1. BAIRD: 1 LINE, 28 COUNTS

1. BAIRD: 1 LINE, 28 COUNTS

Baird calls Indonesia second home

'I shall return', Baird vows

After completing his tenure as the World Bank's country director for Indonesia, Mark Baird, 53, now enters his retirement and is heading for his homeland, New Zealand.

But his passion for Indonesia will always stay aflame. Indonesia only comes second after New Zealand for him, according to a close staff member.

He first came here as the bank's lead economist in the 1980s, but his first experience with Indonesia was so impressive that he was eager ever since to return to the country.

And when the chance came in early 1999, at the peak of the economic crisis, he only needed seconds to accept the offer -- this time as the bank's country director -- to come to the country. It happened at the time when most foreigners would have opted to shy away from Indonesia, because of the nation's deep suffering from the crisis.

In fact, his feeling for Indonesia is such that he always wanted to end his career here before returning home. "I've always wanted Indonesia to be my last assignment before retiring," Baird told The Jakarta Post recently in an interview.

In total, he has worked in Indonesia for more than six years.

Baird was the World Bank lead economist in Indonesia between 1986-1989, almost 12 years since he first joined the bank. Aside from Indonesia, he has also worked as the Bank's country economist for India, Tanzania and Uganda.

And after a brief term in his home country, where he worked as an economic advisor to the New Zealand Treasury, he returned to the Bank and was appointed as the Division Chief for Country Policy, Industry and Finance in the Bank's Operations Evaluations Department. He was the Vice President of Strategy and Resource Management before taking up his second assignment in Indonesia in April 1999.

The abundant experience has proved helpful for him to comprehend the complex problems Indonesia was facing. And he is now considered as one among a few who have a deep knowledge about the country's economic development.

For the last three years or so, he had led the Bank's mission in the country of fighting poverty, which has been on the rise due to the economic crisis, and instilling hopes for better future after the crisis.

People who are close to him are impressed with the way he has carried out his job.

"His leadership of our program and contribution to our constructive relationship with the Indonesian government and civil society, as well as the donor community, has been outstanding in every respect.

"It was his ability to combine strategic thinking with operational pragmatism which made him so effective and his advice so highly valued. Baird is well known to our clients and partners as one of the best people we have in the bank," his college Jim Wolfensohn said.

Under Baird's leadership, the World Bank office in Indonesia focused on poverty reduction and disbursed an average US$310 million aid per year for the program.

The latest figure states that about 13 percent of the population is now below the poverty line, less then half the peak levels recorded during the crisis.

2. SID: 1 LINE, 35 COUNTS

American comic great reflects on heyday

Sid Caesar, who turns 80 on Sept. 8, hasn't lost the touch that side-split a nation during his reign as early television's king of comedy.

Not one for the quick-hit zingers typical of that other TV pioneer, Milton Berle, Caesar was always a sketch comedian who could lose his own persona in a variety of outrageous characters and "languages."

During a recent interview at his sprawling hilltop estate, Caesar delivered hilarious monologues that sounded alternately like French, Italian, German and Japanese but actually were pure gibberish.

During his heyday, Caesar - along with co-stars Imogene Coca and Nanette Fabray, and second bananas Carl Reiner and Howard Morris - brought a new, more sophisticated kind of comedy to the American public.

Behind the scenes, however, there was a different Caesar - the madman portrayed in the play Laughter on the 23rd Floor by his one-time writer Neil Simon. Caesar acknowledges that some of his actions might have seemed over-the-top.

On a hot day in the writers room, he would strip down to his shorts. He recalled: "People would come in and say, 'Where's your pants?' I'd say, 'It's a hot day; I don't want to get them creased."'

Then there's the famous episode involving another of his writers, Mel Brooks.

Caesar was performing nine shows a day at the Chicago Theater. Before the last show, he returned exhausted to his suite at the Palmer House and was enjoying a hearty meal when Mel complained about the stifling heat. "I wanna go out," he kept insisting until Sid angrily said, "You wanna go out?!"

"I opened up the window, and we're on the 18th floor," recounted Caesar, who in those days lifted weights and was remarkably strong. "I grabbed him by the seat of his pants and his neck and I held him outside the window. 'You wanna go out farther?' I asked. My brother Dave grabbed me and pulled us both back in."

Caesar attributes at least part of his behavior to the pressure of maintaining high-quality material while turning out 40 shows a year. He was unable to sleep and began relying on alcohol and sleeping pills. Years of psychotherapy and the patience of his wife, Florence, helped him acquire a degree of well-being. Also helpful: conversations with his alter ego.

In 1979, Caesar was in Paris filming The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, Peter Sellers' final film and a box-office bomb. The job was supposed to last six weeks, and went on for six months. Caesar was going nuts. So he began a conversation between himself, Sid, and the young Sidney.

"I'd talk to myself every morning," he said, "and you can't lie to yourself, because you know what you feel." When Sid complained about being stuck on the location, Sidney chastised him for complaining when he was being paid to stay in Paris. Sidney won out, and Sid began appreciating the art museums and making friends with locals.

Today's television generation scarcely knows Sid Caesar. Unlike most TV classics, "Your Show of Shows" (1950-1954) and "Caesar's Hour" (1954-1957) did not fit the sitcom pattern. And having been broadcast live, they were preserved as kinescopes, a crude form of video recording, not the 35mm motion picture film of sitcoms. Hence they lacked appeal for syndicators.

But now, thanks to digital enhancement, young people can see what enthralled their parents and grandparents. Blagman Century Media of Santa Monica, California, has released The Original Sid Caesar Collection, a three-tape set of videocassettes with selections from his two TV series picked by Caesar himself. "They look brand new," he said proudly.

No wonder the shows were great; they boasted the most talented writers in showbiz history. They included Simon, Brooks, Reiner, Larry Gelbart (creator of the TV version of M-A-S-H), Michael Stuart (Hello, Dolly, Bye, Bye Birdie), Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof) and a 20-year-old named Woody Allen.

Unfortunately, it was the shows' smartness that helped bring their demise.

Demographics played the villain. Television's early growth was centered in the big cities where the audience appreciated the quality of a sophisticated Broadway revue. As the Federal Communications Commission issued licenses across the country, television spread to the hinterlands. The networks' search for an ever-widening audience resulted in the dumbing down of programming.

When his second series was canceled, Caesar was in the midst of his own "20-year blackout," as he recounts in his 1982 autobiography, Where Have I Been?. Not until the 1970s did he reach a degree of stability.