| Marxist terrorists stormed the home of the Japanese ambassador in Peru during a reception, capturing 12 foreign ambassadors and other officials, including six Americans. The Castro-inspired rebels threatened to kill their hostages unless Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori released their comrades from jail and scrapped his "neoliberal" economic policies. American newspapers described excitedly how the terrorists, posing as waiters, had smuggled ammunition into the compound in dessert boxes--"a sophisticated, meticulous operation with cinematic touches," said the Los Angles Times--before admitting the next day that the story was bogus and the terrorists had essentially blasted their way in. The media gave the event saturation coverage and noted that the terrorists have achieved their main goal, saturation coverage. U.S. analysts sniffed that the targeting of Japan's ambassador instead of the United States' reflected a decline in U.S. prestige. (Heretofore, the Peruvian terrorists had been known for burning Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.) The prognosis, as of Friday morning, was that Fujimori would like to deal roughly with the rebels but can't, because Japan, which has put $2 billion worth of foreign aid and investment into Peru, wants him to follow Japan's traditional anti-terrorist policy of instant capitulation. (posted 12/21) |
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| President Clinton picked four more Cabinet nominees: White House aide Alexis Herman for labor secretary, Transportation Secretary Federico Peña for energy secretary, Federal Highway Administrator Rodney Slater for transportation secretary, and Assistant Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo for HUD secretary. The press portrayed it as a calculated racial scheme: two blacks, a Hispanic, a woman, and a Cuomo. The Associated Press reported that Clinton switched his Energy pick from a white woman (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairwoman Elizabeth Moler) to Peña after realizing he hadn't put any Hispanics in the Cabinet. (posted 12/21) |
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| Unidentified gunmen massacred six Red Cross workers in their beds at a hospital in Chechnya. Editorialists called it the worst outrage in the organization's 133 years and the most poignant sign yet of the death of honorable warfare. (posted 12/21) |
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| Earl Pitts |
The FBI arrested one of its own agents on charges of spying for Russia. Editorialists conceded that the agent, Earl Pitts, hadn't done nearly as much damage as CIA moles Aldrich Ames or Harold Nicholson, but was nonetheless an embarrassment to the FBI, which had failed to catch him during his active years (1987 to 1992). Amid signs that Pitts, like the others, was motivated by money, commentators lamented once again that treasonous Communist idealism has given way to treasonous capitalist materialism. While newspapers chided the Russians for continuing to spy on America after the Cold War ("Spying Remains Second Nature for Russia," read a Washington Post headline), they buried the disclosure that the FBI had caught Pitts by recruiting his original Russian handler as its own double agent. (posted 12/21) | | With marijuana, tobacco, and now liquor under fire, caffeine is making a comeback. The Wall Street Journal reports that caffeinated water is already a hot seller (sample brands: "Krank2O," "Edge2O," and "Water Joe"); Coca-Cola has just introduced a caffeine-packing citrus-flavored soda called "Surge" (slogan: "Feed the Rush"); Pepsi is test-marketing a blend of Pepsi and coffee; and another company is preparing to sell caffeinated orange juice ("Edge2OJ"). An industry analyst explained to the Journal that "young people want to alter their moods in a safe and acceptable way," and parents, who used to think caffeine was unhealthy, now accept it as "the safe stimulant."(posted 12/21) |
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| Barbie doll (circa 1959) |
A computer game that lets girls design clothes for Barbie dolls is wreaking a gender revolution in software for kids. Half a million "Barbie Fashion Designer" CD-ROMs have been shipped to stores, and sales have surpassed boy-oriented CD-ROMs such as Flight Simulator and Myst. Critics questioned whether designing apparel for an absurdly proportioned blond bombshell is a cultural advance for girls, but the program's manufacturer, Mattel, says the CD-ROM enhances computer skills and promotes creativity. Mattel seems less enthused about several Barbie rip-offs being sold in San Francisco. These include: Hooker Barbie, Big Dyke Barbie, Trailer Trash Barbie (with cigarette, black-rooted blond hair, and a baby), and Drag Queen Barbie (a Ken doll in a wig and evening gown). (posted 12/21) | | Miscellany: Assassins injured Saddam Hussein's eldest son in a machine-gun attack; American commentators expressed regret that he survived. A month after U.S. envoy-without-portfolio Rep. Bill Richardson rescued American citizen Evan Hunziker from North Korea, Hunziker killed himself, facing U.S. arrest warrants for assault and other crimes. The Oakland school district declared "black English" a separate language and is applying for bilingual education funds for pupils who speak it. George Stephanopoulos signed a $3 million book deal, promising to use his "very good memory" to describe his years in the White House; Republicans protested that during the White House Travel Office hearings, he had claimed he couldn't remember anything. Rudolph Giuliani met with Dick Morris to seek his help in next year's New York City mayoral race; earlier this year, Morris had planned to work for one of Giuliani's Democratic challengers. Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni died at 72. Everyone agreed that his life--a good part of it spent romancing famous screen vixens--had been a pretty good one. David Koresh, having promised to return from the dead Dec. 14, failed to show up. (posted 12/21) |
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| Straws in the wind: Two new government studies show that kids are using more drugs but committing fewer violent crimes. The head of the Smithsonian, which recently named an insect exhibit after Orkin Pest Control, says that from now on, museums will have to find corporate sponsors to survive. The Washington Post reports that beavers are invading suburbia, felling trees and flooding septic systems. The New York Times notes that paperboys are being replaced by adults in cars--"the loss of yet another opportunity for personal contact in American life." The Wall Street Journal suggests that bogus e-mail alerts about Internet viruses are becoming a bigger nuisance than the viruses themselves. Catching a back-to-the-1970s wave, Nissan is buying, restoring, and reselling its 1970-'72 Z sports cars as "classics."(posted 12/21) |
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| The Democratic campaign-finance scandal has a new Asian-American villain: Arkansan businessman Charles Trie. A month after Clinton's re-election, trustees of his legal defense fund revealed that they had returned $640,000 from Trie after noticing irregularities: Money orders supposedly collected from people in different cities were sequentially numbered, and the signatures appeared similar. Since the fund isn't subject to campaign-finance law, the apparent violations are ethical, not legal. Questions raised: Why weren't the improper donations revealed before the election? Why did Clinton appoint Trie to an Asian trade commission? And why did the White House continue to welcome Trie as a fund-raiser and honored guest? The press quickly linked Trie to John Huang, Lippo executives, and a Zen "cult" that reportedly facilitated Trie's scheme. (The Wall Street Journal reported that the cult's followers have been known to drink their leader's bath water.) The consensus is that the Trie business will be added to the congressional probe of Clinton's fund-raising. National Public Radio's Daniel Schorr asks whether Clinton will set up a new legal defense fund to explain the behavior of his current one. (posted 12/19) |
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| Kofi Annan |
The United Nations elected Kofi Annan of Ghana as its new secretary general. Annan, currently the undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations, is expected to be more humble and conciliatory than his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Annan's succession is widely regarded as a U.S. victory, but now that the United States has got what it wanted, Annan wants America to pay its overdue dues. The Clinton administration seems willing, but congressional Republicans say that Annan is too soft and bureaucracy-bred to push for the necessary reforms. The Wall Street Journal boasted that Jesse Helms had forced Boutros-Ghali's ouster, and that Annan had better attend to Helms' wishes or suffer a similar fate. (posted 12/19) | | A new culture war erupted over sex and violence on television. Broadcasters, under pressure from Clinton and Congress, unveiled a plan to rate television shows according to their suitability for viewers of various ages. Children's advocates complained that the age-category system fails to make clear whether the offensive material consists of profanity, nudity, sex, or violence. The industry replied that such a complicated rating system would confuse viewers and be a headache for broadcasters. Politicians threatened to legislate a tougher system; broadcasters threatened to answer with a lawsuit. Each side accused the other of playing "Big Brother"--the industry for dictating to parents what is age-appropriate, and the government for threatening the industry. Clinton endorsed the industry's plan but suggested he would switch sides if the system wasn't working within a year. The New York Times' Frank Rich pointed out that a ratings system is neither necessary nor sufficient to make parents take responsibility for regulating their kids' television habits. (posted 12/19) |
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| McDonnell Douglas C-17 |
Boeing announced it will buy McDonnell Douglas for $13.3 billion, creating a company in control of two-thirds of the global commercial-aircraft market. The latest and biggest in a series of consolidations in the defense business, it leaves the United States with only three major arms contractors and only one big maker of commercial aircraft. Even so, experts agreed that antitrust regulators will approve, because the Clinton administration thinks consolidation is necessary to 1) absorb the economic impact of reduced defense spending; 2) force the other remaining U.S. aerospace giant, Lockheed Martin, to compete with somebody its own size; and, most important, 3) mold the American aerospace industry into a united team to compete with the European consortium, Airbus Industrie. As the New York Times put it, "The enemy is now perceived not as communism but bloated office staffs and foreign weapons companies."(posted 12/16) | | Federal investigators linked the crash of TWA Flight 800 to mechanical failure: A spark generated by static electricity may have caused the fatal explosion in the plane's center fuel tank, National Transportation Safety Board officials announced. This dramatically reversed the government's long-standing assumption that a bomb was responsible. FBI investigators angrily objected to the NTSB's static-electricity theory, indicating a burgeoning feud between the cops and bureaucrats on the case. The anti-cop spin on the feud was that the FBI is too territorial and stubborn to admit that months of dredging and lab testing have uncovered no evidence of a bomb. The anti-bureaucrat spin was that the NTSB's Washington bosses are embracing the electricity theory prematurely in order to appease impatient politicians and the public. (posted 12/16) |
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| Israelis and Palestinians returned to the brink of confrontation. Palestinian gunmen killed two Jewish West Bank settlers (a mother and son); Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government retaliated by voting to restore tax incentives for West Bank settlers; and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat responded by instructing his people "to firmly confront with all possible means the Israeli settlement aggression." Arafat also gave his support to a weekend Hamas rally that celebrated past terrorist killings of Israelis and promised more in the future. Sunday's Washington Post warned that all the signs pointed to a replay of September's bloody violence, which was precipitated by Netanyahu's opening of a tunnel near Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. This time, there is broad and early agreement that Netanyahu is the chief provocateur: The Post said he "appears to be more interested in drawing lines and making good on campaign promises to show the Palestinians who is boss," while the U.S. State Department criticized his behavior and several former secretaries of state warned him not to start any more trouble. The crisis seemed to be waning Sunday night as Netanyahu and Arafat finally spoke to each other, softened their rhetoric, and discussed a resumption of talks on Hebron. (posted 12/16) |
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File photograph of Earl Pitts from Reuters; photograph of Barbie, circa 1959, from Reuters; photograph of Kofi Annan by Jeff Christensen/Reuters; photograph of the McDonnell Douglas C-17 military cargo aircraft from Ho/DOD/Reuters
--Compiled by William Saletan and the editors of S LATE.
