Bed-makers, non-makers face challenge of change

You can switch hair colors, you can switch beers, you can switchspouses. But switch bed-making habits? Not likely.

I know this because I asked a bunch of chronic bed-makers andchronic bed-non-makers to completely switch behaviors for three wholedays.

Here's how the bed-makers fared:"Fared?" laughs Julie, "I failed! I couldn't even leave my bedunmade for one whole day. By 5 o'clock on the first day, I flungopen my bedroom door and made the damn thing. It was such a relief.Even though I wasn't home, the thought of that wad of crumpled,twisted sheets ruined my whole day. I felt grungy, distracted, kindof unworthy. The whole 10 hours felt despicable!""Actually, I …

ECB, Bank of Japan keep wary eye on Fed

LONDON (AP) — The U.S. Federal Reserve is poised to pump more dollars into the U.S. economy, casting a long shadow over imminent decisions by other big central banks wary about what the Fed's move might do to the dollar.

The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan all hold meetings this week, amid concerns the Fed's monetary injection may send the dollar down against the euro and the yen, potentially holding back exports and harming the shaky recoveries in Europe and Japan.

While Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, has voiced his concern about excessively volatile exchange rate shifts, it is the Bank of Japan that is particularly …

Gasol to miss basketball worlds for champs Spain

NBA All-Star center Pau Gasol says he will not help Spain defend its title at the world basketball championship because doctors say he needs a rest.

Gasol, preparing for the NBA finals with the Los Angeles Lakers, says "present circumstances advise against my participation" in the championship in Turkey from Aug. 29-Sept. 12.

In a statement on …

Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia

Amy Nelson. Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. xvi, 330 pp. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Musical Examples. $45.00, cloth.

The question of the relationship between music and politics has been debated for centuries. The difficulty in precisely defining musical meaning or content has made this relationship more complicated than in most other cultural or artistic realms. This was a problem confronted by the Soviet regime in the years following the revolution. How was such an abstract and non-representational art form to be harnessed to promote the aims of the …

Knowing When to Embrace Open Source; Turning to open-source software for an enterprise resource planning system is a big challenge for most companies - so big they steer clear of it.

Turning to open-source software for an enterprise resource planning system is a big challenge for most companies - so big they steer clear of it.

"No matter how bad their current system is, they feel like they can't afford to change," says Don Ladwig, senior business solutions architect at Idalica, a systems integrator in Oceanside, Calif. "But very often, they can't afford not to, either."

In the right business case, Ladwig says, companies can achieve significant savings through lower development and support costs by moving to open-source software.

Those typical business cases, he says, include first-time ERP adapters such as a midsize business looking to bring …

Bangkok's main airport shut until Dec. 15

The head of Thailand's airports says that Suvarnabhumi international airport will remain closed to passenger flights until at least Dec. 15 due to the disruption caused by anti-government protesters.

Acting director Serirat Prasutanont of the Airports of Thailand says in a statement Tuesday that the …

Low rates send sales of used houses soaring

Sales of existing houses in the first half of 1986 were 12.5 percentahead of the same period last year, the National Association ofRealtors reported.

"With mortgage interest rates down nearly two percentage pointsfrom last year, 1.71 million existing homes changed hands the firstsix months this year, compared with 1.52 million in the same periodlast year," noted Clark E. Wallace, president of the NationalAssociation.

"Affordability conditions during the first six months of thisyear were better than at any other time in this decade, luring manyfamilies into the home buying market. As a result, housing was oneof the few bright spots in the over-all economy," Wallace …