The presidential sock-buying spree at J.C. Penney in February did not reverse the Republic’s slide into the Slough of Despond. Two Arizona Republicans who finished in a dead heat in their primary settled matters with a hand of five card stud. “I want to sit in grandpa’s place,” said the former actress, a stunning blonde, after winning a seat in Italy’s Parliament. Alessandra Mussolini is 29.
Unsurprising headline of the year: MANY L.A. RIOT SUSPECTS FOUND TO HAVE CRIMINAL BACKGROUNDS. Media coverage stressed the rioters’ “rage,” but pictures showed many of them merrily conducting a shopping spree and ethnic cleansing at the expense of Korean merchants. A U.N. arms embargo was maintained, evenhandedly, on both the well-armed Serbs and their virtually unarmed victims. From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of “Nightline,” Marines fought their way ashore in Somalia through television cameras. “Who Will Disarm the Thugs?” asked a New York Times editorial about Somalia, not Brooklyn. The liberal mayor of liberal Boulder, Colo., is sad because her city has too few poor people.
Carcinogen alert: chemicals occurring naturally in many foods can cause cancer in animals. Ban food! Now that you have given up butter, scientists say margarine may be harmful. Even worse, some diets and drugs that lower cholesterol may produce personality changes that raise the risk of violent death. Order french fries! Rhetoric at the Rio ecofest worsened global warming. Florida, a geological afterthought, rose from the sea later than the rest of America, but too soon: Hurricane Andrew smacked it. There is a 2,400-page North American “free trade” agreement. Amazingly, there is free trade between North and South Dakota without so much gobbledygook.
Bob Packwood voted against the confirmations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas primarily because he is so very sensitive about women’s rights. Murphy Brown and Woody Allen illustrated variations on “family values” and two members of Britain’s seedy royalty agreed to continue their parasitic lives in separate palaces. Grand Duke Vladimir direct descendant of the Romanov Czars, died at a Miami press conference.
To foster AIDS awareness, Connecticut printed 600,000 cocktail napkins with a picture of a condom and the message PLEASE LET THIS COME BETWEEN US. The Condom Hut is Rhode Island’s first drive-through condom shop. Marvel Comics’ gay hero Northstar came out of the closet. Superman, born in 1938, died. Not a ’90s guy. “Very phallic,” said a culture maven.
And what did you learn at school today? A science historian reported that ever since the “Teddy Bear Patriarchy” of Teddy Roosevelt’s day, the public representation of primates has reflected America’s racism and sexism. A labor-education specialist reported that “waitressing reveals the deeply gendered expectations surrounding the world of work … The food service encounter is structured by gender and class-bound culture.” A feminist professor says she teaches “ovulars,” not seminars. And for some reason, for the first time in American history support for higher education declined for a second consecutive year.
Berkeley commemorated the 500th anniversary by renaming Columbus Day “Indigenous People’s Day.” A machete-wielding 20-year-old woman killed by Berkeley police left a note: “We are willing to die for this land.” She had been angry about construction of volleyball courts in People’s Park. A conundrum: What are liberals to do about spray-painted graffiti on the concrete disc commemorating Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement?
The Dream Team waxed the world in basketball, and Mike Tyson was KO’d by 12 Hoosier jurors. Prior to playing the Texas Longhorns, Mississippi State football coach Jackie Sherrill inspired his student-athletes by having a bull castrated at practice. Mississippi State 28, Texas 10. During the five days the baseball owners met to fret about the game’s supposedly parlous financial condition, those owners signed 34 players to contracts guaranteeing $257,925,000. Next year Barry Bonds will make more than $45,000 a game.
It’s a toddling town: Anthony J. (Big Tuna) Accardo, who died peacefully at 86, was also called Joe Batters because he used baseball bats to enforce the whims of Al Capone, of whose servants Big Tuna was the last survivor. An inventor, the last surviving child of an inventor, died. Theodore Edison was 94. Sam Walton, whose Wal-Mart empire eclipsed Sears as the nation’s largest retailer, was one of the world’s richest men, and the richest who drove a battered pickup, when he died at 74. Eric Sevareid, North Dakota’s gift to journalism, was 79. At 84 Walter Lanier (Red) Barber ascended to the catbird seat in the sky.
Workers widening a Jerusalem road unearthed a tomb that may contain the bones of the High Priest who tried Jesus and turned him over to the Romans for crucifixion. Look what he started. Palm prints in New Mexico clay reveal that humans were living here 28,000 and perhaps 38,000 years ago rather than, as hitherto thought, 11,500 years ago. So why do we call this the New World? Because a skull found in Kenya has pushed back the antiquity of Homo sapiens half a million years to 2.4 million years.
Census data reveal that America’s most typical town is Tulsa, and that by 2050 barely half the nations population will be non-Hispanic whites. But scientists say that on Aug. 14,2126, a huge comet named Swift-Tuttle may smack the Earth without first filing an environmental impact statement or even getting Al Gore’s permission. If it hits a spotted owl habitat there will be litigation.
And speaking of earth-shaking developments: Leavened by lots of fire-breathing freshmen hot for “change,” House Democrats caucused in December and … re-elected the old batch of leaders and all but one committee chairman. Mississippi’s ailing Jamie Whitten, 82, was replaced by Kentucky’s William Natcher, 83. Only in America.
