A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

 best known in music circles as the author of the Beatles biography `` The Longe

st Cocktail Party : An Insider 's Diary of the Beatles '' ; DiLello was `` house

 hippie '' and public relations director at Apple Records from 1968 to 1970 . So

me people don't like even the idea of a Cobain film . `` It 's just being so exp

loitive of something so tragic , '' says Janet Billig of Gold Mountain , Nirvana

 's management company . `` The whole idea of it is really upsetting . I can't f

ind a word in the English language strong enough to express how we all feel abou

t this . '' One word that comes to mind is `` no . '' While Cobain 's life is op

en to unauthorized bio-films , just as it was to Thompson 's unauthorized book ,

 his songs are protected by copyright laws , and Billig indicates that Paradigm 

and any other would-be biographers will not have access to Nirvana 's music . ``

 We have advised our lawyers that we wouldn't want this to happen , '' Billig sa

ys . Thompson admits that he too wondered `` what on earth are they going to do 

for a soundtrack , since a lot of the things we know about him came through his 

songwriting ? As `` Backbeat ' ( the recent movie about the Beatles ) proved , t

here are ways around that . One idea I had was to concentrate on the life and no

t make the music a major part of it , because the book is essentially about Kurt

 as opposed to the band . '' `` Michael Azzarad 's book ( `` Come As You Are ' )

 is truly the Nirvana story , '' says Thompson . Azzarad , whose book was also u

nauthorized but written with the cooperation of the band , has reportedly turned

 down several offers to sell the film rights . Thompson , who also wrote a book 

about the Red Hot Chili Peppers , turned his 170-page book over to St. Martin 's

 a week after Cobain 's suicide on April 8 ; 200,000 copies started shipping out

 in the middle of May . That 's impressive , but the Seattle-based Thompson had 

been working on a Nirvana book since 1991 . The Thompson adaptation is not the o

nly Cobain story being shopped : Scenarios have reportedly been offered by Cobai

n 's mother and several associates . `` There is a built-in exploitation , '' sa

ys Paradigm agent Gary Pearl , who purchased the rights to `` Never Fade Away . 

'' The way to avoid that , he says , `` is to have really top talent developing 

it , people who are interested in the band and the people , and that 's what we 

're searching for . '' As for music rights , Pearl remains hopeful . `` It would

 be great to have the support of Geffen ( Nirvana 's label ) and the Cobain esta

te . The screenwriter doesn't get involved in productions that aren't prestigiou

s and smart , and while they may have reservations now , I 'm fairly confident t

hat upon seeing a script , they 'll be more than interested in being involved . 

'' It will probably be a year before any Cobain film appears in theaters , but w

hen it does , it will be part of a new wave of pop music bio-films . Also on the

 way are two about Jimi Hendrix ( due out next year on the 25th anniversary of h

is death ) , Bob Marley ( based on Tim White 's `` Catch a Fire '' ) , Miles Dav

is ( based on his autobiography ) , soul man Otis Redding and bluesman Robert Jo

hnson . A long-simmering film about folk singer Phil Ochs ( a suicide in 1976 ) 

may also be revived , and with two new books out suggesting he was actually murd

ered in 1969 , a Brian Jones film is likely as well . Also reported to be in the

 works : bio-films about Roy Orbison , Ray Charles , Eddie Cochran , Sam Cooke ,

 Marvin Gaye , Bobby Darin , Jim Croce , Frankie Lymon , Rick Nelson and Phil Sp

ector .

 I couldn't believe my eyes : James Earl Ray was up for parole last week . The m

an who pleaded guilty 25 years ago to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. actua

lly had the gall to ask to be set free . And if that wasn't shocking enough , th

e Rev. James M. Lawson , a civil rights leader , showed up at the hearing to spe

ak on Ray 's behalf . Lawson was the strategy chairman for the strike among sani

tation workers that prompted King to make his fateful trip to Memphis in April 1

968 . With a news photographer capturing the obscene moment for all the world to

 see , Lawson walked over to Ray and affectionately shook the gunman 's hand . W

hat is wrong with our people ? How many ways can we come up with to make ourselv

es look totally stupid ? Hosea Williams , another associate of King 's during th

e 1960s , also showed up to testify on Ray 's behalf . `` I know in my heart tha

t Ray didn't pull that trigger , '' Williams told the parole board . In his hear

t ? What kind of evidence is that ? If Williams knows something about the assass

ination , he ought to give it up . Or just be quiet . In 1969 , Ray admitted tha

t he killed King . Before sentencing Ray to 99 years in prison , Criminal Court 

Judge Preston Battle repeatedly asked him if he understood that his plea preclud

ed appeals . Ray said he understood . That should have been the end of Ray . But

 three days later , he tried to retract that confession and began seeking a new 

trial . Ray , 66 , now contends that he was pressured to confess and says he jus

t wasn't `` assertive '' enough to resist . That is ludicrous . Here is a man wh

o was assertive enough to live the life of an armed robber . He was assertive en

ough to elude capture for months after King 's assassination , assertive enough 

to escape from prison after being convicted of the crime . Moreover , a House Se

lect Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1978 , after a two-year investigat

ion , that Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr. . There may have been a conspiracy 

, the committee noted , but Ray was telling the truth the first time , when he a

dmitted pulling the trigger . Lately , however , there has been a steady parade 

of black civil rights activists acting as if Ray has been as wronged as Nelson M

andela . `` If Dr. King were alive , he would be appalled that a person could be

 imprisoned for 26 years having had no trial , '' Lawson said . Never mind that 

people who plead guilty don't have a need for jury trial . Jesse L. Jackson , a 

longtime aide to King , even wrote the foreword to Ray 's autobiography . The bo

ok was a blatant attempt to cash in on the killing . It was titled `` Who Killed

 Martin Luther King ? '' As if Ray did not know . Meanwhile , Hosea Williams has

 been going around talking about evidence hidden in his heart . The fact is , a 

new trial for Ray would do nothing but give the convict a chance to wriggle free

 on a technicality . For all of the talk by Ray 's lawyers of a conspiracy that 

a new trial supposedly would uncover , some of the first words out of Ray 's mou

th at the parole hearing last week were : `` I wasn't involved in any type of co

llusive activity to kill him . In other words , I wasn't some type of accomplice

 . '' Therefore , Ray 's lawyers would have no reason to link him to a conspirac

y . They 'd simply try to confuse a jury by raising the possibility that someone

 else did the shooting . Memphis District Attorney John Pierotti seemed to be th

e only one making sense about the case when he said Ray 's supposedly new eviden

ce is either fabricated or unprovable . `` I could be doing a lot of other thing

s that would be more productive than baby-sitting this senseless case , '' he sa

id . `` The whole thing is garbage . '' And it 's a stench that is going to be w

ith us for quite some time . Although Ray has been eligible for parole before , 

last Wednesday was the first time the Tennessee Parole Board agreed to hear argu

ments on his release . In the past , all of Ray 's requests were denied without 

oral presentations . This time , the vote was 3 to 0 against parole . Ray needed

 four votes . One of the seven board members had investigated King 's assassinat

ion and disqualified himself . The remaining three decided not to vote when it b

ecame clear Ray had lost his bid . But two of those who voted against Ray last w

eek said they would favor his release when he comes before the parole board agai

n in 1999 . The very thought is nauseating . Did Martin Luther King Jr. have a c

hance to explain why he ought not have been assassinated ? Did he get to call wi

tnesses to say what a good father he was and how much his children loved him ? D

id he get the opportunity to speak before a panel to say how much his people nee

ded him and tell what a loss it would be to have us deprived of his leadership ?

 No , he did not . And the man who shot him down in cold blood on a balcony that

 day in Memphis shouldn't have another chance either . I could understand Willia

ms and Lawson showing some compassion if Ray , having confessed , had expressed 

great remorse and sorrow . You could shake his hand on the way to the gas chambe

r . But to offer a hand of support to an unrepentant sinner ? Come on , Rev. Law

son. Sometimes we bend over backward so far to appear forgiving that we end up k

issing our own behinds .

 POKOINNY BAY , Russia A massive brown bear , hungry after a long winter sleep ,

 loped with surprising speed across steep meadowland rising from the world 's ol

dest and deepest lake . In a clearing below , three red deer froze , noble and u

nmoving , and then disappeared into the pine forest . A pair of red-breasted mer

ganser ducks launched themselves from the shoreline , their whirring wings seemi

ng barely to skim the lake 's glassy surface . These were the most visible deniz

ens , on a frosty May morning , of the Baikalo-Lensky nature reserve in southern

 Siberia . They are a tiny part of Russia 's vast natural treasure , a wildernes

s as rich and vital to the earth as the Amazon rain forest and just as threatene

d . While the Soviet Union justly earned a reputation as a monstrous despoiler o

f the environment , it also protected a unique network of nature reserves rangin

g from the Central Asian desert to the Arctic tundra . These 170 reserves were t

otally off-limits to visitors , and they sheltered a bewildering variety of plan

t and animal species . Now , with economic collapse and a breakdown of central a

uthority , the reserves stand exposed . Poachers and loggers , prospectors and r

anchers are gnawing away at Russia 's natural heritage . The `` green '' movemen

t is moribund , the profit motive is exalted and the few rangers and naturalists

 seeking to defend the reserves are virtually powerless . `` Everything is begin

ning to break up and fall apart , '' said Vladimir Krever , the World Wildlife F

und 's representative in Moscow . Russia alone has 85 of the reserves , enclosin

g as much territory as all of Italy , as well as 88 semi-protected national park

s and wildlife refuges with even more space . But scientists have warned that th

eir deterioration could destroy the world 's largest temperate forest , an essen

tial defense against global warming , and hasten the extinction of thousands of 

unique species , from the Siberian tiger to Lake Baikal 's unique freshwater sea

ls . `` The vast landscapes of the Russian Federation represent one of the last 

opportunities on Earth to conserve relatively intact ecosystems large enough to 

allow ecological processes and wildlife populations to fluctuate naturally , '' 

the World Wildlife Fund said in a report earlier this year . Here in the Baikal 

region , park rangers who earn less than $ 20 a month often turn to poaching to 

support themselves . More honest employees have no jeeps or walkie-talkies to pa

trol their vast territories against the incursions of hungry locals or criminal 

bands of commercial hunters . Local authorities , emboldened by Moscow 's declin

e , grab chunks of protected land for grazing or to build new vacation lodges . 

The government can no longer pay for the aircraft that used to deliver supplies 

and fight fires and given Siberia 's thin soil and short summers , a forest fire

 is a century-long disaster . Reserves in other parts of the country are struggl

ing with similar problems . In the Arctic Ocean near Alaska , the Wrangel Island

 reserve , breeding ground for the endangered polar bear , has been unable to pa

y its bills for last summer 's deliveries , Krever said . If it does not receive

 funds soon , its staff will have to leave before the next freeze . Near the Oka

 reserve , collective-farm dwellers are earning 3,000 rubles ( $ 1.35 ) and two 

bottles of vodka per month . `` Of course people are going to go poaching , '' K

rever said . And local authorities in Tuva , near the Mongolian border , now all

ow domesticated-reindeer grazing on a reserve where endangered beavers , sables 

and other species live . `` They have no right to do it , but with the situation

 in the country today , there 's nothing Russia can do to stop it , '' Krever sa

id . Now the reserves are fighting back as best they can , seeking aid from the 

West and allies within Russia . Many have recognized their total isolation was p

ossible only in a totalitarian regime and that they have to allow some access , 

both to raise funds and to win local support . Breaking with eight decades of st

rict policy and outrunning a debate still raging in Moscow the Baikalo-Lensky re

serve has mapped three routes through its vast territory , hoping to attract adv

enturers and `` eco-tourists '' from the United States . The neighboring Pribaik

alsky National Park has formed a small furniture trading company , seeking profi

ts that could increase rangers ' salaries or buy equipment . The Institute of Li

mnology , a longtime leader in the fight to save the lake from industrial pollut

ers and once a proud cog in the powerful Soviet Academy of Sciences , now market

s Baikal Water , in plastic bottles labeled in Japanese and English . Yet many h

ere fear that , without more help from Moscow or the West , they will not save t

he lake and the wild woods and steppe around it . `` I have to say that perestro

ika has brought us nothing good , '' said Alexander Zayatz , director of the Bai

kalo-Leninsky reserve . `` We suffer from a fever of instability . '' Home to hu

ndreds of species of plants and animals found nowhere else , Lake Baikal has lon

g attracted the interest of Russian and Western environmentalists . In 1916 , Cz

ar Nicholas II created Russia 's first reserve on Baikal 's eastern shore to pro

tect the fur-bearing sable , which had been hunted almost to extinction . A half

-century later , when authorities built a giant cellulose factory on Baikal 's s

outhern shore , the Soviet `` green '' movement was born . Today , the region bo

asts three reserves and three national parks ( which , unlike the reserves , hav

e always been open to recreational use ) . But despite all the attention , Baika

l today offers a vivid picture of the problems confronting nature preservation t

hroughout Russia . The cellulose plant is still operating , despite years of cam

paigns and promises , and looming unemployment in the Irkutsk industrial basin m

akes any voluntary closure less likely than ever . The `` greens '' who fought a

gainst the plant , as well as against factories to the east that pollute Baikal 

's watershed and those to the west that pollute its air , have all but faded awa

y . `` This powerful movement was diluted by the distractions of everyday proble

ms , by inflation , by unemployment , '' said Zayatz . `` People start to forget

 about Baikal , and think more about how just to survive . '' Emboldened by the 

weakening of Moscow 's authority , a collective farm on the preserve 's northern

 border has grabbed 1,109 acres of northern steppe , where several rare plant sp

ecies grow , to graze its cattle , Zayatz said . Local authorities back the farm

 and `` just don't think about tomorrow . '' `` We could stop them by closing of

f just one road , '' he added . `` But we don't have the manpower , we don't hav

e transport and we don't have communications . '' In a still-unresolved conflict

 , the powerful local energy company is battling for a piece of shoreline inside

 the national park to build a vacation home for its big shots . The company won 

local support by promising to extend electricity to several remote villages but 

only if the national park gave way , park officials said . Poachers trespass to 

shoot bear and the diminutive musk deer , whose glands are valued by Chinese med

icine makers . At the best hunting spots , poachers have burned down ranger cabi

ns to make sure no one interferes , officials here said . Some of the hunters ar

e part of commercial gangs . `` Poaching has become big business , '' said Amirk

han Amirkhanov , Russia 's deputy minister of the environment . `` The gangs hav

e carbines and other modern weapons , while our wardens have weapons going back 

to World War II and cannot possibly retaliate . '' But many hunters are local in

habitants trying to survive . Overfishing has eliminated the livelihoods of many

 , as the population of the lake 's unique omul fish declined below commercial l

evels . At the same time , the creation of the Pribaikalsky National Park ( in 1

986 ) and the reserve ( in 1987 ) ruled out logging , goldmining and guiding for

eigners on hunting excursions while generating considerable hostility . On a rec

ent sunny afternoon , a dozen men sat idly on docked fishing boats in the island

 village of Kuzhir . Two boys and a man had been reported swept out to sea in a 

recent storm , but few of the ships had fuel to conduct a search . On land , the

 local power station had been without diesel fuel for a month which meant everyo

ne had been without lights and running water . Forest rangers like Vladimir and 

Natalya Ignashev , living in a wind-buffeted log cabin on Kadilny Bay , have few

 resources to block any poachers . They depend on passing boats and on the cows 

, chickens and garden they tend themselves . Naturalists here know they would do

 better to enlist the locals than to fight them . By encouraging tourism , they 

hope to give everyone a stake in preserving the wildlife that would attract visi

tors . Zaitunya Abdrashitova , head of international relations for the national 

park , is full of ideas : a mining museum in the old gold-mining town ; a bungal

ow campsite near a village that now subsists on an ecologically disastrous mink 

farm ; bed-and-breakfasts in the fishing town of Kuzhir . And Russia 's economic

 slump in one sense has given the naturalists some breathing space . Far fewer b

oaters than in the past can afford gasoline to roar around the lake ; most enter

prises can only dream of building hotels ; new factories are out of the question

 . Baikal 's water remains so clear that from a high cliff it is possible with b

inoculars to watch fish swimming lazily along the sandy lake bottom near shore .

 But the slump also has accelerated Russians ' desperate need to cut timber or h

unt bear . Moreover , as a tourist destination , Baikal has been damaged by West

ern mistrust of Russian domestic airlines , which alone serve the nearest city o

f Irkutsk , 3,000 miles from Moscow . After recent reports that a pilot 's teen-

age son was at the controls of a Russian International Airlines flight that cras

hed in Siberia , three U.S. tour groups canceled their planned visit , Abdrashit

ova said . Still , while `` mattress tourists '' may be scared off , Zayatz said

 he hopes the nature reserve can still attract a dozen or so people per week to 

raft or hike through the wilderness . `` We don't plan to build any huge hotels 

or offer super service , '' he said . `` People should walk , and get close to n

ature , and just see what 's there . ''

 IRKUTSK , Russia More than two years ago , Russia 's leading environmental orga

nization opened a campaign to save the country 's unique but increasingly embatt

led nature reserves . A natural treasure of incomparable value was in danger and

 , unlike with so many problems here , a modest amount of Western aid seemed lik

ely to make a difference . The Socio-Ecological Union collected information , an

alyzed needs and appealed to Western donors . `` We were naive enough to expect 

that the reserves would actually get something , '' recalled Yevgeny Simyonov . 

Western donors did indeed respond , but mostly by paying other non-Russians to c

onduct more studies and perform more on-site inspections . In what might serve a

s an archetype for much of the Western aid effort since the collapse of the Sovi

et Union , the chief beneficiaries seemed to be outside consultants , while thos

e in greatest need became disillusioned and discouraged . Nowhere is there a gre

ater sense of dashed hopes than here , where the lure of Russia 's premier natur

al attraction the mysterious Lake Baikal has enticed dozens of would-be donors f

rom the United States , Canada and elsewhere . `` Every year new people come , b

othering us , asking questions , making promises , '' said Pyotr Abramenok , dir

ector of the Pribaikalsky National Park . `` Then the next group comes , and ask

s all the same questions . It seems they all want to see Baikal . `` We get noth

ing out of this , '' Abramenok added . `` We need radios and cars ( to protect w

ildlife from poachers ) . We say , ` You want to build eco-tourism here . But by

 the time you develop anything , there will be a desert here no biodiversity , a

nd nothing for eco-tourists to see. ' ' ' In May , visitors arrived from a U.S.-

based company , Environmental Resources Management , which had won a $ 560,000 W

orld Bank contract to develop `` an eco-tourism master plan '' for the Lake Baik

al region , according to the company 's Angus Mackay . Mackay plans to spend the

 next several months studying the `` ecological carrying capacity '' of the regi

on . But as Mackay acknowledged , Irkutsk 's problem these days is a paucity of 

tourists , not a surfeit . So there is a good chance that the study will lead to

 a World Bank decision not to invest further `` because not enough people want t

o come . '' Irina Dyatlovskaya-Birnbaum , assistant director of the ecological g