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Show Page D2 - THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, It's not where you go on vacation, it's who you visit ' Friday, August New appirogielh) to Sun-Sentin- el :Ever since I returned, people have been asking me where I went on vacation. It's a logical question, I suppose. In this case, the answer is Atlanta and Chicago. But, as usual, where I went on vacation was not very important to me, anyway. So for me it makes more sense to ask who I went on vacation with and whether the trip was tax deductible (which it is now that I have found a way to write about it). Although there are places I would like to see, I would much rather use the paltry free time I have to visit friends or relatives I selpeople dom see who live in other places. Sightseeing usually bores me. Because of that attitude, my wife and friends who love visiting exotic places regard me as somewhat crude the way a gourmet might regard someone who pours ketchup over escargot. So be it. Traveling simply to see a place or a thing has never excited me as much as traveling with, or to see, particular people. Perhaps I would feel differently if I were a fabulously wealthy person who had plenty of time and money to spare. But I'm not. Forty-eigof every 52 weeks is devoted to my job, leaving me only four to travel. So it doesn't make sense for me to squander that time seeing ruins, churches, forts and other historical By GAIL STEWART HAND Knight-Ridd- self-ima- ge By GAIL STEWART HAND Knight-Ridde- r Newspapers GRAND FORKS, N.D. -When can women of childbear-in- g age safely drink alcohol? Never, according to a North Dakota geneticist. "Alcohol should be avoided before conception, because by the time most women know they are pregnant, the organs have already started to form," said the geneticist, Dr. John Martsolf. The human brain starts to develop after conception and continues beyond birth. Alcohol kills brain cells. Martsolf would not say what amount of drinking is likely to produce a child with fetal alcohol syndrome. "If a mom's in w p.m. His friends know his schedule so the phone and doorbell were silent, leaving me with a book, a couch and blessed solitude. No phone, no pool, no pets. No kids. Although I was technically in Atlanta for a few days, however, you couldn't really say I visited Atlanta. Except to eat and go to a bookstore, I never left Pete's apartment. Then Pete and I went on to Chicago, or rather to my daughter Laura, who had spent five weeks in the If Chicago Tribune CHICAGO My phone voice far shorter than I am, something I'll have to work on. On the other hand, it's better dressed and has a more fashionable coif. Probably drives a nicer car, too, though Lori Miller, the professional expert on phone voices now performing this divining act, doeWt4Kica She says my voice and phone manner tell her I am 5 feet 10 inches tall, in neat casual slacks and a dress shirt, with short, brown hair stylishly long in back. She sees me sitting up straight at a desk in a quiet corner of the Tribune Tower intently taking notes. Miller and her business partner, Elanie Chudnovsky, call this little parlor game Telepicting, and it is the central feature of corporate training seminars in which they teach employees how to give better phone. is some- xxx l.) that are available and earmarking them especially for treatment and lost in all multi-proble- this." When it becomes a struggle between people on opposing sides of the abortion debate, "it just further compounds the problem we m scared to adopt right now because of the unknown," said Shirley Hoffarth of Catholic Family Services. "And I don't blame tions." Sometimes IQs can mask ficiencies. Teachers think stu- dents should be able to perform better, but because of brain Fetal alcohol syndrome includes brain injury, growth impairment before and after birth, and facial deformities. damage that may not be evident on intelligence tests, they cannot. When there are any two of these symptoms, the condition is called fetal alcohol effect, a Martsolf advises prospective parents thinking about adopting to find out as much as possible about a child, including prenatal history, so they know what they are getting into. milder form of the syndrome that brings debilitating problems. If the child's mother does them." Martsolf said he is conservative when it comes to diagnosing FAS. While a diagnosis helps explain behavior and may help parents and teachers predict some situations, "once you label a child and people start reading about FAS, they will have certain expectations about the child. " Some won't work to de- 2 M "A lot of people are real not acknowledge drinking during the pregnancy, neither diagnosis can be made. The fetal alcohol effect has a broad range of symptoms, some as vague as "not working up to expecta- "Telepicting is just our name for something most of us do all the time," Miller says. "When you talk on the phone to people you've never met, you come up with a picture in your mind of their appearance, what they're wearing, how old they are, what their office looks like and so on." I tell Miller I see her as 5 feet 5 shoulder-inches tall with length brown hair. She's set off with, oh, say, kicky jewelry, and she's perched at a tidy desk in one of those sterile, suburban office buildings. "The customers' impression of you on the phone has an immediate effect," Miller says. "You can make them feel welcome or irritated. If you're helpful and accommodating, they start thinking the company must be doing a great job all around. If you're rude, uninterested and lifeless, they think the company must be going down the tubes because it can't even hire self-conce- pt, the child's advantage. "We'd love to get out of the business of making these diagnoses. And we could if everybody would quit drinking." is shaky." well-style- d, three-stor- y, L decent help." Miller is right about this, even though Fin actually nearly 7 inches taller than she "flunks rariirmyliair-i- s blond and short in back and I'm wearing shorts and a University of because I'm inMichigan from home. Vocal her terviewing attitude makes an incredible difference in a world in which we so often shop, solicit, research, arrange and woo on the telephone. I noticed this sharply not long ago when I called nearly 200 area high schools to gather information for a column on prom themes. It irt Knight-Ridde- r bike; a blender; a ed Newspapers Are you a real man? If you are, Men's Health magazine says, you should have the foly lowing 25 things: A set of tools; a watch with hands; dumbbells; a car you love to drive; the Rand McNally Road Atlas; a week's worth of underwear with no holes in them ("essential for bachelors"); a pair of dress shoes that cost more than you wanted to kit; binspend; a serious first-ai- d the the smaller oculars, better; a good-qualit- packable raincoat; a rugged two-suit- er garment bag; the "Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook"; a genuine Swiss army hat; a knife; a e suit; a fishing rod; an answering machine ("for when you go on fishing trips"); a comfortable chair at work and at home; "Hoyle's Rules of Poker"; a pair of sunglasses they don't sell on TV; a universal remote control, and at least one Frank Sinatra record. THAT'S TOO FRILLV SlflON.. THIS IS A VERV NO. POPULAR CHINA WOULDN'T TOO TRENDS FOR SIMON... LIKE THAT, TOO EARTHV FOR SWION... FOR n n PtRHAPS f Cjj ARTVf STUFF V FOR SWON... WU SHOULD SOUTHWEST FOR JUST BRING NEVER SimON AN OPINION TOO TOO FOR MODERN SIHI0N... SlfllON., FORSMON... IN, DWfr? ON Si D Emissions Test D 95 0 O) Lube, Oil & Flltor Ms Subarus Only a ARE VOU KID- - TOO . Miller and Chudnovsky formalized the Telepicting program last year and say they have taught it' at about 50 companies nationwide. They begin by posing as customers and placing calls to selected They then fill out detail voice profiles meant to reveal to the employees what their telephone image "looks" like. s. 3734 South Stats Salt Uxko City State Inspection HE $1295 1(D) OFIF ICERT,RBi ?SEE3sw p 260-373- 4 ODn Chemical Power Flush j Power flush will remove contaminant from your radiancM ' "U and engine block, includes 1 gallon of l150 II Minor D JJ ' But Telepicting is not about the sort of literal accuracy one expects from the guy at the carnival who tries to guess your age and weight. It is about imagery. It is about how, two people, each sitting around home in their shorts, can drop vocal clues back and forth that servfc to fool the other into thinking he or, she is in a real office wearing work ! clothes. took five seconds at the most for me to tell whether the person who answered was going to be helpful -uncomand friendly or suriy-an- d prehending, and my impression of the schools formed accordingly. The best had good manners, of course, but also voices that revealed a little bounce and energy, humor and patience. These were good employees at good schools. I'm right about this, even though I'm wrong about Lori Miller. In real life she's barely 5 feet tall with very short, blond hair. She's wearing almost no jewelry and, in fact, & dark-blu- TOO two-pers-on MARK MILLER SUBARU Do you fit the 'manly' list? By short pants because the headquarters of her company', Tooty Inc. , is in die cluttered base? ment of her Oak Forest home. , "When you talk on the phone to people you've never met, you come up with a picture in your mind of their appearance." Lori Miller, professional phone expert by Cathy QuiMwlte SWON alcohol-s- ror stories all the time involving pregnant women, their drug abuse, their impaired offspring.' "You hear from people out in the trenches; it's clear these are situations. We're looking at fetal alcohol syndrome and poor women, lack of health care, addiction to other substances. It's really hard to separate out. "As much as I am concerned about the tragedy of fetal alcohol syndrome, which I really am, when that becomes the issue ... outreach of pregnant women substance abusers. And I think we need a societal change in terms of attitude blaming the victims. Of course, there are two victims, child and mother, but the mother's the one whose behavior you have to address, and that's getting toxicated, it's in the placenta." How much harm the alcohol causes depends on such factors as the mother's diet, her overall health and genetic makeup and the age at which she started drinking. In addition, effects vary among embryos: "Some tolerate it better than others," Martsolf said. cathy PATTERN f "One of the sources of the stigma is the idealized, traditional mother's role. We don't like to think that the hand that rocks the cradle is shaky." Dr. Sharon Wilsnack, professor University of North Dakota Medical School Michael Dorris wrote about his adopted son's' limits, which were caused by his mother's alcoholism. He writes about wishing that he could go back in time and keep her fronv drinking, that even one less oaked day would have im- proved his son's chances of cop--' " ing in the world. been have that would "Maybe true for his son, I suppose, format single pregnancy," Wilsnack" responded. "But she could possi- bly get out and possibly have six' more children. That's the longer-view perspective versus focusing on a single pregnancy. treatment for six months wouldr be much more effective than1" frr civ mnntrw Tt4' .1 night and day. We just don't have the resources. We need to stop th ' blaming, the stigma. They are Darners io anocaung icsuun.cs. Laws that reauire women whcM abused alcohol or illegal d:ug,;j during pregnancy to be sentencedj to implanted chemical birth con.v trol give the wrong signal. "It's, .j as long as you don't have a baby v that's the limit of our concern and ; our responsibility. I think it's also practical to think about treatment. If you can change that woman's" behavior, she won't have three of four more pregnancies that you'lf have to intervene with . " When people hear of someone ' who's been in drug treatment 10 times, they should remember that "the treatment is probably not , sensitive to the women's needs' j and especially pregnant women's. We have to remember the ? self-importance of in relation image, particularly ship to pregnant addicted women? One of the sources of the stigma is' ' the idealized, traditional mother's role. It's true that substances' threaten that role, but also there's ' a stigma. We don't like to think1 that the hand that rocks the cradle you wanfl to sound fall, ttalk louder on phone By ERIC ZORN -- (Ray Recchi is a lifestyle columnist for the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) News & ms (See PREGNANT on Page D3) ; ? Northwestern University summer music program. So, technically, we were in Evanston, 111., not Chicago. But we were really in neither because we were there to watch my daughter play in two concerts. Sure, that is a long way to go for a concert. And it's not as if I don't see L2ijravery often. In fact, that was the longesteliaTrevcrbeeirawfiy from home. But I knew the final gala concert was important to her. And as my children get older, such moments Jake on ever greater significance to 3ne. So I went and enjoyed a won derful concert. That's not to say I didn't also I enjoy the town of Evanston or the Northwestern campus. Both were lovely. And we did spend one day in Chicago, eating pizza and visiting 5he Art Institute. I But all that was incidental to the : it's like a woman is just not seen as important until she's pregnant. : "Really, it has often become divertthe women's issue, really ing attention from a lot of prob-'-lethat women have when1 ' they're not pregnant." which Broken In "The Cord," brought fetal alcohol syndrome' into the awareness of ordinary ; Americans, No safe time for alcohol use when pregnant rt, -- hor- - Services. She said she hears "To take some of the resources drug-treatme- nt Bo-hun- k, w tion, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human situations? self-estee- sites when I can use it to be with people I love, admire and respect. Last week, I didn't really go to Atlanta so much as I went to brother-in-law Pete. If he lived in Miss., I would have driven right past Atlanta. Although I didn't visit the Underground, go to a Braves game or buy a 1996 Olympic it was the perfect vacation. Because Peter is not only my brother-in-labut one of my best friends, I enjoyed late nights talking and listening to music with him. Because he lives alone and I was traveling alone, I was in blissful peace from the time he went to work in the morning until he returned at 7 If Laura had gone She's a bad woman, a bad mother. If you put her in jail, she doesn't 'use,' but for a woman who already has a low when she gets and worse image. a she'll have out, ... It's counterproductive, separate from the ethics." Sometimes advocates of special penalties for alcohol and illegal drug use for pregnant women make the argument that such women refuse treatment for their dependency, Wilsnack said. "Or they say, 'Look, she went through treatment so many times, and it didn't do any good.' Thst ignores that there are few, if any, treatment programs that are sensitive to and designed for the pregnant woman. "And there are liability issues that make it hard for pregnant women to get into facilities. So where does she go? And further, if you criminalize this, she'll be afraid to go for help. She'll get arrested; the children she already has may be taken away. She'll avoid prenatal care, health care in general and treat- Newspapers er already have: ignoring the issues of the mother and the need to address her addiction. " Wilsnack is on the advisory panel on Perinatal Abuse of Alcohol and Other Drugs for the Office for Substance Abuse Preven- for a while, but with virtually no effect on the behavior. I don't personally know anyone who believes in criminalization within the women's health network. But I know that sentiment is out there." What would be helpful in these long-ter- m GRAND FORKS, N.D. -Jailing pregnant alcohol and drug abusers won't solve the problem, says Dr. Sharon Wilsnack, who has studied women and addiction for 20 years. "If you criminalize drinking or drugging for pregnant women, you do absolutely zero to cause change," said Wilsnack, a professor of neuroscience at the University of North Dakota Medical School who holds a doctorate from Harvard University. She doesn't want to be misconstrued as being blase about the fetus of an alcoholic woman. "I do have very strong feelings about the question of protecting the fetus versus considering the needs of the mother," Wilsnack said. Women addicted to alcohol or drugs suffer from more stigma than do men, Wilsnack said, and pregnant women who abuse substances offend our culture's Madonna image. "There is a double stigma for being a woman drunk," she said. ment. "What criminalization does is "The only positive is you can further intensify that stigma: confine her, .keep her from using ht where else to study music this summer, I would have gone somewhere else on vacation. My biggest disappointment in the Windy City was not that the Cubs were on the road or that it wasn't "very windy. It was that the one good 'friend I have who lives in Chicago "was out of town last week. ; - On the other hand, some friends invited us over 'of my brother-in-la.for dinner one night and we got 'along so well and had such a delightful time that I now consider them my ;friends, too. Which is all the more reason for me to go back to Chicago someday. &famB In progn&ney Expert says treatment shouldn't be forced on pregnant women By RAY RECCHI Fort Lauderdale ."vacation. 14, 1992 Tune-u- p Replace spark plugs, check and adjust timing, choke and fuel mixture, check filters .n idlaM u 0 D 0n Subarus Only 15 OFF ;5 0 Any Factory Recommenced D Ovar the Counter Perls end: Melntsnsneo Q Accessories y HAS THIS KIND OF STUFF ! Not Valid With Any Other Coupon Is ::::::v::::x::;: l,!on.-- Fri. Saturday 7:00-6:0-0 730-3:0- 0 n P3 a Eg A fl(D)JD)7lf pjo Call For Appointment 7? |