TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93TT2279> <title> Dec. 27, 1993: Chronicles:The Week </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 Dec. 27, 1993 The New Age of Angels </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> CHRONICLES, Page 15 THE WEEK:DECEMBER 12-18 </hdr> <body> NATION Les Aspin Resigns Secretary of Defense Aspin stepped down, and President Clinton nominated Bobby Ray Inman, a former admiral, deputy director of the CIA and head of the National Security Agency, as his replacement. Reports made it clear that Aspin was forced out. He had been at the center of controversy since the beginning of his tenure, when he was caught in the middle of the fight over allowing gays in the military. His disorganized, professorial style alienated many in the Pentagon, and in October he was criticized in Congress for his not sending armored vehicles to troops in Somalia who were later caught and decimated in a firefight. Packwood Diaries After receiving testimony that Senator Bob Packwood had tampered with his private diaries, lawyers for the Senate ethics committee last week insisted that a subpoena for them be enforced. A secretary who used to work for Packwood said in a deposition that the Oregon Republican altered tapes and tape transcriptions that the Senate has subpoenaed as part of its investigation into Packwood's alleged sexual misconduct. Packwood apparently made the changes before the subpoena was issued. The tapes and transcriptions have now been placed in the custody of a federal judge, and the court is expected to rule on the subpoena by mid-January. Gay-Rights Ban Struck Down Colorado's infamous anti-gay rights amendment was declared unconstitutional by a Denver judge. The amendment, passed by voters last year, would have barred state and local laws prohibiting discrimination based on an individual's sexual orientation. Clinton on Entitlements At a televised symposium on entitlements in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Clinton argued against making further cuts in Medicare and Medicaid to reduce the deficit, saying health-care reform would do a better and fairer job of reducing the cost of government health programs. Hiring Woes The Administration's hopes to get its civil rights agenda under way were frustrated once more when John Payton, Clinton's latest choice to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, withdrew his name. Although backed by major rights groups, Payton, who is black, was opposed by many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Two other key personnel choices also withdrew: Gerald Torres, who would have been Payton's Justice counterpart on environment matters, and New York lawyer Harold Ickes, whom Clinton wanted to take over the drive for his health plan. Annenberg Gift Publishing billionaire and philanthropist Walter Annenberg will donate $500 million to groups specializing in public school reform. Segregation on the Rise De facto segregation is increasing in U.S. schools. A new study by the Harvard Project on School Desegregation found that 66% of black students and 73% of Hispanics attended predominantly minority schools in 1991-92, levels not seen since 1968. The trend is largely the result of greater immigration and higher concentrations of minorities in big cities. WORLD Nationalists Gain in Russia Russians voted on a new constitution and elected a new parliament. The constitution, which gives President Boris Yeltsin strong new powers, passed with 58% of the vote. In party-preference voting for the parliament, however, the ultra-reactionary Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, won a stunning 23.5% of the vote, while the pro-Yeltsin Russia's Choice Party trailed in second place with 14.8%; the Communists ran a close third with 13.3%. Zhirinovsky has said he would like to restore Russia's 19th century borders, when the empire included both Finland and Alaska. Fortunately for the reformers, only half the seats in the lower house of parliament are allocated according to votes for parties, and many individual Russia's Choice candidates won their districts. So, while it will not have a majority, Russia's Choice Party will form the largest bloc in the Duma. It is still unclear what coalitions may be formed. Finally, GATT After seven years of talks, 117 nations approved a new trade pact acclaimed as the most comprehensive in history. The latest version of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade will wholly or partly eliminate national tariffs, subsidies, quotas and other forms of protectionism for dozens of industries. To reach the accord, the U.S. and Europe deferred resolving their differences over film and television markets and aircraft manufacturing. A Plan for Irish Peace Prime Ministers John Major of Britain and Albert Reynolds of Ireland announced a "framework for peace" for Northern Ireland. The product of two years of diplomacy, the plan calls for the people of Northern Ireland to eventually decide their fate: whether they willremain part of Britain or join the Irish Republic. If the Irish Republican Army forswears violence for three months, its political wing will be offered a place at the bargaining table. Israel, P.L.O. Miss Deadline Israel and the P.L.O. failed last Monday to meet a target date for completing an accord that was to have brought about the beginning of an Israeli troop withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area of the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin hinted that there could be further delays in the introduction of Palestinian self-rule in those areas. Meanwhile, Israel opened its borders to the last of 415 Palestinians banished to a no-man's-land in southern Lebanon one year ago. Nobel Bickering After picking up their joint Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, South African President F.W. de Klerk and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela fell to bickering. De Klerk accused Mandela's supporters of showing "a lack of sensitivity" and "bad manners" at the ceremony. BUSINESS Going Once, Going Twice Its anti-takeover measures having been invalidated by the Delaware courts, Paramount Communications put itself up for auction. Rivals QVC and Viacom, which have been fighting for three months to acquire Paramount, were to make their bids this Monday, along with any other interested parties that happen to have $10 billion or so to spare. Employees May Buy United United Airlines may become the nation's largest employee-owned company. Leaders of the pilots' and machinists' unions last week agreed to a deal in which airline workers would receive 53% of the company in exchange for $5.15 billion in concessions. The proposal awaits board and union-member approval. SCIENCE Curing the Delta Blues After more than a decade of debate, lawsuits and battles among government officials, four federal agencies announced a sweeping plan to restore water flow to California's Sacramento Delta. One of the most biologically important estuaries in North America, the delta has been slowly dying as drought and diversion of fresh water to farms and cities have cut its flow 60%. Meanwhile, hopes dimmed for the future of an ambitious plan announced last July to reduce pollution and preserve water flow in Florida's Everglades. Most likely, the matter will now return to the courts. DDT from Abroad Though banned in the U.S. more than 20 years ago, the pesticide DDT is still accumulating here. Yale researchers who studied New England forests say winds deliver DDT from countries as remote as India that continue to use it. THE ARTS & MEDIA Foxball? The scrappy Fox network outbid CBS, patriarch of pro-pigskin broadcasters, for four-year TV rights to the prized National Football Conference. Now such gilt-edged franchises as Dallas, San Francisco and the New York Giants will air on the network of Al Bundy and Bart Simpson. And CBS, an N.F.L. home since the '50s, could be without a major pro-team sport. As Bart might say to CBS: "Don't have the Cowboys, man." The Spielberg Problem The New York Film Critics Circle named Steven Spielberg's Holocaust epic Schindler's List Best Picture but somewhat perversely gave New Zealand-born Jane Campion the award for Best Director for The Piano. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association likewise divided its Best Picture and Best Director awards between the two. For its part, the National Board of Review named Schindler Best Picture but cited Martin Scorsese as Best Director for The Age of Innocence. By Christopher John Farley, Sophfronia Scott Gregory, Eugene Linden, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Sidney Urquhart APPARENTLY, A KISS IS NOT STILL A KISS NEW MOVIE THE PELICAN BRIEF NATURAL REASONS FOR KISS Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington's characters ended up together in the novel and in an early script. ONSCREEN KISS AVOIDANCE At the end of the film, Roberts gives Washington a demure interracial kiss on the cheek and then leaves him. NEW MOVIE SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION NATURAL REASONS FOR KISS Will Smith and Anthony Michael Hall play gay men who have a love scene. ONSCREEN KISS AVOIDANCE Smith refused to kiss Hall; they fake kiss in a way so the audience can't see their lips. NEW MOVIE PHILADELPHIA NATURAL REASONS FOR KISS Tom Hanks plays a homosexual man dying of AIDS, Antonio Banderas is his passionately devoted lover. ONSCREEN KISS AVOIDANCE Banderas kisses Hanks on the hand. Their lips never meet. YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A HOW-TO MANUAL Here are some excerpts from The Santa Method, a manual given to department-store Santas by Western Temporary Services, a nationwide Santa supplier. -- It is recommended that Santa straighten out his leg, letting the youngster sit upon it as he brings it back. Practice this. It is known as the Santa leg lift. -- Always use evasive answers similar to "I'll consider what you have asked for," "I'll think it over" or "Let's see what old Santa can do." (Remember, Santa never, never promises!!) -- No smoking is permitted, as the beard is flammable. -- Do not borrow money from people at the store. -- We use the term "folks" because a large percentage of youngsters today are not living with their original mother or father. To keep youngsters from sobbing, we say "folks." -- For the child who comments that he just saw you at another store, it is good to reply, "Santa's magic, and he appears in many places very quickly." WRITER SAYS ARKANSAS TROOPERS HELPED CLINTON "CHEAT ON WIFE" A story to appear in the American Spectator, a conservative monthly, quotes two Arkansas state troopers who claim that while Bill Clinton was Governor, "their official duties included facilitating Clinton's cheating on his wife." The article is written by David Brock, author of a much disputed book about Anita Hill. In excerpts provided by the Spectator, the troopers, who hope to sell a book about their experiences, claim "they were instructed by Clinton to drive him in state vehicles to rendezvous points and guard him during sexual encounters; to deliver gifts from Clinton to various women (some of whom had state jobs); and to help Clinton cover up his activities by lying to Hillary." White House officials declined to comment. WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS EDOUARD BALLADUR Stubborn conservative French Prime Minister is local GATT hero VLADIMIR ZHIRINOVSKY Wild man ultra-nationalist does astoundingly well in Russian vote GAY RIGHTS Court kills Colorado antigay amendment that triggered boycott LOSERS LES ASPIN After 11 months, out of Defense--the job he'd always wanted MPAA PRESIDENT JACK VALENTI Movie rep loses GATT fight to drop European barriers to U.S. films G.O.P. SENATOR BOB PACKWOOD His diary seized by judge after secretary alleges bowdlerization STRENGTH ON THE RIGHT The success of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party in Russia's parliamentary elections last week may have been shocking, but Russian voters are not unique--xenophobic, ultra-right-wing parties have fared remarkably well in recent elections in a number of countries. Italy Dec. 1993 Gianfranco Fini's neofascist Italian Social Movement wins 16.4% of the vote in 428 municipal elections throughout the country, adding 14 new mayors. Austria May 1993 Jorg Haider's right-wing Freedom Party wins 12% of the vote in provincial elections in Lower Austria. France March 1993 Jean-Marie Le Pen's right-wing National Front wins 12.5% of the vote in parliamentary elections with anti-immigrant rhetoric. Germany March 1993 Former Waffen SS Sergeant Franz Schonhuber's Republikaner Party wins 9.5% of the vote in local elections in Frankfurt. U.S. Feb. 1992 While he does not advocate annexing Canada, Patrick Buchanan runs on an "America First" platform and wins 37% of the Republicans in the New Hampshire primary. The Crystal Ball "It is more interesting and more challenging than I could have possibly imagined before I took the job." -- LES ASPIN, ANSWERING THE QUESTION "YOU'RE COMFORTABLE BEING SECRETARY OF DEFENSE AND HOPE TO STAY THERE FOR SOME TIME?" ON MEET THE PRESS, FOUR DAYS BEFORE HE ANNOUNCED HE WOULD RESIGN MEETING THE DEADLINE By Lara Marlowe, in the Gaza Strip--With reporting by Jamil Hamad/the Gaza Strip The fire that consumed the stolen Chevrolet ambulance was so powerful that it vaporized the vehicle's upholstery, so there was not much left of Anwar Aziz, the man inside: only a carbonized corpse, its left foot dangling out the driver's door. Aziz would not have wanted it different, however, for he had set out that day to be Gaza's Dec. 13 martyr. On Dec. 13, last Monday, real peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians was supposed to begin. That was the day on which, under the terms of the accord signed on the White House lawn in September, the Israelis were to start withdrawing troops from the Gaza Strip. The withdrawal has been delayed, but to demonstrate their scorn for the deadline before it had even passed, members of Islamic Jihad, an extremist Muslim fundamentalist group, decided to deploy a weapon only recently borrowed from Muslim radicals elsewhere--the suicide car bomber. So early Monday morning at a highway intersection just outside the Gaza City limits, Aziz sped the ambulance toward an Israeli patrol. The soldiers opened fire, and the bullets ignited canisters of propane that Aziz had packed inside the auto. Three Israelis were slightly wounded. "More people will side with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The p.l.o. has no power," said an unemployed agricultural worker in the crowd that watched Aziz's corpse being lifted from the blackened wreckage. Israeli soldiers holding assault rifles stood around the crossroads, where faded Palestinian flags drooped from the rooftops. "Get moving. Get off the streets," a loudspeaker on an Israeli jeep warned loiterers in Arabic. In Jabaliya, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and the birthplace of the anti-Israeli intifadeh, Aziz's family and friends raised a tent for week-long mourning ceremonies. A militant wearing a black hood wielded an ax painted red. let slaughtering the jews be our road to paradise, read a banner on the tent. "We are jealous of Anwar," said one of Aziz's friends. "We feel like cowards because we have not yet done the same thing." Aziz's mother Halima, 50, told how the family fled their home in the village of Simsim, just northeast of the Gaza Strip in Israel, when she was a little girl during the 1948 war. "Since 1948 we have never been happy," she said. "We have no land, no security, no hope, no future." When the Aziz family set up a small T shirt-printing shop in 1989, the Israeli occupation authorities imposed taxes she says they could not afford to pay. In 1991 Anwar was arrested as a suspected Islamic Jihad supporter, and spent two years in prison in the Negev desert. He was released only last April. Aziz shared a four-room cement blockhouse with 16 relatives. The room he lived in with his wife and two young children is decorated with the wooden model of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, which he completed in prison. Intissar, Aziz's 22-year-old widow, said, "The day of Anwar's martyrdom was the happiest day of our marriage." HEALTH REPORT THE GOOD NEWS -- Lean means long-lived. A 27-year study of 19,297 Harvard graduates revealed that men who weighed 20% less than average for their height and age had the lowest rate of death among the weight classifications surveyed. By contrast, for those men 20% heavier than average, the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease was 2.5 times that of men closer to their desirable weight. -- Women who have their Fallopian tubes tied to prevent pregnancy lower by 67% their risk of contracting ovarian cancer. The new finding raises hopes that tubal sterilization can reduce mortality from ovarian cancer, which kills 12,000 American women each year. THE BAD NEWS -- Whooping cough afflicts ever more Americans because doctors and parents have become complacent about vaccination programs for the old-fashioned-seeming malady. So far this year 5,457 cases of the spasmodic cough have been reported--the highest number since 1967. The disease can last several weeks, but it is easily preventable by vaccination. -- A dramatic increase in the number of drug-resistant cases of tuberculosis has caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call for forcible isolation of TB patients who are unwilling or unable to follow treatment programs. In New York City nearly one-third of TB patients are infected with drug-resistant strains. </body> </article> </text>