1. BAIRD: 1 LINE, 28 COUNTS<\/p>\n
Baird calls Indonesia second home<\/p>\n
'I shall return', Baird vows<\/p>\n
After completing his tenure as the World Bank's country
\ndirector for Indonesia, Mark Baird, 53, now enters his retirement
\nand is heading for his homeland, New Zealand.<\/p>\n
But his passion for Indonesia will always stay aflame.
\nIndonesia only comes second after New Zealand for him, according
\nto a close staff member.<\/p>\n
He first came here as the bank's lead economist in the 1980s,
\nbut his first experience with Indonesia was so impressive that he
\nwas eager ever since to return to the country.<\/p>\n
And when the chance came in early 1999, at the peak of the
\neconomic crisis, he only needed seconds to accept the offer --
\nthis time as the bank's country director -- to come to the
\ncountry. It happened at the time when most foreigners would have
\nopted to shy away from Indonesia, because of the nation's deep
\nsuffering from the crisis.<\/p>\n
In fact, his feeling for Indonesia is such that he always
\nwanted to end his career here before returning home. \"I've always
\nwanted Indonesia to be my last assignment before retiring,\" Baird
\ntold The Jakarta Post recently in an interview.<\/p>\n
In total, he has worked in Indonesia for more than six years.<\/p>\n
Baird was the World Bank lead economist in Indonesia between
\n1986-1989, almost 12 years since he first joined the bank. Aside
\nfrom Indonesia, he has also worked as the Bank's country
\neconomist for India, Tanzania and Uganda.<\/p>\n
And after a brief term in his home country, where he worked as
\nan economic advisor to the New Zealand Treasury, he returned to
\nthe Bank and was appointed as the Division Chief for Country
\nPolicy, Industry and Finance in the Bank's Operations Evaluations
\nDepartment. He was the Vice President of Strategy and Resource
\nManagement before taking up his second assignment in Indonesia in
\nApril 1999.<\/p>\n
The abundant experience has proved helpful for him to
\ncomprehend the complex problems Indonesia was facing. And he is
\nnow considered as one among a few who have a deep knowledge about
\nthe country's economic development.<\/p>\n
For the last three years or so, he had led the Bank's mission
\nin the country of fighting poverty, which has been on the rise
\ndue to the economic crisis, and instilling hopes for better
\nfuture after the crisis.<\/p>\n
People who are close to him are impressed with the way he has
\ncarried out his job.<\/p>\n
\"His leadership of our program and contribution to our
\nconstructive relationship with the Indonesian government and
\ncivil society, as well as the donor community, has been
\noutstanding in every respect.<\/p>\n
\"It was his ability to combine strategic thinking with
\noperational pragmatism which made him so effective and his advice
\nso highly valued. Baird is well known to our clients and partners
\nas one of the best people we have in the bank,\" his college Jim
\nWolfensohn said.<\/p>\n
Under Baird's leadership, the World Bank office in Indonesia
\nfocused on poverty reduction and disbursed an average US$310
\nmillion aid per year for the program.<\/p>\n
The latest figure states that about 13 percent of the
\npopulation is now below the poverty line, less then half the peak
\nlevels recorded during the crisis.<\/p>\n
2. SID: 1 LINE, 35 COUNTS<\/p>\n
American comic great reflects on heyday<\/p>\n
Sid Caesar, who turns 80 on Sept. 8, hasn't lost the touch
\nthat side-split a nation during his reign as early television's
\nking of comedy.<\/p>\n
Not one for the quick-hit zingers typical of that other TV
\npioneer, Milton Berle, Caesar was always a sketch comedian who
\ncould lose his own persona in a variety of outrageous characters
\nand \"languages.\"<\/p>\n
During a recent interview at his sprawling hilltop estate,
\nCaesar delivered hilarious monologues that sounded alternately
\nlike French, Italian, German and Japanese but actually were pure
\ngibberish.<\/p>\n
During his heyday, Caesar - along with co-stars Imogene Coca
\nand Nanette Fabray, and second bananas Carl Reiner and Howard
\nMorris - brought a new, more sophisticated kind of comedy to the
\nAmerican public.<\/p>\n
Behind the scenes, however, there was a different Caesar - the
\nmadman portrayed in the play Laughter on the 23rd Floor by his
\none-time writer Neil Simon. Caesar acknowledges that some of his
\nactions might have seemed over-the-top.<\/p>\n
On a hot day in the writers room, he would strip down to his
\nshorts. He recalled: \"People would come in and say, 'Where's your
\npants?' I'd say, 'It's a hot day; I don't want to get them
\ncreased.\"'<\/p>\n
Then there's the famous episode involving another of his
\nwriters, Mel Brooks.<\/p>\n
Caesar was performing nine shows a day at the Chicago Theater.
\nBefore the last show, he returned exhausted to his suite at the
\nPalmer House and was enjoying a hearty meal when Mel complained
\nabout the stifling heat. \"I wanna go out,\" he kept insisting
\nuntil Sid angrily said, \"You wanna go out?!\"<\/p>\n
\"I opened up the window, and we're on the 18th floor,\"
\nrecounted Caesar, who in those days lifted weights and was
\nremarkably strong. \"I grabbed him by the seat of his pants and
\nhis neck and I held him outside the window. 'You wanna go out
\nfarther?' I asked. My brother Dave grabbed me and pulled us both
\nback in.\"<\/p>\n
Caesar attributes at least part of his behavior to the
\npressure of maintaining high-quality material while turning out
\n40 shows a year. He was unable to sleep and began relying on
\nalcohol and sleeping pills. Years of psychotherapy and the
\npatience of his wife, Florence, helped him acquire a degree of
\nwell-being. Also helpful: conversations with his alter ego.<\/p>\n
In 1979, Caesar was in Paris filming The Fiendish Plot of Dr.
\nFu Manchu, Peter Sellers' final film and a box-office bomb. The
\njob was supposed to last six weeks, and went on for six months.
\nCaesar was going nuts. So he began a conversation between
\nhimself, Sid, and the young Sidney.<\/p>\n
\"I'd talk to myself every morning,\" he said, \"and you can't
\nlie to yourself, because you know what you feel.\" When Sid
\ncomplained about being stuck on the location, Sidney chastised
\nhim for complaining when he was being paid to stay in Paris.
\nSidney won out, and Sid began appreciating the art museums and
\nmaking friends with locals.<\/p>\n
Today's television generation scarcely knows Sid Caesar.
\nUnlike most TV classics, \"Your Show of Shows\" (1950-1954) and
\n\"Caesar's Hour\" (1954-1957) did not fit the sitcom pattern. And
\nhaving been broadcast live, they were preserved as kinescopes, a
\ncrude form of video recording, not the 35mm motion picture film
\nof sitcoms. Hence they lacked appeal for syndicators.<\/p>\n
But now, thanks to digital enhancement, young people can see
\nwhat enthralled their parents and grandparents. Blagman Century
\nMedia of Santa Monica, California, has released The Original Sid
\nCaesar Collection, a three-tape set of videocassettes with
\nselections from his two TV series picked by Caesar himself. \"They
\nlook brand new,\" he said proudly.<\/p>\n
No wonder the shows were great; they boasted the most talented
\nwriters in showbiz history. They included Simon, Brooks, Reiner,
\nLarry Gelbart (creator of the TV version of M-A-S-H), Michael
\nStuart (Hello, Dolly, Bye, Bye Birdie), Joseph Stein (Fiddler on
\nthe Roof) and a 20-year-old named Woody Allen.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it was the shows' smartness that helped bring
\ntheir demise.<\/p>\n
Demographics played the villain. Television's early growth was
\ncentered in the big cities where the audience appreciated the
\nquality of a sophisticated Broadway revue. As the Federal
\nCommunications Commission issued licenses across the country,
\ntelevision spread to the hinterlands. The networks' search for an
\never-widening audience resulted in the dumbing down of
\nprogramming.<\/p>\n
When his second series was canceled, Caesar was in the midst
\nof his own \"20-year blackout,\" as he recounts in his 1982
\nautobiography, Where Have I Been?. Not until the 1970s did he
\nreach a degree of stability.<\/p>",
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