As a good Democrat, I won’t vouch for the former House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) in the debate over how to reconstitute the House of Representatives in a national emergency (”Death Wish,” by Avi Klein, November). But I think Klein ignores one important reason for not wanting appointed House members because he is thinking too conventionally.

My strong support for an elected House in the event of a terrorist attack that kills half the representatives is not just my affection for tradition. I believe the legitimacy of decision-making derived from an elected House would be of the highest importance in a crisis. Certainly, an elected House is superior to the truly wacky idea proposed by Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), where governors would be limited to a list of successors provided in advance by the dead members of Congress themselves. He and Norman Ornstein seem to lack confidence that governors will make the right decisions, apparently believing that ensuring the partisan make-up of the House is the highest priority during an emergency.

Have you ever felt run down? Overworked? Taken for granted? The antidote to .all the above is to eat right, get plenty of sleep and develop a firm make-up policy. For a healthy studio we each must decide on an acceptable make-up policy and then abide by that policy at all times.

Why do we need a make-up policy? Why not just decide each case on an individual basis when a student misses a lesson? The answer is because 1) your generosity will be taken for granted, 2) parents will not know what to expect, 3) you will not know what to expect, 4) the absence of a policy could impact your income and 5) you will grow to resent that-little-rascal-Susie-for-missing-her-music-lesson-again-this -week-and-while-we-are-on-the-subjectwhy-aren’t-her-parents-taking-music -as-seriously-as-soccer-anyway?

Discussing the above items briefly, I am sure we all have had the experience of someone taking advantage of our generosity. Parents don’t mean to drive us to the brink. They just don’t know what an inconvenience make-up lessons can be. We need to let them know that unlimited make-up lessons are unacceptable, and we need to be clear about what to expect when a lesson is missed.

Parents actually appreciate clear policies. If we are up-front about all studio policies regarding payments, rates, make-ups and so on, parents can decide whether or not they wish to have their child study with us. Once a family chooses us, they also are choosing to accept our policies, including the make-up policy. If they do not like our make-up policy, they can exercise their freedom of choice by deciding to go to another studio. They do not, however, have the right to choose to study with us but not accept our studio policies.

In what has to be a section out of “News of the Weird” Sun and Microsoft today announced they had settled and would cooperate going forward. What is particularly amazing is that some Sun products will now begin to run Windows platform offerings. The sub-text of this is that both have finally recognized that neither is actually a real threat to the other anymore and that both face much more potent threats elsewhere.
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Benefits to Microsoft: I believe that this will remove much of the reasons behind the recent the European Commission decision against Microsoft. I also think it will help Microsoft in the next phase here. The company can argue that it has now settled with the party that brought forth the complaint. This also gives Microsoft access to Sun’s intellectual property which might lead to Redmond building new Java tools.

Microsoft always had what I considered the strongest Java tool set. I’ve always found it odd that by leaving the market Microsoft hurt itself as much as the Java market. Now Microsoft has turned Sun from a competitor into a partial partner. Could anyone have thought this possible yesterday? Not me.

Benefits to Sun: Sun gains cash, which they desperately need, as they are forecasted to report a loss of around $800M for the third quarter. The company also just laid off 3,300 employees, one of many successive layoffs. These ongoing work force reductions typically destroy company moral and productivity. The combination of the agreement, the money, and these steep cuts, now lets Sun management create a credible story about moving the company decisively to new growth. Sometimes just a plausible story can be enough to drive the employees into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Twenty-five years ago, when I started my fieldwork on the behavior of juvenile common octopuses in the azure waters of Bermuda, I expected all my subjects to be much the same. I assumed their activities would be fairly limited; individuals would hunt, rest, and avoid predators, all in roughly the same way. In fact, I learned, their behavior is quite complex and variable. I watched as they carefully chose rocky crevices for their dens and blockaded the entrances with piles of rocks. I observed them navigate complicated routes across the sea bottom to and from their hunting grounds. But I was most intrigued to discover that individual octopuses are very different from one another.could swear, for instance, that octopus number 45 never left its crevice–except that the discarded shells of clams, crabs, and snails kept appearing in front of the crevice. It must have been making secret hunting forays when my back was turned. By contrast, octopus number 26 was anything but shy. One afternoon I watched it as I floated in the shallow Bermuda water, hanging on to a rocky outcrop. The little octopus peered back at me from inside its den for some time, then suddenly jetted three or four feet directly toward me and landed on my dive glove. After about a minute of exploring, it must have decided the glove didn’t taste good, and slowly jetted back home. I was hooked.Around the same time, Roland C. Anderson, a marine biologist at the Seattle Aquarium who has since become my frequent collaborator, noticed that aquarium workers gave names to only three kinds of animals in their care: seals, sea otters, and giant Pacific octopuses. The workers named the octopuses for their distinctive behaviors. Leisure Suit Larry, for instance, was all arms. He touched and groped his keepers so often that had he been a person, he would have been cited for inappropriate behavior. Emily Dickinson, by contrast, hid permanently behind the artificial backdrop of her display tank, so retiring that eventually she had to be replaced by a more active octopus for aquarium visitors to watch. Then there was Lucretia McEvil, whose caretakers were afraid to approach her, and who ripped up the interior of her tank. All those “characters” set me to thinking about whether octopuses might just have something like human personality.

Twenty-five years ago it was hard to know what to expect of octopus behavior: the creatures had seldom been studied, and when they had, it was mostly in captivity. Furthermore, they are invertebrate mollusks, and so they are evolutionarily distant from vertebrates; it would have been hard to justify extrapolating the significance of their activities from the well-studied behaviors of mammals and birds.

Most mollusks are clams or snails that hide within hard shells and have little brainpower. But cuttlefish, octopuses, and squid (which along with nautiluses make up the cephalopod mollusks) are nothing like their shell-bound relatives. Evolution led them to lose their protective shells, but what they gained was far more interesting: dexterous, sucker-lined arms; ever-changing camouflage skin; complex eyes; and remarkably well-developed brains and nervous systems. The 289 known species of octopus range in size from the one-ounce Atlantic pygmy octopus, Octopus joubini, to the giant Pacific octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini, which can weigh more than a hundred pounds. They are all ocean-dwellers, and, though the group is distributed from the poles to the tropics, octopuses are reclusive beasts; individuals are hard to find, let alone study.

The intelligence of octopuses has long been noted, and to some extent studied. But in recent years, research by myself and others into their personalities, play, and problem-solving skills has both added to and elaborated the list of their remarkable attributes. They turn out to be uncannily familiar creatures, not nearly as unlike you and me as one might expect–given their startlingly different physiques and the 1.2 billion years of evolution that separate us from these eight-armed marvels of the sea.

Personality is hard to define, but one can begin to describe it as a unique pattern of individual behavior that remains consistent over time and in a variety of circumstances. I’ve adopted the model that developmental psychologists have applied to study the behavior of children. Psychologists begin with the idea of “temperament,” or behavioral tendencies genetically programmed before birth. After birth the environment shapes an individual’s temperament to give rise to an adult personality.

Is tightening the screws a form of torture? We certainly hope so. The Japanese are now wielding a new weapon in the fight against North Korea. Remittances from ethnic Koreans living in Japan have long been a source of money for Kim Jong Il’s government. Effective January 4, those transactions are now ended.This is an important measure, but it does nothing to make up for the hideous cruelty of a regime that kidnapped Japanese citizens to train its spies, and it cannot halt Kim’s nuclear ambition. It may be a luxury tax, and little more. And we need more. Still, we applaud our allies in this fight.

Tiptoe, amble, or meander through the 400,000 tulips that populate this favorite Dallas garden.

Imagine a painting so bright and emblazoned with flowers that you want to transplant yourself right into the middle of the colorful picture. You can do just that during March and April at the Dallas Arboretum. Vivid patches of tulips, cheery azaleas, and 66 acres of springtime beauty welcome you during the Dallas Blooms celebration, held this year March 10-April 15. Made up of 12 separate gardens, the arboretum puts on the largest outdoor spring flower festival in the Southwest. You may wonder which swath of color to follow first. Begin your journey on the Paseo des Flores, which is a quartermile-long walkway through the arboretum. Linking the main entrance to the Lay Ornamental Garden, this winding pathway takes you alongside trees, sculpted shrubs, and stunning tulips.

The 2.2-acre Lay Ornamental Garden, filled with Texas-style perennials and a new collection of 30 kinds of palms and tropical plants hardy to Dallas, makes another great stop. You’ll also find sculptures here that represent native Texas animals.

Other areas to explore include the Martha Brooks Camellia Garden, with 200 camellias. You’ll also love The Jonsson Color Garden, the Pecan Grove, Toad Corners, and The Trial Gardens, filled with 700 different kinds of plants tested year-round.

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This year’s festival theme is “Flower Power,” and you can depend on lots of entertainment revolving around that sock-it-to-me subject. Flower topiaries with a 1960s twist and concerts featuring the music from that era promise a lively atmosphere.

For the visitors who enjoy architecture, the DeGolyer Estate and the Camp House are the two homes whose grounds make up the arboretum. The 21,000-square-foot DeGolyer Estate was built in 1940. Don’t miss the inner courtyard, seven chimneys, large foyer, and original furnishings. The smaller Camp House, which was built in 1938 and houses the administrative offices, offers a terrific view of White Rock Lake.

No matter if you spend an hour or a day in this pretty-as-a-picture spot in Dallas, you’ll leave a little piece of yourself transplanted in this rich Texas soil.

-WANDA MCKINNEY

right: A staff of 25 gardeners keeps the pathways and plants of the Dallas Arboretum in tip-top shape for visitors.

below: Among the brilliant red tulips, don’t miss the lovely pink ones, their delicate edges ruffled and frayed as if by an expert seamstress.

above, right: The newest addition to the arboretum-A Woman’s Garden-features 4.3 acres filled with fountains, water features, and pathways bordered by beautiful flowers.

Dallas Arboretum: 8525 Garland Road, Dallas, TX 75218; www.dallas arboretum.org or (214) 515-6500.

What the heck are these? The documents for this crate say the contents are Polypodium ferns. Those are perfectly legal to import, but all the leaves have been hacked off these plants. I can’t identify them from the stems alone. Jim, can you get a reading on them?”

“Sure–just a second…. Well according to my Global Flora Scanner, they’re actually Stangeria eriopus, the Natal grass cycad, which looks a lot like a fern. It’s an endangered species from Mozambique–says here they’re just about extinct in the wild. They’re illegal to import, but collectors are just crazy about them. Apparently some cycads sell for as much as $20,000 on the black market. I’ve never intercepted Stangerias here at the airport before. Good thing you spotted them–and that they were in the GFS database. We’d better investigate; this should mean a big fine or even an arrest for the importer.”The dialogue might sound like science fiction, but that kind of scenario could transpire sooner than you think. One of the great biological projects of our time will be to collect DNA sequences from every living species on Earth. The objective is to create a universal genetic database of life. Once it is mostly complete–perhaps a decade from now–the project will enable any plant, animal, fungus, or other organism to be identified simply by sampling its DNA and comparing that with the database of known DNA sequences.

Styling hair, killing bugs, and curing cancer are very different activities. But to do them, people need to know about the solutions that color and perm hair, or the agents that kill insects or cancer cells. And that means they all use chemistry in their jobs.

Chemistry–and chemicals–are all around us. Chemistry is the study of “stuff”–its properties, structure, and reactions with other matter.

Just think about it. “A chef who knows how long to simmer tomato sauce is carrying out the chemical reactions that release the flavorful lycopene compounds from a tomato’s cells. A cosmetologist who gives you a perm is carrying out chemical reactions that join together in new ways the protein molecules that make up your hair. We’re all chemists at some time or another,” says Mark Michalovic at the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry.

In Our Daily Choices

“Today we know much more than we did even 50 years ago,” says Brian Coppola, professor of chemistry at the University of Michigan. “We have to make lots of decisions about health, nutrition, medicine, and the environment.” These are basically questions about chemicals and chemistry. They affect us on a daily basis as we buy products, choose what to put into our bodies, decide what to throw out, and so forth.

You treated me unfairly.” I was stunned. As a health care manager, I’d just completed performance appraisals for my employees. One employee, Ramona, had held her tongue during our formal conversation about her job performance and merit increase. But later, she visited my office again. “You gave the other people higher pay raises,” she announced, in an accusatory tone. “You treated me unfairly.”

I didn’t know what to say.

As I sat at my desk after Ramona briskly left my office, I felt my face grow hot with anger and embarrassment while my abdomen twisted into a painful knot. I agonized over her allegation that I was unfair. How could she possibly think this? I had made every effort to do what was right, make meaningful distinctions among employees’ performances and clearly communicate the information to each employee. Of course I was fair!

But after a while (OK, after a long time) it occurred to me that, if I wanted to resolve this issue, I needed to try to see the situation from Ramona’s perspective.

That’s what fairness is all about–perceptions. You may feel certain you’re being fair to your employees. But fairness isn’t about you. However, some of the most intelligent and savvy managers have difficulty seeing “fairness” from their employees’ perspectives.

It appears many people don’t see their workplace as fair. One in five employees feels his employer treats employees unfairly, according to The 2000 Global Employee Relationship Report by Walker Information Global Network and the Hudson Institute.

If you are a woman over the age of 50, you may be one of 16 million Americans who deal with urinary incontinence. Women account for about 85 percent of reported cases (13.6 million cases).

“The explanation [as to] why women are more vulnerable to incontinence is, unfortunately, that life isn’t fair,” says Dr. Philippe Zimmere, professor of urology at the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. “A man’s urethra is longer than a woman’s, which is less than two inches long.”

The vaginal wall and other muscles support the urethra. Those muscles may weaken from trauma after pregnancy or childbirth, a hysterectomy or other pelvis surgery, or hormonal changes that come with menopause and aging.

Women do not have to accept incontinence, Dr. Zimmem stresses.

“With exercise, medication, surgery, and other therapies, we can find the best option for treatment,” he says. “The goal is to find the optimal approach toward giving a woman control over her life.”