clips

July 7, 2006 Friday
Escapes

By ANNA BAHNEY

CAROLINA FLYNN remembers those summers -- from 1982 to 1985, from Olivia Newton-John's ''Physical'' to Sheena Easton's ''Strut'' -- as carefree fun. She was in her mid-20's, working as a temp, and she and five girlfriends from her childhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn, shared the same rental house in Hampton Bays on Long Island.

''It was very plain, and we had to drive to get to the beach,'' said Ms. Flynn, who is now 47 and lives in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. ''It had only a few rooms, so usually someone would sleep on the extra sofa. And maybe someone would crash on the floor.''

Still, it was a summer house, and each weekend the women would join the exodus of teachers, lawyers, secretaries, accountants and assorted other professionals fleeing their city apartments (which were sometimes not air-conditioned) and heading to Fire Island or the eastern end of Long Island. Their goals: sip a few cool drinks, have some laughs and find some sun -- and maybe even the one -- on the beach.

The young Carolina Flynns of today may still be interested in finding Mr. Right. But they're much less interested in summer shares.

''I think it is ridiculous to spend $1,000 a summer to sleep on the floor in a share,'' said Lauren Best, 26, a Manhattan lawyer. ''I'm hoping that back then it was a lot more glamorous, rather than the disgusting frat party it is now. I'm a going-out girl, but I don't think I could do that all summer.''

The summer share was once something almost every young New York professional worth his or her shoulder pads and power suit did in the 1980's. But while today's 20- and 30-somethings might wear leggings and Izod shirts and even enjoy ''Strut'' on their iPods' playlist, many of them say that the summer share, as an object of desire, is over.

The reasons are many -- finite financial resources, the real estate boom that turned many share houses into desirable weekend family homes, the stricter enforcement of antishare regulations, the increasing allure of travel. But more and more, young New Yorkers are opting to spend their summer weekends hanging out with friends at rooftop parties in Manhattan or places like McCarren Park in Williamsburg, or heading to backyard barbecues in Brooklyn, or playing volleyball on a beach in Queens with a view of Manhattan -- or wandering even farther afield -- rather than weekending in the Hamptons or on Fire Island. Come dusk, they're heading to outdoor and even rooftop film festivals, concerts or theater performances, or stopping by clubs and roof-deck bars before going home.

It's a choice that also involves a studied lack of interest in the whole East End enterprise. ''The Hamptons is passe,'' Ms. Best said. ''It is the biggest nightmare you could put me in. I prefer to go out in New York in the summer.''

MS. BEST is the type of young professional who might have spent weekends in a five-bedroom beach house with 20 other people in 1983. She has an income healthy enough to afford a summer share and an interest in having a good time that's hefty enough to justify the expense. But for her the cost, weighed in time, money and unwanted drama, isn't worth it.

She said that she and her friends stay planted in Manhattan, enjoying the rooftop terrace of her building in Battery Park City, going to nightclubs and frequenting outdoor bars. And if they do need to get out of the city, it is most certainly not via bus or train. They fly to Los Angeles or Miami for the weekend. ''If someone is like, 'I'm going to the Hamptons for the weekend,' '' she said, ''I'm like, 'You are so generic.' ''

A withering insult, to be sure, but nothing quite as blunt as the ''To Hell With the Hamptons'' party Melissa McCaig-Welles threw last year and again this year in June at her art gallery in Williamsburg.

''None of my friends are into the idea of the weekend thing anymore,'' said Ms. McCaig-Welles, who had a summer share with about 15 people two years ago on Fire Island. ''It was a stressful thing getting out there on a regular basis, and once you pay for it, then you feel obligated to be there.''

Instead, she keeps the gallery open all summer and is host to exhibitions that open twice monthly. ''Our summer months are some of our best months,'' she said. ''All of the other galleries are closed, and people are looking for something to do.''

But it isn't just that young people have changed. The Hamptons and Fire Island have changed, too.

''The only time you see these kids now is when they are visiting their parents,'' said Michele Wilkinson, who grew up in Quogue, N.Y., just west of the Hamptons, and has been a real estate agent there for 20 years.

For many young people, already strapped by paying rent in New York City, there isn't much money left over for a summer share, and since several popular beach towns, like Southampton and Long Beach, have cracked down on communal rentals in the last few years, there is a feeling that their money isn't wanted anyway.

''The 25-year-olds who live in New York City are using all the money to pay their rent, never mind get their hair done,'' said Grace Corradino, an owner and broker with Fire Island Living Real Estate. ''I don't think there is a lot of money left at the end of the day to even think about a share.''

''A group of 20 young people in a rental house now?'' Ms. Corradino continued. ''I can tell you it isn't going to be a great house. Most of our owners don't want it.'' Many of the owners, she said, are fixing up the houses and renting them out to couples or smaller groups for a week or two at a time or keeping the homes for themselves.

Joan Woletsky of Fire Island Sales and Rentals in Ocean Beach said that ''a lot of the group houses have sold to families.''

''Over the last four or five years,'' she said, ''as prices of houses have gone up, people have bought in to fix up the house for themselves. If you bought it and rented it as a share, you can't cover your mortgage.''

She said that the rental market is still strong, but that each season has brought more requests for short-term weekly rentals (ranging from $3,000 to $10,000) rather than for the entire summer season (from $15,000 to $75,000).

Her firm handles rentals in Seaview, which she called a family community, and Corneille Estates, which, she said, used to be a big share area but has more families now. ''In Ocean Bay Park, there are some streets that are still share houses,'' she said, ''but many families have bought there.''

MANY communities and the families that live in them don't want the shares. Politicized crackdowns on communal living and the revival of long-dormant town ordinances have resulted in curbing the party atmosphere in many areas.

''In the 70's and 80's there was a lot more rental activity than there is now, especially problem rentals,'' said Donald Kauth, a code enforcement officer in Southampton. ''It was a free-for-all then, and through the 90's it toned down a lot due to ordinances that the town has enforced.''

Even Long Beach, in Nassau County, where summer shares peaked in the 90's, has put teeth in ordinances that curtail rowdy shares. Neil Sterrer, the owner of Sterrer Realty, in the west end of Long Beach, said that the town began enforcing its ordinance about six years ago -- that no more than two unrelated people can rent together -- which contributed to the summer rental market's dropping by about 80 percent.

Back in the 70's and 80's, it was virtually expected that a young person would want a summer share. ''It was what you did,'' said Dr. Scott Sokol, a pediatrician in Hicksville, N.Y., who spent time in shares on Fire Island, the Hamptons and even the Berkshires in the early 80's.

An article in The New York Times in April 1981 looked at a ''grouper'' party, in which people answered a classified ad inviting ''Friendly, attractive, intelligent, professional people, men 28-40, women 26-35,'' to come to a party and vie for acceptance in a summer house. ''It was absolutely a rush party,'' said Dr. Sokol, who attended that event. ''I was in a college fraternity, and it was just like that. You had to have the right look, the right feel to be accepted.''

By comparison, a notice recently went out inviting sexy people between 21 and 30 who work hard and like to unwind on the weekends to join a house share on Fire Island. But it wasn't a pick-your-share-mate-party. It was a casting call. ''One Ocean View,'' an ABC reality show about a summer share, has been taping episodes, and will have its premiere later this month. ''Are you looking to spend your weekends vacationing on the beach?'' the casting notice asked. ''Would you like us to pick up the tab?''

Still, even though that ''reality'' house is, in reality, fiction, the summer share isn't exactly dead. A search on the user-posted photo Web site flickr.com revealed groups of 20-somethings lifting cocktails this summer at clubs in the Hamptons. But it certainly takes a lot more money, planning and foresight to find a legal, hospitable share. It isn't something you fall into because everyone's doing it.

There was a time when a share was about freedom, particularly for city kids who might not have lived in a college dorm or been apart from their families. Or so recalled Stephanie Wortman, who is now a travel agent in California but who 20 years ago was a teacher in Brooklyn when she attended the grouper party mentioned in The Times.

In a summer share, ''you have a place to stay,'' she said. ''There are no hours to keep. You can get up when you want, go to bed when you want. The ocean is right there. It really is beautiful.''

But today, she said, young people check their computers and can find a hot deal for $300 or $400 in a place that has nothing to do with the Hamptons. ''That may be what it costs to be in the Hamptons for the weekend,'' she said, and ''for that price they could be somewhere much more exotic.''

Or even not so exotic. ''Who has the money for a share?'' Nicole Griffis, 29, a nurse and graduate student, asked while sipping a pina colada last Saturday at Water Taxi Beach, an enclosed sandy area with a burger stand, bar and a D.J. that is open to the public and is run by New York Water Taxi. It is on the East River near the ferry stop in Hunters Point, Queens.

Her husband, Ted, 26, a film and television editor, who was sitting across from Ms. Griffis at a table, said that it was good to be at a beach and sit on the sand ''without having to get on a train to get here.''

The two had walked from their home in Astoria and were lounging on a picnic table with the skyline of Manhattan behind them.

Mr. Griffis said that even if he had the money for a share (which he doesn't) and had weekends off (which is often not the case), he wouldn't pick the Hamptons as a destination. ''The Hamptons isn't a place where you can have what I would consider an adventure,'' he said. ''I'd rather rent a car and go to Maine, or just go driving. Do different things.''

Nearby, Allison Niedermeier, 23, and her friends expressed similar sentiments as they lounged in bikinis and swim trunks on a beach blanket on the sand. They had come from Manhattan for an afternoon in the sun. ''Why are we at Water Taxi Beach rather than the Hamptons?'' Ms. Niedermeier, an actress, said, looking over the top of her large, round sunglasses. ''Give me a break.''

She gestured widely to people playing beach volleyball, burgers being grilled, a D.J. who was playing music. ''We've got the sand,'' she said. ''We've got music. We've got the skyline. Then at 3 o'clock they said they were having $2 beers, and we loved it even more.''


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

June 22, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

THE average wedding this year will cost more than $25,000, and most couples will pay for it themselves, so they can hardly be faulted for wanting it the way they want it.

Even if it means that friends who wish to remain friends must haul their freckled skin to Cancun for three days or use an entire vacation to fly to South Africa for the nuptials. And if the invitation is to a much simpler event like a Saturday ceremony an hour's drive away? Opening the envelope can still feel like playing roulette with your leisure time.

But before despairing at the sight of the invitation, it's a good idea to check the date. The wedding may actually be on a Friday.

The end-of-week wedding, once only done as a ''Friday Night Special'' by those looking for deep discounts on the food, the flowers and everything else, is stepping up to a respectable prime time slot as a first choice of many brides and bridegrooms.

''It sets the tone that your wedding is about the party,'' said Carley Roney, the editor in chief of The Knot, a magazine and wedding-resource Web site. ''You could have even more cost savings on a Sunday afternoon, but that doesn't say 'We're cool.' ''

Ms. Roney and other wedding experts said Friday weddings can be more attractive to couples than a traditional Saturday soiree or a perfunctory Sunday afternoon event because they can have the sophisticated feel of a cocktail party. And a Friday event not only saves a little on the cost and reduces competition for caterers and photographers, but it can also be unexpected.

It may be a little too unexpected for some guests, who consider taking a Friday off from work to attend a wedding an imposition. But many brides are finding that their guests are happier to cut into work time than personal time.

''I just went to a Friday wedding this last week, and it really did open up my weekend,'' said Alexis Bettis, 24, a law student in Chicago. ''I could recover all day Saturday. Then I still had my Sunday, which felt like my day.''

She is something of an expert guest this summer, with seven weddings between May and September. Of those, two are on Fridays. Which is good because she can take only so many Fridays off in a summer.

''If everyone had a Friday wedding, I couldn't do it,'' she said.

Alan and Denise Fields, the authors of ''Bridal Bargains: Secrets to Throwing a Fantastic Wedding on a Realistic Budget'' (Windsor Peak Press, 2002), said that they have seen an increase in Friday weddings. They estimate that in most areas couples can shave 15 to 20 percent off the cost of a Saturday-night wedding by choosing Friday.

''It extends your options to move into Friday night,'' Mrs. Fields said. ''When people want to get married in the popular months and they can't get the site they want or the caterer they want, they will go for a Friday to get them.''

There are no social taboos about a Friday wedding, said Elizabeth Upham Howell, a spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute, the etiquette specialists. ''People have weddings over Fourth of July weekend, Labor Day, New Year's Eve,'' she said. ''There is no reason why a Friday-night wedding would be any less appropriate.''

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about a Friday wedding, she said. It is very important to send a save-the-date card if many of those on the guest list will be traveling because it will involve a weeknight and a day off from work. Also, Ms. Howell said, ''If you're having a Friday-night cocktail event, it makes it clear it is for adults and not children.''

Like most modern brides, Paulette Brown knew she wanted her wedding to be different and special.

''I loved the idea of having a wedding on Friday instead of Saturday,'' said Ms. Brown, a controller at a private equity firm in Washington who plans to marry on Friday, Aug. 18, in Upper Marlboro, Md. ''It sounds posh, like an elegant party.''

And, she's quick to add, the cost was reasonable.

Last summer she rented a historic house, Mount Airy Mansion, for her wedding for $900. Its manager, Marsha Schlossberg, said that was a special deal to attract interest in Fridays, but that this summer they have dropped the special rate and even raised the regular price, to $2,000.

The interest is still strong, Ms. Schlossberg said: ''The difference between $2,000 on Friday and $3,200 on Saturday is still substantial.''

But because of the popularity of Fridays many of the top wedding sites in the New York region are discontinuing Friday discounts.

''Friday doesn't necessarily save them a whole lot of money anymore,'' said Andrea Most Gottschall, a wedding planner and an owner of A Most Creative Affair, wedding coordinators. ''Why give a discount if you can sell the space anyway? If you are looking to save a lot of money, go with a Thursday-night wedding.''

But the Friday wedding is not accepted everywhere.

In places like Crete, Neb., where a college graduation and a job start still commonly bookend a summer marriage, the wedding is invariably on Saturday. And so Friday weddings take some explaining. At least that is what Amanda Bennett and Griffin Lothrop found.

When Ms. Bennett and Mr. Lothrop learned that their jobs as actuaries for Deloitte Consulting would start in July, rather than in the fall, they had only eight months to move up their wedding, which was scheduled for a Saturday in August.

By then, all things Saturday, ''venues, music, food, you name it, was booked,'' Ms. Bennett said.

So they chose a Friday as a day of last resort.

''We're getting a kind of weird reaction from it,'' Ms. Bennett said. ''Some of our friends were like, how do we get off work?''

Other couples, though, are embracing the creativity that can come with being married on a Friday night.

''It was 'My Big Fat Caribbean Family Wedding,' '' Janelle Wood-Small said of her Friday-evening ceremony last March.

She and her fiance, Mark Small, had eloped in March 2004, after he was called up for service in Iraq as a medic. With Mr. Small safely home again, they called in friends and family from England and the Caribbean to witness their affirmation of vows.

''It was perfect for them to come on a Friday,'' she said. ''They had the whole weekend to explore New York.''

Meanwhile, since Mrs. Wood-Small had to be back at her job at an after-school program in Brooklyn on Monday, the couple had the weekend for a short honeymoon in Manhattan.

Perhaps, though, the biggest reason for the burgeoning Friday wedding is the need for another tactic to manage overscheduled lives. ''We're all booked,'' said Sherri Williams, a wedding planner and an owner of Williams-Sossen Events, who splits her time between New York and Philadelphia. ''This lifestyle begs for the Friday-night wedding, when it gives people their weekend back.''

And when it lands in summer? It's another excuse to ditch work on a Friday for a getaway.

''I won't be here on Friday,'' a publicist said last week. ''I'm going to a wedding.''


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

June 8, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

TAYLOR AIKIN'S new job is across the street from his current one, but he loves to tell people he'll be taking the long way getting there.

Next Wednesday, on his last day as a senior designer at a Manhattan architecture firm, he will roll out of work early on his 2006 Ducati Monster S2R 1000 motorcycle and not stop until he reaches the Virginia state line. Before starting his new position three and a half weeks later, he'll cruise through the South, head to the Rocky Mountains and return across the Great Plains.

Mr. Aikin, 28, who has been with his firm for three years, said this is the first time he is taking a real vacation.

''Talking to the guys who take care of my bike,'' Mr. Aikin said, ''they're jealous, because you can really only do this when you quit your job.''

Many young people in the workplace are finding that quitting their job is becoming the satisfying new alternative to the standard, entry-level benefit for vacation. As they found out, the two weeks allowed to most young employees is barely enough time to visit their parents for Christmas, go to a friend's wedding and take a long weekend.

''Normal life,'' Mr. Aikin said, ''maintaining relationships with people who don't live nearby, requires at least two weeks of your life a year.''

For others like him, the solution is simple: Stop jockeying with senior employees for the prime vacation weeks. Quit and start again -- but first, get away.

''The transition between jobs is just about me,'' Mr. Aikin said. ''It is a trip that I've wanted to do, not something that is going to benefit a bunch of people.''

Generations before them, studies have shown, valued tenure and career advancement. But this group sees the chutes in the world as interesting as the ladders.

There are no recent studies of the employment patterns of Generations X and Y by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it reports that even those born at the tail end of the baby boom held an average of 10.2 jobs between age 18 and 38, from 1978 to 2002. A 2004 study by the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research group, polled Generation Y employees and found they were significantly more likely to leave their job than employees who were their comparable ages in 1977 -- 70 percent, compared with 52 percent.

Some use quitting as an opportunity for a good, long visit back home, or to spend time with a dying grandparent. Others want the time to embark on real vacations or adventures.

And what's wrong with taking all that ambition and putting it into a bus trip through India? A climb up Kilimanjaro? A month studying Russian in Moscow?

The trend, career experts said, is an outgrowth of today's nomadic job culture, as well as an attitude among many young people open to adventure and big experiences -- and, yes, a bit of indulgence.

Why not walk away when you are young, energetic and have the opportunity to camp at the Grand Canyon? Or to visit all the national parks?

That was Jesse Keller's big ambition.

After 10 years as a software engineer for a company in San Diego, Mr. Keller, 32, was ready for a break. He rarely used all of his vacation days. But last year he quit to pursue his goal: to visit all 58 national parks.

On the phone from Montana after crossing off Grand Teton National Park (No. 38), he said there is more than whim behind his expedition.

''As the retirement age pushes farther back and the finances for that time of life are less and less certain, it was almost unconscionable to not take advantage of the opportunity to travel now when I had the money and the health,'' he said.

He is not afraid of finding another job -- believing his skills are in demand -- and he is not tied down to any location. What worries him more is keeping from burning out again.

''The trick is finding a job that has the balance built in so that I don't have to go off on a grand adventure to recover from work,'' he said.

There are some risks to dropping out, career counselors said.

''Gaps in the resume are still a red flag,'' said Carol R. Anderson, director of career development and placement at Milano the New School for Management and Urban Policy. But for those who are not following rigid career paths, ''the cross-cultural competency that is best gained from living in a different country,'' for instance, can be a resume builder, she said.

Employers are more or less at the mercy of those alternative ambitions.

''Gen-X'ers have demographics working for them: there aren't a lot of them,'' said Judith Gerberg, who has run her own career counseling company in Manhattan since 1985. That's particularly true as baby boomers begin to retire.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gerberg said, young people ''are used to creating wonderful opportunities for themselves.''

A study done by the Society for Human Resource Management found that when human resource professionals were asked to select character traits from a list to describe age groups, baby boomers were characterized as ''results driven,'' and ''plan to stay with the organization over the long term.'' Generation X, though, was described as ''like informality,'' and ''seeking work/life balance.''

So younger professionals, unlike older workers, are more willing to chuck it all away whenever things get to be too much, optimistic that they'll be able to start over.

Valerie Karasz, 33, had been working as a bankruptcy lawyer in New York for three years when she quit last November. After spending a leisurely holiday with family in Washington and Florida, she went to a wedding in New Zealand, then spent four months traveling in Australia, Southeast Asia and central Europe.

She started a new job at a law firm doing compliance work in the alcoholic beverage industry last Monday.

''I'm excited to go back to work and start in this new industry,'' she said. ''I feel cleansed.''

And maybe that's what the younger generation gets that their parents didn't: There's always another job. Having grown up in an era of relative prosperity and upward mobility, it's easy to come to that conclusion.

''Less employer loyalty is a product of this age group -- watching their parents' lives turned upside down by layoffs, downsizings, plant closings,'' Ms. Anderson of the New School said. ''The children of these parents understand that the 'employment contract' that existed only from the end of World War II has been broken.''

So quitting is not such a big deal, as surveys show. While overall worker loyalty has improved slightly in recent years, young people are still highly mobile. According to a 2005 survey by Walker Information, which conducts research on customer and employee loyalty, 50 percent of employees 18 to 24, and 39 percent of employees 25 to 29, reported having a neutral or negative attitude about the employer and did not plan to stay. The study terms this group ''high risk.''

''The younger group weren't always negative about the company, they may be neutral, but it was clear that they didn't plan to stay for the next two years,'' said Chris Woolard a research consultant at Walker. ''They weren't all that attached to the company and they don't really plan to stick around.''

Kimberly Thrush, 35, never thought she was the type to quit and run. But when it all got to be too constricting, she left her job in Japan as a vice president at a large American bank, after working in banking for 13 years, and headed home.

''I am the type of person who would never think of quitting a job without having one to go to,'' she said, expressing misgivings about finding her next job. In the meantime, she has ambitious plans. ''I'm going to look for travel specials and go somewhere different,'' she said. ''Maybe Africa.''

J. R. Briggs and his wife, Megan, had six weeks off between jobs. Mr. Briggs, 27, a nondenominational evangelical pastor and Mrs. Briggs, 26, a ministry coordinator and a counselor, recently left their posts at a 5,000-member church in Colorado Springs. Both have jobs at a church in suburban Philadelphia. But before they started last week, they visited family members in Chicago and Ann Arbor, Mich., and also spent 10 days in Costa Rica.

''To be unemployed for six weeks is a healthy thing to help you say 'I am not defined by what I do,' '' he said. ''It helps to understand who I am, who my wife is, and that our identity is more important than anything we do.''

Todd Harvey, 32, found it almost impossible to take vacation time from his job caring for the homeless as director of housing development at a faith-based nonprofit in Berkeley, Calif. He finally quit last July and traveled the country until he stumbled upon the Appalachian Trail and started walking all 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine with his dog, Soren Kierkegaard.

By renting out a duplex he owns in California, he is able to finance his backpacking adventure until he needs to report for graduate school in San Francisco on Aug. 28.

Others sock away money for months or give up expensive apartments so they can, at least temporarily, leave their paycheck behind.

In the end, timing is everything.

''Why now when I'm 28?'' said Mr. Aikin, the architect, about his coming motorcycle trip. ''Retirement is too far away. And I was too broke in college.''


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

May 25, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY


ON the first day of his internship last year, Andrew McDonald created a Web site for himself. It never occurred to him that his bosses might not like his naming it after the company and writing in it about what went on in their office.

For Mr. McDonald, the Web log he created, ''I'm a Comedy Central Intern,'' was merely a way to keep his friends apprised of his activities and to practice his humor writing. For Comedy Central, it was a corporate no-no -- especially after it was mentioned on Gawker.com, the gossip Web site, attracting thousands of new readers.

''Not even a newborn puppy on a pink cloud is as cute as a secret work blog!'' chirped Gawker, giddily providing the link to its audience.

But Comedy Central disagreed, asking him to change the name (He did, to ''I'm an Intern in New York'') and to stop revealing how its brand of comedic sausage is stuffed.

''They said they figured something like this would happen eventually because blogs had become so popular,'' said Mr. McDonald, now 23, who kept his internship. ''It caught them off guard. They didn't really like that.''

This is the time of year when thousands of interns and new employees pour into the workplace from college campuses, many bringing with them an innocence and nonchalance about workplace rules and corporate culture.

Most experienced employees know: Thou Shalt Not Blab About the Company's Internal Business. But the line between what is public and what is private is increasingly fuzzy for young people comfortable with broadcasting nearly every aspect of their lives on the Web, posting pictures of their grandmother at graduation next to one of them eating whipped cream off a woman's belly. For them, shifting from a like-minded audience of peers to an intergenerational, hierarchical workplace can be jarring.

Companies are beginning to recognize the schism and, prodded by their legal and public relations departments, are starting to adopt policies that address it.

''It is important that corporations make a choice as to what type of blogging they will allow,'' said Alfred C. Frawley III, director of the intellectual property practice group at the law firm Preti Flaherty in Portland, Me.

While there are differences in laws among jurisdictions, from a legal perspective, he said, it is generally accepted that companies have the right to impose controls on their employees' use of computers and other equipment used for communication.

As for content -- information generated within a company -- the law also allows employers to set limits, even on airing the company laundry outside the office, he said. Private employees do not receive the protection of the First Amendment because there is no government action involved, he said.

''If an employee deviates from the policy, it may be grounds for termination,'' Mr. Frawley said.

Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, now has an explicit policy. In a section on confidentiality, it states that the employee is ''discouraged from publicly discussing work-related matters, whether constituting confidential information or not, outside of appropriate work channels, including online in chat rooms or 'blogs.' ''

The problem for the employers is that, in a few highly publicized cases, public airing of workplace shenanigans has proved to be lucrative -- and young people entering the workplace know it.

''The Devil Wears Prada,'' Lauren Weisberger's veiled account of her time working as an assistant to Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, ushered in the modern ''underling-tell-all'' genre, abetted by other revenge-of-the-employee tales like ''The Nanny Diaries,'' by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Both became best sellers that will be showing up on movie screens, with ''Devil'' opening next month.

Busted bloggers like Jessica Cutler (a former Capitol Hill intern whose blog, Washingtonienne, is now a novel), Nadine Haobsh (a former beauty editor whose blog Jolie in NYC earned her a two-book deal) and Jeremy Blachman (a lawyer whose blog Anonymous Lawyer is being released as ''Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel'' this summer) were all interns, entry-level employees and worker bees who traded up on in-the-trade secrets.

The generation entering the work world has noticed.

''Everybody I've read about that got fired for having a blog is on to such great things,'' said Kelly Kreth, 36, who was fired from her job as the marketing and public relations director at a real estate firm in Manhattan last fall for blogging about her co-workers.

''I've had my online diary for six years, and it is very important to me,'' Ms. Kreth said, calling the firing the best thing that happened to her. ''It led to me opening my own business and making triple what I was making before.''

Corporations have been slower to get the message.

''The vast majority of organizations don't have policies in place,'' said Jennifer Schramm, a workplace trends and forecasting manager at the Society for Human Resource Management in Washington.

The group found last year that only 8 percent of the 404 human resource professionals it polled had blogging policies, while 85 percent did not. (The other 7 percent did not know.)

Ms. Schramm said that is just as bad for the employee as for the employer. ''Right now it is tough for individuals to know what is happening because so few organizations have a clear policy about employee blogging,'' she said.

Of course, as long as there have been managers and underlings, there have been disgruntled workers gabbing around the water cooler or over drinks at happy hour. E-mail and instant messages are merely a quicker way to say, ''You wouldn't believe what a jerk my boss is.''

Blogging takes the grumbling to another level, but one that makes sense when considering how much of it is going on out there. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 11 million people have created blogs at one time or another.

A blog and a job don't necessarily have to clash, some bloggers say.

Alexx Shannon's celebrity blog, www.britboyla.com, came up during his interviews for his internship at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles this spring because he lists it on his resume.

Mr. Shannon, 21, who is British and is spending a year at the University of California, Los Angeles, before finishing his studies at Kings College, London, said he signed an employee confidentiality agreement with both Paramount and Beacon Pictures, where he is now an intern. Beacon made clear that his blog, while about celebrities, would not include information he picked up at work.

''I suppose they did take kind of a risk,'' said Mr. Shannon, who confessed he sometimes had to sit on some truly juicy bits of celebrity gossip that he encountered at work.

Neither Paramount nor Beacon returned calls for comment.

''I just knew that I didn't want to jeopardize anything for my career,'' Mr. Shannon said. ''My real life is more important to me than my online life.'' But other young employees don't see it that way.

Ms. Schramm of the human resources group said young people do not see their job as their identity. Dennis Kennedy, a lawyer and legal technology consultant with his own firm in St. Louis, said that attitude makes them more willing to take chances.

''It's like, 'This is who I am,' '' he said. '' 'Consequences are what they are. I'll go work for someone who doesn't have a problem with it.' ''

But that's not as easy in fields with only a handful of jobs, as Jessa Jeffries Werner, a marine zoologist, found out.

This month, Ms. Werner, 25, who blogged under the name Jessaisms about jobs she held at Adventure Aquarium in Camden and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, was fired by the academy. Officials there also asked her to remove posts and pictures related to them from her site and her myspace.com page, and she did.

The confrontation was traumatic, Ms. Werner recounted, not always with perfect spelling or grammar, on another Web site: ''I was still sobbing kind of quietly but I didn't want them to think that I was ashamed of what I had written. My parents read my blog. My old college friends keep up with my life through my blog. I took my badge off and looked at the mean HR lady who was smiling smuggly at me. She told me perhaps next time I would be more wise in my lifestyle and decision making choices regaurding work.''

In an interview, she said she regretted crossing the line: ''I came to the realization that I probably shouldn't have been blogging about work.''

But it is the success stories that can embolden a determined blogger. Ms. Kreth was able to create her own public relations business out of the fallout. Because of his blog, Mr. Shannon was asked to be on a television pilot. For Mr. McDonald, the Comedy Central intern, it was the call of literary agents.

Now back in Kenosha, Wis., where he is finishing up his degree in English at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, Mr. McDonald is hard at work on a book -- a novel about a guy from Wisconsin who gets a job in New York.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

May 18, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

LINDSAY LOHAN is the Albert Pujols of her game: consistent, versatile and kicking the Manolos off the competition.

A certain crowd is as rapt when Ms. Lohan, out to promote one of her movies or just on the town, strikes a pose as Cardinals fans are when Mr. Pujols, the first baseman for the St. Louis team, smashes one out of the park. This set tracks each flutter, smile and flip of her hair. Not just because its members are entertained, but because they have something riding on it: their own score in a fantasy celebrity league.

''The female celebrities are photographed more, like Paris and Lindsay,'' explained Antonella Cahill, who used both women on a core roster of stars, part of a strategy that made her the winner of the inaugural season of the Fantasy Celeb League, which ended last Friday. ''They are always in the magazines.''

Like those who play in fantasy football or baseball leagues, participants in the celebrity league, a Web-based strategy game, select major leaguers as their game currency. Only in this case they are major league pop stars and actors: four female stars, four male stars, one celebrity couple and one television show. Rather than posting statistics for stolen bases or yards rushing, players accumulate points when their celebrities appear on the cover of W or on Oprah's sofa.

If the star's public presence wanes? The player can relegate Eva or Jennifer back to the V.I.P. bench.

This game, and sister leagues for fashion and country music, are among the newest in alternative fantasy games, which are attracting a different crowd from the 15 million people who join fantasy sports leagues.

For people who see the Academy Awards as their Super Bowl, these games are a way to finally put that accumulation of heretofore useless knowledge -- and the passion behind it -- to use.

A new season of the Fantasy Celeb League begins on Monday, as well as the debut of the Fantasy Country Music League. Fantasy Fashion League, in which players select a roster of designers and celebrities, is in the midst of a 12-week miniseason to keep in shape for the Emmys to Oscars run, which starts in August. All three fantasy leagues were created by a former teacher and magazine editor who lives in New Jersey and can be found at www.fantasycelebleague.com.

In a culture in which marriages, breakups and even the birthing methods of movie stars and singers dominate newsstands and television programs, who is surprised that the stars -- and their coverage -- are being turned into currency?

Dr. P. David Marshall, chairman of the communications studies department at Northeastern University, said these days people are not content to be passive observers.

''This generation isn't going to sit back and enjoy their People magazine,'' said Dr. Marshall, author of ''Celebrity and Power: Fame and Contemporary Culture.'' ''They are going to engage in these celebrities in a user-invested way, rather than just as an audience.''

In other words, if I can't be them, at least I can play them.

Those who do play say the game provides a distraction from daily life.

''This is mine,'' said Ms. Cahill, 39, calling it a welcome break from her job as a secretary to a judge in Philadelphia as well as the active lives of her two daughters and mundane chores like bills and laundry. ''I get such a thrill out of the competition.''

Erica Salmon, who thought up and runs the game, got the idea watching her husband obsess over fantasy football.

Today Mrs. Salmon, 31, has three employees who monitor media outlets and keep score, and Web developers who manage the sites for her celebrity, fashion and country music games. She charges fees to participants -- the Fantasy Celeb League is $10 for 10 weeks, but the fashion league fee will be $20 for the 27- to 28-week season -- though she said she's not making any money yet.

But, she said, 88 percent of the 7,500 participants log in daily to play a game that is a combination of celebrity know-how and math.

Players go to the Web site and select a roster from a list of more than 200 celebrities. A typical lineup consists of Ms. Lohan, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Eva Longoria; Jake Gyllenhaal, George Clooney, Denzel Washington and Josh Lucas; Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes; and ''Desperate Housewives.''

Points are awarded for how many times the celebrities appear daily in various media outlets, including certain Web sites (People.com and Instyle.com), on talk shows (''The View'' and ''The Tonight Show With Jay Leno''), in weekly magazines (Us Weekly and Entertainment Weekly) and monthly magazines (W, Vanity Fair or Latina).

Unlike fantasy sports, the celebrity leagues do not have a salary cap or trade deadlines -- there are no trades. But players can drop and add celebrities at any point. And there's no restriction on how many teams can have Mr. Cruise and Ms. Holmes, for instance, on their rosters.

That makes the game more about strategy and knowledge -- who to pick up and drop from the team, based on the news of the day and red-carpet events rather than any long-term team loyalty.

''The monthlies are very big points. You can catch up very quickly with just a couple covers,'' said Ms. Cahill as she prepared for her Friday evening ritual of spreading out her weekly magazines and tallying her points.

During the final week of the season, Ms. Cahill gained points for picking up Tori Spelling, who had managed to creep back into the magazines because of a new marriage.

She dropped Ms. Lohan to add Denise Richards for a few days, a good move given Ms. Richards's custody battle with her husband, Charlie Sheen, and her public canoodle with the guitarist Richie Sambora.

She picked up Mr. Lucas because his movie, ''Poseidon,'' was opening, and tried the couple nicknamed Brangelina in the starting lineup for two days before going back to the pairing nicknamed TomKat as the celebrity couple.

Then, on Tuesday, a windfall.

''At 11 at night, I saw that there was breaking news,'' Ms. Cahill said. ''Britney Spears says she is going to have another baby. I knew that was going to be all over, so I rushed to get her on my card.''

Sean Corcoran and Katrina Olivares, who live in Washington and are engaged to be married, play the game, but separately.

''People pretty much go with the most popular ones,'' said Mr. Corcoran, who keeps his roster of stars so close to the vest that even Ms. Olivares doesn't know who is on his team. ''Lindsay, Paris, Jessica Simpson, Britney.''

''Britney?'' Ms. Olivares exclaimed. ''You have Britney?''

''As far as the celebrity couple,'' he said, changing the subject, ''everyone has TomKat right now. With the baby and his movie.''

''I'd keep TomKat until Brangelina has its baby,'' Ms. Olivares said.

The game, she said, was a welcome contrast from what she called the drab lifestyle of Washington.

''Us Weekly comes out on Friday,'' Mr. Corcoran said. ''You need something to do during the six days in between.''


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

April 20, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

AT 23, Jason McGuinness lives a postcollege life in Manhattan that is very nearly typical. He works as a media research analyst, making about $30,000 a year. Sharing a two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a walk-up building with a roommate on the Upper East Side, his portion of the rent is $1,100 monthly.

The walls are decorated with pennants and posters from Syracuse University, his alma mater. He orders takeout dinners, carries peanut-butter sandwiches to work and occasionally takes in a Mets game with friends.

And like many of his peers -- educated, employed, urban-dwelling young adults -- he receives monthly assistance from his parents, in the form of a $300 check and the payment of his cellphone bill.

This is not the largesse of wealthy families doled out through trust funds. Nor is the money a couple of $20 bills tucked into a card at the holidays. Mr. McGuinness and others like him are the beneficiaries of an increasingly common subsidy arriving regularly from Mom and Dad, something like a family fellowship.

It helps to pay for housing, bills and travel expenses, and the support has been increasing for the past two decades as education is extended, marriage is delayed and young people take the scenic route from adolescence to adulthood.

''Everybody I know is supporting their children in some way,'' said Gail Horowitz, Mr. McGuinness's mother, a vice president of the Zlokower Company, a public relations firm in Manhattan. Unlike young adults who ''boomerang'' back home to live with their parents -- the subject of the recent comedy ''Failure to Launch'' -- these young people live independently. But they need help to make ends meet, or put another way, to maintain a middle-class way of life.

The bottom line is that the assumption that financial obligations to children ended after graduation from high school or college is going the way of the pay phone. Today, parents are finding that they are on the hook for more, sometimes much more -- contributions of thousands of dollars a year to help young men and women get on their feet economically, often into their 30's.

The economic dilemmas facing young adults were chronicled in two recent books: ''Generation Debt'' by Anya Kamenetz and ''Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead,'' by Tamara Draut. Both explore how paychecks have stalled, housing costs have risen, education costs have skyrocketed and credit has become so available as to be dangerous.

Ms. Draut, the director of the economic opportunity program at Demos, a New York think tank, said students now leave college with an average of $20,000 in loans, which ''added to these flat-lined paychecks and high costs of living, tips people over the edge.''

While economic stresses may be exacerbated in cities like New York, people in other areas of the country are feeling the pressures as well. Nationally, 34 percent of those between 18 and 34 receive cash from their parents annually, according to a study by the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan published in ''On the Frontier of Adulthood'' in 2005. Cash is only part of the picture; parents also make generous presents of clothes, cars and help with down payments.

''We have not seen any signs of it decreasing,'' said Bob Schoeni, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, who is an author of the study. ''Certainly over the last couple of decades it has been increasing.''

Middle-income parents earning less than $72,600 a year can expect to spend $190,980 on a child through age 17, according to 2005 government statistics. But Dr. Schoeni said that parents can plan on paying almost 25 percent of that amount again over the next 17 years, or $42,280 in 2005 dollars. This sum includes higher education but also much more.

Parents pay $2,323 a year to help support children 25 and 26 years old, said Dr. Schoeni, and $1,556 annually for offspring 33 and 34. (All amounts are in 2001 dollars and reflect support to children living both independently and at home.)

Nearly half of children between 18 and 34 also receive aid in the form of their parents' time -- driving them home to the city after a visit, doing laundry, taking care of grandchildren -- that has financial value. Time assistance from parents averages about 367 hours a year, or nine weeks of full-time work.

Although some may argue that the willingness of parents to subsidize adult children is prolonging their coming of age, Dr. Schoeni said his study suggests that extended education, the exploration of career options and delayed marriage are the causes of the long transition to self-sufficiency. Parental support ''is not the driver of a delayed transition, it is a response to it,'' he said.

Other experts say that young adults with material support from families make a smoother transition into adulthood than those struggling entirely on their own.

''It may mean that they don't have to take the first job available,'' said Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a developmental psychologist and the author of ''Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties.''

Parental support allows adult children to explore careers with low earning potential, to make career shifts or to maintain a quality of life.

''So many of the things that I'm able to focus on now are great career-wise, but they are not monetarily rewarding,'' said Daisy Press, a singer who performs classical and avant-garde music. At 27, Ms. Press has just completed eight years of college, four at Sarah Lawrence and four more at the Manhattan School of Music. ''I wouldn't be able to do this without them,'' she said.

That would be her parents, Reinhold and Linda Press, who are also musicians. As a bassist and singer, respectively, they have toured with Neil Diamond for the past 30 years. In addition to paying for her education, they bought her a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side and are supplementing the income she receives from teaching music history part time.

Mr. and Mrs. Press said they believe their daughter's energy and thoughts should be on her education, and now that she is pursuing a music career they want her to have the best chance possible in an unforgiving field. ''What if she had to stop and spend her days at Starbucks?'' said Mr. Press, who lives with his wife in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Mrs. Press is careful to say the money is not endless; she is 57 and her husband is 68. ''It is the hard work and the passion that makes us want to help Daisy,'' she said. ''She's not a lazy slug with no direction. She keeps moving forward.''

Like other young people in her position, she has mixed feelings about accepting money from her parents. ''I think the down side, if I can even say there is a down side, is not necessarily feeling like an adult,'' Ms. Press said. ''There is a part of me that feels like I'm 19 or 20. I don't have the emotional experience of knowing what I cost and earning what I spend. I can only imagine what it may feel like.''

Alanna Lopez, 27, knows very well the value of money. After leaving college before graduating and returning to Manhattan to be with the man who is now her husband, Benjamin Lopez, she began working in hotel management. Then 14 months ago, she had a baby, Abigail.

''Customer service was draining,'' Mrs. Lopez said. ''I would be getting home very late. It was going to be 5, 6 or 10 more years until I had a major promotion.''

She decided to quit and study art history and education at Hunter College. But losing her income put the self-sufficiency she and her husband, a hospital receptionist, had achieved in peril. Her mother, Suzanne McGrattan, came to the rescue.

''She is paying for my education and a monthly stipend to cover my portion of the bills,'' Mrs. Lopez said. She'll also watch Abigail and she recently renovated the couple's kitchen and helped to furnish the apartment. ''I'm thrilled she's going back to school,'' Ms. McGrattan, a lawyer, said. ''She saw she didn't have a life. She wants to spend more time with the child.''

Dr. Arnett, the psychologist, said young people are ambivalent about receiving money because it represents parental power. Most young people, he said, are striving for independence, to feel they have reached adulthood.

''But they are also generally quite ambivalent about adulthood, in general,'' Dr. Arnett added. ''You feel grown up. You have more status, more position. But it is annoying, too. You have to pay your own bills, and take on all these responsibilities.''

While some parents earmark contributions for food and rent, others expect their children to take care of the basics while they pick up special expenses like a vacation.

''I'm enjoying watching them spend their inheritance,'' Judy Maysles, a real estate agent in Manhattan, said about the support she provides to two grown children, John, 30, who works with a hedge fund in New Jersey, and Celia, 27, a filmmaker. ''I'd rather spend it now and watch them and enjoy it with them. I think that a lot of my generation feel that way.''

She bought her daughter appliances for a house in Portland, Ore. Now the proceeds from selling that property are enabling Celia Maysles to make a documentary about her late father, the documentary filmmaker David Maysles.

Eventually, most children outgrow the need for a stipend. But the instinct of parents to give -- and of children to receive -- can linger on. When John Maysles got a dog four years ago, his mother told him he couldn't leave it alone all day.

''So I pay for doggy day care,'' she said. ''It is $16 a day. Probably he could afford it, but it has been on my credit card and I haven't changed it.''


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

March 23, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

ALMOST as soon as Michele Pusateri and her two daughters chose a black-and-white terrier at a humane society shelter near their home in South Pasadena, Calif., they were told they did not qualify to own the dog.

Mrs. Pusateri took her daughters, Mira and Zoe, back twice more and met with different adoption counselors. Each time she got a no. ''It was insane,'' Mrs. Pusateri said. ''Their concern was that I had never had a dog in my life and that I had a 6-year-old daughter.''

Her chances of pet ownership didn't improve when she turned to groups whose mission is to rescue abused and unwanted pets. She found herself explaining to her crying children that they couldn't adopt because the organizations suspected the family had a hole in the backyard fence or the yard was too small.

Ultimately Mrs. Pusateri went to the county animal shelter last May and found Piper, a mutt. She paid $80 for the dog to be spayed and picked her up two days later, to the girls' delight.

The process left Mrs. Pusateri thinking that animal adoption gatekeepers can be so concerned about their charges that they forget about the people in the equation. ''They make you jump though all these emotional hoops,'' she said. ''You feel so judged. You start wondering, Am I dog worthy?''

Even as adopting a stray dog or cat -- rather than buying one from a store or breeder -- has become politically fashionable, a badge of pride for some because of the millions of animals that are euthanized each year, the hurdles that some humane societies and rescue groups make potential owners leap -- including multipage applications, references, background checks, interviews and home visits -- can make the process feel nearly as daunting as adopting a child.

Animal adoption groups say they want to avoid giving pets to owners who will abuse them and, perhaps more important, to make sure an animal that has been given up once will find a permanent home. Yet would-be adopters who expect exacting standards from top breeders are surprised when shelters and rescue groups ask more from them than a pulse. Many families feel stung when they are denied and are left to ask: Is it better for the animal never to find a home than to live with us?

While some 8 million to 12 million dogs and cats end up in shelters in the United States each year, and 4 to 6 million are euthanized, those who place pets say that the high standards they demand of owners rarely leave animals without homes. Eventually almost everyone who wants an animal will get one, somewhere. So why put would-be adopters through a process that makes them feel inadequate, their privacy invaded?

''The home visit weirds out a lot of people,'' said Jill Blasdel-Cortus, the president of Dachshund Rescue of North America, a network of about 100 volunteers, who give temporary homes to daschshunds claimed from overcrowded shelters or families who surrender them because of a behavior problem or lifestyle change. The group places the dogs in permanent homes. ''We're not going to judge if you've dusted or if it's clean,'' Ms. Blasdel-Cortus said.

Nonetheless she defends the practice of requiring would-be adopters to fill out three-page applications that ask if the home is owned or rented, as well as open-ended questions like, ''If your dog bit a child at a backyard barbecue, what would you do?''

References are checked. The home is visited. Adopters must sign a contract specifying the care of the dog. In the last nine years the dachshund group has placed some 4,300 dogs, Ms. Blasdel-Cortus said, and she could recall only one family turned down after a home visit, because it lived in an upstairs apartment with rickety stairs and refused to carry the dog up and down.

''I am a dog advocate,'' Ms. Blasdel-Cortus said. ''I'm not a people advocate. If you don't want to fill out the form, go to your local shelter. Some people may find that uncooperative, but a rescued dog is not for everyone.''

Animal rescue groups, which seem demanding in approving new homes for their charges, are part of a ''very intense, very big and rapidly expanding movement,'' said Jon Katz, who has written about them in ''The New Work of Dogs'' (Villard, 2003).

He estimates the number of people involved in rescue (the overwhelming majority of them women) in the tens of thousands. An animal rescuer can be an established urban nonprofit shelter or a woman in Idaho with a Web site. Sometimes a rescuer travels hundreds of miles to meet another, who has traveled hundreds of miles with a pet, in a sort of underground railroad handoff.

Cocker Spaniel Rescue of New England will not place a dog with a family with children under 7, said Gerry Foss, its president. German Shepherd Rescue, in Burbank, Calif., receives six dogs a day from people who don't want them, said Grace Konosky, the founder, and she denies about 70 percent of the people who want to adopt them.

Janie Regnier filled out an application to adopt a dachshund through Dachshund Rescue. ''It was a surprisingly long application, but as an animal lover, I thought it was a good application,'' she said.

Ina Eaves, of the rescue group, visited Ms. Regnier's home in Fairfax, Va., this week. The prospect made Ms. Regnier nervous because she is a renter, not an owner. Ms. Eaves wanted a fence repaired, but by the time she left, Ms. Regnier felt they were friends, she said. She was approved.

For those denied a pet, the experience can be bewildering. Tamara Burke, who lives near Stowe, Vt., where she owns a consulting company and writes a column for The Stowe Reporter, has owned animals all her life. But when she and her husband decided to get a second golden retriever as a companion for their older retriever, Mercedes, a rescue group still wanted to visit her home.

''There is nothing about my house that says upper middle class,'' Mrs. Burke said of the century-old cottage that has been in her family for generations and where she raises sheep and chickens. ''It is a funky, cobbled-together little thing, but it has nothing to do with how much money I spend on my dogs or how much attention I give them.''

The rescue-group representative said, Mrs. Burke remembered, that while she and her husband were nice people, theirs was not a suitable home for the dog because they did not have a fenced-in yard. ''I own 150 acres,'' Mrs. Burke said. ''I'm looking at her saying: 'What am I going to do, fence in all 150 acres so I can have a dog? This is absurd.' ''

In response Mrs. Burke became involved with rescue organizations herself. And she found that lots of other people didn't ''qualify'' for a dog. In her experience home visits don't mean a lick.

''I cannot make a determination based on how a person lives,'' she said. ''I have friends who have trust funds, and they live without running water. They also happen to have dogs, and the dogs don't seem to mind.''

Mrs. Burke said that potential owners can feel bullied by the process, and the gatekeepers justify it because they are advocates for homeless animals. ''These are people who would bully in other aspects of their lives if they could, but this is a socially acceptable way to get away with it,'' she said. ''You're talking about individuals who develop this attitude because they know they have something that you desperately want. They are demanding an emotional response.''

Most rescue volunteers strive to balance what is best for the animal with what is best for a would-be adopter. But everyone defines a successful home differently, and there are no uniform requirements for owning a pet. Some publicly owned shelters also require home visits.

The Animal Care and Control Department in Palm Beach County, Fla., requires a home visit in the case of breeds that are top biters --like pit bulls, Rottweilers, German shepherds and Akitas -- to ensure the yard is fenced. Adoption can be denied if a family lives in an area where the department is regularly called to seize dogs, said Kelly Diegert, a department official.

In the view of some adoption specialists, elaborate vetting of clients and home visits are overkill. They are trying to lower the hurdles, though they don't envision letting people drop in and simply take home a dog with no questions asked. That would make them pet shops. ''We are interested in making adopting an animal less like applying to college,'' said Gail Buchwald, the vice president of shelter and adoption programs at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Manhattan, which places more than 2,000 dogs and cats each year. ''Most people who have been asked to go through a process like that tend to feel intruded upon.''

She said that her organization asks for an application form and makes contact with each member of the household to be sure they want to have a pet. They ask about landlords, but they do not make home visits. ''When pets are easy to come by,'' Ms. Buchwald said, ''it doesn't make sense to push adopters away to the point that they'll say: I don't need your college-application process. I'll go to the deli down the street and take that stray from the box.''

When Chris Coates, 23, and his partner Zach Denison, 24, adopted Buddy, a Labrador-pit bull mix, at the A.S.P.C.A. this week, Mr. Coates said the process was thorough but not invasive. He first visited last Friday, then took Mr. Denison on Sunday. They went back on Monday and played with six dogs before selecting Buddy, who had been at the center for two years and received a full-staff sendoff.

''As an animal rescuer, you want to have control,'' Ms. Buchwald said. ''You may have nursed the animal back from the streets or illness or injury. You want to know beyond any doubt what the home looks like. But this work involves trust and restraint. The best thing you can do is say, 'Go with my blessing,' and you clap when they find a home.''


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

March 9, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

SANDI LESTER went to a safety meeting last week at her daughter's elementary school in Irvine, Calif., because she was concerned. When she left, she was frightened.

The presentation, given by a police officer, was not about drug use or under-age drinking. It was about the latest parental fear: social networking Web sites.

Although parents have been cautioned about Internet safety for years, a wave of news reports suggesting that predators monitor chat rooms and Web sites like MySpace.com for potential victims has sparked a sharp rise in the number and intensity of parent meetings since January, Internet safety experts say.

Last week alone there were meetings at schools in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, California, New York, Georgia, Florida, Alaska, Kansas, Texas and Maine.

In such forums, which may be run by school administrators, police, F.B.I agents and even federal prosecutors, parents are advised to examine their children's Web pages and to talk to them about their Internet activity. They are counseled to become familiar with social networking sites -- MySpace.com, Livejournal.com, Xanga.com and others -- that encourage teenagers to post photographs, blog entries, music clips and otherwise share more personal information than earlier online communities like chat rooms.

The new wave of concern has led some parents to curtail their children's Internet use, and it has increased many young people's awareness of the potential for online stalking. But some Internet safety experts say that a fear of networking sites has grown disproportionately to actual demonstrated threats, and that there is an unjustified paranoia about the sites.

''Everyone is freaked,'' said Parry Aftab, the director of Wired Safety, a nonprofit group of volunteers who conduct safety meetings for parents. ''They are convinced the Internet Bogeyman is going to come into their window,'' she said. ''To date that has not happened.''

When parents return home with plans to visit their children's MySpace pages or to restrict Internet access, their fear is often met with adolescent exasperation.

To many teenagers, social networking sites are merely places to hang out, not unlike malls in the 1980's or malt shops in the 50's.

When Ms. Lester asked her 14-year-old son, Sam, about MySpace, he told her most teenagers know enough to limit personal information, just as they know not to accept a ride from a stranger.

''Parents are going to panic,'' Sam said. ''They are going to overreact.'' He said they went on ''wild rampages'' about online chat rooms two years ago, and now they are doing the same with MySpace.

''Suddenly somebody, some random person in Illinois or somewhere, gets kidnapped, and then it's a problem,'' Sam said.

MySpace, which was created in 2003 and has exploded to include some 60 million registered users, has become the dominant social networking site, eclipsing others like Friendster.com, Tribe.net, Xanga.com and Meetup.com. Because the users' pages are often available to the millions of other members, they can draw unwanted visitors, including predators.

Last month in West Milford, N.J., police charged a 21-year-old man with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl they say he met on MySpace.

And last week, in what prosecutors described as the first federal sex case involving MySpace, two men -- one from New York and one from Pennsylvania -- were charged with assaulting girls of 11 and 14 in Connecticut. Police say the men met the girls on MySpace.

Chris DeWolfe, the chief executive officer of MySpace, said the company is working to protect users. It has posted safety tips and has established a hot line for law enforcement.

MySpace, he said, has a staff of 90 dedicated to policing the site for inappropriate content like nude pictures and users who are under the minimum membership age of 14.

Mr. DeWolfe said that members can restrict access to their pages to a select list of friends, a strategy often recommended in meetings of parents about Internet safety.

The Justice Department has 45 Internet Crimes Against Children task forces nationwide. Agents posing as under-age Internet users produced 600 arrests in 2005, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.

Yet actual assaults stemming from online encounters are rare, said Ms. Aftab of Wired Safety. In no instance, she noted, has a predator met a child in person without first communicating with the victim online.

That is encouraging, Ms. Aftab said, because it means that real encounters with predators are ''100 percent preventable'' as long as children do not reveal where they live or agree to meet someone.

The latest wave of parental concern seems to have been largely spurred by ''To Catch a Predator,'' a series on the NBC news magazine program ''Dateline'' that began in September 2004. The series included three programs in which hidden cameras captured men arriving to meet people they believed to be teenagers. The teenagers turned out to be volunteers with a group dedicated to policing Internet stalking.

''The 'Dateline' special was a complete and utter tipping point,'' said Danah Boyd, a cultural anthropologist and doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies social networking sites like MySpace.

The men the ''Dateline'' series exposed included a high school teacher, a rabbi and a doctor. Ultimately the men come face to face with Chris Hansen, a ''Dateline'' reporter and, in the latest episode, police officers, who arrested them.

''We've had an overwhelming response,'' Mr. Hansen said. ''People are surprised at the extent of the problem and are wanting to know how to protect their kids, especially with these social networks.''

Some law enforcement officials who lead community meetings about online predators acknowledge that they are dramatizing the potential threat to get parents' attention.

Steve Wolf, an Irvine police officer, who has given many presentations in Southern California, said he deliberately picks ''racy pages'' from the Web sites. ''I try to pick pages that get oohs and ahs,'' he said.

Similarly, Colm F. Connolly, a United States attorney in Delaware, said he tells ''war stories,'' among them one about an agent who introduced himself as an available teenager online and within minutes was contacted by a pedophile. When the agent arranged a meeting, the man showed up with an ice pick and a box of condoms.

''Am I trying to scare people? Absolutely,'' Mr. Connolly said. ''But I'm not trying to cause panic. I just want people to know what the dangers are.''

Erica Hoegh, the principal at Eastshore Elementary School in Irvine, questions whether sounding the alarm is the best strategy because parents already seem panicked. ''You need to tell those people, relax,'' Ms. Hoegh said.

Most important, Ms. Hoegh said, is that parents be told to ask their children who they are meeting online. ''A lot of people, they don't take the time to talk to their kids,'' she said. ''This is an opportunity to connect with them.''

The new wave of parental concern follows a historic pattern, said Ms. Boyd. In the 1820's, they were terrified of novels, she said, and in more recent decades, rock 'n' roll. But as the unfamiliar becomes accepted, the fear dies down.

''Now we don't think of rock 'n' roll as even remotely sordid,'' Ms. Boyd said. ''Elvis Presley? It is laughable.''

Last month, at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, Bruce Dennis, the headmaster, held a meeting to warn parents about social networking Web sites.

''A lot of students were immediately really angry and outraged,'' said Jenni Carosone Cieselski, 17, the editor of the school's newspaper, The Prism. ''They felt their privacy was being violated because the headmaster addressed it with parents before the students.''

But after the meeting a poll conducted by the newspaper showed that 80 percent of Packer students had restricted access to their MySpace pages to their friends. Before the meeting, only 14 percent had done so.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

February 23, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

IT took the success of ''Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog'' by John Grogan, which has bounded to the top of best-seller lists, to expose a secret not easily given up by dog owners. Their dogs are often bad dogs.

''I held my dog up as the world's worst dog,'' Mr. Grogan said. ''But I've heard from hundreds and hundreds of people who can match my story point for point.''

Marley -- the indelible rascal of a yellow Labrador retriever that placed himself at the core of Mr. Grogan's family despite always seeming to have some household object in his jaws or heading down his gullet -- has so resonated with readers that Mr. Grogan has received thousands of ''that darned dog'' letters, e-mail messages and comments at his Web site, www.marleyandme.com. The letters express relief at finding others with misbehaving dogs and challenge Marley's claim as ''world's worst.''

Dog experts have noticed other signs of a growing concern over bad behavior by dogs, despite all the gourmet biscuits, educational toys and $70 dog sweaters lavished on them. (Perhaps because of that treatment, others argue.) Enrollment in obedience classes is escalating, veterinarians are seeing an increasing demand for help with behavior problems, and ratings for ''Dog Whisperer,'' the National Geographic Channel's dog-behavior program, are rising. Figuring out how to make the dog mind, it seems, has become a national obsession.

The problem, some dog experts suspect, is not that there are more bad dogs, only more demanding owners. People expect their dogs to cooperate with their busier lives -- to behave at cocktail parties, at real estate open houses and in cafes and shops -- and to respect their better-appointed homes. And in a culture that values achievement and excellence, they readily assume that dogs value the same things, especially when there are obstacle courses to master and social graces to display.

Some dog experts wonder whether the focus on behavior is the best thing for the dog or just the latest form of self-help for people: with their furniture, their clothes and their cooking skills already up to snuff, the only way to make their lives better now is by improving the dog.

''This is the generation that invented the gifted and talented kid,'' said Jon Katz, the author of books on the human-dog relationship, ''so now you have the gifted and talented dog.''

Mr. Katz, who has written ''Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living With Dogs'' (Villard, 2005) and ''The New Work of Dogs'' (Villard, 2003), which discusses the changing role of dogs from outdoor protectors and retrievers to indoor nurturers and soul mates, said there has been an explosion in the number of companion animals, almost a fivefold increase since the 1960's.

This increase, combined with many other social changes, Mr. Katz said, has brought about a revolution in the relationship between people and dogs. Dogs are now expected to play the role of the best friend, confidant or child, who can be taken everywhere, including the mall and a friend's house. ''Dogs are a blank canvas,'' Mr. Katz said. ''You can paint anything you want on them.''

Chris Hoffman and Ann Shih put Senshi, their American bulldog, through basic dog training, twice. Then, to socialize Senshi, they took her everywhere they could: shopping, the library, cafes. And the better socialized the dog became, the less they left her at home.

Mr. Hoffman, who works in Internet marketing in San Francisco, said Senshi is a bigger part of his life than the dogs of his childhood, dogs that would spend a lot of time in the backyard. ''We don't have a backyard, but if we did, she wouldn't spend much time there,'' he said. ''She's more a part of our family.''

Annie Teillon and her husband, Geoff, who live in Manhattan, found that formal training was vital for their two dogs -- a Lab and a golden retriever -- because they are so large and strong. ''I live in an apartment with my two dogs,'' Ms. Teillon said, ''and it is necessary for them to be very well behaved.''

The number of obedience classes nationwide is not known, in part because dog training is often an informal arrangement, ranging from one-time classes in a schoolyard to intensive home visits from doggy gurus. But many trainers say waiting lists for their classes are growing.

Andrea Arden, a dog trainer in Manhattan, and her staff give 18 dog training classes a week: 10 for puppies and 8 for adult dogs. Last Thursday morning Ms. Arden put a notice up on her Web site announcing three new agility classes, which train dogs to run obstacle courses by following commands like run, jump and weave. Since these are advanced courses and cost $350 for six weeks, she expected it would take weeks to fill the sessions, but they were fully subscribed in two hours. Later in the day she added another class, and it too was quickly booked.

Annette Rauch, a research assistant professor at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine of Tufts University in North Grafton, Mass., cited a survey of new pet owners that showed 75 percent wanted counseling on behavior, and 85 percent said they intended to participate in a training course. ''Over the past few decades there has been a larger push to train vets in behavior,'' she said. Behavior problems, she noted, are the leading reason people give their pets away.

''As we've seen an increase in the popularity of large breeds of dogs,'' Dr. Rauch said, ''we've seen an increase in the number of behavior problems.''

By far the most popular dog in the country for the last 16 years has been the Labrador retriever, which had 137,867 American Kennel Club registrations last year, more than twice as many as the second most popular dog, the golden retriever, which had 48,509.

Large dogs like these need more exercise than many owners realize. And if they don't get enough, they may chew the furniture or become aggressive.

Ms. Arden said small dogs present a different kind of trouble, which she calls small dog syndrome. Many owners (especially those who think of themselves as parents) treat their Yorkies and Chihuahuas like babies, she explained, and this leads to spoiling. Owners often fail to discipline small dogs when they relieve themselves on the carpet, for example. ''Because it was just a couple of drops, owners wipe it up and say, 'Oh he just didn't want to go outside and get his little feet all wet,' '' Ms. Arden said. If it was a Lab, she added, the owners wouldn't say the same.

The lack of discipline can lead to aggressive snapping, biting, barking and chewing, Ms. Arden said.

Pet owners tend to respond to bad behavior in two ways, said Prof. Nicholas Dodman, the director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Cummings: by getting rid of the dog or by taking extreme measures to improve the behavior immediately.

Dr. Dodman cautioned owners to be patient, to maintain realistic expectations and to aim to control their dogs without shouting or violence.

Methods of training vary, but most favor rewards for good behavior over punishment for bad. Cesar Millan, who runs a dog psychology center in Los Angeles and is in his second season as the host of ''Dog Whisperer,'' calls for asserting dominance, so that the dog learns that the owner is the leader. Mr. Millan preaches that dogs need exercise, discipline and affection, in that order. He aims, he said, to create a balanced dog, but has drawn criticism for techniques like pinning a dog down or jerking on its leash.

Dr. Dodman said: ''My college thinks it is a travesty. We've written to National Geographic Channel and told them they have put dog training back 20 years.''

Mr. Millan's response: ''Some people don't like me. I know I'm doing good.''

Teoti Anderson, a dog trainer in Lexington, S.C., and the president of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, said owners often avoid obedience classes for fear that their dogs will not measure up to the others.

''They are so focused on their own dog acting like an idiot,'' she said, ''they don't notice everyone else is doing the same thing.''

Dog owners take consolation from Mr. Grogan's book. ''I am the spiritual leader of the bad dog owners of America,'' he said. ''I can't give people tips on how to be a better owner, but I can give them support that they are not alone.''


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company