee, 31. "Perc cleans better but people like wet cleaning because it's healthier and better for the environment."

The price tag of the new equipment can also be intimidating. For example, Ustanik's carbon dioxide machine cost him $165,000 – more than four times what a new perc machine would have been. He also bought four machines for petroleum-based solvents for about $58,000 each and four wet-cleaning machines for about $30,000 each.

The unfamiliar technologies can also be costly if trial and error results in ruined clothes.

"For business in general – small business especially – what you spend extra on equipment is money you don't have yourself," Ustanik said.

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Jonathan Drew is an asap reporter based in New York.

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Want to comment? Sound off at mailto:soundoffasapap.org.

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Doc: 00015189 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Tue Oct 4 16:36:27 2005

*** Version history. (* = this story, F = final, S = semifinal) ***

AD8D1EFIO1 10-04-2005 16:36:27*F BC-asap-Money&Gadgets-Fast Food Chic:Would

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^BC-asap-Money&Gadgets-Fast Food Chic<,0816<

^Would you like upholstery with that? Pushed by `Panera-noia,' America's big fast-food chains edge toward chic.<

^By JONATHAN DREW=

Once, fast-food managers could clean up by hosing down the plastic furniture and tile floor. No more: The nation's three largest burger chains are adding upholstered chairs, carpeting and plasma screen monitors to create dining rooms where people will linger or bring their families.

Taking cues from businesses like Panera and Starbucks, new restaurant designs from Burger King, Wendy's and McDonald's banish glaring fluorescent lights, favor muted color palettes over bold primary colors and replace plastic with – imagine! – wood.

The head of the design team that overhauled Wendy's interiors calls the redesign craze, "Panera-noia," saying the success of fast casual forced the biggest fast-food chains to look beyond their traditional emphasis on efficiency and customer service and think more about their dining rooms.

Even gas stations and truck stops have gotten in on the act. British Petroleum has re-imagined many of its convenience stores as roadside cafes, and Exxon has also upgraded.

It's no secret that customers are avoiding fast-food dining rooms. Across the industry, only about 20 percent of sales come from those who eat in the restaurant. The chains – which range in age from 50 (McDonald's, Burger King) to 36 (Wendy's) – are left with increasing numbers of aging stores in need of facelifts.

"We've got a lot of older restaurants that were designed and built 35 years ago. So we have a situation, like all the chains, where you get to the point that we scrape the building, take it down and rebuild it," says Tom Mueller, who was Wendy's president and chief operating officer during the redesign. He stepped down late last month.

Since 2002, McDonald's has renovated or rebuilt about 1,000 of its 13,600 U.S. locations, mostly older stores, spurring its current design project. Burger King redid its interiors as part of an effort to reduce building costs and increase efficiency after the building of new restaurants slowed.

Wendy's and Burger King expect the new interiors to show up in a majority of newly built or remodeled locations, while McDonald's has created about 30 spiffed-up stores as part of a test.

Restaurant analyst Tom Miner says the restaurants are responding to the habits of consumers who use a place like Starbucks as somewhere to linger and relax. But Miner isn't convinced that upscale fast-food interiors are here to stay. Making dining rooms cozier, he says, could backfire if people start to stay longer and buy less.

But the head of a design team that created two new looks for Wendy's expects the trend to take off. "Their designs were awful. They were industrial – cafeteria-like with fluorescent lighting," says Lee Peterson, executive director of design and branding for WD Partners, which has also worked with Burger King and McDonald's.

For fast-food executives, cafeteria is the new "c-word," tossed out with disdain as they use it to contrast whatever new motif they've adopted. The new looks are more coffee shop (think upholstered armchairs), more living room (Ikea-like lamps) and more modern (poured concrete floors and exposed rafters).

"We stole ideas from lots of people," says John W. Chidsey, president of the Americas for Burger King Corp., which sent out teams to tour restaurants, coffee shops, even big-box retail stores.

Mueller says people connect one of the new Wendy's designs to "a Panera or Starbucks type of interior design." A second new Wendy's interior is meant to look like a farmer's market.

All three chains have ditched fluorescent light boxes in their new designs, replacing them with softer bulbs and modern fixtures. High-top tables with taller chairs or bar stools have appeared in all three chains, alongside regular sized chairs in wood or metal. And none of it's bolted to the floor.

Each one has gone to softer colors, too. For example, McDonald's traditional primary red and yellow have been tweaked toward burgundy and saffron. Research shows diners are more comfortable eating in a place decorated with earthy hues, says Max Carmona, senior director of McDonald's restaurant design group.

"There are good food colors and there are bad food colors," he says. "We're just very cognizant of that."

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asap staff reporter Jonathan Drew, who once covered Wendy's, enjoys conducting "research" on double cheeseburgers and expensing it.

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Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasapap.org.