Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: WOMEN (90%); WRITERS & WRITING (89%); DRAMA LITERATURE (78%); YOUTH CLUBS & ACTIVITIES (78%); GRAPHIC DESIGN SERVICES (74%); BIOGRAPHICAL LITERATURE (65%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (61%); FURNITURE STORES (60%); NON FICTION LITERATURE (60%); RETAILERS (60%); MARKETING & ADVERTISING (50%)
LOAD-DATE: May 19, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
CORRECTION-DATE: June 5, 2008

CORRECTION: The Big City column in some editions on May 19, about a reunion of 14 women who were in the same sixth-grade class at Public School 87 on the Upper West Side in 1956, referred incompletely to the occupation of the reunion organizer, Jessica Weber. In addition to her work as a graphic designer, she owns her own graphic design company.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: From left, Mara O'Laughlin, Laurie Burrows Grad, Anne Davis Smith and Dana Jacobi. They were at a reunion of 14 women who attended the sixth grade together on the Upper West Side.(PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHELLE V. AGINS/THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. B5)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

758 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 18, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

A Brighter Side Of High Prices
BYLINE: By G. PASCAL ZACHARY.

G. Pascal Zachary teaches journalism at Stanford and writes about technology and economic development. E-mail: [e-mail]

SECTION: Section BU; Column 0; Money and Business/Financial Desk; PING; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 945 words
CORN prices are at record high levels. Costs for other agricultural essentials, from wheat to coffee to rice, have surged, too. And many people are stunned, even frightened, by all the increases.

But some entrepreneurs and analysts -- recognizing that relative price increases in specific goods always encourage innovators to find ways around the problem -- say they see an opportunity for creative solutions.

''When something becomes dear, you invent around it as much as you can,'' says David Warsh, editor of Economicprincipals.com, a newsletter on trends in economic thinking.

Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University, adds, ''All of a sudden, some things that didn't look profitable now do.''

Smart people won't shift their efforts to agricultural problems, however, if they think that price increases are only temporary, says Henry Kressel, a managing director at the private equity firm Warburg Pincus and a pioneer in laser research. ''When you have a sudden blip in prices,'' Mr. Kressel says, ''it doesn't give rise to entrepreneurial activity.''

Consider the periodic surges in prices for computer memory hardware. Because its price is declining over the long run -- a result of new technologies and automation -- innovators tend to stay away from the field, leaving it to a few large, established companies.

For decades, declining prices for food had the same chilling effect. In the United States and Europe -- the world's two biggest consumers of new technologies -- food was plentiful and relatively inexpensive. Innovators turned their attention elsewhere.

With higher food prices possibly here to stay, clever people can now try things that simply weren't cost-effective before.

''I don't pay attention to inflation, but I do pay attention to big problems,'' says Bill Gross, chairman of Idealab, the business incubator based in Pasadena, Calif. ''If you can beat the price of the big gorilla in the marketplace, there's big opportunity.''

One clearly ''big opportunity'' lies in changing the relationship between food and energy. Fertilizer lets farmers raise production but is energy-intensive to make. Transporting food great distances also requires much energy. So does processing. Finally, some foods are now being valued in relation to oil because of their potential use in fuel.

For some years now, innovators have trained their attention on alternative energy; they are now likely to concentrate on food production as well.

For Americans, that would be going back to the future. Seventy years ago, farming was the technological high frontier.

In the 1930s, after the Depression wiped out so many small farmers, the federal government introduced ''price supports,'' which lifted the return to farmers on basic crops. Higher prices got the attention of innovators in farm equipment, seeds and other so-called inputs.

Sally Clarke, a historian at the University of Texas, has found in a study that higher prices enabled Midwest farmers, then reliant chiefly on animal-drawn plows, to justify investment in tractors, raising efficiency. A study in the 1950s by the economist Zvi Griliches of American farmers' adoption of more productive varieties of corn showed how higher prices reduced the cost of adopting new technologies.

For the new agricultural innovators, these are early days. It will take time for the pipeline to fill with ambitious projects. Monsanto and BASF are among the relatively few big companies that remain active in agricultural innovation. And the most creative researchers can't immediately drop their other projects in response to price signals.

Given time, priorities change. Tomorrow's most intense technological battles will involve a range of agricultural topics, including these:

Using water and fertilizer more efficiently, so farmers can grow more with less.

Finding new ways to suppress weeds, whose growing resistance to traditional herbicides is raising the cost of farming.

Designing better seeds, either through conventional means or genetic modification.

Finding ways to meet the needs of the eat-local movement, promoted by the food writer Michael Pollan, among others, which requires innovative ''small batch'' processing techniques as well as a shift in values.

''We need to pull out all the stops and do everything we can to improve farm productivity,'' says William Dyer, a plant biologist at Montana State University in Bozeman.

To be sure, engineering a new ''green revolution'' that will yield, say, cheaper wheat and rice -- all while meeting the concerns of various special interest groups -- will be much harder than designing a better music player. After all, we don't eat iPods. The food fabricator of the 1960s television show ''Star Trek'' remains an elusive dream, but not merely because of limits on human ingenuity. In agriculture, safety requirements can trump the need for productivity gains.

A new herbicide can cost $100 million to commercialize -- less than the amount needed for a new drug, but more than for many a new cellphone. Government regulations, however, need only raise the cost of innovation, not halt it.

Ultimately, higher food prices give innovators room to cover the cost of protecting human health. But prices are a democratic signal: when all innovators see them, their ability to sneak up on an opportunity, while others nap, vanishes.

''The bigger the prize people are chasing, the more people go after it,'' says Paul Romer, a theorist on sources of economic growth. ''As people pile into an area, the expected return to any one innovator goes down.''

Yet, fortunately, the return to society goes up.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: PRICE INCREASES (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); AGRICULTURAL PRICES (90%); PRICE CHANGES (90%); FOOD PRICES (89%); AGRICULTURE (89%); FOOD & BEVERAGE (86%); FARMERS & RANCHERS (78%); TRENDS (77%); HISTORY (75%); ECONOMIC DEPRESSION (75%); AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENT (73%); FERTILIZERS (73%); PRIVATE EQUITY (72%); LASERS (67%)
COMPANY: WARBURG PINCUS LLC (56%)
ORGANIZATION: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY (57%)
PERSON: BILL GROSS (53%)
GEOGRAPHIC: CALIFORNIA, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (92%); EUROPE (79%)
LOAD-DATE: May 18, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: A Monsanto researcher, Mohammadreza Ghaffarzadeh, monitored drought-resistant corn technology in Davis, Calif. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MONSANTO)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

759 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 18, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

36 Hours in Luang Prabang, Laos
BYLINE: By MARY BILLARD
SECTION: Section TR; Column 0; Travel Desk; Pg. 12
LENGTH: 1571 words
THE Southeast Asia circuit -- Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand -- is thick with travelers encountering familiar faces at the next required stop. (If it's Tuesday, it must be Ho Chi Minh's Tomb.) The crowds are beginning to head to Laos as well -- with both Vientiane and Luang Prabang emerging as the next potential hot spots for globe-trotting tourists. But the beguiling ancient capital of Luang Prabang, nestled between the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, is still a place that feels as if it is on the cusp of discovery. It is a town where one minute you are checking your e-mail messages at an Internet cafe next to giggling novices and the next you are walking on a bridge across the Nam Khan with views of farmers silently working in the lettuce fields with nary a tourist bus in sight.

FRIDAY

5 p.m. 1) SCALE A SACRED MOUNTAIN

Mount Phousi -- visible from most of Luang Prabang -- provides an easy orientation to this compact city of roughly 30,000 people. Hike up the snaking, steep 328 steps -- or 355, but who's counting? -- to reach Wat Chomsi (and an abandoned Russian antiaircraft gun). As the blazing sun mellows, a softer light reflects on the gold-leafed roofs of the town's more than 30 wats, or monasteries. The setting is transporting, almost meditative, especially if Buddhist novices are taking turns pounding on the ritual drum. It is situated on the town's main artery, Sisavangvong, across from the National Museum.

7 p.m. 2) STREET LIFE AT THE MARKET

The sprawling night market, next to the National Museum, is beautifully art-directed. A red canvas canopy covers each vendor, an lamps glow over Laos silk scarves and Hmong embroidery. Unlike Vietnam, which has a surplus of propaganda souvenir shops, Laos has yet to reach that stage of irony, so only a few hammer-and-sickle T-shirts are on sale. A small lane nearby is packed with food stalls serving marinated, banana-leaf wrapped fish or roasted flattened pig face. (I'm sure it was delicious.) A United Nations-worthy group of diners share picnic tables and bottles of Beer Lao. Open from 5 to 10 p.m.

Saturday

6 a.m. 3) ALMS FOR THE MONKS

Giving alms to the streaming line of monks as dawn breaks is one of Luang Prabang's main draws. Busloads of tourists stake out prime real estate with carpets and footstools, and the photo-mad among them stalk monks. Ask anyone in town where the best lookout spot is, and you'll get a different answer every time. But options abound: near the Villa Santi (Sakkarine Road, near Ban Wat Sene), visitors may preorder a package of sticky rice and chocolate biscuits large enough to feed 300 monks (175,000 kip, about $20 at 8,773 kips to the dollar; dollars are readily accepted). A roadside entrepreneur on Chao Fa Ngum Road sells a basket of sticky rice for $1. The scene can feel a bit contrived -- until you spot a scene like this on a recent visit: a young Korean student solemnly and gently placed a piece of fruit in a bowl as the silent procession of the monks weaved through the side streets, where locals knelt beside elaborate homemade offerings.

10 a.m. 4) ARTS AND CRAFTS TIME

Stroll down Sisavangvong, past the cafes and outdoor adventure tour outfitters, dipping in and out of shops, and keep going as the street name changes to Sakkarine Road. (As will soon become apparent to anyone trying to navigate the streets of Laos, street names and spellings change almost without warning. This one is also known as Sakline or Sakkaline.) Caruso Lao Home Craft is as much gallery as store (60 Sakkarine Road, 856-71-254-574; www.carusolao.com). The owner, Sandra Yuck, seeks the finest works from carvers, turners, silversmiths and weavers. Be warned: no bargaining on prices. (A small black-and-white turned ebony bowl was $60. Handwoven silk textiles, derived from traditional Lao patterns and reinterpreted with contemporary colors are $50 to $600). Fibre2Fabric Gallery (71 Ounkham Road; 856-71-254-761; www.fibre2fabric.org) is a nonprofit exhibition space with curators on hand to explain displays of textiles from the minority groups of Laos. It is financed, in part, by Ock Pop Tok Gallery, which is next door and which sells textiles. Monument Books (2 Thou Gnai Thao Road; 856-71-254-954) sells trendy Luxe city guides and classics like ''Travels in Siam, Cambodia, and Laos, and Annam,'' by Henri Mouhot, the explorer best known for rediscovering the ruins of Angkor Wat for Westerners and who is buried near Luang Prabang.

12 p.m. 5) STICKY RICE, WHOLE FISH

Landlocked Laos does not have the culinary reputation of Thailand or Vietnam, yet Tamarind Restaurant makes the case for a national cuisine (Kounxoa Road, generally lunch only, except for special banquets; 856-71-770-484; www.tamarindlaos.com). It serves grilled fresh fish, local greens and vegetables, plenty of fresh herbs, and the ever-present padaek, or fish sauce. The windows and doors are open to a view of Wat Nong, and, in the late afternoon, chanting monks provide the soundtrack.

2 p.m. 6) CRUISING ON THE MEKONG

Travel down the Mekong River on any variety of boats to the Pak Ou caves, which shelter hundreds of images of Buddha. It's not just the destination; it's the journey. Glide past limestone cliffs and terrace farms, fishermen wading with nets and boats streaming from China laden with motorcycles. Boats can also stop at a weaving village or the Lao Whiskey Village (a mini-distillery that can be touristy or interesting, perhaps depending on the rice whiskey shots consumed). A group boat from town costs from $5 to $20. Walk along the street by the Mekong to find transport. (The street is known in various sections as Souvanbanlang and toward the end of the peninsula as Souvannakhamphong.) Two hours upriver, one down.

8 p.m. 7) WHAT'S FRESH AND LOCAL

Be sure to reserve if you want a table at 3 Nagas because this popular restaurant is often fully booked (Sakkarine Road; 856-71-253-750; www.3Nagas.com). The menu at 3 Nagas is based on what's local and fresh that day, from buffalo meat to Mekong River fish. Salads are made from lettuce and mushrooms grown across the river and with actual flavor. Luang Prabang is not a late-night town. The basic options are to stop at a cafe or the Hive Bar (on the road tracking the Nam Khan River at the junction of Phousi Road and Chao Siphouphan Road), which has a D.J. and a lounge vibe.

Sunday

9 a.m. 8) PALATIAL SURROUNDINGS

Grab a quick breakfast of fresh French baked goods and strong roasted Laotian coffee at JoMa Bakery (Chao Fa Ngum Road; 856-71-252-292) then wander to the nearby National Museum (also known as the Royal Palace Museum, Sisavangvong Road; 856-71-212-122; 8 to 11 a.m. and 1:30 to 4 p.m.). The palace, built in the French era (1904), was the Laotian royal family residence until its members were forced into exile in 1975. The private rooms have Art Deco furniture, feeling reminiscent of Bertolucci's ''Last Emperor,'' plus stunning Buddha statues, royal costumes and hauntingly old copies of Paris Match.

11 a.m. 9) LINGER AT A WAT

Avoid the tendency to get on the wat conveyer belt. Yes, Wat Xieng Thong with its elaborate paintings and carvings is an eye-saturating feast, and yes, Wat Wisunarat (or Wat Visoun) is the oldest continuously functioning wat. Wat Mai once housed the golden Pra Bang (or large Buddha image that gives the town its name). The checklist can be overwhelming. Spend time in the courtyards talking to novices eager to practice their English, enjoy the fluttering of freshly laundered orange robes hanging on the line to dry or meditate in an empty sim, or temple. At Wat Pa Phai (or Phapai) on (Sisavangvatthana Road near Sakkarine Road), enter a gateway covered in bougainvillea, framing a novice who is stroking a cat on his lap, with one hand while chanting from a book held in his other. Try practicing being in the moment, and refrain from whipping out the iPhone for a photo.

THE BASICS

A visa is required for Laos and may be obtained at the airport upon arrival ($35, plus two passport-size photos). Sitting at the front of your plane is advisable, and so is running directly to the visa counter because lines are long and time-consuming. November to March has the best weather, drier and less hot than the rest of the year.

There are no direct flights from New York to Laos. One efficient route is flying direct from Kennedy Airport to Bangkok on Thai Airways (www.thaiair.com); on which economy fares are approximately $1,500 for a round trip in June, and connect via Bangkok Airways (www.bangkokair.com) to Luang Prabang, approximately $300 one way.

WHERE TO STAY

La Residence Phou Vao, a little more than a mile outside town, has lotus-filled ponds, decadent spa huts and views of golden stupas, or shrines, in the far-off mountains (Phou Vao Road; 856-71-212-194; www.residencephouvao.com). Rooms are large and luxe, with private balconies, and with local dark woods contrasting with cotton bedding. Rates are $274 (off season) to $574 (for a suite during the season).

A good option in town is the intimate Maison Souvannaphoum Hotel (Chao Fa Ngum Road; 856-71-254-609; www.coloursofangsana.com/souvannaphoum). The painstakingly restored hotel is the former residence of Prince Souvanna Phouma, former prime minister in the Royal Lao Government. The hotel has four guest rooms in the royal residence, with 20 more in the garden wing. Rates range from , $160 to $280.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: MOUNTAINS (90%); BUDDHISTS & BUDDHISM (69%); RELIGION (67%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LAOS (95%); VIETNAM (93%); THAILAND (92%); CAMBODIA (92%); SOUTH EAST ASIA (88%); ASIA (88%)
LOAD-DATE: May 18, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: FROM LEFT: Monks receiving alms, a sight taken in each morning by tourists

a meal at La Residence Phou Vao hotel

and the night market with its variety of goods. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY LONNIE SCHLEIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES) MAP Map of Luang Prabang and its surrounding points of interest.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

760 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 18, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Andre Galerne, 81, an Entrepreneur of the Deep
BYLINE: By DENNIS HEVESI
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 31
LENGTH: 568 words
Andre Galerne, who in the early 1960s brought together a band of rugged divers willing to descend hundreds of feet to repair oil rigs, lay cables or salvage something from a sunken vessel -- starting what became the world's largest privately owned deep-sea construction company -- died on May 6 in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 81, and for more than 30 years had lived by the bay in Larchmont, N.Y.

His death was confirmed by his son Lionel.

''I am the last private entrepreneur in the business,'' Mr. Galerne told The New York Times in 1981. ''All of my competitors have been bought -- partially or totally -- by the big companies.''

By then, Mr. Galerne's company, International Underwater Contractors, employed nearly 100 divers, most of them deployed on offshore oil platforms around the world. They were vital to operations from the first stage of exploration until no more oil could be pumped. When a problem forced a drilling delay, the diver would climb into a cage or a diving bell and descend anywhere from 500 feet to 1,000 feet to make a quick repair or a diagnosis.

''When we first started, we selected our people by the width of their shoulders rather than their I.Q.'s,'' Mr. Galerne said. ''Now you have to have a high class of people.'' The company, much smaller now, is based on City Island in the Bronx, and is run by Lionel Galerne.

Mr. Galerne was concerned for the safety of deep-sea divers, who sometimes had to spend two weeks in a decompression chamber after an extended dive. In 1980, he received a patent for a hyperbaric transport system for divers who were injured or required special medical treatment.

The system, which became standard in the industry, includes two titanium chambers filled with breathing gas containing oxygen. The smaller chamber can hold one or two people under high pressure and can be transported to a larger chamber with a capacity of eight people, one of whom could be a medical attendant. The larger chamber is then carried by helicopter to a land station. One of those stations, the first of its kind, is the North Sea Hyperbaric Center in Aberdeen, Scotland, in which Mr. Galerne played a major role in conceiving and constructing.

In 1981, the Marine Technology Society presented Mr. Galerne with its Lockheed Award for Ocean Science and Engineering, citing his contributions to deep-diving safety.

Mr. Galerne was born in Paris on Oct. 1, 1926. After studying engineering at an aeronautical school, he fought with the French underground in World War II. He made his first dive in 1943, and after the war began exploring below the surface of rivers running through the caves of southern France. He turned to deep-sea diving in the early days of underwater commercial exploration and construction. In the early 1950s, Mr. Galerne was a diver on the crew of the renowned oceanographer Jacques Yves Cousteau. Soon after coming to the United States in 1962, he started International Underwater Contractors.

In addition to his son Lionel, of Rye Neck, N.Y., Mr. Galerne is survived by his wife of 57 years, the former Jeannine Renaud; two other sons, Eric and Olivier, both of Houston; and eight grandchildren.

After retiring, Mr. Galerne spent much of his time immersed in his vast collection of books from the 17th and 18th centuries, most of them chronicling seafaring adventurers.

''Oh, I still dive,'' he said in 1981. ''But not deep.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); OIL EXTRACTION (90%); ENGINEERING (89%); CONSTRUCTION (77%); OCEANS (77%); OIL & GAS INDUSTRY (77%); OCEANOGRAPHY (72%); EARTH & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE (66%); PATENTS (63%); WORLD WAR II (62%); WATER SPORTS (78%)
COMPANY: SCIENCE & ENGINEERING ASSOCIATES (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (79%); PARIS, FRANCE (51%) ARIZONA, USA (90%); NEW YORK, USA (79%); ATLANTIC OCEAN (79%); NORTH SEA (79%) UNITED STATES (90%); SCOTLAND (74%); UNITED KINGDOM (74%); FRANCE (69%)
CATEGORY: Business and Finance
PERSON: Andre Galerne
LOAD-DATE: May 18, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Obituary (Obit); Biography
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

761 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 18, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

John Cusack Goes to War
BYLINE: By DAVID CARR
SECTION: Section AR; Column 0; Arts and Leisure Desk; FILM; Pg. 17
LENGTH: 1109 words
POLITICAL satire has its work cut out for it in the current environment. An unpopular war, the tortured rhetoric of a government defending its various pratfalls and news media that many see as complicit in the mess have created a burlesque -- one that may not require annotation or exaggeration. Not that John Cusack isn't willing to give it a whirl. His ''War, Inc.,'' which opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, is a satire that goes over the top and stays there.

Mr. Cusack is one of the writers as well as the star of the film, set in a mythological country called Turaqistan over the course of a militarized trade show in a privatized war. (Joshua Seftel is the director.) The well-compensated conqueror and savior is a company named Tamerlane, which delivers a full menu of capabilities, including leveling the country with bombs, rebuilding what's destroyed, and even using its war-making technology to glue limbs back on victims.

As a conflicted mercenary seeking a toehold amid the lucrative mayhem, Mr. Cusack has some big-name accomplices, including his sister Joan Cusack, Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley and, underneath a mop of black hair, Hilary Duff.

Given the number of war-theme movies (''Redacted,''''In the Valley of Elah'' and ''Lions for Lambs,'' among others) that have been disasters at the box office, and given that moviegoers may not be much in the mood for a comedy about Mideast misadventures, Mr. Cusack is well aware of the obstacles on the road ahead.

''We've had strong reactions both ways,'' he said, speaking from London, where he is filming ''Shanghai,'' about an American expat visiting that city right before Pearl Harbor. ''We wanted to make something and not just talk about it, and we were aware of the challenges that went with it.''

Those who suggest that the movie's core premise -- war as a profit engine -- is so five years ago are right in a way. Mr. Cusack and his co-writers, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser, have been grinding away almost since the start of the very long war it takes aim at.

''We have been swimming upstream from the beginning,'' said Grace Loh, Mr. Cusack's producing partner. ''There was a long struggle to get it funded, and when we didn't really get the kind of budget we had hoped, we filmed in Bulgaria and really tried to make the best movie we could with the money we had.''

The resulting $8 million film, distributed by a small independent (First Look Studios), plays America's aspirations and darker characteristics for both laughs and dramatic effect. The initial responses from the critics were as roundly negative as many opinions about the Iraq war. The Hollywood Reporter called it a ''complete misfire,'' and Spout Blog suggested it was ''a debacle.''

Mr. Cusack, who had a box-office miss with the war-themed ''Grace Is Gone'' last year, prefers to concentrate on word of mouth in the antiwar movement and said he thinks that at some point there will be a backlash to the backlash. As an opponent of the war -- a question about it sparked a 10-minute soliloquy about bloody corporate and government mis- and malfeasance -- he is less concerned with critical fatigue than public apathy. He predicted that the public will identify with the revulsion of Hauser, the ''disaster capitalist'' he plays, who eventually decides that he is pointing his gun in the wrong direction.

''We are just trying to take the current trends to their logical ends,'' Mr. Cusack said of a film in which tanks running roughshod over Turaqistan carry enough advertising logos to decorate a Nascar vehicle. ''It is really just a short walk to an entirely privatized war. And the irony is that the corporations that are benefiting from the war aren't paying for it. The taxpayers are.''

A cartoon version of Western culture, replete with a dastardly ex-vice president played by Mr. Aykroyd and an Americanized Middle Eastern pop tart named Yonica Babyyeah played by Ms. Duff, ''War, Inc.'' gives way to a straight-up morality play that has echoes of ''Grosse Pointe Blank,'' a movie in which Mr. Cusack played another hit man who carried some existential baggage in additional to lethal hardware.

Mr. Leyner, the author of the post-postmodern novel ''Et Tu, Babe'' (whose protagonist, a fictionalized version of himself, is, according to the inside flap jacket, ''a leather-blazer-wearing, Piranha 793-driving, narcotic-guzzling monster''), said the combat capitalism was just a backdrop for themes ripped not from the headlines but from history.

''I have always been interested in the Samurai movies and westerns, the lone wolf or ronin who has lost the patronage of his master and roams the countryside,'' Mr. Leyner said, dressed down for an interview on iChat in his writer's uniform of a T-shirt and a few days' worth of whiskers. ''We took those themes and overlaid them on a part of the world that had been destroyed by a privatized war machine and then colonized to literally capitalize on the suffering.''

''It is really about the characters and what happens to them,'' he continued. ''Again and again in the movie the characters are hiding, saying that if you knew the real me, you'd despise me even more. To me what happens to the characters in the movie is far more interesting than the polemical content of the movie.''

There is no shortage of polemicists, including Walken, the spymaster played by Mr. Kingsley. His single dimension -- evil writ large -- serves as a foil for Hauser, who develops a distaste for his own baloney, including his argument early in the movie with the truth-to-power crusading journalist Natalie Hegalhuzen, played by Ms. Tomei: ''What are we supposed to do? Turn our backs on all the entrepreneurial possibilities? Business is a uniquely human response to a moral or cosmic crisis. Whether there's a tsunami or a sustained aerial bombardment, there's the same urgent call for urban renewal.''

O.K., so maybe that's about as subtle as the maimed but cheery chorus line of amputees dancing anew with assistance from the same Tamerlane technology that removed their legs in the first place. But a satirist has to be on a dead run to stay ahead of the news these days.

Mr. Cusack said the inspiration for the amputee bit came from a news item about Donald H. Rumsfeld, when he was defense secretary, making an appearance at a ski tournament for Iraq war veterans who had lost limbs.

''Just last week there was a guy talking about opening up a kind of Disneyland in Iraq,'' he said. ''Some of what is happening is so absurd, so outrageous, that you have to do something wild to capture what is actually under way.''