Archive [February 1999]

Imagine All the Children

Two months ago, President Clinton told the Palestinian National Council that he had had “two profoundly emotional experiences in less than 24 hours.” First was his meeting with the children of jailed Palestinian-Arab terrorists. The other experience was meeting Israelis, “some little children whose fathers had been killed in conflict with Palestinians.”

Many in Israel were angered that the President appeared to be calling the terrorists and the fallen soldiers morally equivalent. But there was another problem. These “emotional experiences” of the President may have only been legends in his own mind.

According to an item in The Wall Street Journal: “The minister for public affairs at the Israeli Embassy said he could not confirm whether any such meeting between Mr. Clinton and Israeli children took place. Other Israeli government sources who would speak only on condition of anonymity said Mr. Clinton never met with the Israeli children. The White House and State Department did not return calls about whether such a meeting took place. There was no such event on the public schedule of the trip.” Depends what the definition of “meeting” is.

In the Cards

The billions upon billions of Americans who tell pollsters they are sick of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and want to “move on” will not want to hear this, but now there’s a board game called “Impeachment” (www.political-games.com). Played like rummy, the game has 13 impeachment-related categories of cards, with four cards in each category. The winner is the first to get 67 points — the number of votes required to convict in the Senate. It’s educational, too: the cards contain quotes and references to significant events during the investigation. Designer Paul Niemann says the game takes “a light-hearted, humorous approach” (the backs of the cards show a caricature of President Clinton in jail). Niemann hastens to add that the game “does not include the details of the Monica Lewinsky relationship.” Of course not. The President did not have a sexual relationship with that woman, haven’t you heard?

Fight The Real Enemy

Has-been pop icon Sinead O’Connor is jealous of Monica Lewinsky. The singer, who once ripped up a photo of the Pope on “Saturday Night Live,” told The Irish Independent: “I’d bring my own cigars, absolutely. My mouth is watering at the thought of it.” O’Connor, once known for her shaved head, said she thinks Clinton is “the sexiest man in the universe.”

And she’s into the universe. The Times of London reports that O’Connor has been attending the College of Psychic Studies “to spruce up her spiritual powers.” She is “branching out” in order to become a psychic healer. “I work as a sensitive,” she says. “It used to be called a medium, a healer working through light energy.”

Sounds like the cigar gig in the White House is hers for the asking.

Fireplace Crisis

You can always count on Berkeley. Still living up to the town’s 1960s-hippie-wacko rams, Berkeley’s mayor, Shirley Dean, is now working hard to cure air pollution. She’s serious, too. She has done her research, and found that certain particles cause “coughing, irritation and possible long-term lung damage.” The particles in question are from smoke. No, not that kind. Smoke from burning wood. Such smoke “can be especially harmful to children, the elderly and people with lung problems,” According to The Sun Francisco Chronicle, Dean has proposed a ban on … new fireplaces, as well as many wood-burning stoves. “I think it’s the future,” declares Dean.

Well, I think it’s about time. How on earth can human beings have survived all these thousands of years, with everyone spending most of his or her life in close proximity to a fire? Hmmm? Human history is replete with such ignorance! Home and hearth, bah! Thank you, Mayor Dean. Now we know better.

Inventive Spelling

At the start of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, you probably saw the solemn procession of Senators who, having taken the special oath to do impartial justice, lined up to sign their names in the pledge book, to be preserved for history. After signing, each of the 100 Senators was handed the black and silver Parker Vector pen he used as a keepsake of the momentous event. But when they all got back to their desks and examined the souvenirs, they were in for a surprise: The pens contained a misprint. Instead of “United States Senator,” the lettering on the pens said: “Untied States Senator.” In other words, the pens were a fitting memorial to the Democrat Senators’ pledges of “impartiality.”