TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=94TT0313> <title> Mar. 21, 1994: Chronicles:The Week </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994 Mar. 21, 1994 Hard Times For Hillary </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> CHRONICLES, Page 21 THE WEEK:March 6-12 </hdr> <body> NATION Gray Eminence to the Rescue Lloyd Cutler, venerable pillar of the Washington establishment, was tapped by President Clinton to take control of the increasingly ominous Whitewater affair as interim White House counselor. Cutler, who held the same position for Jimmy Carter, emphasized that he would take the job for no more than 130 days and would serve without pay. More Whitewater At a White House press conference the President lashed out at questions about the role of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the affair, saying, "I have never known a person with a stronger sense of right and wrong in my life--ever." As the first three of six subpoenaed White House officials appeared before a grand jury, Republican Senators appeared willing to let the investigation continue for several months before demanding public hearings. Oh, Pretty Parody A unanimous Supreme Court opinion has broadened the application of "fair use" in copyright law. Writing for the court in favor of the rap group 2 Live Crew, which had produced a raunchy version of the 1964 classic Oh, Pretty Woman, Justice David Souter said parody "can provide social benefit by shedding light on an earlier work and, in the process, creating a new one." 4 Sale, Cheap! Satellite Pix! After months of debate among intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the Commerce Department, the Clinton Administration announced that it will permit commercial firms to market advanced spy-satellite technology to customers around the world. Some experts fear the move could compromise national security. The High Cost of Writing The U.S. Postal Board of Governors approved a 10.3% increase in rates, a move that would boost the price of mailing a letter to 32 cents. Butting Out In a decree that will affect 2.6 million uniformed and civilian personnel, the Defense Department banned smoking from the military workplace. And Maryland became the first state to stub out smoking in all workplaces--including bars, restaurants and convention facilities as well as offices. In Washington, 20,000 angry smokers and tobacco-industry workers demonstrated against an Administration proposal to raise the federal excise tax from 24 cents a pack to 99 cents. Throwing Away the Key The controversial sentencing bill known as "three strikes, you're out" was signed into law by California Governor Pete Wilson. Enacted in the wake of a national furor over the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, allegedly by a parolee, the measure would lock up third-time violent felons for life without parole. Parade Rest The veterans group that sponsors Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade said it is canceling this year's march, rather than accede to a ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that a gay group be allowed to join the parade. Tonya Again Tonya Harding is free to compete in the world championships in Chiba, Japan, next week. A hearing before a panel of the U.S. Figure Skating Association that might have ended her skating career was postponed by a federal judge, who said Harding's lawyers had not had enough time to prepare her case. America's Cup Sex Change For nearly 150 years, the grueling America's Cup sailing competition has generally been a men-only event. Now the reigning champion, American Bill Koch, has turned over his string of yachts, his coaching and design expertise, and several million dollars to an all-female team. Koch's syndicate has already signed up nine women for his 1995 crew, including five U.S. Olympic medalists. Ol' Blue Eyes Swoons Frank Sinatra collapsed on a Richmond, Virginia, stage while performing his trademark My Way. Complaining of the heat, the singer fell to the floor "like a sack of stones," recalled a concert-goer. He is recovering in California. WORLD Massacre Inquiry During an official Israeli inquiry, the regional commander in charge of West Bank forces said Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein's killing spree in the Tomb of the Patriarchs could have been prevented. Five of the six men who were supposed to be on guard inside the mosque--including three who overslept--were missing.A police superintendent testified that Israeli security forces were forbidden to fire on Jewish settlers, even if the settlers were shooting Palestinians. In that case, he said, "you take cover and wait for the clip to finish, then stop him in some other way, not by shooting." Israelis and Arafat Meet In the first Arab-Israeli talks since the massacre, the political adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met with p.l.o. chief Yasser Arafat in Cairo. The meeting was described as "a starting point" in which both sides "explained their positions and went home." Mostar's Muslims Emerge Bosnian Croat separatists removed their heavy weapons from around the city of Mostar in order to meet a U.N. deadline. Shocked Muslim residents of the city's eastern quarter emerged to a neighborhood they scarcely recognized after nine months of shelling. Every single structure has been devastated--including the once graceful arc of the 400-year-old Stari Most, or Old Bridge. Clang! Clang! Clang! Crowds of cheering Sarajevans stood in happy disbelief as two of the city's bullet-riddled trolleys made a test run on newly repaired tracks. But since the city is still cut off from the outside world, one resident termed the trial "traffic inside a prison." Visiting Nixon Angers Yeltsin Russian President Boris Yeltsin, infuriated by Richard Nixon's meetings with Yeltsin's political archenemies in Moscow, canceled planned talks with the former President. Nixon, on a 10-day private visit to Russia, met with former Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, who led a bloody rebellion against Yeltsin last October. Yeltsin later appeared to soften his stand but said he couldn't reschedule the meeting because of the death of his mother-in-law. Experiencing Delays The world's busiest international airport, London's Heathrow, came under attack by mortar fire on two consecutive days. No one was hurt and no aircraft were damaged in the shellings. The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the attacks. Vote Violence in South Africa The leader of the South African homeland of Bophuthatswana dropped a boycott of South Africa's first all race elections scheduled for next month after demonstrators took to the streets. At least 24 people were killed during a week of civil unrest. Tribal Massacre in Burundi Avenging the killing of 200 members of the Hutu ethnic group by their longtime enemies in a raid in the Burundi capital, Hutus murdered dozens of Tutsis. Nearly 100,000 people were killed in rioting last October when the country's first Hutu leader was killed by the Tutsi-dominated military. BUSINESS Christopher's Bumpy Asia Trip In a visit to Tokyo, Secretary of State Warren Christopher warned the Japanese that the U.S. expects them to do more to open up their markets and reduce their trade surplus with the U.S. By the weekend they had done something: an agreement was announced that will allow Motorola broader access to Japan's cellular-telephone market. Christopher's next stop was China, where talks on renewing that country's most-favored-nation trading status got off to a rocky start. China's recent crackdown on dissidents, Christopher said, "certainly bodes ill" for chances of renewal. Premier Li Peng told Christopher, "China will never accept U.S.-style human rights." As for U.S. trade, "China can live without it." A Battle for Grumman The post-cold war consolidation of the U.S. defense industry intensified with a bidding war to purchase the ailing Grumman Corp., one of the most venerable names in military aviation. Martin Marietta's announcement of a $1.9 billion deal to acquire Grumman was followed by a $2 billion offer from Northrop. As the buyout battle unfolded, the sec launched an insider-trading investigation into heavy stock and option trading of Grumman shares that occurred just before Martin Marietta announced its move. Met Pays In one of the largest insurance-company settlements, Metropolitan Life agreed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to pay $20 million in fines, and up to $76 million in refunds to 60,000 customers, to settle accusations that some of its agents misrepresented life insurance plans as retirement plans. Anti-Bias Offensive Ten federal agencies announced new joint policy guidelines aimed at stamping out discrimination against minorities by banks and other lending institutions. Still No Letup on Layoffs Despite continued signs of moderate economic growth, reported last week by the Federal Reserve, corporate layoffs continued. Among the latest cuts: 5,500 positions, or 25% of the banking work force, at Fleet Financial Group, parent of New England's largest bank; and 4,400 positions, or 7% of the work force, at Raytheon Co., maker of the Patriot missile. SCIENCE Uninformed Consent In a case that raises dramatic questions about how scientists go about getting consent from their test subjects, a government panel ruled that UCLA researchers failed to inform schizophrenic patients about the risks of an experiment in which they were taken off their medication so that researchers could monitor the course of a relapse. The experiment, now winding down, has been criticized by ethicists for allowing patient-subjects to become dangerously ill. Warning: Volcano Blasting A survivor of a volcanic explosion that killed six scientists last year says his colleagues may not have died in vain. Analysis of data collected from the fateful eruption of the Galeras volcano in the Colombian Andes reveals patterns that may help predict precisely when an explosive volcano will erupt. By Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Christopher John Farley, Lina Lofaro, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders, Sidney Urquhart ZHIRINOVSKY BEAT Russia's top ultranationalist spent part of his week abroad--sort of: Sunday: In a rambling interview with a 60 Minutes reporter, said that "it's better if Jewish people will live together in Israel" and denied ever having worked for the KGB...Monday: Left Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, after being forced to stay overnight in an airport lounge when officials denied him entry to the country. (In January he had been asked to leave Slovenia after reports that his entourage had damaged property at a resort while drinking.)...Friday: Refused to meet with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, saying the U.S. nearly "impeached Nixon and now Russia is impeaching him too." DISPATCHES Are You There, NBC? It's Me, Zlata There are 23 minutes remaining before her Today show appearance, and Zlata Filipovic, the 13-year-old chronicler of war-torn Sarajevo, is snacking on cantaloupe, perusing a Harper's Bazaar and affecting an impressive calm. Impressive because she is surrounded by more chain-smoking attendants than even the Texan rock-star aspirant seated across the green room. While there is no faux blond manager in black crochet at the young Bosnian girl's disposal, her entourage is a solicitous group that includes her lawyer father and chemist mother, their Serbo-Croatian translator, a publicist and a representative from Zlata's French publisher, whose apparent purpose is to help make the Filipovics' stay more enjoyable by suggesting they go see The Phantom of the Opera or--less likely--Schindler's List. Zlata's Today show interview is the first stop on her five-city U.S. tour to promote Zlata's Diary, an account of her family's life in the besieged Bosnian capital. The book has become an international best seller since its initial publication last fall, and when Zlata sits down with Katie Couric, it is immediately clear she has become adept at answering painful questions about her tragically abbreviated girlhood. By 7:25 a.m. the interview is over, the heaviness of memory lifts, and Zlata's inner teenager slowly begins to emerge. As writer and company stroll up Fifth Avenue, Zlata, fixated on supermodels, eyes a new book by fashion photographer Arthur Elgort in a store window. Christy Turlington, her favorite supermodel of all, graces the cover. When there is talk of lunching at the Royalton hotel--which houses New York's famously soigne publishing-world eatery, 44--Zlata asks, beaming, "Is that where the models are?" But her giddy, girlish mood is dampened when the French publishing liaison, assuming a Naomi Wolf-ish posture, informs Zlata that "models aren't people to emulate. They are obsessed with their bodies, not with what's up here," she adds, pointing to her head. There is no feminist lecture at the group's next stop, Bloomingdale's, where Zlata ogles shoes. A self-proclaimed footwear fanatic, she admires some oxfords and high-tops but purchases nothing; her heart is set on a pair of $19.99 Mary Janes she spotted earlier at the Gap. The shopping segment of the morning ends when Zlata's publicist announces that it is time to head for a taping of Charlie Rose's pbs talk show. Here again, Zlata holds her own, even when the usually unctuous host prods his child guest to defend herself against a New York Times review excoriating her book. Even when Rose asks Zlata, who is still struggling with English, if writing the diary was a "catharsis" for her. Returning to the green room, Zlata is delighted when Rose's next guest, novelist Paul Theroux, tells her she guessed the meaning of the term correctly. The young writer sweetly offers the older author an autographed copy of her book. And she doesn't even know the meaning of the verb network. HEALTH REPORT THE GOOD NEWS -- Cranberry juice really does protect against urinary-tract infections, as women have long believed and a scientific study now confirms. As it happens, the study was funded by Ocean Spray, which provided the juice. -- Children who drink caffeinated soda show significant improvements in tests of attention and manual dexterity, a new study reports. Not surprisingly, the kids also said the caffeine made them feel less sluggish--and more anxious. -- Fat consumption in the U.S. continues to fall--down to 34% of daily calories in 1990 from 42% in the mid-1960s. But Americans are eating more rather than fewer calories, and they grow heavier every year. THE BAD NEWS -- The number of new AIDS cases surged unexpectedly last year, more than doubling, owing largely to a jump in infections among heterosexuals. The numbers had been expected to go up because of a change in reporting procedures, but not by this much. The increase was greater among women (151%) than among men (105%). The biggest increases of all were among teens and young adults. -- People who wear contact lenses overnight are more than eight times as likely to get eye infections as those who don't, even if the lenses are the so-called extended-wear type, according to a new study. Nearly 75% of those cases could be prevented by taking the lenses out at night. Sources--GOOD: Journal of the American Medical Association; Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; National Center for Health Statistics. BAD: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Archives of Ophthalmology. THE LAST WORD IN OSCAR PICKS Forget Siskel and Ebert. TIME consulted a real professional: Zena, a psychic and tarot-card reader with offices on Bleecker Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. Her predictions: Picture: Schindler's List Director: Steven Spielberg Actor: Liam Neeson Actress: Stockard Channing Supporting Actor: John Malkovich Supporting Actress: Rosie Perez Documentary Short: Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann HURTS SO GOOD "I know something about Hillary and Bill Clinton right now. I know how their stomachs churn...I know their inability to sleep at night and their reluctance to rise in the morning...I know all this, and the thought of it makes me happy." -- RACHEL ABRAMS, WIFE OF FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE ELLIOT ABRAMS (CONVICTED OF IRAN-CONTRA-RELATED PERJURY); FROM A WASHINGTON TIMES OP-ED PIECE ON WHITEWATER WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS DAVID SOUTER He pleases media elite by supporting parody in copyright case RICHARD FISHER Perot-aligned Texan spends big $ to gain Senate primary runoff CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS Takeover of Baptists continues as moderate seminary prez is fired LOSERS LESLIE ABRAMSON Menendez attorney won't collect any taxpayer-funded fees JAMES BROOKS Missing from his critically lauded Critic TV show: an audience FRANCES LEAR Her eponymous mag for over-40 women folds with April issue SENATOR POTHOLE CALLS THE KETTLE BLACK U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York is leading the g.o.p. charge on Whitewater. As a stiff-backed ethicist, he is something of a rookie: 1975 D'Amato denies under oath knowing about the "1% rule," by which government workers in Nassau County, New York, were coerced into kicking back 1% of their salaries as contributions to the Republican Party. 1981 Accepts campaign contributions from John Shad, who was seeking the chairmanship of the Securities and Exchange Commission. D'Amato was chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the SEC. Shad won the chairmanship. 1985 Is forced to admit he was aware of the Nassau County kickbacks, with the emergence of a 1971 letter he wrote on his personal stationery in which he referred to the practice. 1992 Senate ethics committee criticizes D'Amato for letting his brother (later convicted of fraud) use his office and his official stationery to lobby for a defense contractor. INFORMED SOURCES Clinton's Picks to Head the EEOC Sources say the White House plans to nominate Mexican-American lawyer Gilbert VAzquez to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As it happens, Vazquez is a partner specializing in commercial law in the San Antonio, Texas, office of the same law firm as Democratic fixer and presidential pal Vernon Jordan. Paul Igasaki, a Japanese American who heads the Asian Law Caucus, is expected to be named to the No. 2 spot at EEOC. Loans to Iran? Not So Fast! The Clinton Administration's campaign to isolate Iran may have scored a direct hit on that country's pocketbook. A senior U.S. official told TIME that the World Bank will not approve any new loans to Iran, potentially depriving Tehran of hundreds of millions of dollars. The U.S. has been against World Bank loans to Iran for the past several years but has repeatedly been outvoted. This time the U.S. waged a canny behind-the-scenes campaign to win the support of countries like Japan and Germany. SERIAL CHIC America's romance with real-life mass murder is going mainstream. Two years ago, serial-killer trading cards sparked national outrage. Now Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson co-star with Diane Sawyer and Jane Pauley. Even eggheads have got the bug, thanks to a serial-killer cover on the New York Review of Books. Hey, there's gold in them thar psychos: MansonWear Charles Manson has earned some $600 in royalties from a line of caps, surfer pants and T shirts adorned with his image and such studiously ironic slogans as support family values and charlie don't surf. Sales took off after Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose began wearing the T shirts in concert and covered a Manson song on a recent album. Dial-G-for-Gacy The John Wayne Gacy Interview Line, a 900 number, offers a recording of the bland-voiced killer of 33 pinning the crime on unnamed others, who then took the trouble to bury the bodies under his house. Cost of the 12-minute call: $23.88. My Son the Driller Killer In the tastefully packaged A Father's Story (William Morrow; $20), Lionel Dahmer spends 255 pages pondering the source of son Jeffrey's antisocial urges. Sample scapegoat: Mrs. Dahmer, because she disliked breast-feeding. Manson the Typeface Cutting-edge typographers in California produced a typeface dubbed Manson. For $95, art directors can set their serial-killer Zeitgeist essays in Manson Regular, Manson Alternate or Manson Bold (all officially redubbed Mason after criticism). </body> </article> </text>