Living Today: Issues of modern living

HOLLYWOOD'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR EFFORT

President Bush's top political adviser met in California with top Hollywood executives Sunday to talk about ways in which the entertainment industry can contribute to the U.S. war against terrorism.

Some ideas under discussion involved industry-produced public service announcements and providing first-run movies for U.S. military personnel. But participants in the meeting said there was no suggestion that Hollywood should do anything to its entertainment product to make it conform with the war effort.

The meeting with Bush political adviser Karl Rove involved studio heads, leaders of the major unions representing filmmakers and TV professionals, and Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Rove said those involved, "like every other American, feel strongly about the events of Sept. 11 and the need to see this war through to its victorious conclusion."

He said he suggested that the entertainment professionals help the administration make its case in the court of public opinion that the United States is at war with terrorism, not Islam, but did not ask anyone at the meeting to make propaganda on behalf of the war.

It was the second meeting in recent weeks between entertainment industry executives and representatives of the White House, but it involved participants who function at relatively higher levels in both camps.

The first meeting was largely organized by writer producer Lionel Chetwynd, whose politics are conservative in comparison to the predominantly liberal political viewpoint Hollywood has become associated with.

PASSENGER IDS

An air transportation trade group says it plans to test a voluntary biometric identification system for airline passengers.

The National Air Transportation Association, or NATA -- in collaboration Microsoft, Lockheed Martin Information Systems and Executive Jet Aviation, and others -- are spearheading the test program, set to begin in January. The project has received the go-ahead from the Federal Aviation Administration.

NATA claims to represent 2,000 aviation businesses that own, operate and service aircraft.

In a speech at the National Press Club, NATA President and former Pennsylvania Rep. James Coyne said the identification system could help build consumer confidence in the troubled airline industry.

"We are facing terrible new challenges to aviation safety," Coyne said. "But I submit to you that new technologies can make aviation travel security both safer and faster."

The program, dubbed the National Air Transportation Security Identification System, involves issuing a card with fingerprints or iris scans to passengers who pass a background check.

Employees who work on or near aircraft could use similar cards.

Under the sky system, frequent travelers would volunteer for the program and be fingerprinted or have their iris scanned. They would submit information that would enable computer searches of national and international databases for information about them. Once enough information had been gathered to deem them a trusted traveler, they would be issued the identification card, which ideally would let them "avoid routine identification screening delays at airports and also provide a way to ensure the safety of private aircraft traveling to secure airport facilities," according to a NATA document.

If the background check produced little or no information, a sky would not be issued.

Passengers holding a SkyD would still have their bags checked.

Any employees who have direct and indirect access to civil aviation operations could use the system. Those cases would demand more extensive background checks, Coyne said.

SEARS TOWER SECURITY

People who work or visit the Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building, will have to pass through airport-type security, including X-ray scanners and metal detectors, beginning this week.

About 10,000 people work in the 110-story tower and thousands more visit, eat and shop there daily.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports the X-ray machines were in place on Monday morning and metal detectors will be up and running next week.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, workers have had to show identification badges and all bags have been hand-searched at checkpoints in the two main lobbies of the 27-year-old Chicago landmark, which is encircled by a three-foot high wall of concrete traffic barriers painted red, white and blue.

A memo to tenants from the building's management company, TrizecHahn Corp., said: "All individuals entering the building are required to pass through metal detector portals and have their baggage X-rayed. Anyone failing to comply with this process will not be allowed to enter the building."

A spokesman for the property managers said federal authorities had not warned of any specific or credible threat against the 1,450-foot gray-smoked glass tower. Security was beefed up two months ago amid rumors the building was a potential target of terrorists.

TrizecHahn hired two security-consulting companies and doubled the number of guards and security personnel -- adding off-duty police officers and bomb-sniffing dogs.

People heading to the 103rd floor Skydeck have had to pass through X-ray scanners and metal detectors since the observation floor reopened on Oct. 29.

ART AUCTION

The global war against terrorism failed to weaken the international art auction market in its first major test since the tragic events of Sept. 11.

The test came late last week, when New York's three major art auction houses -- Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips -- held major sales of Impressionist and modern paintings and sculptures. The sales fetched a total of $242 million -- well above the houses' low pre-sale estimate of $216 million. This was good news for the $4 billion-a-year art market in general which had seen a severe reduction in sales by private dealers in the past two months as a result of terrorism's negative effect on an already shaky economy.

"Given the events in New York and around the world that could have meant a difficult time, these sales have defied all the rules," Christopher Burge, honorary chairman of Christie's, told UPI.

Remembering the chilling effect the Persian Gulf War had on the art market in 1990, the jittery auction business was focused on the first big sales of the fall season as indicators of how the market would react to the more limited engagement in Afghanistan. Some sellers, but not a significant number, had withdrawn artwork from two of the sales because they thought the market was too risky.

Although some paintings and sculpture failed to find bidders at all the sales, bidding was brisk on most lots, and in some cases sales prices rose above the houses' top estimates.

A world auction record was set for one of the major Impressionist painters, Camille Pissarro -- $6.6 million for his 1893 cityscape, "La Rue Saint-Lazare." It sold at Sotheby's for just above its high pre-sale estimate of $6.5 million.

(Thanks to UPI's Frederick M. Winship in New York)