october 20

The Games of the Nineteenth Olympiad were the

highest and most controversial ever held.

Staged at 7,349 feet above sea level where the

thin air was a major concern to many competing

countries, the Mexico City Olympics were another

chapter in a year buffeted by the Vietnam War, the

assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert

Kennedy, the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and

the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Ten days before the Olympics were scheduled to

open on Oct. 12, over 300 Mexico City university

students were killed by army troops when a campus

protest turned into a riot. Still, the Games began

on time and were free of discord until black

Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who

finished 1-3 in the 200-meter run, bowed their

heads and gave the Black Power salute during the

national anthem as a protest against racism in the

U.S.

They were immediately thrown off the team by the

USOC.

The thin air helped shatter records in every men's

and women's race up to 1,500 meters and may have

played a role in U.S. long jumper Bob Beamon's

incredible gold medal leap of 29 feet, 21/2 inches

–beating the existing world mark by nearly two

feet.

Other outstanding American performances included

Al Oerter's record fourth consecutive discus

title, Debbie Meyer's three individual swimming

gold medals, the innovative Dick Fosbury winning

the high jump with his backwards “flop” and Wyomia

Tyus becoming the first woman to win back-to-back

golds in the 100 meters.
............


NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters Life!) - If being buried

alive, overrun by rats, or encountering a sinister

clown is your worst fear -- then welcome to your

living nightmare.

In the lead-up to Halloween, off-Broadway producer

Tim Haskell has set up "Nightmare: Face Your Fear"

-- interactive haunted houses in each of New York

City's five boroughs -- and is daring people to

endure a psychologically terrifying experience.

Haskell polled thousands of New Yorkers to find

the 13 obsessions, anxieties and phobias that

frightened them the most and then designed room-

by-room encounters around those fears -- and threw

in a few actors to stalk and terrorize visitors.

Haskell said his survey found that most people

were afraid of roughly the same 13 things, such as

drowning, clowns, rats or cockroaches, as well as

heights and closed-in spaces.

"People like to get scared," he told Reuters,

making it quite clear that the aim of his houses

is to terrify, not amuse, people.

"'Nightmare' makes visitors the stars of their own

horror story, in a house that knows their worst

fears and forces them to face it," the production

teases in its advertising.

This is the third year that Haskell has set up

haunted houses in New York -- and each year the

number of visitors wanting to be frightened out of

their wits increases.

Last year 22,000 people visited the one haunted

house he set up in Manhattan and the popularity of

the show prompted him to expand to five houses

this year with up to 70,000 visitors expected to

attend before the houses close on November 2

ickets, which are available through the Web site

www.hauntedhousenyc.com, range in price from $15

to $25 or $50 for a VIP pass.

Haskell said the theatrical element of the house

added a new dimension to traditional haunted

houses and turned it into a unique fright-fest,

too extreme for some visitors.

"We have had some fantastic reactions," he said.

"Someone peed in their pants in Queens."

The houses have exits for those who need to make a

speedy escape but most visitors seemed to know

what they are in for.

"We're big fright fans," said Amy Pulchlopek, 25,

who works in music publishing and visited the

house in Manhattan. "I like live fright ... I

think it's the fear of the unexpected."

Carlos Santiago, 29, said his favorite experience

in the house was a murder enactment involving

splattering liquids in a dark room.

"For me it's the gore, I just like to see the

gore," said Santiago, who is planning to become a

funeral director.

Half joking, Haskell said the act of being scared

may have remedial benefits.