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Karen Adams always enjoyed receiving her invitation. The WPRI-TV news anchorwoman and Lincoln resident looked forward to penciling in the school district�s spelling bee in her appointment calendar.

But there�s no note in her calendar this year. The Lincoln district has decided to eliminate this year�s spelling bee — a competition involving pupils in grades 4 through 8, with each school district winner advancing to the state competition and a chance to proceed to the national spelling bee in Washington, D.C.

Through the years, it had become a tradition for Adams to pronounce and define spelling words used in the bee.

“It was just fun,” she said last Monday from her office at the television studio.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Linda Newman said the decision to scuttle the event was reached shortly after the January 2004 bee in a unanimous decision by herself and the district�s elementary school principals.

The administrators decided to eliminate the spelling bee, because they feel it runs afoul of the mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

“No Child Left Behind says all kids must reach high standards,” Newman said. “It�s our responsibility to find as many ways as possible to accomplish this.”

The administrators agreed, Newman said, that a spelling bee doesn�t meet the criteria of all children reaching high standards — because there can only be one winner, leaving all other students behind.

Here is last year’s speech. I wonder if this year is going to be better…

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Last summer, while Americans were focused on the worsening crisis in Iraq and the intensifying presidential campaign, the US chemical industry was consumed by plans at the EU’s Environment Commission to complete the details of a proposed regulation known as REACH–Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals. For the $500 billion chemical industry, REACH threatens a revolution in chemical regulation–upending decades-long practices that were pioneered in the United States.

In 1976 the US Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act, which required chemicals introduced after the law took effect in 1979 to be tested before being registered for use. The problem with TSCA–or what critics call the “Toxic Substances Conversation Act”–is that 80 percent of the chemicals on the market today were introduced before 1979. But Europe at that time followed the US model, so in effect TSCA established the global standard. No more. REACH is the first effort to secure environmental data on some 30,000 chemicals that have been on the market in the United States and around the world without any significant testing of their toxicity on human health and the environment.

These include an array of highly toxic substances that were effectively grandfathered into the market by TSCA, including industrial solvents like ethyl benzene, known to cause nerve damage; heavy metals like cadmium, an ingredient in many paints and industrial ceramics that can cause kidney failure; and a family of plastic byproducts, called furans, that are potent carcinogens and endocrine disrupters. Many of these chemicals have already been found in high concentration in the blood of Americans and Europeans; during a World Health Organization convention in Budapest last June, the World Wildlife Fund International revealed forty-four different hazardous chemicals in the bloodstream of top EU officials, including then-Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom, now the vice president of communications for the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU.

The proposed regulations, according to Robert Donkers, one of the authors of REACH and now posted in Washington as environment counselor for the European Commission’s US delegation, evolved out of the realization that little was known about chemicals contained in a vast array of consumer products. “There was great political anxiety in Europe when we discovered that carcinogenic chemicals were being released from consumer products like diapers and softeners in baby toys. We discovered that neither consumers nor the government was informed about the chemical properties of what is in those and other products and how they break down. An overhaul was needed.”

Under REACH, chemicals determined to be “carcinogens, mutagens or repro[ductive] toxins” would have to be taken off the market within a decade. According to the EPA’s own standards, this could amount to as many as 1,400 chemicals. For other chemicals, REACH establishes several layers of testing for toxicity–with strictures that grow tougher as the quantity and risk increases. The proscriptions also apply to chemicals in manufactured goods: REACH encourages substitutions for chemicals that pose “potentially serious or irreversible threats” to human health. A new European Chemicals Agency would administer the program from Helsinki.

The REACH directive represents an upheaval in the basic philosophy of chemical regulation, flipping the American presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” on its head by placing the burden of proof on manufacturers to prove chemicals are safe–what is known as the “precautionary principle.” REACH adds extra bite with a requirement that toxicity data be posted publicly on the new agency’s website. Thus, test results that were once tightly held by chemical companies will suddenly be available to citizens and regulators across the globe. That prospect foreshadows trouble for US chemical producers.

“The chemical industry is scared that the American people might not want to be second-class world citizens,” says Charlotte Brody, executive director of Health Care Without Harm, a Washington, DC-based coalition of healthcare professionals. “If people in Europe have chemicals in their toys that are not dangerous, maybe we don’t want those same chemicals for our kids.” With REACH, the Europeans hit a powerful nerve. The chemical industry launched an intensive lobbying campaign, conducted in parallel with the Bush Administration, to derail the proposed directive before it becomes law.

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ArtStart is the stunning new interactive multimedia system that replaced the Micro Gallery in February 2005. Using a high quality touch-screen, ArtStart allows the visitor to browse the collection for information on every painting in the Gallery, regardless of their knowledge of art history or technical skills.

ArtStart features specially written in-depth explorations of thirty of the collection’s most popular paintings, including video and audio clips. The Themes and Tours section allows paintings to be explored via a range of topics, ranging from ‘Impressionism’ to ‘Drunkenness and Debauchery’. In addition, every painting can be examined in detail via a ‘zoomable’ image – from the wasps in Botticelli’s ‘Venus and Mars’ to the petals of Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’.

The ArtStart room in the Sainsbury Wing has been beautifully designed and refurbished to create a relaxed and comfortable environment. The room will have twelve screens and a printing facility. There will be four other screens: two in the Sainsbury Wing foyer and two on the link between the Sainsbury Wing and the main building. Further screens will be available in the East Wing when the Lower Hall opens.

ArtStart took three years of careful planning and development in collaboration with digital agency NYKRIS and has been shortlisted in the design category for the prestigious BAFTA Interactive Awards.

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Many Iraqis said Monday that their names were marked on a list provided by the government agency that provides monthly food rations before they were allowed to vote.

�I went to the voting centre and gave my name and district where I lived to a man,� said Wassif Hamsa, a 32-year-old journalist who lives in the predominantly Shia area Janila in Baghdad. �This man then sent me to the person who distributed my monthly food ration.�

Mohammed Ra’ad, an engineering student who lives in the Baya’a district of the capital city reported a similar experience.

Ra’ad, 23, said he saw the man who distributed monthly food rations in his district at his polling station. �The food dealer, who I know personally of course, took my name and those of my family who were voting,� he said. �Only then did I get my ballot and was allowed to vote.�

�Two of the food dealers I know told me personally that our food rations would be withheld if we did not vote,� said Saeed Jodhet, a 21-year-old engineering student who voted in the Hay al-Jihad district of Baghdad.

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In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get &8216;bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq�. I heard him say: &8216;The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.�

In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein &8216;has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.�

That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: &8216;We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programmes.�

In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: &8216;We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.�

On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to &8216;hit� Iraq. I heard that he said: &8216;Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.�

I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: &8216;How do you capitalise on these opportunities?�

Much, much more in the linked article…

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Two weeks ago, President Bush gave an impassioned speech to the world about the need to stand for human freedom.

But this week, administration officials are skulking in the corridors of the United Nations, trying desperately to block a prosecution of Sudanese officials for crimes against humanity.

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It’s not that Mr. Bush sympathizes with the slaughter in Darfur. In fact, I take my hat off to Mr. Bush for doing more than most other world leaders to address ethnic cleansing there – even if it’s not nearly enough. Mr. Bush has certainly done far more than Bill Clinton did during the Rwandan genocide.

But Mr. Bush’s sympathy for Sudanese parents who are having their children tossed into bonfires shrivels next to his hostility to the organization that the U.N. wants to trust with the prosecution: the International Criminal Court. Administration officials so despise the court that they have become, in effect, the best hope of Sudanese officials seeking to avoid accountability for what Mr. Bush himself has called genocide.

Mr. Bush’s worry is that if the International Criminal Court is legitimized, American officials could someday be dragged before it. The court’s supporters counter that safeguards make that impossible. Reasonable people can differ about the court, but for Mr. Bush to put his ideological opposition to it over the welfare of the 10,000 people still dying every month in Darfur – that’s just madness.