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.