TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93TT0196> <title> Aug. 16, 1993: The Week:August 1-7, 1993 </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 Aug. 16, 1993 Overturning The Reagan Era </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE WEEK, Page 11 NEWS DIGEST: AUGUST 1-7 </hdr> <body> NATION Budget Passes--Barely With no votes to spare in the House and needing Vice President Al Gore's tie-breaking vote in the Senate, Democrats managed to pass Bill Clinton's budget over unanimous Republican opposition, preserving the broad outlines of Clinton's original plan and saving his presidency. The victory was clinched in the House on Thursday after Clinton promised to seek more spending cuts in the fall. The last wavering Senator, Democrat Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, reveled in the limelight as the last undecided, then voted in favor. "The margin was close, but the mandate is clear," said the President. The Flood Spares St. Louis St. Louis, Missouri, escaped major damage when the Mississippi River crested 2$ ft. below the top of the city's 11-mile-long, 52-ft.-high flood wall. The city was spared partly because nearby levees unexpectedly gave way, flooding the adjacent land but reducing the river's volume. As rains slacked off, hopes rose that the great flood's end might be near. King Cops' Wrists Slapped U.S. District Judge John Davies imposed 2 1/2-year sentences on Sergeant Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence Powell in the second Rodney King trial; the sentences were less than half what sentencing guidelines seemed to require. Davies said the beating had been largely permissible because of King's threatening behavior. Los Angeles was tense as the sentencing coincided with jury selection in another trial--that of two black men accused of beating truck driver Reginald Denny during the riots that followed the first King verdict. Ginsburg Approved The Senate decided to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a Supreme Court Justice and, by voice vote, approved federal Judge Louis Freeh as FBI director. By 76 to 23, Senators also confirmed the controversial Sheldon Hackney as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Republicans, however, managed to postpone until September a vote on Surgeon General nominee Dr. Joycelyn Elders. Spy Satellites Explode Eight hundred million dollars went up in a ball of flame as a Titan 4 rocket exploded over the Pacific, taking with it three solar-powered spy satellites. The cost of the destroyed satellites equaled the entire amount Congress had saved by cutting the intelligence budget this year. Switched--or Kidnapped? Kimberly Mays, 14, asked a Sarasota, Florida, court to deny visitation rights to her biological parents, from whom she has been separated since she was switched at birth with another infant, who later died. Mays' birth parents, Ernest and Regina Twigg, accused Robert Mays of engineering the switch, which had previously been described as accidental. The Twiggs also accused him of abusing Kimberly. The Mayses once passed a lie-detector test on the question of whether they were involved in the switch. The Rahman Tapes Audiotapes made by government informer Emad Salem captured Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman advising followers as they plotted to blow up the U.N. and New York FBI headquarters. The alleged conspirators were arrested last month. The tapes seemed contradictory as to whether the sheik actually encouraged the foiled bombings, and they may provide support for the defense contention that Salem entrapped the defendants. President's Clan Grows Sharon Pettijohn of Tucson, Arizona, followed Henry Leon Ritzenthaler in claiming to be a child of the President's father. Pettijohn's mother appears to have been married to Clinton's father William Jefferson Blythe in 1941, after his alleged marriage to Ritzenthaler's mother but before he wed Clinton's mother Virginia Kelley. Clinton withheld comment. WORLD No Peace in Bosnia At peace talks in Geneva, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim, has agreed in principle to plans that would carve up his country into ethnic regions. But with Bosnian Serbs still attacking from strategic positions around Sarajevo despite an official cease-fire, Izetbegovic stayed away from the conference table. NATO and the U.S. say they're fully prepared to launch air strikes to break the siege of the capital--a threat that so far has not impressed the Serbs. The U.S. State Department's desk officer responsible for Bosnia resigned, claiming the Clinton Administration had sanctioned the destruction of a U.N. member state and pressured its government to capitulate. Middle East Crisis Passes Aside from a few limited exchanges, the cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hizballah guerrillas is holding, after a week of fighting that killed about 150 people, including three Israelis. Much of the credit has gone to Syrian President Hafez Assad, who is putting pressure on Hizballah to lie low. In an unusual display of warmth toward him, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called Assad "a serious leader." Having brokered the cease-fire, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher turned his attention back to the stalled Middle East talks. Another sign that peace may be coming closer: Israeli Environment Minister Yossi Sarid reportedly met with a prominent P.L.O. official, the sort of encounter that is no longer illegal but is still considered taboo. European Currencies Stabilize European economic officials achieved some success in quelling the speculative chaos unloosed last week when Germany failed to support the French franc by reducing its discount rate as much as had been expected. It remains to be seen whether the remedies, which included allowing a wider fluctuation between currencies, will repair French-German relations or, for that matter, save the plan to create a single European currency, an essential element of European union. The Dutch Finance Minister said the situation was "a huge step backward." Demjanjuk in Limbo After the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that there was reasonable doubt that John Demjanjuk was "Ivan the Terrible," a sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp in World War II, the U.S. Justice Department said he still could not return to his adopted home, since he had probably been an only somewhat less cruel guard at other camps. Then a U.S. appeals court ruled that since Demjanjuk was extradited from the U.S. specifically to face the Treblinka charges, he should be able to return after all. Now the Israelis say he can't--until Israel's Supreme Court rules on whether he'll be tried for alleged crimes at the other camps. Japanese Apology Japan denied for decades that its army had run brothels in occupied Asian countries before and during World War II; when it grudgingly admitted last year the charge was true, it claimed the "comfort women" who worked as prostitutes had not been coerced. Now, finally, the Japanese government has admitted that most of the women were forced into prostitution and kept as virtual slaves. Meanwhile, as expected, a seven-party parliamentary coalition elected Morihiro Hosokawa as Japan's new Prime Minister. BUSINESS Gold Tops Out After a dramatic climb from $330 per oz. in March to $414 in recent days, gold fell $22 last Thursday. New Microsoft Investigation Just when the Federal Trade Commission had forgone pressing antitrust charges against Microsoft Corp. for using its huge market share in disk-operating systems to compel the purchase of its other products, the Justice Department opened a probe on the same issues. Critics suggested that the new investigation was politically motivated double jeopardy, but many officials at the FTC, whose commissioners had deadlocked on moving ahead, were pleased. Smokey van Robinson? The Dutch record company PolyGram paid $301 million for Motown Records, including its extraordinary library of 30,000 master recordings. The legendary black label was dissatisfied with its part-ownership by MCA. The PolyGram deal, along with the success of some of the company's newer artists, has raised Motown's prospects. Orioles Sold A group headed by hometown lawyer Peter Angelos bought the Baltimore Orioles at auction from Eli Jacobs, a bankrupt New York businessman. The price, $173 million, was the highest ever paid for a pro-baseball franchise in the U.S. The Orioles, within striking distance of first place in the American League Eastern Division race, have been selling out at their new Camden Yards stadium. SCIENCE The Real King David The Bible says David slew Goliath and went on to found a dynasty that ruled the ancient land of Israel. But no corroborating evidence for the story had ever surfaced--until now. An Israeli archaeologist has uncovered an inscription near the Syrian border that refers to the House of David. Biblical scholars have termed the find "sensational." -- By Christopher John Farley, Alexandra Lange, Michael D. Lemonick, Erik Meers, Michael Quinn, Sidney Urquhart, David Van Biema DISPATCHES Searching for Jerry Seinfeld By LARRY DOYLE, in Montreal A young comic is doing a bit about his genitals when a cry comes from the crowd: "Hey! Hey! I'm really getting sick and tired of all this!" An earnest man in shorts runs up to the front of the room. "I'm just sick of all this blaspheming," he says, "all this talking about your genitalia." After undergoing a few more minutes of such abuse, the comedian surrenders the stage to the heckler, who suspiciously wears a clip-on microphone and who begins preaching to the crowd. "I'll tell you what this is," he says. "It's another example of this liberal Jew-run media...in cahoots with the lesbian dentists' cartel. In Ecclesiastes 14:8 it says, `The Lesbian Periodontists shall...'--I'm paraphrasing here..." Moments like this are the point of Montreal's 11-year-old Just for Laughs comedy festival, which this year featured 200 comedians, appearances by comedy legends George Burns, John Candy and Michael Richards (Kramer on Seinfeld) and not one but two acts involving naked guys dancing with balloons. The festival attracts around 600,000 people, but the performers are not nearly as interested in the crowds as they are in the 400 scouts from Hollywood and New York City who roam the venues in search of the next Roseanne Barr or Jerry Seinfeld. The industry types perform a very important function. At every hotel bar you see the same clusters of people: a couple of comics, a couple of managers and an executive; the executive is there to pick up the check. But they can also make somebody's career. "The hope," says Scott Schneider, manager of talent relations for the cable comedy network Comedy Central, "is you'll find the next new big talent that you can exploit." This year the consensus among the development executives seems to be that there are some fantastically funny, very exciting, very, very unique talents here, but none you would necessarily want to put on after Home Improvement. Take David Cross, for example, the 29-year-old comic from Los Angeles whose version of Ecclesiastes is unfamiliar to most readers of the Bible. Cross's blasphemy and his predilection for overly evocative images ("A great big steaming platter of baby kittens" springs to mind) don't seem suitable for a vehicle on ABC called, say, Cross My Heart. Nor does Lea DeLaria seem quite ready for her own show. She begins her act by announcing, "It's the 1990s and it's hip to be queer and I'm a big dyke." As David Tochterman, vice president of talent and development for Carsey-Werner (Cosby, Roseanne), puts it, with dead seriousness, "The time may not be right for somebody with Lea's ability to be showcased properly on network television." Anything is possible in show business, however. Cross is close to signing a deal with a major television-production company. And DeLaria says, "This guy came up to me and said he was with [Fred] Silverman's people, and he said, `You know, we're thinking of redoing C.P.O. Sharkey...' " And Potatoes Don't Even Vote While public attention was on the fate of the reconciliation bill, which deals primarily with taxes and entitlements, Congress continued its work on the 13 appropriation bills that offer the opportunity to subsidize projects helpful to those back home. The House has approved the following: $1.1 million Plant Stress Lab at Texas Tech University $750,000 Potato research $500,000 Exhibits in the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve, Wisconsin $9 million National Textile Center $2.5 million Parking garage in Burlington, Iowa $1.5 million Chicago Urban Forestry program $230,000 Tourism promotion in New Mexico $250,000 Toledo Farmers' Market $200,000 Dredging Milwaukee Harbor $1.3 million New York Botanical Garden $300,000 Construction of Lake O' the Pines in Texas $192,000 Beluga-whale committee $98,000 Carp-control study at Metzger Marsh, Ohio $3.1 million Steamtown, USA in Scranton, Pa. WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON His budget plan, albeit tattered and torn, squeaks through SENATOR BOB DOLE How to win by losing: now he can wave the red tax flag until '96 WARREN CHRISTOPHER Brokered Lebanon cease-fire; put peace talks back on track LOSERS MENENDEZ BROTHERS In murder trial, their shrink testifies against them--in August COLUMBIA PICTURES First, Last Action Hero; now cameos in the Heidi Fleiss Chronicles CHRISTOPHER WHITTLE Grandiose plan to build for-profit schools deflates I Wish I Was In The Land Of Cotton... "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries."--JESSE HELMS, WHO HAD BEEN SINGING DIXIE, TO ORRIN HATCH AS THEY RODE IN AN ELEVATOR WITH CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN, THE SENATE'S ONLY BLACK MEMBER. MOSELEY-BRAUN'S RETORT: "SENATOR HELMS, YOUR SINGING WOULD MAKE ME CRY IF YOU SANG ROCK OF AGES." HELMS' AIDE LATER SAID IT WAS ALL MEANT IN GOOD FUN. Informed Sources U.N. Peacekeepers and AIDS NEW YORK--With all the controversies over the role and effectiveness of UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPERS, one issue that has received scant attention, and that U.N. officials are loath to discuss, is the presence of AIDS among the peacekeeping forces. The militaries of countries in sub-Saharan Africa are known to have HIV infection rates as high as 80%, and many of these countries, which may receive a few hundred dollars a month for each soldier, send troops on peacekeeping missions. A U.N. official explains that "we do not discriminate between black, white or AIDS-infected people." But he goes on to say, "AIDS is a complicated issue. We need the troops." Rock Stars Share Shameful Secret NEW YORK--Some of the top stars in music have indulged in a guilty rock pleasure. Garth Brooks, Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz and the speed-metal band Megadeth, among other unlikely devotees, have recorded cover versions of songs by the band KISS, perhaps the schlockiest combo in rock history, for a tribute album that is due to be released early next year. Clinton's $20 Billion Promise WASHINGTON--To take some of the sting out of military-base closings, President Bill Clinton has announced that the Defense Department will pay for cleaning up environmental pollution at all the bases that are being shut down. The President didn't put a price tag on this, but Pentagon insiders say the cost of this gesture will be enormous--more than $20 billion over the next decade. Nine of the bases slated for closure are Superfund toxic-waste sites, meaning they are among the most contaminated areas in America. There are also more than 500 less polluted sites on these bases, contaminated with toxic pollutants, radioactive substances or unexploded munitions. Health Report THE GOOD NEWS -- Insurers have traditionally paid out huge sums for medications and major operations while refusing to reimburse patients for less traditional, low-cost preventive therapies. Now Mutual of Omaha says it will pay for an alternative method to stave off or even reverse heart disease. The program, developed by best-selling heart guru Dr. Dean Ornish, includes exercise, diet, meditation and group support. Other insurance companies are expected to follow. -- A European study has now shown that the safest and cheapest drug to thin the blood after coronary-bypass surgery is just as effective as any other such drug--and costs a fraction of a cent a dose, in contrast to tens of dollars. Moreover, it is available at every convenience store. The drug is aspirin. THE BAD NEWS -- Restaurant patrons have to contend with secondhand smoke for an hour or so; waiters and bartenders inhale the stuff all day long. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that people who work in restaurants where smoking is allowed have a 50% higher risk of lung cancer than the average person. -- Fully 25% of America's skyrocketing hospital bills come from administrative costs. In Canada, bureaucracy eats up only half as much. -- Health workers avoid the virus-laden body fluids of aids victims. Now they must also be careful with a solution used to rinse bacteria from victims' lungs for testing. The solution also rinses out HIV particles; it was not known before that HIV can thrive in the lungs. Sources: Lancet; New England Journal of Medicine; Journal of the American Medical Association; news reports Absent-Minded When Ross Perot began running for President, he found a convenient excuse to avoid discussing specifics: he'd left them at home. You'd think that after a year he'd know better, but not much has changed. Asked how to eliminate government waste "It would have been nice if you would have told me you wanted to talk about this, and I'd have had all my facts with me." Meet the Press, May 3, 1992 Asked about the deficit "You ask me to get into line items...and I obviously don't have the records with me today. I'd be glad to come back this afternoon and give you all a No. 10 migraine headache going through it." To newspaper editors, April 10, 1992 Asked another time about the deficit "I'd be glad to give you the details...If I had known you wanted them, I would have brought my charts...I certainly would be glad to give you the details, and that would not be hard to do." Today show, May 27, 1993 Asked yet again about the deficit "Well, if you had told me you wanted that, I would have come with a very detailed list and given it to you. And if you would like it later, I will give it to you later." Meet the Press, Aug. 1, 1993 </body> </article> </text>