- By Franklin Foer - Slate Magazine

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summary judgment

summary judgment: Highlights from the week in criticism.

By Franklin Foer
Posted Thursday, April 10, 1997, at 3:30 AM ET

Updated Tuesday, April 8, 1997, at 4:30 p.m. PT

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	Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Clinton

President Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington. Netanyahu urged Clinton to host a Camp David-like summit, the climax to Netanyahu's proposed shortcut negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Clinton said such a commitment might be "premature." Hours before, Netanyahu had given a speech insisting that Israel would not halt the rapid construction of a controversial housing project in East Jerusalem or make further concessions to halt terrorism. But Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told U.S. officials that negotiation was impossible as long as the construction continued. Clinton called his talks with Netanyahu "specific," "frank," and "candid." The media's translation: They had it out. (4/7)

USA Today reported that you can find out anyone's income through the Social Security Administration's Web site. All you need to know is the person's Social Security number (easily obtained through credit-information vendors or a driver's license), mother's maiden name, and place of birth (easily obtained through public legal records). Twenty-eight thousand people accessed the site in March. Critics call it another illustration of the Internet's threats to privacy. The unpleasant prospective snoopers include criminals, employers, and ex-spouses. Defenders of the system argue that it's cheap (saves the taxpayers money), gives Social Security recipients an easy way to access their own records, and is never abused. (4/7)



	Allen Ginsberg

Celebrity rites of passage: Two flamboyant icons died. Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg was remembered as a courageous and lovable nut who spearheaded the counterculture by letting it all hang out. (You can hear brief clips of Ginsberg reading "America" and "Howl.") Sports mogul Jack Kent Cooke was remembered as a voracious, colorful rags-to-riches entrepreneur who built two dynasties (the Los Angeles Lakers and Washington Redskins) while living a sumptuous life that included four successive wives, two of them too young to be his daughters. Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan, the nonflamboyant, noniconic Federal Reserve chairman, punctuated his wedding to NBC's Andrea Mitchell with a pair of kisses that the Washington Post depicted as shockingly passionate. (4/7)

Columbia/HCA, the country's biggest medical provider, is becoming the poster boy of corporate health-care greed. Critics' principal target is the company's policy of pegging doctors' investment returns to profits at Columbia/HCA-affiliated institutions. This is said to give the "doctor-investors" an incentive not only to cut corners (the traditional HMO complaint) but also to send poor patients to doctors outside the company while referring rich patients to doctors affiliated with the company. Federal regulators are investigating whether this is an illegal conflict of interest, and Rep. Pete Stark is leading a crusade to stop the practice. (4/7)



	Etienne Tshisekedi and Laurent Kabila

Zaire's government began peace talks with the rebels, but everyone agrees the talks are moot, since the rebels are advancing toward the capital without resistance. The new wrinkle is the emergence of a third player, Prime Minister Etienne Tshisekedi, who has dissolved the Parliament, appointed a new government bereft of allies of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, and is offering ministry appointments to rebel leader Laurent Kabila. Kabila isn't biting. The rebels have finally allowed the United Nations to fly 80,000 Rwandan refugees out of Zaire before more of them die of malnutrition. (4/7)

Update on the Democratic fund-raising scandal: 1) The White House conceded that Clinton aides Erskine Bowles and Mack McLarty had asked friends to hire Webster Hubbell just as Whitewater investigators were closing in on him--and that Hillary Clinton had been told of the effort and appeared to convey sympathy. President Clinton argues Bowles and McLarty were only showing "compassion." Editorialists set aside the question of motive, focusing instead on the conclusion that once again, Clinton and his aides have been caught concealing or obscuring the truth (in this case, the help-Hubbell campaign). 2) The second batch of documents released by former Clinton aide Harold Ickes shows that a) Clinton micro-managed the fund-raising operation, b) Ickes ran much of the Democratic National Committee from the White House, contrary to Clinton's recent assertions, and c) White House aides clearly conceived of many coffees as fund-raisers. 3) While visiting Havana, a Democratic fund-raiser hit up Cuban drug kingpin Jorge Cabrera for a campaign donation, promising him an invitation to a Clinton-Gore campaign dinner in exchange. 4) The Wall Street Journal reported that a Chinese government-run bank wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to Clinton pal Charlie Trie while Trie was giving and funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the DNC. 5) A CIA memo meant to alert then Director John Deutch to improper meddling by DNC boss Don Fowler in the Roger Tamraz case mysteriously disappeared. (4/4)

The latest health scare is hepatitis-infected school lunches. A batch of frozen strawberries distributed through the federal lunch program caused hepatitis-A liver infections in more than 160 students and teachers in Michigan. Similar batches were sent to Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa, and Tennessee, but no infections have been found there. Early reports blamed Mexico, whence the strawberries came in violation of the U.S. ban on foreign ingredients in school lunches. Mexico blames the American company that processed the berries. While experts explained that this kind of risk is inherent in a complex food-distribution system, editorialists demanded tighter regulation to make sure it never happens again. (4/4)

Update on the Heaven's Gate suicides: The hot topic this week is whether other cult members (aside from the 39 who killed themselves a week ago) are still alive and will follow suit. Former cult members suggest that dozens or hundreds of cultists remain, but investigators insist the rumors are bogus. A man in Northern California was found dead under a purple shroud (the cult's trademark) with a suicide note saying he hoped to join the cult aboard its spaceship, but there is no evidence that he ever belonged to the group. Reports over the weekend indicated that the cult's sexual asceticism stemmed from leader Marshall Applewhite's repression of his homosexuality, and that several members had castrated themselves to emulate him. In six days, the New York Times has run 36 stories on the suicide. (4/2)

Heaven's Gate feeding frenzy: 1) ABC signed a deal to develop a TV movie about the cult. The Washington Post, noting that "the sure-to-be lucrative marketing of the mass suicides

--Compiled by William Saletan and the editors of Slate. Photographs of: President Clinton with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Rick Wilking/Reuters; Allen Ginsberg from Archive Photos; Etienne Tshisekedi by Jack Dabaghian/Reuters; Laurent Kabila by Thomas James Hurst/Reuters; President Clinton by Rick Wilking/Reuters.