News Digest

13 Dec 2021

Archive [March 1999]

Business Affairs

You can see the ripple effects of the Clinton-Lewinsky saga everywhere. Now, according to Fortune magazine, the National Federation of Independent Business is even changing the names of its departments to remove ‘questionable” words that tend to bring a snicker these days. Out are “affairs” and “relations.” In are “policy” and “department.” Thus, “Federal Government Relations” is now “Federal Public Policy.” The department formerly known as Media Relations or Public Affairs is expected to be renamed the Media Department. And so on. According to the Fortune report, employees say that while the new names are also less jargony, the organization’s leaders’ real motivation was to “banish any hint of sleaze.” Not easy in the Clinton Era, which, in addition to having blown the credibility of the Head of State, has reduced much of the English language to unintentional double entendre.

Bridge to Peace

Everyone loves White House traditions. Who can resist the annual Easter Egg Roll? Or the President pardoning his Thanksgiving turkey just as the axe is about to fall? But the tradition that warms all our hearts most was celebrated again last month. I’m sure I don’t even have to tell you what it was. That’s right, the third annual White House celebration of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr.

Of course, there were some challenges. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims abstain from food, drink and sex during daylight hours. Protocol required the While House to set aside a room for prayer. Not an easy choice. What to use? The Map Room? The Book Room in the White House residence? The Oval Office study?

The charismatic First Lady quipped to the group of about 100 that “to stand between those who have been fasting for a month faithfully and food is indeed a dangerous endeavor…” She did not reveal whether doing so was as dangerous as standing between her husband and a White House intern.

Mrs. Clinton proclaimed that “religion should not serve as a weapon of war and division but as a bridge to peace.”

You said it, Hillary. Cruise missiles make much better weapons. Just ask those Muslims in that aspirin factory your husband blew to smithereens.

Athletic Supporters

According to a report in The Washington Times, Democrats have a new strategy to win back the House of Representatives in 2000 using black athletes. Rep, Charlie Range (D, NY), is in charge of the project for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — pinning party hopes on stars like Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks, and Isiah Thomas, the former Detroit Pistons great. So far, however, Democrats haven’t recruited anyone. Rangel complains that sports figures, unlike actors, “think their politics should be private.” Rangel disagrees, arguing that athletes “owe it to their country to get involved.”

Fine and dandy if they want to, but I think the Democrats are, as usual, overlooking a few facts of life. Such as business. For instance, when Michael Jordan was asked to endorse North Carolina Democrat Harvey Gantt’s 1990 campaign for Senate over Jesse Helm, he refused, explaining: “Republicans buy shoes, too.” There’s also the little matter of athletes’ basic philosophy. Here are individuals known for hard work, superior achievement, the pursuit of excellence, and American success. Of what use could that possibly be to the Democratic Party, anyway?

Alien Nation

Just in time for the Year 2000, Bill Clinton has discovered enemies even worse than Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Ken Starr. I guess a new century demands new villains. So now the President is trying to mobilize the American people to fight … alien species. I am not making this up.

Get this, from Commerce Undersecretary James Baker: “There is no question that we are being invaded by alien species.” President Clinton has ordered the establishment of a new agency, the Invasive Species Council. “We could call this order the ‘X-Files’ order,” Baker said. The aliens the agency will fight are: the Zebra Mussel, the Brown Tree Snake, the Asian Long-Horned Beetle, the Green Crab, the Tamarisk tree — yes, a tree — and the Chinese Mitten Crab.

The day before this announcement. Clinton announced he would be spending $10 million to study bigotry. How about bigotry against Brown Tree Snakes and Chinese Mitten Crabs, Mr. President? This kind of blatant species-ism is a scourge on this nation! Such hate speech against alien species is an attack on our diversity! This politics of personal destruction must end!

Bomber’s Paradise

What do Ramzi Yousef, Timothy McVeigh, and Theodore Kaczynski have in common? Together, the notorious bombers are responsible for 177 deaths. Yousef is serving a 240-year sentence for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. McVeigh was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Kaczynski, a.k.a, the Unabomber, is serving life without parole for his 18-year bombing spree.

But guess what else they have in common. They are all inmates in Colorado’s ADX Florence, America’s highest security prison, known in the Bureau of Prisons as “Supermax.” And every day, according to an MSNBC report, they are permitted to gather in a prison courtyard for an hour of exercise. You read right. The three of them.

But have no fear. “They don’t discuss how to make a bomb” when they hang out, says Yousef’s lawyer, Bernard Klein-man. “For the most part, they discuss what they saw on Turner Movie Classics,” on cable. A regular film appreciation club.

Why unite these losers? “We can’t comment on terms of confinement,” says Scott Wolfson, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman. “Attorney General Reno has established these provisions.” Ah. Of course.

Wouldn’t you let the most notorious terrorist bombers in American history enjoy the fresh air and sunlight … together?

Now They Tell Us

Remember when Rep. David Bonior (D, Ml) was going from news camera to news camera, accusing Speaker Newt Gingrich of engaging in “a pattern of tax fraud”? Democrats like John Lewis repeated ad nauseam: “We now have a Speaker under investigation for lying to the outside counsel, investigating his involvement in a massive tax-fraud scheme.” The media spent months hammering Newt on charges of “ethical lapses.”

Well, now we know the verdict. After three and a half years of investigation, the IRS has cleared — repeat, cleared — Newt Gingrich and his nonprofit groups of any violation of the tax laws. His college course, “Renewing American Civilization,’’ once portrayed as a nefarious and darkly sinister “illegal scheme,” was … just a college course.

From the IRS memorandum came news that, contrary to the Democrat smear machine, the principles taught in Newt’s course were not of use only in political campaigns: “The … course taught principles from American civilization that could be used by each American in everyday life whether the person is a welfare recipient, the head of a large corporation, or a politician … The course was not biased toward particular politicians, or a particular party,” and it satisfied educational criteria set forth in the tax code. The IRS said this on February 3. I include the news simply because it is very unlikely that anyone in America heard it.

No Spanking Zone

The Oakland City Council Public Safely Committee dealt a devastating setback to goodness last month, rejected by one vote a citywide ban on spanking. “No Spanking Zone” posters would have been placed in parks and other public places, and bystanders would have been encouraged to intervene when they saw parents slapping their children in public.

The committee rejected the wisdom of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which supported the no-spanking ordinance. They rejected the insight of therapist T. J. Jackson, who asked city lawmakers; “If we can put a warning on Styrofoam cups saying the contents could be hot, can’t we put up signs in our city saying don’t hit your child?” Councilman Nate Miley, who backed the measure, remarked that “this goes to the heart of creating a civilized society.”

Such as … Ethiopia. Earlier this year, the Speaker of the House of Federation of Ethiopia, Almaz Meko, urged an end to corporal punishment as a method of disciplining children. “Discussions, explaining, negotiation, tolerance, peaceful arguments and other techniques have to be developed instead of corporal punishment,” she insisted. Strangely, however, the Ethiopian government rarely follows these ideas in its treatment of its own citizens. But anyway, keep on “negotiating” with your kids. And who knows? Someday our society may be able to compete with Ethiopia.