{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"On Dec. 19, around noon, New York City's Union Square Business Improvement District plans the First Santa Claus Ulympics (that's yule-lympics), in which about 50 contestants, in red suits and beards, will compete."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Events include sprinting, broad jumping, yule log rolling, wreath tossing and a toy sack relay."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"It's mainly a holiday celebration - toys from the sacks will be distributed to homeless kids."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But the games also convey another message."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"According to Clement C. Moore, author of ''A Visit from St. Nicholas,'' Santa Claus was no picture of health."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"''The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth'' (periodontal risk); ''And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath'' (heart disease, lung cancer); ''He had a broad face, and a round little belly / That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly'' (overweight, poor aerobic fitness, weak muscle tone)."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"It's hard to imagine such a person acting ''lively and quick.''"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"American youth needs the Union Square Santas' better example."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Government budget time means budget language time."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Some budget terms are technical necessities, like the distinction between actual outlays and budget authority."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Others are gems of political euphemism."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The recent prize-winner, which may be the work of an unknown New York state budget writer a few years ago, is revenue enhancement, meaning tax increase."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"No one has devised a euphemism of equal elegance for the other side of the ledger - until now."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The new Reagan budget is skimpy on detail and limp on initiatives, but page 2-13 offers a new pearl of circumlocution."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The Administration, it says, calls for no cuts in benefit levels for several programs."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"For some others, however, the Administration proposes carefully targeted reforms."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Perfect: a description for spending cuts, even harsh ones, that sounds innocent, progressive, humane."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Is there, somewhere, a government budget in which carefully targeted reforms involve spending more money instead of less?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Sure, the same budget in which revenue enhancement means making a tax law more efficient, not just increasing the take."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Have countries threatened with retaliatory tariffs under the new trade law entered into negotiations with the United States?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"S. Linn Williams, deputy U.S. Trade Representative, says: ''There are discussions."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"We can call them negotiations."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"They can call them a banana as long as it produces results.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Banana?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"It's an economic euphemism with precedent."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"During the Carter years, a nervous White House enjoined Administration officials not to mention the dreaded word ''depression,'' or even ''recession.''"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Alfred Kahn, the chairman of the Council on Wage and Price Stability, got the message."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The next time he wanted to warn of economic trouble, he talked about ''the worst banana you ever saw.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Washington's semantic worries haven't changed much since then."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"For months the Federal Reserve Board has been keeping interest rates high, out of concern over rising inflation."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Now it appears to be acting instead out of concern over recession."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Last week the Federal funds rate dropped a quarter-point, to 9 1/4 percent."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The Fed's chairman, Alan Greenspan, will be asked about the future course of Fed policy when he testifies before Congress later this month."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Even under probing questioning he'll probably maintain a cryptic, statesmanlike position, something like: ''We have achieved our goal of moderating the economy.''"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"In other words, banana."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"It may have started when Gloria Vanderbilt plastered her name across millions of back pockets."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"In time, Americans began accepting strangers' signatures not just on their jeans but their shoes, purses, cosmetics and furnishings."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Signed, labeled or otherwise trademarked, almost everything now seems to be a designer item."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Norma Kamali will design your couch."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Ralph Lauren creates your carpets."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"You can sleep slathered in cream by Elizabeth Arden, scented with perfume by Mikhail Baryshnikov, wear lingerie by Calvin Klein and nestle in sheets by Christian Dior."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Then you can get up, throw on your bathrobe by Bill Blass and clean your teeth with a designer toothbrush by Paul Smith."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"What fuels America's obsession with putting a stranger's name on even the most intimate possessions?"}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Probably, sadly, it's a belief among many people that they lack chic."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Designer labels, they assume, will at least certify they have the taste (and money) to buy chic."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"But flaunting a price tag disguised as a designer name is as tasteless as it is insecure."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The right names to sew on our clothes are our own, and the right place is on the inside."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Coming home to the sidewalks of New York used to be a real come-down for the person who'd just spent a week or so on the streets of Paris: there were no flowers."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"In Paris, street markets flaunted huge bouquets of mimosa in February, small bouquets of lily of the valley in May, and roses all the time."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"New York's handful of street markets featured grit-flecked daisies and bedraggled mountain laurel."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Then Korean grocers set up shop and brought acres of flowers with them."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Suddenly anyone with two or three bucks to spare could have daffodils in the living room or carnations by the bed."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Next, the farmers in the city's Greenmarkets started harvesting asters and wildflowers and bittersweet along with tomatoes, corn and squash."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Now rose fever, which began in two boutiques on the Upper East Side, is spreading."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The rose boutiques sell flowers direct from Central America for $6 to $13 a dozen."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"There is a new one in Greenwich Village and more are expected on the Upper West Side."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"A city getting tougher to live in by the minute is also getting sweeter every day."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Some of New York's most influential lawmakers thought nothing of accepting free air fare and accommodations to attend last week's New York Savings Bank convention in Boca Raton, Fla."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"In the process they threw a shadow over both banking and government."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The junketeers included Senator Alfonse D'Amato, a member of the Banking Committee; Assembly Speaker Mel Miller; Ralph Marino, incoming State Senate majority leader, who now heads the Banking Committee, and Herman Farrell, head of the Assembly Banks Committee."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"There's nothing wrong with participating in the convention."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Exchanges between officials and the industries they regulate are part of public policy-making."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"What casts the shadow is letting the banks pay their way."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"When officials accept freebies from those they are charged with overseeing, they open their impartiality to unworthy suspicion."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The public is entitled to that impartiality - and to its appearance."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"New York's Banking Superintendent, Jill Considine, observes an ethical standard."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"She too attended the convention, but at state expense."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Her policy is to decline payment of travel and other expenses from organizations her agency regulates - a rule that Mr. D'Amato and his fellow junketeers would wisely emulate."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The Thalia, the popular movie revival house on West 95th Street, closed recently, a victim of the neighborhood boom it helped in a small way to create."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Occupying prime space in a fast-forward real estate market, the theater could no longer keep up."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Dreams won't pay the rent."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"But those who looked up to the works of Rene Clair, Fritz Lang and Luis Bunuel from the Thalia's oddly angled floor got something priceless."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Film lovers and future directors slouched in its unsteady seats, sharing a passion for movies and a common frame of reference."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"When Woody Allen sent a baby buggy bouncing down steps in ''Bananas,'' Thalia goers recognized the baby buggy from ''Potemkin'' and roared."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Movie buffs will find other dark corners of Manhattan where the air is cool with a touch of evil and Catherine beguiles Jules and Jim."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"But on the Upper West Side, Thalia, muse of comedy and idylls, is homeless."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"President Bush greeted fellow summiteers at their meeting in Houston last week with a ringing but ungrammatical declaration that ''a new world of freedom lays before us.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The major wire services and most newspapers - The A.P., U.P.I., Reuters, The Washington Post, Newsday and The New York Times, among others - reported it verbatim."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But ''lays'' (incorrect) became ''lies'' (correct) in some other papers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Times and even Japan's Kyodo News Service."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"It's a common problem for editors, whether to clean up a speaker's mistakes or leave them as spoken."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"When corrections are made, strict grammarians might hope that the speaker notices and maybe even appreciates the effort."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Not Mr. Bush."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"One day after he misused ''lays'' he flubbed again, with a vengeance."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Presiding at dinner at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts, he greeted his guests anew: ''There is no work here tonight - no communiques, no amendments, no language to be corrected."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"We want you to have a very good time in this museum that we are very proudful of.''"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Proudful."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"As in, before a fall."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"When New York City and Westchester shoppers pay for their groceries at D'Agostino supermarkets this month, they can also help provide hot meals for the homebound elderly."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"A clever innovation at the checkout counter makes it possible."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Customers are asked to ''round up'' their bills to the next dime or dollar."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"The extra change goes to Citymeals-on-Wheels, which, in cooperation with New York City's Department for the Aging, delivers hot meals to nearly 8,000 homebound elderly on weekends and holidays."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Any amount can be given, from pennies to dollars."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The customer's receipt itemizes the donation along with the applesce and prodc."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Some retailers have long permitted collection cans at the checkout, but others have been deterred by theft."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The computerized cash register's ability to separate contributions from purchases and record the total now enables collecting donations with regular receipts."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"In the first week of the February campaign, the region's 24 D'Agostino stores collected more than $10,000, enough to buy 2,283 hot meals for Citymeals's clients."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Small change; big effect."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"When a worried Iraq sought Western intervention against an intolerant, revolutionary Iran, it advertised itself as a moderate, civilized society."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The West stepped in, for its own good reasons, but few were fooled by the Iraqi masquerade."}
{"sentiment":-2.65,"text":"Saddam Hussein's Baghdad dictatorship is one of the world's most barbaric tyrannies."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"The point is grimly driven home by a new Amnesty International report, which charges that Iraq has for years targeted the children of political opponents to obtain information and to force confessions from their parents."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"One released prisoner said Iraqi police did this to his family to persuade him to talk: ''Mother, three sisters and three brothers with five children between 5 and 13 were arrested and brought in front of me."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"They were subjected to beatings on the soles of the feet and electric shocks.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"In 1983, 8,000 males in one Kurdish village, including 315 children, were reportedly driven away in trucks."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"All vanished and left no trace."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Recall, also, that Iraq first used chemical weapons in its war with Iran, then last year gassed its own Kurdish citizens as well, driving thousands across the border into Turkey."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"In its contempt for human life and pain, secular Iraq seems indistinguishable from fundamentalist Iran."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Finding a clean patch of sand has become a real challenge on public beaches and playgrounds."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"There may be fewer smokers but they seem to leave ever more cigarette butts behind."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"At Washington Square Park in Manhattan, for example, it's not unusual to see smokers put out their cigarettes in the same sandbox their children are playing in."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"A mother just back from Connecticut and Rhode Island reports butt-strewn conditions at parks and beaches."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The problem challenges the ingenuity of park officials."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Signs reminding smokers not to flick butts into sandboxes would help."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"So would issuing tickets, like those issued to violators of New York City's ''pooper scooper'' law."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Public concern about foul indoor air is forcing smokers to adjust to restraints in offices, restaurants and airplanes."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"A new etiquette for outdoor butt disposal ought not be far behind."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"For tens of thousands of Manhattan-bound New Jersey commuters, morning rush hour usually means a slow crawl under the Hudson."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The New Jersey Department of Transportation sensibly proposes a second Lincoln Tunnel lane exclusively for buses."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The existing bus lane, which operates only during peak hours, was created from one of the three outbound lanes in 1971."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"That left inbound cars, trucks and other vehicles with three lanes."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"But the dramatic growth of tunnel traffic has produced an absurd imbalance: 80 percent of inbound commuters ride buses but only 25 percent of the tunnel's carrying capacity is reserved for them."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The proposal to use one of the three inbound lanes would increase the figure to 50 percent."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"By reducing access of passenger cars and trucks to Manhattan, the second bus lane may also discourage some of the traffic that now clogs midtown streets and adds to New York's air pollution problem."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Automobile commuters and trucking concerns will no doubt oppose the second bus lane."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Bus commuters have the stronger case."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Legislation on bias-related crime ought to be easy to pass: Who could oppose measures to curb violence based on prejudice?"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Governor Cuomo's bill, now before the State Legislature, was inspired by the Howard Beach incident and introduced five months ago."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"It would stiffen criminal penalties for such acts."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"That seems sensible, but the measure has encountered opposition on two grounds."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Senate leaders worry about including ''sexual orientation'' along with race, religion and other widely accepted bases for protection."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Their objection defies reason."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Including sexual orientation hardly promotes homosexuality or any other way of life."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The issue is protection of citizens from unprovoked physical attack."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"No New Yorker should have to worry about being set upon because of someone else's feelings about sexual orientation."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Substantial criticism comes from the state's district attorneys, who worry that the Cuomo bill would inadvertently erect a standard of proof that would be impossible to meet."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"That issue can and should be resolved by negotiation."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Two studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine last week won't help the obese drop any pounds but the research should lift another enormous weight: guilt."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Much of the medical profession, and most of the public, have long assumed that the cause of unhealthy poundage was overeating."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"''I just can't seem to help gaining weight'' was simply a weak apology for a lack of self-discipline."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The new studies report that the tendency to fat is the result of a low rate of metabolism."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The overweight get fat more because their bodies burn calories too slowly than because they eat too much."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"As Dr. Jules Hirsch of Rockefeller University wrote in an editorial accompanying the studies, these overweight people are ''born with a handicap.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Like other handicapped people, he adds, they must learn how to live with and correct for theirs."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"That doing so requires a lifelong battle won't come as news to hundreds of thousands of the overweight."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"But they can take some comfort: they no longer need to battle blame, either from others or themselves."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the huge New York law firm, announced recently that it would create a $10 million endowment to provide public legal services."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The endowment will support up to 25 lawyers to work in poverty and public interest law offices across the country."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"That's an impressive commitment, even for a firm with 850 lawyers who charge well over $200 million in fees annually."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"It's also a reminder of the need: only a fraction of poor Americans can get help with their legal problems."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The role for the private bar grows with each year of the Reagan Administration, which has tried to starve the Federal Legal Services Corporation."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Lawyers as well as their clients benefit from such pro bono work."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Serving only the affluent limits their consciousness and diminishes the practice of law as a profession."}
{"sentiment":-2.45,"text":"Jordan Greenstein letter says it is US responsibility to help victims of violence in Sudan To the Editor: Re ''The U.N. and U.S. in Urgent Appeals to Help Refugees in Sudan'' (news article, July 29): To the Editor: Re ''The U.N. and U.S. in Urgent Appeals to Help Refugees in Sudan'' (news article, July 29): The government of Sudan has idly sat by and watched tens of thousands of its own people being killed and many raped."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"The United Nations cannot allow these crimes against humanity to continue."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"It cannot depend on others, such as the African Union, to take care of the problem."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"If the African Union had any intention of helping these suffering people, it would have by now."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It is time for us to take action."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Prime Minister Tony Blair was right to suggest sending troops."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"If there was ever a right time to use military force, it is now."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"It is our responsibility to help before it is too late."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"With Central Park as its backyard, the Metropolitan Museum adding a garden might seem like painting the lily."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"But the Met's new rooftop of cultivation, the gift of Iris and B. Gerald Cantor, is more than a garden in a garden."}
{"sentiment":2.3,"text":"It's a 20th-century garden, naturally fashioned of stone and steel, planted in view of New York City, the most amazing stone garden of all."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"In this garden all paths lead to the wild Manhattan skyline and the bridges that loop beyond."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Seymour Lipton's ''Catacomb'' is hollowed into the city's granite hills; David Smith's geometric planes wait to be fitted to the unfinished horizon."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Even Louise Bourgeois's big marble ''Eyes'' are fixed upon the rising wall of midtown and the towers tumbling down Fifth Avenue."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"The garden is just right for a twilight, when the sinking sun sets the avenues afire and pinpoints of light wink from windows like a million stars."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Amid the striving that is Manhattan's heartbeat, introspection has carved a niche."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"In its own twilight, the 20th century still searches every direction, determined to leave no stone unturned."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"New York City's Transit Authority, faced with losses on bus service, does well to re-evaluate bus routes."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"It ought not to be deterred by the initial complaints from riders fearing abandonment."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The T.A. claims bus passengers have changed their travel patterns in the last decade."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"In part, this is the result of competition for passengers offered by the T.A. 's own improving subway service."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"But buses, especially in lightly populated areas, also face stiff competition from privately owned vans."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"They are cheaper to operate than buses, flexible in their scheduling and unburdened by costly and complex work rules."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The shifts, the T.A. says, have left some city bus routes impossibly underused."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The plan is to move equipment to more heavily traveled lines."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"That's good management - so long as the authority gives affected riders a chance to make their case before changes are made."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"To the extent that vans substitute for buses, there are additional issues."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The public needs to be assured that economy is not purchased through a reduction in safety standards, comfort, insurance protection and reliability."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The burden of proof that the route changes are necessary rests on the authority and the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Their reasons so far seem amply justified."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Mystery fiction is to its fans what bottles are to babies: something for which they perpetually hunger."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"So they haunt bookstores with names like Foul Play and Scene of the Crime."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"They pause for a tour of airport paperbacks even while the flight attendant announces boarding."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"And they live in fear of the day when their favorite scribbler joins Agatha and Ngaio, Dashiell and Dorothy at that great writers' convention in the sky."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Last week 700 members of the Mystery Writers of America met in New York to talk about crime and hand out Edgars, the mystery writer's Oscars."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"The award is named after Edgar Allan Poe - ground-breaking author of ''The Purloined Letter,'' and ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue,'' and, oh yes, a poet as well."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"The Edgars go to the best in crime fiction, nonfiction, film and television."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"But if true fans had their way they'd surely go to everyone who ever dipped a pen in gore."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Strangling, poisoning and shooting have helped many readers through many nights, and their gratitude is as boundless as the genre they adore."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The West wonders how long Mikhail Gorbachev and his policy of perestroika, or restructuring, will last."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Russians ask, too, even more fervently."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"A Ukrainian writer, Vladimir Drozd, wrote recently in Literaturnaya Gazeta about the fear that came over him as he prepared a speech in support of more reforms: ''And I thought, 'Why does it have to be me?'"}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"You can understand my alarm, and even my fear."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"Fear for myself, fear for my family."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Fear for all of us who can feel their hot breaths on our necks, can see their narrowed wolf-eyes -the eyes of those who do not want the perestroika."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"''They get together every evening, sit late into the nights, cursing everything new that has come to our lives."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Our every mistake or miscalculation gives them unbelievable pleasure - 'See what your precious reform leads to.'"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"They watch all of us who speak out today in favor of renewing our society, those of us whose souls still live and who feel pain."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"And they make lists of our names, for when their day comes round again.''"}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"By settling a racial discrimination lawsuit filed seven years ago by a black agent against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Director William Sessions reaffirms his commitment to transform the bureau's culture of minority exclusion."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The agent, Donald Rochon, first complained about racial harassment while serving in the Omaha office."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The charges were upheld by the Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"In one incident, Mr. Rochon found an ape's head pasted over a photograph of his son on his desk."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"He said that when he was transferred to Chicago in 1984, fellow agents retaliated for similar complaints of his with death threats."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The 40-year-old agent, who is to retire, will receive payments eventually worth more than $1 million, including a full pension."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But Mr. Sessions has more work to do."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"In 1988 a Federal judge found gross discrimination against Hispanic agents; that case needs to be settled, too."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Americans cannot have full confidence in the F.B.I.'s will to enforce civil rights until it makes clearer its own respect for equal treatment."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"To some it is a redundancy, to others a logical necessity and to still others an excrescence on higher education."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"It is called ''men's studies,'' and it is said to be enjoying growing popularity on the campus."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"According to The Washington Post, more than 200 courses are now offered at American colleges ''dealing with some aspect of the male experience.''"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"There is a quarterly journal, The Men's Studies Review, and a Men's Studies Association with a membership of 150."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The scholars talk of the need to ''break down the monolithic model of what it is to be a real man.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"They ask such questions as ''How do these little male babies become men in our culture?''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"They explore male role stereotypes and how men evolve from son to father to grandfather."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"For all that male focus, 7 of every 10 students taking men's studies courses are women."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"And most of the courses are listed in catalogues under women's or gender studies."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Male students apparently are incurious about themselves."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Or perhaps they see men's studies as women's studies in disguise."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"If that's the case, then what goes around has come around."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Women's studies, after all, began with a similar complaint: that the standard college curriculum was men's studies in disguise."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Deep into the grimy city's bowels stride the subway riders."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Purses jammed under arms, tokens jammed in hands."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Don't stand too far aside to let people off - you'll miss the seat."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"So goes the routine."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Now and again, something different happens."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"''Jesus saves!''"}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Or, at Times Square, as the shuttle from Grand Central screeches in, a busker sings out in a sweet, clear soprano: Someone's head resting on my knee; Warm and tender as he can be, Who takes good care of me."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Jaws relax."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"What a song for the subway!"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The doors close."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"The riders smile. Loverly."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"On a recent autumn afternoon in New York, a painter stood before the easel he'd set up on Avenue of the Americas, staring intently at the building across the street."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Every minute or so he'd bend his head, lift his hand and apply brush to canvas."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Then he'd resume staring."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The building, a nondescript high-rise, had a novelty store on its ground floor, a coat of grime on its bricks and a few scraggly trees out front."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"It was a scene only Edward Hopper could have loved, which is why a passer-by paused to see what the artist was making of it."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"He was making nothing of it."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The picture on the easel was a landscape - a grassy field, a clear blue sky and four or five poplars in spring leaf."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Avenue of the Americas, it seemed, was his studio, and his subject existed only in his mind's eye."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But why the stare, the squint, the occasional cock of the head?"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Is it possible that his country view was occasionally obscured by the roaring traffic?"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Or perhaps all that body language was a way of proclaiming to the passing public that here was an Artist at Work."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Until he was 3, Michael Bennett DiFiglia was probably much like any other small boy."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"Then he took his first dancing lesson, and an astonishing man of the theater, Michael Bennett, was born."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"What he knew about his craft, which was just about everything, he learned on stage."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"At 16 he was a chorus boy; by 23 he was a choreographer; and by the age of 32 he had dreamed up and directed the longest-running musical in Broadway history, ''A Chorus Line.''"}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"When it achieved that distinction, Broadway gave a marvelous party."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The Booth Theater became an enormous dressing room; Shubert Alley, an outdoor restaurant, and the Shubert Theater, host to the biggest production of ''A Chorus Line'' ever."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"More than 300 of the performers who'd doffed their gold toppers to audiences all over the world were there, filling the stage - and the aisles - and evoking every dream anyone ever had about the theater."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"If that night celebrated ''A Chorus Line,'' it also honored its creator."}
{"sentiment":2.1,"text":"He was, in the words of the show's great kick-line finale, ''One, singular sensation.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Michael Bennett died yesterday at 44."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"But in so little time, what marvels he had made."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"A Congress more conscious of public health and nutrition is finally moving to toughen food labeling rules."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Legislation just approved by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee would require more explicit nutrition information on package labels."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"But the bill would still permit misleading nutrition claims on packages."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"The measure, sponsored by Representative Henry Waxman, would require uniform listing of saturated fat, cholesterol and fiber on almost all packaged foods, a big advance."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"But amendments pressed by the food industry leave room for confusion."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"For example, manufacturers could still label as ''dietary'' frozen dinners that contain excessive fat."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Supporters of the provision say Congress shouldn't be in the business of dictating brand names and package copy."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"But tighter regulation would more likely encourage companies to improve their ingredients."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"There's still time for the full House committee to close loopholes that threaten public health."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Plymouth, Mass. -- America's home town -- has had Fourth of July band music as long as anyone remembers."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But the recession made it harder to find sponsors this year."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Enter Kao Infosystems, which makes floppy disks for computers -- and friends for Japan."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Kao landed in Plymouth in 1989 from Tokyo, and claims to be at least as American as those who landed in 1620."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"As evidence, it is paying for six hours of bluegrass, country-and-western and old-fashioned band music today just a stone's throw from the famous rock."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"It also has a float in the parade, offering out balloons and candy."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"East may be east and west may be west, but today the twain meet in Plymouth."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"It took eight years, but there's finally a President in the White House who understands about trees."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Unless someone is foolish enough to burn them, as Brazilians do, trees are powerful natural detergents, cleaning the air as they breathe."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"That's not the way Ronald Reagan saw it."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"During the 1980 campaign, he asserted that trees caused 93 percent of the nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"When the campaign plane flew over a forest, Jim Brady, the press secretary, shouted: ''Killer trees!"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Killer trees!''"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Mr. Reagan apparently confused nitrous oxide, which comes from decaying plants and isn't harmful, with nitrogen oxides, which are serious pollutants."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Mr. Bush knows better."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"In Sioux Falls, S.D., this week he praised trees as ''the oldest, cheapest and most efficient air purifier on earth.''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"That's because growing trees convert carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming - the greenhouse effect - into oxygen."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Mr. Bush said most Presidents appreciated trees, noting that oaks planted by Dwight D. Eisenhower and elms brought by John Quincy Adams sheltered the White House grounds."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Indeed, Adams chose the Latin words ''Alteri seculo'' for his seal."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"They are from a longer phrase that aptly conveys the truth about trees: ''Serit arbores quae alteri seculo prosint'' - ''He plants trees for the benefit of later generations.''"}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Recently, a New Yorker with a modest knowledge of folk art bought a small Shaker rug from a street peddler."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"At least the peddler said it was an authentic Shaker, and the purchaser was only too willing to take him at his word."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Who, she asked herself, would bother to fake a Shaker rug?"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Now she knows, thanks to a show called Folk Art Fakes and Forgeries, at New York's Hirschl & Adler gallery."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Not only do some people fake Shaker rugs; they also fake Amish crib quilts, 19th-century ditty boxes, old weather vanes and powder horns."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"When placed side by side, as they are in the show, it's not difficult to distinguish the real from the unreal."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"In the heat of an auction or the dark of a barn - or even in a well lighted shop, however, the fakes are hard to spot."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"A man who makes and sells $16 decoys recognized one of his swans at New York's famous Winter Antiques Show in 1986, battered and painted to look old."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"A collector might have dropped $2,800 for it had the craftsman not spotted the fraud."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Dealers and museums get taken, too."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"One dealer paid $2,600 for an old box that was actually born yesterday; so was a rooster weather vane displayed at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"As for the proud owner of the Shaker rug: If she was taken, it was for a mere $8."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"The loss to her self-esteem, however, would be incalculable."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"One obvious adjective to describe a man named Ryoei Saito is ''rich.''"}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"But this week the word that comes first to mind is ''cool.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"What better description of a guy who drops $82.5 million for a van Gogh and describes the price as ''quite cheap - very reasonable''?"}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Mr. Saito is the Japanese businessman whose purchase of ''Portrait of Dr. Gachet'' set a record for an artwork at auction on Tuesday night."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"True, he admitted the price was ''higher than what I expected.''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"On the other hand, his description of it as ''reasonable'' implied that he had been prepared to go even higher."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"On Thursday night it became amply clear that he could have gone higher."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"That's when Mr. Saito spent $78.1 million for Renoir's ''At the Moulin de la Galette.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"In two days, then, Mr. Saito spent $160.6 million, which, given his definition of ''cheap,'' may mean that by his lights he got two paintings for the price of one."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Mayor Koch continues to rebound from his minor stroke, returning this week to his desk at City Hall."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But what if illness had rendered the city's chief executive temporarily or permanently unable to discharge his official duties?"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The City Charter provides all too little guidance."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The order of succession is clear enough, with power passing from the mayor to the City Council president in the event of death or incapacitation."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But the Charter doesn't spell out a standard for determining incapacity."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Neither does it say who decides such thorny questions."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The U.S. Constitution was amended in 1967 to allay such concerns."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The amendment established a procedure by which the Vice President and the cabinet, or some other body designated by Congress, determines the President's fitness in the event of a serious illness."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The City Charter needs a similar provision."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Even before Mayor Koch's illness, the Charter Revision Commission headed by Richard Ravitch had vowed to scrutinize the issue of mayoral succession."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Last week's emergency underscores the necessity of doing so."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The German words that made their way into English once conveyed philosophy and romance, like Zeitgeist for spirit of the era, and Weltschmerz for melancholy over the state of the world."}
{"sentiment":-2.35,"text":"Then, a far different Germany exported words of horror, like Kristallnacht, the window-shattering rioting against Jews in November 1938, and Blitzkrieg for Hitler's lightning-like attacks against one country after another."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Now, four decades after the Marshall Plan, another kind of German word has arrived in popular culture."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"On television and radio, Volkswagen proclaims itself as the purveyor of Fahrvergnugen, which some people pronounce ''far fig newton'' and which translates roughly as driving pleasure."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The German manufacturer of Mont Blanc offers another example in the way it heralds its high-priced pen - as the Meisterstuck, masterpiece."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Yet another example boomed out in letters four inches high Friday."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Fireman's Fund Insurance announced its acquisition by Allianz A.G. of Munich, in a full-page ad in The Times bearing a huge headline that proclaimed ''Gute News!''"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"What these various usages have in common might allay the concern that some people feel about Germany's resurgence and unification."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"They convey neither faintly pompous scholarship nor reverberating horror."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"They are words that free-enterprise Americans can deal with, because they are words of commerce."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"It was regrettable that Vice President Bush and Governor Dukakis agreed to only two televised debates."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"This disappointed voters who hoped that a more expansive schedule would add substance to a campaign trivialized by long-distance mudslinging."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Worse, the date for the first debate, Sept. 25, coincides with the Olympics."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"NBC has now mitigated the damage by deciding to interrupt its Olympics coverage for 90 minutes to broadcast the debate."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"CBS and ABC, which are not covering the Olympics, had already agreed to broadcast the debate."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"NBC officials think that as many as 40 million viewers would have preferred the athletes to the candidates."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"There's no guarantee that all 40 million will tune in."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"But NBC's decision is welcome."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The network has invested $550 million in its Olympic coverage."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"The 90 lost minutes may cost it as much as $8 million."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"It still stands to profit handsomely from the Games, however, and now makes a contribution as well to democracy."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Too many Americans believe that the best New Year's noisemakers are guns - unaware that a bullet shot into the air returns to earth at nearly the same velocity as when it was fired."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"Such ignorance ought to disqualify a person for gun ownership, but in too many places it does not."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Police in Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta and other cities complain that New Year's gunfire causes a rain of lead damaging to property, life and limb."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"This year they are especially worried that military assault rifles will add to the volume and danger of festive gunfire."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The National Rifle Association spends millions annually arguing that gun laws intended to restrict criminals also impinge on the rights of ''responsible'' gun owners."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The New Year's gunplay makes clear that such responsibility is too important to be left up to gun owners themselves to enforce."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"In every sense, Richard L. Strout stood out in the innumerable press conferences he attended during his six decades as a Washington reporter."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Nobody could miss this six-footer with a bemused expression and guardsman's mustache."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Besides that, Mr. Strout, who died Sunday at the age of 92, was a singular figure who led a dual journalistic existence and came to occupy an unusual niche in the nation's capital."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Under his own name, he wrote about every President from Harding to Reagan as a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"But to readers of The New Republic he was also ''TRB,'' the astringent author of a weekly column of the same name, which he wrote for 40 years."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Always personal and sometimes crusty, Dick Strout skewered the day's follies with an ingratiating style sharpened by his Yankee skepticism."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Strout the columnist was a liberal with a fine ecumenical scorn for cant; Strout the reporter dealt firmly and fairly with the facts."}
{"sentiment":2.6,"text":"His consistent performance awed his colleagues and enriched his calling, winning him a special Pulitzer citation in 1978."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"He covered both Teapot Dome and Watergate without succumbing to weary cynicism."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"''When the adrenaline runs low, when the little flame of anger flickers out,'' he said as an octogenarian, ''I think it is time for a reporter to think about some more remunerative form of work.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Shove a $10 bill at a New York City subway token clerk and he's likely to shove back a Tenpak, a little plastic bag containing 10 tokens."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"The Transit Authority likes to promote this modest gesture toward efficiency."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But riders participate at their peril."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"A customer recently tore open his Tenpak to find an outdated token, the kind without the stainless steel center."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"He asked the clerk to exchange it."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"She refused; the T.A. has ordered clerks not to because the exchange would complicate accounting."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Besides, officials say, each Tenpak carries a warning to ''please count and examine tokens before opening.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Some efficiency: Imagine every token-buyer in a line following that instruction."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The only way to get a refund is to go to T.A. headquarters in Brooklyn."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"But that would cost another token."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Officials dismiss the problem as trivial: only a few old tokens slip through sorting."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Maybe so, but what isn't trivial is the attitude."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Why not instruct clerks to smile when they replace the old tokens that turn up in Tenpaks?"}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"It's hard to imagine an accounting problem that justifies such an abuse of customers."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"To the Editor: Bryan Strong, presumably speaking on behalf of ''the native peoples of the Americas and Africa,'' admonishes those who would celebrate Columbus's discovery of America (''Slavery and Colonialism Make Up the True Legacy of Columbus,'' letter, Nov. 4)."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Columbus did not introduce either colonialism or slavery to the Americas."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"To cite just one example, the pre-Columbian Aztecs had conquered vast territories and subjected large numbers of people to their rule."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"It is difficult to say whether the Aztecs or the Spanish were crueler, but it is certain that the Aztecs, like many native peoples, practiced slavery."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"They also practiced human sacrifice on a very large scale."}
{"sentiment":-2.4,"text":"The Spanish estimated that 60,000 people, including large numbers of children, were sacrificed each year, frequently by tearing out the victim's heart with a stone knife."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Cortez, with fewer than 600 men, was able to defeat the formidable Aztec army only because he was aided by Toltecs and other native peoples who were trying to rid themselves of Aztec colonialism."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Human history is, unfortunately, a tissue of injustices and crimes."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"But the native peoples had no need of Europeans to introduce them to man's inhumanity to man."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"They had and have been doing the same thing to one another, on a vast scale, before, during and after the era of European colonialism."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"KENT GORDIS New York, Nov. 5, 1989"}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Last fall the House and Senate unanimously approved a measure to protect Federal whistle-blowers -workers who expose fraud or abuse in their agencies."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But President Reagan vetoed the bill, inspiring special wrath from Congress for reneging on the pledge of support made by his own negotiators."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The new bill, which is expected to sail through the full Senate later this week, is designed to make it easier for employees dismissed or demoted for whistle-blowing to win reinstatement."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"President Reagan had worried that the bill might make it impossible to discipline misbehaving workers who maintained that they were whistle-blowers."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Rewording in the revised version meets that concern."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"It also includes changes that enhance confidentiality and make it easier for whistle-blowers to appeal their own cases in court."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, who advised Mr. Reagan on his veto, deserve praise for working out compromise language that vindicates the public stake in encouraging honest workers to step forward."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"To the Editor: The display of czarist Russian banners during the Moldavian demonstrations in the Soviet Union may have caught Steven Carol's eye (''Czarist Flags Return,'' letter, Dec. 4), but equally eye-catching has been the joyous gesture of the now universal V for Victory sign, once the prerogative of Winston Churchill and the Allies during World War II."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The two-finger victory sign has become the universal symbol of freedom and hope for victory."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"We saw it recently at the Berlin Wall in, for instance, your Nov. 13 front-page picture in which a West Berliner at the Potsdamer Platz crossing raises both hands in the V gesture."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"East Germans, particularly, seem to embrace its optimism."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"We've seen it in Poland, and now in Prague and Budapest."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Churchill, a past master with the imagery of words, has also proved to be the promoter of an enduring symbol where a gesture means more than words."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"HILARY OSTLERE MOLNAR New York, Dec. 5, 1989"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The Pentagon's Inspector General says the Navy has sent $17 million worth of usable goods to the bottom of the sea on board two dozen surplus ships."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Another 64 ships are headed for the deep with salvageable equipment, gear and materials - even some gold and silver - worth $40 million, he estimates."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Thirteen of the ships that have gone down in the past 15 years were dispatched in target practice; the rest were sunk to create artificial reefs for marine life."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Inspectors who visited a half-dozen ships awaiting the same fate found lathes, teletypewriters, stainless steel sinks, copper tubing, unused fire brick, furniture, silverware and 2,000 brass plumbing fittings."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The total salvage value seems trifling when compared with this year's $80 billion budget for military procurement, but some of that money will be laid out for identical products."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Alas, small real savings don't seem to interest the Pentagon as much as big gimmicks, like the $2.9 billion that it will ''save'' next year on its payroll."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"By shifting an early October payday into late September, thus transferring the outlay from fiscal 1990 into fiscal 1989, which ends Sept. 30."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Where was the Inspector General when that decision was made?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"True to his promise when he left the Federal bench, Robert Bork is refighting his unsuccessful battle for the Supreme Court."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"In TV appearances, he complains that the Senate's refusal to confirm his nomination has discouraged lawyers from publishing controversial legal articles."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Like Attorney General Meese, who called the Senate's action ''anti-intellectual,'' Mr. Bork says all this is ''bad for the intellectual life of the law.''"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Revisionism is off to an early start."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Mr. Bork was defeated not because he published so many intellectually challenging articles but because the Senate considered the views they contained to be at odds with mainstream jurisprudence."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"He wrote repeatedly, up to the eve of his nomination, of his disdain for key Supreme Court precedents."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"His campaign for the Court won President Reagan's nomination but, precisely because his views were extreme, cost him confirmation."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"His wavering under questioning did little to reassure senators."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Clement Haynsworth, defeated by the Senate in 1969, has stayed on the bench and served with distinction."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"So did his mentor, John J. Parker, after his Senate defeat in 1930."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Mr. Bork's departure from the bench and his program of complaint only confirm the Senate's verdict."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Many retired New York State employees and their survivors doubtless face serious financial difficulties."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Though their pensions have been supplemented by special legislation, the increases have not kept pace with the cost of living."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The same applies to pensioners of local governments, including New York City."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Civil service and other unions strongly supported further pension supplements."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"These demands were recognized in a bill passed unanimously this year."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"Governor Cuomo's veto, announced yesterday, was politically courageous and right on two practical counts."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"First, the bill was badly written."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"It was intended as a substitute for previous supplements, but can be construed as a new supplement."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The bill also imposed on New York City much higher costs than the Legislature assumed."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Instead of talking override, legislators would do well to clarify the language, trim supplementation for recent retirees and take better account of the city's ability to pay."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Under the state Constitution, established pensions can never be reduced."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"But they can always be increased if inflation and equity require."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Consumers are entitled to accurate information about food."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Yet the U.S. Department of Agriculture now proposes to let manufacturers put ground bone in hot dogs, bologna and other processed meats without revealing it on the label."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Regulations now require that ingredient labels disclose the use of mechanically separated meat -a mixture of meat and bone removed from the carcass by machine after manual deboning."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The label also lists the amount of calcium from the bone."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"While meat products containing ground bone are exported, they have never been sold in the U.S. for fear that explicit labeling would deter sales."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Now the Agriculture Department wants to relax the bone labeling rule."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The agency proposes to permit up to 10 percent mechanically separated meat without disclosure."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The change will save producers millions while consumers pay real meat prices for products that contain ground bone."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Meat manufacturers have half a point in noting that there is now no labeling requirement for processed poultry containing ground bone."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The remedy for that inconsistency, however, is to require full disclosure for the poultry products as well."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Summer is the most generous season."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"It still has a few weeks to go in its annual engagement but already it is stepping aside a little to let autumn come on in its familiar role."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The wild asters are showing their purplish petals and the plumed goldenrod, which countrymen call September weed, is lighting the roadsides."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Swallows, getting ready for their fall migrations, are convening on telephone wires, and sandpipers, down from the north, are running along the beaches' watery rim."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The sun is August's but the air has been October's."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Other seasons were not so gracious this year."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Winter gave way grudgingly to spring."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Spring wilted and simply surrendered to summer."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"Summer has given a fine performance, leaving lush fields and full trees for autumn to transform."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"As it bows out, it has without a doubt earned an encore."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Like all great performers, summer should be back some time in the new season for a final, farewell appearance."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"For 22 years Francis J. Mugavero, the departing Bishop of Brooklyn, has graced the 1.6 million Roman Catholics of his diocese with warm, gentle leadership."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"Now 75 and about to retire, he leaves a proud legacy, more compassionate and charitable than political."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"He was a founder of the Nehemiah housing program, which has built more than 1,000 houses for Brooklyn's poor."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"He created the Campaign for Human Development, an annual fund-raising drive for the poor."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"He fought for the rights of undocumented aliens and developed the first diocesan office to help immigrants."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Not that Bishop Mugavero pleased everyone."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"He angered many with his opposition to the city's gay rights legislation, and he never deviated from his church's teachings on such issues as abortion and celibacy."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"But he tended to air his opposition to policies and politicians in private, and to look upon human foibles with charity."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"That sounds old-fashioned these days."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"''In terms of human services, you've got to be liberal,'' he told an interviewer Wednesday, predicting that his liberal legacy will survive his retirement."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"His parishioners, and all New Yorkers, will miss him."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"''I most assuredly am not considering any other position in or out of Government and do not expect to do so in the future.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"So said Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recently in a statement quashing the suggestion of some Republican leaders and other mentioners that she should fill the Vice Presidential slot on the G.O.P. ticket."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Her statement does credit to the Justice and to the Court."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Service on the Supreme Court is the highest ambition of most lawyers, not a political springboard."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"It's bad enough that ambitious politicians consider the courts a subject for political posturing."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Vice President Bush, for example, promises to appoint ''tough'' judges, a label that would appear to put preconceived attitudes before competence."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Sitting justices who step down to get into politics could only contribute to that unhealthy trend."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Besides, why should Justice O'Connor or any other member of the Court seek a demotion?"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Why throw away life tenure in a stimulating job to take a flyer on the Vice Presidency?"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"On the high court she helps decide the limit of a President's powers; what would she do as Vice President?"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Small wonder Justice O'Connor finds the first Monday in October more appealing than the second Tuesday in November."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Panhandling, practiced ever more frequently on New York City streets, becomes an artful psychological game, these days based mostly on guilt."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"A young man begs politely for a few coins to buy diapers for his child; another claims to be a victim of eviction, mental illness and Vietnam."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"One has even taped a tale of woe, allowing a portable cassette player to do the talking as he shuffles through subway cars."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Not all New Yorkers, however, are susceptible to guilt."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Consider the harried woman who, toddler in tow, recently found herself confronted by a disheveled man at an Eighth Avenue subway exit in Times Square."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"''Please help me,'' he chanted to every passerby."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"''I'm homeless.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"With the harried woman he had, perhaps unwittingly, risen to a new level of nerve."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Instead of averting her eyes, she gave him a withering stare."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"''Dammit,'' she retorted, ''so am I!''"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"For several months a television advertisement for Dunkin' Donuts, a company that touts its product's freshness, has been badmouthing doughnuts that have been ''laying all night.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Alert listeners were puzzled."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Either Dunkin' Donuts was talking about pastry that produces eggs, or the copywriters had a little problem with the difference between ''lie'' and ''lay.''"}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Now those alert listeners have been rewarded for their phone calls, letters and concern for what's left of the English language."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Dunkin' Donuts will re-record the ad to correct its grammar: ''lying'' will replace ''laying.''"}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Alert listeners, keep it up!"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"And may your next campaign be aimed at defeating that soap opera staple ''Between you and I.''"}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"A proposal by the New York City Planning Commission would rezone Fifth Avenue north of 96th Street to encourage construction of badly needed new housing between 96th and 110th Streets."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The plan deserves the Board of Estimate's support."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Current zoning, which created a Special Park Improvement District, permits a density greater for institutional use than for housing."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The proposal would eliminate the special district and equalize density, removing the disincentive to build housing."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"In addition, the new zoning would permit the use of a city program that adds density in exchange for production of low-income housing."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Critics claim that rezoning would force out families who live in East Harlem."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Those fears are misplaced."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The impact of the zoning change would be limited to several long-vacant sites on upper Fifth Avenue."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"To reject the proposal would be to reject one of the few opportunities to utilize the low-income-housing bonus in East Harlem."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"That humankind was not meant to be awake at 3 o'clock in the afternoon is known to everyone who ever had to prop his eyelids open after lunch."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Now sleep researchers say so, too, in a book titled ''Sleep and Alertness: Chronological, Behavioral and Medical Aspects of Napping.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"This first collection of scientific studies of napping is prefaced by these reassuring words from Stanford University's Dr. William Dement."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"''It seems nature definitely intended that adults should nap in the middle of the day, perhaps to get out of the midday sun.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"And here most of us thought it was because we'd had too much pasta."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Now that we know what Mother Nature has in mind for us, how can we follow her orders?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Especially if 3 o'clock finds us far from our beds?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"We would stop what we're doing - pull over to the side of the road, or put our heads on our desks, or signal the boss that it's time to stretch out."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Then we would send our zzzzzz's heavenward."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"We'd be doing the economy, as well as ourselves, a favor."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"An afternoon nap, the researchers claim, has us waking up smarter, sassier and more productive."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"People plainly hate talking appliances, as The Times reported the other day."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"What's not so obvious is why."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"A common explanation is that electronic voices don't sound human."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Not true."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"They sound all too human."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Never mind that they speak in curious measure, with a timbre thin as a dime."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"In them one hears the nag-nag-nag that dogs our lives from the very start."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"What after all is the difference between a mother who says ''Wake up! It's 7 o'clock!''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The car and the driving instructor who command you to ''fasten your seat belt''?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The teacher and the elevator that order you to ''close the door''?"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"There is no difference."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"All of them talk."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"None of them listen."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"You can't say ''Shut up!'' to any of them."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"To be alive is to be bossed - by one's parents in the beginning and by one's children in the end."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"In between, there are bossy teachers, sergeants, waiters, tax accountants - to name only a few."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Small wonder that the only thing Americans ask of their appliances is that they do their jobs, and keep their comments to themselves."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Parents in many communities find plenty of reason to complain about schools, but only those who make a point of getting involved deserve a hearing."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"And their numbers are dwindling as more and more parents work outside the home."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"In New York City this week, they have a chance to regain their grip on that crucial involvement: It's Open School Week, when parents are invited to visit schools and meet with teachers."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"A recent survey for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company found that 55 percent of teachers polled felt ''uneasy or reluctant'' to approach parents to talk about their children."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Similarly, 20 percent of parents felt awkward approaching teachers, particularly those of different social backgrounds."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"To ease such anxieties, the United Federation of Teachers, which represents New York City's 62,000 teachers, has distributed a million booklets welcoming parents to Open School Week."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Some of the advice they contain might seem obvious."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Parents are encouraged to ask, for instance, about admission to high school, career counseling and job preparation."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"That such advice now seems necessary testifies to the problem - and the need for all parents to think of Open School Week as an essential obligation, not an optional chore."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A man was waiting to buy a plant at the counter of an Upper West Side store when another approached asking for a $20 bill in exchange for four fives."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Yes, the plant buyer said, he did have a twenty, and handed it over."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"As he reached for the $5 bills, the other man stopped him."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"''I need a $20 bill,'' he said."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"''You gave me a one.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Indeed, the bill in his hand was a one."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"The customer sheepishly returned it to his wallet, flipping through a second time to find the twenty he felt certain was there."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Did I spend it already, he thought?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Where, and on what?"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"When he looked up, the fives were gone and so was the man."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The plant buyer had been mugged by a sleight-of-hand artist."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"''That guy stole a $20 bill from me,'' he said to the clerk."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"But there was nothing to be done."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The next time, the plant purchaser told himself ruefully, he would heed the suspicious question that flashed across his mind too late: Why would anyone want four fives for a twenty instead of a twenty for four fives?"}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The neon sign may read Tower Records, but the store has not stocked records for years."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"When the customer told the salesclerk at the front desk he was there to pick up a stylus, she looked blank."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"I'm sorry, she said, this store does not do special orders."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"But I called in the order two weeks ago, he replied, and I have an order number."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The customer made one last try: I'm here to pick up a stylus -- you know, a needle, to play phonograph records."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Oh, the manager said, we thought you wanted a C.D. by some band called the Stylists. 54_13 -0.3 We never heard of them."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Neither had he."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Sure enough, they found the stylus."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But when he went to pay the cashier, the young woman stared at the stylus and asked, What's that?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"When the time comes to replace this one, he may have to try an antique dealer."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The ships were due east of Nantucket and whales were on the sailors' minds, a familiar enough story."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"But last week, when the sailors set out from Boston, they aimed not at killing whales but at saving them."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Anyone who has spent time in New Bedford, Mystic, Sag Harbor, knows the historic details."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"How the men slept stacked in decks in the stuffy, stinking forecastle; how they set out in little boats a whale's tail could flip like a coin; how they kept at it for three, even five years, until the ship's barrels groaned with oil."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"How that oil lit the candles and lamps of America's homes, lubricated the machinery of America's industries, and made rich cities of the likes of Nantucket and New Bedford - until petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Now the handful of nations who pursue commercial whaling are universally disapproved."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The emphasis is on protection, and the New England Aquarium's attempt to do that for three young pilot whales beached last December at Cape Cod showed that that it can take as much fuss as used to go into the killing."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"A virtual armada took the whales to sea, restored in health, dosed with steroids and stuck not with harpoons but with radio antennas for satellite tracking."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"It comes with a navigation strut, a propulsion platform, a comfort module and a force moderator."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The diagram in a New York Times ad displays sleek lines that flow from front to back."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Can it be one of the Navy's new Aegis cruisers?"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"At $69.99, the price is about $1 billion too low."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"It's a leisure shoe, for whose parts an imaginative designer has found names with a high-tech, pseudo-military ring."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Still, there's something authentic about the vocabulary."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"''Comfort modules'' would doubtless be appreciated by sailors sweltering in the Persian Gulf."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The idea of a ''force moderator'' befits the Navy's strictly defensive role."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"And if provocation became intolerable, the wearer could rely on a feature called the ''compliance capsule'' to really put his foot down."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Chris Henderson's parents will skip his kid brother's high school graduation next month so they can watch Chris play World Cup soccer in Italy."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Chris himself is still in college - at 19, he's the youngest member of America's inexperienced squad."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"That's American soccer."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"All of this year's team members were schoolboys when Pele and other foreign stars gave soccer a brief moment as a big-time U.S. sport in the 1970's."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Now they're about to brave the rough and tumble of world competition."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The U.S. team harbors no hopes of coming home with the cup; oddsmakers favor Italy, a three-time winner."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"But the Americans have been playing well enough to at least dream of making the second round."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Soccer is the national sport of most of the 24 finalists, so popular that an estimated 650 million people watched the last World Cup games on television in 1986."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"There is no such support for the game in America yet, no major league to develop talent and thus no depth of experienced players."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"All the more remarkable, then, that the team even qualified for the tournament by winning the Central and North American regionals."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"As the American players depart for Europe, they and all American fans can be proud."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Some years ago, many Americans tossed out their electric percolators, turned up their noses at instant coffee and began experimenting with bizarre contraptions and exotic beans in their quest for that perfect brew."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Kenyan coffee, dripped through a filter in an hour-glass Chemex, was an early favorite; the whine of Italian espresso machines rose with the dawn."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Today, Americans are waking up to the fact that the ultimate cup of coffee is but an elusive dream."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"At every imported-food store, dozens and dozens of burlap bags crowd the floors and counters, filled to the brim with beans from countries that college graduates cannot find on a map."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Once they've settled on a nationality, customers then must decide on a flavor - chocolate, amaretto, vanilla, Irish cream, sambuca, orange, cinnamon, hazelnut, macadamia, raspberry, even chocolate raspberry."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Will it be French, American or Italian roast?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Decaffeinated or regular?"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Which grind?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Those who find themselves lying awake nights counting coffee beans instead of sheep might try switching to herb tea."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"There's chamomile, comfrey, burdock root, lemon grass, raspberry leaf, hyssop, rose hips ."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"A Justice Department spokesman, Terry Eastland, laments the department's string of Supreme Court losses, and quips that ''a new appointment or two'' is the Reagan Administration's best hope for judicial change."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"Charles Fried, the Solicitor General of the United States, finds this remark ''deeply troubling.''"}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"When Mr. Fried taught law at Harvard he frequently spoke with open contempt for modern Supreme Court doctrines."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"His job now is ''crafting conscientious, scrupulous arguments in the light of the law."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Personally, I wish every one of the Justices well.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"But Mr. Fried's current distress is understandable: even if he hews strictly to the law, it's bound to make the bench uneasy when high officials, in this case Attorney General Edwin Meese's public affairs director, talk so crassly about political agendas."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"And that could cost the Administration votes on the Court."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Mr. Eastland's cynical, unguarded remark was out of line even though it reflected the strong views of Mr. Meese's legal team."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Mr. Fried's rebuke is proper."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But where was Mr. Fried last fall when Mr. Meese, through Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds, was upbraiding Associate Justice William Brennan as a dangerous ''radical egalitarian'' for praising the 14th Amendment's aspirations of equality before the law?"}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"A few man-made chemicals are gnawing at the ozone layer, the invisible shield in the stratosphere that protects life from ultraviolet rays."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The State Department hopes Europe and Japan will phase down production of the ozone-destroying chemicals, starting with a 50 percent cut."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But just as negotiations are to resume, the department's position is being undermined by the Office of Management and Budget."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Budget and other officials want State to demand only token reductions."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"They pooh-pooh the scientific warnings and contend the economic costs of phasing out the chemicals would be too high."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"But the Environmental Protection Agency has determined the hazard is real and cumulative; the destructive chemicals last for decades."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The O.M.B. position would compel a humiliating American withdrawal from a position of leadership on a vital issue."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"The threat to the ozone layer is hard to quantify but a substantial increase in ultraviolet radiation would provoke more skin cancer and eye damage and immeasurable disruption to other animal life."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The State Department deserves support, not subversion, from the White House."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The middle-aged couple, sweltering through a night at the beach when the heat wouldn't stop, decided to go for a swim."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Why not?"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"They would hardly be missed by children and old folks long asleep."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"They put on bathing suits and slipped out onto the beach, sloppy and cool at low tide."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Plunging in, they were teen-agers again, racing to the deep water, then lolling on their backs to gaze at the stars."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"In fact, the stars were less than spectacular this hazy night."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"No matter, she pointed out, for there were startling stars floating in the water, too."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"She was right."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Raking a hand across the surface, he watched hundreds of light specks ignite in the turbulence."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"He had heard about this marine phosphorescence: tiny single-celled organisms known as noctiluca that glow like fireflies in agitated water."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"In Puerto Rico, such creatures so densely populate one bay that passing boats trace bright wakes and swimming fish leave glittery underwater trails."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"The display in Long Island Sound this night offered a more delicate display, but no less magical."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Later, he read up on the phenomenon."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The luminescence occurs as the accidental byproduct of chemical reactions that occur under nervous stimulation."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"It serves no more purpose, in other words, than a blush of amoebic anxiety - perhaps the delicious kind of anxiety the couple felt as, dripping and refreshed, they tiptoed into the slumbering house."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"he last-minute arrivals surged into their seats just as the New York Philharmonic began to play."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Unsuppressed coughs punctuated the piece."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"When the orchestra concluded, about 50 latecomers rustled in."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The next piece was accompanied by more coughing."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"As it ended, 28 more latecomers surged in, and 12 people walked out, the last just as the conductor, Zubin Mehta, was lifting his baton to start Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Still more coughing, some stage whispers and, after just four of those six pieces, applause."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Then the orchestra thinned out to a small ensemble to play Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Its silences were filled with coughs, a nose trumpeting and a loud titter."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Finally, Mr. Mehta turned around and ruefully acknowledged he had been keeping count."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"''The orchestra played only five measures when nobody coughed."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The last movement is a minute long."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Would it be possible to get through it without interruption?''"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"It was not."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Audiences create a kind of community with shared standards of performance, and behavior."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Unlike airline passengers who buckle into their seats and plug in earphones, audiences at a concert - or a basketball game - can bond with performers and lift them to new creative heights."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Or they can cough."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The pork industry already does it."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"So do the nation's beef producers."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Now the fruit and vegetable industry is getting serious about promoting greater consumption of its products."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"It's a healthy step toward sound nutrition."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The pork industry already does it."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"So do the nation's beef producers."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Now the fruit and vegetable industry is getting serious about promoting greater consumption of its products."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"It's a healthy step toward sound nutrition."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Studies show that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce a person's cancer risk, aid weight loss and help fight heart disease."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Yet most Americans -- raised on the adage an apple a day keeps the doctor away -- remain ill informed about these potential benefits."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"They almost always underestimate the minimum recommended for good health: five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"This month the fruit and vegetable industry, in partnership with the National Cancer Institute and 200 retail food chains, launched a five-year, $93 million nutrition education campaign, called 5-A-Day."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"It will use advertisements, messages on grocery bags and food labels, and programs in schools and workplaces."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"This is a worthy joint venture for government and industry."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Should it succeed in changing the nation's eating habits, the fruit and vegetable industry stands to gain enormously."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"So does the nation's health."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"For decades, the United States managed to avoid the proliferation of cabinet positions that engulf other governments, keeping the total under a dozen."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"By comparison, China has 44, Japan 22, Britain 21."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Indeed, Presidential study commissions have repeatedly urged simplifying the U.S. cabinet structure, creating, for instance, five supercabinet jobs."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The trend, alas, has gone the other way."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"A separate Department of Transportation was created in 1966, a Department of Energy in 1977 and a Department of Education in 1979."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"This week the 14th and least defensible new department, Veterans Affairs, opened."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Why?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Not because veterans need more attention but because Congress couldn't resist flattering them with more prestige."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Such status inflation will not make it easier to manage, let alone remember all the departments."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Here's a mnemonic device, two seven-word sentences whose first letters list the positions, in protocol order: See State Leave Labor The Treasury Her Health & Human Services Dog Defense Home Housing & Urban Developmt."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Jump Justice To Transportation In Interior Entertain Energy A Agriculture Educated Education Circle."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"With their states facing budget deficits that require higher taxes, Gov."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Jim Florio of New Jersey and Gov."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Mario Cuomo of New York haven't rushed to endorse another unpopular but necessary step: a proposed $1 toll hike on Hudson River bridges and tunnels that are operated by the Port Authority."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The agency's executive director, Stephen Berger, surrendered to political reality earlier this month and withdrew his plan to increase round-trip tolls from $3 to $4 beginning July 1."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"He plans to make up the lost income by postponing about $100 million in essential capital improvements."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"But the Governors have merely postponed the day of reckoning."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The region's airports, also run by the Port Authority, can no longer provide the subsidies necessary to maintain the interstate transportation network."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"And procrastination could eventually risk the Port Authority's stellar credit rating, increasing borrowing costs."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The Governors need to ask whether the short-term political gain is really worth it."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Not so long ago, when China's market-oriented economic reform was in full bloom, many Westerners thought that the country's paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, was just the ''capitalist roader'' and ''bourgeois liberalizationist'' his Maoist critics had always alleged him to be."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But that was scarcely a realistic appreciation of this lifelong Communist."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Now, with Communist Party control replacing reform as the slogan of the day, a far different Mr. Deng comes into view."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Confidential documents reported last week in The Washington Post show him advising his comrades to emulate Poland's General Jaruzelski, and detail his hard-line methods against a democratic opposition."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"No Gorbachev-like ''restructuring'' or glasnost for Mr. Deng."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"He tells doubters that China's Communists needn't worry about adverse international reaction: foreigners care about political stability, not human rights, he suggests."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Sadly, his cynicism is partly justified by the record."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The cases of Wei Jingsheng, Liu Binyan, Fang Lizhi, and Wang Ruowang are not yet as familiar as Andrei Sakharov or Lech Walesa."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But as even General Jaruzelski ultimately learned, neither political stability nor economic reform can be achieved by mere repressive force."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Jackboots cannot make flowers bloom."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"A man ventured to Vermont on a recent weekend seeking the tranquillity of mountain vistas."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"It turned out to be one of the busiest weekends of the season and skiing was more of an urban experience: brief periods of skiing and long periods of standing in line."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"On Saturday morning, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into the little town nearest the resort."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The crowd at the ski rental store was massive."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Then came a line to purchase lift tickets."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"A young woman employed by the resort handed out fliers at 9:30 A.M. warning that the lifts were already oversubscribed."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Management advised against buying lift tickets at all and suggested a smaller resort two miles away."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"At the next mountain, the first wait for a lift was 35 minutes."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"At midday, the skier headed for the restaurant."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"After an hour's wait in a ski lodge that resembled a refugee camp, he decided that he could ski without lunch after all."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"On reflection, he was amused at his lack of irritation."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Though a beginning skier, he's a veteran New Yorker who has driven home from the Hamptons on summer weekends, shopped at Zabar's on Saturday and traveled the Long Island Rail Road at rush hour."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"He knows how to wait."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"New York City's Sanitation Department collects 17,000 tons of residential trash and garbage a day, and recycles about 700."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Under a city law that took effect last summer, the amount recycled is to reach 4,000 tons by 1994."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The department is tackling its huge task one neighborhood at a time, gradually educating New Yorkers to bundle their newspapers, magazines and corrugated cardboard once a week in stacks no more than 18 inches high and tied with ''sturdy twine.''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Mindful that New Yorkers aren't easily regulated, the department circulates pamphlets to all residents a week or so before recycling comes to their neighborhood."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"This week it's the upscale Upper East Side's turn."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"The new rules are set forth in clear and simple language."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"And then there's a line in tiny type at the bottom of the back page, down where you often see a union label."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Adding a nice touch to a dutiful chore, it says: ''Printed on recycled paper, of course.''"}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Mayor Dinkins of New York, dogged by charges of ethical lapses during his campaign, shows welcome sensitivity."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"He has asked for appointment of a special counsel to complete an inquiry by the Department of Investigation into business deals when he was Manhattan Borough President."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"They include a transfer of Inner City Broadcasting stock also under scrutiny by Federal prosecutors."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The special counsel will examine whether Mr. Dinkins violated the city's ethics code by failing to disclose his stock interest and to recuse himself from Board of Estimate votes affecting Inner City's cable TV franchise."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"He has said he transferred the stock to his son."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"In an unrelated matter, the special counsel will investigate how a senior aide in his office acquired a subsidized apartment."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The special counsel will be named by the Mayor's new investigations commissioner, Susan Shepard, a respected prosecutor."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"She will have no further role in the inquiry."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Mr. Dinkins's insistence on independence bespeaks a praiseworthy concern for procedure and appearances."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"A country that allows a ruling party to be defeated at the polls, as happened in Argentina this week, truly deserves to be called a democracy."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"President Raul Alfonsin, who symbolizes his country's new democratic legitimacy, saw his Radical Party reduced to minority status."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The vote signaled popular disenchantment with Mr. Alfonsin's austere and orthodox economic course."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"But democracy also scored as the reform wing of the Peronist opposition clearly triumphed."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The 1989 presidential elections are now likely to offer at least two major candidates with unambiguous democratic credentials, a prospect far from certain even a few months ago."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The reform Peronists proved their bona fides by standing with Mr. Alfonsin as he faced down military mutinies last April."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The Radicals' defeat increases pressures for more inflationary economics and for populist posturing over the foreign debt."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"But it also demonstrates Argentina's new-found capacity to channel political divisions into electoral paths."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"For a country that a decade ago unleashed one of this hemisphere's most murderous political pogroms, that is a remarkable gain."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"While most of Eastern Europe is coming apart, Albania thrives - according to an upbeat advertisement in The Times the other day."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The ad, signed ''American Friends of Albania,'' celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Albanian people's ''Liberation from Nazi-Fascist occupation'' in 1944."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"It described a land where: ''There are no taxes on the people ... No inflation ... No unemployment ... No cases of AIDS... No problem of drug addiction, no beggars or homeless [ and ] no crime in the streets, which are clean and free of garbage.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The ad pictures a far different place than Marvine Howe of The Times saw last month."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Observing that Albania has Europe's lowest standard of living, Ms. Howe likened her visit to a journey back in time, where private cars are banned, rural travel is by oxcart, donkey and rattling Czech trucks, and city folk mostly walk or take decrepit buses."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But while the quality of life may not be so trouble-free as the ''American Friends'' claim, one statement in their ad was intriguing: ''Pollution is prohibited by the Constitution.''"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Hard-line capitalists might give it a thought."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Why was Andy Warhol, who died Sunday after an operation, so famous when all he did was make pictures of Campbell's Soup cans, dollar bills, Marilyn Monroe's face and other things everybody's seen a million times?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"That's what lots of people thought, looking at his work."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Yet he got away with it."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"So brilliant a manipulator was he of public opinion that he made art out of things that hadn't been art."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"That made people think differently about art."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"(Asked about this sort of thing, he would respond: ''Art? That's a man's name.'')"}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"He had an uncanny ability to select and project an image that sized up the culture around him."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"He believed art and celebrity ought to be retailed."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"In addition to proclaiming the common soup can a work of art, he suggested that everyone in the world ought to be famous for at least 15 minutes."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"And after he painted them, who could look at the faces of Mao Zedong or Marilyn Monroe exactly the same way as before?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"''I just thought that things were magic and that it would never happen,'' he wrote about death."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"His reach may yet make the magic come true."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"It took five years and $35 million to renovate the Central Park Zoo, and the city seems to have thought of just about everything to make the place comfortable for both beasts and people - except the possibility that a man might need to change a baby's diaper."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The city rates a worm for its oversight."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A father discovered this during a recent outing at the zoo with his 2-year-old son."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"When the child needed a fresh diaper, the man was surprised to find no space in the men's room that could serve as a changing table."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Putting the child on the floor was out of the question."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Because of a stiff, cold wind, so was changing him on a bench outside."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"And when the man asked a female staff member where he might find a changing facility, the woman smiled sheepishly and pointed to the women's room."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"In a facility otherwise so up-to-date and accommodating of both grown-ups and children - there are even parking spaces for strollers outside most buildings - the lack of a changing table in the men's room is both anachronistic and inconvenient."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Television signals are private property and ''theft of private property is wrong.''"}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"That's the clear, simple and sound judgment of Dennis Patrick, newly designated chairman of the Federal Communications Commission."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"And that's why the agency wisely refrains from interfering with scrambled television signals."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"People who bought expensive satellite dish antennas in order to pirate shows from the sky have been in an uproar since Home Box Office and ESPN announced that they would code their signals."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Dish owners must now buy decoders, thereby providing the signal owners with fair compensation."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Antenna owners claimed that scrambling infringed their rights."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Many live beyond range of normal broadcast or cable operations and have no choice but to rely on dishes."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"They note that decoders are in short supply or, at $200 to $300, cost too much."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Mr. Patrick rightly disposed of those arguments with his terse statement on signal ownership."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"The commission has no business encouraging the scrambled logic that says inconvenience creates a license to steal."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"It is truly wonderful what water can do for a city that's usually known as a concrete canyon."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Give New York a downpour or two a day, which is more or less the way this summer's been running, and the city reverts to a primal state in no time at all."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"The grass, for instance, has never been greener."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Better yet, there's more of it than ever, growing up between the cracks in the sidewalks."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The trees seem taller too, and thicker; and to walk under them is to have one's head brushed by leaves because the weight of the raindrops has them bending low."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"Most wonderful of all is that the less-trodden sidewalks are sprouting moss."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Maybe it is lichen, or algae, but in any case it's very green, very spongy and - if the downpours continue - liable to turn into moss any day now."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"As America celebrates George Gershwin's special contribution to his country's music, 50 years after his death, a footnote is in order about his impact abroad."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"His music surfaced unexpectedly in Denmark one evening just after World War II in Tivoli, Copenhagen's idyllic amusement park."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The lights that German troops had smashed during the occupation had just gone on again."}
{"sentiment":2.5,"text":"In the restored concert hall, an evening of music concluded with a rendition of ''It Ain't Necessarily So,'' from Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess,'' and the audience applauded with astonishing ardor."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Some Danes explained: During the occupation, the nightly Danish-language German propaganda broadcasts would boast of great German victories and humiliating Allied defeats."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"And every night an elusive resistance station would cut in, at the conclusion of the German boasts, with the opening bars of ''It Ain't Necessarily So.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"No words; no comment."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"George Gershwin had become a Danish folk hero."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"In a dark hour, he provided a theme song of optimism."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Envy the indoor gardeners blessed with green thumbs: Bougainvillea cascades from hanging pots in their sun-filled windows; their desks overflow with ivy."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But for each of them, surely, there are a dozen whose thumbs remain dispiritingly brown."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Their yuccas look leggy, and their African violets refuse to flower."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"These are the people likely to provide a market for a new product, sleeping plants."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"''Sleeping'' is a euphemism."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The plants in question are quite dead, but embalmed with chemicals that preserve the look, feel and even the fragrance of life."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The new American owner of the process, introduced in Europe in the 70's, claims that sleeping plants can last eight years without light or water."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Such convenience ought to attract wide interest."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Or will it?"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Purchasing a well-grown avocado, sound asleep and ready for the windowsill, undeniably would make life simpler."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But think what it would foreclose: the small miracle of germination in a mayonnaise jar; the comforting involvement of watering and pruning; the anxious effort to rescue drooping leaves after a long weekend away."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Plants, like children, may be most beautiful when asleep - but not nearly as much fun."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The father of a 3 1/2-year-old boy looked in on his son just after dawn one morning, expecting to find a sleeping innocent."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Instead he found a wide-awake warrior, clutching a plastic sword and chanting: ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Heroes in a Half Shell."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Barely two weeks earlier, the same child had been fixated on the Ghostbusters."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"He would rise early, strap on his jerry-built proton pack and spend the day patrolling the house, busting ghosts."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Then, in the space of a single afternoon at the home of a friend with a TNMT videotape, he mutated from ghostbuster to turtle."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A demonstration of turtle power?"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Maybe."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But it's definitely evidence of television power, the capacity of video images to form, and instantly re-form, the central preoccupations of young minds."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"A coin collector we know finds nothing so stimulating as a midwinter thaw."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It's not the rising temperature or anticipation of the spring coin show, but the increase in curbside collecting."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Melting snow is a gold mine - or at least a copper mine."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"What others lose in drifts, our friend retrieves in sunshine."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"In the last four days, eyes glued to the sidewalks of New York led to five strikes: three pennies, a quarter and a $1 subway token."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Lots of people won't stoop for a penny anymore, which may explain the plenty of his copper finds."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Some New Yorkers will pick up a penny only if it is heads up, for good luck."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Others won't bother for anything less than a quarter."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"That won't even buy a candy bar anymore, but it will do for a local phone call."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"But why pass up a $1 token?"}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Is the dollar really in such bad shape?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Or just the subway system?"}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"To walk with a spring in one's stride is no longer a mere phrase."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Scientists at Leeds in England have measured the springiness in the arch of the human foot."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Running, in their analysis, is a matter not of sweat and endurance but of storing and expending energy between strides - ''like a rubber ball bouncing along.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"For a fast runner, they report in Nature magazine, the total energy due to movement and gravity falls by 100 of the units known as joules as the foot touches the ground, and rises by 100 joules as the runner pushes off again."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Don't be drained by the thought of losing all those joules as your puff gives out."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Some 35 of them are stored in the stretch of your Achilles' tendon, and another 17 in the elastic parts of the arch of your foot."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Much, but not all of the energy is returned to you as you pogo along."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The arch of the foot gives back 70 percent of the energy stored in it, Thomas McMahon of Harvard says in a commentary on the article."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"That's a better performance, he notes, than even a high-quality running shoe, which returns only half the energy spent in squashing its sole."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"Runners can take pride in the newly appreciated efficiency of their locomotion."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"But anyone who prefers to stress the springs of a couch may now think of running as mostly bouncing."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"It was the time, in the midst of New York primary elections, for politicians to hand out campaign literature."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"So there seemed nothing unusual about a well-dressed fellow passing out fliers at the subway entrance at Lexington Avenue and 68th Street in Manhattan."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But politicians offer their fliers to everyone; this well-dressed man was selective."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"One New Yorker, ignored by the man, scooped up a discarded flier from the sidewalk to see what he was missing."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"WANTED! it said in big bold print; 77 people to lose up to 30 lbs. in the next 30 days."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"It was a come-on for a weight-reducing system."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The ignored New Yorker, a six-footer, 160 pounds soaking wet, does not have 30 pounds to spare."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Mildly pleased to have been judged ineligible for the offer, he proceeded to have a nicer day."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"To the Editor: President Clinton is right to use the moral authority of his office to condemn the Oklahoma City bombing."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"But in extending his outrage to all who dare to see the Federal Government as the major threat to their liberties, he goes too far."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"To the Editor: President Clinton is right to use the moral authority of his office to condemn the Oklahoma City bombing."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"But in extending his outrage to all who dare to see the Federal Government as the major threat to their liberties, he goes too far."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Suspicion of government is rooted in the American political tradition."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Anti-federalists and their successors in the Republican Party continually warned that an overgrown central government constituted the principal danger to individual rights."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Thomas Jefferson defended Shays' Rebellion on the ground that armed resistance to government was essential to the spirit of a free republic."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"But armed resistance to government is not what we saw in Oklahoma City; there is justification for additional measures to combat domestic terrorism."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"JEAN M. YARBROUGH RICHARD E. MORGAN Brunswick, Me., May 8, 1995 The writers are professors at Bowdoin College."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"New York City's Comptroller, Harrison Goldin, points out that of the city's 800 statues, only a handful pay tribute to women."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"He wants the Parks Department to rectify the imbalance by commissioning a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"The motive is good."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"But the request seems off target given the far more urgent need to care for the city's existing treasury of public art."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Time, exhaust fumes and vandals have all taken a heavy toll."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"The Municipal Art Society's laudable adopt-a-statue program has recruited private donors to pay for restoration and upkeep of 15 endangered statues."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"But outside Manhattan and Brooklyn the response has been disappointing."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"In any case, adoption is only a partial solution."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Progress requires a new infusion of public funds."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Mayor Koch's proposed budget wrongly omits a modest Parks Department request for $1.3 million to launch a four-year drive to fix city monuments and reinstitute systematic cleaning and maintenance."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"But it's not too late for the City Council and the Board of Estimate to polish tarnished civic pride by approving the funds."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Homage to Mrs. Roosevelt and other women is overdue."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But bestowing new honors ought not to eclipse proper care for the old."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Viewers younger than 30 may not believe it, but Phil Donahue did not invent the uninhibited TV talk show."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Back in 1958 David Susskind, who died Sunday, led real free-for-alls with everyone from Soviet dictators to transvestites and ex-Presidents."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Mr. Susskind's ''Open End'' program had no set length."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"The participants argued on to the point of exhaustion."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Mr. Susskind was the first to demonstrate that robust talk could keep audiences awake, belying the medium's scornful axiom that ''talking heads'' were soporific."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"There were times when Mr. Susskind's conversational reach exceeded his intellectual grasp; he could be long-winded to the point of self-parody."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Yet he was the first to risk talking about grown-up themes in an industry so timid that his Washington station, WTTG, refused to carry live his 1960 interview with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"As a producer, Mr. Susskind was responsible for some notable television triumphs, like ''Eleanor and Franklin,'' as well as a host of plays and films."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"In recent years, with his imposing white locks, he looked a bit like a weary Roman emperor, decrying television thus: ''To watch this aimless drivel violates my code of morality.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Vintage Susskind, calculated to stir the blood and keep arguments going long past bedtime."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"In a recent letter to the editor, Maryann Saccomando Freedman, president of the New York State Bar Association, took issue with an Editorial Notebook about the frustrations of jury service."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The notebook asserted that one reason for interminable court delays was that most legislators were lawyers loath to vote any court efficiencies that would reduce legal fees."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Ms. Freedman pointed out that the percentage of lawyers in the Legislature had now dropped below 40 percent."}
{"sentiment":2.2,"text":"Hooray."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Perhaps now that the majority of that body no longer have their roots in the legal profession, the Legislature will be more amenable to reforms that would allow some relief for New York's long-suffering jurors."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Easiest would be to adopt the Federal system for selecting jurors."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"This would remove lawyers from the endless questioning of potential jurors, speeding the process by lodging the responsibility solely with judges."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The state courts are swamped."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Spending days, even weeks, in jury selection may satisfy some lawyers, but at enormous waste of time, and expense for the taxpayer."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Debate over the drug problem sometimes deteriorates into banal oversimplification."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Hawks want tougher law enforcement; doves favor drug treatment."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Wiser heads understand that both are needed."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"So do Alexis Vega and John Moore."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Mr. Vega says he's addicted to crack."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Mr. Moore is a Bronx Criminal Court judge."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Last October, Mr. Vega decided he wanted to end his addiction."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"But all the treatment programs he called turned him away for lack of space."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Desperate, Mr. Vega went to the police."}
{"sentiment":-2.25,"text":"When officers told him treatment wasn't their job, he brandished his drug paraphernalia, smashed station house windows and finally got himself arrested."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Brought before judges, he pleaded for treatment."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Two made no effort to help, but at last, Judge Moore took an interest, made a personal call to managers of a drug treatment program and persuaded them to take Mr. Vega."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"All this came to light on the day after Governor Cuomo gave a speech pointing out that while law enforcement is working hard to fight drugs, it can't hope to handle the problem by itself."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"He then announced a new task force, to be headed by Lieut."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Gov. Stan Lundine, to bring drug treatment agencies together with law enforcement and to better coordinate their efforts."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Alexis Vega understands."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"Some things are inexplicably magical."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"One is ''Goodnight Moon,'' the children's book by Margaret Wise Brown, wonderfully illustrated by Clement G. Hurd and brought back to mind by news of his recent death."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"How many little children, faces freshly scrubbed, snuggly in pile pajamas, have gone sleepily into Mr. Hurd's enchanted evening?"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"How many mothers and fathers have led them there, just as entranced as the children?"}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Entranced by the vivid solidity of the sleepy rabbit's room, the reassuring roster of the child's everyday tools: the comb, the brush, the mittens."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"And by Mr. Hurd's playful mouse, here on the windowsill, there on the hearth."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Painting for readers who fear the dark, Mr. Hurd made a world that is warm and safe and inviting."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Over four decades, readers of two million copies entered that world."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Now Mr. Hurd is gone but the magic remains."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission is scheduled to vote today on a proposed 12-story office building in the South Street Seaport Historic District in lower Manhattan."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The vote raises a large issue: whether the Landmarks Commission and the city will embrace a balanced approach to development in historic districts."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Such an approach could actually encourage the preservation of older buildings by permitting construction of compatible new buildings."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The owners of the site at 50 Water Street, Paul and Seymour Milstein, have been trying to build there for seven years."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The current design, a brick and granite base with stepped-back upper stories in stone and glass, is undeniably sensitive to the architectural spirit of the maritime district."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Some fear that the 148-foot structure would overpower the existing buildings, mostly four and five stories."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"But that ignores reality."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Some of the smaller buildings are crumbling for want of investors."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Unless efforts are made to increase the seaport's overall economic vitality, restoration will languish."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"By any reasonable measure, the proposal now before the Landmarks Commission strikes a laudable compromise between the district's historic scale and the need for modern development."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Eating more fiber is said to reduce the risk of heart disease, colon cancer and diabetes."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But consumers seeking to follow that advice are hampered by the failure of food packagers to list fiber contents."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Congress could enhance the nation's health by requiring such listings."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Federal labeling rules have not yet caught up with scientific evidence for the benefits of fiber, now known to be at least as important to good nutrition as riboflavin, niacin and other commonly listed substances."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to mandate the inclusion of fiber on all nutrition labels."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Action is unlikely, however, given the agency's current antipathy to new regulations and tendency to bury such requests in red tape."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"But Congress could enact the requirement as part of contemplated legislation that would increase disclosure of key nutrients."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Doing so would impose negligible cost on business, while paying a significant dividend in terms of public health."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Young lawyers and law graduates who choose careers in public service can expect to earn only a fraction of the wages of those who serve private clients."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Some law schools and law firms have begun to recognize the need to address the growing pay gap through such measures as student loan forgiveness programs."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"A welcome addition to this trend is the Harvard Law School's new Judge Irving R. Kaufman Public Service Fellowship program."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Endowed by Walter Annenberg, the publisher, the program will offer $10,000 awards to young professionals committed to public service careers."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"It is timed to honor Judge Kaufman's 40 years of public service on the Federal trial and appellate bench, longer than all but a handful of judges."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"That anniversary will be celebrated tomorrow at a special meeting of the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in the United States Court House on Foley Square."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Such ceremonies, called en banc sessions of the court, are impressive."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"If the fellowships encourage even a few more fledgling attorneys to enter public service, the rewards will be more impressive still."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The New York City police have put a new spin on an old parental dictum: Be nice to those you meet because you never know who they might turn out to be."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Officers pretending to be Asians just arriving at Kennedy Airport asked cabbies to take them to the World Trade Center."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"There a detective in plainclothes greeted arriving cabs and asked the passengers if they'd ''come for the cruise.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"If they said ''yes,'' thus signaling they'd been overcharged, they were told that ''the van has already left'' and were directed to an East River pier."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The pier, decorated for the ''Kyoto Cameras Promotional Cruise,'' offered a big surprise."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"It was all a sting operation."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Some 22 drivers who had demanded exorbitant fares were charged with petty larceny."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"In this city, it is second nature to suspect that people are not what they seem."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Is the drunk asleep at the end of the subway car an undercover cop?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Is the diner making notes on an envelope a forgetful shopper or a restaurant critic?"}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Is the kid playing three-card monte so eagerly a real player or the dealer's shill?"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Now, thanks to a Police Department with greasepaint in its blood, there is another question."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Is that man aiming his Nikon at Prometheus really a sightseer from Kyoto?"}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Or is something funny going on at Rockefeller Center?"}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"A New Yorker who has always been predisposed to summer - her air-conditioner works, she doesn't have to don a coat when she runs out for the morning paper - has found yet another reason to enjoy the hot months."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Never has she had so great an opportunity to catch up on missed TV shows."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Last Thursday night, for instance, all but one of the seven channels to which she, who is cableless, has access were featuring reruns or old movies."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"On Friday night virtually the only new show (besides the news) was baseball: the New York Mets vs. the Houston Astros."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"For someone who turns on her set infrequently, these second-time-arounds are bliss."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Now she can see the mini-series she missed in 1985 because she was out of town, or that episode of ''Cagney and Lacey'' in which young Harvey joined the Marines."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"She can also see, assuming she's got a screw loose, an endless series of sitcoms."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"All this suggests to her that those who say summer is the ideal time to discover what lies beyond ''Swann's Way'' have it wrong."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It's Proust that's the three-seasons job; television can be taken care of in this one."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Dear Senator D'Amato: Your distaste for the Andres Serrano photograph of a crucifix immersed in urine seemed clear when you ripped up the catalogue of a show that included the photo and threw the shreds on the Senate floor."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But your correspondence with a constituent who disagrees with you raises a nagging question."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Thomas F. Parker, of New York City, wrote to protest your stand, and received a reply that said: ''I share your outrage over the National Endowment for the Arts support of the Andres Serrano work."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"If they fail to take steps to prevent this from occurring in the future, I am prepared to explore terminating funds for the Awards in Visual Arts program, and if need be, the endowment itself.''"}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Mr. Parker wrote again, asking if you'd meant to send him the first reply, and got another which said: ''I have long been, and remain, a strong supporter of the N.E.A."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"There is certainly room for Federal funding for art that is diverse and avant-garde and does not appeal to mainstream tastes."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"However, when a work is deeply offensive to many taxpayers, I question the wisdom of Federal funding of such a project.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"You concluded by saying, ''I will continue to support this vital agency.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The nagging question is: Do you have any other opinions about the endowment, Senator, or just those two?"}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Where did Congress suddenly find $3.5 billion for earthquake disaster relief?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"In a loophole."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"If the quake had hit last month, as Hurricane Hugo did, money to aid its victims would have had to come from cutting other programs."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But, as luck would have it, the deadline for trimming this year's budget deficit has passed now, and with it this year's spending ceiling."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget law says that the deficit in fiscal 1990, which began Oct. 1, can't exceed $110 billion."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But the final official tally of each fiscal year's deficit is made on Oct. 15, just two weeks into the year."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Rather than measure actual results, the law only requires an early forecast, based on legislation enacted before Oct. 15 and data on the economic outlook."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Anything that comes later is ignored."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The earthquake did not work its devastation until Oct. 17, and Congress did not approve the aid bill until last week."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"With no budget ceiling to worry about, the bill passed easily."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"An earlier, smaller bill for Hurricane Hugo relief was complicated by the need to find cuts in other programs."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"What will it take to make Congress confront the fallacies of its budget process?"}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Apparently more than a hurricane, or an earthquake."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Dan Rowan, who died Tuesday at 65, symbolized an era of evolution in television."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"From 1968 to 1973 he and his longtime partner, Dick Martin, presided over ''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,'' a sterling demonstration of Marshall McLuhan's ideas about medium and message."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"A cross between updated vaudeville and a psychedelic happening, ''Laugh-In'' thrived on what one critic called ''sensory overload.''"}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"It offered a lightning succession of skits, sight gags, blackout sketches and jokes."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"It was especially appealing to a generation weaned on ''Howdy Doody'' and ''Captain Kangaroo,'' then jolted by civil rights injustices and a televised war."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Almost nothing escaped comment or ridicule on ''Laugh-In'' - not politics, sex, religion, race relations; not even Ma Bell."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"The program's prestige and playfulness were crystallized in the appearance of a would-be President Richard Nixon, saying ''Sock it to me?''"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The early baby boom generation that grew up on ''Laugh-In'' graduated to ''Saturday Night Live,'' then pushed further into adulthood."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The deaths of personalities one grew up with, like Dan Rowan and Jackie Gleason, signal mortality."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"But their innovative careers stand for television's capacity to renew and regenerate itself."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"To the Editor: You report that Manhattan's Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive will be partly closed for the next three and a half years (news article, July 6)."}
{"sentiment":-2.7,"text":"I am frustrated and dismayed."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"The approaches to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel are under construction, causing monster delays, and drivers are told, ''find alternate route.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The Queensboro Bridge is half-closed, causing more delays for the next two years, with similar instructions."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The Triborough Bridge-F.D.R."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Drive is no longer an alternate."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Without any alternate roads anymore, we are urged to ''take public transportation.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"But the Long Island Rail Road is down to one track for the summer, causing even more delays and confusion."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"The subway might be possible if the R line wasn't being redone, and if passengers need not fear fires, delays, water-main breaks, suffocation or mayhem."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"How about the bus?"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Forget it."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Fifth and Madison Avenues are chopped up, 14th Street is closed westbound, and additional obstructions can be expected at any time without notice."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"How about delaying some of these projects?"}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Mayor David N. Dinkins should appoint a director of coordination to monitor this fiasco."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"I hope the delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1992 can get around the city."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It would be nice if New Yorkers could, too."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"ALFRED J. LURIE New York, July 6, 1990"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Iraq is eager to attract Western investors and to be taken more seriously as a regional diplomatic voice."}
{"sentiment":-2.8,"text":"But President Saddam Hussein's violent tyranny has a lot to live down, notably its lawless use of chemical weapons in the Persian Gulf war and its persistent abuse of human rights."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"And now the Baghdad regime has ordered the execution of a British-based journalist who traveled to Iraq at the Government's invitation."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Farzad Bazroft, an Iranian-born correspondent for The London Observer, is accused of spying for Israel."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"He was sentenced to death last Saturday by a Baghdad Revolutionary Court after he visited a military complex south of the capital."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"His ''crime'' was that he was doing his job - investigating reports of an explosion at the complex."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"A British nurse, Daphne Parish, who drove him to the base, was sentenced to six years in jail."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"An appalled British Government and its European allies protest this savage caricature of justice."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Unless Iraq releases these foreign nationals, unharmed, it will permanently cripple its efforts to repair an already unfortunate reputation."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Response to New York City's anti-dog-litter law was initially good, but compliance has declined precipitously in some areas."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Thus, We Care About New York Inc., a private group devoted to public cleanliness, has enlisted the help of the Girl Scouts, the city's Police and Sanitation Departments and Alpo Pet Foods Inc. to provide some positive reinforcement."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"The scouts are to patrol the streets carrying books of detachable certificates of good citizenship."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"These are to be awarded to dog walkers found cleaning up after their pets and may be redeemed at the nearest police precinct for a box containing a 12-day supply of dog treats, courtesy of Alpo."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Can an immediate, specific reward for good behavior succeed where an unconvincing threat of punishment has failed?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Sociologists should take note."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"So should strollers who appreciate clean parks and sidewalks."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Finding himself in a perfect position to play to the crowd - a Bronx crowd - Mayor David Dinkins of New York City has instead chosen statesmanship."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"The issue involves the filming of ''The Bonfire of the Vanities,'' the Tom Wolfe novel, which is none too complimentary toward either the Bronx or the city as a whole."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Borough President Fernando Ferrer accuses the film makers of Bronx-bashing."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"He even insisted they add a pro-Bronx disclaimer."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Nothing doing, said Mr. Dinkins."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Mindful of film-making's contribution to the city's economy, the Mayor sent a statement to film industry trade papers saying that ''any attempt to influence the artistic content of the work of others, however minor, would be repugnant.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The city wants to encourage production, ''not to participate in script review or alteration,'' he said; while Mr. Ferrer is entitled to his opinions, the Borough President does not speak for the city."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Just so."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Mr. Dinkins could easily have sided with Mr. Ferrer, a political ally."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"But the Mayor chose to act like a mayor, not a politician."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"With so many Democrats running for President, it's hard to keep them straight or to know what to call them."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"With an eye to their minuscule support in the polls, some cynics call them ''The Seven Dwarfs.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Others, recalling the old ''Saturday Night Live'' cast, speak of the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Reporters laboriously generalize about ''the largely unknown field of Democratic candidates.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"There's an easier way, and it can be found in the durable device of the acronym."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"If one is willing to risk sounding a like a doo-wa song, there are useful ways to add up Babbitt, Biden, Dukakis, Gephardt, Gore, Jackson and Simon."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"For instance, by taking slight liberties with the last name one achieves: Ba-bi-du-gep Go Jas-mine."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Though euphonious, it's a mnemonic that's vulnerable to change: there's a second flight of as many as seven other talked-about possibilities: Bradley, Boren, Celeste, Clinton, Cuomo, Nunn and Schroeder."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Even that list omits the crowded Republican field, which probably includes Bush, Dole, Du Pont, Haig, Kemp, Laxalt and Robertson, or, in other words, Bu-do-dup Ha-ke-la-rob."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Harold Washington won't be assured a second term until he wins a general election, but Chicago's first black Mayor still appears to have cleared his biggest hurdle, by vanquishing former Mayor Jane Byrne in Tuesday's Democratic primary."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"The voting gave 53 percent to Mr. Washington and 47 percent to Ms. Byrne, and also sent a heartening message about race relations in perhaps the nation's most polarized city."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Mr. Washington captured about 25 percent of the white vote, more than twice the share he got in his initial victory four years ago."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"''We didn't prove to be the ogre that we were painted by some people,'' he said."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Whites - at least younger, better educated ones - seemed increasingly willing to ignore race and look at the Mayor's record."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"''I think Chicago is in the process of growing,'' Mr. Washington said."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"''Race relationships should be the topic of the future."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Not racism, but race relationships.''"}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"That statement is profoundly hopeful, for the Windy City and the nation."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"A few days ago, a friend met with a minor accident."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"He was starting a new job and in his anxiety to get to work on time he hurled himself against the subway turnstile before his token had released the steel bar."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"His thigh muscles and his amour propre were severely bruised."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"After 15 years of going to work in a car, our friend's reflexes were wrong."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"He put it down to an old dog having to relearn old tricks, but some inquiry revealed that turnstiles regularly claim similar victims of all ages and walks of life."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"What to do?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Swathe the turnstile in foam rubber?"}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"No, it would never stand the onslaught."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"But, he thought, riders could wear pads on their thighs, perhaps starting a new fashion."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"There's a factory in the Bathgate section of the South Bronx that manufactures shoulder pads."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Perhaps it could introduce a line of thigh pads, like those worn by football players, that might temper turnstile justice with mercy."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"If we hadn't already suspected there was something seriously wrong with football, Bob Young would have convinced us."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The Houston Oilers' offensive-line coach needs to make an appointment with his nearest attitude-adjustment clinic."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"When one of his offensive linemen, David Williams, missed a game because he wanted to be with his wife when his son was born, Mr. Young compared it to avoiding a combat mission in World War II."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"If we hadn't already suspected there was something seriously wrong with football, Bob Young would have convinced us."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The Houston Oilers' offensive-line coach needs to make an appointment with his nearest attitude-adjustment clinic."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"When one of his offensive linemen, David Williams, missed a game because he wanted to be with his wife when his son was born, Mr. Young compared it to avoiding a combat mission in World War II."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The Oilers' general manager, Mike Holovak, announced that Mr. Williams would be docked his weekly pay and possibly suspended."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Mr. Williams took the threat -- $125,000 worth -- with good humor."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"It's money well spent, he said."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Scot Cooper Williams, whose inconvenient arrival caused all the trouble, should be pleased with the dad he got."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Major league baseball's stodgy owners are advised to note what's happening in minor-league Birmingham, Ala."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The Japanese are coming."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Suntory International, the American subsidiary of the largest privately owned company in Japan, is buying the Birmingham Barons, the hottest team in the Southern League."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Suntory's diverse interests include Japanese whisky, soft drinks, bottled water, restaurants, Broadway shows - ''The Heidi Chronicles'' and ''Jerome Robbins' Broadway'' - and several sports enterprises."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The Birmingham deal, reportedly for $3 million, was put together by an American well known in Japan as a TV sports commentator, Martin Kuehnert."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"A friend of Suntory's owners, he will be the team's president and a stockholder."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Suntory says it wants only to ''preserve and enhance the proud tradition of Barons baseball.'' Hmmm."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"How do you enhance a team that's been No.1 in its double-A league twice in the last three years?"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Would the Barons be even sharper if their ''workers'' were happily organized into Japanese-style quality circles?"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Would the team be No. 1 every year with some Japanese rigor in its regimen?"}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"America's auto industry was slow to learn from Japan."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Is American baseball any smarter?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"What can you learn from Barbara Bush?"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Not much, in the view of 150 young women graduating from Wellesley College."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"They are protesting her selection as this year's commencement speaker."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Since ''Wellesley teaches that we will be rewarded on the basis of our own merit, not on that of a spouse,'' they say the First Lady is an unworthy choice."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"As one young woman bluntly put it: ''If Barbara Bush hadn't been married to this guy who happens to be President, we never would have heard of her.''"}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Yesterday, at his news conference, the guy who happens to be President defended, with appropriate passion, the woman who has been his most significant supporter for 46 years."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"''I think these young women can have a lot to learn from Barbara Bush,'' the President said, ''and from her unselfishness and from her advocacy of literacy and of being a good mother and a lot of other things.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Those typically ''feminine'' virtues cited by the President are unlikely to make Ms. Bush an inspiring role model for spirited feminists."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"But then, thoughtfully, Mr. Bush added one virtue: ''She's not trying to be something she's not.''"}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"If Mrs. Bush, Wellesley's second choice, conveys that in her commencement address, she will have imparted to these young women the most important lesson of all."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"At the urging of President Andrew Stein, New York's City Council has voted steep raises in fines for serious building code violations - the first such increase since 1972."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"It's a welcome step in the right direction."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But the deterrent effect of the elevated penalties depends on bolstering the city's capacity to collect."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Under the new law, the fine for life-threatening hazards like lead-based paint or cascading water leaks goes from $25 to $125 a day in larger buildings."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"For smaller buildings, the new daily fine is $50."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"However, it's unlikely that more than a tiny fraction of the most brazen offenders will be forced to pay."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Though the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has improved its collection performance in the last year, the agency still reports a staggering 274,000 serious violations outstanding."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Legal follow-up by the agency is so scattered that some landlords don't even bother to file the required certification that problems have been corrected."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Yet the agency says that so far it has no concrete plans to beef up enforcement."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Higher fines should make it cost-effective to hire more litigators who can go to court to collect fines."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"That would send a credible message: Landlords who fail to make repairs in a timely fashion stand a realistic chance of being caught."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"New York City's Board of Estimate is likely to reject a Dinkins administration proposal today that would help short-term revenues but hurt long-term garbage disposal capacity."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The board is on the right track; the plan is flawed and the city would be unwise to try to revive it later."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"City Hall hoped to raise money by reducing the dumping fees that commercial carters pay to use the city's only landfill - Fresh Kills, on Staten Island."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The relatively high fees at Fresh Kills now send carters in search of less expensive landfills outside the city; lower fees would encourage them to return."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Reducing the fee from $40 to $25 a cubic yard would add an estimated $18 million to the city treasury - a most attractive thought, given the city's faltering economy."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"But Fresh Kills would fill up with garbage more quickly."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"That wouldn't be a problem if the city had developed a coherent, long-range program for disposing of solid waste."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It hasn't."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Present recycling efforts will help, but not enough, and Mayor David Dinkins has yet to approve former Mayor Edward Koch's proposal for huge incinerators."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"For now, that leaves only Fresh Kills, and it is rapidly running out of space."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The board has ample cause to reject the idea."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"And City Hall would do well to drop it and get on with the business of developing a comprehensive plan for disposing of solid waste."}
{"sentiment":-2.3,"text":"The Straits of Dover were not stormy last week and winds reached no more than 20 miles an hour when the Herald of Free Enterprise tipped over and foundered with the loss of 134 lives."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"The tragedy at Zeebrugge, in other words, was no act of God."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Barring some as yet undetected outside force, it is likely that the ferry's designers did not anticipate catastrophe from human error."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"The name of the lost ferry celebrates entrepreneurial liberty from government regulation."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Her loss is a sobering reminder that regulation remains essential whenever consumers cannot make sound safety judgments on their own."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The hand of regulation falls firmly on designers and operators of American vessels."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The American Bureau of Shipping sets strength and suitability standards required for marine insurance and financing."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The Coast Guard also inspects American flag vessels under construction and, by agreement, enforces the international safety code on all vessels that would sail from American ports."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Would-be passengers obviously cannot make ship inspections even if they knew what to look for."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"The Zeebrugge tragedy underscores the importance of well-enforced safety standards."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The fervent enemies of all regulation should remember that it's hard to put a fair market price on safety."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"A St. Louis man pleaded guilty last week to threatening Jesse Jackson's life during the primary campaign."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"That plea and other recent threats to Mr. Jackson demonstrate why it would be wise to extend his Secret Service protection through the November election."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Secret Service coverage of Mr. Jackson was to have ended with the Democratic Convention but President Reagan agreed to a 30-day extension, to give Mr. Jackson time to hire private bodyguards."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Yet no private guards can hope to match the Secret Service's expertise."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Extending the period of protection for a non-candidate would set no precedent."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Senator Edward Kennedy received such coverage in 1972, 1976 and 1980."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Assigning Secret Service agents for 11 more weeks would cost the Government less than $2 million."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"That's properly a public expense: protecting the first serious black Presidential contender also protects the democratic process."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"One of the most irritating problems known to man - not to woman - is how to keep food off his necktie."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Now Paul Stuart, purveyor of men's finery, is about to respond with a shirt that features a loop for securing the tie out of the path of dropped food."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It will be sewn onto the left front panel, where Ralph Lauren might stitch a little polo pony."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The shirts are so special they will have no label inside the neck, just ''Stuart's Choice'' embroidered on the front shirttail."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The price: $135 - enough to pay for a lot of necktie dry-cleaning, or a couple of upscale new ties."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Lufthansa Airlines offers another solution for man and woman."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"It's a napkin with a buttonhole."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Slip it over the top button on your shirt (you'll have to lower your tie first) or your dress and dribble food with abandon."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The napkin is free, but Lufthansa's lowest fare between Frankfurt and New York these days is $479 round trip."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"At those prices, the best answer may be a turtleneck."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Edward I. Koch, the Mayor of New York City, is not at all happy about the speech of the city's schoolchildren."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Too often, he says, it is incorrect."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"He cites, among other errors, the frequency with which students say ''ax'' instead of ''ask,'' ''pitcher'' instead of ''picture,'' ''ain't'' instead of ''isn't.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"And the Mayor fond of asking ''How'm I doing?''"}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"complains that too many New York-educated youngsters drop the final ''g'' from words ending in ''ing.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Sad to say, Mr. Koch can have found little aid and comfort in an interview with President-elect Bush in the Dec. 26 issue of People magazine."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"When asked how he and Mrs. Bush will change the style at the White House, Mr. Bush replied: ''We love cookin' burgers with the kids, and we love doin' athletic events with my boys."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"I like doin' horseshoes, so I might arrange to put a horseshoe pit in out there.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Mr. Koch has asked New York City's Schools Chancellor to look into the dropped ''g'' problem."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Too bad there apparently was nobody around to make a similar request of Mr. Bush's teachers at Andover and Yale."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Because the world can be a scary place, many people go forth armed - not with Uzis, Mac-10's or Berettas but with an understanding of body language."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Now Dr. Paul Ekman, an expert in the muscles of emotional expression, has added a new weapon."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"He and his colleagues, Wallace Friesen and Maureen O'Sullivan, have found a sure way to detect the crocodile smile."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"A true smile, the researchers found, involves a tightening of the muscles around the eyes, and a drooping of the skin around the eyebrow."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The counterfeit doesn't produce crow's feet, and is often betrayed by a slight contraction of muscles and furrowing of the skin between the eyebrows."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Furthermore, the differences between the real grin and the crocodile version are obvious enough to be used as social signals."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Only those fortunate few who can wiggle their ears and thus (presumably) their eye muscles will be able to fool an informed public."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"A Presidential candidate who lacks that talent had better mean it when he says he's happy to be in, say, Ottumwa."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Ditto for the husband who says he's glad to be home ..."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"the friend who says she's delighted you decided to drop in ..."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"the boss who says she doesn't mind interruptions."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Whatever their tongues tell, the truth remains in their eyes."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Ignoring a wise Defense Department policy against giving cigarettes to soldiers, the RJR Nabisco and Philip Morris tobacco companies recently donated about 10,000 cartons for distribution to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Air Force base officials say they were unaware of the ban when they loaded the cigarettes on military aircraft."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"The episode has prompted a refreshingly blunt response from Enrique Mendez Jr., the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"''Our troops deployed on Operation Desert Shield deserve better than to be exposed to greater risk of disease and death,'' wrote Mr. Mendez upon learning of the policy violation."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"''Smoking undermines readiness on the battlefield and is one of the leading preventable causes of disease and death among military personnel.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Both cigarette makers own food subsidiaries."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Instead of free cigarettes to express patriotism, why not regular free shipments of Oreo cookies or Kraft cheese?"}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Men have it bad."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"No doubt about it."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Just when they thought it was safe to eat quiche, cry at the movies and go to plastic surgeons for nips and tucks, along come the trustees of the Muckenthaler Cultural Center to tell them it isn't."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The center, in Fullerton, Calif., has pulled a photograph of a naked John Lennon from its show called ''Heroes, Heroines, Idols and Icons.''"}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Not because he was starkers, but because he didn't look heroic."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The photograph, from Rolling Stone magazine's Lennon memorial issue, is by Annie Liebovitz and shows John and Yoko lying down."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"She is dressed; he, discreetly nude and in a fetal position, is curled against her."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Some people, the kind who still blame Yoko for the Beatles' breakup, thought the picture made their case."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Others thought it said a lot about marriage - not just the Lennons' but the Smiths' and the Joneses' and a billion other folks'."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Beverly Gunter, chairman of the center's board of trustees, has a third view of the photograph."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"''It doesn't express 'hero,' '' she said, ''it expresses 'anti-hero.'"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"To me, to fit the hero show, something about the work should be somehow a character strength.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"In Ms. Gunter's book, then, being unafraid to show your love for and dependency on your wife isn't a character strength but a character flaw."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Poor Ms. Gunter."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Poor board of trustees."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Above all, poor men!"}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Fruits and vegetables are not all that ripen when the weather grows warmer."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"So, sad to say, do the streets and subways of New York City."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"It takes the sun and heat to reveal most fully their decline into the world's biggest lavatory."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Therefore, a modest proposal: That the three B's - Bendel's, Bloomingdale's and Barney's -not to mention Saks and Macy's and Altman's and Lord & Taylor - do all New Yorkers a favor and revive the vinaigrette, in the 18th-century meaning, which had nothing to do with salad dressing."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Then, a vinaigrette was a pretty little gold or silver box de rigueur among affluent walkers in the city."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Under its chased lid there lay a perforated grill, and under that lay a sponge soaked with perfume or vinegar."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Hold it to the nose and bid unpleasantness adieu."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The contemporary vinaigrette need not be gold or silver."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It could be plastic, stainless steel, tin or even disposable."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"It would be welcome so long as it offered New Yorkers a way to beat another summer's foul breath."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Dan Quayle has made so many quotable bloopers in his brief time as Vice President that he gets tagged even for things he didn't say."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"For instance, consider this howler: ''I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.''"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Representative Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island, a Republican, is the original source."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"She says she told the story as a joke to a group of party faithful."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"But it quickly spread as fact."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Comedians, politicians and some journalists added it to the list of genuine Quayle slips."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The Vice President is also dogged by other recurring reports."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"For instance, a newspaper reported on a White House meeting to discuss emergencies in which the Vice President might be called on to assume Presidential powers."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Mr. Quayle's wife supposedly asked many questions."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"An obvious inference might be that she has a more inquiring mind than her husband."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"In fact, Mrs. Quayle didn't attend that meeting."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Some stories may seem too good not to be true."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"But even if funny, they're false."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Urban Americans often arm their cars with piercing alarms that go off when a thief intrudes."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"In New York the alarms seem to blare mostly in the middle of the night, and it's not clear that they discourage perpetrators nearly as much as they disturb the peace."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Comes now an alarm system that makes more sense."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The 1990 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo offers as an option a telephone that can be programmed to call the owner if someone is about to steal his $28,000 pride and joy."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The phone, produced by Motorola, calls home when the engine is started, and warbles its warning in a series of high and low beeps."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It will even call again if it gets a busy signal, but just once."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"New Yorkers may consider the $995 device less than full protection."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"It would do little to deter a burglar interested in taking only the car stereo - or the phone itself."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"And by the time an owner descends from his high-rise in response to the call, his car could be far away."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"But there is no question that the device protects those trying to get a good night's sleep."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"That's an option anyone can applaud."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Starting Sunday, little kids can stay out longer, big kids and adults can get home from work before the street lights go on and householders can save a few pennies on the electric bill."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It's the beginning of daylight saving time, an idea for energy-saving that originated in Britain in 1907 and, since the energy crisis of the 1970's, starts in this country on the first Sunday of April."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"That being April 1, it's showing up very early."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"For some Americans, though, this setting of the clock an hour later than real time marks the darkest day of the year."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"They're larks, so called because their interior clocks are tuned to dawn."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"The last few weeks of waking to a pearl-gray morning have been paradise for them."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"So while the nation's owls are glad because they're gaining light at the day's end, larks are sad because they're losing light at its beginning."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The breath spent telling them about early-evening cookouts and post-supper strolls in the twilight is breath wasted."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"For those who like to open their eyes on John Donne's ''unruly sun,'' this will be Gloomy Sunday."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"On a recent warm night, a couple in suburban New Jersey found their parenthood dependent on modern electronics."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Husband and wife holed up in their bedroom where a window air conditioner roared full blast, full time."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Meanwhile, their 7-month-old son slept in the next room where another air conditioner ran nonstop."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"The noisy machines drowned out the child's nocturnal whimpers and cries."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"But the parents were able to stay cool, tuned in to their son via an electronic intercom."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"The father found himself discomforted by the idea of such basic parental protection and concern so dependent on technology - until he related the feelings to a colleague."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"''The day will come, perhaps 15 years from now,'' advised this weary parent of teen-agers, ''when you will long for such a device to keep track of your son."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But by then, of course, it will be completely out of the question.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"In a recent letter to The Times, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York observed that secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact in 1939 assigned Estonia and Latvia to the Soviet Union's ''sphere of influence'' and Lithuania to Nazi Germany's."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Subsequently, he noted, Stalin paid Germany $7.5 million in gold to get Lithuania, too."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Armchair historians may see a coincidence with the price Moscow got for Alaska in 1867: $7.2 million."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"Every schoolchild knows that ''Seward's Folly'' turned out to be no folly, producing endless vistas and boundless wealth."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But any comparison ends right there."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Alaska was Russia's land to sell."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"By what right did Hitler sell sovereign Lithuania, and by what right did Stalin buy it?"}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Never mind the new taxes and cuts in basic services forced by New York State's deficit."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Never mind the embarrassing six-week delay in enacting the state budget."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The Legislature, its appetite for pork unspoiled, has allocated more than $120 million for ''members' items'' - pet projects for lawmakers' home districts."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"That may come as good news for recipients, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Schenectady, awarded $18,000 to repave a parking lot."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"But that's no justification for a secretive system that gives scarce public funds to local interests outside the normal budget process."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"The system's defenders note that the items include worthwhile programs."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But a lawmaker's party, seniority and electoral vulnerability count at least as much as merit in deciding how the pork gets shared."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Members of the minority parties in each chamber get much less to spread around than their majority colleagues."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Even in good times, and even in a $50 billion budget, members' items reek."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"In Boston, The Globe reports on a scandal in which new dirt ''is coming in, under and over transoms all over the city.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Terrorist threats against airlines keep coming in ''over the transom,'' says a TV commentator."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"During the Tower confirmation debate, White House chief of staff John Sununu spoke of bizarre allegations ''coming in over the transom.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Over the what?"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Where does one ever now see a transom, a hinged window over a door that can be opened for ventilation?"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Ask a young adult what the word means and the response is likely to be a blank look."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Transoms survive mainly in historic government buildings, old detective movies and popular speech."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"The word is doubly useful."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"It means to get around a closed door, as with the unsolicited manuscripts that magazine editors call ''over-the-transom stuff.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"It also describes a place for snooping."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A gossip column in The New York Observer is titled, ''The Transom.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"This second sense closely parallels ''peeking through the keyhole.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The real-life referent disappeared long ago, succeeded by security locks and magnetic keys, but the idiom endures."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Transom, like ice box, Victrola and one-armed paperhanger, will live as long as it remains fixed in the memory and mouths of the passing generations."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"In Suffolk County, pine barrens and oak brush are fast yielding to condominiums and subdivisions, and that poses a threat to underground aquifers that supply drinking water."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"A yes vote next week on County Proposition 1 would be a vote to protect the water supply."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Proposition 1 would add no new taxes."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Instead, for the next decade, one-quarter of a cent of Suffolk's present 7.5 cent sales tax would be dedicated to preserving drinking water quality."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"The quarter-cent would yield about $570 million over a 10-year period."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Of that sum, $300 million would be used to buy and preserve thousands of acres of open space to insure that adequate rainfall reaches the aquifers."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The proposition would permit the county to sell bonds now to expedite the proposed land purchases."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The plan would also provide $100 million to help Suffolk towns close and cap landfills by the 1990 deadline imposed by New York State."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Remaining funds would go to clean up toxic waste sites and to establish a special unit in the County Attorney's office to prosecute polluters."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"The reason for supporting this sensible proposal is as clear, and vital, as the water that flows out of the tap."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Gentrification, a New England woman complains, is not exactly the word for what's happening to her town."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Cute is more like it."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"It's a place, she reports, with a couple of fish and chip joints and a pork pie emporium, but without a five and ten, bookstore or gifte shoppe."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"If one goes to the town center, it is to buy a magazine, get one's watch fixed or stock up on aspirin."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"To the natives, such a trip has always been called ''going uptown'' or ''going downtown.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"In the last few years, however, the town has acquired a few condos on land that used to be dairy farms."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"With them it has acquired a fair number of well-off retirees, young couples with private incomes and the occasional writer."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"When they head for the newsstand or the drugstore, these people aren't doing anything so prosaic as going uptown or downtown."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"No; what they say is they're ''going to the village.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Even as awareness grows of the health risks associated with fatty, high-calorie foods, most Americans still exceed recommended dietary levels for saturated fat and cholesterol."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"So concludes a new report prepared by the National Academy of Sciences, which goes on to endorse more explicit food labeling."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Common label terms like ''lean'' and ''light'' are potentially misleading, the report notes."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"''Extra lite'' doesn't guarantee reduced calories."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Under lax Federal rules, the term may simply refer to a product's color, flavor or texture."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"''Lean'' frozen dinners may use meat and other ingredients that still contain plenty of fat."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The report also points out that processed-food labels need not specify when foods contain palm, palm kernel and coconut oils, all high in saturated fats."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Disclosure of a product's saturated fat content is purely voluntary."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"So authoritative a complaint makes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's resistance to more explicit labeling, a bow to food producers, seem all the more unacceptable."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"The Friends of Harvey Mudd College may have already nailed down the prize for unappetizing meal of the year."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The Southern California school recently staged a fund-raising dinner featuring Robert Ballard, leader of the expedition that found the remains of the ''unsinkable'' Titanic three years ago."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Naturally, he had a few disparaging words to say about plundering of the relics, but apparently he kept a discreet silence about the food."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Appropriately, Harvey Mudd's ''friends'' held their dinner on another great liner, the Queen Mary, now a floating hotel moored permanently at Long Beach."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The menu included cream of barley soup, filet mignon and chocolate and vanilla eclairs."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"By no coincidence, each course had been on the menu in the Titanic's first class dining saloon on the fateful night of April 14, 1912."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The carcass of a 40-ton whale, recently washed ashore at East Hampton, L.I., provided a meal for every shark within miles."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"It also provided a meal of sorts for sightseers, who came in droves to exclaim and shiver."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The jump in the tourist trade more than made up for what it cost the town to keep people out of the water and to get the deceased off the beach."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Burying a 40-ton whale is no cinch."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"A few days later, a man dining on Manhattan's Upper East Side was the victim of a restaurant rubout, a manner of murder that is distinctly, if not uniquely, New York."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Did so unsavory an event hurt Bravo Sergio's business?"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"No more than a sharks' feast kept tourists off the sands of East Hampton."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"The restaurant's business is booming, and for the same reason: the public's insatiable appetite for the macabre."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Ah, the ease of grocery shopping in a small town or suburb: the aisles where one cart can pass another just as the stock boy unloads a huge stack of boxes, and no one bonks into anything ..."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"the wide-open parking lots that make it possible to haul groceries home by car."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"City dwellers returning from a weekend trip load up with disposable diapers, boxes of detergent, giant paper towel rolls -- all that's too bulky to lug home in little plastic sacks."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"They weigh their cars down with pineapple and tomato juice, six-packs of beer, cleaning supplies -- all that's so heavy it makes the little plastic sacks cut into your hands."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But hold on, thinks just such a shopper who returned from a recent weekend."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Urban marketing also has its delights."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"What suburb would offer a choice of bakeries on the way home from work, one with crusty whole-wheat baguettes and another with buttery ruggellach?"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Where among parking lots and wide aisles is a fishmonger who always has fresh flounder filets or will tell you when she doesn't?"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Or a deli where the Danish blue will be just right?"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Or a Greenmarket offering golden bosc pears, inviting one to splurge for the shelled peas too, and maybe even a bunch of tulips?"}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Shopping in the country is easy on the body; city shopping is kinder to the soul."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Who says state lotteries are harmless fun?"}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"There's evidence to the contrary in a sobering new study by Charles Clotfelder and Phillip Cook, analysts working with the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Lotteries are a boom industry, they report."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Betting has quadrupled since 1975, reaching $88 per person, or more than $20 billion nationwide."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"On average, about 40 percent of the money goes to government."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"It's hard to imagine a more regressive tax."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"In California, say the researchers, people who earn less than $10,000 a year spend an average of 1.4 percent of their incomes on lottery tickets."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Those with incomes above $50,000 bet only 0.1 percent."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"The rich get richer and the poor pay to dream about it."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A New Yorker driving to the Poconos crossed the Delaware Water Gap toll bridge, giving the toll taker a $1 bill for a 50-cent toll."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Only as he drove off did he notice that one of the quarters he'd received in change was Canadian."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"As he approached the bridge on his return trip the following day, he worried that the Canadian coin might not work in the exact change machine."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Rather than accepting the loss of 25 cents, he decided to give back the foreign coin."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"To his surprise, it was accepted without protest."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Why wasn't the toll taker more concerned?"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Obviously because he planned to give the Canadian quarter to the next person who needed change."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The driver, a sometime student of international currency flows, worried all the way to Parsippany over how much such a circulating coin - or coins - was costing the Delaware Bridge Authority."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"He reasoned that there must be hundreds dropping in and out of toll collectors' hands."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The answer, he finally decided, is nothing - but he still isn't sure."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"The Japanese Government, good to its word, sent the World Bank a check for $7,706,000 last week in final payment on a highway loan."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Japan?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Borrowing?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"To build roads?"}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Yes."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Back in the 1950's and 1960's, when Japan was hardly an economic powerhouse, it borrowed $863 million from the bank for projects to rebuild its economy."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Among 31 projects the bank helped finance were a company named Toyota and the celebrated bullet train between Tokyo and Osaka."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The loan paid off last week, two days early, was for $75 million in 1965 to build a section of expressway between Tokyo and Nagoya."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"J. Burke Knapp, retired chairman of the bank's loan committee, recalls that when the earliest loans were made, the bank wasn't sure it would ever see the money again."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Japan ''was in an almost primitive condition,'' he says."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"How times have changed."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"In the 1970's, the bank started borrowing from Japan."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The new Federal budget hasn't been printed yet, but the flim-flam has already begun."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law requires that the deficit be cut to $136 billion in fiscal 1989, which starts Oct. 1."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"President Reagan next week will propose spending cuts of $10 billion."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the need at $40 billion of spending cuts or tax increases, or both."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The Administration makes rosier assumptions about the economy."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"So, must Congress cut the deficit by $10 billion or $40 billion?"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"By law, the Administration finally determines whether the target has been met, so inevitably its estimates prevail."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But Congress could go with its own experts' gloomier numbers."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Don't bet on it."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The Democrats who control Congress and want to win the White House in November apparently prefer the easier course."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"While blasting away at seven years of reckless Reagan deficits, they talk of accepting the President's modest target for 1989 deficit reduction, not the harder target their own Budget Office estimates."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Never mind the contradiction; this is an election year."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Vanilla plants grow mainly in Madagascar and are not cheap."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Thus scientists in California are trying to cultivate the essence of vanilla in a laboratory, using living cells taken from the plant."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Chocolate without the cocoa plant, orange juice without trees and morphine without the poppy are all contemplated in the race to develop cell culture technology."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The search for rare substances that add flavor and color to life also propelled Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan across vast, mysterious oceans."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The prizes then were silk and precious stones from China, pepper and cinnamon from the fabled Spice Islands."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Today's explorers are scientists whose search is confined mostly to quiet laboratories, where they fill test tubes instead of cargo holds and scan computer screens, not watery blue horizons."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"Yet their realm remains vast and exciting, limited only by the bounds of human imagination."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"Once in a while something comes along that makes one feel lucky to be alive at the end of the 20th century."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"This month's something is the artificial truffle."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"To most Americans the word ''truffle'' refers to the black specks in a tin of pate."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Too small to add flavor, they add only price."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"At that size, truly, they're a waste of time."}
{"sentiment":2.05,"text":"But give a cook a truffle as big as a quarter and you'll get back paradise on a plate."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Trouble is, black truffles, which are found only near oak trees in two sections of France, often cost up to $1,000 a pound."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Now two former University of California professors, Moishe Shifrine and Randy Dorian, have copied the truffle in a laboratory, in all its scented glory."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"They're not telling how, and a patent is pending on the process."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The artificial truffles are incorporated into various truffle products that sell for $10 to $20 each."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"If the truffle becomes commonplace, will it lose its cachet?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Judging by what's happened to the kiwi and lobster ravioli, yes."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Honey, here's the deal."}
{"sentiment":2.15,"text":"1. I swear to cherish you till death do us part."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Or at least until the marriage is no longer working out."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"2. During the life of this nuptial agreement, I'll brag to the world about your achievements as a world-class skier, your qualities as a mother and your business acumen."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"And in fact, until the marriage is no longer working out, we will share a lot of business decisions."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"3. If, however, for any reason the marriage is no longer working out, I reserve the right to have paid spokesmen disparage your business and other abilities."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"I might even choose to call you arrogant."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"4. And if for any reason the marriage is no longer working out, even after many years and many millions of earnings, we'll stick strictly to this contract."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"5. This contract shall constitute the entire agreement between the parties, and no oral understanding not in writing shall be binding."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Yours, at least for as long as the marriage is working out, Don"}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"A New York man who makes a habit of picking up coins on the street returned from a visit to Cambridge, Mass., to report that Harvard Square is paved with silver."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"In New York, he's used to finding pennies."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"But in just two days at a Harvard reunion, he netted four dimes."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"There are ready explanations for all those pennies."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Often it takes a practiced eye to distinguish tarnished copper on a gray pavement."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"And they are worth so little that even beggars ignore them."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The man recently spotted a penny a few feet from a street person who hadn't deigned to pick it up."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But how does one account for the Cambridge dimes?"}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Are Harvard students so well off that dimes are as trifling to them as pennies to New York's destitute?"}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"The sidewalk numismatist has no answer, but concludes that time spent at Harvard is still an enriching experience."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"New York drivers, like those almost everywhere, inch impatiently forward while waiting for a traffic light to change."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"But only in New York City do pedestrians seem afflicted with the same disease."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"One recent morning, waiting for a light to change, a close observer of street behavior found that on all four corners in view, nobody was standing on the sidewalk."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Everybody was several paces into a dash across the street."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Big-league base runners, he thought, take a lead off first with a tentative side stride, remaining poised for a swift leap back."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Not New York pedestrians."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"They are likely to stand stoutly, about three feet into the gutter."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Call it the New York Advantage."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It used to be relatively safe, though it made drivers edgy."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Nowadays, with cyclists racing up the narrow trail between parked cars and moving traffic, to take the New York Advantage is to take one's toes, if not one's life, in one's hands."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Obituaries dutifully describe the obvious and the copious about Clare Boothe Luce."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Almost till her death at age 84, she starred as a playwright, politician and diplomat."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"What doesn't get into print, indeed what eludes print, is how she was able to disarm those she well knew were disposed to dislike her, especially males determined not to be taken in by a woman they believed to be too smart and ambitious to be up to any good."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"A friend recalls an encounter with her at a party in London, not long after her husband's Time magazine had proclaimed the city to be the world's swinging capital."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"In a sea of miniskirts, Mrs. Luce was conservatively dressed; though she was past her middle years, there seemed nobody younger in the flashy crowd."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Then unexpectedly, our friend reports, he found himself seated next to Mrs. Luce, whose eyes turned full upon him."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"''And you know what her secret was?'' he recalled."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"''She would ask a question, and, wonder of wonders in that buzzing swarm, she listened."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Then she would ask another question and do the same."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"She gave what was most unlikely: her ear.''"}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"To the Editor: A Jan. 9 letter writer suggests that part of the $12 million settlement for the inmates beaten and tortured in the 1971 Attica prison uprising go to the victims of the crimes that caused the prisoners to be jailed in the first place."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"To the Editor: A Jan. 9 letter writer suggests that part of the $12 million settlement for the inmates beaten and tortured in the 1971 Attica prison uprising go to the victims of the crimes that caused the prisoners to be jailed in the first place."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"I am puzzled by this proposal."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Tort law seeks to provide reimbursement to members of society who suffer losses because of the dangerous or unreasonable conduct of others."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"I fail to see how the crime victims were affected at all by state officials' actions at Attica."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The Attica inmates were sentenced to incarceration, not assault and battery, for their crimes against society."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"If they are now out of prison, their debt to society and to their victims has already been paid."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Giving a part of the settlement fund to the crime victims of the inmates would confound public policy by unjustly enriching people who suffered no harm at Attica."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"RICHARD GRAYSON Davie, Fla., Jan. 9, 2000"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Serphin Maltese, the newly elected State Senator from Queens, sets a positive example for other New York politicians: he has resigned as chairman of the state's Conservative Party."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Mr. Maltese, who won a tightly contested race last month on the Republican-Conservative ines, saw correctly the conflict in trying to serve both the public interest and partisan goals."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The move also raises questions about other elected officials who cling to roles as party leaders."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"For officeholders to moonlight in time-consuming party postions cheats voters and even creates an opportunity for financial abuse of the sort revealed in the city's recent corruption scandals."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Yet Assemblyman Herman Farrell of Manhattan, Assemblyman George Friedman of the Bronx, Representative Thomas Manton of Queens and Borough President Howard Golden of Brooklyn all continue to serve as Democratic Party leaders."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Like Mr. Maltese, they have a duty to decide which hat they prefer."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Six years ago, New York City won work rule changes permitting the Sanitation Department to use collection trucks with two workers instead of three."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"The conversion, now complete, has produced gratifying gains in productivity and efficiency - warranting apples all around for the department's managers and workers."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"In exchange for the freedom to use smaller crews, the city agreed to share savings with the workers in the form of incentive payments."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"As a result, collection jobs, once thought undesirable, are now highly sought after."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Yet the city still saves $37 million a year."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"The productivity figures are impressive."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"During 1986, the first year of all two-person crews, 2,620 workers collected 3.5 million tons of garbage."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"In 1983, it took 2,900 workers to collect 3.3 million tons."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"The quality and reliability of service also improved."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Only about 2 percent of loads go uncollected during a normal week, compared with more than 5 percent in 1983."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Larger collection trucks have also helped."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"The new trucks allow workers to stay out longer on collection routes, cutting down on trips to the city dumps."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Most are equipped with low-entry cabs that save time and steps for drivers who now double as collectors."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The two-person crews bear witness to the value of reforming work rules fairly."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"What a benign bargain when management, workers and the public all come out ahead."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"New York City jurors receive $12 a day, while Nassau County residents get only $7."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"In Rockland County, the per diem is $6."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Legislation pending in Albany would set a uniform jury fee statewide and increase compensation to a more presentable $15."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"When Albany took over the costs of running New York's vast court system a decade ago, it simply adopted the existing jury pay rates, with all their local variation."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"State Senator John Dunne, Republican of Nassau County, and Assemblyman G. Oliver Koppell, Democrat of the Bronx, have sponsored a bill to set a uniform fee of $15."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The bill's future, however, is jeopardized by disagreement over Mr. Dunne's additional provision to extend the time between jury calls from two to four years."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The idea would be to encourage broader participation - a worthy goal, but one that could create a practical crisis for New York City, where the courts already have trouble drumming up enough jurors."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"In any case, the issue ought to be considered apart from the fee."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Clearly, the state can't afford to compensate citizens fully for their jury time."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"But existing low and varying rates are an insult."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"A uniform rate of $15, still only half the $30 a day paid by Federal courts, would be a welcome gesture in the right direction."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Two women were talking pregnancy, and one recalled her visit to Paris 26 years ago while seven months pregnant with her second child."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"She remembered signs saying you should give up your subway seat to ''blesses de guerre.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"She doesn't remember a comparable sign for pregnant women; nonetheless, she was always treated as a blesse."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"In stores like Galeries Lafayette she was waited on first -no matter how many people were ahead of her."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Paris in the 60's is a long way from New York in the 80's, in the experience of the other woman, now in her eighth month."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"One New York sales clerk volunteered to carry a bulky package to her car, but she has noticed no other special favors in shops or restaurants."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"New Yorkers may smile benignly at her bulging tummy."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"''But when that tummy stands between them and a cab, or a seat on the bus, watch out: they'll knock you down to grab it first.''"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"She has begun to fight back."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"After yet another man elbowed her aside for a cab, she decided to try assertive lying."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"''I need to get to the hospital,'' she exclaimed as she caught up to the taxi thief."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"The man not only yielded the cab, he held the door for her."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"''He probably thought,'' she remarked, ''that he was being a gentleman.''"}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"The latest in telephone technology aims at efficiency."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Instead of hearing the familiar ''please hold,'' callers to some ticket services, government agencies and businesses are greeted by robots that surmise their interests, then tell how to route the call using a touch-tone phone."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Land in the hands of the wrong party, and you have only yourself to blame."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Many callers no doubt prefer such interaction to being left alone on hold."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Others, however, may miss those minutes spent licking stamps, pruning address books and chaining paper clips."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Their option?"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Refuse to press."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Eventually a human operator comes on the line, and puts the caller on hold."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The Times reported recently on a new disposable $2 fountain pen that writes for 3,000 feet before the non-smudging ink runs dry."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"How many signatures, the writer wondered, could be written with 3,000 feet of ink?"}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The answer, writes Richard G. Hawn, a good-natured engineer from Erie, Pa., is 4,478, at least if your name is Richard G. Hawn."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Mr. Hawn says his signature, straightened out, measures about eight inches, and he calculates that to hold that many signatures would take 59 sheets, 76 signatures per sheet, at a cost of 3.4 cents per sheet, not counting the paper."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"That comes out to about 22 signatures per penny."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Despite all his care, Mr. Hawn's calculations might be described as penultimate for he omits variables concerning signatures: by whom, and on what."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Abraham Lincoln's autograph now fetches about $1,000 and Marilyn Monroe's about $800."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Think what 4,478 of those would add up to."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"One George Bush signature is worth $30 and one Ronald Reagan is worth $35, usually."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The one he inscribed Friday on the Anti-Drug Act of 1988 is worth $500 million."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"It actually calls for $1.4 billion a year in spending."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"But that figure ignores the Federal deficit and Congressional spending limits."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Any one of Mr. Hawn's 4,478 signatures is more valuable; the hyperbolic $1.4 billion figure is not worth the paper it's written on."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Vice President George Bush is constantly asked to demonstrate how he is independent of President Reagan."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"When the question came up again in the Republican candidates' debate in Houston last Wednesday, his answer pro-duced both an exclamation mark and a question mark."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"He was not about to sacrifice loyalty to the President for the sake of independence, he said."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"''In my family, loyalty is a strength, not a character defect.''"}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"That produced a burst of applause from the Houston audience and favorable comment from television watchers else-where."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Then came the question mark."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Mr. Bush described several initiatives ''where you might say there is a difference'' - proposals for reducing capital gains taxes, for education savings bonds and for ''a North American Accord to include Mexico as well as Canada in free trade.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"A difference?"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Ronald Reagan opened his campaign for the Presidency on Nov. 13, 1979."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Here is the headline that appeared over The New York Times's story the next day: ''Reagan, Entering Presidency Race, Calls for North American 'Accord.'''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"However many candy bars or trinkets they pick up on the way out of a foreign country, most travelers still wind up with a handful of pesos, kopeks or francs."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"They are usually thrown away or turned into unplanned coin collections."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The United Nations Children's Fund has a better idea."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"It wants to turn the loose foreign change into its biggest moneymaker."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Virgin Atlantic Airways, a tiny upstart, has launched the project that could make it happen."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"On Virgin flights between London and New York, passengers are invited to contribute the unwanted money in Unicef envelopes available in the flight magazine."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Virgin collected $975 in one week from a test run on New York-London flights."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"It calculates that expanded collections could yield some $500,000 for Unicef in the project's first year."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Unicef knows how to put such money to good use: a dime buys a packet of oral rehydration salts that can save the life of a child suffering from diarrhea, and $5 buys a complete immunization program."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"So simple and useful a program ought not to remain a small-scale experiment."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Now it's the major carriers' turn to respond."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Children learn of life's cruelties at an early age."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"By kindergarten, most have seen the ice cream topple from the cone, the dime disappear through the grate, the balloon tangle itself in the treetop."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"But few have been disillusioned as brutally as Shannon Burns, age 10, of San Jose, Calif."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The I.R.S. seized the $694 in her savings account."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Shannon's father, Kevin, owes the I.R.S. more than $1,000, and his Social Security number is on her account."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"If Mr. Burns could prove that he had never withdrawn any money from it - and he said he could - the I.R.S. would return Shannon's savings, with an apology."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Meanwhile, Shannon was stamping her foot."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"''They took it; the I.R.S. took my money."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"I got it from collecting cans, from doing my homework."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"I got it for Christmas."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"I got some from my dad and some from my grandmother and some from my great-grandparents.''"}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Since then, Mr. Burns has indeed proved that the money was Shannon's and it's been returned."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"In the process, she may have learned a lifetime lesson: Fight City Hall."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Fifty years ago, France began producing the Deux Chevaux, a car that looked like a tin can masquerading as a frog, designed to ''carry two people and 100 pounds of potatoes at a top speed of 40 miles an hour,'' according to the executive who commissioned it."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"As time went on, the car developed another virtue as well: It became the moviegoer's first assurance that a movie truly came from Paris."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"If a Deux Chevaux came driving down the broad boulevards under the chestnut trees, Jean-Paul Belmondo and some charm-ing gamine were bound to appear shortly there-after."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"For the traveler, the Deux Chevaux was a far-flung reminder that France had been there first."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Along with omelettes and frites on the menu in Bamako or in Saigon, there was the little car on the streets."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The hard-working Deux Chevaux was also ubiquitous through provincial France."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The paysan might wear a beret or a flat-billed cap, his cheese might be Cantal or Camembert; his car was a trusty Deux Chevaux."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"But now the slow, humble car no longer appeals to an increasingly prosperous country."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The Deux Chevaux factory in the Paris suburbs has closed."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The car will continue to be produced only in one remaining plant, in Portugal."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"On celluloid, however, the Deux Chevaux will continue to say ''France'' for a long time to come."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Just imagine what Mikhail Gorbachev's predecessors would have made of the stock market fall."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"Capitalism's rottenness is now painfully obvious, they would have proclaimed."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Yet, as the world's Marxist-Leninists gathered in Moscow to commemorate the revolution that brought them to power 70 years ago, no such ideas were put forward."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Mr. Gorbachev did speak of the crash at some length in his speech opening the anniversary celebration."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But it was to underline his own agenda and call upon the West to follow a similar one: reducing international hostility so as to direct scarce resources away from military use."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"More interesting than Mr. Gorbachev's analysis is that he saw the West's dilemma as his own."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"With Communists across the world straining to adopt aspects of the free market system, gloating over capitalism's strains would not have been helpful."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The West gets most of its clues about Soviet ''new thinking'' when Mr. Gorbachev says something a predecessor wouldn't have dared say."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"His failure to say something they surely would have said is just as eloquent."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The phrase ''de rigueur'' no longer applies to clothing styles - that's clear to anyone watching the eclectic parade on any city street corner, at any downtown movie house, at any urban cocktail party."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"But in a small town in southern New England, the tyranny of fashion remains alive and well."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"A New Yorker found herself in such a town during last week's blizzard - and without the requisite wardrobe."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Eager to see the snowfall's aftermath, she rigged herself a kind of foul-weather gear composed of a safety-pinned beige shearling jacket, a black cotton jersey skirt, her aunt's plaid knee socks and her own white Adidas sneakers."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"''You can't go out like that,'' her mother cried as she started to leave the house."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"''Why not?'' the New Yorker asked."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"''Because,'' replied her mother, the soul of sweet reason, ''nobody wears white shoes after Labor Day.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Noel D Sturtz letter disputes September 15 Science Times article on lead exposure to infants through breast milk (S) To the Editor: A Sept. 15 Science Times item on lead exposure in infants through breast milk says ''high lead levels in the blood of infants and children can result in brain damage, behavioral problems and liver and kidney disorders.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"In fact, relatively low doses are linked to deleterious effects."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"To the Editor: A Sept. 15 Science Times item on lead exposure in infants through breast milk says ''high lead levels in the blood of infants and children can result in brain damage, behavioral problems and liver and kidney disorders.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"In fact, relatively low doses are linked to deleterious effects."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"As early as 1943 psychological deficits were attributed to lead doses otherwise insufficient to cause clinical encephalopathy."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"These studies were confirmed by Dr. Herbert L. Needleman in the 1970's, who correlated childhood lead exposure to school performance, reading ability, attention span, classroom behavior and lower mean verbal I.Q. scores."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Other investigators have pointed to umbilical-cord blood lead levels as a portent for diminished intelligence."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Owing to these impairments and a developing nervous system, many experts argue that there is not yet any blood lead level safe for infants and children."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The resumption of the World Series tonight in Candlestick Park is one sign that normalcy is returning to the San Francisco Bay Area."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"For many, the damage of the deadly quake cannot be repaired; yet most are beginning to pick up the pieces and, slowly, rebuild."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"One consequence of last week's violent jolt is that longstanding misconceptions about northern Californians crumbled."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Americans have long poked fun at the area's embrace of communal living, New Age thinking and the touchy-feely human potential movement."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Two weeks ago the Series was described by some writers as the ''Battle of the Bay'' and by others - derisively - as a ''love fest.''"}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"But when the quake hit, the caring values that lure so many to the region proved their worth."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"In San Francisco, neighborhood organizations were already in place to provide immediate help."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"In working- class Oakland, volunteers rushed forward bravely to rescue strangers trapped under trembling concrete."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The grief of Santa Cruz residents when their handcrafted town collapsed revealed a respect for tradition in a community famous for its unconventional ways."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"Northern California is a place of singular beauty -and singular selflessness."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Whoever wins the Series, the world now knows that all who live there are indeed lucky in love."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"A poker straight is a hand of five consecutive numbers."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Yesterday, the clock and calendar brought a date straight."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The day started as a four-digit run, 6/7/89."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Then people realized what would arrive at 23 minutes and 45 seconds after 1: a moment that could accurately be rendered as 1:23:45/6/7/89."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The moment came and went in a second (two seconds, actually, for those awake at 1:23:45 in the morning)."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But only cold-blooded rationalists would dismiss it as trivial coincidence."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"They forget how many people act on hunches, horoscopes and dream books."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"They ignore humans' disposition to under-notice small coincidences and over-notice big ones."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Remember all the fuss last August over the simple repetition of figures on 8/8/88?"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"These may be irrationalities but they have consequences."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Consider what happened yesterday in the New York Lottery."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"So many people bet on 6789 in the daily Win 4 game that the number was cut off at 8 A.M."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"If there were any justice in the world, 6789 would have won, yielding $5,000 for a $1 bet."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"That's enough to fly away on vacation."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Ideally, aboard a Lockheed L-1011."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Texas's already battered pride suffered a sharp new blow last year when word circulated that Japanese investors might be interested in buying the troubled Dallas Cowboys football team."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Not only was there no billionaire Texan available to rescue this Texas institution, but ''America's Team'' - as the Cowboys styled themselves during the 1970's - was actually in danger of passing into the control of foreigners."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"A Japanese takeover never happened, but Texas pride may have suffered an even crueler reverse."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The Cowboys have been bought by an Arkansan."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Jerry Jones, an oilman, plunked down an estimated $140 million for the team on Saturday."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Almost immediately he flew to Austin and informed Tom Landry, the Cowboys' only coach in their 29-year existence, that his services were no longer needed."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Then he hired Jimmy Johnson, his onetime college teammate from the University of Arkansas, away from the University of Miami to serve as Mr. Landry's successor."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The Cowboys, Mr. Jones made clear, were now his team."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Thanks mainly to the prolonged woes of its oil industry, Texas has taken its lumps over the last decade."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But the Arkansas takeover of the Cowboys may be the toughest of all."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It's not that Texans have thought of Arkansans with contempt."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"It's that, for the most part, they simply haven't thought of them at all."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But that's just one more luxury Texas can no longer afford."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"As any theatergoer knows, wristwatches have been beeping for several years now."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Doctors, business executives and messengers also beep without warning."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Now a California company has introduced a wallet that beeps when credit cards aren't returned to their proper place in it."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"''You'll never leave your credit cards behind again,'' says the brochure for the $22.50 device."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"A light sensor implanted in the wallet causes it to beep if the wallet is returned to its owner's pocket without the credit card in its place."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Will the idea catch on?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A few years ago, ''un-losable'' key chains that beep in response to a whistle seemed inevitable."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Yet some who owned them quickly tired of their propensity to beep when not lost at all."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The real breakthrough for credit cards would be a beeper that sounds off when the balance gets too high."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"RICO, the 1970 Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations law, gave organized crime's victims a way to sue for civil redress."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The idea was to motivate an army of victims to bring individual lawsuits, with the promise of triple damages."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The law has turned out to work better for people with complaints about consumer and conventional business fraud."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"That has prompted businesses to lobby Congress for relief."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"These ''reformers'' would reduce most damage awards to actual money losses, carve out new exemptions for securities and commodities frauds and make these changes retroactive, invalidating suits now in the courts."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The existing RICO law doesn't lack problems."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A useful cosmetic fix would remove the ''racketeering'' label from litigation not based on mob-type violence."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Courts are already limiting the law by making it harder to base Federal RICO suits on a few illegal acts rather than a genuine pattern of illegality."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But there's no need for more drastic change."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Reducing damages would reduce deterrence."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"It makes no sense to exempt commodities and securities frauds when these seem rampant."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Above all, retroactive relief is unfair."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"By going along with it, Congress would turn itself into a partial substitute for impartial courts."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"To hold a diverse Arab world collectively responsible for a single leader's misdeeds traduces an entire people."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"American Jews have reason to be particularly sensitive about demonizing a Semitic people."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"In unthinking caricature, Arabs are portrayed either as demented terrorists or greedy oil sheiks."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"This is a variation of the hateful depiction of Jews as rapacious bankers or sinister revolutionaries."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Anti-Semitism is anti-Semitism in both forms."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"In previous conflicts, America's defense of lofty principles has been shamed by intolerance at home."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"During World War I, bash-the-Hun hysteria reached absurd extremes as sauerkraut was renamed ''liberty cabbage'' and native dissenters like Eugene Debs were sent to jail."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Intolerance took a different turn in World War II when American citizens were confined in detention camps because of their Japanese origin."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"President Bush would speak for a wiser country by making plain that those who torment and defame Arab-Americans disgrace all Americans."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Scenes from a stroll along the Fifth Avenue side of Central Park: Near 87th, stretched out on a bench, a ragged black man lay snoring."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"A thin white man, also ragged, watched him from behind a tree - with who-knows-what in mind."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Then he realized that he was being watched and bolted down the street."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Near 85th, a short man in a plaid shirt shouted, ''You're the problem; you're the enemy.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Then, as he drew closer, he said: ''Don't mind me. I'm crazy.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Near 84th, a woman wearing a coat despite the heat held out a paper cup and croaked, ''Quarter for lunch? Quarter for lunch?''"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Near 79th, sprawled awkwardly on the pavement against the park wall sat a frail older woman in a white linen suit with a Saks shopping bag."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Had she fallen and hurt herself?"}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The instinct was to help."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"But something seemed wrong."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The suit, though obviously expensive, was quite soiled. The bag was worn."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"And her eyes stared vacantly as she picked and picked at a thread on her jacket."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Official policy is to provide such people community-based treatment rather than keep them in state mental hospitals."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"Yet there is all too little assistance actually available, leaving such unfortunate citizens only a choice of mass temporary shelters and the street."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Plants bring color, usually green, into a room."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"They bring companionship, as anyone can attest who has ever asked a begonia if she'd like another drink of water."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"And, according to an article in The Times, some bring cleaner air as well."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Chrysanthemums, for instance, have been found by National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists to be ''superior'' at removing benzene from indoor air."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Philodendrons are pretty good at it too, and easier to grow indoors."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"The spider plant, another easy grower, takes in carbon monoxide."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Several others can reduce formaldehyde and nitrous oxide."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"NASA plans to keep on studying house plants, and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America is planning to study with them."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"And if health plants aren't as fashionable in the 90's as health foods were in the 70's, we'll eat our ficus."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"December comes in with some mixed extended weather forecasts."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Scientists making new studies of ancient minerals believe that the earth's next Ice Age, which has been scheduled to deep-freeze much of the North within a few centuries, may not come for another 10,000 years."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Scientists studying tree rings, another reliable recorder of climate changes, are finding no signs yet of the imminently predicted greenhouse effect, which could disastrously warm up the earth."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"December comes in with some mixed extended weather forecasts."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Scientists making new studies of ancient minerals believe that the earth's next Ice Age, which has been scheduled to deep-freeze much of the North within a few centuries, may not come for another 10,000 years."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Scientists studying tree rings, another reliable recorder of climate changes, are finding no signs yet of the imminently predicted greenhouse effect, which could disastrously warm up the earth."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"That's fine for the long-range future and posterity."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But what about right now -- and short-range us?"}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Don't expect much."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The days are at their shortest, the sun at its lowest, the calendar on its last page and our own annual ice age is upon us."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Chilly air, gusty winds, snow and sleet lie in our future."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"Violence that begins inside New York City's schools often continues after the bell rings, making the subways increasingly unsafe during after-school hours."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Now relief may be in sight for law-abiding students who simply want safe passage."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The Transit Authority has agreed to a pilot project that would set aside patrolled subway cars for students before and after school."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The idea was first advanced by Principals for Safe Passage, a group of high school officials."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The issue goes beyond student safety and touches the quality of life for all New Yorkers."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Subway graffiti may have been largely eliminated, for example, but the Transit Authority spends $250,000 each month to fix 4,000 scratched or broken windows in subway cars."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Transit and Board of Education officials will meet next week to iron out details of the experiment, which will begin on D trains."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Among the issues are whether Transit Authority police or school security guards will patrol the cars and how many hours the cars will be reserved for students."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"In any case, the idea is sound."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Learning cannot flourish in an atmosphere of fear."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"To the Editor: Edward Gordon (letter, June 12) is surely correct that schoolchildren should be required to use seat belts on school buses equipped with them."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Enforced seat-belt use will develop excellent riding habits."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"State government is trying to help."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"New York mandates that new school buses sold in our state after July 1, 1987, have seat belts as standard equipment."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Unfortunately, New York's school bus safety laws place the cart before the horse."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"It is difficult to mandate school bus seat-belt use when the law does not require seats for every student riding the bus."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"As chief Assembly sponsor of legislation to phase out school bus standees, I will press again this year to add New York to the list of 40 states that ban this unsafe practice."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The Assembly has viewed the elimination of school bus standees as a critical transportation safety issue."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But the Senate continues to encumber its bill with language to provide millions of dollars in new transportation aid for students who are safely seated, perhaps even belted."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Our inability to provide additional aid should not preclude standee elimination, but that is what the Senate is doing."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"School bus safety is thus not taking a back seat in New York; it isn't getting a seat at all."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"In addition to opening new academic horizons, college also often marks the beginning of political awareness."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"The City University of New York would combine the two: when students register for classes this fall, they will also be encouraged to register to vote."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The idea originated with the Student Senate representing CUNY's 20 campuses."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"This week CUNY's board of trustees unanimously voted to encourage all students ''to participate in the electoral process, in accordance with the fundamental democratic principles of our society.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"By June 30, each campus will announce a nonpartisan plan to sign up voters among CUNY's 253,000 students."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The policy conveys healthy wisdom: knowledge may be power, but so is the vote."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"The tiny semipalmated sandpiper that set a long-distance speed record with its four-day flight from Plymouth, Mass., to South America didn't survive to celebrate."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"It was shot by a hunter in Guyana."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Alas, the beach in Plymouth is not much more hospitable."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The sandpiper's record was reported recently by the Manomet Bird Observatory near Plymouth."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"A year ago, the observatory banded the bird on Plymouth's beach, a place where many shorebirds fatten up on abundant clams and worms for the 2,800-mile hop to South America."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The problem is that they make their stop at the height of the beach buggy season."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Brian Harrington, a Manomet biologist who has tracked the migration for 17 years, proposed that Plymouth prohibit beach buggies - fat-tired vehicles that bomb around sandy scenery - on a small section of beach at migration time."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The Board of Selectmen, bowing to the beach-buggy crowd, said no."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Then an international group asked that the beach be designated as a link in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"That would have no legal force but would at least provide some moral support for the birds."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Again the selectmen said no."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"On the beach that provided refuge for pilgrim colonists, buggies remain free to scare off birds who seek the same."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Civil Court judges are elected by the voters."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"But the notion of genuine choice is a myth."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Few of this year's vacancies are seriously contested in the all but decisive Democratic primaries."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"And most voters have no idea who the candidates are, much less their qualifications."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"In practice, political party leaders wield far more influence than voters."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"They largely control the process of petitioning by which candidates get on the ballot and arrange political alliances with other candidates to forge slates."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The system all but forces future judges to cozy up to political leaders."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"That's unseemly but easily remedied."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"In a more sensible system, Civil Court, indeed all state judges, would be appointed by the executive branch after receiving nominations from a merit-selection panel."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Make no mistake, the stakes for the judicial system are high."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Civil Court judges serve 10-year terms and are supposed to preside over lawsuits involving $25,000 or less."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"But about 80 percent of all Civil Court judges are now reassigned to relieve pressure on the city's criminal courts."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Why not merge all the courts into a unified system?"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"To be sure, capable judges emerge even from this faulty process."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"But that hardly excuses perpetuating a system that so ill serves the public."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Congress, no tiger on controlling access to real guns, now appears equally timid about curbing realistic toy look-alikes, a growing law enforcement problem."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Last year, New York City police confiscated 1,416 toy guns in criminal incidents, a remarkable increase of 80 percent since 1983."}
{"sentiment":-2.1,"text":"In one recent California case, a police officer who mistook a toy revolver for the real thing shot the retarded child brandishing it."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Tough design standards could reduce the chance of a fake fooling a holdup victim, much less a police officer."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But toy manufacturers fear losing sales, and Congress has caved to their pressure."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"The weak legislation recently approved by Congress and signed into law requires only that toy guns have a bright orange plug fixed in the barrel."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The measure, sponsored by the Senate minority leader, Bob Dole, also supersedes state design rules, including stringent ones just approved by New York."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"In addition to requiring a larger barrel plug and distinctive striping, the New York law would have barred the sale of imitation weapons colored black, blue, silver or aluminum."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The new Federal law merely plays at helping law enforcement; the only thing serious going on here is special interest politics."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The Postal Service has taken heavy flak for mislabeling its new 25-cent dinosaur stamp, a drawing of a pair of dinosaurs captioned ''Brontosaurus.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Furious purists point out that the ''brontosaurus'' is now properly called ''apatosaurus.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"They accuse the stamp's authors of fostering scientific illiteracy, and want the stamps recalled."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The Postal Service, unmoved, has printed 100 million and is promoting them with T-shirts and a tie-in with the children's dinosaur movie ''The Land Before Time.''"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The purists are right, of course."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The first skeletal discoveries, in the American West in the 19th century, were called apatosaurus, from the Greek for ''deceptive lizard.''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"When the same explorer made later discoveries, he called them brontosaurus - ''thunderous lizard'' - and that's the name that became common."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"But in the 1970's, scientists determined that the two were one and the same, and in the honorable tradition of crediting the first discovery, they switched back to the first name."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"But give the Postal Service due credit."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The flak over its blunder has given ''apatosaurus'' more currency than it could ever get in a billion years of repetition in learned journals."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Senate Republicans have quietly killed legislation aimed at boosting participation in American elections."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The key provision of the so-called ''motor-voter'' bill would have required states to allow people to register when they apply for or renew a driver's license."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"That could add millions of new registrants to the voting rolls."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"A similar bill passed the House last February with strong bipartisan support."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"But late last month, all but two G.O.P."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Senators sided with the White House and Bob Dole, the Senate minority leader, to block the bill."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Some feared voting fraud; in that case, the proper remedy would have been to incorporate the House's anti-fraud provisions."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Mr. Dole also complained that the bill would usurp state authority."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"But the present patchwork of 50 different state laws has succeeded in registering only about 61 percent of all voting-age Americans."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The bill will be offered again next year."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Meanwhile, Americans are left to ask: Why do Alfonse D'Amato of New York and his Republican colleagues fear more voters?"}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"It's been a year since Zwelakhe Sisulu, a black editor, was taken from his Soweto home at 3 in the morning to prison."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Why? No one knows."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"He was one of the first people seized under emergency powers after South Africa's extraordinarily harsh press censorship system took effect."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"He's also one of the best known, because he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1985."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"But he is only one of tens of thousands who have been detained over the last year without trial."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Some are children as young as 11."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"There are also journalists, teachers, preachers, union officials."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"What they share is a wish to change apartheid."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"They have never been charged, never appeared in a court of law, never been told why they are held."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The South African Government justifies all of this under South Africa's state of emergency."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"President P. W. Botha of South Africa speaks often of his country's commitment to democratic principles and assures critics that the nation is moving in the direction of freedom."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Last Thursday was International Human Rights Day."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"For Mr. Sisulu the day marked another kind of milestone."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"He had been held unjustly in prison for a year."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Who's favored to win next week's special election in the South Bronx - an election to fill the unexpired term of State Senator Israel Ruiz Jr.?"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Until last week, the answer was Mr. Ruiz himself - despite his Federal felony conviction and subsequent ouster from the Senate."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Now, in a show of common sense, the state's top court has ruled Mr. Ruiz ineligible."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The court held that his conviction for falsifying a loan application disqualified him for the remainder of his original term."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The court nonetheless upheld the validity of Mr. Ruiz's nominating petitions."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Thus, following standard procedure, a committee chosen by Mr. Ruiz could name a replacement candidate."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The choice is Efraim Gonzalez, a former Ruiz aide now on the staff of another Bronx State Senator, Joseph Galiber."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Mr. Gonzalez has had his own legal problems."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"In 1984 he pleaded guilty to making false applications for gun permits and was fined $500."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The South Bronx deserves a senator without a criminal record, and as it happens, Mr. Gonzalez is opposed by Augustin Alamo, a schoolteacher who remains unscathed by scandal."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"In the past, Mr. Alamo has run several losing campaigns in opposition to the Bronx Democratic organization."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"This year he certainly deserves to win."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Before his spring ski vacation in Colorado, a fellow in the office romanticized about the contrast with his usual life behind a desk: from artificial light to spring sunshine; from sitting in an overheated room to gliding coatlessly in 14 inches of fresh powder."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Now he's back, not sure it's so easy to get away from it all."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"On his first day, he rode the gondola to the breathtaking summit of Aspen Mountain and stopped by the Sundeck restaurant."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"There, near the pay phones, was another breathtaking sight - a man in parka and ski boots communicating with his law office on a public fax machine."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The next day he went to a party peopled by year-round Aspen residents."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"One topic of conversation: their weekend cottages ''down the valley,'' which enable them to escape all the traffic."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"On the fourth day it snowed too hard to ski."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"What a wonderful chance to sit in front of a crackling country fire, he thought."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Wrong."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"It was a ''No Burn'' day."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A new anti-smog ordinance allows fireplaces to be used only on alternate days."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"He thought ruefully about the quiet solitude exalted by John Denver in ''Rocky Mountain High,'' about climbing cathedral mountains and seeing silver clouds below."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Not always such solitude, not always so silver."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"''Cuando Estemos Juntos'' (''When We're Together'') is sexy, suggestive and sung by a boy and a girl who look as if they have a mattress in mind."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But its message is abstinence"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"(''I don't want us to regret / Having lived an encounter./ You'll see I'm right / When I say no'') and it has been heard all over Mexico."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Not only did ''Cuando Estemos Juntos'' sell 500,000 copies last year, but it provoked a remarkable increase in phone calls and visits to family planning centers - just as its producers hoped."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The song and its follow-up, ''Detente'' (''Wait''), are the result of a $300,000 grant from the United States Agency for International Development to help curb teen-age pregnancies throughout Latin America."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Latin America, however, is hardly alone in having a teen-age pregnancy problem."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"That's why both songs are being released this month in the United States aimed specifically at the nation's Spanish-speaking community."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"The couple who sing the songs, Tatiana Palacios and Johnny Lozada, are donating their profits to Johns Hopkins University, which helped develop the project."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"''...A love that's rushed / Brings children we can't afford / Children / Without love, without anything'' is the conclusion of ''Detente.''"}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"That's good advice for adolescents north and south of the border."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"''Are you free for lunch a week from Thursday?''"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"''I don't know."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Let me check my other datebook.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The other datebook."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"It's a needless nuisance that diary publishers inflict on the world every December."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"With 1989 expiring, there's a need to make entries for early 1990."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But typically, manufacturers offer too little space."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"All they provide is the Monday closest to Jan. 1 at the beginning and a single page at the end for the entire month of January."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"That is especially inconvenient this year, which happens to end on Sunday, Dec. 31, 1989."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"That means that there is no room to write down plans for New Year's Day, 1990."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Electronic pocket organizers are one remedy; the datebooks in some reach a century in each direction."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But they are expensive, and besides, there's a simpler remedy for all the people who rely on paper books."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"All manufacturers could do what some now do: simply add a week or two at the beginning and end of each book."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"That would permit the user to turn over an unburdened new leaf."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"New York air travelers used to brandish their impatience with a perverse pride, but a native who flew out of the city recently found reason to believe they are losing their edge."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Stuck on a runway at La Guardia, she was puzzled by the docility of fellow non-travelers during the seemingly endless delay."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Passengers remained mutely acquiescent, as a long line of tailfins slowly circled like languid sharks in the shimmering heat."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"When each revised departure time elapsed without explanation, its announcement provoked little more than a weary shrug."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"When the New Yorker finally reached Chicago, the circumstances were no less miserable, but what a difference in attitude!"}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"At an airport ticket counter, a furious man shook his fist at an agent."}
{"sentiment":-2.3,"text":"Another flung his ticket to the floor in disgust."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"The New Yorker found the change as refreshing as a thunderstorm."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Until 1976 when the city's first Greenmarket was set up in Union Square, drug peddlers perched on its fences like birds on telephone wires and the grass was trampled and strewn with litter."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"But the market brought in a new kind of customer - people looking for fresh vegetables, home-baked breads, local cheeses - and, suddenly, druggie's paradise became foodie's heaven."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"But if it was the Greenmarket that breathed a little life into Union Square, it was the Parks Department that brought it to its present good health."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Since 1984 the city has sunk millions into new trees, plants, paths and a strong police presence."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Charming subway kiosks have been re-created."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"A stage has been installed."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Now the department is making an especially grand gesture."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"By closing an under-used street and eliminating some parking areas, it is doubling the size of the park."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"For turning a wasteland into an oasis, praise - and many apples - are in order."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The first goes to Barry Benepe, the man behind the ''greenmarketing'' of Union Square."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The next is for the Parks Department and Commissioner Henry Stern."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"And a third goes to the 14th Street-Union Square Local Development Corporation, which, working with city agencies, came up with the new design."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"THE WORM AND THE APPLE: NEW DIRECTIONS"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"New York City is not usually thought of as sylvan, but that's just what it is at this time of year."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"A street in Greenwich Village, for instance, is canopied with white blossoms, the pear trees on both sides having met and married in its center."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The pink of cherry blossoms clashes with the red of old brick houses all over town, and magnolia trees are flaunting their last candles."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"By August, leaves will droop, worn out by automobile exhaust and torrid blasts from air-conditioners."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"But at this moment the trees flourish, fiercely."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"In a few days those pear and cherry and magnolia blossoms will float down to the sidewalks."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Then New Yorkers will have another country pleasure: they'll be scuffling through flowers."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"''Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,'' according to one of the more haunting 60's song lyrics."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"It's also a fine description of what it is to walk out on a warm spring day - unburdened, for the first time in months, of things that are fated to be forgotten."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Scarves, for instance."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Last weekend New Yorkers could finally leave home without the scarf that they were always scrabbling under a restaurant table for a few hours later."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"They could leave - until the clouds rolled back, anyway - without the umbrella that was destined to end up in somebody else's closet, too; and the rubber boots that would have accompanied them."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Nor do they have to worry about losing the coat check ticket, because there is no coat for them to check; or the glove that slid behind the banquette, because they aren't wearing any."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Their bags and briefcases aren't burdened with rain hats and watch caps either."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Instead New Yorkers emerge free - free of all but the shoulder-slung bag and the breast-pocket billfold."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"And if they walk as if they were 20 pounds lighter, it may be because they may be."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"If there's anything good to be said about day after day of June rain, it's that the reservoirs, those famous drought-stricken reservoirs, are within spitting distance of 101 percent capacity."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"If they get to that point, the overflow will go into spillways, then streams and eventually into the Hudson and Delaware Rivers."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But what if it doesn't?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"What if reversing the reservoirs was up to New Yorkers?"}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"Could they do it? Of course they could!"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"First, they would lift the tops on their toilet tanks and take out the bricks."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Then they'd reinstall those lovely old shower heads that sprayed like Niagara, and that they've been saving for a rainy day."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Then they'd take a bath."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Then they'd go to a restaurant."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"''New York water,'' they'd say to the waiter."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"''And plenty of it.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Then they'd go home and wash their cars."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Soak them."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Scrub the sidewalls under a running hose."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Then they might even soak their already sodden gardens outside and water and mist every houseplant inside."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Then they'd wash every dish, glass, pot and pan."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Do the laundry."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Scrub the floors."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Suds the dog."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Then, having got a bit grimy, they'd take another bath."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Then, clean, serene and soggy, they'd go to bed, tired from a job well done."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"But they would not sleep."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"They'd be kept awake by the sound of rain coming in from the west."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Oh, how Irving Berlin hates to get up in the morning (1918)."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Well, even if it's a lovely day today (1950), he's allowed to sleep in."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"It's his birthday."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The remarkable man who asked that God bless America (1939) with a singable national anthem has done 99 years."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Musically untrained and formally unschooled, he would play a simple melody (1914) on the piano with one finger."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Eventually he picked out more than 900 tunes."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But first there were lyrics - ''Marie From Sunny Italy'' (1909) - in a Chinatown cafe where he was a singing waiter."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Later came 19 Broadway musicals and 18 movies."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Soupy sentiment: ''I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm'' (1937)."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Stirring patriotism: ''Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor'' (1949)."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Questions for the ages: ''How Do You Do It, Mabel, on $20 a Week?'' (1911);"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''How Deep Is the Ocean?'' (1932);"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"''What Are We Gonna Do With All the Jeeps?'' (1944)."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Irving Berlin isn't puttin' on the Ritz (1929) anymore, but he is still steppin' out with his baby (1947) - Ellin, the girl that he married (1946) - for walks in Manhattan."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Happy holiday (1942), Mr. Berlin."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The songs have ended, but the melodies linger on (1927)."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Notice to ambitious lawyers: Want to be a Federal judge someday, or high official in the Justice Department?"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Now's the time to quit that country club or eating club that refuses to admit minorities or women."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Either quit now or at least start compiling a record of agitation for change."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"That's the message of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which confirms (and sometimes rejects) nominees for judgeships and high Justice posts."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The committee has voted to declare such memberships ''inappropriate'' now for a nomination later."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"In other words, it is losing patience with nominees who quit only on the eve of nomination."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Such membership ''conflicts with the appearance of impartiality,'' it says."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"That's good legal ethics and good sense."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"A judge may be perfectly impartial, but a black litigant, for instance, who knows the judge's club excludes blacks, may not believe it."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Although the resolution is not binding, it should put Presidents on notice."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"And starting now, it's fair warning to the learned profession: Don't be surprised later if your exclusive club membership is held against you, as of now."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"While a Federal Communications Commission study confirms that Americans are spending more and more time on the telephone, a telephone workers' strike has put thousands in the Northeast on hold."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Unable to get installations and repairs, they tell horror stories about business deals lost, love affairs ruined and hours spent weighted down with quarters, in search of a working pay phone."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"One friend, however, who's had no phone for the last six weeks and has no idea when one will be installed, notes there are benefits to being disconnected."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Her employers can't find her on weekends."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"If her friends are angry at her, she doesn't hear about it."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"When dinner guests can't call to cancel, they feel compelled to show."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"No one rings at midnight to ask if she's asleep."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Best of all, there is no guilt."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"It's not her fault that she hasn't spoken to her relatives lately."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"She doesn't feel terrible about having the phone unplugged when she needs time to think."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"She watches all her favorite programs on PBS with a clear conscience, since she has no way to call in a pledge."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The phone company and its unions, she concludes, ought not to assume that disrupted service inflicts universal pain."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Some New Yorkers could get used to it."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"David Gunn, the former president of the New York City Transit Authority who cleaned up subway graffiti, took his concern for cleanliness too far when he shut down many subway newsstands."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Fortunately, his successor, Alan Kiepper, sees their value."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The number of subway newsstands has been declining for years."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"In 1965 there were 233; by 1987 the number had dropped to 102."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"That year, 44 more were shuttered when their operator was cited for tax evasion."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"An additional 17 closed to help speed subway renovations."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"But instead of seeking new operators, Mr. Gunn, on a misdirected crusade against station ''clutter,'' established design standards that discouraged prospective dealers."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Yet who can deny that a manned and well-lit concession brings a sense of security and vitality to the forbidding underground?"}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Mr. Kiepper, to his credit, understands this, and says he wants more newsstands."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"For the riding public, now deprived of a valuable amenity, the proof will be on the platform."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"A superannuated Ivy Leaguer complains that New York City developers keep slamming doors on his past."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"First it was the lobby under the clock at the old Biltmore Hotel, once a watering hole for generations of students returning to school in the Northeast."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Now Donald Trump is closing Trader Vic's, which for 25 years has occupied the basement of his latest acquisition, the Plaza."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Like the Biltmore, ''The Trader's'' long served as a safe harbor for preppies and their parents."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"There, in dim rooms decorated with spears and dugout canoes, they sampled rum-based tropical concoctions dreamed up by Victor Bergeron, who founded the Trader Vic's chain."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"There were Mai Tais, Scorpions with gardenias floating in them and a toxic mixture called a Suffering Bastard."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Mr. Trump says the place had ''gotten tacky.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Richard Nixon, who used to eat there with his daughters, promptly expressed dismay."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"But Mr. Trump has a point: Trader Vic's had grown seedy."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The restaurant, but not the bar, closed a year ago."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"He plans a health club on the site."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"A gain for fitness, yet still a loss: where else can you get a Samoan Fog Cutter?"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Former President Nixon has made another tape."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Driven from office by the Watergate secrets revealed by his Oval Office tape recorder, he has returned to the medium to record his new book, ''In the Arena.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The book, Mr. Nixon's eighth, is a memoir of the painful aftermath of his resignation and political humiliation."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The book and the three-hour taped abridgment are being released this month."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"For anyone who would like to hear what really went on, free, rather than pay $15.95 to hear Mr. Nixon's recollections, the Watergate tapes are still available for public edification."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"They are in the National Archives annex in Alexandria, Va., reachable by shuttle bus from the Archives building in Washington."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Ten years after their release, they still pull a few visitors every day."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The tapes run 12 1/2 hours, and there's more to come later this year."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But the crucial ''smoking gun'' conversation only takes 10 minutes, in which Mr. Nixon and H. R. Haldeman, his chief aide, lay plans to block the F.B.I."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"investigation of the Watergate burglary."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"That's one tape no memoir can erase."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Ordinarily, there might be little to remark about the 65th birthday of a valued anti-Communist publication, The New Leader."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"But the anniversary fell last week as party faithful all over the world were arguing about truths revealed in the magazine's pages decades ago - that one-party power corrupts, that Stalin's purges claimed millions of innocent victims, that the fruit of Soviet central planning is stagnation."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Starting as a Socialist journal, The New Leader was for years edited by Samuel Levitas, who in his native Russia joined the Menshevik opposition to the victorious Bolsheviks."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"He published solid work by other emigres decoding Soviet policies."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"His successor, Myron Kolatch, was the first American editor to publish the Yugoslav rebel Milovan Djilas, the Leningrad poet Joseph Brodsky and the unmasker of the gulag, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Adding to the impact, the articles appeared in a magazine priding itself on its liberalism."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"But though Soviet libraries subscribe to The New Leader, readers face security screening if they dare request it."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"In the 1970's, Mr. Kolatch, during a Moscow visit, was denied permission to see his own biweekly at the central library."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It will be a bold landmark for glasnost when a Pravda editorial condemns such self-blinding restrictions - and an even bolder landmark when the practice is ended."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"''Gone the way of the Hula-Hoop'' has become a vivid way of saying ''passe.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Now the phrase itself may be that."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Hula-Hoop sales topped two million last year and will exceed that this year."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Hula-Hoops are back."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The Hula-Hoop, for those too young to remember, is a large plastic ring."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"One steps into it, lifts it to waist level and rotates one's hips in the style of a hula dancer, in order to make the hoop rotate rhythmically around one's belly."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"During the 1950's, as many as 100 million Hula- Hoops twirled around American middles, a triumph of marketing."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The plastic rings were a classic fad."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"But fads can take unpredictable spins."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Like the memorable scene in the film ''The Graduate,'' children of the 50's came of age and heard the adult world offer only one word of advice: plastics."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Having spent their youth encircled by plastic, the 60's generation rebelled in favor of the unorthodox, the original and the organic."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"How then to read the renaissance of Hula-Hoops?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Can resurgent flower power be far behind?"}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Common sense has finally prevailed in a dispute between striking teachers in New Jersey and a stubborn judge in need of a lesson in temper."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"A higher court has overturned jail sentences imposed by State Superior Court Judge Paul Huot on more than 100 teachers and other school employees who engaged in an illegal strike in March."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Instead, the appellate panel wisely ordered the teachers to spend additional time in their classrooms."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"In New Jersey, bargaining between teachers and school boards over salaries and working conditions often ends up in the courts because strikes by teachers have been judged illegal."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"That's what happened in Lyndhurst, a closely knit community in northern New Jersey."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Before the state raised the minimum salary for teachers to $18,500 last year, a beginning teacher in Lyndhurst might make as little as $11,000."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Last March, after 18 months of negotiations, Lyndhurst teachers defied an order issued by Judge Huot and went on strike for six days."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"This week Judge Huot threw the book at them, charging that the strike sent a bad message to schoolchildren."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"In imposing two- and three-day jail sentences, he insisted that ''These teachers acting in mass have harmed the character and the spirit of the entire student body.''"}
{"sentiment":-2.7,"text":"However bad an example the teachers set by disobeying the law, Judge Huot set an even worse one as a dispenser of justice."}
{"sentiment":-2.3,"text":"Since 1981, the poor woman who wants to end a pregnancy incurred through rape or incest has found no help in the Federal Government."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"That's when Congress removed the exception that allowed Federally funded abortions for those so victimized."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"She has, however, had a friend in Senator Lowell Weicker, the Connecticut Republican who is waging a battle to get that exception restored."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"This week, he and Senator Lawton Chiles won a first skirmish: they got the Senate Appropriations Committee to approve an amendment that would expand Medicaid to include abortions in cases of rape or incest."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"To his credit, Senator Weicker has kept this fight alive for seven years now."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Whatever the results of this year's efforts, the millions who also revile the cruel present policy can only be grateful."}
{"sentiment":-2.25,"text":"Apartment-house incinerators stink."}
{"sentiment":-2.25,"text":"They sully the air with products of poor combustion: heavy metals, acidic effluents and small particulates that irritate the body."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The wonder is that there are 2,200 such incinerators still in use in New York."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Every sensible person will hope for an affirmative outcome today when the City Council votes on closing them."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The bill nonetheless poses a substitution problem and requires amendment."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The Sanitation Department and supporters of the bill disagree on how much incinerators now reduce the bulk of apartment-house wastes, but everyone concedes that the bill's passage would increase it."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Trash that can't be burned must be hauled away, to eat up more of the vanishing space in landfills."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"As written, the bill would only trade one trash problem for another."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The remedy is to change the proposed four-year deadline for closing existing incinerators."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"It would make more sense to make the deadline coincide with the completion of the city's first modern high-temperature incinerator at the former Navy Yard site."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"That facility, if built promptly, could be running in the same four-year period."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"That would permit safe disposal and reduction of solid waste."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"If the Council is serious about not just pushing it from one place to another, it will amend the bill on the floor today and approve the new version in a week."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The fictional Agent 007 zooms around the Alps in an exotic armored Aston Martin."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"A real 007 pokes around Manhattan in a Dodge."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The Dodge driver is attached to the Soviet Mission to the United Nations."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"His diplomatic license plates are emblazoned with a suggestive 007 FC - the initials being the code for Russians."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"He parks in the east 60's, where the mission is quartered."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"So do dozens of his fellow missionaries, much to the annoyance of neighbors thus deprived of precious parking space."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Diplomat 007's maroon Dodge 600 is a bit classier than most of his colleagues' cars."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"In a recent, utterly random survey, one neighbor spotted 41 with FC plates - all of capitalist brand."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"There was one Volvo, one Olds and one Buick, but 15 Chevy Cavaliers and a dozen others of lesser standing."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"It's too difficult to find out from the Russians whether the Politburo lets their overseas agents keep their non-Communist wheels when they get home."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"But it's a sure bet that the owner of 088 FC, a Mercury Lynx, would at least be ordered to remove his bumper sticker, which reads: ''I MAY BE SLOW BUT I'M AHEAD OF YOU.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"In America, that's just a dumb joke."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"To a Muscovite stuck with a homemade Zil or Lada, them's fighting words."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"For years, Queens residents have complained of poor service on the borough's private bus lines, which operate with public subsidies."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Yet the city has lagged in imposing performance standards."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"That's about to change."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Beginning in July, all private bus lines in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx will be subject to new rules governing maintenance, cleanliness and schedules."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Operators who deliver poor service risk loss of subsidies and franchises."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Mayor Koch's budget calls for 14 inspectors to carry out the program."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The effort is long overdue."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Fully two years ago, the Board of Estimate voted minimum standards."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But implementation stalled, largely because of opposition from Morris Tarshis, the former city franchise chief."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Mr. Tarshis resigned in May following allegations that he accepted a Cadillac from the Queens-Steinway Bus Company, a line with a notorious performance record."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"A recent spot check found only 8 percent of Queens-Steinway buses provided basic passenger information, like maps and bus routes."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Only 39 percent were acceptably clean - small wonder, since the company washes interiors only once every three months, compared with once every 18 days on the better-run Triboro Coach line."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Henry White, who heads the Bureau of Transit Operations, deserves praise for developing new standards."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"An apple awaits his agency if the rules now get translated into better service."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"The alignment of Earth, Sun and Moon that took place last week wreaked havoc with the weather."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"The extra gravitational pull kept tides high, increasing the danger of flooding and worrying millions."}
{"sentiment":2.25,"text":"To Scrabble players, however, it has brought delight at the heavenly possibilities."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"For this kind of conjunction has a name: syzygy, pronounced SIZ-a-jee."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Scrabble has four ''s's,'' each of them worth one point; three ''g's,'' each worth two points; two ''y's,'' each worth four points, and one ''z,'' which is worth 10 points."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"One of the two blanks, worth no points, could be designated as the third ''y,'' for a total of 21 points to start with."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"If any of the letters fall on a ''premium'' square like triple word score, the value soars."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"That a player could draw the tiles to spell ''syzygy'' is much less likely than the phenomenon itself, but if all those letters fell in place, he'd thank his lucky stars."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"''It's hip to be square,'' went the refrain of a rock tune popular a couple of years ago."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Could there be better evidence of that than Fred Rogers, star of the Public Broadcasting System's longest-running show, ''Mister Rogers' Neighborhood''?"}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"In an age when television, like the society it reflects, has gone hyperkinetic, Mr. Rogers remains quiet, at times almost somnolent."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"At a time when most television dialogue is relentlessly glib, he is unapologetically sincere."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"And at a time when a parent must wonder whether a child can be safe anywhere, the greatest danger in Mr. Rogers's neighborhood is a magic spell cast by a puppet character in his Neighborhood of Make-Believe."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Mr. Rogers has been doing his thing for 35 years, the last 25 of them on PBS, which is honoring him this month with a documentary."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Every day, children in seven million homes tune in to watch and listen to this gentle, 61-year-old square and his friends."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Critics say the neighborhood doesn't represent the gritty realities most children face."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"But reality will intrude soon enough."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Children won't be hurt by a half-hour a day in a place where people say sincerely, ''It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"At the entrance to ''Matisse in Morocco,'' on display at the Museum of Modern Art until Sept. 4, is a National Geographic magazine photograph of Tangier in 1906."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"The city is sun-baked, steamy and tired."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Just beyond it is the Tangier painted by Matisse."}
{"sentiment":2.8,"text":"Fertile, colorful, exuberant, the city is paradise."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Most assuredly it is not the city one leaves on entering the exhibition."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"Here are the bluest of shadows, the greenest of vegetation, the purplest of twilights."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Here, too, is a pink that New Yorkers can find only in the occasional window box geranium."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Just looking at the pictures is as refreshing as eating a melon - like the great green globes Matisse painted for ''The Moroccans.''"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"On the way out, that same National Geographic photograph serves as an introduction to the city they're about to re-enter."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Sun-baked, steamy and tired."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"The beer slobs are those grinning rowdies who get sloshed in the stadium and slosh beer on others."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"To its credit, the New York Legislature is determined to keep them in check."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Threatened with legislation to require alcohol-free ''family sections,'' stadium operators promise tougher controls on drinking in the stands."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The Legislature ought to keep up the pressure."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Stadium owners have shown willingness to address the problem."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The Mets and the Yankees offer low-alcohol beer, cut off beer sales after the seventh inning and beef up security."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"That's helped to reduce brawling, but beer throwing and other unruliness remain a problem."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"A bill by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky would ban alcohol in one-fourth of the seats in all sections."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Consideration has been delayed to give team owners a chance to propose their own plan, for the sake of fans who know how to enjoy their beer without swilling or spilling."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"But Mr. Brodsky deserves praise for keeping the heat on."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Only three blocks away, on Remsen Street, the special guest at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral could have testified to the hazards of social diversity."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"He was President Amin Gemayel of Lebanon, a country that has given new meaning to the word faction."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Beset by political and tribal struggles, religious and class rivalry, his country has known no lasting peace for decades."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"But the main event in Brooklyn Heights last Sunday was the Atlantic Antic street fair, which each year demonstrates the brighter side of difference."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"At the Antic parade, a gay and lesbian marching band preceded a black karate group."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Peace marchers and tap-dancing baton twirlers picked their way after police horses."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Before the hummus and honey cakes in the spice-perfumed shops of Middle Eastern merchants, Italian vendors peddled sausages, and Pentecostal churchwomen laid out fried chicken."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"At the magic shows, investment-banker fathers, their babies in backpacks, stood beside housing project mothers with toddlers in tow."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"It's easier to run a street fair than a country."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Even so, such rich contrasts combine too seldom with so much harmony."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"The Atlantic Antic celebrates something special."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The chorus of doubts that has greeted the Reagan Administration's proposal to eliminate nuclear missiles from Europe includes some surprising voices."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But the White House need not have been surprised to find Edward Rowny, one of the President's own arms control advisers, among the critics."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"He criticized the negotiations and indicated that the missile pact would be a profound mistake unless linked to relieving the Soviet advantage in conventional arms."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Mr. Rowny, a Russian speaker, says he has spent more than a thousand hours negotiating nuclear arms with the Russians."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"He probably gives them fits."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"He opposed the strategic arms treaty of 1972 that first set limits on nuclear missiles."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Though a member of the team that negotiated the second strategic arms agreement, his colleagues regarded him as a time bomb ready to explode when agreement was reached."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Just as the treaty was ready to be signed in 1979, Mr. Rowny resigned and worked against its ratification."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Mr. Reagan appointed him as a top arms negotiator, prizing his resistance to seeking agreement for agreement's sake."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The President got just what he asked for."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"As an agreement on European missiles nears, it seems to have lit the fuse on the Rowny time bomb with which Mr. Reagan booby-trapped his own team."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"If George Bush wanted Dan Quayle on his ticket partly to close the gender gap, the choice has already produced one advance for women."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The Indiana Senator has become the first male politician to be widely described as a blue-eyed blond."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"''Anyone that handsome is bound to appeal to women,'' was the theme when Mr. Quayle was named."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Yet it is men, not women, who are more plausibly accused of valuing looks above all in the opposite sex."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Talk of Mr. Quayle's looks and the female vote faded as it became clear that women voters might likelier dwell on his record as a hawk or his opposition to abortion."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But on the streets and in the media, the assessment of Mr. Quayle's looks continued."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Does he really resemble Robert Redford (who says he will vote for Michael Dukakis)?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Or is it the young Mickey Rooney?"}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Then The Wall Street Journal ran an Op-Ed piece by Kenneth Adelman, formerly of the Reagan Administration, praising Mr. Quayle's substance."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"''Dan Quayle: Not Just a Pretty Face,'' read the headline."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"And one more step out of the old stereotypes seemed complete."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"The Palisades Interstate Park Commission governs one of the region's loveliest roads."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"It runs along the base of the Palisades from just north of the George Washington Bridge to Alpine, N.J., offering intimate Hudson River views and access to marinas and picnic grounds."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The road, however, is barely two lanes wide and full of curves, and despite repeated requests from bicycling groups, the commission considers it unsafe for simultaneous use by autos and bikes."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The commission limits bicycles to a few morning hours on weekends between April and November."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Bicyclists claim that the road is so lightly used that the commission's fears are unreasonable."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The commission understandably wants to be on the safe side."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Why not authorize simultaneous bicycle and auto use for a three-month trial?"}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Based on actual experience, the commission might conclude that bikes and cars can, in harmony with nature, peacefully coexist."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"If a blue ribbon means first prize, then Gerard Papa certainly deserves one for coming up with the idea of using blue ribbons to confront New York City's most explosive issue: race relations."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Mr. Papa, president of Flames, a youth organization in Brooklyn, suggested the idea to Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"In a TV appearance Sunday, Mr. Fernandez called on the city's schoolchildren and faculty to wear blue ribbons as symbols of ''our dedication to the goal of understanding and mutual respect."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Wearing these ribbons until the end of the year will identify us as members of the Blue Ribbon Committee for Racial Harmony.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"The murder of a black youth in Bensonhurst and other racial incidents in recent months have threatened the cohesiveness of what Mayor David Dinkins likes to call the city's ''gorgeous mosaic'' of ethnic groups."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"That's why Mr. Dinkins, wearing a blue ribbon and supported by labor, religious and community groups, held a rally last night to urge tolerance."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Rallies and ribbons, while largely symbolic, can do much to help defuse tensions and encourage unity."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"That's the ultimate lesson Mr. Fernandez hopes to teach."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"He has asked all schools to promote better understanding with activities like poster contests and assembly programs."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"As he sensibly states, ''It's better to discuss these things in the classrooms than in the streets.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"When National Football League players finally capitulated after a 24-day strike this fall, team owners couldn't resist rubbing salt into their wounds."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Now, if a preliminary ruling from the National Labor Relations Board holds up, the owners will have to pay for their nastiness."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"In a finding issued by its general counsel, the Labor Board says the owners engaged in unfair labor practices when they barred the strikers from playing in games the weekend of Oct. 18."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The players had ended their strike and reported for work on Thursday, Oct. 15, but were turned away, ostensibly because they were too late for the weekend games."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"It was not too late, the labor board noted, for replacement players to be signed."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The owners were ordered to pay regular players their salaries and relevant bonuses for that weekend's games."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"In a more dubious ruling, the owners were ordered to pay bonuses to players whose teams might have qualified for the playoffs had they been allowed to play that weekend."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"That seems unduly speculative."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The owners indicate they'll appeal; that might take two years or more."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But this initial decision at least puts them on notice: They may have broken the union in the strike, but off the field as well as on, there are penalties for piling on."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The Exxon Corporation has agreed to put an environmentalist on its board of directors, thanks in part to pressure from New York City's Comptroller, Harrison Goldin, and a small band of like-minded big stockholders."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Mr. Goldin administers the city's huge pension funds, which hold substantial shares of Exxon."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Together with the sheet metal workers' union and state pension fund administrators from California, Massachusetts and New Jersey, he confronted Exxon executives after the Valdez oil spill."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"The group threatened a bloc vote against management if the company didn't quickly show more concern for the environment - beyond just cleaning up the spill."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The group's shares are less than 2 percent of the total outstanding, so Exxon's bosses weren't really in danger."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But given the barrage of bad publicity over Valdez, they took the group's advice."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Mr. Goldin has flexed his pension power before, against companies doing business in South Africa and Northern Ireland."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"To some extent, that's the grandstanding of a Comptroller who would be mayor."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"But the environment is a proper priority for all businesses."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Credit Mr. Goldin for pressing an issue that Exxon should have addressed, on its own, long ago."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"A few weeks ago, the National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that, in addition to all their other skill deficiencies, American schoolchildren don't write very well."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The state of Maryland now offers a possible explanation."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The National Assessment must not have given credit for neatness and punctuation."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"That, at least, is how such problems are solved in Maryland."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The state adopted its ''functional writing test'' in 1983, with a view to possibly making it a graduation requirement."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"But the test was roundly criticized because so many students failed, including some who regularly get high grades for writing."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"The protests led to a study by a special task force, and the state board of education recently approved giving credit for punctuation and neatness, as well as to grammar, logical development of ideas and other substantive criteria."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Previously, student writers of ''pretty papers'' got no reward, the chairman of the task force was quoted as saying."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"''Now we're saying that if a student can write good sentences that don't say anything, it may not be good writing, but it is competent writing.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Giving credit for appearance, as opposed to substance, certainly conveys a message about the way the world works."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But is that really the sort of message a state's education system is supposed to teach?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"One day this week a New Yorker went Christmas shopping at a big department store."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"She had scarcely made it to the cosmetics counter before rediscovering the Five Laws of Christmas Shopping."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The first struck her immediately: No sooner does she arrive at a big store than her feet hurt."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The second law presented itself in the delicacies department."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"If the line at the counter is any proof, millions of Americans will once again find candy under the tree."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The third law was observable in the men's department."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Almost all the customers were women, and almost all were buying scarves."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The fourth law was especially evident in the linens and lingerie departments."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"People should know better than to return merchandise at precisely the same time that everyone else is buying it."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The fifth law was manifest everywhere."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"If the store has something in the right size it doesn't have it in the right color, and vice versa."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"If it had the right color and the right size, Oh!"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"the last one was sold just an hour before."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"The canvases were familiar enough: the lovely, warm scenes of Dutch domesticity that the Western eye knows well; the meticulously rendered opulence of satin and fur, the cold clarity of checkered-tile cathedral floors; and the swirling, Italianate biblical scenes, all reds and blues and grand proportions."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"But where such paintings usually have on their frames the titles and artists rendered in English or perhaps in French, Italian, Spanish, German or Dutch, there was a jarringly unfamiliar script here."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The great names of Flemish and Dutch painting - Breughel, Rembrandt, Rubens, Hals, Van Dyck - all appeared in the Cyrillic characters of Russian."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"For these were paintings from Leningrad's renowned Hermitage Museum, at an exhibition that ended yesterday at New York's Metropolitan Museum."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"A recent museumgoer entered one gallery to find a large crowd gathered around a work not mentioned in the tape-recorded commentary."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The object of curiosity was not a painting at all but a large photograph of Russians in a gallery in the Hermitage."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''Look at the shoes,'' someone said."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"''See how many paintings are on one wall,'' said someone else."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"''Some pretty decent clothes,'' said a third person."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"And the American crowd pressed in, assessing their counterparts across an ocean, a continent and a fast-shifting political divide."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Phoebe Mills, a talented 16-year-old gymnast, retired last week after a 10-year career during which she won an Olympic medal and succeeded Mary Lou Retton as America's top female in the sport."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Ms. Retton, the darling of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, retired at age 17 -which is apparently becoming the upper age limit for females who aspire to world-class competition in gymnastics."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The sports establishment calls them women gymnasts, but anyone who has watched them knows they are still girls."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"One reason they leap and twirl so nimbly is that they are still unencumbered by full-grown bodies."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"For men, the problem is different."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Men's gymnastics put such a premium on upper-body strength that an undeveloped boy would find it impossible to compete."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But the physical difference between a girl and a woman is so great that it could justify a separate competitive category, like professional golf's tour for senior players."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Why not a separate gymnastics competition for women 21 and over?"}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"There might be fewer perfect 10's, but more savvily earned 9's."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"There might be less speed and power, but more rhythm and grace."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Most important, simply growing up would no longer bar a woman from competing in a wonderful sport."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"New York's Offtrack Betting authorities know full well that gambling can be a devastating addiction."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Their current subway advertising cautions, in the lower-left corner: ''Bet with your head ...not over it.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"But the type is so tiny that only the most searching straphanger can read it."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"OTB's real message, of course, is clear from afar."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The large color poster shows a gentleman standing tall in top hat and formal dress, being admired by seven other spiffy types."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"''Everybody Loves a Winner,'' the inch-high letters proclaim."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"''That's Why We All Belong at OTB.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The top-hatted gentleman carries a pair of binoculars of the sort one might take to the races - or use to read the tiny warning type."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Until it prints warnings that need no magnification, OTB deserves a worm."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"''Why don't you bring that stuff?'' she said as they rose from their seats in the shiny new Cineplex Odeon movie theater on Eighth Avenue and 50th."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''What stuff?'' he asked."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"''The soda cup, and the empty popcorn bag.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''Oh, all right.'' He bent down to retrieve the leavings and noticed what she had already noticed."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"There was none of the usual sticky spills, no wads of paper; there was no trash at all along the whole row."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Then came a second surprise."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"As they reached the stainless steel trash receptacles in the lobby, they were joined by other people - two, five, a dozen - who had also brought their trash to throw away."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"At the movies."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"In New York City."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Well, maybe it's not so surprising, he thought."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"After all, this is the city that dared its residents to pick up dog droppings and now asks them to separate paper from other household trash."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Mean streets will not easily become clean streets, but there are some good signs."}
{"sentiment":-2.1,"text":"After James Callahan died in a fraternity hazing incident at Rutgers University in February, some students rationalized his death as being the 18-year-old freshman's own fault."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"After all, he consented to the hazing; he just got in over his head."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Indictments this week of 15 fraternity members send a different message, one that may prevent more senseless tragedies."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The indictments of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity brothers were under a 1980 New Jersey law that defines aggravated hazing - knowingly and recklessly pro-moting the kind of conduct that led to Mr. Callahan's death at an initiation party."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"He and other Lambda pledges were put in a room and encouraged to drink themselves sick."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Mr. Callahan drank more than 20 ounces of liq-uor in little more than a half-hour and became sick unto death."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"In theory, each defendant could get 18 months in prison and a $7,500 fine; but as first offenders, they are unlikely to go to prison."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Still, the indictments serve a purpose - they teach a lesson that fraternity members ought to appreciate: We are each our brother's keeper and must answer for what happens to him."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"''Not all vegetable oils are created equal,'' warns Representative Dan Glickman, Democrat of Kansas."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"A package of cookies may be ''baked with 100 percent vegetable shortening,'' but if the shortening happens to be highly saturated palm, palm kernel or coconut oil, it poses far greater health risk than any animal fat."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"A bill sponsored by Mr. Glickman and Representative Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, would sensibly require manufacturers to specify the oil used."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Package labels now need only say that the product contains one or more of several oils that are listed."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The powerful food producers' lobby contends that manufacturers need flexibility to avoid having to print new labels when they switch oils to take advantage of changing prices."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"That expense seems slight compared with the health costs."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The proposed legislation, endorsed by the American Heart Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Consumer Federation of America, would require manufacturers to identify fully the cheaper, artery-clogging oils from Malaysia and Indonesia."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Chances of passage this session appear good, for American farmers stand to gain from promotion of products made with domestically produced, unsaturated corn and soybean oil."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"In this case, the farmers' economic interest coincides with consumers' health interest."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"There are many ways to travel from point A to point B in New York City: subways, buses and bicycles."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"People walk, run or drive."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"And, of course, there is the yellow cab, about which the Taxi and Limousine Commission now offers convenient and sensible instructions."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The commission's new glossy pamphlet, ''How to Use a New York City Taxi,'' lets potential passengers know that getting a cab is simple: ''Stand in an intersection, raise your hand and within minutes a taxicab is likely to pull up.''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It illustrates how to tell which cabs are occupied, and it gives fare rates and normal fare ranges."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The commission now has a second booklet for passengers with problems: ''How to File a Complaint,'' with step-by-step procedures."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"And it plans six more, including ''How to Become a Taxi Driver.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But the potential best seller of all isn't on the list: ''How to Get a Cab in the Rain.''"}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The Smithsonian Institution is a funny red castle on the Mall in Washington, full of whatnots from America's past."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"More than that, it's a monument - to the average American's inability to throw anything away."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Its total collection now numbers some 134 million items, and last year it added 466,181 more."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Among them were a 70-million-year-old shark, the late Buddy Rich's drums, wallpaper by Frank Lloyd Wright, an F4S Phantom jet used in Vietnam, 9,000 seashells and 25,000 beetle specimens."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Since the Smithsonian runs the National Zoo, it also counts newborn animals as ''acquisitions'' -in 1988, two African lions, one white-cheeked gibbon, an Arabian oryx and six rails."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Where does it keep all that stuff?"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The National Museum has 118 million scientific specimens."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The remaining 16 million items are scattered among the Smithsonian's 10 other museums and galleries, plus the zoo, 19 Quonset huts for air and space craft, and, for everything else, there's a 4 1/2-acre warehouse outside Washington."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"That's room enough to make housekeepers weep with envy and apartment dwellers bawl in despair."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But think of it as national security."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"What's a great nation without a great closet?"}
{"sentiment":-2.1,"text":"Since the army shot down a democratic revolution in Myanmar, formerly Burma, 19 months ago, that nation's 40 million people have been helpless victims of a capricious military regime."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Washington has suspended official aid."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But Myanmar's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council, or Slorc, has found a new way to pay for its brutal military operations."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"It recently opened Myanmar's long-closed economy to foreign commerce."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Teak, fish, seafood, petroleum and minerals are Myanmar's main legal exports."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Myanmar is also the source for roughly half the world's heroin."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The leading drug lord is Khun Sa, whose private army fights alongside Slorc troops against non-Burmese ethnic tribes at Myanmar's borders."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Their aim is to make it easier to ship drugs and other exports abroad."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"The U.S., unfortunately, is a big market for both legal and illegal commodities."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"But thanks largely to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, American consumers may soon stop subsidizing repression."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Mr. Moynihan has attached a provision banning U.S. imports from Myanmar to this year's mini-trade bill."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"By accepting the provision, the House would squeeze the Slorc - and perhaps hasten the fall of one of the world's least savory regimes."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"It's a given that soap opera characters will suffer multiple misunderstandings, several spouses and at least one coma apiece."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But it's usually left to the viewers to marvel at the course of their tangled lives."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"How startling, then, to hear Jack Devereaux on a recent episode of ''Days of Our Lives'' telling his wimpish girlfriend, Melissa, about his afflictions of the past year."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"''Do you know anybody who could have a life like mine and not laugh about it?'' he said, not cracking a smile."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"''One moment I'm Jack Devereaux, the Senator's son, married to the woman of my dreams."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The next thing I know I'm not Jack Devereaux."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"I'm not the Senator's son."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"I'm the son of my ex-maid and the man who raped my sister..."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"My father's not really my father."}
{"sentiment":-2.4,"text":"He's actually a serial killer who tried to kill the woman of my dreams, who's at this moment getting married to the brother that I hate.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"''It gets better,'' he continued, pointing out that at the time he married the woman of his dreams he didn't know that she was really in love with the brother that he hated."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Not only that, he ended triumphantly, but ''I didn't know at that time that he was my brother.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Melissa, true to her character, kept a straight face throughout the whole sorry tale."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Which is surely more than can be said for many of the viewers."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Don't relax."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"There's always something to worry about."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Herpes, crack and nuclear holocaust have not gone away but have become passe worries."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"A trendy era obeys fashion even in its fretting."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Here are some worries that have already infected 1988."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"There may be urethane in the wine."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"There may be parasites in the sushi."}
{"sentiment":-2.4,"text":"Radon, an insidious, invisible, radioactive gas, could be seeping into your basement."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"There is too much ozone in the air you breathe, which damages the lungs."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"There is too little ozone in the stratosphere, which lets in ultraviolet rays that burn the skin."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The world may get too warm, because sunlight is being trapped, as in a greenhouse, by the growing veil of gases spewed out by burning coal."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The world will get too cold if the next ice age arrives before the greenhouse effect does."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The dollar may make a strong recovery, ruinously reversing improvements in the balance of trade."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"You may suffer a heart attack if you exercise too little."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"You may suffer a heart attack if you exercise too much."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Even if the wine has no urethane, it probably contains sulfites."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"And in any case, both are laden with a more pernicious chemical -alcohol."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Does all this mean that modern life is burdening Americans with more and more worries?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"No -just different ones."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Worries grow stale and need to be changed."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"It's the disposition to worry that endures."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"The last pure dusky sparrow died recently in Florida, the sole survivor of a species that lost its habitat to humans bent on owning the sky."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The once-thriving birds were elbowed aside by construction of the Kennedy Space Center."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"When they dwindled to five males eight years ago, extinction was guaranteed."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The Smithsonian Institution wants to study the last dusky's remains, and it's fitting that the sparrow came to rest among the icons of soaring dreams."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The Wright flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis and Mariner II might never have become airborne without dusky sparrows and their kind."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"''There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,'' wrote Shakespeare."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"That hope outlives the species."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"A growing crush of commuter traffic threatens the economic vitality and air quality of the nation's cities."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Yet present Federal tax policy actively encourages people to drive to work."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Legislation now pending in the Senate could help erode this perverse tax bias."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Under the Federal tax code, employers may offer the full cost of parking near the workplace as a tax-free benefit to employees, and deduct the whole amount as a business expense."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"That's a huge subsidy: a parking space in midtown Manhattan can cost up to $400 a month."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"In contrast, the tax-free reimbursement available to workers who commute by subway, train or bus is limited to a paltry $15 per month."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"If the employer pays more than $15, the entire benefit becomes taxable."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Small wonder, then, that most employers don't consider it worth the administrative hassle to offer transit vouchers."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"A measure sponsored by Senators Alfonse D'Amato and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and William Armstrong of Colorado would raise the limit on transit vouchers to $30."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"If an employer provides more than $30, only the excess would be taxable."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"That's still low: Long Island Railroad commuters, for example, pay an average of $140 a month."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"But it's a step in the right direction."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Getting around busy New York City streets is hard enough for able-bodied pedestrians."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"For people in electric wheelchairs, ordinary street curbs can be an ordeal."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Commendably, the city has therefore been building about 1,000 ramps a year at hospitals, senior centers and other priority sites."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"They are routinely installed with new construction and road repairs."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"So far, however, the curb cuts haven't added as much to the mobility of wheelchair users as they might because their location remains haphazard."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"When a disabled person rolls down a ramp into the street, there's no certainty of finding a ramp at the next corner."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Installation of a few ramps on a few Manhattan streets could link up existing ones and provide continuous routes."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Doing so would allow the substantial investment in curb cuts to pay dividends now, in terms of new miles of freedom for the disabled."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The City Council should approve the nomination of Lee Weintraub to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Mr. Weintraub is a distinguished landscape architect eminently qualified to assist the commission in the next important stage of its development: managing existing landmarks."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Mr. Weintraub would take the place of Anthony Tung, who won the thanks of the landmarks constituency for his devotion to architectural preservation."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The appointment of Mr. Weintraub reflects inevitable change in the landmarks agenda."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"For 22 years the commission has identified and sought to protect the most significant structural treasures in the city."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"It developed the concept of historic districts, in which it exercises control over structural changes, and won the power to regulate interiors."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"By its own efforts, the commission has already shortened the list of buildings deserving landmark status."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Now it must devote more energy to the delicate task of keeping a firm but sympathetic hand on the buildings already designated."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"A major issue - one in which Commissioner Tung unfortunately showed little interest - involves owner-proposed changes in landmark buildings."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"Mr. Weintraub, who has demonstrated an ability to work cooperatively with civic and neighborhood groups, would seem well suited to evaluating these proposals."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"The commission will benefit from Lee Weintraub's taste and skill."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"''A disinterested judge,'' our vocabulary teacher used to say, ''is one who keeps an open mind, while an uninterested judge is one who sleeps on the bench.''"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"New Yorkers can find plenty of the first kind of judge in local courtrooms any day of the week, but on Monday they got a rare glimpse of the second."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"As lawyers droned through their opening statements in the heroin and racketeering trial of Gene Gotti, brother of the reputed mob leader John Gotti, Federal Judge John Bartels nodded off."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Eventually he drifted into a sleep so deep that he awoke only when the defense attorney slapped his hand smartly on the defense table."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"At 91, Judge Bartels may be the oldest Federal judge carrying a full caseload."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"That may explain lassitude but doesn't excuse it."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Justice deserves better than an uninterested judge."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"If Judge Bartels needs more sleep, it is time for him to try fewer cases instead of public patience."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Last month, Ed Koch lost his chance to go down in history as the Mayor who rescued New York's carriage horses from heat exhaustion, chill, long hours and terrifying traffic."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"He vetoed a bill that would protect them from having to work when it is very hot, very cold, very humid or for more than eight hours at a stretch."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The bill also confined horse-drawn carriages to Central Park for most of the day, and it required better training for the carriage drivers."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"On Tuesday, the City Council can claim humane credit if it overrides Mr. Koch's veto."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Having passed the bill, 31 to 3, the Council presumably likes it."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"On the other hand, the Council presumably does not wish to embarrass the departing Mayor."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"But Mr. Koch, as he has shown over and over these last 12 years, can take whatever comes his way."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The poor carriage horses cannot."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The National Cancer Institute recommends yearly breast X-rays for women over 50, but health insurance doesn't normally cover the procedure, which may cost up to $200."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Only eight states now mandate insurance coverage of mammography screening."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"A sensible bill approved by New York's Legislature and awaiting Governor Cuomo's signature would make New York the ninth."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Mammography screening is a safe, virtually painless procedure that is much more accurate than manual self-examination for early detection of breast cancer, a disease that will strike about 1 in 10 American women."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Regular screenings could decrease breast cancer fatalities by almost a third."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Yet under 15 percent of women over 50 have ever had a breast X-ray."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Many are deterred by the uninsured cost."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"A measure to mandate coverage in New York State is sponsored by State Senator Dale Volker and Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs and has the support of the state's Health Commissioner, David Axelrod."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But Governor Cuomo has yet to decide whether he will sign it."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Insurance companies express concern about the cost to them and say they are worried about ''unnecessary utilization'' of the benefit."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"That argument ought not to prevail."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Early detection and treatment of breast cancer would also reduce health costs - and save lives."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Margaret Thatcher won applause from free marketeers for selling the state-run British Airways to private shareholders."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Now the airline's managers are attempting to defeat the intent of privatization by proposing it merge with British Caledonian, its only serious British-flag rival."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"British Airways says it needs to be bigger to compete on equal terms with giant U.S. carriers."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But investors who paid more than twice ''book'' value for the airline early this year certainly thought B.A."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"could make it on its own."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"The far greater risk is that it will lose incentives to keep costs and fares down, and service up."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The airline controls 83 percent of Britain's scheduled overseas service."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Merged with British Caledonian, its share would rise to 95 percent."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"It does, of course, face competition from foreign carriers on most routes."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But many rivals are state-owned and all too eager to settle for a fixed share of the market."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The loss of a major private player, particularly one like British Caledonian that aggressively markets quality service to business travelers, could give everyone an excuse to relax."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Back in 1984, a Thatcher white paper on aviation policy argued that having two major international airlines gave British consumers a big advantage over most of their continental neighbors."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Why settle for monopoly?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"On the street at the southeast corner of New York City's Central Park Thursday morning, a sturdy red fire engine from Windsor, Vt., was noisily pumping water from a city hydrant into a hose that snaked into the park."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"At the nozzle end, beside the duck pond, it sprayed the trees and paths with mist, making snow for a scene in Hollywood's Home Alone II."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Another hose, high on a crane, sprayed nearby."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It was all very pretty -- and unnatural."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Granted, New York's natural weather had been relentlessly springlike this winter."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"As recently as Tuesday the temperature hit a balmy 62."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But on Thursday morning, while Vermont's pumpers were faking a backdrop for some producer out in Tinsel Town, the sky dusted the whole park with the real stuff."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Mother Nature, defiant, was not to be upstaged."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"For motorists, a collision on a New York City street means filing police reports and insurance claims and repair work, if not injury or death."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"For the city's special breed of tow-truck cowboys, however, it means a reckless race for business."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The city's 3,500 tow trucks, many equipped with police radios, cruise city streets waiting for accidents and then race each other to the scene."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"More accidents often result: city officials count 1,200 collisions over the last three years that produced 800 injuries and 7 deaths as a result of tow-truck speeding."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Arguments among the drivers over who should get the towing business afflicts accident victims with a hassle they don't need."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Mayor Koch therefore proposes regulating street tows."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Tow-truck drivers would be prohibited from appearing at accident sites unless summoned by a motorist or the police, and generally forbidden to solicit business at scenes of accidents."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"The bill would save both lives and irritation."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"An apple to the Mayor for proposing it."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A bushel more awaits the City Council when it approves."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Organized baseball's exemption from antitrust laws allows unusual freedom but also makes it vulnerable to legislative dyspepsia with home-team problems."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"The latest case is that of Representative Charles Schumer of Brooklyn, normally a sensible fellow."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"He's rightly upset that the New York Yankees have given cable television exclusive rights to most games."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"In New York, only Manhattan has been wired for cable."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"The other boroughs, including Brooklyn, are effectively blacked out."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Mr. Schumer therefore threatens legislation requiring major league teams to put at least half their games on free TV or lose their antitrust exemption."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"It's not clear that the national welfare is affected by whether or not baseball games are on free TV."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Fan loyalties notwithstanding, baseball teams are businesses."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Would Mr. Schumer propose Federal compensation for losses resulting from his proposed limitation?"}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But his attack is misdirected in any case."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The real scandal has much less to do with the Yankees than with the graft and politics that have kept cable from being extended through the city."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Though Mr. Schumer and millions of other New Yorkers feel understandably cheated, the missing wire leads not to Congress but to City Hall."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"''Welcome to Pig City.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"There's no such sign at the entrance to the Van Wyck Expressway at Kennedy International Airport but there might as well be."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"Instead of an attractive, perhaps even inspiring, gateway to New York City, what travelers find is a display of the disgusting."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Undergrowth, abandoned tires and car parts, broken trees and other litter line the roadway and its embankments."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"With all the traffic delays, travelers have ample time to study the roadside rot."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The Department of Transportation says it's doing its best but that cleanup crews are spread thin; they can't cover all 225 miles of expressways and 2,000 acres of adjacent green strips more often than every three or four months."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"That explanation merely shifts the blame for an intolerable mess to City Hall budgeteers."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"It's no excuse in any case."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The untended undergrowth is so thick that it must have taken years to grow."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"There is an instant solution to the filth."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It begins with shovels and brooms."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"New Yorkers have a right to expect all streets to be cleaned regularly."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"This gateway expressway ought to be among the cleanest."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The Bush Administration has powerful reasons to be meticulous about observing Congressional sanctions against South Africa."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"President Bush, after all, was part of the Reagan Administration, whose efforts to circumvent a Congressional prohibition of aid to the Nicaraguan contras led to the Iran-contra scandal."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"But it turns out that the Bush team has cynically interpreted the sanctions law to allow thousands of tons of South African iron and steel to enter the U. S. Lawyers in the Treasury Department say that Congress's ban on South African steel imports doesn't cover fabricated products."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"This dodge has permitted the continued importation of construction materials like steel girders for bridges - an obvious violation of the intent of Congress, which passed the sanctions law in 1986 over President Reagan's veto."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"It's not clear what the Administration gains by this."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"South Africa is hardly the only source of steel, raw or fabricated."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"And the benefits derived from pleasing steel importers could hardly be worth the damage to the Administration's relations with Congress."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"So what's the point?"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Most Americans have now calculated their 1986 taxes, but many have not yet calculated how much 1987 tax should be withheld from their pay."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"They fail to do so at their peril."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Tax reform changed the rules, so most people are getting a tax cut."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"But those who don't recalculate withholding may be in for a shock next April."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Until now, three out of four personal income tax payers got refunds every spring."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Many plan it that way, to avoid owing anything on April 15, or to accumulate a nest egg for a spree."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"It's an imprudent way to save; it pays no interest."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Still, last year, 74 million taxpayers got refunds totaling $73 billion."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"It is possible to rig one's withholding for a refund under the new law, but not without telling the boss what to take from each paycheck."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Even to be on target, the boss needs new instructions."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Anyone coasting on old instructions is probably being under-withheld."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"New notification to employers must be spelled out on that pesky W-4 form that caused much confusion earlier this year, or on the new, simpler W-4A."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The sooner the better, if April 15, 1988, is to bring even cold comfort."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"For millions of Americans, today is the day the San Francisco 49ers and the Cincinnati Bengals meet in the Superbowl."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"For some of them it is also the day that their supermarket amaryllis should bloom."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Finally."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The supermarket amaryllis was bought a few weeks before Christmas, already planted in a plastic pot."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Water me, the directions suggested, and I'll grow."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Since then the supermarket amaryllis has lived in the bathroom (for moisture), a semi-dark room (for a little sun) and, eventually, in whatever window gets the most rays (for the final jolt of energy)."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"At the beginning its growth was astonishing, almost vulgar, but not recently."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Snails move faster than an amaryllis bud opens."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Last week, though, the green finally split to show a splash of pink."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"But the flower still huddled into itself, seemingly reluctant to expose its beauty to the public gaze."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Given nature's inexorable course, however, today's football extravaganza might well be heralded by a blare of trumpets: the flaring petals of countless amaryllis."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Among the many sins that come with summer - sunburn, sleeplessness, stringy hair, shirts soaked by the time you get to work - city dwellers often forget the bite."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Often it comes from the mosquito, the blackfly or the spider, and it is worst on a finger."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"One New Yorker (and doubtless uncounted others) has one such bite on her index finger right now."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"It is not from a blackfly, she knows, because blackflies are most often encountered north of New York City; and its size (humongous) makes her doubt it's from a mosquito."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"More likely, spiders are afoot."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"She has spread it with ointment, sprayed it with coolant and spent long minutes holding it under cold running water."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Sleep is elusive, but when it comes she dreams."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Of a world of snow and ice, itchless."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Susan Molinari's recent move up to Congress has generated an unusually lively contest among six active candidates for the City Council seat she relinquished."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"On Tuesday, voters will, for the first time, fill a Council vacancy."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"In the past, Council members voted on vacancies, invariably following the dictates of party leaders."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Under the new, so-called nonpartisan system - a City Charter change - the familiar party labels won't appear on the ballot."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But each major party has got involved anyway, with endorsements, money and support."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"The new system has given voters an enviable choice of qualified candidates, but one stands out."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"She is Eleanor Conforti, who's running on the ''Borough Party'' line, with Democratic Party support."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Ms. Conforti, a former schoolteacher and member of Staten Island's community school board, worked for two former borough presidents and has a long record rich with public service."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"Her common sense and sound judgment promise to serve her well in office, and we are happy to offer our endorsement."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"This Christmas seems notable for the carol that hasn't been sung - that hymn to materialism, ''The Twelve Days of Christmas.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Like the dog that didn't bark, could the carol not sung reveal something profound?"}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"In ''The Twelve Days of Christmas'' the singer cheerfully catalogues a 12-package list of presents received, day by day, from a loved one: two turtle doves, three french hens, four calling birds, five gold rings ."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The story has long tantalized Christmas card designers, who can loose their pens and imaginations on French hens and on the milkmaids and leaping lords who proliferate at the other end of the list."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Why has it been so ignored this year?"}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"This Christmas hasn't been marked by any notable turn to spirituality."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But it is the first since the stock market crash in October."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Is the scarcity of ''The Twelve Days of Christmas'' an ominous leading indicator?"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Christmas carol trends could suggest as much, at least, as do hemlines."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Good for West Germany's Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, for not yielding on a case of concern to all Western democracies."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The case involves murder charges against Mohammed Ali Hamadei, a Lebanese accused of killing a U.S. Navy diver in the 1985 hijacking of a T.W.A. airliner."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The unanswered question is whether West Germany will extradite Mr. Hamadei to the United States, where he is under indictment, or try him in German courts."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The case has been clouded by rumors that Bonn was willing to try the captive on lesser charges and swap him for two Germans since taken hostage in Beirut."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"President Reagan brought up the case with Chancellor Kohl at the Venice economic conference."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"He reported Mr. Kohl's assurance that the suspect would go on trial for murder, though no decision has been taken on extradition."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Americans may prefer extradition, but the point is that a murder trial will go forward somewhere - supporting law, honor and a sound common policy on terrorism."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Topics editorial lauds decision by University of New Hampshire to crackdown on student drinking The University of New Hampshire is cracking down on student drinking, and rightly so."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Drunken behavior at the annual homecoming football game had gotten so out of hand in past years that administrators decided to ban alcohol at tailgate parties before the big game this year."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"The University of New Hampshire is cracking down on student drinking, and rightly so."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Drunken behavior at the annual homecoming football game had gotten so out of hand in past years that administrators decided to ban alcohol at tailgate parties before the big game this year."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The new policy, however, did not apply to alumni who contributed money to the athletic program."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Essentially, those who had contributed were allowed to park their liquor-laden cars in special lots and drink as they liked."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It is understandable that the athletic program would not want to offend big donors."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"A university spokesman says there was no need to ban booze at the reserved lots since there had been no misbehavior there in the past."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Still, the case shows how hard it is for universities to change the booze culture on campus."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"If the grown-ups consider access to alcohol important for a good time, it is no wonder that lots of students think fun starts with the free flow of beer."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The electoral triumph of Myanmar's democratic opposition last month was so complete that the rejected military regime scrapped earlier plans to delay the transfer of power for as long as two years."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Yet power remains in military hands, Myanmar remains a police state and promises of change remain promises."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"That makes alarming a recent report from Thailand, where Army spokesmen talk of rounding up refugees from Myanmar, formerly Burma, and repatriating them across the border because now ''they have democracy.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"It is far too early for such a conclusion."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"As it happens, there's a useful instrument for applying U.S. leverage for a rapid and genuine transition."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"As the election unfolded, Congress weighed final action on a Senate measure to bar Burmese imports because of systematic human rights abuse."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"That bill might now be modified, authorizing President Bush to seek a lifting of the ban once he feels satisfactory progress has been made toward handing over power."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Friends of Burmese democracy have legitimate reason to celebrate, but it's still too early to relax."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Mayor Koch has scheduled a hearing for today to help him decide whether or not to sign a measure to protect carriage horses in New York City."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The need for the bill is obvious."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"It passed the City Council, 31 to 3, after complaints about traffic jams and danger to the horses when carriages plod through crowded midtown streets."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"The Council also remembered Whitey, a horse felled by heat exhaustion when his driver overworked him on a hot summer day."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The bill would confine horses to Central Park for much of their working day, ban their use in extreme temperatures and require better training of drivers."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Mayor Koch is not yet convinced."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Veterinarians representing the carriage horse industry asked for a study to determine what temperature limits should be set."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"That sounds like a red herring."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But in any case, there is no reason for a study to stall the measure."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Its safeguards could always be adjusted in light of new information."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Mr. Koch also frets about industry claims that the bill's limits may put operators out of business."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"If the drivers persist with that line of argument, they force the Mayor to confront a stark question: Why does New York City need an industry that depends on snarled traffic and cruelty to animals?"}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"Working without a permit from the Department of Buildings, a contractor fatally weakened a load-bearing wall in a six-story building on 31st Street in Manhattan last Monday."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"All six floors collapsed, killing the owner and grievously injuring a courageous woman who lay unseen beneath the debris for hours."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"That was a sad reminder that unsupervised alterations and demolitions present a major hazard in New York City."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"By law, such work cannot proceed without official approval, and a permit must be posted at the site."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"In fiscal 1988 the Buildings Department received more than 4,000 citizen complaints of construction without a permit."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Three out of four were found to be accurate."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"With 6,375 miles of streets to patrol, Buildings Department inspectors have their hands full."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But the number of citizen reports suggests that disasters could be minimized if the city encouraged New Yorkers to report illegal projects."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The Buildings Department might also solicit help from other city departments."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The Police and Fire departments collaborated nobly in Monday's rescue efforts; they could be equally effective in ferreting out violations before new tragedies occur."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Anyone who doubts that the Japanese are thorough need only consult the ''New York Dictionary'' now on sale at a Japanese bookstore in Rockefeller Center."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Who else would devote a whole dictionary to the special language of a single city?"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The definition for the letter ''A'' introduces the subway system with terms like: Take the A Train and 8th Avenue Express."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Among other entries: A & S, bag lady, Bonwit Teller, Manny Hanny, maven, shooting gallery and Bosnywash (the Boston-New York-Washington corridor)."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"There's also a curious mix of the famous and infamous - H & R Block, for instance, Jackie O. and Bernhard Goetz, Beverly Sills, Billy Martin, Woody Allen, John Peter Zenger, Texas Guinan and the collective entry ''Bonanno family.''"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"There's no definition for lox but there is one for bagels, and it may reveal what the thorough Japanese are up to."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Within the bagel definition is this observation: ''New York bagels could become a hot commodity nationwide.''"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"South Korea's Government claims it is interested in compromising with the opposition over rules for selecting President Chun Doo Hwan's successor later this year."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"But the Government complicates prospects for compromise every time it seeks to sweep peaceful opposition demonstrators off the streets, as happened once again last weekend."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"These shows of force are explained as necessary to thwart radicals and keep debate confined to parliamentary channels."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Their usual effect has been just the opposite."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"They mock the moderation of responsible opposition leaders and shift attention from electoral modalities to police brutality."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"The new crackdown was all the more unseemly because it involved the public mourning of Park Jong Chul, a 21-year-old student who died under police torture three weeks ago."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The Government earned credit by acknowledging the incident and removing officials held responsible from their posts; the crackdown undermines that."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The Reagan Administration rightly reminds the authorities in Seoul that the interests of the United States in long-term Korean stability are best served by ''a more open and legitimate political system.''"}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The cool, wet weather that hung on for so long had its constructive side."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"It has slowed spring down."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Spring always seems reluctant to let go of winter."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Then, once it does, it often seems too eager to get on into summer."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But through April and well into May, the drizzly, chilly days stopped it, like a frame frozen in a movie."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The flowering trees on the parkways paused with their buds only half open."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"The tulips in Central Park barely unfurled, and the New York Botani cal Garden's magnolias held on to their pink splendors."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Gardeners, as impatient as the season, have also been slowed down."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Usually, in their haste to see what is coming next, they forget to enjoy what they have now."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"After waiting interminably for the first crocus, they brusquely turn away from that harbinger to anticipate forsythia."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Then, forsaking the forsythia, they poke at the dogwood to see how the buds are coming along."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"This season's miserable weather has been a kind of enchantment, requiring them to savor spring, change by change, instead of gulping it down."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Any day, a heat wave will break the spell and the season will resume its rush."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"As the last magnolia petals drop and the lingering daffodils fade, a few sentimental gardeners will look back on spring's suspended beauty as a wistful memory."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Most, of course, will simply grumble at their flower beds, wondering why the roses are taking so long to open."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"In Indianapolis recently, a woman named Florence Griffith Joyner soared to world prominence by running 100 meters faster than any woman ever had: 10.49 seconds."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"That was doubly remarkable: It lopped 27 hundredths of a second off the previous women's record at one stroke; nobody previously had done better than 13 hundredths."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"And it reduced the difference between the world's fastest man, Ben Johnson of Canada, and the world's fastest woman to 66 hundredths - two-thirds - of a second."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Indeed, Ms. Griffith Joyner is faster than all but a very few men in the world, and her coach, Bob Kersee, thinks she can be even faster."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"All of which must be terribly confounding to those who still resist encouraging women to participate in sports."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Not only do well-coached girls no longer run like girls and throw like girls; some do either, or both, better than boys."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"''Man is unique among the animals in wearing clothes,'' the fashion historian James Laver wrote once, ''and the question arises as to why he should do so.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"After dismissing modesty and protection against the weather as possible reasons, Mr. Laver came up with what he described as a ''scientific answer so remote from our modern notions that we have to make some effort of the imagination to understand it at all.''"}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"His answer was magic."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Primitive man's defense against malicious spirits, witchcraft and in particular the ''evil eye'' was, Mr. Laver said, the wearing of amulets, or lucky charms."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Thus girdles and aprons of cowrie shells, the most popular of amulets, marked the beginning of fashion."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"If this is so, there may be a curious kind of magic to be hoped for from the jeans manufactured by a Tennessee company called Jensen-Smith."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Distressed jeans are familiar by now; some manufacturers sell versions with pre-torn knees."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"But Jensen-Smith has now gone a long step further."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"It lines up its products and blasts them with 12-gauge shotguns."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"That means that before they're even out of the shopping bag, ''shotgun-washed'' jeans are riddled with pellet holes."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"May they be to their wearers what garlic necklaces were to those who feared the vampire's kiss."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The Charter of the Olympic Games states clearly that ''the use of the [ Olympic ] emblem for advertising alcoholic beverages is strictly prohibited.''"}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"So it seemed newsworthy when Canada's own Labatt's beer became an official sponsor of the upcoming Winter Games in Calgary, and the familiar five-ring emblem began appearing on Labatt's cans."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Alas, the report of this petite scandale failed to note that the International Olympic Committee had also licensed Anheuser-Busch, brewers of Budweiser and sponsors of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"This casual disregard of rules isn't just a decadent capitalist dodge: a Yugoslav brewer sponsored the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The Canadian member of the international committee told The Toronto Globe and Mail that the Olympic overlords ruled some time ago that regular beer and wine were not alcoholic beverages."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"''The only bad stuff is distilled spirits,'' he said; sponsorship by ''anything where your kidneys give out before your brain'' is O.K."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Perhaps the Olympians aren't aware that a can of beer or a glass of wine contains just as much alcohol as a standard mixed drink."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"But the committee's imprecision is no surprise; they are the same bunch who can't tell the difference between amateur and professional athletes."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Often the things people treasure have no intrinsic Value whatsoever."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Report cards, photographs, bridal bouquets, menus, matchbooks, letters, locks of hair - they are everything to their owners but nothing to anybody else."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"But let time pass, and such items turn into evocations of the past."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Then their magic is universal."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The small wooden house at 434 East 84th Street, torn down last summer, appears to have had such magic."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"It was covered with aluminum siding, had lost its window ornamentation, and was dwarfed by the buildings on either side of it."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"But it evoked something now almost unimaginable: Once upon a time in Manhattan, people sat on their front porches and watched the world go by."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"A six-story brick apartment house, now holding open houses for future tenants, fills the site."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"How will its eventual, inevitable razing be mourned?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Maybe by then the Manhattan it evokes - a place where people sat in air-conditioned rooms watching television and eating take-out from a Korean salad bar - will seem as innocent as the one in which people sat on their front porches and watched the world go by."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"It did so despite the fact that no Federal funds had been used for such abortions since 1979."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Next week, however, the House Rules Committee can begin the laborious legislative process of changing that punitive policy."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"If a female soldier or a serviceman's wife or daughter live in the U.S., getting a safe, legal abortion is simple."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"But they could find themselves stationed overseas in countries where abortion is illegal, or be assigned to places where the blood supply is unsafe, where needles are not routinely sterilized and where physicians are few and far between."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Last month Senators Tim Wirth, Democrat of Colorado, and John Glenn, Democrat of Ohio, offered an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would have permitted Americans serving abroad the same access to a full range of medical services as those serving at home."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"They lost, but the vote was very close - reason enough for House members to try now to attach a similar amendment to the House version of the bill."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Federal funding of abortion is not the issue here."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Neither is the constitutional right to abortion."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The only issue is the health of service personnel and their families - and their right to the same good medical care serving their country abroad that they receive at home."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"New York City has tunnels, bridges, highways, cars, subways, buses and ferries."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Theaters, movies, museums, opera companies, dance companies and clubs ranging from the intime to the ridiculous."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Small wildlife: rats, roaches, squirrels and a sky's worth of pigeons."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Big wildlife: lions, tigers and elephants."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But for the last 36 years it hasn't had a panda."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"This week, however, it got two: Ling-Ling and Yong- Yong, residents of China, who will vacation at the Bronx Zoo for three months, maybe six."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"They will dine on bamboo and catch a lot of z's."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"If there's a daylight moment during their stay when at least 2,000 pairs of eyes aren't beamed on them, we'll be very surprised."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Crowds will descend on the zoo not simply because pandas are rare but because pandas were designed to delight."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Let Yong-Yong stretch out a fat paw for yet another shoot, let Ling-Ling wander about the panda moat, let them turn teardrop-shaped eyes on the fans and ''Ooh, aren't they cute!'' will be audible all the way to Riverdale."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Ling-Ling and Yong-Yong will make their debut April 30."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"From that day forward the city that never sleeps will be, for a few months anyway, the city that has everything."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"A New Yorker for whom the simple explanation never suffices has been wondering why she's been so down lately."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Way down."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"It's too early in the season for anyone to be afflicted with SADD - that curious mood disorder that's said to arrive when the sun is low in the sky - and she is unaware of any curious conjunction of the planets."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Saturn, in other words, is behaving itself."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"So what accounts for the grayness of the day, the shabbiness of the spirit?"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Is it, she wondered, mal de siecle?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Not at all, according to this week's Science Times."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"She is suffering from mal de TV."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Studies of television addicts (people who watch an average of 56 hours a week) indicate that ordinary viewers (about 30 hours) report feeling less relaxed, less happy and less able to concentrate after TV than they do after sports, reading or gardening."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Of course!"}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"During the last 10 days this New Yorker has added one Jackie Collins, two Danielle Steeles, a Ferris Bueller and a docudrama about somebody's heart attack to her usual (one soap, the news and a ''Cagney and Lacey'' rerun) fare."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Small wonder she is down."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"What business do city officeholders have also holding time-consuming posts in political parties?"}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"None, in the view of Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., head of New York City's Charter Revision Commission, who would ban such behavior."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Four of the city's five Democratic Party leaders hold elective offices: Assemblyman Herman Farrell of Manhattan, Assemblyman George Friedman of the Bronx, Representative Thomas Manton of Queens and Borough President Howard Golden of Brooklyn."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Among Republicans, State Senators Roy Goodman of Manhattan and Guy Velella of the Bronx hold party office."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Such moonlighting cheats voters of the elected officials' time and invites abuse."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"The city's 1986 corruption scandal revealed how Donald Manes, former Queens Borough President and Democratic Party boss, financed lavish living with party funds donated by real estate developers and other special interests."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"A moonlighting ban would apply only to city offices, but at least it would clarify the first duty of any elected official: to serve all the voters, not just the party faithful."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Because of a technical malfunction, two sentences in Padma Desai's April 19 letter on the Russian economy were scrambled."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The sentences should have read: For instance, the 1994 budget deficit target was pruned down in February to 7.4 percent of the gross domestic product from its initial 16 percent. 251_3 -0.85 A legitimate concern is whether these policies will hold or be abandoned."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Representative Newt Gingrich's narrow victory in the Republican primary in Georgia's new Sixth District shows how badly the nation's system for financing Congressional campaigns needs reform."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Mr. Gingrich, the quarrelsome House minority whip, beat back the anti-incumbent campaign waged by his G.O.P."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"challenger, former State Representative Herman Clark, by 980 votes -- for a slim 51-to-49 percent victory."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Representative Newt Gingrich's narrow victory in the Republican primary in Georgia's new Sixth District shows how badly the nation's system for financing Congressional campaigns needs reform."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Mr. Gingrich, the quarrelsome House minority whip, beat back the anti-incumbent campaign waged by his G.O.P."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"challenger, former State Representative Herman Clark, by 980 votes -- for a slim 51-to-49 percent victory."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"His key advantage was undoubtedly money."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Mr. Gingrich lavished an astonishing $1.1 million on the race, easily dwarfing the $150,000 spent by his opponent and the $60,000 spent by Ralph Nader's Public Citizen organization in an independent effort to defeat Mr. Gingrich."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Small wonder Mr. Gingrich fought against reform legislation that would have imposed reasonable limits on future campaign spending."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"And no surprise that President Bush vetoed it."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"In the absence of campaign finance reform, what registers loudest in many elections is the cash register."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"To the Editor: Re Rwanda Faces New War Unless International Force Is Sent, U.N. Aides Say (news article, Nov. 6): Based on past history, if the Security Council decides to send such a force it will take months before it arrives on the scene."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"To the Editor: Re Rwanda Faces New War Unless International Force Is Sent, U.N. Aides Say (news article, Nov. 6): Based on past history, if the Security Council decides to send such a force it will take months before it arrives on the scene."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The Association of the Bar of the City of New York and now the American Bar Association have recognized this serious shortcoming of the United Nations."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Both those groups recommend that the United States Government should support the creation of a standby United Nations military force of units from the national military forces of member states, pursuant to Article 43 of the United Nations Charter."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"If creating a standby United Nations military force means slightly enlarging the size of military forces in any country, including our own, so be it."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The cost to taxpayers for doing so will be low compared with the ultimate costs to the international community for failure to do so."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Our Government should initiate a Security Council resolution requesting that United Nations members negotiate agreements with the Security Council to furnish armed forces on call."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"H. FRANCIS SHATTUCK JR. New York, Nov. 9, 1994"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Several mischievous amendments are waiting as the House gets ready to vote next week on reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act, one of the most effective environmental laws ever enacted."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"The most troubling, offered by Solomon Ortiz of Texas, would delay new regulations requiring shrimp fishermen to use excluder devices that permit sea turtles to escape their nets."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"All five species of sea turtles found in U.S. waters have become scarce enough to enjoy the protection of the Endangered Species Act."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Shrimp fishing is now the single biggest threat to their survival, yet some shrimpers fear inconvenience and losing shrimp."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"These fears appear groundless."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The first regulations requiring the excluder devices went into effect in Florida two months ago."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"They have worked well, keeping turtles out of nets while allowing shrimpers to pull in large catches."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Should Representative Ortiz succeed in delaying the excluder rules elsewhere, others may also be emboldened to pursue narrow interests."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"One amendment in the works would bypass the law's careful evaluative mechanisms by removing the leopard darter, a fresh water fish, from protection."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Rare sea turtles deserve protection from shrimping, and the Endangered Species Act deserves protection from being compromised piece by piece."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A woman approached a Manhattan sidewalk display of bags and wallets, examined the merchandise and then asked the price of a particular pocketbook (genuine leather)."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Veinticinco, said the proprietor of about 15 square feet of sidewalk on Seventh Avenue at 28th Street."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The woman looked uncomprehending."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A woman approached a Manhattan sidewalk display of bags and wallets, examined the merchandise and then asked the price of a particular pocketbook (genuine leather)."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Veinticinco, said the proprietor of about 15 square feet of sidewalk on Seventh Avenue at 28th Street."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The woman looked uncomprehending."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Veinticinco, the man repeated, in impeccable Spanish."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"No response."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Twenty-five, he tried."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"A smile of recognition."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"I'm from Russia, his would-be customer explained, as she moved on in search of a better bargain."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"But not before exchanging a bit of afternoon laughter with the sidewalk salesman, who, he confided to an onlooker, hails from Senegal."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Many a visitor to Paris is amazed by the variety of ways to order coffee."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"There's un cafe, of course, and un grand and un demi."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"But then there's au lait and creme, nature and express."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"It all seems incomparably foreign."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"And that, a newcomer to New York tells us, is exactly how she felt for weeks in the local deli at breakfast time."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"New York City has its own language of coffee: To begin with, ''regular'' means what ''with cream'' means in the provinces."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Then there are the many variations of regular."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"It may be light or dark, half-and-half or milk."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"And it may begin with that favorite of the fit, brewed decaf."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Having mastered coffee, she moved along to bagels."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Isn't a bagel just a bagel?"}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"No indeed, it may be plain or onion, egg, poppyseed, cinnamon and raisin, salted like a giant pretzel, or even pumpernickel."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"It may be toasted or not, buttered or not or best of all, spread with cream cheese ''schmear.''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Now she's ready to start on bialys."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Dr. Veronica Prego's tragic dispute with New York City has been billed as a ''$175 million lawsuit.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"It's been that way ever since someone added up all the dollars in her original complaint that the city's negligence, in leaving a contaminated needle on a hospital bed, caused her to contract AIDS."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"As the legal world knows, such figures mean nothing."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Plaintiffs can usually win damages whether or not amounts are specified in their civil complaints."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Such dollar demands do have theatrical value, however, so years ago, doctors and municipalities persuaded the New York Legislature to forbid specific dollar amounts in medical malpractice suits or suits against localities."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"On New York City's motion, those numbers have been stricken from Dr. Prego's amended complaint."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Should she win her suit, the jury will be asked to calculate damages on a reasonable basis."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"The law is a breeding ground for gross exaggerations."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Lawyers sing, ''This case is going all the way to the Supreme Court'' even when they have no hope of getting there."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"''Noriega faces 145 years,'' the news reports say, adding up the maximum penalties in all the counts against Panama's former leader."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"In his case, such melodrama is a harmless irrelevance."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"In Dr. Prego's poignant case, it is an offensive distraction."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Just as it's desirable to limit carriage horses to Central Park, it's sensible to limit what the horses leave behind."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Yet the usual reaction to horse manure in the park is a resigned giggle."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"No one loves the sight, smell or residue in the tread of bikes or running shoes, but what, shrug, is to be done?"}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The very idea of horse diapers provokes incredulous snickers."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"''Just think,'' someone is sure to say, ''of what big safety pins you'd have to use!''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Wiseacres notwithstanding, other cities have made practical use of simple devices that don't look anything like diapers."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The manure drops into catchers, made of wood and canvas, that are mounted in the rigging behind the horse and can be readily removed and emptied."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Hampers, not Pampers."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Thanks to the common sense of Parks Commissioner Henry Stern and Alfred Pennisi of the Carriage Horse Association, such devices are finally making their way into Central Park."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The association is now experimenting with three different hampers and three other models are on the way."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"The undertaking already deserves congratulation."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"If the sponsors pay attention, all 68 licensed carriage horses could be properly outfitted by spring - a result that would merit a big cheer and a crystal-clear apple."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Restrictions on imports take many forms -tariffs, red tape and now, in South Korea, snakes."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Some Koreans so object to the import of U.S. films that they are releasing snakes in theaters."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Poisonous snakes were loosed during a Seoul showing of ''Rain Man.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"During last year's Olympics, non-poisonous snakes appeared in theaters showing ''Fatal Attraction.''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"U.S. negotiators made a deal with Seoul four years ago for limited runs of American movies."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Obviously, it's not working."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"No one knows for sure the exact motives of the snake mongers."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"But their chilling tactics demonstrate the depth of resentment that imports from the U.S. can generate."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"It's a lesson for any American who thinks foreign markets can be blasted open at will."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"New York offers art, dance, danger, dirt, music, traffic and wildlife."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"It also offers falafel, calamari, sushi, cannoli, quiche, cheesecake, tempura, sausage, scungilli, yogurt on a stick, popcorn in a bucket, meatballs on a roll and all manner of things delicate and indelicate."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"To eat on the streets of New York this weekend is to understand better than ever how much New York remains a remarkable assemblage of ethnicities."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The major chewing is on Ninth Avenue, at the 14th annual International Food Festival, but there's minor dining all over town."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The city's borscht-bibbers, for instance, will probably be in the East Village, at the Ukrainian Festival."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The sylte-on-rye / spekeskinke-on-pumpernickel crowd is apt to be watching the Norwegian parade in Bay Ridge; and over at the Queens County Farm Museum a group led by a woman in a pith helmet will forage a nature preserve for wild things to zip up their salads."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Meanwhile, the strollers through the neighborhood block parties and the gang lining the Grand Concourse for the Bronx Week parade aren't going to be empty-handed."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"We're talking wall-to-wall hotdogs, Yoo-Hoos and ice cream bars."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Funnel cakes, tacos, zeppole and fried bananas, too."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"And stuff most people can't pronounce - or spell - or even recognize."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"New York needs no monuments to immigration beyond its dinner plates."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The Campbell Soup Company boasts in an ad that its soups could ''reduce the risk of heart disease.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"It neglects to mention that the soups' high sodium content could also increase that same risk."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Last week, the Federal Trade Commission rightly cited Campbell's for making misleading health claims."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The use of nutritional testimonials to sell food is proliferating, a response to growing consumer concern about diet and health."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But until now the F.T.C. has all but ignored its responsibility to police these claims."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"A special task force of state attorneys general has partly filled the breach."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Campbell's is the only major soup company to include sodium content in the small print on the label, for which it deserves credit."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Still, the F.T.C. is on firm ground."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Experts including the Surgeon General warn that a diet high in sodium contributes to high blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart disease."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"To boast of the soup's disease-prevention value is at least incomplete and probably misleading."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The company is appealing the commission's action and has asked for a full hearing before an administrative law judge."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Meanwhile, a welcome message reverberates: companies making health claims must disclose both good news and bad."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"At last, the Federal Government has begun watching."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"James Bond is a master at narrow escapes from life-threatening traps laid by his villainous enemies."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"It is perhaps less noticed that, no matter how fast he roars through mountain passes on winding two-lane highways, he also escapes traffic cops."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Sean Connery, the movies' original 007, isn't so lucky."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"It has recently come to light that Mr. Connery was arrested in December for violating the 55-mile-an-hour limit north of Santa Barbara, Calif."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"True to fiction, he was speeding through a mountain pass on a winding two-lane highway."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But fans will be disappointed to learn that he was not piloting an armored Aston-Martin."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Mr. Connery was in a Thunderbird."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Worse, it was rented!"}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"And the real Bond wouldn't be seen doing less than 100 m.p.h.; Mr. Connery was poking along at 82."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Foiled by a recently installed radar trap, he was booked for speeding and driving without a license."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"He paid a $190 fine for the speeding violation, but got the other charge dismissed when his lawyer produced a valid British license."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Another narrow escape."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Pure 007."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Legislation introduced by Bob Dole, the Senate minority leader, would close two American offices of the Palestine Liberation Organization."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The purpose, Mr. Dole says, is ''to strengthen the defenses of this country against the real, physical threat that the P.L.O. represents.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Yet if there is evidence that P.L.O."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"terrorists are being harbored in the observer mission and information office Mr. Dole seeks to close, existing law already offers adequate defense."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act provides for exclusion or deportation of alien visitors who would engage in terrorist acts."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"Mr. Dole's proposal is thus reminiscent of the same McCarthy-era fever that produced the more odious provisions of the McCarran-Walter law that limit free speech."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Those provisions permit the exclusion or deportation of persons because of the mere belief that they might advocate terrorist, anarchist or subversive activities."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Too often, they are used fearfully, to exclude foreign ideas."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"The Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week took an important step toward excising that fear from American law."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"It passed an amendment, sponsored by Senators Simon, Moynihan and Kassebaum, that would generally prohibit exclusion of alien visitors solely because of their politics or their anticipated statements."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"That proposal would promote free speech."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Mr. Dole's fearful bill would stifle it."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"This April in Paris, there will be fresh excitement in the air with the opening of I. M. Pei's high-tech glass pyramid in the courtyard of the venerable Louvre."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The latest of President Francois Mitterrand's ambitious ''Grands Projets,'' the monument has been a subject of controversy since plans for its construction were announced five years ago."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"''A bomb dropped in World War II in the same place could have hardly caused more damage,'' wrote one irate preservationist to The New York Times."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"The museum's curators, in an unusual public letter, defended the design as ''an imaginative concept that fits perfectly into an overall architectural ensemble.''"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Such contretemps are as much a part of Paris as baguettes and bookstalls."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Critics seldom settle these arguments; Paris, after all, belongs to everyone."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"For some, the pyramid will be an eyesore; for others, a prism that multiplies the city's beauties."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"For all, it's a new excuse to hurry back to the City of Light."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"What should be done about a new building on East 96th Street in Manhattan that is 12 stories higher than the zoning law allows?"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The Board of Standards and Appeals ruled that the city may order the offending 12 stories torn down."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Going ahead with demolition might be appropriate if the city were wholly blameless."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"But city officials initiated the mistake, a fact that argues for a more sophisticated course."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The city might well require Queens-based Parkview Associates, the builder, to spend the equivalent of the demolition expense (at least $2.5 million) to subsidize low- and moderate-rent housing in the neighborhood."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"City officials also might ask why the mistake was made in the first place."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"To control city development more precisely, are planners making zoning maps too complicated, and their texts too complex?"}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The parents of two small boys suddenly feel less conscientious."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The boys have been plagued with head colds so the parents bought each an ultrasonic humidifier."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"These would, the parents thought, create a healthier atmosphere."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The deluxe model, shaped like a flying saucer, includes a night light, plastic ducks and an electronic music box that plays ''It's a Small, Small World.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"So what could be wrong with such parental solicitude?"}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Well, it turns out that ultrasonic humidifiers may be harmful."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Jane Brody, The Times's personal-health columnist, reports that scientists at the Federal Environmental Protection Agency have discovered that, along with their fine mist, the ultrasonic machines spew tiny mineral particles and pieces of microorganisms."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"When inhaled, these can cause allergic reactions or illness."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"If the air becomes too humid, molds can start to grow on household surfaces."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"After the Corvair, Chernobyl and garage door openers that turn lethal, it's no longer surprising that technology intended to be benign may be benighted."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"But it's particularly disappointing in the case of ultrasonic humidifiers."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Anything that works so quietly and efficiently ought to be good for you, with or without ducks."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Ask New Yorkers which of their possessions they dread losing most, and the common answer will be, ''My keys.''"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Now those often-overlooked items, and the locks they fit, can be found in abundance at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, in an engaging exhibit of security devices from antiquity to the present."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"There are time locks, strongboxes and ornate papal keys, magnetic card keys and Kryptonite padlocks."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Some keys - like watch keys - won't open anything."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Others unlock memories, in a diary or jewel chest."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"A good lock is a puzzle, with a solution that's convenient yet daunting."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"A combination of numbers, a password or fingerprint scan are the advances human ingenuity wins over its own deviousness - or that is the hope."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Understandably missing from the exhibit are Permissive Action Links, the devilishly complex codes embedded in nuclear weapons."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Only the high command possess the rights of passage."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"They hold the keys to kingdom come."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"However sophisticated, locks and keys are quick fixes for moral decline, and as the burglar's tools on display suggest, every lock inspires its own defeat, its own insecurities."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Proud tradition once ruled in naming the Navy's ships - battleships for states, cruisers for cities, submarines for creatures of the sea."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Those rules no longer hold, partly because the changing design of ships has blurred the distinctions between classes, partly because someone hit upon the idea of lionizing politicians."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The late Adm. Hyman Rickover, the nuclear Navy pioneer, observed that ''fish don't vote.''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"In the 1970's, four submarines were named posthumously for important members of Congressional committees on defense spending."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Since then, the Navy has named a Trident sub for the late Senator Henry Jackson and a nuclear carrier for former Representative Carl Vinson."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Recently, Senator Ted Stevens floated the idea of naming a new carrier for Senator John Stennis of Mississippi, who retires next year at 87."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"He is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and its defense subcommittee, and his power over defense spending is matched by his humility."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"When Mr. Stevens broached his proposal at a subcommittee session, Senator Stennis politely but firmly turned him down."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"A distinguished politician, he understands that how one's name is valued has little to do with how it is displayed."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Last week, Congress acknowledged what President Bush will not: that galloping population growth merits attention."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It voted to contribute to the U.N. Fund for Population Activities."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The U.S. withdrew from the program three years ago after a conservative outcry over abortions in China."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But under Senator Barbara Mikulski's amendment to the $14 billion foreign aid bill, none of the United States' $15 million contribution would go to China."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The House added another requirement, sponsored by Representative Sidney Yates."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"All the money must be returned to the U.S. if the fund spends any of it on abortion or on China's program, which actually focuses on contraception and child health."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Mr. Bush is still opposed."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Congress, eager to pass an appropriations bill, won't try for an override of his expected veto."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"But at least Congress shows that it's no longer held hostage to a handful of noisy anti-abortion activists."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Perhaps we are oversensitive, but a term newly making the rounds seems particularly offensive."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"It is breeder, meaning one who chooses to have children."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It can be used in question form (Oh, so you're a breeder?)"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"or in the simple declarative (I've decided I'm a non-breeder.)"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"In either case, the required mode of delivery is studied nonchalance."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"What rankles is not so much the breezy dismissal of parenthood as a stud and kennel service."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"It's more the implication that a difficult and emotional decision requires no more thought than choosing a pair of shoes."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"One of the great lessons of this century is the extent to which language controls our thoughts and emotions."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"For the sake of our children, literally and figuratively, this is one trendy term that deserves a quick burial."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Anyone consulting The Complete Baseball Book on Tuesday afternoon would have found only 19 names on the list of pitchers with 300 major league victories, including Denton T. Young and Robert M. Grove."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"But by midnight E.S.T., one more name had joined Cy and Lefty on that rarified roster - L. Nolan Ryan."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"It wasn't easy."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Ryan played for anemic teams during much of his career, and on Tuesday he was nearly sabotaged by the Texas Rangers' leaky infield."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"But he got the win - a very satisfying event on many levels."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"It was, first, a tribute to a rare athlete who is also, in an age of big egos, an industrious and modest man."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"It provided instruction for a new generation of fans, for whom 300-game winners tend to be the stuff of legend."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Having seen one in the flesh, they can now match reality to mythology."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Then too, the victory provided a tonic for anyone over 40, not only because Ryan is 43 but also because he achieved his milestone while suffering from, among other things, tendinitis and an unpredictable back, ailments known to many middle-aged mortals."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The win won't turn Ryan's head."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"When the game ended, he embraced his teammates, returned to the clubhouse, jumped on an exercise bike and began pedaling."}
{"sentiment":2.5,"text":"The State Department's commitment to good architecture for U.S. embassies has raised some beautiful structures in faraway places - they are elegant expressions of America's best."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"The embassy in New Delhi is the best known, but there are proud examples in Kuala Lumpur, Lisbon and Nicosia, and another is going up right now in Santiago."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"And then there's Moscow."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"The bug-ridden new chancery at the embassy in the Soviet capital is not only a security disaster; it's an architectural blob - a block of red brick no grander than New York City's police headquarters, to which it bears striking resemblance."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The State Department has not yet decided whether to rip the whole thing down and start again or just rebuild a few floors."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Since the cost will run to the tens of millions of dollars either way, why not redo it, and do it right?"}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"There is no inherent conflict between security and good architecture."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The State Department has architectural advisers well positioned to select a qualified designer and to review the product, but only if the project is restarted from scratch."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"America's official presence in Moscow deserves to stand out, with style."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"In Willa Cather's famous short story, ''Paul's Case,'' set in yesterday's New York, the hero takes a carriage ride down Fifth Avenue on a snowy night and marvels at ''stands with whole flower gardens blooming under glass cases, against the sides of which the snowflakes stuck and melted; roses, violets, carnations, lilies of the valley - somehow vastly more lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow.''"}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Thanks to the city's Korean greengrocers, yesterday's image has returned."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"On the night of last week's snowstorm, whole flower gardens -roses, carnations, tulips and freesia - were blooming behind the clear plastic curtains the grocers hang in winter."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"The snowflakes did indeed stick and melt on their sides; and, yes, they were vastly more lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"To the Editor: United States opposition to construction of nuclear reactors in Iran cannot be justified on the basis of nonproliferation."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The reactors will be similar to Western light-water reactors."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Fuel can be accounted for with full confidence."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Reprocessing can only be accomplished in huge, automated and highly visible plants."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"To the Editor: United States opposition to construction of nuclear reactors in Iran cannot be justified on the basis of nonproliferation."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The reactors will be similar to Western light-water reactors."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Fuel can be accounted for with full confidence."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Reprocessing can only be accomplished in huge, automated and highly visible plants."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Although it could, in principle, be assembled into an explosive device, the separated plutonium would be of no interest to a nation for a nuclear weapon."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Weapons to attack another nation, or to deter an attack, must be reliable to be a credible threat."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The centrifuge part of the deal would not have been so easy to safeguard."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"With that eliminated, other nations regard United States opposition as inept advice and meaningless posturing."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"If not for the nightmare that preceded it, Kendall Truitt, Gunner's Mate 3d Class, U.S.N., might have thought a dream had come true."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"What sailor wouldn't like to tell off the whole Navy, in a televised Congressional hearing?"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"A House subcommittee listened as Mr. Truitt testified that the Navy's conclusion that another gunner, Clayton Hartwig, caused an explosion on the battleship Iowa was ''a big cover-up'' of the ship's safety lapses."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Nobody yet knows what caused that blast in April, but Mr. Truitt's opinion stacks up pretty well so far against that of the admirals, Navy investigators and the F.B.I."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Their accusations rest on a pseudo-scientific psychological profile of the dead Mr. Hartwig."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Mr. Truitt's right to be heard on the subject stems in part from his shabby treatment by Navy investigators, who leaked suspicions that he, too, had a motive to cause the blast."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The Navy has admitted it has no proof against Mr. Truitt, but it needs to wake up from its own dream that it can pin liability on his dead buddy."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"Sailors and officers up and down the line can share Mr. Truitt's judgment of the official report: ''misleading,'' ''ridiculous.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"If urban life seems more crowded these days, one reason may be the Big Pack - that 4-by-4-foot, 20-pound pouch swinging from just about every other shoulder in downtown America."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Big Packs, riding high on crowded buses or trains, broadside fellow travelers, jam automatic doors, crush ribs."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"More and more commuters, it seems, carry half their lives about with them: extra shoes, a toothbrush, the inventory of a small drugstore, a change of clothes."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Fitness regimes add pounds of gear, plus organic snacks and vitamins."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"A portable Walkman and tapes may nestle beside magazines, a book, the newspaper and the fat ''planner.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Why do so many carry such burdens?"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The rediscovered work ethic fixes the price of success at 60 hours per week: having it all means lugging it, and using lunch hours and commutation time for books, music or staying in shape."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"An increased number of delayed or dissolved marriages means that many carry house keys to more than one door."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Or perhaps more people just feel a need for security-blanket surrogates - the comforting clutter of home, packed up and close by, wherever they go."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Fashion in the office has taken a truly odd turn."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Sit at a typical in-office meeting and it's hard to miss."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The men, mostly, come without their jackets."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The women, to a woman, come with their jackets on."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Men show no compunction about displaying generous paunches."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Women hide their unbusiness-like chests and not-so-flat stomachs."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Even slim and trim women wear suits."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Or jackets and skirts."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Or jackets and pants."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Sweaters? Forget it."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Dresses?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Hard to find, except under a jacket."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The jacket has become a working woman's security blanket."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"It bespeaks serious manner and purpose."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Going about sans jacket, revealing imperfections -or perfections - demands confidence, a true sense of belonging."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"And that will take time."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Progress? Sure."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But women are not there, not quite yet."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"When ''Gangbusters'' started on the radio in 1936 with roaring cars and stuttering tommy-guns, it spawned an instant verbal cliche."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The expression ''coming on like gangbusters'' has long outlived its source."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"When the movie ''Ghostbusters'' came out in 1984, it spawned an instant visual cliche - the international stop symbol, red circle crossed by diagonal slash."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"In short order, the logo was adapted to be anti-Mondale (''Fritzbusters''), anti-Republican (''Reaganbusters''), anti-cigarettes (''smokebusters'')."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Now, in the era of ''Karate Kid III,'' ''Superman IV'' and Halloween Part 95, comes ''Ghostbusters II,'' about which two cheerful points can be made."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"First, it's a good-natured movie (about bad-natured goo)."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Second, it has not spawned a new array of copycat logos."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"What has instead become the visual cliche of this summer is the ''Batman'' logo."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Never mind that some people misread it, seeing a mouthful of gold teeth rather than a bat against a gold field."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It's impossible to go anywhere without seeing the logo on what seems like every passing T-shirt, sweatshirt, cap and sign."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"It has become so ubiquitous, indeed, as to inspire a wishful fantasy logo: the black-and-gold Batman oval embellished - by a red circle and red slash."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The selection of the United States to host the 1994 World Cup raises the question of why Americans call the sport soccer when it's football everywhere else."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A well-traveled friend explains that the name evolved when the game came over from England, which has two sports called football - rugby football and association football."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"To an Englishman, they are rugger and football or, sometimes in print, ''assoc. football.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"In crossing the Atlantic, ''assoc.'' came out ''soccer.''"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The Oxford English Dictionary, the ultimate authority, offers a similar explanation."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"The keepers of the Queen's own English do not snort at ''soccer'' as a perversion of football played by the savages in the Colonies."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"On the contrary."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"They define it as ''the game of football as played under Association rules,'' and subscribe to the assoc. derivation."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But they don't buy the American spelling; in the O.E.D., one must look under ''socker; also socca.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Now why on earth do you suppose that they call it socker when it's really soccer?"}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The sun, scientists tell us, is in trouble."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"The amount of radiation it sends down to Earth has been decreasing noticeably, about one-tenth of 1 percent over five years."}
{"sentiment":-2.35,"text":"If this were to continue, all the Earth might freeze."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"But, the scientists quickly add, this situation may be only temporary and there is no need to worry about it for a while - a million years or so."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"News of such trouble creates an aura different from that of other kinds of disaster."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Usually, humans feel responsible for it."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"The sun's ailment is all its own doing, probably some sunspot upset in its metabolism."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"There is nothing humans can do except to feel a sort of personal concern for a heavenly neighbor."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Mankind has reason to feel kindly toward the sun."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Out of the thousands on thousands of stars in the universe, it is the one that has chosen to shine on Earth."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"At this time of year, people feel a closeness toward the sun, perhaps because they see so much less of it."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"We treasure the small comforts and pleasures it brings to the daily routine - the morning brightness that slants into a kitchen window, the warmth it gives in the lee of a tall building, the dazzle at the end of a workday."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"A look to the east sees the winter city tinted with rosy light and a look west sees an outsized sun going down into the Jersey Meadows, burnished in a halo of smoke and haze."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The Louisiana Legislature left some 400 bills for Gov."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Buddy Roemer when it adjourned last week."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"The remarkably harsh anti-abortion bill has attracted wide attention."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"People with an eye for history will take a long look, also, at the lottery bill."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The State Constitution prohibits a lottery, and for good reason."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"An earlier lottery, established in 1869 by carpetbaggers for a New York gambling syndicate, was so corrupt that other states wanted it banned from using the mails."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"In 1880 President Benjamin Harrison declared that ''the people of all the states are debauched and defrauded'' by Louisiana's game, and persuaded Congress to approve a postal ban."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Eventually the lottery was shut down."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Now the state budget is $600 million in the red, and lottery promoters offer a quick fix."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Because the question involves changing the Constitution, it must go to a popular referendum in the fall."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Meanwhile the Governor must deal with a bill creating an agency to run it if the referendum carries."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Governor Roemer opposes a lottery as an unseen tax on the poor."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But he says it's the voters' decision."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"He could help them decide by vetoing the bill on his desk; he would also set a good example for other politicians who succumb to the temptation of lotteries when they can't muster the courage to balance their budgets the old-fashioned way, by cutting spending or raising taxes."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The metrication of America moves slowly; this is one of only three countries (the others are Burma and Liberia) that do not conform to the metric system."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Besides, for every step forward, the U.S. seems to take another back."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Even the American ''foot'' is out of step."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Though it is used less and less, some countries on the metric system still have need for a unit between a centimeter and a meter."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Thus the ''international foot,'' .3048 of a meter."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But America continues to use the ''survey foot,'' less than a millionth of an inch longer."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"There's a chance now to achieve uniformity, but two Federal agencies propose to continue the confusion."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The National Bureau of Standards and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration once contemplated adopting the international foot but now propose to uphold the survey foot."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The main advocates are surveyors, mappers and contractors who fear disruptive effects."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"But adjustments would require only some minor conversions, instantly done in a world of pocket calculators."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Conversion of the U.S. survey foot would be a welcome step toward the replacement of all U.S. measurements with metric ones."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The Bureau of Standards and the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are now receiving public comments on their proposal to retain the survey foot."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The agencies would be wiser to put America's best foot forward."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The world's most benign weapons systems are the salts and shots in the arsenal of the United Nations Children's Fund."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"For a pittance, Unicef confounds common and deadly foes of children: diarrheal diseases, measles, tetanus, whooping cough and polio."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"A decade ago only 5 percent of the third world's children were vaccinated."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Even fewer had access to oral rehydration therapy, the solution of salt and sugar that combats dehydration caused by diarrhea, the largest single killer."}
{"sentiment":2.1,"text":"Last year immunization reached about half the children in poor countries, saving the lives of two million."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"Congress deserves credit for earmarking $54 million of its big spending bill for Unicef and $80 million more for the agency's Child Survival Fund."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Meanwhile, however, Congress continues to starve the U.N., the Organization of American States and a host of development agencies."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"It failed again to pay off a U.N. delinquency account, now totaling $414 million, including $61 million for peacekeeping."}
{"sentiment":-2.35,"text":"Thus the U.S. remains the world's leading deadbeat."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Do only poor children touch Congressional hearts?"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Most top New York City politicians are adjusting their fund-raising practices to meet lowered contribution limits in the city's new public campaign financing law."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But for Andrew Stein, the City Council president, it is fund-raising more or less as usual."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Mr. Stein, who is running for re-election, announced in January that he would not participate in the voluntary system, which provides public matching funds for candidates who accept limits on spending and private contributions."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"But he said he would abide by the law's caps on individual and corporate donations."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Now that promise turns out to be misleading."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The plan limits all gifts to the 1989 campaign to $3,000."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It also explicitly bars corporations from contributing multiple $3,000 gifts through subsidiaries, a common dodge."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But a provision inserted last year at Mr. Stein's urging permits candidates to accept contributions of up to $50,000 to pay off past campaign debts."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Taking full advantage of that loophole, Mr. Stein continues to collect oversize checks from real estate and financial interests, according to his latest campaign filings."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"For this year, moreover, Mr. Stein, as a nonparticipant in the new system, intends to violate its spirit further by accepting multiple gifts from corporate subsidiaries."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"His willingness to continue that much-abused practice renders his pledge of self-restraint emptier still."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"A Bette Davis fan who had longed to see ''The Great Lie'' found it recently in a video store."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"She thought she was renting a romantic drama; what she got was a horror movie."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Every time Sandra Novak, the hard-as-nails concert pianist played by Mary Astor, pulled out another cigarette, the fan shrank."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"When Sandra drank her nightly brandy, the fan shuddered."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"When Maggie, the good-as-gold horse fancier played by B. D., rebuked her for wanting a ham and cheese sandwich, the fan shivered."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Maggie had her eye on the wrong stuff."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Chain-smoking, brandy-slugging Sandra was pregnant."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"''Forget about the ham and cheese, Maggie,'' the fan wanted to shout."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"''Close out the Courvoisier!"}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Banish the Camels!''"}
{"sentiment":2.4,"text":"Sandra's baby was born fat and healthy, which is a miracle."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"If her smoking, swigging ways reflect pregnancy circa 1941, when the film was made, then the apparent good health of many a middle-aged American is a bit of a miracle, too."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"To be living in the New York area this month is to know that Friday means the beginning of bad weather that with luck might end before Sunday night."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Still, there are consolations."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The trees are green, the grass is glossy and the drop-drop-drop of the evening rain is a surer soporific than a TV rerun."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"The reservoirs are rising to healthy levels and those who linger longer in the shower than cleanliness demands can forgo the guilt."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Sunburn, and the attendant itch and peel, is impossible."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"To be living in the New York area this month is to know that Friday means the beginning of bad weather that with luck might end before Sunday night."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Still, there are consolations."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"The trees are green, the grass is glossy and the drop-drop-drop of the evening rain is a surer soporific than a TV rerun."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"The reservoirs are rising to healthy levels and those who linger longer in the shower than cleanliness demands can forgo the guilt."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Sunburn, and the attendant itch and peel, is impossible."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"There are other consolations."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Ping-pong, the quintessential rainy-day sport."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Debussy, the quintessential rainy-day composer."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"There's also the certain knowledge that on Monday, when one is once more locked into school or workplace, the sun will be glorious."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Jacques Marsal, who died last week at 63, didn't precisely tumble down a hole on Sept. 12, 1940, near the village of Lascaux in southwestern France."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"His dog did."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"But when he and three playmates followed, what they found was as astonishing as anything Alice found in Wonderland."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"After a short drop they entered an enormous oval chamber on whose walls vast beasts loomed."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"A flashlight picked out a pregnant wild mare that was threatened by arrows, a bull that seemed to paw the ground, a frieze of stags' heads, a bison pierced by a javelin."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"''Primitive'' people, drawing miraculously and accurately from life, had left these and other animals on the cave's walls 16,000 years before."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The frescoes are fainter now, countless tourists having left behind a poisonous collective exhalation; the Lascaux cave has been closed to the public since 1963."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"But when Mr. Marsal, who became the cave's guardian for life, scrambled down that hole, the frescoes were as fresh as the day they were painted."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"The boys were thus doubly lucky."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"They discovered the Lascaux paintings."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"And they saw them as few were able to again."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Once, when June turned hot, middle-class parents fretted with guilt over the idea of allowing the kids a do-nothing summer."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"How nice for Ann or Andy if Mom and Dad could afford to pack footlockers and send them away to a world of canoes and campfire songs, to laugh in musty cabins and get crushes on their counselors."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"How regrettable if the children would have to make do with the local swimming pool and soda fountain."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But summers come and go, and worries change."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Today's two-worker families find camp a necessity, lest kids become bored latch-key waifs."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Thus, summer calendars were full long before the heat came: the local soccer program in June, six weeks at camp in Maine and then the family vacation in August."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"A stimulating summer, but one that raises new pangs of guilt: Why shouldn't Ann and Andy be allowed some late mornings in bed, lemonade, a good book and lazy hours alone in a hammock?"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has recommended moving a proposed natural gas pipeline back onto property owned by Dr. Joyce Brothers, the television personality, and Arnold Fisher, a Manhattan real-estate agent and political contributor to Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"It's the right decision, and the full commission is expected to agree."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Consider the geography."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The properties are vacant fields in Dutchess County, in upstate New York."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"An alternate route proposed by the Iroquois Gas Company and wrongly approved by New York's Public Service Commission would have crossed a county road two extra times, taken the pipeline through the yards of seven homes and added significantly to the cost."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"What caused Iroquois to abandon the original path and the P.S.C. to go along?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Iroquois officials speak vaguely about ''landowner concerns.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But Dr. Brothers wasn't shy about her objections, hiring an Albany lobbyist to press her case."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Mr. D'Amato contacted Iroquois after meeting with Mr. Fisher, but says that was no more than he did for other constituents who complained about the route."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Embarrassed by the publicity, Mr. Fisher recently offered to accept the pipeline."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The pipeline will carry Canadian gas through New York to Long Island, Connecticut and four other states."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"So far, the only thing it has supplied is the whiff of favoritism."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Harry Macklowe bulldozed his way to notoriety one night in January 1985 when a demolition crew destroyed single-room-occupancy hotels on a building site he owned just off Times Square."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Mr. Macklowe, a big developer, planned to build a luxury hotel there, but would have been stymied by a city moratorium on tearing down S.R.O.'s that was scheduled to take effect 24 hours after his wreckers did their midnight mischief."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Responding to public outrage, Mr. Macklowe agreed to pay the city $2 million to atone for his action, but that wasn't enough."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The City Council then passed a law delaying construction on sites where hotels to house the poor had been torn down."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Effectively, the measure meant that Mr. Macklowe's pricey palace would have to wait four years."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But two years later the law was repealed, almost as furtively as Mr. Macklowe's crew had cleared the site, and in June the Hotel Macklowe opened for business, without fanfare."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Now comes the fanfare."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Next month Gary Kasparov, the world chess champion, and Anatoly Karpov, the man from whom he took the title in 1985, will meet in a third rematch - in the theater attached to the new hotel's high-tech conference center."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"How did the Hotel Macklowe get to stage such a high-profile event?"}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Being new, it had the space available."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Being Mr. Macklowe's, it could use some favorable publicity, too."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"The performance of Col. Gregorio Honasan, a leader of the latest attempted coup against the Aquino Government in the Philippines, lends critical mass to a proposal that could go a long way toward stabilizing world affairs."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The plan is simple: abolish the military rank of colonel, worldwide."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"The evidence is compelling that wherever dirty business is conducted, colonels are somehow involved."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The Greek colonels overturned their government and substituted a dictatorship."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"In most Latin American revolutions, the colonels lead the fray."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Nothing more need be said about Libya's Colonel Qaddafi."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Much more remains to be learned about our own Colonel North."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Why are colonels so troublesome?"}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Perhaps because they chafe so while waiting for their general's star."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"In times of peace, that can be a long wait."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Generals are too comfortable to want to upset the status quo."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The colonel-elimination plan would, moreover, reduce military budgets."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The colonels' legitimate work could be formally assigned to master sergeants who are already used to doing it anyway, at lower cost."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"With the arrival of cable television, VCR's and video rental stores, futurologists predicted that Saturday nights at the Bijou would go the way of community sings."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Why would people stand in long lines, pay $7 and suffer whisperers in a cramped movie house when they could be home in their jammies eating microwaved popcorn with an incredible choice of things to see?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"That's a question someone should ask all those people lining up outside New York City's movie theaters."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Last year, domestic-film exhibitors in the city took in a record $5 billion and expect to do as well this year."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"In Manhattan alone, 43 new movie screens have gone into operation in the last two years and 32 more are coming."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Reports of a dead movie industry are greatly exaggerated."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Of course, unlike the colossal picture palaces of old, the new theaters seat only a few hundred patrons."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"But for the many New Yorkers who live in cubicles of 600 square feet or less, even Saturday night at the multiplex is a glorious escape."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Like the silent-film goers Henry Tyrell observed in 1896, the would-be couch potatoes happily sit ''spellbound in darkness,'' their unwashed dishes, unpaid bills and unfolded laundry nowhere in view."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Revenge seems to help relieve the pain when police refuse to enter a locked parked car and turn off the burglar alarm that endlessly pierces the night."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Such car alarms are mandated by law to shut off after 15 minutes."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Too many of them don't."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The police usually shrug off their responsibility to provide relief, for reasons the Department's legal adviser cannot explain."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The result is inevitable: car lynching."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The neighbors, provoked beyond endurance, have now refined their anti-alarm vengeance."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"They used to scrawl curses on the hood or empty the contents of garbage cans on the Mercedes or other costly gem."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Now they slash tires, daub nail polish on side mirrors and fill door locks with grease."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"This purposeful vandalism may be understandable, but cannot be condoned as a substitute for more reasonable remedies."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"These include ordering precincts to use their existing authority to turn off the alarms."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Fines for accidental or false discharge of alarms could be raised."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The Department of Traffic might be authorized to tow away all offending autos."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"The worst thing to do is nothing, for when police indifference encourages law-abiding citizens to become vandals, the police make their own job harder."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Few great painters have been as shabbily ignored in their homeland as Marc Chagall."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"''A magnificent artist,'' declared a Soviet Minister of Culture defensively in 1968, but ''unfortunately there is not enough space in Soviet museums to show his work.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Until Chagall's death two years ago, those museums somehow never managed to find space for this master who memorably portrayed his native city, Vitebsk, where he once served briefly as Commissar of Art."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Happily, space is now being found."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Plans are under way for the first major Chagall show, at Moscow's Pushkin Museum, timed for the artist's centenary in July."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"And a Soviet museum may be established in the old Chagall residence in Vitebsk, now the home of an aged Jewish house painter."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Chagall offended the cultural bureaucracy by celebrating pre-Revolutionary Jewish themes in a whimsical style at variance with Socialist realism."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"What made this ostracism so unjust was his lifelong devotion to Russia and its culture."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"His real offense was a liberating mysticism, as in these lines of his own verse: ''Mine alone / The land that lives in my soul / I go there without a passport ...The inhabitants walk on air / And live in my soul / Looking for lodgings.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"In short, inward openness, but all too prematurely."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The Soviet Government's persistent unwillingness to admit error and apologize has needlessly roiled Moscow's relations with the West."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"It's a welcome surprise, therefore, three years after Soviet soldiers in East Germany killed a U.S. Army officer, to hear the Soviet Defense Minister expressing regrets."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov's apology won't bring Arthur D. Nicholson Jr. back to life, but the gesture of civility matters."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Soviet soldiers shot Major Nicholson while he was a member of a two-man patrol on lawful assignment in territory that Soviet authorities claimed was off limits."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"He bled to death when Soviet soldiers prevented his partner from giving medical aid."}
{"sentiment":-2.2,"text":"Off limits or not, opening fire on him without warning was inexcusable."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"During a discussion with Secretary Carlucci on May 31, Mr. Yazov said: ''I express my regret over the incident and I am sorry that this occurred..."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"I have agreed we will do all we can to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The apology was not announced at the time of the Moscow summit meeting, but should have been."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The Defense Minister's statement feeds hope that the Soviet Union might yet apologize for shooting down a South Korean airliner that strayed into Soviet airspace in 1983."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"According to the Federal Election Commission, special interest political action committees are contributing at a record rate to this year's Congressional races."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"As of June 30, PAC's have shoveled an astonishing $80 million to House and Senate campaigns, up from $66 million at this point in 1986 and nearly eight times the 1978 total."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"It would be bad enough if PAC money were evenly distributed."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But PAC directors looking for the surest investment overwhelmingly favor incumbents, a big reason for the steady decline in competition for Congressional seats."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"In all, Republican challengers for the Democratic-dominated House received only $317,000 from PAC's."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Yet one House freshman, James Jontz, Democrat of Indiana, collected $329,000."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"A Congress with self-respect would put reform of this system high on its agenda next January."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"But at the rate the PAC money is flooding in, expect less."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The House Administration Committee has approved purchase of a large diesel truck."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Why in the world does the House need a $48,000 truck?"}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Because its members, ignoring the new limits on free mail enacted just last fall, are writing home at a record pace this election year."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The truck will haul franked mail between rented warehouse space and the House mail room."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"The Postal Service estimates that the House will spend an astounding $79 million on constituent mailings this year - overspending its allowance by about $40 million."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"The Senate, by contrast, has shown self-discipline and capped spending by individual senators."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Postal officials say the Senate's franking bill for the year will come to about $18 million, $6 million under budget."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Senators have asked the House for restraint."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But the House is likely to keep sending mail even when its money runs out in May, and reimburse the Post Office later on."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"But is it too much to ask the House to disclose how much each member spends?"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Then, at least, voters will be able to see for themselves who's filling the truck."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"From the things-are-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket department: Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent, concerned about gamblers, drug dealers and other potential corrupters of America's national pastime, has ordered monitoring of phone calls into and out of clubhouses."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"It's not exactly wiretapping; nobody will listen in."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Instead, switchboard operators will be required to log each call and note the names of both parties."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Baseball security people will review the logs twice each season for signs of unsavory activity, like Pete Rose's clubhouse calls to gamblers."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Phone logs that the Cincinnati Reds kept, on the club's own initiative, became part of the case against Mr. Rose, now banned from baseball."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"''Trouble comes from the clubhouse,'' said one baseball official, referring to the eagerness of gamblers to seek information and drug dealers to seek buyers."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Trouble, indeed."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"But it's a real question which is the greater trouble, gambling and drug dealing - or monitoring telephone calls."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Unfortunately, the former makes the latter necessary."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Francis D. Carter, Esq., is representing Fawaz Yunis in his Washington trial for hijacking a Royal Jordanian airliner carrying American citizens, among other passengers."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Whatever the verdict, Mr. Carter has already shown a gift for selective apology."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"He does not dispute that, as the head of a band of five armed Shiite militiamen, Mr. Yunis captured the airliner, seized its crew and took it on a harrowing 30-hour tour of Mediterranean countries."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"However, Mr. Carter solemnly argues, his client carried out the kidnapping under orders and in the ''least offensive way possible.''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Attorney Carter has apparently taken to heart the story of Miss Otis, whose regrets were the subject of Cole Porter's ballad."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The eponymous heroine was forced, like defendant Yunis, into a breach of etiquette: She had to break a luncheon appointment without warning."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Her excuse was even more plausible than Mr. Yunis's ''orders.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"She had been lynched by an angry mob because she had shot and killed her lover."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Mr. Yunis's lawyer, like the fictional Miss Otis, regrets the wrong thing, and too late, at that."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"A man who rarely rides the subway took a train from Times Square to Brooklyn the other day and emerged doubly impressed: Beyond the unexpected cleanliness of the system - his train's walls and windows were entirely free of graffiti - he had been subjected to a heavy dose of advertising about sex-related problems."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"''Pregnant? We can help,'' said an ad for a women's health service."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"It offered the reader ''Obstetrics - Gynecology - Abortion.''"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"''Don't go out without your rubbers,'' advised another sign, a caution to safer sex."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"It depicted a condom among the more traditional contents of a woman's purse."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"''AIDS is a human disease."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"It requires a humane response,'' said a Unitarian Church-sponsored ad, which urged a call to the New York City Health Department's AIDS Hotline."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"And another placard, sponsored by Planned Parenthood, offered birth control advice in Spanish."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Only yesterday sex in advertising was supposed to turn people on."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Now, it seems from the subway car signs, the idea is to turn people off, or at least turn them in another direction."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Brandishing a pistol, a crazed man disrupted a Burbank, Calif., news broadcast last August and demanded that his statement be read by the commentator."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The weapon turned out to be a fake."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"But the real terror it caused underscores the need for Federal legislation barring the manufacture of realistic-looking toy guns."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The recent boom in toy firearm sales has been matched by a steep rise in the law enforcement problems caused by plastic look-alikes."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Last year, for example, New York City police confiscated 1,416 toy guns in criminal incidents, nearly 80 percent more than in 1983."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"There were more than 400 felony arrests involving toy guns."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Bowing to criticism, some toy manufacturers have voluntarily begun to mark their guns with orange striping and plugs to try to distinguish them from the real thing: welcome but inadequate."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Representative Bill Green, Re publican of New York, and Representative Mel Levine, Democrat of California, propose mandatory curbs."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Their sensible bill would require the Consumer Product Safety Commission to develop uniform coloring and design standards so a fake .38 could no longer fool a holdup victim, much less a trained police officer."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Similar legislation proposed by Robert Dole is pending in the Senate."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Congressional timidity in curtailing easy access to real guns is legendary."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Perhaps Congress can at least show boldness in curbing the abuse of toy guns."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"New York City Comptroller Harrison Goldin acknowledged that he called friends about stock ownership in an investment partnership controlled by Ivan Boesky."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"But the Comptroller asserted through a spokesman that he had ''no personal money invested'' with the convicted inside trader."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Now, however, Mr. Goldin reveals that he owned an investment worth more than $100,000 in two other, unrelated companies controlled by Mr. Boesky."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The Comptroller's spokesman, Steven Matthews, explains that he was confused about the first denial because the Comptroller's investments were in Boesky companies unrelated to those Mr. Goldin mentioned to his friends."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Why should a Comptroller accustomed to handling billions in municipal funds tolerate such confusion about his own finances?"}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Mr. Matthews strove to explain that Mr. Goldin thought his Boesky investment ''might be a way of getting involved in merger and acquisition activity without getting directly involved in it.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"What is the difference between ''getting involved'' and ''getting directly involved''?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"If Mr. Goldin has a good answer, he ought to state it immediately."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Meanwhile, the city's Department of Investigation does well to search for answers of its own."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"''My dear Noel,'' the letter began."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"''I don't know what to write to you today, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Written in 1893, it was from Beatrix Potter to Noel Moore, the 5-year-old son of her former governess."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Miss Potter, then 27, illustrated it with drawings now familiar to generations of children around the world as ''The Tale of Peter Rabbit.''"}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"The letter is the crown jewel in an exhibition of Beatrix Potter's many works at the Morgan Library in New York."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The story of Peter's misadventures in Mr. McGregor's garden was spurned by at least six publishers, and in 1901 Miss Potter published it herself."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A commercial house in London later took it on, but wanted it in the then-standard large format for children's books."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"No, she insisted; it must be small enough for children to hold and inexpensive."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"And so it is reprinted in thousands of little copies to this day."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"To behold its inspiration, the illustrated letter to Noel, is to know childhood enriched."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Once you've seen three blocks of the Columbus Avenue Fair, or any other street fair for that matter, you've seen them all."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"But on a sunny, cool day like Sunday, you forget all that and walk down Columbus and into the fair with anticipation."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Young couples wheeling their baby carts scrape your shins; everybody smiles."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Over there, to the left, is a fresh fruit stand."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"A six-ounce cup of papaya juice for only $2."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"We'll take one, and share."}
{"sentiment":2.2,"text":"Great stuff."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"And look left, at those great T-shirts."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Wait a minute."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Let's get one of those shish kebab sandwiches."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Munch, munch."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Wallets, earrings, picture frames, T-shirts, beer."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"Another shish kebab stand that smells even better than the first."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Yes, it's Skitch Henderson standing on top of a truck conducting the New York Pops in a medley of golden very oldies."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The mothers pushing the baby carriages ask who he is."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"One husband says Vincent Price."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Another cute little carriage runs over your feet."}
{"sentiment":2.2,"text":"What a cute little baby."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"We'll take one of those Italian sausages with peppers and onions, and share."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Wallets, earrings, picture frame, beer and T-shirts."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"We'll take one frozen custard, and share."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"You mean we've walked 20 blocks?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Well, let's walk up the other side of the street on the way home."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Maybe some burdens of leadership are common burdens, but surely not all."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Consider the opposite examples of the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone of Japan."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Both head traditional, conservative societies confronted by the need for change."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"But where Mr. Gorbachev is trying to prime his country's economic pump, Mr. Nakasone is trying to control a gushing flow."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Mr. Gorbachev travels the country exhorting his people to work harder."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Discipline, commitment, initiative, enterprise, he chants."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Not Mr. Nakasone."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"To change the pattern under which few salaried people take their full allotted vacation, he took a well-publicized three weeks off last summer."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Now he preaches against his countrymen's tendency toward workaholism, and legislation to do away with the ubiquituous six-day workweek is in the offing."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"American workers, meanwhile, continue to occupy a middle position, not necessarily so golden, but also not so mean."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"To go upstairs to a smallish room in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is to see America hanging on the walls."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Walker Evans photographed this America in the 1930's; enough time has passed for the images to look beguilingly antique."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Yet their power persists."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The skin of America may have changed in 50 years but not its bones."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Evans's camera caught automobile junkyards, a short-order cook and his blue-collar customer, and vagrants sleeping on sidewalks."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Small wooden churches peel in the Southern sun, the sky is laced with telephone wires, workers' houses cower in the smoke from a steel mill."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"A mural on a lunch wagon proclaims two undying American passions: hot dogs and convertibles."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"America thinks of itself as being in constant change."}
{"sentiment":2.05,"text":"To look at ''Walker Evans: American Photographs'' is to marvel at its immutability."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"This is about a ship's engineer and a licensed mate who don't have much to do, aboard an old ferry that now houses prisoners on work release."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The Vernon C. Bain, flagship of the New York City jail system, sits in a few feet of water, moored at Rikers Island, permanently facing the Bronx."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Her main engine and propellers have been deactivated."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The Bain has been pressed into service by a harried Correction Department looking for all the beds it can find in the jail-overcrowding crisis."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"She will soon be joined by a sister ship."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Meantime, the Bain is having an identity crisis."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Is she a land-based structure - like the River Cafe - or is she a ship?"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"In order to avoid locally enforced bureaucratic hangups like the cost of widening stairways, the city determined that the Bain would retain her classification as a vessel."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Enter the Coast Guard with its own regulations, requiring, for instance, that a licensed mate and an engineer be aboard around the clock."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Cost to the city: $500,000 a year."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The engineer watches the bilge pump and sanitation system; the licensed mate is on the alert to take command of the vessel in case of fire."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Could there be an element of featherbedding, or to be more precise, featherbunking?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Might it be possible to cross bureaucratic lines and have the Coast Guard train correction personnel who could assume these functions and double as guards?"}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"A six-month undercover investigation has uncovered evidence of pervasive corruption in New York City's school bus inspection system."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A police officer posing as a motor vehicle agent visited 80 school bus companies."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Bribes were offered by 55 of them, resulting in the indictment last month of 36 bus company owners and employees."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"More indictments are expected."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The suspects are charged with offering payments of $10 to $1,000 to avoid citation for safety defects like bald tires and faulty brakes."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The indictments are a warning to the city's 803 school bus operators, and to the state's transportation agency, which oversees the biannual bus safety checks."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Clearly new procedures are needed to deter graft."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Elizabeth Holtzman, the Brooklyn District Attorney, urges holding school bus inspections at closely supervised central locations, instead of dispatching agents to company garages."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"That would help."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"So would something like the deep-cover ''field associate'' informant program set up to monitor city restaurant inspectors following last year's restaurant scandal."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"More than 150,000 New York City children travel on school buses every weekday."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"They deserve better protection."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"A colleague has been walking around mumbling, not exactly to himself, Oh yeah, yeah. 310_2 0.5 Sure. 310_3 -1.2 Phooey!"}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"He seemed distressed enough to warrant asking what the problem was."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"It's those Father's Day ads, he groused."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"All those sleek, fresh-from-the-sauna studs, hair full, pectorals perfect, not a gray head in sight, not a paunch to be seen. 310_11 -0.1 They all seem to have been bred by Calvin Klein. 310_12 -0.1 All just waiting for a shower of Escape, or Boss or Obsession. 310_13 1.35 Not a wrinkle in view, no frown, no worry. 310_14 1.25 No problems about the lawn, or the garage, or the paint job. 310_15 -0.25 No concern about the baby. 310_16 0.25 About where to go on vacation. 310_17 0.05 About tuition!"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"What could we say?"}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"Happy Father's Day."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"To the Editor: In calling attention to the political economy of immortality, Jerome Groopman (Op-Ed, Dec. 20) raises a warning worth heeding for anyone concerned about the growing disparities between rich and poor."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"The potential for genetic technology to extend human longevity will become another way to stratify individuals and groups."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"In the new political economy of life and death, the 21st-century Methuselah will live in parallel time with the undernourished child in Appalachia or the starving child in Somalia."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Perhaps the real challenge for the next century is to accept that death is part of life and to commitment to narrow -- not widen -- the gaps that radically affect the life opportunities of the rich and poor."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Following his recent rebuke by the House Ethics Committee for making sexual advances to a Peace Corps worker, Representative Gus Savage, an Illinois Democrat, took to the House floor to denounce his three colleagues who had pressed the ethics charges."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"He said that one, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, ''has admitted keeping and prostituting a homosexual.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Mr. Savage's comments, though widely reported, were deleted at his request from that day's Congressional Record, the official chronicle of floor proceedings."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The House has now, at the behest of Bob Walker, Republican of Pennsylvania, directed its Administration Committee to draft new rules to prevent such tampering."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Present rules permit members to review the manuscript before it is printed to correct grammatical and typographical errors."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But members of Congress often make substantive alterations, thereby diluting the Record's accuracy and value."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"In the course of their elective duties, members try to make history."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Mr. Walker deserves credit for seeking to limit their ability to rewrite it."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"New Yorkers have learned to swallow the lump in the throat that rises each time a movie revival house is closed."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Silly, they think, to feel sentimental about those rundown places, with their peeling paint, lumpy seats and threadbare curtains."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Why sniffle over the shutting of the Bleecker Street Cinema, now that the Thalia, the New Yorker and the Regency are gone?"}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Besides, who wants to be reminded of hours lost in musty art houses, hours that could have been spent advancing one's career?"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Imagine wasting a whole afternoon at an Alec Guinness film festival these days!"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"It was immature, after all, to have hidden in those cool, dark boxes on summer afternoons, watching Leslie Howard smolder at Merle Oberon in ''The Scarlet Pimpernel'' and Bob Fosse do back flips in ''Kiss Me, Kate.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"And who were those other people, their feet up on the seats in front of them, munching Raisinettes?"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Weren't they supposed to be at work, too?"}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"''We'll always have Paris,'' said Humphrey Bogart in ''Casablanca.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But we won't have the Thalia, New Yorker, Regency and Bleecker Street Cinema, except, briefly, in the films of Woody Allen and others who so loved those theaters that they made them stars in their own right."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"To the Editor: Automobile insurance rates may be rising at an alarming rate in many states (''Insurance Rates Rouse Drivers to Protest,'' Consumers World page, March 5), but by no means do such increases represent a national trend."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"In New York State, private passenger automobile rates rose an average of 2.9 percent in 1987 - well below the overall annual increase in the Consumer Price Index."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Lost in the hysteria of double-digit rate hikes in some states is the fact that increases in private passenger automobile insurance rates in New York have generally kept pace with inflation over the last decade."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Such success may be explained by antifraud efforts; better enforcement of drunk driving laws; enactment of the seat-belt law; a decline in auto theft rates in some areas; efforts by the Department of Motor Vehicles to remove uninsured drivers from our roads, and the introduction of meaningful no-fault insurance statutes in 1977."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Superintendent of Insurance New York, March 9, 1988"}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"To some academic historians, Barbara Tuchman was flawed."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"She lacked a Ph.D., and indeed had not been improved by any graduate education."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Unforgivably, her books - at least six of them - were best sellers."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"But she wrote superlatively, with a strong narrative line, and brought ancient controversies and forgotten leaders back to life."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Mrs. Tuchman, who died Monday at 77, shrugged off the sniffy professorial reviews."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"Millions of readers were glad she did."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Through her they were able to relive the horrendous August of 1914, when railroad timetables hurried the world to war."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Her readers could enter with her the maze of modern Chinese history, the proud tower of Europe before the Great War; they could view the lives of the humble and exalted in the distant mirror of the troubled 14th century."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The point about Mrs. Tuchman's work was not the rightness of her judgments or her real or alleged lesser errors."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"It is that she made readers care about a thousand dusty yesterdays."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"And once hooked, some were even inspired to tackle the drier works of what H. L. Mencken dubbed the professariat."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"In serving the common reader, Mrs. Tuchman truly served history's Muse, all-seeing Clio."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"January brings snow, ice, post-holiday letdown - and a sudden profusion of used Christmas trees that block Manhattan sidewalks."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"This year's abundant crop reflects softness in the local mulch market."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Unlike the other boroughs, whose trees go to a landfill, Manhattan's used Christmas trees are turned into mulch at a processing station on Gansevoort Street."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"On Jan. 7, special trucks began collecting trees from curbs and taking them to the mulching machine."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But they didn't pick up trees fast enough."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Piles still clog some sidewalks."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Snow and ice have hampered pickups, but Sanitation officials also say they have slowed special tree collections because production of mulch vastly exceeded demand from gardeners and other users, who may take it away free of charge."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Collections resumed after an environmental group volunteered to take two truckloads."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Discarded Christmas trees on the streets are an eyesore and an obstacle."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Why should their prompt removal depend on the vagaries of mulch users' supply and demand?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Why not find space to store the surplus mulch?"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Why not advertise its availability more aggressively?"}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"It's the 26th night of Christmas - time to give the Sanitation Department a worm in a well-worn Christmas tree."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules were in effect that morning as a moving van pulled up to the curb."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The movers began unloading the van."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The first thing down the ramp was a car."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Just then a patrol car pulled up; a traffic cop emerged and began ticketing the car."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"As the officer was slipping the ticket under the windshield wiper, a man rushed out of a nearby apartment building."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"But I'm just moving in from Texas, he was overheard to protest."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules were in effect that morning as a moving van pulled up to the curb."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The movers began unloading the van."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The first thing down the ramp was a car."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Just then a patrol car pulled up; a traffic cop emerged and began ticketing the car."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"As the officer was slipping the ticket under the windshield wiper, a man rushed out of a nearby apartment building."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But I'm just moving in from Texas, he was overheard to protest."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Welcome to New York, replied the officer."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Only in New York are judges so distrusted that the law gives them no discretion to decide whether a criminal jury needs to be locked up and lodged overnight."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"This unique extravagance costs $2 million a year."}
{"sentiment":-2.5,"text":"In this year of budgetary pain, that waste has become an outrage."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"Only in New York are judges so distrusted that the law gives them no discretion to decide whether a criminal jury needs to be locked up and lodged overnight."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"This unique extravagance costs $2 million a year."}
{"sentiment":-2.25,"text":"In this year of budgetary pain, that waste has become an outrage."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Sequestering juries protects against outside influence and tampering in major cases."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"New York insists, however, that every case be treated as though the defendant were John Gotti."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Judges hate the implicit insult to their ability to preside."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"They also hate the distortion the law works when, to avoid senseless expense, it forces them to rush minor cases to the jury for decision by sundown."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Court officers love the law; their unions, which love the overtime it compels, still hold sway in the State Senate."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The time has surely come for the Senate to examine one of the most notorious cases around -- the case of the greedy court officers."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"For several months rumors have circulated in Britain and the U.S. that McDonald's, the fast-food chain, has given financial support to the Irish Republican Army through Noraid, the I.R.A.'s North American fund-raising group."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"McDonald's itself couldn't figure where the implausible charge came from, and denied it flatly at every opportunity."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But the rumor, and the mystery, persisted."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Now The Economist of London has tracked it down."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"One of its sleuths discovered that, some time back, on a financial talk show carried by the Cable News Network, McDonald's was cited for its generosity in contributing to employees' Individual Retirement Accounts - commonly called I.R.A.'s on this side of the Atlantic."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"But CNN can be viewed overseas now, via satellite, and in Britain I.R.A."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"means something else entirely."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Mystery solved."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Rumor quashed."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"But not the cautionary question: Is the world really ready for modern telecommunications?"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Sense, not sentiment, moved organized baseball to change the rule that barred Fred Lynn, recently traded to the Detroit Tigers, from postseason play because he joined the team a few minutes past the deadline of midnight Aug. 31."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth calls the unwritten rule not only unfair but dumb: it encourages mad dashes like Mr. Lynn's hectic, risky chartered-jet race with the trading deadline."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"''You don't have to do that with a stock certificate,'' the commissioner explained."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"What an interesting illustration he happened on, considering how long baseball players have protested being traded as impersonally as securities."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The Players Association had already filed a grievance challenging the rule."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The new rule won't help Mr. Lynn unless the Tigers, who were leading the American League East when he joined them, regain first place."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"But it shows that Mr. Ueberroth, nearing the end of his five-year term, knows his business."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Justice should be blind; and umpires may be; but he shows that the people who run baseball sometimes see reality."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"In the last year, South Korea and Iceland have killed hundreds of whales for profit but in the name of science."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Both countries have brazenly exploited a loophole in the international whaling treaty that allowed virtually unregulated killing of whales for ''scientific research.''"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"That loophole has now been closed by the International Whaling Commission."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The U.S. commissioner, Dr. Anthony Calio, recently proposed guidelines for judging research requests."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Of critical importance, it would have to be shown what could be learned by killing more whales that couldn't with existing data or by using non-lethal techniques."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"The guidelines were approved and put to immediate good use."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"The scientific whaling programs of Iceland, Japan and Korea failed to meet this simple new test."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Japan, which had planned to slaughter an astonishing 875 whales for ''research,'' directed its commissioner to walk out of the commission meeting in protest."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"If Japan defies the ruling, it would trigger U.S. laws and possibly economic sanctions."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Iceland also may be headed for a confrontation with the U.S. unless the new Government in Reykjavik abandons its research whaling program."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Tens of thousands of whales have been killed in this century; scientists have not even analyzed all the existing data."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"With the new guidelines, far fewer whales will die for no good reason, in the name of science."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"One reason Texas leads the nation in executions is the peculiar way Texas law makes it hard for juries to grant mercy."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The case of a convicted rape-murderer, Johnny Penry, argued before the Supreme Court last week, exposes the law's unfairness and forces the justices, who have upheld the law in principle, to confront its operation."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"At a penalty hearing following his conviction, Mr. Penry's lawyers introduced evidence that he was mentally retarded, with the mind of a 7-year-old in the body of a 23-year-old."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Texas law allows such evidence and lets lawyers argue that it mitigates blame enough to justify a life sentence instead of a lethal injection."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"But the judge's instructions limit the jury to two questions: Should he have known that his conduct would cause the victim's death (which the state has already proved), and is he prone to violence, a continuing threat to society?"}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"If the answer to both questions is yes, the defendant gets death."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"In other words, Texas, unlike other states, gives no weight to the idea of mercy because of mental retardation or anything else."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Questions from the bench showed the justices having difficulty with an argument that all mentally retarded killers should be spared executions."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"They should have no trouble striking down a law that, barring any mercy, spares virtually none."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Jury service, an important civic duty, can also be onerous, but in the Federal courtroom of Judge John Bartels recently it became an outrage."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"After a mistrial caused by one juror's holdout vote for acquittal, the judge denounced the lone juror as ''more guilty'' than the defendants."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Because the case must be tried again."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"''Nobody has the right to do that, waste all that time,'' the judge said."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"But jurors not only have a right to vote their conscience; they have a legal obligation to do so."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"The judge has had the grace to admit his mistake."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"He wrote the holdout juror praising her ''courage in refusing to convict because you had a reasonable doubt.''"}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"That lesson alone makes the retrial worthwhile."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Too bad the judge, who has been on the bench for 28 years, is just learning it."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Tom Seaver started his big league pitching career 20 years ago as a New York Met."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"He played 10 superlative years for the team, leading it to two pennants and one world championship; he won the Cy Young pitching award three times."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Then in June 1977 he got into a contract dispute with the Mets and was abruptly traded to Cincinnati."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"New York fans grieved: Tom Seaver was the Mets' class act and their greatest pitcher ever."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"He pitched five years with the Reds before returning to the Mets for the 1983 season."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"It was a short visit."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Seaver was inexplicably left off the protected player roster by the new Mets owners and claimed by the Chicago White Sox."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"He pitched two fine years in Chicago before moving on to the Boston Red Sox."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Last week he put on the Mets' uniform once more."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"But at 42, he could no longer summon the speed and control that had produced 3,640 strikeouts and 311 victories."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"He decided to give up on a comeback."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The decision leaves Met fans to wonder why more of his strikeouts and victories could not have been for the Mets."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"Nevertheless, even in departure, Tom Seaver demonstrates that he's still a class act."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"One set of figures on display at the Whitney Museum's branch at 42d Street and Park Avenue consists of sculptures in wood, metal and ceramic."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"These are mostly stylized ''Urban Figures'' created by artists including Alison Saar, John Ahearn, Alex Katz, Jonathan Borofsky and George Segal."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"There is a witty, colorful, nearly absurd group of three designer-clad women with a dog and a child by Marisol."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Another sculpture, by Duane Hanson, is of a woman reading a paperback, so realistic it demands some effort to realize that she is not breathing."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"On Saturday mornings, another set of figures filters into this cavernous space across from Grand Central Terminal."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"They are wholly realistic, members of the United Homeless Organization, who live in the station."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"They meet each week to discuss issues like medical care and housing."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Then the 80 or so participants scatter through the museum space, in and around the sculptures."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Some, draped in tattered garments, play cards, talk or watch a small TV set someone has brought."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Others wander through the space, oblivious to everything - including the frozen faces of the sculptures overseeing their activity."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Urban figures watching urban figures watching urban figures: This is a place where art and reality are in full view."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"In the 20's an Ohio woman named Berenice Abbott was living in Paris and photographing the famous."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Everybody came to Miss Abbott's studio - James Joyce, Nora Barnacle Joyce, Andre Gide, Jean Cocteau - and it is partly through her images that we know them."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"But in 1929 she came back to the United States and ''There it was, for better or for worse'': New York."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Six years later she photographed that New York, for better and for worse and most likely for all time."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"The pictures, taken as part of a Federal Arts Project, are included in the most comprehensive exhibition ever of her work, now on display at the New York Public Library until Jan. 6."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"To Miss Abbott, New York was as much an idea as a place, which is why the city she recorded in 1935 is, despite gains and losses, the city of 1989."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"''The concern,'' she wrote then, ''is with a synthesis which shows the skyscraper in relation to the less colossal edifices which preceded it; city vistas, waterways, highways and means of transportation; areas where peculiarly urban aspects of human living can be observed; city squares where the trees die for lack of sun and air; narrow and dark canyons where visibility fails because there is no light ... the onward march of the steam shovel...''"}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"At 91, Berenice Abbott, who now lives in Maine, seems the youngest, freshest photographer in town."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It tastes sweet and looks like juice, but a popular apple drink sold in supermarkets contains only 10 percent real fruit juice."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The rest is sugar and water."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Consumers have a right to accurate information about the content of diluted fruit ''punches,'' ''ades'' and ''cocktails'' that compete on store shelves with real juice."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Yet instead of promoting that right, the Federal Food and Drug Administration stands in the way."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Since 1973, the F.D.A. has required percentage labelling for all diluted orange juice products."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"But a sensible 1980 rule requiring the same disclosure for other diluted fruit and vegetable beverages was stayed early in the Reagan Administration and the agency now proposes to rescind it entirely."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Many brands label the percentage of juice voluntarily."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"But the option shouldn't be theirs."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The F.D.A. bows to pressure brought mainly by the nation's leading cranberry company, Ocean Spray, which resists revealing that its popular juice products are heavily diluted."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Ocean Spray maintains that since high-acid cranberry juice isn't palatable at full-strength, a labeling requirement would mislead customers and unfairly hurt sales."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"That not only underestimates the intelligence of consumers but the ingenuity of packagers, who surely could explain the problem on cranberry juice labels in a way that would serve both sales and the truth."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A few years ago the courts prevented Palm Beach, Fla., from requiring blue-collar workers to carry identification cards for entry."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Now the opulent fantasy island is considering a new safety measure."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The city would place video recorders on the three bridges that connect Palm Beach to the rest of America."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"When crime occurs, the police could view the tapes and possibly identify suspects."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"The proposal drew vocal support from about 40 people at a meeting of the town's Public Safety Commission last week."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"''Let's put the criminal on notice,'' said Robert Oreck, the resident who offered the idea."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"''Palm Beach, Florida, is not the place to ply their trade.'"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The plan raises a host of concerns about civil liberties and elitism."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But rather than bother sorting them out, mainland America might try a simpler response."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"If surveillance cameras go up on one side of the bridges to this fantasy island, customs stations could serve as useful reminders of the real world on the other."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Robert Tappan Morris is the Oliver North of computer abuse."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"The graduate student whiz committed a felony punishable by prison: tying up 6,000 computers with an electronic ''worm'' that spread wildly through interconnected machines."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Yet Federal Judge Howard Munson in Syracuse sentenced him only to 400 hours of community service and a $10,000 fine."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"That light penalty won't deter other hackers from trespassing on information systems."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"America's banking, communications, information, travel and research systems depend on computers."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Tampering with them is a profoundly antisocial act."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Mr. Morris testified that he didn't intend all the consequences of his escapade, but he planned it knowing there was a law against it."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"He also pointed out that by demonstrating vulnerabilities to outside penetration, he had contributed to tighter system security."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"That is like defending a virus because it produces antibodies."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The 1986 Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act appears to allow as much as five years in prison for such a crime."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But Judge Munson said he couldn't fit Mr. Morris's crimes with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that require some incarceration."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"As with Mr. North and others convicted of white collar crimes, even a taste of prison would have registered the seriousness of the offense - and given future whiz kids a clearer idea of the cost of penetrating other people's computers."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"William Henry Harrison -- the Tippecanoe of Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too -- took his oath as President on March 4, 1841."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"History buffs know he died of pneumonia a month later."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Trivia buffs know that he spoke at his inauguration for an hour and 45 minutes, and no one has yet spoken longer."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"William Henry Harrison -- the Tippecanoe of Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too -- took his oath as President on March 4, 1841."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"History buffs know he died of pneumonia a month later."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Trivia buffs know that he spoke at his inauguration for an hour and 45 minutes, and no one has yet spoken longer."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"But few may realize that, barely 10 years into the age of steam-powered railroad travel, he was the first President-elect to arrive in Washington on a train."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"And fewer still would have noticed that one of the three balls celebrating his installation was called the Native American Inaugural Ball -- politically correct a full 150 years before it was correct to be."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Built like a bear, he moved like a cat."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Born to poverty, he came to live regally and until his death half-jokingly referred to himself as ''The Great One.''"}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Yet Jackie Gleason is assured immortality as the bumbling blue-collar hero of a situation comedy."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"It was set in a drab room with bare table and wheezing refrigerator and filmed in black and white long ago, when Ike was President."}
{"sentiment":2.05,"text":"Rarely has so much laughter, and money, bubbled up from simpler ingredients than in ''The Honeymooners.''"}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The core of Mr. Gleason's art was his timing and economy of gesture, whether as Minnesota Fats circling a pool table in ''The Hustler'' or as Ralph Kramden, the honeymooner forever locked in antic combat with his perfect foils, Audrey Meadows and Art Carney."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"But the working-class setting is also vital."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"It followed in a tradition made famous by William Bendix in ''The Life of Riley.''"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It was, in turn, elaborated by Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker in ''All in the Family.''"}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"There may be a logic to this."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Americans today prize melodramas swarming with the rich and powerful."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"But comedy may work best playing off the familiar."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Making Ralph Kramden credible as the ordinary fellow living down the hall took genius, and Jackie Gleason's special genius was to conceal that."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"New York City has problems enough in making visitors feel safe and welcome."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"It hardly needs the two-faced advertising slogan a local clothier has posted on the phone booths behind St. Patrick's Cathedral, right in the heart of tourist territory: In this neighborhood, be sure to keep an eye on your wallet."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The big black letters could easily be mistaken for an official police warning."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Certainly the sign confirms the out-of-towners' fear that there's a mugger behind every Manhattan lamppost."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But the small type underneath reveals that, in this case, keep an eye on your wallet means shop at Daffy's stores instead of the tonier boutiques nearby."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Clever?"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Yes, too clever by half."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"And offensive to the great city that provides Daffy's with customers."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"This was supposed to be the election year in which Congress tamed its urge to send free mail to constituents."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"But the House of Representatives seems destined again to overspend its postal allowance."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"In a rare show of self-discipline, the House and Senate agreed last fall to establish new limits on the franking privilege."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The House budgeted $44.5 million for mass mailings for the fiscal year that began last October, far more reasonable than the astonishing $77.9 million spent in 1988."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"But the cap is essentially meaningless."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Unlike the Senate, the House puts no ceiling on spending by individual members and doesn't require disclosure of mailing costs, practically inviting overruns."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"In consequence, the House has just authorized an additional $552,276 to help its mail room cope with what could be a record volume of letters cranked out to beat new pre-election mailing deadlines."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The boxes of outgoing mail clogging House hallways were recently moved to rented warehouse space after fire safety experts said they created a serious hazard."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"If, as expected, the House goes overboard, it will force a confrontation with the Senate, which has traditionally exercised greater restraint."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The Senate must approve the supplementary appropriation; it can serve the public by insisting that, at the very least, House members finally come clean on their actual mailing costs."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The New York State Legislature budgeted $83.5 million this year to build or expand 18 sports facilities and just $30 million for grants to the arts."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Its priorities are skewed."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"In New York City alone, art museums outdraw professional sports."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Just one, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had 4.9 million visitors in the past year, which was more than the combined attendance for the Mets, the Yankees, the Knicks and the Rangers."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The New York State Legislature budgeted $83.5 million this year to build or expand 18 sports facilities and just $30 million for grants to the arts."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Its priorities are skewed."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"In New York City alone, art museums outdraw professional sports."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Just one, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had 4.9 million visitors in the past year, which was more than the combined attendance for the Mets, the Yankees, the Knicks and the Rangers."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"To his credit, Gov. George Pataki tried to cut sports projects from the budget this year."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"They are, by and large, nothing more than a reflection of a pork-minded legislator's clout."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Powerful members get money for their districts, temporary construction jobs for constituents and a measure of local popularity."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"But what those legislators fail to see is the huge and growing public interest in the arts."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"If ever a memory deserved the masks of comedy and tragedy, surely remembrance of Bea Lillie does."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Beatrice Lillie, who died last week at her home at Henley-on-Thames at the age of 94, embodied the comic spirit on stage while suffering tragedy in her private life as Lady Peel."}
{"sentiment":2.05,"text":"Before the footlights, she was a comic genius who could do more with a raised eyebrow than any clown could do with a face full of paint."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"She turned her tongue and body language into a madness that few could imitate but all could laugh at."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"As Lady Peel, wife of Sir Robert Peel, she had often to wear the tragic mask, not least when her only son was killed in World War II."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The last 10 or more years of her life were marked by illness; her distinctive little fez-like cap disappeared from the British stage."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"And those who remember her stately, lunatic rendition of ''There are fairies in the bottom of my garden'' are no doubt disappearing too."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Bea Lillie epitomized the sophisticated ''music hall'' theater, a lady who could turn a phrase into a frenzy."}
{"sentiment":2.35,"text":"In finally giving birth to a healthy cub, Ling-Ling, the National Zoo's female panda, cheers all who worry about the future of endangered species."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"To those who tend to anthropomorphize, the news is also something more: Finally, the quintessential hard-luck lady has had a break."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Ling-Ling, as her fans will recall, was abandoned by her first suitor before she was ever seduced."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"Her second swain, the new cub's father, is a monument to sloth, and good for nothing much but eating bamboo."}
{"sentiment":-2.25,"text":"Her two previous pregnancies ended sadly."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"One cub was stillborn."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"Another died when it was three hours old."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"This week, however, Ling-Ling gave birth to twins."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The first was stillborn; the second, however, entered the world yelling."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Though it weighs only four ounces, it is said to have a fine pair of lungs."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"So far so good."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Ling-Ling's behavior is, zoo officials report, ''appropriate.''"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"She is licking, nuzzling, carrying the cub in her mouth and, on occasion, caching it in her armpit."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"The world celebrates - and holds its breath."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"On a crowded bus from the airport into Manhattan, the driver picked up his microphone and addressed his captive audience."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"''I feel it's my duty to warn you that at Grand Central Station there are hustlers who will rip you off.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"He described the people who offer to carry luggage or hail a cab, how they work in pairs and grab suitcases or pick pockets."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"A New Yorker noticed that her seatmate was listening intently."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"''Where are you getting off?'' the New Yorker asked."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"''Grand Central,'' was the nervous reply."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The New Yorker asked where the traveler came from."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''Switzerland.'' It was her first visit to New York."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"As the bus inched its way in traffic across the overpass and toward the Midtown Tunnel, the New Yorker proudly pointed out the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center towers."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"As the bus pulled up at Grand Central, the New Yorker remembered her own first arrival 20 years before - how overwhelming it all had been."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"So she helped the Swiss traveler with her luggage, hailed a cab and dropped off her new friend at the visitor's hotel."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"The hustlers would have to wait for another pigeon."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Some months ago stock analysts were delighted to learn that, in the world of women's fashion, miniskirts were back in style."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"There was a correlation, said the statistical pundits, between short skirts and bull markets."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"For a while, the pundits were right: skirts rose high and so did the stock markets."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Then the stock markets plunged."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Are hemlines sure to follow?"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Only if the worlds of fashion and finance remain too fatalistic."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Who knows if it's the markets that drive up the hemlines?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"What if it's the hemlines that sustain the markets?"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"While finance ministers struggle to coordinate fiscal and trade policies, let the ministers of fashion take a similarly activist role to keep hemlines high."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"The future of the world's economy hangs, one might say, by a thread."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Until Nov. 1, there was one city in this world that the traveler could recognize simply by taking a deep breath."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The air of Paris smelled like no other air because it smelled of Gauloises."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"And the scent of Gauloises, a cigarette as unmistakably French as a Coke is unmistakably American, is like no other scent on God's earth."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Until Nov. 1, there was one city in this world that the traveler could recognize simply by taking a deep breath."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The air of Paris smelled like no other air because it smelled of Gauloises."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"And the scent of Gauloises, a cigarette as unmistakably French as a Coke is unmistakably American, is like no other scent on God's earth."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Today, however, the air of Paris -- and, indeed, of France -- is a little less distinctive."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"A new law bans smoking in many public spaces, confines it to certain areas of offices and factories, and requires cafes, bistros and restaurants to assign no-smoking areas and install ventilation."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"That the French are making an effort to kick a habit that takes 54,000 or so French lives every year is cause for celebration."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But how now will the nose know Paris?"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Hugh S Cunningham letter agrees that family of Lieut Michael Blassie should have final say over his burial site; proposes that in place of Blassie's remains at Vietnam Unknown Soldier site at Arlington National Cemetery, there could be buried a tablet with names of all the missing, with dates of their disappearance To the Editor: I agree that in a society founded on individual rights, the family of Lieut."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Michael J. Blassie should have final say over his burial site (editorial, Feb. 21)."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Then perhaps the Vietnam Unknown Soldier site at Arlington National Cemetery could be transformed into a ''shrine of the missing.''"}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"To the Editor: I agree that in a society founded on individual rights, the family of Lieut."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Michael J. Blassie should have final say over his burial site (editorial, Feb. 21)."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Then perhaps the Vietnam Unknown Soldier site at Arlington National Cemetery could be transformed into a ''shrine of the missing.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"In place of Lieutenant Blassie's remains we could bury a tablet engraved with the names of all the missing, with the dates of their disappearance."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"To reflect continued work in tracing the missing, a second ''tablet of the found'' might be kept in a more accessible part of the monument."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Once a year it could be inscribed with the names (and dates) of the missing who were accounted for that year."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"New York State's new budget contains a welcome, overdue program to protect motorists against mislabeled and adulterated gasoline."}
{"sentiment":-2.25,"text":"Official surveys of the state's gas stations in recent years have found rampant abuses."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"These include the sale of low-octane gasoline as high-octane premium and excessive lead contamination of unleaded gasoline."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Motorists pay a stiff price for this fraud, both at the pump and in repair bills."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Yet New York lags behind other states in providing statewide standards, testing and enforcement."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The new budget begins to remedy that by allocating a modest $350,000."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The Legislature now needs to work out the details of the program."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Once it is in place, revenues from fines should be enough to cover its costs."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"State Senator Joseph Bruno and Assemblyman Jerrold Nadler deserve credit for making sure this important consumer benefit survived the budget squeeze."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"High on the reform agenda of New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez has been elimination of the Board of Examiners, an agency that duplicates the state certification process for teachers."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Now, finally, the State Senate may be willing to go along."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"For nearly a century, the board has tested and licensed teachers."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Since 1984, however, the state has required all teachers to pass a national exam to qualify for certification, making the board's written test redundant."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The State Assembly has repeatedly voted to eliminate the board."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"But in the Senate, the agency has had the unflagging support of James Donovan, chairman of the education committee."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Now, the majority leader, Ralph Marino, seems ready to push aggressively for a vote this week on legislation sponsored by Roy Goodman, the New York City Republican Senator."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Mr. Goodman's bill would abolish the board and allow the Chancellor to set criteria for testing and appointment of teachers and supervisors, in accordance with state procedures."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"It's a sound proposal."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The success of the schools depends heavily on hiring and retaining quality teachers."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"It's past time for the Senate to get out of the way."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Perhaps after another 40 years, no one will have to ask why there are no black managers or executives in major league baseball."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"But this year, the 40th since Jackie Robinson became the first black player in the majors, the question remains regrettably appropriate."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Casting about for a reason during a television interview, Al Campanis, the Los Angeles Dodgers' vice president for personnel, inadvertently provided an answer."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"''I truly believe,'' he said of blacks, ''that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager or perhaps a general manager.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"He was unable to say precisely what those ''necessities'' might be."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"At one point he suggested that they are innate things, like the ''buoyancy'' that swimmers require and that blacks ''don't have.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Mr. Campanis's statements were unfortunate for the Dodgers and led to his resignation."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"But they were also fortunate, as a reminder that it isn't necessary to be malicious to be prejudiced."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Mr. Campanis's remarks contained no hint of malice."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"But his unwitting prejudice offers evidence of a color bar that may be every bit as hard to overcome as the blatant one Jackie Robinson conquered."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The prestige of American education is traditionally most precarious at the great universities."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Arts and science faculties tend to look down on even their own schools of education."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"That's why academics often call 120th Street and Morningside Heights in Manhattan the widest street in the country: it separates Columbia University from Columbia Teachers College."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Francis Keppel, the education leader who died last week, liked to recall an occasion in 1948 that illustrated the point."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Harvard's president, James Bryant Conant, appointed him dean of the Graduate School of Education, at age 32, and flattered him with an invitation to meet all the other academic deans at tea."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"When all were assembled, Mr. Conant described a scientific experiment."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"A behavioral scientist at the London zoo had paired in the same cage a lion and a lamb."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Has Conant gone off his rocker?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Mr. Keppel recalled thinking."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"A delegation of scientists went to study the experiment, looking at the odd couple in awe and asking all the proper behavioral questions in the appropriate scholarly jargon."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Finally, Mr. Conant said, he took the zoo's scientist aside and asked whether there truly had not been any serious problems."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"''Not really,'' said the scientist."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"''Of course, from time to time we have to replace the lamb.''"}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"With that, Mr. Conant introduced the new dean of education."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Last month's indictment of 28 present and former New York City restaurant inspectors for extorting bribes sent a loud warning."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Apparently, however, it wasn't loud enough."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Barely three weeks after the scandal broke, the city's Health Commissioner, Dr. Stephen Joseph, reported that some Manhattan restaurant operators were offering bribes to health inspectors in hopes of persuading them to overlook health violations."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"In one case, the restaurateur stuffed a huge wad of bills into an inspector's pocket."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The health agent threw the money to the floor."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Last month the city declined to prosecute any of the bribe-givers in the scandal, saying the restaurant owners were victims of health inspectors' bullying."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"The six new bribe offers, which have been referred to the Department of Investigations, suggest that at least some of the bribe-givers may be as guilty as bribe-takers."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"If the city is truly serious about ending the cycle of sleaze, it ought to go after both."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Too often this spring, the New York Mets have sent fans away disappointed."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"Without fail, disappointment turns to aggravation as drivers try to exit the Shea Stadium parking lot."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Chaos builds as thousands of cars cut across access lanes in search of exits."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The potential for fender-benders, if not fist fights, cries out for uniformed presence."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Men bearing flashlights tipped with red plastic arrows take money and direct arriving cars."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Hardly any are in evidence when a game lets out."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The city leases the stadium to the Mets and contracts with Kinney System Inc. to manage the lot."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Incredibly, the contract does not spell out Kinney's obligations for traffic control."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"A Kinney executive says impatient or inebriated drivers wouldn't respond to traffic direction anyway."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"The contract won't expire until the season ends; in the meantime, parks officials can only jawbone Kinney to provide more post-game staff."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"The huge Shea parking lot is one of the Parks Department's most lucrative concessions."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Last year it brought in $1,275,000."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Worms to the Parks Department and Kinney for neglecting an obvious need."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation has designated as ''wetlands'' up to 2,000 acres of Staten Island, thereby severely limiting the way owners may use such acreage."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Dismayed at the extent of opposition to the department's designation methods, the Legislature has established a Freshwater Wetlands Appeals Board."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"It offers any landowner whose property was not designated as wetland on the department's original map a chance to challenge subsequent inclusion."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The board would give aggrieved owners their first fair chance to defend themselves against imposed hardship."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"It would, that is, if the board actually existed."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Unfortunately, Governor Cuomo, who signed the bill in August, has yet to appoint the five board members."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The Legislature called for the board to act promptly on small-landowner cases."}
{"sentiment":-2.1,"text":"The Governor's delay imposes unacceptable hardship on large and small landowners alike."}
{"sentiment":2.5,"text":"Television has provided the world with many remarkable images over the years, but none more beautiful than that of a horse named Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"He had already won the Kentucky Derby, setting a still unbroken track record, and the Preakness; so much excitement had been stirred by the prospect of his winning racing's Triple Crown that some of those who tuned in that June afternoon of 1973 may have been watching a race for the first time."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"What they saw was Pegasus."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"Secretariat won by 31 lengths, pounding down the stretch with his mane flying, running it seemed for the sheer joy of it."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"At that moment he was not a horse but the archetype of the horse: big, burnished and fresh from the hands of his maker."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"So profound is beauty's grip on the imagination that millions of people fell in love with Secretariat that day, and remain so after his death last week."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Even the least sentimental among us may wish for some kind of heavenly pasture for Secretariat."}
{"sentiment":2.15,"text":"He was a glorious creature, this copper-colored stallion, and he has earned his wings."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"It was with high hopes and high standards that Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, and nothing showed it more persuasively than this: The new multiracial society embraced the leader of the old, avowedly racist one as a full participant."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"All the more disappointing then that the Zimbabwean Parliament should now summarily repudiate Ian Smith."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Parliament suspended Mr. Smith for a year for calling sanctions against South Africa stupid and urging whites there to unite against outside opposition."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"These were hardly surprising sentiments from the man who fought to the end to keep Rhodesia under white rule."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"More to the point, while Mr. Smith's statements are no doubt unpopular, unwise and unworthy in the minds of most of his countrymen, they are scarcely treasonous, as charged."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"South Africa after all remains Zimbabwe's major trading partner, an embarrassment that President Robert Mugabe has now pledged to end."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"In the beginning, Zimbabwe's leaders showed an admirable understanding that popular governments must put up with unpopular sentiments, and so they embraced Mr. Smith."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"He hasn't changed."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Why have they?"}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"For nearly three years, Andrew Cuomo, the son of New York's Governor, has been the driving force behind Help, an innovative nonprofit enterprise that provides decent transitional housing for the homeless."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"Yesterday the younger Mr. Cuomo set a worthy example: He announced he was giving up his lucrative legal practice to work for the homeless organization full time."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Andrew Cuomo and others created Help to provide a humane, cost-effective alternative to dingy welfare hotels."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"It has become a national model for such transitional housing."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Help's first project opened to 200 families last December in the East New York section of Brooklyn."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"It provides tiny but clean apartments, on-site day care, aid in finding jobs and permanent housing."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Help now is planning 500 more units around the state."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Despite an effort to separate his legal business from politics, Mr. Cuomo's role as a key adviser to the Governor and his precocious success in attracting big legal clients raised conflict-of-interest questions."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"With his decision, Mr. Cuomo addresses them and puts his considerable political talents at the service of New York's least powerful citizens."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Gov. Buddy Roemer gave the Louisiana Legislature's abortion bill a more careful review than it deserved."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"He found it wanting, devoid of minimum humane consideration for women."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"He deserves respect for his courage in vetoing the bill in the intimidating climate created by anti-abortion politicians."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The Governor had only asked the Legislature to exempt victims of rape and incest from a law criminalizing abortion."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"At first, it refused outright, prompting a veto."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Unable to override, the lawmakers lunged for a flag-burning bill and grafted on an abortion section."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"This version did deal with rape and incest, but meanly, with unrealistic reporting requirements, and cynically, with technical traps for women and their doctors."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Louisiana's right-to-life forces want their state to send up an early test of the Supreme Court's willingness to overrule Roe v. Wade, the fundamental abortion decision."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Governor Roemer prudently exercised his own judgment."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"He found the bill probably unconstitutional under state law and woefully so under the U.S. Constitution."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"He has saved his state further embarrassment, including the scorn of judges who would be appalled by this ugly bill."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"The 100th Congress, tied up in plots to balance the Federal budget, isn't likely to succeed: no formula substitutes for political will."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Before the members strangle in loopholes to their own rigid rules, let them contemplate the First Congress's first appropriations bill, 198 years ago: ''That there be appropriated for the service of the present year the following sums, viz."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"A sum not exceeding $216,000 for defraying the expenses of the civil list, under the late and present Government; a sum not exceeding $137,000 for defraying the expenses of the Department of War; a sum not exceeding $190,000 for discharging the warrants issued by the late Board of Treasury, and remaining unsatisfied; and a sum not exceeding $96,000 for paying the pensions to invalids.''"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"That's it."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Roughly one-third for the Federal payroll, another third for war and its veterans, and - believe it or not - a third for paying off debt."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"No tricky formulas, no extraneous amendments, and in that smaller, simpler America, no need for a deficit debate."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"College students who major in liberal arts -good for the mind but not necessarily for the purse - know they may not end up in the money."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Haven't their parents been pointing out to them all this time that it's just as easy to study business as it is, say, semiotics?"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"But until Irene Chang, a reporter for a campus newspaper at the University of California at Berkeley, did a little digging, liberal arts students probably didn't know that their majors also flag them as potential welshers."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"At least they do for Citibank."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"According to Ms. Chang, Citibank had a policy of denying credit cards to some students at the University of California at Berkeley and several other schools, simply because of their liberal arts majors."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"She discovered the policy when a bank representative advised her to list her major on a credit application as electrical engineering rather than English."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Investigating, Ms. Chang found a student who had been approved for credit when he was a mathematics major at another college but was denied it when he switched to Berkeley and to rhetoric."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Students of art history and Italian were denied credit as well."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Now Citibank has decided to abandon its policy -and a good thing, too."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Liberal arts may or may not be impractical."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"But how could the study of Elizabethan drama or Renaissance art possibly be thought a character flaw?"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"A middle-aged man, on hearing recently that Sammy Davis Jr. was near death, remarked, ''I can't imagine a world without Sammy Davis in it.''"}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Many other Americans, even if they were no particular fans of the entertainer, probably feel the same way, and for humane as well as theatrical reasons."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Sammy Davis was a national celebrity for the four decades before his death yesterday."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"His marriages, friendships, politics, religion - all have been fodder for gossip columnists and magazines."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"He lent his name to a golf tournament."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"He was a faithful presence at charity dinners and telethons."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"He was, in short, a star, a durable fixture in the firmament of American life."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"But there was more to Sammy Davis Jr. than endurance."}
{"sentiment":2.1,"text":"He was a tiny atomic bomb of a man who worked so hard and expended so much energy onstage that he left audiences awestruck."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"It was typical of him: he worked overtime to overcome racial discrimination, to recover from an auto accident in which he lost an eye, to reach the top in a business where short, unglamorous, one-eyed black men were not supposed to."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"He was an incandescent figure. And the glow survives."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Talk about slipping out of the hills to bayonet the wounded!"}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"As the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, Richard Shelby had already embarrassed Vice President Al Gore on television with his refusal to support the Clinton economic plan, so his desertion to the ictorious Republicans this week was hardly a huge surprise."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Talk about slipping out of the hills to bayonet the wounded!"}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"As the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, Richard Shelby had already embarrassed Vice President Al Gore on television with his refusal to support the Clinton economic plan, so his desertion to the ictorious Republicans this week was hardly a huge surprise."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Indeed, there had been speculation for some time that Mr. Shelby would follow in the footsteps of Strom Thurmond, the last Senator to make such a switch back in 1964."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Mr. Shelby, asked whether his move to the new Republican majority had the teensiest component of opportunism to it, delivered the convincing reply"}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"I am interested in opportunity for the American people."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Clearly that opportunity just happened to present itself most urgently on Wednesday."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"It can cost as much as $2,400 a month to house New York City welfare families in hotels that are second rate or worse."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"But if that sounds extreme, consider that the luxurious Plaza Hotel on Central Park has rooms for only a fraction as much."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The monthly rent for one of them is about $300."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Suites at the Plaza ordinarily fetch $1,000 a night and singles start at $195."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Its new owner, Donald Trump, aims to make the place even fancier, so the rates will probably get fancier, too."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"But four of his lodgers still will have a deal beyond compare."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Having been residents of the hotel since way back when, their ''apartments'' are subject to rent regulation."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"According to official records in Albany, one long-term resident's monthly rent for a single room was only $288 in 1984, the latest year recorded."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Another paid $423, and two, three-room suites were pegged at $547 and $662."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Bargain hunters need not apply."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"The tenants are not likely to move out voluntarily."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"A Plaza suite for less than $700."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"A welfare family's single room for $2,400."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"It's a tale of two economic follies, in one city."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Mihail Chemiakin, a Soviet artist, was forced out of his country for refusing to paint the party line."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"Now a resident of the United States, he is filled with enthusiasm for American culture."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Recently Mr. Chemiakin painted an homage to his dual heritage: a picture of Mickey Mouse giving a Campbell's soup can to a heroic Russian count."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"He invited Michael Eisner, chairman of the Walt Disney Company, to view the painting at a Beverly Hills gallery."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"In response, Mr. Chemiakin received a dose of capitalist realism."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Disney's lawyers wrote objecting to the gallery display and any attempts to sell the painting."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Mickey Mouse, they said, belongs to Disney alone."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Disney may own its idea of Mickey Mouse, but not everyone's."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Mickey has become part of America's visual vocabulary and pop artists depend on such symbols to create new iconography."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Disney's action also traduces Mickey's tradition of welcome to foreigners."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"In ''Fantasia'' he befriended Leopold Stokowski, the emigre composer."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Adolf Hitler so feared Mickey's influence that he put him on a list of ''dangerous foreigners.''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Mickey Mouse isn't just a product."}
{"sentiment":2.25,"text":"Mickey Mouse is an American hero."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Protecting a copyright is one thing."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Trying to stop this visual quotation is, well, an illustration of the popular expression for officious, nit-picking regulations and requirements."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Mickey Mouse."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority seems intent on making life harder for countless New Yorkers who wouldn't think of boarding a subway car without a newspaper or magazine in hand."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Last June, 42 of the subway system's 97 station newsstands were closed when the firm operating the stands was cited for tax evasion."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"But instead of moving swiftly to find new operators, the M.T.A."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Fourteen have been removed so far, with another three slated for demolition."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"And if the agency has its way, the wrecking ball will soon strike many more."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"M.T.A. officials say the archaic structures block officers' view of the platform."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But then why also target stands next to a token booth or under a staircase?"}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"And what about the added security, not to mention convenience, an open newsstand can bring to a station platform?"}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The agency justly complains about the dilapidated appearance of many newsstands."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But in its zeal to replace bulky eyesores, it need not destroy a viable business and passenger amenity."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Centenary College, a small Methodist institution in New Jersey, takes its name from the fact that it opened in 1867, the 100th anniversary of American Methodism."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Until last fall it had no nickname."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Its teams weren't the Lions or the Tigers or the anything."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"So it ran a contest."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The most common idea among the 150-odd entries was a play on the college's name: Centennials, Centurions, Centenarians, even Centipedes."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Strict grammarians say that three of those proposals are nouns - Centurions, Centenarians and Centipedes - and thus appropriate as nicknames; but Centennials isn't."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"In Webster's International and other dictionaries, the preferred use of ''centennial'' is as an adjective, as in centennial celebration."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The preferred noun is ''centenary.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"How does all this figure in the larger scheme of things?"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Well, the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first landing is coming up."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Since most people called the 200th anniversary of the Constitution the ''bicentennial,'' it might follow that Columbus's 500th would be the ''quincentennial.''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"But the strict grammarians have seized the high ground this time; the official commission in charge of arranging the festivities calls it the ''quincentenary.''"}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"And Centenary College, wisely avoiding the grammatical thicket, eventually settled on Cyclones."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"To be ignorant about AIDS prevention is to court death."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"But while countless television ads tell how to dull a headache and sweeten bad breath, those counseling how to avoid this tragic disease are rare."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"NBC and ABC have run a few ads advocating condom use; CBS hasn't run any."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Finally, however, the three major television networks will broadcast a public service campaign developed by the Advertising Council that will talk about AIDS and condoms."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The campaign, which also includes print, radio and transit ads, is aimed at young women and teen-age boys, especially in minority groups - the theory being that the homosexual community is already well informed about AIDS and condom use."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"CBS says it will run the commercials only after 9 P.M. ABC says it won't limit the time periods and NBC says it hasn't decided on times."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"May all the networks borrow a leaf from Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's book and send this message about condoms and AIDS prevention loud and clear and often."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Czechoslovakia's cheerless Communist boss, Milos Jakes, lacks charisma but not cunning."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"He recently told a closed party meeting that the regime erred in jailing the country's best-known dissenter, the playwright Vaclev Havel."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"It would be far wiser, he said, to pick on lesser-known figures and so avoid an international uproar over human rights."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"His frank remarks, covertly taped, were broadcast several times by Radio Free Europe."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Shamelessly, Mr. Jakes now seeks to prove his point."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Ordinary Czechoslovaks brave enough to petition for democratic reforms are subjected to midnight searches and crude threats of arrest."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Last week, with little ado, police detained the editors of the leading undergound newspaper, Lidove Noviny, or People's News."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Jiri Ruml, 64, and Rudolf Zeman, 50, face ominous charges of subversion."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Their real offense is past association with Prague Spring, shorthand for the brief-lived attempt by party reformers in the 1960's to give Communism a human face."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Both lost their jobs after the 1968 Soviet invasion, and worked as laborers until the new paper was founded last year."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Both belong to the Charter 77 human rights group."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"It remains for the world to demonstrate whether Mr. Jakes is right in his cynical view of what happens when the state picks on smaller fry."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"How much does it cost to fly from New York City to Detroit on a weekday and back the next day?"}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It costs about $100 more than flying back and forth twice between New York and Detroit, provided the round trip tickets commit the traveler to stay over a Saturday night."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"There's no need to stay through Saturday, however, if one of the round trips begins in New York and the other in Detroit."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The traveler leaves New York on, say, a Wednesday, using the first part of one round trip ticket, and returns Thursday using the first part of the second ticket."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"That saves $100 even counting the cost of the unrefundable return tickets."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Might some clever traveler develop a market in those leftovers?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Perhaps, but the second traveler would have to use the purchaser's name."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"That's illicit."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Unless, of course, the user of the leftover tickets happens to bear the same name as the original purchaser."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Quite logically, if he were a father, that could be his eldest son."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"In which case there's even a name for the ticket: heir fare."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"All was well at Cape Canaveral yesterday."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"The shuttle, looking like a huge Taj Mahal, soared off satisfyingly into space."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"On television, Peter Jennings narrated for ABC, Dan Rather narrated for CBS and Tom Brokaw narrated for NBC."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"With NBC still broadcasting the Olympics it only seems that way."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Last weekend he flew from Seoul to Winston-Salem, N.C., for the Presidential debate and then went on to Cape Canaveral."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"TV personalities often broadcast live from the scene."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"Even so, in recent months, Mr. Brokaw has carried eyewitness news to a new plateau."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Last winter he interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow and, within days, questioned first Ronald Reagan and then the 12 Presidential candidates in Washington."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"In the last year or so, he has logged more than 60,000 miles in foreign travel."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Even in an era of instantaneous TV transmission, it's probably inevitable that the networks feel obliged to send the anchors around the globe."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"It's a way to show they take big news seriously."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"If Frequent Flyer Brokaw, meanwhile, stays attentive to triple mileage bonuses, he could soon reach 190,000 miles and win a real prize: two first-class tickets around the whole world."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"The most exciting view in New York City is the vista of the East River, lower Manhattan and the Queens and Brooklyn waterfronts from the Roosevelt Island aerial tramway."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"It's yours for $1.25. And it's worth working to preserve."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The tram's twin cars carry passengers between the urban complexities of Manhattan's Upper East Side and the semi-suburban residential developments on Roosevelt Island."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"As silent and dependable as the tidal currents, the aerial tram puts a mountain technology to work in a metropolitan setting."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Yet now the tramway is in peril."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"It came into existence because the 63d Street subway tunnel, planned to cover the same route, was delayed."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Now the tunnel is open, allowing Roosevelt Island passengers to reach downtown Manhattan underground on a single fare."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The result has been a drop from 30,000 to 20,000 weekly riders on the tram."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The $1.25 million in revenues falls far short of the $1.8 million annual cost."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Since the tram was intended only as an interim subway substitute, cold reason suggests its abandonment."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But must so visionary a form of transport be grounded by a subway with no vistas at all?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Can't the tram be developed, for instance, as a tourist attraction during the day?"}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"A ride on the tram lifts the imagination."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Surely there is an imaginative way to keep it running."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"In the sole judicial contest in next Thursday's New York primary, two Democratic candidates in the Bronx vie for a countywide seat on New York City's Civil Court."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"We favor Joseph Cohen, a former Court of Claims judge who served capably from 1973 to 1983 as an Acting State Supreme Court Justice."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"His opponent, Housing Court Judge Arthur Scott Jr., was ''disapproved'' for promotion this year by the City Bar Association."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Civil Court judges are elected to decide lawsuits involving $25,000 or less."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But because of pressures on the criminal justice system, at least half of them are now reassigned."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Some sit as acting State Supreme Court justices, hearing felony cases or civil cases involving more than $25,000."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Others serve in the lower Criminal Court."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Ideally, all New York courts would be merged into a unified system, as court reformers have urged for years."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The issue belongs on next year's legislative agenda."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Rumania refused to join the rest of the Soviet bloc in shunning Israel or boycotting the Olympics; such an independent foreign policy appeals to Washington."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"But if Americans could see the Rumanian tyrant Nicolae Ceaucescu at home, they'd like him less."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited him last week, and the two differed, not about foreign policy but about how to respond to hard times at home."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Mr. Ceaucescu's method should disabuse anyone of the idea that he's a Communist leader the West can love."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"He rejects outright Mr. Gorbachev's reforms to increase productivity."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"The nice word for Rumania's way is austerity; deprivation is more accurate."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"To repay foreign debt Mr. Ceaucescu has slashed imports, set harsh limits on energy consumption and instituted policies that brought deep pay cuts."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"The result is little heat in winter, food scarcity and living standards depressed even by neighboring Bulgaria's standards."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"No surprise then that Mr. Ceaucescu thinks centralization will do very well in Rumania."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"When Mr. Gorbachev called for reform, Rumania's party faithful sat on their hands."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"When their leader spoke, they applauded loudly."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Considering how Mr. Ceaucescu crushes his people at home, there's no reason for Americans to join in."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Proper clinical testing of blood and tissue samples can provide early detection of cancer, heart disease and other life-threatening ailments."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"But lax oversight of lab performance has led to a frightening level of inaccuracy."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Sound legislation proposed by Representative Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, would begin to set higher standards for the $20 billion medical testing industry."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"According to recent testimony, careless reading of Pap smears often delays the discovery of cervical cancer, resulting in needless deaths."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The American College of Pathologists says that 1 of every 10 hospital labs falls below an acceptable level of accuracy for platelet counts, which detect leukemia and bone marrow abnormalities."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The Federal Government now regulates only a tiny fraction of labs - those that do interstate business and those that receive payments from Medicare and Medicaid."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"New York and a few other states try seriously to police quality."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"But even New York doesn't cover labs in doctors' offices, where much testing takes place."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Congressman Wyden's bill would impose a uniform Federal standard for lab accuracy."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It would also require mandatory proficiency testing and annual inspections."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Millions rely on clinical tests; by swiftly approving the Wyden bill, Congress can provide needed reassurance."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Managers of the Radio City Rockettes may pat themselves on the back for finally hiring a black dancer to perform with their world famous New York City chorus line."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Others wonder what took them so long."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"For years, the music hall defended the Rockettes' resistance to integration as essential to their symmetry -as if the color of the high-kickers' gams were all that makes them prime entertainment for tourists and New Yorkers alike."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"The Rockettes' art is precision, and the test for precision is talent."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Why didn't the city's Human Rights Commission act?"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Partly because no one ever filed a complaint that she wasn't hired because of skin color, and partly because the commission gave priority to other discrimination less visible but more pervasive."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Considering the Rockettes' dazzling visibility, it's disappointing that no one kicked loud enough to change the routine before now."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The newly appointed Federal ''drug czar'' sits at his desk, putting the finishing touches on a new strategy to stop traffic in addictive substances that can threaten health and life itself."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Satisfied with his work, he leans back and lights up a cigarette."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"A cigarette?"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The image that might seem natural actually ought to boggle the mind: nicotine, a substance declared by U.S."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to be an addictive drug, kills as many as 300,000 people a year."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"How could the nation's top drug fighter allow himself this destructive addiction?"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"How indeed - and that is why William Bennett, tapped last week by President-elect George Bush to be the first director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, now has pledged to give up his two-pack-a-day habit before taking over the job."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''You will not have a director of national drug control policy who smokes,'' Mr. Bennett said."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"''I've been scolded about it and I deserve to be scolded about it.'"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"He doesn't need scolding so much as support."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Faced with the challenge of leading the Government's war against illegal drugs on limited funds, Mr. Bennett will have to rely a lot on symbolism."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Assuming he wins his personal battle with addiction, his tenure as the nation's drug czar is already off to a good start."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"A colleague who knows about computers has a hard time getting off the phone."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Now that one friend after another has bought a home computer, they call her."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"They may be accomplished professionals but when confronted by their first DOS (disk operating system) prompt and a 10-pound instruction book in techno-jargon, they panic."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A co-worker traveling in North Carolina requested long-distance aid to load a program onto a laptop personal computer."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Her sister in Philadelphia called for the codes to start a graphics program."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A friend on the West Side of Manhattan needed help to change his on-screen menu."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Sometimes, the woman imagines herself as Charlton Heston at the controller's station in the movie ''Airport,'' talking to Karen Black in the cockpit of the runaway 747."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"''Be very calm,'' she counsels."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"''Just tell me what's on the screen ...Now listen carefully ...''"}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"In a soothing voice, she explains, step by step, how to format a floppy disk."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"To a generation reared in the Stone Age of electric typewriters and the ''Bowmar Brain,'' the most important PC peripheral may be a phone."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"And the real meaning of ''user friendly'' has emerged: Be friendly with someone who uses computers."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"In a victory for common sense, a Federal judge has rebuffed a bid by the Automobile Clubs of New York and New Jersey to roll back tolls on four hectic interstate crossings: the George Washington Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge, the Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"The auto clubs' lawsuit, repeating one they lost in 1979, challenged the 1987 increase in tolls from $2 to $3."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The suit argued that the new round-trip rate was unreasonable because the Port Authority counted PATH train operating losses as a factor in setting it."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Yet drivers obviously benefit from the trans-Hudson subway line to the extent it reduces bridge and tunnel congestion."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Last month District Judge Milton Pollack upheld the toll rise, noting the spillover effect that would result if PATH service were halted."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"''Without PATH,'' the judge bluntly concluded, ''the Port Authority's interstate transporation system would break down completely.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"That would hardly serve the interests of the auto clubs."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The recent commotion on a busy Greenwich Village street corner told something about changing American tastes, or at least changing New York tastes."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"At the heart of it was a promotional candy giveaway."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Festively costumed young people were distributing chocolate bars from large plastic bins."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But for all the commotion, the response was hesitant."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The typical taker did not unwrap the candy bar but dropped it discreetly into a shopping bag."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Others mouthed a polite ''No, thank you'' or signaled no with a vigorous shake of the head or pat of the pot."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"A few dismissed the candy offer vocally: ''Too much sugar.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The candy promoters appear to have misread their market."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"For many New Yorkers, to eat a candy bar is to succumb to a half-forbidden, private indulgence, like watching a game show on TV."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Probably the best way to promote a candy bar in New York is to distribute it quietly, in a plain brown wrapper."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Thanks to Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, a former two-pack-a-day man, millions of plane passengers may soon be breathing a lot easier."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"He led the fight in the Senate to ban smoking on domestic flights, and last week he won it."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Airlines like the proposal because it will save them maintenance money and seating hassles."}
{"sentiment":2.25,"text":"Best of all, it will save passengers and personnel from having to breathe secondhand smoke."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Because airplane air is usually the same air continually recycled, there's no such thing as a true non-smoking section."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, passengers in some nonsmoking seats can actually be exposed to smoke at a level comparable to or higher than that in the smoking section."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The Lautenberg success is still only a moral victory."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The measure now goes to the House, where it faces strong opposition."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"If airline smoking is to be banned, all victims of secondhand smoke will need to breathe fire at their Representatives."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"West 46th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, known as Restaurant Row for its variety of high-class bistros and cafes lining both sides, has long been one of New York City's better blocks."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"Now it's better still, thanks to a handsome street renovation that earns an apple for the city's Department of Transportation."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The renovation, which extends to 10th Avenue, includes cast-iron lampposts, gray granite curbs and new trees."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"To better accommodate pedestrian crowds of Broadway theatergoers, the roadway has been narrowed, permitting wider sidewalks."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Special loading zones have been carved out for trucks and taxis."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"The plan increases pedestrian space without crippling traffic."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"The $2 million renovation, done two months ahead of schedule, inaugurates a welcome program to transform routine street reconstructions into neighborhood improvements."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Officials say that amenities like wider sidewalks and historic replica street lights add only about 5 percent to the cost."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"As 46th Street demonstrates, they add much more to the city's quality of life."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Tape-recorded conversations of New York City school officials openly discussing patronage and jobs in District 27 point to the predominance of political cronyism over education in the city's decentralized school system."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"There is an obvious antidote: more parental involvement."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"A good time for parents to administer it is now, during Open School Week."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Each year, schools invite parents in for teacher conferences."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The idea is for the teacher and parent to discuss the best educational course for the child and to familiarize parents with programs offered by the school."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"For parents who may be intimidated by the prospect, the United Federation of Teachers has distributed a pamphlet, in English and Spanish, suggesting questions."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Conferences with teachers may be scheduled from now through Nov. 21."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Talking to teachers ought to be merely a first step."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"More informed participation by parents can help check the political favor-trading and corruption that flourish only when no one seems to care."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"''Womanize'' is an unattractive verb, evoking rubberize, galvanize, oxidize, personalize and also stigmatize."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Its derivative, ''womanizer,'' is unattractive too, since it conveys nothing of what may attract men to women beyond the utilitarian."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"But suppose there were no such term as ''womanizer.''"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Suppose there were only those ancient but dashing terms like rake and roue and cad."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A man known as a rake might have trouble becoming President or even just plain Secretary of Defense, but he'd be seen as having panache."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"He might even be seen as romantic."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Consider his predecessors."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"In real life, Lord Byron was ''mad, bad and dangerous to know,'' which is why women scrambled for an introduction."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"In literature, Don Juan, MacHeath and Rhett Butler are only a few of those by whom it was a pleasure to be seduced and abandoned."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"In the movies, the same sentiment applied to any number of gentlemen played by Errol Flynn, Stewart Granger and James Mason, usually in period dress and almost always astride a horse."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The rake, however, has gone the way of the cloak, sword and feathered cap, and his replacement has no such brio, not when his modern name sounds like the process by which iron rusts."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"In ''womanizer'' one sees the debasement of language, and of sexual attraction."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"A bicephalous delegation from the European Community will visit President Bush in April."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"This jaw-breaker is more common in zoology than in politics, but the Community has a problem."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Two heads."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Jacques Delors is president of the executive commission that manages the Community's affairs in Brussels."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Portugal's Prime Minister, Anibal Cavaco Silva, presides over the Council of Ministers, the countries' delegates who set policy."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The two heads will call on Mr. Bush together but don't want to be called two-headed."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Hence bicephalous."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"It is literally correct, yet conveniently leaves most people in the dark."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Is this the new Europe?"}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Sometimes anger serves a social purpose."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"That was clearly true in the case of Mitch Snyder, who died last week at the age of 46."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"His anger about the condition of the homeless in America fueled a national cause."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Throughout his life, Mr. Snyder was a troublemaker."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"As a teen-ager, he spent time in reform school for repeatedly vandalizing parking meters."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"As an adult, he was imprisoned for auto theft."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"But when he focused his anger on social injustices, challenging the conscience of indifferent officials, he was extraordinarily effective."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"His anti-war sentiments led to a hunger strike that, in turn, helped persuade the Reagan Administration to change the name of a nuclear submarine from the Corpus Christi to the U.S.S."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"City of Corpus Christi."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Mr. Snyder argued that no warship should be named the ''body of Christ.''"}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"As director of Washington's Community for Creative Non-Violence, he engaged in a 51-day fast in 1984, finally persuading President Reagan to turn over an abandoned Federal building for use as a homeless shelter."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"He often went without food or slept on sidewalks to dramatize the plight of the homeless."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Mr. Snyder's confrontational style never lost its rough edges and often turned off converts to his cause."}
{"sentiment":2.3,"text":"But his capacity for self-sacrifice, and his visionary compassion, set unusually high standards for all who care about decency and dignity for the dispossessed."}
{"sentiment":-2.4,"text":"The recipe in the food section for Zucchini Boats with Herb Stuffing struck one reader with horror."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"It was not the prospect of 14 ingredients, 30 minutes in the oven and five more under a broiler."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"It was the prospect of zucchini."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Each winter, the reader forgets how each summer zucchini comes back, as regularly as death and taxes and mosquitoes and mice: the green things that blanket gardens and burden farm stands and that people with vegetable gardens try to palm off on their neighbors."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"In an effort to dispose of the season's zucchini the reader has made pot after pot of ratatouille."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Loaf after loaf of zucchini bread."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Pound after pound of linguine with zucchini sauce."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"She has eaten it baked, fried, raw and in her dreams."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But she doesn't make a dent - nothing makes a dent - in the zucchini mountain."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"She recalls that the President has told the world how he feels about broccoli."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"She would like to hear his considered position on zucchini."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"New York City's Family Court grapples with some of society's toughest social issues: child abuse, domestic violence, juvenile delinquency and foster care placements."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Yet its dilapidated courthouses hardly inspire confidence."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"A new study by the Fund for Modern Courts, a watchdog group, documents the sorry state of Family Court facilities in each of the five boroughs."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Faced with a rising caseload, the court has resorted to holding hearings in makeshift courtrooms the size of broom closets, the study notes."}
{"sentiment":-2.25,"text":"Battered women must sit together with their abusers in crowded, grimy waiting rooms."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"Public restrooms are too few, and frequently lack basic amenities."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The fund's disturbing findings send a timely message to City Hall, now preparing a master plan for construction and renovation of courthouses: Don't shortchange Family Court."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"Three cheers for Chad, whose army is chasing back long-entrenched Libyan invaders."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Fed up with Colonel Qaddafi's endless manipulations and side-switching, his various Chadian victims finally stopped fighting each other long enough to battle the bully."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The victory isn't yet complete; Libyan troops still occupy the disputed Aozou border strip; but the Chadians now have morale and momentum on their side."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Much of the credit for Chad's success belongs to President Hissen Habre, whose daring offensive tactics display lessons he learned years ago fighting as a Libyan-sponsored desert commando."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Military assistance from France and the United States also helped."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"But it was only when Colonel Qaddafi alienated his latest Chadian protege that a long military stalemate was finally broken."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Not for the first time, a just cause has shown itself a formidable factor in the military equation."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Anyone who went out to lunch in New York yesterday knows it's time to haul out the words, as well as the clothing, of winter."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Just last week, people were walking around coatless in air so balmy it seemed much warmer than 54 degrees."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"One young wit, toying with summer words, insisted that ''It's not the heat but the humidity.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Yesterday seemed much colder than 32 degrees, and for the first time in months people talked about wind chill."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Small wonder."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Gusts of 45 m.p.h. blew jumbo jets around on runways; by 4 P.M. the wind chill factor had plummeted to the dread milestone of zero."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Pronouncing such winter words doesn't warm the body one whit but it does seem to warm the spirit."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Caught in the icy blast, the dazed pedestrian can at least seek comfort in calibrations of courage, as if to say: Mere temperature does not convey how much I endured."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Why, the wind chill factor was ..."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Yes, the wind chill factor describes the rate of heat removal from the body by wind and cold."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"But it also measures the need for self-congratulation."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The wind chill factor offers a sure form of relief from cold wind: hot air."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"A New York woman tells a cautionary tale of jury service: She sat one day without being called."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Next day she was among those selected for examination to serve on a jury, but the group was excused for the weekend."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"She went to Boston to visit a sick relative."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The following Monday she dutifully flew back on a 6 A.M. flight."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"No judge was available so the potential jurors were dismissed for the day."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Tuesday the judge arrived after noon and presided over the picking of the jury."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"On Wednesday the judge had to sit for other cases so the jurors were told to report Thursday."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"They did, and were told that the judge had to stay with a complex case that might drag into Friday."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The jurors were given a long weekend off."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"On Monday they, the lawyers and some witnesses sat until lunchtime waiting for the trial to begin."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"After lunch, newspaper reading and recipe exchanging, the jurors were excused for the day."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Tuesday they assembled again, primed for the trial."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The judge informed them that since the case was complicated and their normal two weeks of duty had almost been used up anyway, he would select a new jury and dismiss them with the thanks of the court."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Justice had not yet been served, the New York woman reflects, but time had."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"When it comes to spending the money, the Americans who win state lotteries are like peas in the pod."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"If they have children, they put it toward college educations."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"If they only rent a home, they want to buy one."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"If they have one car, they buy another."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"If they've never traveled, they take a trip."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Scatter your dollars while you may is, it seems, the American way."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"If a man named Jimmy Anderson signifies the norm, however, it is not the British way."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Mr. Anderson, according to a recent magazine article, won more than $3 million in the football pools, but he isn't letting the money go to his fingers."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"''These figures are unbelievable,'' he crowed."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"''Now my wife can have her new fridge!''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Americans worried about losing out to Japan can take heart."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Last weekend an American won the prized Emperor's Cup in Japanese sumo wrestling, and Americans were named Most Valuable Player in both Japanese baseball leagues."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"For Americans to excel at baseball may seem unremarkable."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"But considering the uneven success of U.S. players adapting to the Japanese game, the unprecedented American sweep is one for the books."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"So caps off to the outfielder Ralph Bryant, a former Los Angeles Dodger who plays for the Kintetsu Buffaloes in Japan's Pacific League, and the ex-Montreal Expo outfielder Warren Cromartie of the Yomiuri Giants, in the Central League."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"More astonishing is American supremacy in the ancient Japanese ritual of sumo wrestling."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The winner was Yasokichi Konishikie, 26 years old, a Samoan-American from Hawaii."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"At 496 pounds he's heavy even by sumo standards, but despite appearances, heft is less important to a sumo victory than speed, agility and craftiness."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Mr. Konishikie, who endured much public harassment as an intruder in an art that is profoundly Japanese, finished off his final opponent in a swift 20 seconds of grappling."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"That's the sort of Japan-bashing that all can approve."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"And even the Japanese cheered."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"Chrysler got caught by a Federal grand jury with its monkey wrench on the odometer."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"It was doing a little test-driving of new cars with the mileage indicators disconnected."}
{"sentiment":-2.4,"text":"Illegal or not, that was crummy, and the company should have known it."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Such deception fits the caricature of used-car lots."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"To do it on a product that is labeled and sold as brand spanking new is a tawdry breach of the public's trust."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Lee Iacocca, the company's image-conscious chairman, now says it was all a dumb mistake."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"He promises it won't happen again and offers generous restitution to the thousands of Chrysler owners who were victimized."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"But he insists that the company's practices violated no law."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Alas, the question of legality is beside the point; hiding the truth violated Chrysler's customers."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"It makes good sense to test-drive a sampling of cars as they come off the assembly line."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Given Detroit's reputation for poor quality, testing is an essential double-check."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Some foreign companies boast that they test all their cars."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Chrysler's moral offense was in thinking it was all right to hide the facts and pretend the cars were undriven."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Some had even been in accidents and the damage concealed with cosmetic repairs; indeed, it's alleged that some damage was not repaired."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Mr. Iacocca's contrition is welcome, and only proper, but it's too bad that it took a grand jury indictment to smoke Chrysler out."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The resignation of Representative Mario Biaggi following his conviction last week in the Wedtech bribery case spares the House Ethics Committee having to vote on his expulsion."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"But there remains a duty for the committee to examine serious charges of wrongdoing made during the trial against another Representative from the Bronx, Robert Garcia."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Mario Moreno, a former Wedtech executive testifying for the Government, said that the defense contractor channeled $4,000 a month to Mr. Garcia's wife, supposedly for consulting services, through a lawyer in Puerto Rico."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Wedtech's founder, John Mariotta, convicted with Mr. Biaggi, denied any quid pro quo."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"But he acknowledged that he and his wife had also given Mrs. Garcia a $75,000 check for a supposed investment, as well a diamond and emerald necklace."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"These allegations raise questions that cry out for prompt scrutiny by the Ethics Committee, whether or not crimes can be proved."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"For example, did the suspicious payments violate House rules prohibiting the use of public office for private gain or the rule against accepting gifts that might create an appearance of undue influence?"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Mr. Garcia, who has not been indicted, makes no apologies for helping Wedtech, a major employer in his district."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"He insists he did nothing improper."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"That may betrue; he ought to welcome the chance to clear the air."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The National Commission on Child and Youth Deaths was created in 1988 to make the first systematic analysis of mortality among Americans under 18."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The group hasn't received money and hasn't met."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"It's time Congress and the President rectified that."}
{"sentiment":-2.1,"text":"According to the Child Welfare League of America, about 70,000 children and youths will die this year."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Half will be infants; the other half will be between 1 and 18."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Infant mortality has received sustained attention; mortality among non-infants has not."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Studies at the state level show some disturbing patterns."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"In Maine, researchers found that youths who smoke are six times more likely to die than non-smokers."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Smoking seems to show a propensity to take risks - sometimes fatal ones."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"And everywhere, poor children are more likely to die than those from wealthier families."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Knowing more about such patterns could help policy makers target resources and protect young lives."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Getting the commission on track would be a healthy start."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"A Long Island woman belatedly showing up to register her household for the community pool found herself looking at an application form that wanted to know who else would be swimming."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Under ''family,'' she crossed off ''husband'' and ''wife'' -she neither is one nor has one - and wrote in ''sisters.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The pool attendant frowned."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"''Sisters are not family,'' she declared."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''You have to fill in the line by 'Independent Adults.' ''"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Not family?"}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"What about all those tearful talks in the bathroom and laughter at obscure puns that only a lifetime together had made funny?"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"What about insecurities soothed with compliments and diets sabotaged with take-home ice cream sundaes?"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"What about tempers flaring over borrowed clothes, relief over irons fortuitously unplugged?"}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"But then what do bureaucrats, impatient only for documentation of residency, care about families?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"She resigned herself to redoing the form - but with a gesture to sibling solidarity: Having written her sister's name and her own after 'independent adults,' she crossed out ''in.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"If the pool attendant noticed, she didn't show it."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Imagine the house dog or cat marooned on a doorstep, its plaintive bark, meow or scratch drowned out by passing traffic or its owner's TV set."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"Imagine rain making the scene all the more pathetic."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Or imagine the same dog or cat desperate to get out and thus avoid a spanking for sullying the rug yet again."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Now imagine that said pet has but to ring a bell to get in and out."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Imagine, in short, the Pet Chime."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"It is battery-operated, can be installed on either side of a door and takes only the press of a paw to operate, thus ending frustration for pets - and for owners who value their rugs."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"There's just one problem."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Dogs and cats, as their owners know, can be shrewd beyond expectations."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Sure, it's all well and good for them to be able to call their owners to the door."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"But just suppose they teach every cat and dog in the neighborhood how to ring the bell?"}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"There would be frustration."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Americans keep 56 million cats as pets and spend an estimated hour a day ''interacting'' with them."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Many do so for a powerful reason: Cats appear to supply the affectionate companionship that may be lacking from other humans."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"But whatever goes on in people's heads when they cuddle and coo with their pets, the interaction means something different to the cat."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"When a feline offers an enthusiastic welcome at the door, for example, what it has most in mind is not love but food."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Cat psychologists, according to an article in Discover magazine, believe the owner's footsteps remind the cat that the hand that opens the door also opens the can."}
{"sentiment":1.95,"text":"A cat rubbing gently against one's legs may make one feel loved and appreciated."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"To the cat, it's all a matter of territoriality."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"In transferring scent from his fur, the cat lets others know the person is all his."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"As for vocal expression, animal behaviorists break down ''me-ow'' into a contradictory message, ''me'' being a way of saying ''hello,'' and ''ow'' an aggressive warning to keep one's distance."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"It's just as well that those 56 million cats and their owners so misunderstand each other."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"With full translation, they'd be fighting like cats and dogs."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Sing another ''Happy Birthday'' to Irving Berlin."}
{"sentiment":2.4,"text":"At 101 years old today, he may be America's most celebrated and adored centenarian, and is certainly the most melodic."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Otherwise, according to a report by the Census Bureau, he's fairly typical."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"As a male, he is in the minority; 70 percent of centenarians are women."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But he conforms in other respects: like 8 out of 10, he's white."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Half of all centenarians live at home or with relatives; Mr. Berlin has his own home in New York City."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"He is a widower; more than three-quarters have lost a spouse."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"And like two-thirds of this extraordinary cohort, he never finished elementary school."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"There are some 35,000 Americans age 100 or older."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"They are easily the fastest-growing segment of the population, having tripled in number since the 1980 census."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The bureau estimates that there will be 100,000 in the late 1990's, and a century from now more than a million."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Which leads to one more statistic, not so benign."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Most centenarians survive on very little income - 9 out of 10 have less than $5,000 a year."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Some have chosen to give their money to their offspring, who now support them."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Others get public support, like Medicaid and food stamps."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But as people most likely to need extended full-time care, their rapid increase needs to be heeded."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"They're not just a curiosity."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"When New York City's School Chancellor, Nathan Quinones, suddenly announced the closing of a Bronx junior high school last month, he earned criticism for acting hastily in order to divert attention from other embarrassments, like the failure of a major summer jobs program."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Now state Supreme Court Justice Bertram Katz orders J.H.S. 123 to open on time next Monday."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Citing ''continued confusion'' over attendance figures used to document the school's failures, the Justice termed the closing a ''rush to judgment'' and ''without rational basis.''"}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Whatever his legal position, Mr. Quinones now can best serve schoolchildren by dropping plans to appeal and working with an aroused community to improve the school."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The School Chancellor has a duty to enforce performance standards, but a surprise closing a month before a new term begins - with no plan to address low attendance and reading scores - was counterproductive."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Some chaos remains inevitable, but Mr. Quinones, who announced his retirement only days after ordering the Bronx school shut, would sacrifice no principle by agreeing to a compromise that gives J.H.S. 123 a fair second chance."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"A troubling report by New York State's Commission of Investigation charges incompetent, improper and possibly illegal conduct by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office and the county police."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Gov. Mario Cuomo and Attorney General Robert Abrams have rightly moved to appoint a special prosecutor."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"The 199-page report, the result of a three-year inquiry, is a sweeping indictment of Suffolk law enforcement."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The commission found that between 1981 and 1987 prosecutors and police officers engaged in perjury, illegal wiretaps and coercion of witnesses, all with the tacit approval of their superiors."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"The law enforcement officials routinely ignored allegations of serious police brutality."}
{"sentiment":-2.15,"text":"Shoddy handling of murder cases may have resulted in guilty people going free."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"A new police commissioner, Daniel Guido, has already adopted several of the report's recommendations."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"But the Suffolk District Attorney, Patrick Henry, who tried unsuccessfully to block public release of the report, angrily denies the commission's charges."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Clearly, the public is entitled to a more impartial review."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The assignment of an Assistant Attorney General, John Ryan, to conduct an independent inquiry serves welcome notice that law enforcement officials aren't above the law."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The National Endowment for the Arts's temporary withdrawal of funds for a show focused on AIDS produced a flurry of words - none more sensible than from the object of criticism in the show's catalogue."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Criticism of John Cardinal O'Connor and several other public figures prompted John Frohnmayer, the new director of the Endowment, to withdraw funding for ''Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"'' Mr. Frohnmayer said the critical comments made the ''Witnesses'' show political."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But if Cardinal O'Connor's views on the AIDS plague provoke dissent, few would quarrel with his defense of free speech."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"''Had I been consulted I would have urged very strongly that the National Endowment not withdraw its sponsorship on the basis of criticism against me personally,'' the Cardinal said."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"''I do not consider myself exempt from or above criticism by anyone.''"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Mr. Frohnmayer wisely reversed his decision on funding the show."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"He would be wise to adopt the Cardinal's sentiment as well."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"''Enthusiasm'' is not among the 884,647 words appearing in the works of Shakespeare, according to the hefty Harvard concordance."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Joseph Papp, producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival, founded in 1954, has filled the void."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"This Saturday - the Bard's 424th birthday -Mr. Papp is to receive the first ''Will Award'' from the Shakespeare Theater at the Folger Library in Washington."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"As Sonnet 135 puts it, this is Will in overplus, since Mr. Papp has just embarked on an ambitious effort to stage all 36 Shakespeare plays over a six-year period."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Yet the mention of Mr. Papp's Shakespeare at a New York dinner party is sure to provoke vehement brickbats for eccentric casting and superfluous gimmickry."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"He has challenged what he rejects as a damaging slur on American acting: the belief that when it comes to interpreting the Bard, the British are to the manner born."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The issue is not so much manner as training."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"As one semi-admirer puts it, there is too much method in the occasional badness of the Shakespeare Festival."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"If Mr. Papp could focus his enthusiasm on basic training of his troupe, his complete Shakespeare would be not for the age (as Ben Jonson said of the First Folio) but for all time."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Appearing recently at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in Greenwich Village, Governor Cuomo announced a proposed ban on AIDS testing for health insurance."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"He also spoke of Peter Vogel, former vice chairman of the state's Advisory Council on AIDS and chairman of the Governor's Task Force on Gay Concerns."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Last year, Mr. Vogel died of AIDS."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"''Thinking of Peter is a powerful reminder that these statistics, that they make me look at, represent real lives,'' Mr. Cuomo said, ''real human beings, their lives crippled, maybe lost, each one of them, with the pain and devastation reaching out and engulfing hundreds, thousands of friends and loved ones.''"}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"In a room filled with people who know the sad reality of AIDS, the Governor's remarks were a salve, and a reminder of how welcome can be the politics of compassion."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"It's always hard for a nation to sit in judgment on itself - especially if those being judged are armed and uniformed."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Remarkably, a quarter of Uruguay's electorate forced a referendum on whether to try military officers for abuses between 1973 and 1985, when 50,000 people were jailed in a nation of three million."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"On Sunday a majority voted ''orange,'' for caution, defeating the ''greens'' who favored trials."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Many voters heeded their President's warnings that the military might ignore a green vote."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Others decided that political problems require political answers, and that the appropriate answer in this case is amnesty."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Still, some 40 percent thought the risks worth taking."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Uruguay will not follow Argentina in subjecting officers to civilian trials for crimes committed during a ''dirty war'' against terrorism."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Caution does not require Uruguayans to forget the grim deeds of the former military regime."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"These are detailed in a recent New Yorker series by Lawrence Wechsler; after torture, detainees were sent to the perversely named La Libertad prison to be treated like laboratory animals."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Since the guilty will not be held personally accountable for their acts, it's all the more important that the whole truth be told."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"If Steven McDonald doesn't have reason to be bitter, who does?"}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Shot last summer by a 15-year-old boy he was arresting in Central Park, the young police officer is paralyzed from the neck down."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"When his newborn son was christened Sunday, his wife had to take her husband's hand and guide it in tracing a cross on the child's forehead."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"If Officer McDonald had taken this opportunity to express anger, it would have been understandable - but not nearly as meaningful as words he actually voiced, again through his wife."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"''On some days, when I am not feeling very well, I can get angry."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"But I have realized that anger is a wasted emotion, and that I have to remember why I became a police officer."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"I'm sometimes angry at the teen-age boy who shot me."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"But more often I feel sorry for him."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"I only hope that he can turn his life into helping and not hurting people."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"I forgive him and hope that he can find peace and purpose in his life.''"}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"Clearly, Officer McDonald has found peace and purpose in his own."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The Federal tax code has long invited lawyers, doctors and other professionals to mix a little bit of work with a lot of play by allowing them to deduct most of the costs of attending an educational conference."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Not atypically, a recent medical seminar at a Colorado ski resort hotel featured four hours of lectures daily - all artfully scheduled before the lifts opened in the morning and after they closed in late afternoon."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"A seminar program run by the American Education Institute offers an egregious new twist."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The program is called a ''Medical Malpractice/Risk Management and AIDS Update Seminar''; the brochure invites participants to choose among a variety of warm weather and ski resort ''lecture sites.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But in lieu of live lecturers, the course consists of a series of ''broadcast-grade'' videotapes."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"That permits participants to ''begin any weekday of any week.''"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"And because the videotapes are easily copied and distributed, the institute invites participants to retake the course at no additional charge at another romantic location - a selling point, presumably, for people with time for more than one ''educational'' holiday a year."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"It would be cheaper if the Internal Revenue Service simply created its own educational tapes and mailed them to the participants' homes."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Better yet, it would be fairer to all the country's taxpayers if this whole charade were terminated."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"To the Editor: Undoubtedly, Turkey spends millions of dollars on public relations companies to improve its image in the United States."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The ''Age of Suleyman the Magnificent'' exhibition at Washington's National Gallery is evidently part of this effort."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Your article follows strongly worded published letters by key members of Congress, including Claiborne Pell, new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticizing and drawing attention to Turkey's misuse of U.S. military aid to strengthen its illegal occupation forces in Cyprus."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"Turkey's dismal record in human rights, notably in its brutal 1974 invasion of Cyprus, is well documented."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Turkey, a major recipient of U.S. economic and military aid, will need much more to improve its image than millions of dollars in public relations."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The withdrawal of Turkish occupation troops from Cyprus, as repeatedly demanded since 1974 by binding U.N. resolutions, would be an important step toward changing the image of modern Turkey."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"The English Tourist Board has just published a code of behavior for foreign visitors to Britain's historic monuments suggesting, among other things, that they prevent ''annoying behaviour'' by their children."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Visitors may find the board's imperious ''Twenty Tips for Visitors'' even more annoying than obstreperous kids."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Among other tips: ''If you take your car, park in a designated space, not just where you please.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"As The Financial Times points out, since this instruction is widely ignored by the natives, lecturing visitors about it smacks of ''Do as we say, not as we do.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Likewise, don't pick the flowers, don't carve your initials on trees and ''don't expect others to clean up after you.''"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"In one slightly more hospitable gesture, the board does allow that visitors may ''complain if you have just cause.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But then it adds, crustily, ''Do it politely.''"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"A record 6.3 million foreign visitors spent almost $13 billion in Britain last year, and the traffic is even heavier this year, welcome or no."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"Some foreigners may be cowed by the tourist board's curtness."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Others may suggest that the board turn its attention to the ''annoying behaviour'' of British hooligans traveling abroad to soccer games."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Two million New Yorkers are eligible to vote but not registered."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"In October, Mayor Koch announced an ambitious campaign to sign them up with a late-November mailing of registration forms to every household in the city."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Senators Moynihan and D'Amato agreed to contribute $300,000 worth of their Congressional franking privilege."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"City officials hoped that the effort would swell voter rolls by at least 500,000."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The mailing has yet to go out, mainly because of problems with the Senate's equipment for folding and stuffing enclosures for the three million envelopes."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The timetable now calls for New Yorkers to receive the forms by the end of January."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"That would still leave time before the Feb. 19 deadline for registering to vote in New York's April 19 Presidential primary."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But the delay could make it difficult for the city's Board of Elections to process the expected bulge."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Last-minute efforts to sign up voters in 1984 kept the board busy round the clock."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"To insure that the campaign does not produce more frustration than voters, City Hall needs to plan now for beefing up the board once its pre-election returns begin to flood in."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"When new budgetary restraints take effect in October, the State Department will have to close perhaps eight of its overseas consulates."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"State's administrators say that no decisions have been made yet, and that the severity of the cuts depends on exchange rates and inflation."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"But already, a remarkable campaign has gathered steam in France to persuade Washington to spare the consulate general in Bordeaux."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Leading in the lobbying is Bordeaux's Mayor, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, also president of the National Assembly."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The consulate covers the southwest quarter of France and annually issues 30,000 visas."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"It appears to be America's oldest diplomatic post, commissioned in 1790, when Bordeaux already had made a name as the port supplying American rebel colonists with arms and supplies, all shipped with potable refreshment."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"It was from here that Lafayette sailed."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Sentiment alone should not determine Washington's choice."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"But the affection and fervor of this campaign surely must be taken into account."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Even if things aren't equal, age, wine and the Marquis de Lafayette make a strong case for keeping the flag flying in Bordeaux."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"David Hayden letter recalls naked fear of passengers when flight he was on experienced severe problems (S) To the Editor: I can assure Mary R. Lefkowitz (''No Words Capture the Fear,'' Op-Ed, Aug. 26) that not all passengers on endangered planes are ''uncannily calm.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"To the Editor: I can assure Mary R. Lefkowitz (''No Words Capture the Fear,'' Op-Ed, Aug. 26) that not all passengers on endangered planes are ''uncannily calm.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"A decade ago, after an uneventful flight from San Francisco to New York, the plane I was on tried to land in a powerful thunderstorm."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The wind shear was severe, and the plane repeatedly plunged with no warning."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"The left wing was struck by a bolt of lightning that left an eerie blue aura, and the pilot failed in his first three attempts to land."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"By the time he lined up for the fourth attempt, at least half the passengers were screaming, weeping or praying."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"After we finally did land successfully, I overheard one of the flight crew say it was the worst he had ever experienced."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"I would bet that the naked and very vocal terror inside that cabin is far from uncommon when helpless passengers are surprised by a confrontation with eternity."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Self-help books address themselves to the ambitions and anxieties of the moment, but in a way that personalizes them."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"There's no social malaise, these books seem to say, and no social solution either."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"Whether the answer is to make over your appearance, portfolio or personality, you can do it!"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But often the titles reveal a lot about the times."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"That's especially so when the promotion department thinks people will buy a book by its cover."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Consider ''Eat to Win.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"There's a title that boils down the 80's to the basics, combining health with greed."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"And now comes ''Toxic Parents.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"The book examines the destructive legacy of abusive parents, but the title suggests a confluence of environmental and psychological horrors."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Will that define the 90's?"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Even ''Eat to Win'' sounds cheerier."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The Noble School District in Norman, Okla., is reluctant to call an aide an aide."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Last week it announced that library aides and teacher aides will be called assistants because of public anxiety over AIDS."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"It is hard to imagine children fleeing in terror from grown-ups introduced as teacher or library aides, but the school district apparently isn't taking any chances."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Such is the price of paranoia."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Does it portend a linguistic backlash?"}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Will school nurses now cease administering ''first aid'' and switch to ''first assistance''?"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Will first aid kits around the country now have to be recalled from off factory walls and out of Boy Scouts' backpacks for relabeling?"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"White House and Congressional aides are invaluable to the news media in supplying information about the inner workings of government."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Will they give interviews only to journalists who refer to them as ''assistants''?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"What of drugstores with their beauty aids, cosmetic aids and foot-care aids?"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Will corporate America turn on products like Kitchen-Aid dishwashers and Band-Aids?"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The Noble School District could have found a better solution: Teach students that ''aide'' doesn't mean ''AIDS,'' and that even if it did, panic and fear would be inappropriate responses."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"If necessity is the mother of invention, discomfort is its father."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"A recent ski trip suggests two inventions that need inventing."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The first concerns night driving, when the car behind is following too close, or with brights on."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The high-beam headlights in the rear view mirror would be blinding except that there is a no-glare position."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The problem is the side mirrors, door- or fender-mounted, which also reflect blinding light."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Commonly, they can be adjusted from inside the car."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Would much ingenuity be required also to fit them with a no-glare feature?"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The other possibility arises from the fact that skiers' noses run."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Even if they remember to carry facial tissue it's hard to get at, what with elastic-cuffed gloves, parkas, zippers and all."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Some have been known to address the problem in unseemly ways."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"A more appealing alternative: an elastic frame on the glove, shaped to hold a pocket pack of tissue and create a benign use for the back of the hand."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Responding to the furor over the mismanaged House bank, Speaker Thomas Foley gamely pushed through legislation in April to establish modern, professional management of non-legislative affairs by a new, nonpartisan House administrator."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Responding to the furor over the mismanaged House bank, Speaker Thomas Foley gamely pushed through legislation in April to establish modern, professional management of non-legislative affairs by a new, nonpartisan House administrator."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Six months have passed; the House has adjourned with the new post still unfilled."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Mr. Foley pledges that the new administrator will be hired by the opening of the 103d Congress in January."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"It's a pledge worth remembering."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"The missed deadlines say nothing flattering about commitment to institutional reform."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"AIDS patients have many needs, and not the least of them is for legal advice they may be unable to afford."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Now trust and estate lawyers from some of New York City's top law firms are volunteering to help out."}
{"sentiment":2.1,"text":"The project deserves praise and replication elsewhere."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Experienced attorneys recruited by the nonprofit Volunteers of Legal Service travel to hospital bedsides to help people dying of AIDS prepare wills and living wills and resolve child guardianship issues."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"So far, about 70 lawyers from a dozen different firms have enlisted in the year-old effort."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"It now serves five major hospitals in Manhattan and a legal clinic for ambulatory AIDS patients in Brooklyn."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"The lawyers offer AIDS victims precious peace of mind."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"They offer their profession a precious example."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Last month, New York's new Commission on Government Integrity dutifully added its own volume to the shelf of reports proposing reform of the state's lax campaign funding rules."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The report inspired no more than pious nodding."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"But now the commission could yet unearth the compelling cases of abuse that finally might shame the State Legislature into approving reform."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The commission, headed by John D. Feerick, has targeted the 1985 town board elections in Poughkeepsie."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Public hearings next week will explore allegations about a shopping mall developer, Pyramid Companies, and Thomas Spargo, counsel to the state Republican Party."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"They are said to have exploited loopholes in the state election law to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign gifts to Republican candidates."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The recipients supported zoning changes needed to build the mall."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Also under scrutiny is the state's Board of Elections, which found no evidence of wrongdoing."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Legal challenges brought by Mr. Spargo and the developer to impede the probe merely render it more intriguing."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"The commission's slow start made Governor Cuomo's fight with the Legislature over its creation seem bewildering."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Now the commission seems ready to pursue its mission, backing up those proposals with evidence."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Even at $1 - which is to say, 95 more cents than it used to be - many still consider a trip on a New York subway a bargain."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Unless, of course, you have just arrived at 42d Street by way of the IRT or BMT lines and wish to continue your journey on the IND line."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"It's a blocklong tunnel away and you've got drop another buck to get there."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Until now."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"After 56 years of driving subway passengers to extravagance, curses or shank's mare, the Transit Authority has finally rearranged the turnstiles."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"As of this week, the thousands who tranfer between the two stations no longer have to pay the second fare."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"In a city whose residents are grateful for small favors - a seat on the bus, a night without car alarms - this is, to put it mildly, improving the quality of life."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"What is it that runs down your spine when you see movie scenes like the unforgettable moment in ''Wait Until Dark'' when Alan Arkin, seemingly dead, suddenly leaps across the room at the blind Audrey Hepburn?"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"A shiver of fear?"}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"No, not if you mean to be, well, au courant."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"To judge by current journalistic fashion, you should be experiencing a frisson, a French term for shiver or shudder."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"When the young violinists rose to their feet near the end of a Leonard Bernstein concert in Japan on Sunday, what ran around the hall?"}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"A frisson, according to Newsday."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"A dramatic production in San Francisco delivers marvelous frissons of horror, reports The San Francisco Chronicle."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Other publications, including The New York Times, write of frissons of fear, frissons of controversy, frissons of danger, frissons of authenticity, frissons of alarm, frissons of terror, frissons of reality and frissons of excitement."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"A Nexis electronic word search of various publications finds 29 uses of the French word in just the last three weeks."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Such rapidly accelerating overuse threatens an otherwise colorful and expressive usage."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Instead of sending a chill down the spine, it drives a hot word into the ground."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"A professor of Asian studies at Harvard, he was named Ambassador to Tokyo in 1961 by President Kennedy."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"During a five-year tour he did much to change the chemistry of U.S.-Japanese relations."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Mr. Reischauer grew up in Japan and married as his second wife Haru Matsukata, the granddaughter of a Japanese Prime Minister."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"According to the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the Foreign Service opposed him on the grounds that ''it would be terrible to send to Tokyo an American ambassador with a Japanese wife.''"}
{"sentiment":2.45,"text":"But the appointment was a resounding success."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"It came at a tense time; the extension of the U.S.-Japan security treaty in 1960 had prompted weeks of huge demonstrations in Tokyo."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"His deep knowledge of Japanese culture and efforts enabled him to reach out to all segments of the Japanese polity."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"His purpose, he said in a recent memoir, was to deepen understanding between the two peoples and their Governments."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The memoir leaves the impression, noted Clyde Haberman of The Times, ''that though the United States commands Mr. Reischauer's loyalty, Japan enjoys his love.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"His broadly positive views of Japan, which influenced a generation of Americans, have recently come under challenge by revisionists."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"Still, it is the mark of a scholar that his ideas are worth arguing about, and the mark of a diplomat that his achievement endures."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"What do these numbers say about America?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"A.T.&T. handled roughly 120 million long-distance calls on an average weekday in 1989."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"On Oct. 18, the day after the San Francisco earthquake, that number leaped to 145 million."}
{"sentiment":2.3,"text":"(America has a loving heart.)"}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"What do these numbers say about America?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"A.T.&T. handled roughly 120 million long-distance calls on an average weekday in 1989."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"On Oct. 18, the day after the San Francisco earthquake, that number leaped to 145 million."}
{"sentiment":2.15,"text":"(America has a loving heart.)"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"But the record was set by an event of an entirely different nature."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"In 1992, when the average daily volume had climbed to 140 million, there were 177 million calls on June 1."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"That was the start of last year's airline fare wars; the first four days of that combat, June 1 to 4, still rank as the busiest four days ever."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"(America loves a bargain.)"}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Justice is supposed to be blind but blind ignorance is what some judges and court officers display toward defendants with AIDS, even those merely suspected of having the disease."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"A Westchester judge, Nicholas Colabella, recently moved a drug defendant's sentencing out of his small courtroom to an outdoor parking lot because the offender was suspected of having AIDS."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The judge ordered the change in the apparent belief that ''lots of space and sunshine'' would reduce risk to court personnel."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Likewise, a Fresno, Calif., judge, John Gallagher, barred the public from the courtroom when he arraigned a prostitute known to have AIDS-related complex."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The bailiffs all wore rubber gloves and the defendant was required to wear a surgical mask."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"Such precautions were absurd."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"All medical evidence shows that the virus is not casually transmitted but requires mingling of blood or fluids, as in sexual intercourse with a carrier or sharing of hypodermic needles."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"Judge Colabella tried to defend his antics by asserting that an AIDS-infected defendant might go berserk and bite someone."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Whether or not bites can spread the disease, that could happen outdoors as well as in."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Judges are supposed to do justice, not parody it with mindless fear."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Benjamin Franklin left $:2,000 in his will for loans to young apprentices in Boston and Philadelphia, providing also that part of the principal be given away for ''public works'' after 100 years, and the rest after 200 - which is now."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The 1890 distribution took 14 years to settle."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Now starts the scrapping over the $6.5 million that remains today."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The will doesn't give detailed guidance, but a letter Franklin wrote in 1772 may help."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Responding to a request for advice, he said: ''My way is to divide half a sheet of paper into two columns, writing over the one Pro and over the other Con.''"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"After listing pro's and con's, he says: ''Where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike both."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three pro, I strike the five; and thus I find at length where the balance lies."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities, I am less liable to make a rash step.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"If Franklin's algebra is too much for Boston and Philadelphia, here's an idea: ''The wise man will be governed by the stars.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Different counsel."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Same counselor."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Representative Bob Walker has a worthy pet cause."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The Pennsylvania Republican wants to restore the integrity of the Congressional Record, the official chronicle of both houses' proceedings."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Last month he saw anew why reform is needed."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"It occurred when Mr. Walker tried to offer an amendment to a G.O.P."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"crime bill that would force floor consideration."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"This provoked Jack Brooks, the Texas Democrat who heads the committee that controls the bill."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"''All of us have voted for crime bills almost every year for the last few years,'' he said."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"''We have almost as many crime bills passed as they have crimes committed.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"After rethinking the matter, Mr. Brooks excised his remarks from that day's Record."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"They reappeared, but only because they were inserted during a later floor discussion about the propriety of such rewrites."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Under present rules, members can review a transcript of the day's proceedings before printing."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Changes are supposed to be limited to correcting typographical or grammatical errors, but the privilege is often abused to make substantive changes."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"A task force is drafting new rules. Good."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"A more honest Record will be a more valuable Record."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"For New York's ailing public schools, help is on the way in the form of thousands of volunteers willing to tutor students."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The New York City School Volunteers Program begins another year this week."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Schools are trying to provide more services with less money."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"And students, a majority of whom come from single-parent homes, need adult intervention and attention."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"Programs like School Volunteers help fill the gap, working directly with students during school hours and giving them additional instruction in reading, writing, math, and English as a second language."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Last year, more than 5,400 volunteers - including parents of public school students, high school and college students, retirees and other concerned adults - worked in 491 schools around the city, helping more than 72,000 students."}
{"sentiment":2.2,"text":"Such efforts to expose children to the wonders of learning represent the city at its best."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Once there was a Socialist utopia where all workers were happy and the sun always shone on model collective farms."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Such was the fantasy offered in the glossy pages of Soviet Life, a monthly magazine published by the Soviet Embassy in Washington."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"But as Moscow has changed, so has the magazine - and its outlook."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Beginning with the January issue, it has shrunk to news magazine size."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"But more than the format has improved."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The issue features a sober essay on perestroika by Roy Medvedev, an underground historian known for his exposes of Stalin's crimes."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"There's a report on political ferment in Estonia and a lavishly illustrated survey of avant-garde art, once scorned or hidden."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"An article on Stalin begins: ''Passions are still running high during discussions of the Soviet remote but recent past."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Without bringing to light all the details - many of them hitherto concealed -of the Soviet state's 70-year history, we have no guarantee against making the same errors in the future.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"And only weeks after Soviet Life seemed to spring from the grave to attack Stalin, the Leningrad magazine Neva has gone even further, berating Mikhail Gorbachev himself."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"In the new Soviet journalism, it seems, the sun often fails to shine."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Another retread."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The San Diego Chargers announced this month that they had hired Dan Henning, an assistant with the Washington Redskins, as their new head coach."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The Chargers' action filled the last remaining head-coaching vacancy in the National Football League."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"It also foreclosed for now the possibility of there being a black head coach in a league where at least half the players are black."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The circumstance contrasts strikingly with baseball, where just a week earlier Bill White, a black former player, was named president of the National League."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"Mr. Henning no doubt had many things to recommend him to the owner of the Chargers."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But his record of 22 victories, 41 losses and 1 tie during four years as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons could not have been prominent among them."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Once again, it appears that the N.F.L."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"would rather rely on an unsuccessful white retread than seek out a promising black newcomer."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Trailways bus lines, which lost $14 million last year, is about to leave the driving to Greyhound."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"For $80 million, Trailways will sell many of its buses and terminals to the larger company, which has promised to maintain service to all 1,200 Trailways destinations for at least one year."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"After that, all bets are off."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Greyhound would become the sole provider of bus service on most intercity routes, increasing its share of the national market from 60 to 80 percent."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Greyhound argues that one profitable company would serve travellers better than two struggling ones."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Its ability to raise rates on monopoly routes, the company claims, would be checked by competition from the same low fare airlines that pushed Trailways to the edge of financial collapse."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Greyhound could be right."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"But its threat to back out of the sale unless the Interstate Commerce Commission approves the takeover within 10 days is out of line."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The Commission needs time to weigh the alternatives of reorganizing Trailways in bankruptcy, or dividing its assets among smaller bus companies."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"If Trailways is worth owning today, surely it will retain its value for another few months."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"It's not often that the chance to help a New York City school combines with a commercial real estate development at no cost to taxpayers."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"The Board of Estimate can seize that unique opportunity by approving the sale of development rights associated with the old High School for the Performing Arts building on West 46th Street."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"In exchange for rights to build a 48-story office tower next door to the landmarked building, commercial developers would spend $10 million to renovate the dilapidated, under-utilized school."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"It could become a vital resource, providing after-school programs for a neighborhood that now is home to many welfare-hotel families."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The five borough presidents favor the project, but the required approval by a two-thirds vote remains in doubt."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Mayor Koch has recused himself because two of the developers backed a musical version of his book, ''Mayor.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Andrew Stein, the City Council president, hasn't declared, and Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin remains uncertain because of questions about the price."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"This special opportunity ought not to slip from the board's grasp."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Senator Alfonse D'Amato justly takes pride in being New York's pork barrel Senator - a lawmaker who is not above making a few well-placed calls to see that his state receives its fair share of Federal dollars."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"But in helping to secure a $425,000 Housing and Urban Development grant for his hometown, Mr. D'Amato crossed the line between pork and poor taste."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The grant will help the middle-class Long Island seashore village of Island Park build a swimming pool and community complex."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"A phone call from Mr. D'Amato helped persuade H.U.D."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Secretary Samuel Pierce to allocate the money from his discretionary fund - a distorted decision given how many communities cry out for funds to help build low-income housing."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"It's hard to say who is more insensitive: Mr. Pierce for agreeing to make the grant, or Mr. D'Amato for insisting on it."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"A New Yorker visiting Ontario last summer bought an issue of The Toronto Star to keep him company at breakfast."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"He was delighted to find that the newspaper contained a smart, British-style crossword puzzle, and he completed it with his coffee."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Then he noticed that The Star offered a $10 prize for the earliest postmarked correct solution."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"He had a stamped envelope in his briefcase and mailed it to The Star from Buffalo."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"He quickly forgot the offer, and was thus surprised two months later to find an envelope from The Star in his mailbox."}
{"sentiment":2.2,"text":"It contained a $10 winner's check that made him as proud as any Olympian."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Off it went to his bank."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Within 10 days he found another envelope in the mailbox, from the bank."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"It contained an Advice of Debit charging him $1.83 for the difference in value between $10 Canadian and $10 U.S., and adding a $3.50 U.S. charge as its commission on the transaction, leaving him $4.67, less the cost of the envelope and the 25 cents U.S. he had paid for The Star."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Before calculating his taxes on the $4.17 that's left of his prize, he wants a ruling on whether his breakfast was an allowable expense."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Undeterred by New York's looming budget deficit, Warren Anderson, the retiring majority leader of the Republican State Senate, awarded hefty bonuses last month to 12 of his top legal advisers, thus locking in higher pensions."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"They may have given him good advice on legislation."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"But the increases undermine the Senate's credibility on budget issues and invite scrutiny of payroll practices."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"One case involves the last-minute raise awarded Mr. Anderson's chief assistant counsel, Philip Pinsky, from $74,000 to $94,000."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"An Anderson spokesman says the extra $20,000 was deserved because the 1987 and 1988 legislative sessions ran longer than the 20 weeks originally scheduled."}
{"sentiment":-1.65,"text":"That's a lame excuse."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The last session to last only 20 weeks was more than a decade ago; 26 weeks is now the norm."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Ralph Marino, the new Senate majority leader, will have to weigh complaints that senior staff lawyers have grown too powerful, often overshadowing senators, and examine other aspects of the lawyers' roles."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"With no disrespect to Mr. Pinsky, even $74,000 seems too generous for a part-time job that permits outside law practice."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"If you are missing televised ballgames you wish you'd seen, or William F. Buckley Jr. holding forth on the latest crisis, SmarTV can find them, tape them and play them back at your command."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"If you want, it will zap commercials, too."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"SmarTV is a souped-up video cassette recorder from the Metaview Corporation of San Francisco."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"It searches out and tapes programs to suit the viewer's tastes, be they soaps or sports, a favorite author or Bishop Tutu, family issues or whatever."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Users profile their interests in answers to a questionnaire, which is then fine-tuned by a personal interview."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Thus informed, a Metaview computer scans the weekly schedule, then programs each unit to record what the viewer might want to see."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The viewer views at his or her convenience."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"At $6,000 apiece, SmarTV won't soon sweep the country, but Metaview predicts it will drop to a few hundred dollars if it gets into mass production."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"That all sounds promising, except for one thing."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"If millions plug into a TV system that eliminates commercials, who will pay for the programs they want to watch?"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Among the luminaries at last week's 20th anniversary dinner of the Joint Center for Political Studies were President Bush and Douglas Wilder of Virginia, the nation's first elected black Governor."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Mr. Bush's presence was testimony to the center's importance as the premier think tank devoted to black issues."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Mr. Wilder's presence offered evidence of the progress achieved by the 7,400 black elected officials who have profited from the center's work."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The Joint Center was founded in 1970 by a group of black intellectuals and politicians, including the psychologist Kenneth Clark and Louis Martin, an adviser to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Carter."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Their goal was an information clearinghouse that could stimulate black voter participation and provide technical assistance to newly elected black officials."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Eddie Williams, a former aide to Senator Hubert Humphrey, has guided the organization for 18 years and gradually shifted its focus."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"The center has flourished by adapting itself to changing needs."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"It's still committed to black political progress."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"But as blacks focus on economic advancement, the center has adopted a new name reflecting its broader concerns: The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"By halting the purchase of plastic foam cups, plates and other products by New York City agencies, Mayor Koch sets a welcome example."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"The new policy reflects a growing national concern about plastic waste."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Plastic packaging does not decompose, straining landfills."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"When burned, it emits harmful chemicals."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"In October, Berkeley, Calif., became the first jurisdiction to ban use of foam packaging by fast-food restaurants."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Rhode Island, Seattle and Suffolk County in New York are weighing similar steps."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Last month Richard Kessel, head of New York State's Consumer Protection Board, asked McDonald's to stop using plastic foam packaging."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"A spokesman for McDonald's responds that no suitable substitute has been found."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Yet Burger King, McDonald's chief competitor, manages to keep its burgers warm using biodegradable paper wrappers."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"Mr. Koch, following Vermont's example, has rightly decided to curb city agency use of plastic foam products, which now totals up to $10 million annually."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"If McDonald's doesn't voluntarily show the same responsibility, the city and the state ought to consider a ban."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Leveraged buyouts may be good or bad for American business but they are a windfall for the Securities and Exchange Commission."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"It reaped $7 million from the RJR Nabisco deal alone."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Every bid to buy out a company with borrowed (leveraged) funds must be registered with the S.E.C."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The registration fee is one-fiftieth of 1 percent of the bidder's initial proposal."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"If bids escalate, as in the case of RJR Nabisco, there is no extra charge."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"But if the deal collapses, there's no refund."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"When suitors compete, each pays a fee and the S.E.C. keeps the pot."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Company, the concern that won the RJR Nabisco competition for $24.9 billion, paid a $3.5 million fee on its initial $17.7 billion offer."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The RJR management group paid a little less for its opening bid of $17 billion."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Compared with the purchase price, the fees were peanuts."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But for an agency on a $135 million budget, the take from just this one deal equaled 5 percent of its operating expenses."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"If cash keeps pouring in, the S.E.C. could buy itself out, and the Reagan Revolution would be complete."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Spring will come soon enough to England, and the English are getting ready for it - including English toads."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"In spring, they hop to their traditional breeding ponds as best they can, which nowadays may mean perilous crossings of roads that intersect the traditional breeding routes."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Alert to the problem, the British Fauna and Flora Preservation Society is therefore building concrete toad tunnels under a street that lies across a toad hopway near Henley-on-Thames."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Those toads smart enough to find the tunnels (perhaps with the help of toad-size guide rails) are assured safe passage and carefree mating."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"The English have always been good about remembering all God's creatures great and small, especially small."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The English love hedgehogs and butterflies and they breed champion mice for exhibition."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"But Americans ought not to dismiss the toad tunnels as hopelessly quaint."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"The lifesaving access for toads, after all, also constitutes an amenity for humans, who will no longer have to cope with the remains of toads squashed inadvertently in traffic."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Come springtime, American country roads are littered enough with crushed toads, turtles, raccoons and woodchucks."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Where fauna engineering might spare them, it ought to be tried."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"When international relations heat up, cultural exchange gets frozen out."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"A vivid illustration of why art shouldn't be held hostage to politics is the Metropolitan Museum's current exhibit of Dutch and Flemish painting from the Hermitage, the Soviet Union's premier palace of art."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Philippe de Montebello, the Metropolitan's director, began planning the exhibit in 1979 during the Carter Administration."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"When Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, hopes for showing the paintings were dashed."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Mr. de Montebello had to wait six years for Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan to sign a new cultural agreement."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"It took three more years to achieve the actual exchange."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The only practical effect of the freeze was to deprive both sides of the chance to view masterpieces that, in truth, belong to all."}
{"sentiment":1.75,"text":"The Dutch and Flemish paintings lent by the Soviet Union lift hearts high above politics."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Federal law requires the Food and Drug Administration to outlaw cancer-causing food dyes."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Yet the agency has for years postponed action against Red Dye No."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"3, despite evidence that the dye, widely used to brighten cosmetics and foods, induces thyroid tumors in animals."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The latest extension ends Jan. 29."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"So should the dawdling."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Last spring, fully five years after F.D.A. scientists concluded that Red Dye No. 3. was a carcinogen, the agency served notice that it was preparing to outlaw the additive."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"But then Representative Vic Fazio of California, sensitive to the interests of fruit growers, tossed a monkey wrench."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"He inserted language in the agriculture appropriations bill instructing the F.D.A."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"to put off action pending further study."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"Fortunately, Senator Wyche Fowler of Georgia blocked the delaying tactic in conference committee."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Fruit growers have lobbied to keep using the dye to color the cherries in fruit cocktail."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"They fear that removing it will reduce consumer demand for the product."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But in years of testing, they have been unable to prove the dye's safety."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"Surely Americans can be re-educated to enjoy fruit cocktail with less colorful cherries."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The F.D.A. 's concern, in any case, ought to be protecting against needless risk."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"A decade ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to frown on nominees for the Federal bench who belong to clubs that engage in ''invidious discrimination,'' including racial or religious exclusion."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"A few nominees have since been confirmed only on condition that they quit such clubs."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The policy has needed updating to include sex discrimination, and to make clear that last-minute resignations look fishy; any lawyer with judicial ambitions ought to quit such clubs now."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The committee meets today to hear witnesses for a non-binding resolution that would address those defects."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Its key section reads: ''It is inappropriate today for individuals who may be nominated in the future to serve in the Federal judiciary or the Department of Justice to belong to such discriminatory clubs, unless such persons are actively engaged in bona fide efforts to eliminate the discriminatory practices.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"For one who can't join a judge's club because of race, religion or sex, it's offensive to have one's case tried by that judge."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"It's hardly less offensive when the judge has quit that club just to get a judgeship or a Justice Department job."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The resolution is too weak in not requiring strong proof that a nominee has strongly pressed for a club's internal reform."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"But it moves the Senate - and ambitious lawyers - in the right direction."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"New York City's subways and buses consume tokens wholesale."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Therefore it stands to reason that tokens are easily available, doesn't it?"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Forget reason."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"To buy tokens, New Yorkers must head for the nearest subway booth."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"They have to hope it's open."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"They have to hope the line's not long, and that the other token seller isn't about to seal off his window."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"But reason finally may have taken hold."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Last week the Transit Authority appealed to local merchants, corporations, hospitals, universities and government offices to sell tokens."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Some 150 have already expressed interest."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"The authority has also been experimenting with a handful of automated token-selling machines at well-traveled sites like Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"If these turn out to be effective, they'll get wider distribution - and presumbly do for subway booth lines what cash machines have done for bank lines."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"Meanwhile, however, a big and shiny apple to the Transit Authority for starting to thin out the token lines."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The 500-pound concrete slab that fell from a viaduct of Manhattan's F.D.R."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Drive recently, killing a driver, was the latest reminder that too many of the city's bridges urgently need repairs."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Albany still has time to speed their rehabilitation."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"A bill devised by the city's Transportation Commissioner, Ross Sandler, would create a special Bridge Commission controlled by the Mayor."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"It would operate according to streamlined procedures for contracting, purchasing and hiring."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Managers would be freed to concentrate on completing repairs instead of red tape."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"With the city poised to spend billions on bridge repairs over the next decade, the commission is a sensible device for holding down waste."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Few in Albany would disagree, but approval is jeopardized by timing."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Mr. Sandler didn't submit the bill until he completed negotiations with affected unions late last week."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"But now lawmakers are packing to leave, and there's a danger they will table the bill until next year."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"As the tragedy on the F.D.R."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Drive suggests, to delay is to flirt with danger."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"Homeless families are often baffled by New York City's maze of services."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Now 11 women from midtown Manhattan welfare hotels offer help: ''The Survival Manual (Useful Information for People Who Have to Live in the Hotels for Displaced Families).''"}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"The 32-page booklet demystifies programs designed to help people find affordable housing."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The authors include key names and phone numbers."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"They identify helpful organizations and discuss day care and welfare rights."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"Parents going to appointments are told to leave the children at home with someone they trust, because ''it is much harder to be convincing'' when ''pushing a stroller'' and ''juggling the diaper bag.''"}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Two thousand copies of the women's booklet, published with the help of the Save the Children Federation and the Hudson Guild Settlement House, are being distributed in the city's welfare hotels."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"''You are homeless and upset and confused,'' the manual begins."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"''But, no matter what the 'system' tries to make you feel, you are not stupid."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"You lost your home."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"But that doesn't mean you are a loser.''"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"And not, with such sensible information, helpless."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"Those who dare to demonstrate peacefully against Paraguay's dictator, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, risk attacks by thugs."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Those who violently molest anti-Stroessner demonstrators risk nothing at all."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"Last week, General Stroessner brought a nasty taste of Paraguay to the streets of New York."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"The long-ruling general, addressing the United Nations special session on disarmament, insisted that 32 years of his beneficent rule had transformed Paraguay into a ''genuine democracy.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Several hours later, the Stroessner entourage made all too plain the general's ideas of democratic behavior."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Seven members of the dictator's party assaulted a small group of anti-Stroessner protesters marching across the street from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where the general was staying."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"One victim required treatment at Bellevue Hospital."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"New York authorities are weighing criminal charges."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But the alleged assailants, who may by now have left the United States, are apparently covered by a temporary form of diplomatic immunity."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"They may escape prosecution, but neither they, nor General Stroessner, can escape the opprobrium of Americans."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Some legislators and citizens, and the states of Kansas and Pennsylvania, have brought a suit demanding that illegal aliens not be counted when Congress redistricts after the 1990 Census."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"They claim that undocumented aliens in states like New York and California will skew the results and perhaps cost their states a House seat."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"To win, they must persuade the courts that the aliens are not ''persons,'' since persons, not citizens, are what the Constitution requires to be counted."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"The suit is an unworthy means to a dubious end."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"It asks the courts to mangle both the original Constitution and the 14th Amendment, whose framers chose their words carefully."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"It asks the courts to create a new class of non-persons, contrary to one of the finest themes of constitutional history, the recognition of people whose personhood has been denied."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The Supreme Court has made clear that whatever else America may do to protect its borders, it may not deny illegals basics like a public education."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Even if successful, the suit could only frustrate the Census Bureau, which relies on voluntary cooperation, by further frightening away people who already fear the enumerators as suspicious agents of authority."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Congress can and should tell the Census Bureau to adjust for the unequal undercount, but neither Congress nor the courts should treat people as less than persons."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"A year ago he was Exhibit A for pundits worried about ''pit bull TV'' and what seemed a growing tendency toward boorish, pugnacious behavior."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"To a guest who bored him he would bark, ''Zip it!''"}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"To one with whom he disagreed he would snarl, ''Puke breath!''"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Now Morton Downey Jr. is on his way to the television trivia books: his show has been canceled."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"The show fell victim to falling ratings and advertiser disaffection."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Advertisers grew leery because of Mr. Downey's erratic behavior on and off camera, including his apparently spurious report of a confrontation with a group of skinheads in a restroom at the San Francisco airport."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But ratings and advertiser interest are just gauges, registering deeper changes."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Could it be that Mr. Downey lost touch with the times?"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"His show was at its hottest during the 1988 campaign, when the country was in a mild fever over matters like no-new-taxes, the Pledge of Allegiance and Willie Horton."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"With George Bush's inauguration in January, however, kind and gentle was in; hot and fevered was out."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"And so, mercifully, is Morton Downey Jr."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"New York City's Comptroller, Harrison Goldin, broke no law when he touted investments in companies controlled by Ivan Boesky."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"So says the city's Investigations Commissioner, Kenneth Conboy, along with Federal and local prosecutors."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"It's a welcome finding, though it hardly settles the issue of propriety."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Mr. Boesky later pleaded guilty to conspiracy in filing a false statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and has been sentenced to prison."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Why was the city's chief financial officer promoting his business ventures?"}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Mr. Conboy investigated when Mr. Goldin admitted he had spoken well of Boesky investments with friends and acknowledged, after early denials, that he himself had invested in a Boesky enterprise."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Mr. Goldin is the ex officio chief investor of New York City's own money and its pension funds, and is in charge of selling the city's bonds and notes to investors."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"For him to offer such market tips may not be unlawful; it cannot escape being unseemly."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"It has been 27 years since New York has known so cool a summer, 27 years since a light blanket felt good on an August night."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"True, those who blossom in the heat may be weeping and so, perhaps, may be ice cream vendors and lemonade purveyors."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"But, oh, the difference to the rest of us."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"It has been 27 years since New York has known so cool a summer, 27 years since a light blanket felt good on an August night."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"True, those who blossom in the heat may be weeping and so, perhaps, may be ice cream vendors and lemonade purveyors."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"But, oh, the difference to the rest of us."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"What joy not to hear an air-conditioner's whine 24 hours a day."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"What even greater joy to face a utilities bill without wincing."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"And what pleasure to forgo salad and iced tea for the occasional plate of beef stew."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"How sweet to wait on a subway platform without fear of suffocation."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Or at a bus stop without fear of sunstroke."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Or to hoof it without fear of heat exhaustion."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"True, there has been rather a lot of rain."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Tons of it, actually."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"But has New York ever had fuller trees, fatter bushes, greener greenswards?"}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Basking on the beach may be out."}
{"sentiment":2.3,"text":"But it's a great summer to be sitting in the city."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Someday somebody will come up with a scientific explanation for the curious glow that a three-man submarine discovered recently one mile deep in the Pacific Ocean."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Its immediate source is a jet of hot water emerging from some rock chimneys on the ocean floor."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The cause of its strange flicker is unknown."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Meanwhile it is tempting to speculate."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Maybe that curious glow is emitted by Something That Wants To Be Found."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Excalibur comes to mind; so do the Grail and the Venus de Milo's arms."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Other possibilities are those parts of the Ark that didn't wash up on Mount Ararat, the draperies on the head of the Getty Museum's new Aphrodite and Captain Kidd's treasure."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"But what, pray tell, would such as Excalibur and the arms of the Venus de Milo be doing 180 miles west of Vancouver, British Columbia?"}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"Exactly what that monster purported to be living at the bottom of a murky Scottish lake is doing: tickling the romantic imagination."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"To economists, Sir John Hicks, who died Saturday at 85, was a Promethean figure even in the company of fellow Nobel laureates."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Along with Paul Samuelson, Dr. Hicks helped explain the Keynesian revolution in economic thinking."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"After the Great Depression, economists groped for explanations."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Their focus on perfectly functioning competitive markets provided few useful clues about an economy ravaged by unemployment."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Then in 1936, in his ''General Theory,'' John Maynard Keynes offered a dramatic new insight: Markets would not automatically eliminate unemployment, but government policy could help."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The ''General Theory'' was much discussed but little read, and even careful readers found it hard to grasp."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Dr. Hicks's clear analysis of Keynes, begun in 1937, remains the bulwark of every economist's training."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"By analyzing an economy in which prices do not behave perfectly, he established a basis for Keynesian economic management: government manipulation of fiscal and monetary policies to affect output and employment."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Dr. Hicks also wrote seminal explanations of market interactions, technological change, wage growth, capital formation, economic history and other pivotal functions."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"He was, Dr. Samuelson laments, ''one of the last great generalists.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Though few laymen have ever heard of him, Sir John Hicks casts a shadow that looms over every economic discussion."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Never has there been a worse time to be an umbrella than during the last few weeks in New York."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"It's not the rain - rain is what umbrellas are for."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"The problem has been the wind."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The wind, which came in gusts, blew its best whenever an umbrella crossed the street."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Deprived of the defense provided by buildings, the umbrella was usually turned inside out."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Sometimes its owner, by reversing position, could get the umbrella blown right side out again."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"More often, the spokes had broken in the blast."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Funny thing is, few of those broken bumbershoots have been discarded."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Instead, they're all over town, still in business."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"With more rain likely, it's clearly folly to invest today in what will surely be blown out tomorrow."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Sausalito, Calif., is being driven mad by the sound of fish - the mating call of the male toadfish, to be precise."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"It is a curious sound, reminiscent of an oboe with stuck stops."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"But it tickles the gills of the female toadfish."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Toadfish like to tryst in Sausalito's Richardson Bay in June."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"Now that the bay has been cleaned up, they like it better than ever."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Every year a few thousand more toadfish join the chorus."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The human residents of Sausalito are joining in."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"This year, as last year, a lot of them dressed more or less like fish for a Humming Toadfish Festival, and they walked around town playing kazoos."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"On the whole, however, few find the ardent toadfish funny."}
{"sentiment":-2.45,"text":"One man describes their song as ''God-awful.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"Most townfolk say it disturbs their sleep."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Could the sound of any fish be worse than the howl of a car alarm, the whoop-whoop-whoop of a police siren, the scream of the fire truck?"}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Sausalitans don't know from God-awful."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But New Yorkers do."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"They also know what to do with toadfish."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Imagine a harbor so clean that toadfish were fruitful and multiplied."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Imagine those pluguglies sending up a hum loud enough to drown the shrieks that make hideous New York midsummer nights."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Imagine that, and you have imagined a happier, more harmonious city."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"A seamy piece of campaign literature circulated during last month's primary race for Brooklyn District Attorney attempted to link the former special prosecutor Charles Hynes to homosexual groups."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Assemblyman Daniel Feldman, who lost the contest to Mr. Hynes, denies authorizing the leaflet, which was signed by ''Friends of Dan Feldman.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Whatever the truth turns out to be, the episode points to a need for changing New York State law."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Present law requires candidates to disclose their campaign contributions."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But there is no requirement that campaign literature state clearly who paid for it, a gap the state's Commission on Government Integrity has recommended closing."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Nor is there a penalty for misrepresenting the source of campaign literature."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Several years ago, a state appellate court struck down a broad ''truth in campaign literature'' law as violative of the First Amendment."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"But that decision left open the likelihood that a more carefully drawn statute, similar to the labeling rules that govern Federal campaign literature, would pass constitutional muster."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Such a rule wouldn't put an end to dirty campaigns."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"But at least voters would be able to know the source of the smears."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Remarkably, all lanes of New York's Williamsburg Bridge are now open."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Cars, trucks and subways zip across in both directions."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"When the bridge shut down in April, pessimists said it would never reopen; optimists projected repairs would take a year."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"The city's Department of Transportation promised it would get the job done by early August - and it did."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"With understandable pride, the D.O.T."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"asserts that no bridge of this size has been so completely overhauled in so short a time."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"From the day the bridge closed, some 140 engineers, iron workers, painters and laborers toiled 12 hours a day, seven days a week, hammering in 150 tons of new steel, adding 15,000 bolts and riveting 21 one-ton floor beams to the superstructure."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"City traffic engineers deserve laurels, but can't rest on them."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Now is the time to put a preventive maintenance schedule in place for the Williamsburg and the 845 other city bridges."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"When Mathias Rust set his plane down in Red Square last May, the world gasped with amazement - and some admiration."}
{"sentiment":1.6,"text":"Perhaps it was a prank, perhaps a peace pilgrimage, but surely it was a fine fantasy come true."}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Now Moscow offers a dose of hard reality: a sentence of four years in a labor camp."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"The 19-year-old West German was charged with violation of international flight regulations, illegal entry into the Soviet Union and hooliganism."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The last offense prompted the long sentence."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Mr. Rust said he had come in peace, hoping to talk with Mikhail S. Gorbachev."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The Soviet authorities deemed the apolitical youth a prankster."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"But an apolitical past and a longshot peace mission aren't necessarily incompatible."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Mr. Rust wouldn't be the first person attracted to the idea of leaping out of the old ruts and making the world over."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"No one can say if such a leap is what Mr. Rust intended."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Nor can anyone write off a government's concern with the security of its borders or with flight regulations."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Indeed, some deem Mr. Rust lucky to have arrived in Red Square alive."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"What the labor-camp sentence does do, and firmly, is bring the fantasy that took flight with Mr. Rust squarely down to earth."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Once there was a summer when every other young woman in Manhattan wore a droopy white cotton hat."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"A few summers later, every other young woman wore a wraparound batik skirt."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"This was followed by the summer of the pink-and-blue-plastic-vegetables-on-an-elastic-band bracelet."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"What these little numbers had in common was price (low), availability (street vendors, five and tens, variety stalls) and the fact that they never appeared in fashion magazines."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"Now there's a new addition to this distinguished list of unsung fashions: the waist-bag."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"The waist-bag, which is usually nylon, is attached to a long belt, has a zippered pocket and a Velcro-closed pocket and looks best when it's black."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Closely packed, it'll hold money, keys, a credit card or two, a comb, a lipstick, a tissue and any number of dry-cleaning slips."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Women wear it with the bag in front, thus tempting comparisons to marsupials."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Men, who also wear it, generally do so with the bag in back, thus tempting pickpockets."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Both sexes are left with their hands free for shopping bags, strollers and self-defense."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Those are reasons enough to hope the waist-bag outlives the droopy hat, the batik wraparound and the plastic-veggie bracelet."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"It's a fad worth holding onto."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Each year New York City's public beaches are declared open on Memorial Day."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Why then do the city's public swimming pools stay empty until late June?"}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Department of Parks and Recreation officials offer only leaky reasons."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Pools, they say, tempt public school students to play hooky, and the lifeguards are in school themselves."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"They suggest, lamely, that June weather isn't hot enough for swimming and attendance won't justify the added costs."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Yet many days this June were as sweltering as early August."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"And school schedules ought not to be the governing issue: All New Yorkers feel the heat, but not all are students in public schools."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Should Parks officials feel obliged to accommodate the school schedules anyway, whether for the sake of swimmers or lifeguards, why not at least open pools on weekends?"}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"For limiting city swimmers to those weeks of tar beach, the Parks Department deserves a worm."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"It wasn't enough for the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, to ban smoking, coffee and girlie magazines and reinstitute the chain gang for the county's 5,200 prisoners."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"On top of all that, he plans to pipe Newt Gingrich's lecture series into the cells via cable TV."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Sheriff Joe Arpaio has clearly mastered Gingrichian rhetoric."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"I understand some people might call this cruel and unusual punishment, he said, but so what?"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"It wasn't enough for the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, to ban smoking, coffee and girlie magazines and reinstitute the chain gang for the county's 5,200 prisoners."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"On top of all that, he plans to pipe Newt Gingrich's lecture series into the cells via cable TV."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Sheriff Joe Arpaio has clearly mastered Gingrichian rhetoric."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"I understand some people might call this cruel and unusual punishment, he said, but so what?"}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Sheriff Arpaio says he does not plan to present any balancing Democratic material."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"He says he doesn't know of any, and some people might say these guys already got enough of those ideas."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"So much for equal time in Maricopa County, but even so the sheriff may be on to something."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"Here at last is every pol's dream: a truly captive audience."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Not even Gopac can deliver that."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Hard times aren't good times to be New York City's Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, as Mary Schmidt Campbell knows very well."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"But during her four-year tenure, Dr. Campbell, who has just been appointed dean of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, made her department heard."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"She did so by seeing that it served the full range of New Yorkers, and was especially successful in bringing minority artists into mainstream public programs."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Dr. Campbell has said of budgets that they're rather like the weather: There are good seasons and bad seasons, and you just kind of ride them out."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"Dr. Campbell rode her good -- and bad -- seasons very well."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Hard times aren't good times to be New York City's Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, as Mary Schmidt Campbell knows very well."}
{"sentiment":1.05,"text":"But during her four-year tenure, Dr. Campbell, who has just been appointed dean of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, made her department heard."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"She did so by seeing that it served the full range of New Yorkers, and was especially successful in bringing minority artists into mainstream public programs."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"The Koch administration says it's serious about protecting New York City workers who blow the whistle on waste, fraud and corruption."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But consider the case of Samuel Adams, formerly a $263-a-week Health Department janitor."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"After a month on the job, Mr. Adams reported to the department's Inspector General that his supervisor was turning back the time clock to protect tardy co-workers."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Two months later he was dismissed for ''poor job performance.''"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"That was nearly three years ago."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"This week New York City's Department of Investigation ruled that the dismissal was illegal and that Mr. Adams should be reinstated."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Why the delay?"}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"A D.O.I. spokesman concedes the investigation took too long, but pleads the agency didn't learn about the case until last January."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"But, incredibly, when the agency was informed, it bounced the case back to the Health Department, which then took almost another year to conclude the relatively simple inquiry."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"The message to honest city employees is decidedly mixed."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Yes, retaliatory dismissals for whistle blowing ultimately won't be tolerated."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"But getting the bureaucracy to respond could take years."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"''Every state has two senators, and that's what Staten Island thought they were getting into when they joined the union,'' Mayor Koch said the other day in sympathy with New York's least populous borough."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"This reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling that the Board of Estimate is malapportioned shows the durability of wishful thinking about reapportionment."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The idea is that if the U.S. Senate can be malapportioned, what's wrong with a little local malapportionment?"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"What's wrong is that the Supreme Court rejected the idea 25 years ago in the same decision, Reynolds v. Sims, that established the one-person-one-vote rule for state elections."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"The Court applied the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment: ''No state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"That meant equal voting rights for electing both chambers of a bicameral state legislature."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"By contrast, the Great Compromise that produced a House of equally populated districts and two senators from each state regardless of population is contained in the Constitution's Article One."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"That Federal provision was not affected by the 14th Amendment, addressed mainly to the states."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Congressional leaders voice concern about the steady decline in real competition for House and Senate seats."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Yet they now propose to add to incumbents' overwhelming advantage by fattening next year's Congressional mailing budget."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"For the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, which will include most of the 1990 campaign, Congress proposes to spend a record $114 million on free postage for members' newsletters and other mailings to constituents."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"That will be more than twice the $54 million budgeted this year."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Members of Congress have a legitimate need to communicate with constituents."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"But as the hefty election-year increase suggests, much of the mail flooding from Capitol Hill amounts to campaigning at taxpayer expense."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Public financing of Congressional campaigns would be a wonderfully welcome reform but this kind of subsidy amounts to public financing only for incumbents."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Senators are required to publicize the amount of publicly paid postage."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"House members don't even have to do that."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Voters are at least entitled to know how representatives spend next year's generous campaign subsidy."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Sometime in the 1920's, a rich New Yorker named Abby Aldrich Rockefeller started an art collection that was based, a son wrote, ''on her own instincts and interests.''"}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"In 1939 it became the nucleus of a great collection of folk art at Colonial Williamsburg, some of which is on display at the Whitney Museum through April 2."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Many of the paintings - the baby asleep in the red chair, say, and Edward Hicks's ''Peaceable Kingdom'' -are old friends by now."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Just as photographers like Walker Evans defined the America of the 1930's, these artists and artisans, most of them anonymous, defined the American Paradise Lost."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"That's the way it seems now: an America where every child had a flower or a toy in hand and where Abundance, in the form of a bowl or a compote overflowing with fruit, was a popular theme."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Nothing but wood smoke, the viewer imagines, ever smudged the pellucid air over these small farms, and the roads seem to stretch to infinity."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"No wonder Americans cherish this art."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Michael Moore got a taste of Hollywood when he had to search for a distributor to handle his scorching documentary, ''Roger and Me.''"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"And now he's had a taste of New York."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"''Roger and Me'' recounts the impact of General Motors' heavy layoffs in Flint, Mich., and Mr. Moore's efforts to collar G.M.'s chairman, Roger Smith, into a visit to face the devastation."}
{"sentiment":2.05,"text":"The Times's Vincent Canby hailed Mr. Moore as ''an irrepressible new humorist in the tradition of Mark Twain and Artemus Ward.''"}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Last week Mr. Moore saw his film with paying customers for the first time, at a theater on Manhattan's upscale Upper East Side."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Afterward he chatted with a crowd in the lobby."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"One of his terms for distribution, he explained, was that a seat be left open wherever the film played, marked with a sign ''Reserved for Roger Smith.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"The trouble with New Yorkers, he said, is that they keep stealing the signs."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Then one New Yorker called out, ''Can I have your coat?''"}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"In New York, irrepressible humorists meet their match in wise guys."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"This summer, thousands of elderly New Yorkers will get the chance to escape city heat and go to the woods and countryside -- because of the Vacations and Senior Center Association."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"They'll be campers, some of them for the first time in their lives, and they'll be doing what young campers do."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"Last year, 10,000 people spent one or two welcome weeks in the country because of the Vacations Association; their ages ranged from 55 to an astonishing 106."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Fees are low, but so are the campers' incomes -- which is why the association provides scholarships for those who need them."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Donations for these scholarships are tax-deductible, and may be sent to VASCA, 275 Seventh Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10001."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Reggie Lawrence of Huntingdon, Tenn., has trouble with the name Dukakis."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"''It sounds like somebody in Indonesia or Greece or someplace overseas,'' he told some political reporters he'd run into at a local cafe."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"''It just doesn't sound American.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Loretta Lynn of numerous country music awards has trouble with ''Dukakis,'' too."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Traveling through central Illinois with Vice President Bush not long ago, she said of the Democratic Presidential candidate (in a conspicuously thickened drawl): ''Why, I can't even pronounce his name!''"}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Poor Mr. Lawrence!"}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Names like Squanto, Geronimo and Massasoit probably don't sound American to him either."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"As for poor Ms. Lynn, she must have a terrible time with the names Cuomo, Deukmejian and Sununu as well."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"She got a big ho-ho-ho from the crowd when she confessed her inability to tangle with three syllables."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"But there's no laughter coming from those who know an ethnic slur when they hear one."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"California voters, rebelling against the corrupting influence of special-interest money in politics, have approved sweeping ethics and campaign finance reforms."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The results ought to inspire members of Congress still stalling similar Federal measures."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"Proposition 112 won an impressive 62 percent of the vote."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"It forbids the flow of influence money to state lawmakers' personal bank accounts."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Its central feature is a ban on honorariums - speaking fees from favor-seekers."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"The House outlawed such fees last year but the Senate still allows members to pocket them."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"In Los Angeles, meanwhile, voters approved a charter amendment ending honorariums for city officials and replacing backdoor salary supplements with a substantial pay raise."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"That's exactly the trade-off rejected by the Senate."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Setting another example for Congress, the amendment establishes a public campaign finance system."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Voters want cleaner government."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"One way or another, they'll send reluctant members of Congress the message."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"A New Yorker, returned after a long absence to live in the city, was made aware by yesterday's snowstorm of a change that took place while he was away."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Nobody seems worried about dry feet."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Walking with eyes down against the wind-driven flakes, he did not see a single pair of old-fashioned rubbers and the only galoshes were on children being herded to school."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Most people seem to wear running shoes, uncovered."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Women's boots seemed hardly different from what he would see on a dry day."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"In a store stacked with running shoes, he asked about buying a pair of rubbers."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"No, the salesman smiled patronizingly, we don't carry anything like that."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"His countryman's eye noted, in a streetside garden patch, that some early-sprouting tulips were being buried in white and a couple of snowdrops were living up to their name."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"The trees in Washington Square, their buds swelling, were etched by the clinging snow."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"But what brought the country most sharply to mind were the patterns left by the running shoes."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Imprinted in the snow were triangles and squares, circles and dots, lines and ridges."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"It was like going through a March woods and recognizing the footprints of squirrels and rabbits and raccoons."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"There must be a whole new woodsman's art, he thought, telling a Reebok from a Nike from a New Balance by the tracks left in the snow on the sidewalk."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Neiman Marcus, the upscale Texas department store, set an unbeatable standard for lavish Christmas presents several years ago by offering ''his'' and ''hers'' airplanes."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Now the spring catalogue of New York City's upscale gadget emporium, Hammacher Schlemmer, offers the latest in how to flit from here to there - without being detected: the B-2 Stealth bomber."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"No, it's not the real thing, which goes for a half-billion dollars a copy, give or take a few million."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"It's a plastic desktop model for $119.50 - ''a faithfully detailed reproduction'' in the same ominous gray, but with a wingspan of only 20 1/2 inches and no functioning parts."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The cut-price model is imported from the Philippines."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"How the manufacturer cracked Pentagon security to get drawings for a ''faithfully detailed'' imitation is not disclosed."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Open the door of the tavern and let us go there day and night, For I am sick and tired of the mosque and the seminary."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"So run some lines from a poem that has come to light posthumously from the pen of Ayatollah Khomeini."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Should one be more surprised at the libertine sentiments or that the scowling cleric had time for poetry at all?"}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"The wisdom-in-wine line is a stock theme of classical Persian poets, used by Sufi mystics like Hafez to mock traditional learning."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"And tyrants who have sent thousands to needless deaths often fancy that they possess talents for more than just slaughter."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"The Orientalist Arthur Waley was once asked his opinion of Mao Zedong's poetry."}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"He replied that it was excellent - so much better than Hitler's paintings."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"The Postal Service now estimates that this election year, the House will spend a record $79 million on free mailings to constituents."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"That's $40 million more than it has just budgeted."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"And if that's not bad enough, consider the way the House now responds to this embarrassment."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Rather than face the issue openly, Representative Vic Fazio last week quietly sought to cover $25 million of the overrun with a vague last-minute amendment to the ''Dire Emergency Supplemental Appropriation,'' largely for foreign aid."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"The amendment failed, 208 to 161, mainly because many Democrats were reluctant to push a benefit for incumbents."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"House Republicans opposed the amendment hoping to create an issue for G.O.P."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"challengers this fall."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"It's hard to say which is more offensive, the mailing overrun or the unwillingness to confront it."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Either way, the overrun puts the Postal Service's money where the House's mouth is."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"It must continue to deliver the free mail whether or not Congress pays."}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"Taxpayers end up paying either way, but this way they are treated to the sight of grown representatives, naked cheats, hiding behind the mailbox."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Dear Boss: You may have noticed that I was away from my desk a couple of times this week."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"My husband's employers noticed the same."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"So we thought we'd explain."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"You see, next week it's back to school for our family."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"We had to take our son to the ophthalmologist and the optician."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"We had to take our daughter for a general physical examination."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"We had to get them both haircuts."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"We had to buy pencils and lunchboxes, sneakers and loafers, go through the closets and drawers, and work out baby sitter and pickup schedules."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Most of these things we did at night or on weekends, or asked others to help with."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"But some things just didn't work out that easily, so we took a couple of long lunch hours, then worked late."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Next week we want to take the little one for her first day at preschool."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"It shouldn't take long."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"And then all this will be over."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Unless someone gets sick."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Wall Street trembled in February when three high-powered executives were arrested on the same day and led away, one in handcuffs, to face sensational insider trading charges."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, a crusader against white collar crime, bristled at suggestions that he had staged the roundup in part to encourage the cooperation of other potential defendants."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The executives were being treated like any other defendants, he said."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Now the Government, denied more time to bring the accused to trial, has moved to dismiss their indictment, hoping later to reindict on additional charges."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Then why the original haste to arrest?"}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"The usual reasons for nabbing people are to prevent flight or destruction of evidence."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"They do not seem to have applied to this case."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"The possibility of prosecution scare tactics now calls for a fuller explanation from Mr. Giuliani."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"The practice, even in routine cases, of slapping the bracelets on arrestees and parading them for the media has always raised disturbing questions."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Perhaps this big Wall Street bust, now busted, can force the answers."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"M. Carl Holman, who died this week at age 69, bridged many worlds."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Born in Mississippi, he grew up in St. Louis and later became a college professor and community leader in Atlanta."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"In the 1960's, he went to Washington."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"While working at the Commission on Civil Rights, he became part of an unofficial ''black cabinet'' during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"A longtime promoter of public-private partnerships, Mr. Holman had extensive corporate connections that served him well as head of the National Urban Coalition since 1971."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"He emphasized problems of the underclass and the importance of education."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The coalition, founded in the wake of urban riots, sought to link cities' needs with private sector resources."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"His thoughtful guidance was also felt at the Black Leadership Forum, a coalition of major civil rights organizations."}
{"sentiment":2.1,"text":"Most of all, Carl Holman was, as The New Yorker's Elizabeth Drew put it, a ''wise and gentle man,'' a conciliator who could reach out to blacks, whites, Democrats, Republicans, executives and the unemployed."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"In a time of heightened racial tension, his ability to bring people together will be missed."}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"It was the handiness of it all that bound the Bic Cricket to the heart."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"No more flints, no more spilling lighter fluid, no more futile presses from a feeble thumb."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"It was the chic of it, too."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"One former smoker still cherishes the memory of the Bic she wore slung on a leather thong around her neck."}
{"sentiment":1.35,"text":"It's that same handiness that has made Bic's pens and razors best sellers, too."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"But pens, razors and lighters are supposed to be cheap."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The newest item on Bic's agenda is perfume, and that's something for which one expects to pay through the nose."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"But the Bic scents will be chic on the cheap."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Small and disposable like the lighters, pens and razors, the perfume will cost $5 for a quarter ounce and will be available in spray bottles in supermarkets and drugstores."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Convenience, however, isn't going to determine whether these new Bics succeed."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Never mind that prospective buyers will be parting only with five small bills."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"What they'll be looking for in exchange is something that smells like big bucks."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Mayor Koch moved decisively and appropriately yesterday to impose a 90-day hiring freeze on 5,200 positions authorized in this year's New York City budget."}
{"sentiment":-2.1,"text":"The continuing turmoil in world stock markets threatens payrolls, retail sales, tax receipts and real estate values in a city heavily dependent on the finance industry."}
{"sentiment":1.45,"text":"Over 90 days, the freeze would save $14.5 million; if extended through the next fiscal year, it would save $269 million."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Pay raises for the city's 4,000 managers would also be frozen for 90 days."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"The Mayor's order sensibly exempts new hires in three areas: those that directly involve life-saving and patient care; those that produce revenues (like traffic enforcement agents, meter maids and tax collectors), and some school, firefighting and jail staff positions mandated either by legislation or by union contracts."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"The freeze decision could not have been easy for a Mayor deservedly proud of rebuilding the Police Department to its strength before the fiscal crisis of the 1970's and restoring other reduced services."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"The new freeze will defer hiring of 1,948 more police officers."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"By acting with such determination, Mr. Koch has earned the State Legislature's attention to his request for deferral of Civil Service pension supplements that would force new city spending."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"Leadership in the city merits emulation upstate."}
{"sentiment":1.1,"text":"Moviegoers who resent the commercials they're forced to watch before the main feature can applaud the Walt Disney studio's ultimatum to theater owners: No more commercials when Disney films are playing."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Warner Brothers has now followed suit."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"More applause."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Roughly a third of America's 23,000 first-run houses run commercial shorts, contending that otherwise they'd have to raise ticket prices."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Compounding the offense, some of these intrusive sales pitches tout the lobby snack stand's overpriced sweets and popcorn."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"The theater folks and advertisers are angry at Disney and Warner, but the studios are on the right track."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"And while they're at it, movie makers might also turn the lens on their own little secret - the fees they charge for showing brand-name products in their films."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Advertising Age has cited a letter from Disney's Buena Vista Pictures, seeking products for a new movie."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"For a payment of $20,000, a product would be seen in the film - like a can of Coke on a table."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"For $40,000, the product would be mentioned."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"For $60,000, an actor would actually drink it."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"If readily identifiable commercials are ''insulting to a paying audience'' - a Disney executive's words - are covert commercials any less so?"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Jim Wright's wheeling and dealing explained his success as Speaker of the House and, eventually, his fall."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Driven to resign by the embarrassing findings of House ethics investigators, he went home to Fort Worth, where they still love him."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Well they should."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"One of the last favors Mr. Wright did for his Congressional district was to arrange $25 million of Federal aid for the Alliance Airport project - an industrial airport for non-passenger services - that was being developed outside Fort Worth."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"The developer was Ross Perot Jr., son of the Dallas billionaire, and Mr. Wright's beneficence was seen at the time as pork barrel, pure and simple - a handout for a constituent who didn't need it."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Times change."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"An alert reporter for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram spotted the airport deep inside President Bush's budget message, cited as a model for public-private projects to expand the capacity of the nation's aviation system."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"There was, of course, no mention of the wheeler-dealer who helped it happen."}
{"sentiment":-1.9,"text":"Last week, at a meeting in a Queens community nervous after more than a dozen rapes in the space of six weeks, a young woman told Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward that she feared going out at night."}
{"sentiment":-1.5,"text":"Instead of offering reassurance, the Commissioner cast doubt on her fear by noting she'd come to the meeting, hadn't she?"}
{"sentiment":1.5,"text":"He added, ''You're the kind he's looking for - under 30, beautiful and blonde.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"What did he mean by that?"}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Surely he has been a police officer long enough to know that young, attractive blonde women are not the only ones likely to be raped."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Or was he accusing her of tempting fate, suggesting that her youth and attractiveness made her responsible for her own fear?"}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"If so, his remark evoked the standard rapist's defense, which is to blame the victim."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Since that meeting in Queens, a suspect has been arrested in three of the rapes and Mayor Koch has offered a defense of Commissioner Ward."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"''Every one of us regrets our statements from time to time,'' he said."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"''I'm sure Ben Ward regrets this one.''"}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"If he does, then let him say so - not just to that young woman in Queens, but to every woman in New York."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Last year, Senate Republicans filibustered to block campaign finance reform."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Their reward was renewed Democratic control of the House and Senate on Election Day."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Why should Republicans continue to block reform?"}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Federal Election Commission filings show that through mid-October, special interest political action committees shoveled a record $125 million into this year's Congressional campaigns."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"PAC directors, looking to buy influence more than ideological purity, overwhelmingly preferred incumbents."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"While PAC giving to House candidates increased this year by 23 percent over 1986, the share doled out to Republican House challengers actually declined by 7 percent."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"Senate Democrats also enjoyed a huge PAC-advantage, averaging $1.1 million in PAC receipts - compared with just $170,000 for Senate Republican challengers."}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Such discrepancies, and the increasing reliance on special interest campaign money, ill serve democracy."}
{"sentiment":-1.85,"text":"Republican opposition to reform of the system looks more baffling than ever."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"There are some sections of New York in which the only way you can tell the season is by the temperature."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Looking out a window provides no clue when you're looking at a rubble-strewn vacant lot."}
{"sentiment":1.65,"text":"There are fewer dismal vistas these days, thanks to Operation GreenThumb, now entering its 10th year of bringing life and color to blighted neighborhoods."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"GreenThumb, which is federally funded through the Community Development program, leases about 1,100 city-owned lots to 625 community organizations."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The Sanitation Department clears the lots; GreenThumb helps design the gardens and provides the groups with training, tools, lumber, plants and seed."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"This spring, GreenThumb counts 175 such gardens in the Bronx, 40 on Manhattan's Lower East Side, 75 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Some of the gardens produce food."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"GreenThumb boasts that all the vegetable rows laid end to end would reach 60 miles."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Other gardens feature flowers."}
{"sentiment":1.9,"text":"The irises and poppies in the LaGuardia Place garden last weekend, for instance, were dazzlers."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"And all the gardens are oases on mean streets that sometimes seem as barren as the moon."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"Eighth Avenue in Manhattan from 44th to 51st Street has been an odd sight the last few days."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"Sidewalk grates and subway entrances are shrouded in plastic."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Workmen equipped with respirators, having swept and scrubbed the streets, have now moved underground in their effort to rid the area of 50 pounds of asbestos, scattered when a main burst and stripped the insulation from two underground steam pipes."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"But the oddest sight is at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 51st Street, where the city appears to be undergoing surgery."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"There, at the site of the burst, a long right-angled incision has laid bare a complex network of water mains, gas mains, electric lines and concrete-encased telephone lines."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"These are, quite literally, New York City's guts, and to watch people working on them is a lot like watching physicians operate."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Backhoes substitute for scalpels -but a slip is just as hazardous."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"New York has a short memory and the incision will probably be forgotten as soon as it's closed."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"But for the moment at least, it offers a remarkable glimpse and reminder that civilization, like human life, is vulnerable."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"Randall Dale Adams once came within a week of execution for murdering a Dallas police officer."}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Now it turns out he never should have been convicted."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"His sentence to death by lethal injection was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment mainly because the Dallas County District Attorney didn't want to endanger the conviction with a new trial."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Thanks largely to a film maker who helped demolish the case against him, Mr. Adams is on the verge of release."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"A unanimous Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday that in his 1977 conviction, Mr. Adams had been, in effect, railroaded."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Police and prosecutors used perjured testimony to convict Mr. Adams of the 1976 murder of Officer Robert Woods."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"The appeals court focused mainly on defects in the testimony of a witness, Emily Miller."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"But the film maker Errol Morris's 1988 documentary, ''The Thin Blue Line,'' exposes more extensive flaws in the Adams trial."}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"Most chilling was the D.A. 's use of testimony by David Harris, a 16-year-old who had a long police record and many charges pending against him."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Now 28 and awaiting execution for another murder, Mr. Harris stops just short of confessing in the film to Officer Woods's killing."}
{"sentiment":-2.2,"text":"That Mr. Adams was wrongly convicted is reason for outrage - and a telling argument against capital punishment, the only criminal penalty that cannot be reversed."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"New York City has 8,100 sidewalk pay phones."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"That should be plenty, if they all worked, and if long-winded talkers didn't monopolize the ones that do."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"Those 8,100 phones were out of order 159,000 times last year, mostly because of vandals."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"To frustrate them, New York Telephone has installed 550 ''Charge-a-Call'' phones operated by card; a phone with no coins inside is less likely to be ripped off."}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"In addition, 780 coin phones have been fortified against break-ins through the coin-return chute."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"As for mechanical breakdowns, the phone company's answer is the electronic phone, less likely to break down in the first place and, when it does, programmed to return your coin and signal headquarters that something is wrong."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Less has been done about long-winded talkers, but more can be."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"There are now ''express phones'' for commuters dashing through Grand Central and Penn Station; for 25 cents, they can call home in the suburbs to say what train they're on - or just missed."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The call cuts off after 30 seconds, thus discouraging the gabby teen-ager and the drug dealer making ''business'' calls."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"But why limit this convenience to suburbanites?"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"City residents need to make short calls, too, especially from subway platforms when the subway breaks down."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Dr Leo Cubillan letter disputes assertion by tobacco grower Larry Walden in September 14 article that growers should not be held responsible if people smoke (S) To the Editor: Larry Walden, a tobacco grower, says: ''It never occurs to me that I'm doing anything wrong."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Nobody forces people to smoke cigarettes."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"It's their choice'' (news article, Sept. 14)."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Tobacco growers and the public should know that tobacco is the number one actual cause of death in this country, claiming 400,000 lives a year."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"To the Editor: Larry Walden, a tobacco grower, says: ''It never occurs to me that I'm doing anything wrong."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Nobody forces people to smoke cigarettes."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"It's their choice'' (news article, Sept. 14)."}
{"sentiment":-2.55,"text":"Tobacco growers and the public should know that tobacco is the number one actual cause of death in this country, claiming 400,000 lives a year."}
{"sentiment":-0.8,"text":"Of course, tobacco growers are not accountable for these deaths."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"However, by cultivating other crops instead of tobacco, they would help to reduce tobacco-related mortalities."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"LEO CUBILLAN, M.D. Berkeley, Calif., Sept. 14, 1998"}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"He heads a country whose leaders have been as shrouded as ghosts to Americans, but the Soviet Union's new openness has turned Mikhail Gorbachev into the boy next door."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"Delegation after delegation wins a lengthy audience."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"We know that Jeane Kirkpatrick finds him charming, and Henry Kissinger thinks him urbane."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"We hear of his travels all over the Soviet Union and see pictures of his many trips abroad."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"We mull over the cut of his suits and what his wife thinks."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"He confides internationally that he had to postpone a meeting of party leaders three times because they couldn't agree among themselves on how to proceed."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"It must be driving traditional Kremlin watchers batty."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"These are the people who were thought to be in the know when they noticed an unusual number of lights on in the Kremlin one night and classical music intruding at an unaccustomed hour on the radio."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"When a Soviet leader dropped from sight for three months, they pondered whether it was possible to have a cold for so long."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Did his hand shake, his voice falter when he gave a speech?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Did someone help him up to the podium?"}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Who sat beside whom at the funeral?"}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Glasnost has made itself felt, all right."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Before we know it, Mr. Gorbachev might have some rather intimate operation - and his spokesman will be there to display the relevant diagrams on television."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"Repeatedly during his three days in New York, Nelson Mandela demonstrated magisterial bearing, tough intelligence and cogency."}
{"sentiment":2.05,"text":"At Yankee Stadium Thursday night, he demonstrated something else: remarkably graceful charity."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"At one point, Mayor David Dinkins gave him a New York Yankees jacket and cap."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"After adjusting them carefully, this hero of the South African anti-apartheid movement took a step away from the podium so he could be better seen."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Then, stepping back to the microphone, he said, slowly and deliberately, ''Now ...you know ...who I am. I ...am...a Yankee!''"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"This season, one must be a hero to associate oneself with the hapless Yankees."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Despite some success in the past week, they remain just about the worst team in the major leagues and are about 200 percentage points behind the Toronto Blue Jays, the American League East division leader."}
{"sentiment":1.85,"text":"The Yankees can be grateful for Mr. Mandela's gracious gesture, and hope it brings them luck."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"They might even contemplate returning the gesture."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Considering his record of success and theirs, it might not be such a bad idea for them to call themselves the New York Mandelas."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"The Presidency is George Bush's to lose, some Republican strategists keep saying."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"He just needs to come forward and tell the nation who he is - set himself apart from President Reagan and Governor Dukakis, his Democratic rival."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"His problem is that even when he tries, he sends mixed signals."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Thursday, in a speech in Texas, George Herbert Walker Bush, regular guy, tried to set himself apart from Michael Dukakis, Northeastern liberal and elitist."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"''When I wanted to learn the ways of the world, I didn't go to the Kennedy School [ at Harvard ] , I came to Texas,'' said Mr. Bush."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"And then he attacked Mr. Dukakis's ''foreign policy views, born in Harvard Yard's boutique...''"}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"But in his effort to paint his opponent as a Crimson bleeding heart, he calls perverse attention to his own blue blood."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"It's true."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Mr. Bush didn't go to Harvard, where Mr. Dukakis graduated from law school and later taught at the Kennedy School of Government."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Mr. Bush grew up in a nine-bedroom Victorian in Greenwich, Conn., the son of a millionaire investment banker and U.S. Senator."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"He summered in Kennebunkport, Me., and went to prep school at Andover."}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"And all those Americans uneasy about his patrician and preppy ways are unlikely to be reassured because he didn't go to Harvard."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"He went to Yale."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"To the Editor: With Land Sale Edict, Yeltsin Opens Way to Longed-For Era (front page, March 17) stated that private ownership of land is something Russia has been waiting for -- in vain -- for centuries."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"In 1906, Russia's last czar, Nicholas II, abolished the communal farming system and instituted private land ownership for the peasantry."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"By 1914, Russia was experiencing record harvests and had replaced the United States as the world's major grain exporter."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"And by the time the Bolsheviks were promising all land to the peasants, the peasants already owned three-fourths of it."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"The United States and the Soviet Union have announced their readiness to accept binding arbitration by the International Court of Justice in cases involving the extradition and prosecution of aircraft hijackers, terrorists and narcotics traffickers."}
{"sentiment":1.55,"text":"That could mark the start of a cooperative superpower effort to make better use of the World Court for peaceful resolution of disputes."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"A promising feature of Mikhail Gorbachev's ''new thinking'' is greater reliance on multilateral institutions like the United Nations and World Court for settling conflicts."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Soviet acceptance of Court jurisdiction in these categories of cases shows a welcome willingness to back words with deeds."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"It was not lost on other countries that the Soviets were emerging as more vigorous champions of the Court than was the U.S., which helped found the institution."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"Washington was for years among the Court's staunchest supporters."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"But the U.S. abruptly ended its 40-year acceptance compulsory jurisdiction over a legal challenge to its mining of Nicaraguan ports in 1984."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"In now agreeing to strengthen the Court's role, the U.S. is resuming its proper place as a defender of international law and institutions."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"And Soviet cooperation makes the task easier."}
{"sentiment":-1.2,"text":"The Comptroller of New York City is expected to be a dour, single- minded scrutinizer of municipal financial practices, not an investment adviser, and certainly not a trader of favors."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Harrison Goldin, New York's Comptroller for 13 years, knows the rules; indeed, he often extols them."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"It's astonishing, therefore, to learn that last spring the same Mr. Goldin picked up his telephone and urged friends to put their money in the investment company of Ivan Boesky, whom the Comptroller said he met ''on the boards of Jewish charities.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"Mr. Boesky is now familiar to all as the inside trading case defendant who paid $100 million in Federal penalties."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Mr. Goldin cannot be blamed for not knowing what Federal prosecutors disclosed only months after his calls."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"But even so, why should the Comptroller have lent his name to plug Mr. Boesky's business - or anyone's business?"}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Indeed, were the Boesky calls the only ones he made?"}
{"sentiment":-1.05,"text":"Inevitably, a recommendation from someone who supervises $30 billion in public pension fund investments conveys a public seal of approval; that seal is not Mr. Goldin's to give to friends."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"The city's Department of Investigation is right to start what it calls a formal inquiry."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"Wholly apart from that, Mr. Goldin owes the public an explanation of his reason for giving Ivan Boesky an endorsement he should not have given anyone."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"A deeply held belief, usually acquired from childhood memories of castor oil, holds that no medicine can really be effective unless it tastes horrible."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"It follows that no exercise can really be of benefit unless it brings aches, agony and sweat."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"A cheerful new prognosis from a Dallas clinic undermines this masochistic notion."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"A half-hour walk is almost as good as vigorous exercise in improving a person's longevity."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"The clinic followed healthy people for eight years and graded them, on a treadmill test, into five levels of fitness."}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"The couch potatoes in level one were likely to die youngest; death rates were lowest among fanatic, 40-mile-a-week joggers in level five."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"That much only confirms the well-known relationship between fitness and longevity."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"The heartening news is that most of the life-increasing benefit shows up between levels one and two."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"Achiev-ing level two requires only moderate exercise -like a brisk walk of a half-hour to an hour a day."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"In other words, a mile is almost as good as a marathon."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"A single study is unlikely to be the final word."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Still, it will be easier to look guiltlessly at the rusting rowing machine and saunter off for a virtuous stroll."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"And the exercise bike with 55 miles on its odometer can be left, in good conscience, to collect a few more cobwebs."}
{"sentiment":0.9,"text":"The Wall Street Journal is celebrating its centenary with daily vignettes on business milestones of the past 100 years."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Readers have learned about things like the Pullman strike of 1894, the 1929 crash and Milton Hershey's chocolate bar."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"They are important, of course."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"But all pale beside one that appeared last week: the invention of sliced bread."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Otto Frederick Rohwedder, a jeweler in St. Joseph, Mo., began tinkering with the idea of a machine to slice whole loaves of bread in 1912."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"An early model held the loaf together with sterilized hairpins, but the pins fell out."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"Finally, in 1928, he coupled slicing and automatic wrapping, and two years later the Continental Baking Company bought his machine to produce Wonder Bread."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"The overriding significance is not the invention itself, from which Mr. Rohwedder gained little, but its adaptation as a superlative comparative."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Inventors have long been challenged to build a better mousetrap."}
{"sentiment":1.4,"text":"Thanks to Mr. Rohwedder, the highest commendation for modern ingenuity is ''That's the best thing since sliced bread.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.95,"text":"Some 58,000 Californians who brought home trinkets from foreign travels last year are understandably furious at learning, after the fact, that they owe a 6.5 percent use tax."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"They are also learning the rigors of life in the age of computers."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"California's use tax has been on the books since 1935, for items that escape the state's sales tax when purchased out of state."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"Many states levy such a tax but none collect much."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Most out-of-state purchases are untraceable."}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"But now, computerized customs declarations let tax collectors find out who brought in what from abroad."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Anyone who brings in goods worth more than $400 is supposed to declare."}
{"sentiment":0.75,"text":"It's estimated that California may rake in revenues of $9.4 million."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"California's computer sleuthing is a model for other states that seek more revenue without new taxes."}
{"sentiment":-2,"text":"But to spring a 54-year-old tax on the public with insufficient notice deserves the bad reaction California has fielded."}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"When other states turn on their customs computers - so far, only North Dakota has - advance notice would be user-friendly."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"Fresh from a tortellini salad with high-cal dressing, a friend who works in midtown strolled through the International Paper Company Plaza on West 45th Street recently and found that she was not the only New Yorker who needed to walk off her lunch."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"Because the plaza has its own take-out restaurant and is near a lot of fast-fooderies and vendors, it is a good place to see what New Yorkers are eating these days."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"What they're eating, our friend says, is a lot."}
{"sentiment":-0.5,"text":"Forget alfalfa sprouts."}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"Forget plain yogurt."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Forget the ascetic apple."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"She saw sandwiches too big for the mouth to get around."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"She saw more items than she could count shoved into pockets of pita."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"And she saw the shamelessly caloric old standbys: Lasagna."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"And - just like hers - tortellini salads with high-cal dressings."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"Is the diet dead?"}
{"sentiment":-0.85,"text":"It's certainly not showing much life at the corner of 45th and Sixth."}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Rush hour was steamy and anxious commuters packed the bus, swaying back and forth as it played stop-and-go up Third Avenue."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"One particular stop stretched into minutes."}
{"sentiment":-0.55,"text":"The driver hopped out as riders looked at each other in puzzlement."}
{"sentiment":-1.55,"text":"One seated passenger, a middle-aged man, cursed out loud."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"Finally, word filtered back through the bus: ''It's a wheelchair ... Paraplegic ... Driver has to help her on ... Another five minutes.''"}
{"sentiment":-1.45,"text":"''Just my luck,'' muttered the middle-aged man, impatient that accommodating the handicapped in a busy city can at times mean inconvenience and discomfort."}
{"sentiment":-0.4,"text":"But then, what must it be like for the handicapped to maneuver around a crowded city on a hot summer night?"}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"One passenger had no trouble responding to the complainer."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"''Your luck, sir,'' she told him, ''is that you're not in a wheelchair.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.7,"text":"With insufficient credit, President Bush has just broken with former President Reagan's doctrine of killer trees."}
{"sentiment":-1.7,"text":"Mr. Reagan seemed to condemn trees, calling them a source of pollution."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"On the opposite principle that they absorb pollution, Mr. Bush has announced a plan to plant a billion new trees a year for 10 years."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"The billion trees will be planted on private land, with the help of $110 million from Washington."}
{"sentiment":0.85,"text":"Mr. Bush also wants cities and citizens to plant urban trees, which soak up even more carbon dioxide than their rural cousins."}
{"sentiment":0.8,"text":"Thirty million trees is the civic target; no doubt a thousand points of light will help, as philanthropy aids photosynthesis."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"Carbon dioxide is the pollutant gas that traps the sun's heat as it builds up in the atmosphere and may in time change the climate."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"An acre of growing trees can absorb each year 2.5 to 9 tons of carbon dioxide."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"The 10 billion new trees should in time absorb 13 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, or 5 percent of the U.S. annual emissions of the gas, according to the President's budget report."}
{"sentiment":1,"text":"That may be a small contribution toward averting the greenhouse effect, but it is well worth taking, and cheap compared with other ways of reducing carbon dioxide."}
{"sentiment":-1,"text":"Only forest fires in Mr. Bush's new plantations will send carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere and rekindle fears of the killer trees."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"The Day-Glo green sticker looks ugly, and that's the point."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"It's the New York City Sanitation Department's newest weapon against parking violators."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"Department agents plaster the stickers on the windows of cars that block the routes of its mechanical brooms."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The hope is that humiliation and the annoyance of scraping off the stickers will deter violators where ticketing fails."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"The stickers are being tried on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"Last week, sanitation supervisors dispensed 1,976 of them."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"No one on the receiving end could fail to get the message, printed in angry black letters: ''THIS VEHICLE VIOLATES N.Y.C. PARKING REGULATIONS. AS A RESULT THIS STREET COULD NOT BE PROPERLY CLEANED.''"}
{"sentiment":1.15,"text":"It's too early to judge the experiment, but give Sanitation Commissioner Brendan Sexton an interim apple for determination and innovation."}
{"sentiment":2,"text":"Strict enforcement of New York City's tough new window guard law is saving children's lives."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"Through July, there were 57 falls compared with 86 last year and the number of deaths dropped from 9 to 4."}
{"sentiment":1.8,"text":"The Health Department merits praise for cracking down."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Since 1976, the city has required window guards in apartments with children under age 11."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"Responding to a rash of accidents, the City Council last year changed the law to put more responsibility on landlords."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"The Health Department, which had lagged in enforcement, moved swiftly."}
{"sentiment":-0.2,"text":"It hired 17 full-time window guard inspectors, and the resulting increase in administrative hearings has seen judges levy more than $1 million in fines."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Next month, the city plans to file criminal charges against 29 landlords and managing agents for failing to install guards properly even after children fell from windows in their buildings."}
{"sentiment":0.95,"text":"The city reports that most big landlords have acted conscientiously."}
{"sentiment":-0.25,"text":"But children's safety is ultimately parents' responsibility."}
{"sentiment":-1.3,"text":"So far this year, officials have cited nearly 600 tenants for refusing to permit installation of window guards or for removing them."}
{"sentiment":0.05,"text":"Tenants can get information at (212) 566-8082 or 566-7747."}
{"sentiment":1.2,"text":"So moved was the speaker of Iran's Parliament that he wept when he heard Ayatollah Khomeini give his personal endorsement to an end to the war with Iraq."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"But don't ask questions, pleaded Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani: ''We should not ask why and how, not create more problems for the society.''"}
{"sentiment":-2.6,"text":"The war has claimed a million lives, smashed as many limbs, and yet Iranians are told not to ask the reason why."}
{"sentiment":-1.35,"text":"Cry, indeed, for the Ayatollah's flock."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"Only a few years ago, serious people could be found proclaiming Islamic radicalism as the remedy for the failures of socialism, nationalism and capitalism in the Middle East."}
{"sentiment":0.25,"text":"The Koran was said to hold the answer to all the region's woes."}
{"sentiment":-0.95,"text":"Yet populous Iran, ruled by holy men claiming divine guidance, could neither win nor honorably bring to an end a war ignited by secular Iraq."}
{"sentiment":-1.75,"text":"In his theocratic conceit, the Ayatollah seemed unable to grieve for the butchery or accept any blame for the ruin that is now his monument."}
{"sentiment":-1.6,"text":"Rather than the wave of the future, Iran's brand of fundamentalism seems a throwback to an autocratic, obscurantist past."}
{"sentiment":-1.15,"text":"How long do the mullahs think they can stifle debate over their war?"}
{"sentiment":0.3,"text":"Last weekend a New Yorker cajoled her daughter, who was 15 years from being born the first time it came around, into seeing ''The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.''"}
{"sentiment":-0.9,"text":"Her daughter refused to believe that a black and white film was worth seeing."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"This, she decided, was the exception."}
{"sentiment":-0.75,"text":"A lifetime of looking at nothing but color has made her blind to black and white."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"That's why she passes up a Preston Sturges for any and all variations on ''Animal House,'' and the original ''Cat People'' for its pallid remake."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"There are plenty at home like her, which helps explain why Hollywood seeks to colorize films."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"The perfect cure for her (and her generation's) complaint is total immersion in movies like Orson Welles's ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' and Woody Allen's ''Manhattan.''"}
{"sentiment":0.55,"text":"Seeing the color in those blacks and whites, may help lift the scales from their eyes."}
{"sentiment":1.3,"text":"The 78th annual appeal of The New York Times Neediest Cases collected a total of $4,372,283, surpassing last year's record by more than $332,000."}
{"sentiment":1.25,"text":"The city's economy may be less than exuberant, but citizen generosity appears to be at an all-time high."}
{"sentiment":1.7,"text":"The two phenomena are, of course, closely related: greater and more visible need has sparked an even more compassionate response than in any previous year."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"This demonstration of concern has been achieved in response to the fund's traditional low-key appeal, which offers the assurance that all contributions flow entirely to those in need, without any deduction for fund-raising or administration."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"All that remains now is for The Times to offer heartfelt thanks to all who have shown how much they care, and to underscore one vital point: while the official drive has ended, the need continues."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"As in the past, the fund operates throughout the year."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"Contributions and bequests from here on will be credited to the 79th appeal, which begins next December."}
{"sentiment":0.4,"text":"Such donations, tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law, should be sent to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, P.O."}
{"sentiment":0,"text":"Box 5193, General Post Office, New York, N.Y. 10087."}
{"sentiment":-0.35,"text":"The New York City Taxi Commission, having surrendered to higher fares, seems determined to be tough about one thing, a dress code for cab drivers."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"It would forbid drivers to wear tank tops, body suits, bathing suits and open-toed sandals."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"It's not yet clear whether a uniform will be required and, if so, what it would look like."}
{"sentiment":-0.45,"text":"A dress code on drivers would be welcome, yet would do no more to remedy serious taxi defects than imposing a dress code on slovenly passengers."}
{"sentiment":-0.3,"text":"What about a cleanliness code for taxi interiors?"}
{"sentiment":-1.1,"text":"What about radios, turned up so high that drivers can barely hear the passenger announce the destination?"}
{"sentiment":-0.6,"text":"What about drivers who can't, with or without radios, navigate the English language?"}
{"sentiment":-1.25,"text":"What about drivers who, even if they speak English, can't navigate the city - or, if they can, refuse to go to places like central Brooklyn and the South Bronx?"}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"If the Taxi Commission wants to get serious about codes, there's constructive work to be done."}
{"sentiment":-0.15,"text":"New York State has an official flower (rose), bird (blue), fish (speckled trout), animal (beaver) and fossil (sea scorpion), but lacks an official muffin."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"This oversight may be corrected by the Legislature, thanks to the lobbying of a group of fourth-graders from Syracuse on behalf of the apple muffin."}
{"sentiment":0.2,"text":"The pupils in Mary Craven's class point out that New York is the nation's second-largest apple-producing state and that the apple is the state's official fruit."}
{"sentiment":0.5,"text":"A bill to honor the apple muffin, sponsored by Michael Bragman, Democrat of Cicero, appears unstoppable."}
{"sentiment":-0.65,"text":"The sentiment is fine; the nutritional side not so fine."}
{"sentiment":-0.1,"text":"Ms. Craven's class and its baking consultant, a professor at Onondaga Community College, could come up with a more healthful recipe."}
{"sentiment":-0.05,"text":"A batch of the apple muffins they are pushing calls for 3/4 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of butter and 4 ounces of cream cheese."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"A suggested topping contains 1/2 cup more of brown sugar."}
{"sentiment":0.35,"text":"Ingredients like that invite a challenge on behalf of a bran muffin, fortified with yogurt."}
{"sentiment":-1.4,"text":"The educational reform movement has bypassed students in inner-city schools."}
{"sentiment":-1.8,"text":"That act of omission perpetuates discrimination and jeopardizes America's competitiveness and social equilibrium."}
{"sentiment":0.1,"text":"These are the conclusions of a new report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching."}
{"sentiment":-2.05,"text":"In big inner-city schools, it says, ''dropout rates are high, morale is low, facilities often are old and unattractive, and school leadership is crippled by a web of regulations.''"}
{"sentiment":0.45,"text":"The report highlights familiar remedies: decentralize bureaucracies, make schools more accountable, break up large schools into smaller units and build partnerships with parents, colleges and business."}
{"sentiment":0.6,"text":"It also urges greater equity in state funding of local school districts."}
{"sentiment":0.7,"text":"It proposes more Federal funding for a range of programs like early childhood nutrition and incentives for closer ties between colleges and ghetto schools."}
{"sentiment":0.65,"text":"''The quality of our education will determine the strength of our democracy, the vitality of our economy and the promise of our ideals,'' the Carnegie trustees write."}
{"sentiment":0.15,"text":"They sound a needed alarm in the urban education night."}