TIME: Almanac 1990s

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<text id=93TT1769> <title> May 24, 1993: Nation </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 May 24, 1993 Kids, Sex & Values </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE WEEK, Page 21 NATION </hdr> <body> By Sidney Urquhart, Richard Lacayo, Michael D. Lemonick, Christopher John Farley, Tom Curry, Michael Quinn, Ginia Bellafante and David E. Thigpen Even as his job-approval rating sank below 50%, Bill Clinton had one significant victory in Washington last week. Voting 24 to 14 along party lines, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a modified version of the President's plan to raise taxes $250 billion over five years, one of the largest tax increases ever. Clinton accepted a few changes--chiefly the elimination of his investment tax credit and the reduction of his proposed increase in the tax on corporate earnings. His package, including an energy tax and higher income taxes for the rich, remained essentially intact. While the bill will probably pass the full House unchanged, it faces much tougher going in the Senate. More detail emerged on the likely shape of the plan that Clinton's health-care task force will present next month. For instance, while Medicare will continue to cover retirees already in the program, in the future elderly Americans will be covered by the new plan instead. White House health adviser Ira Magaziner also disclosed that the plan would probably be financed by a payroll tax split between employers and workers. Proving that Republican filibusters won't work every time, the Senate broke one to pass the so-called motor voter bill. The law will require states to allow people to register to vote when applying for a driver's license, as well as to register by mail and at welfare offices and military recruiting stations. The new system will presumably add many more Democrats than Republicans to the voter rolls. Senator Sam Nunn's Senate Armed Services Committee resumed its hearings on gays in the military with a shrewd photo-op tour of bunks in cramped naval vessels. In a week of testimony that included pleas to lift the ban on gay servicemen and -women and assertions by retired Army General Norman Schwarzkopf that openly gay soldiers would undermine morale, the emotional high point was Marine Colonel Fred Peck's surprise declaration that he would discourage his son Scott--"a recruiter's dream"--from joining the military "because my son is a homosexual." Many Senators seemed inclined toward a tricky "Don't ask, don't tell" compromise that would do away with the old policy of asking new recruits their sexual orientation but would continue to prohibit them from acting on it openly. Star Wars--the antimissile defense scheme, not the movie series--is finished. The Strategic Defense Initiative that Ronald Reagan proposed in 1983 to establish an outer space-based shield against Soviet nuclear missiles was declared dead by Defensec Secretary Les Aspin. Some $30 billion had been spent on the program. Another legacy of the Reagan years was undone when the Clinton Administration decided to invite 11,400 air-traffic controllers to reapply for the jobs that Reagan had them dismissed from during their illegal 1981 strike. Some members of Congress said they would favor swift military retaliation against Iraq if it could be proved that Baghdad was behind a supposed plot to assassinate George Bush during his trip last month to Kuwait. Attorney General Janet Reno urged Congress to draft legislation barring abortion-clinic blockades and the harassment of doctors, patients and staff by antiabortion protesters. The U.S. Olympic Committee has decided to pay athletes $15,000 for each gold medal an American wins at the next Olympics, $10,000 for each silver, $7,500 for a bronze and $5,000 for a fourth-place showing. (In the past the committee awarded $2,500 for any top-eight performance.) A jury in Austin, Texas, convicted rapist Joel Valdez, who claimed his victim had consented to "making love" because she asked him to put on a condom. The woman said her request was driven by a fear of AIDS. Valdez was sentenced to 40 years. For a moment it seemed like the '80s again in the art market: while a dozen works by Andy Warhol failed to find any buyers at all during the spring auctions in New York, a still life by the French post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne sold for $28.6 million. WORLD Bosnia's Serbs pressed ahead toward a referendum that would almost certainly ratify their leaders' rejection of the Vance-Owen peace plan. Europeans continued to resist America's proposals for arming the beleaguered Bosnian Muslims and conducting air strikes against Serb military targets, arguing that sanctions are the best route to peace. The no-longer-emboldened President Clinton backed off, agreeing not to act unilaterally. Boris Yeltsin shuffled two conservative officials, Security Council Secretary Yuri Skokov and Deputy Prime Minister Georgi Khizha, out of their jobs to make way for reform-minded allies. It appears that last month's radioactive-waste explosion in Siberia contaminated surrounding farmland, despite official denials. The U.S. has dropped its insistence that Ukraine give up its nuclear weapons before receiving more economic aid; Washington still wants the country to disarm but figures a carrot might work better than a stick. Leaping as promised into the Middle East peace negotiations, the U.S. tried unsuccessfully to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a formula for self-rule in the occupied territories. Japan tried--and failed--to have the International Whaling Commission temporarily lift a seven-year-old ban on whaling. Norway is expected to start ignoring the ban. Exploding methane gas killed at least 49 South African coal miners at a mine recently honored for its safety record. The death count in a fire at a toy factory near Bangkok passed 200, the worst ever in a factory blaze. Two fraction-of-an-inch-long slivers of wood said to be pieces of Christ's Cross--previously authenticated as relics by the Vatican--sold at auction for more than $18,000 in Paris. Though the proceeds went to charity, the Vatican called the sale a possible sin. In a suburb of Paris, a gunman toting 21 sticks of dynamite took a nursery-school class hostage, demanding $18.5 million. After 46 hours the gunman dozed off, and police shot him dead; no one else was harmed. Paraguay has elected Juan Carlos Wasmosy its first civilian President since 1954. Although the election was marred by irregularities, observers said the outcome was unaffected. Said Secretary-General Joao Baena Soares of the Organization of American States: "We all know you don't get instant democracy. It's not like coffee." BUSINESS Fears of inflation spooked the U.S. bond market and helped gold reach a 17-month high after a report that the Consumer Price Index rose an unexpected 0.4% in April. Prices have increased at a 4.3% annual rate so far this year, up from 2.9% in the first four months of 1992. IBM and Blockbuster Entertainment announced a joint venture to develop a new way to deliver CDs; they will be recorded one by one on demand right at the store, eliminating the need for inventory and the possibility of shoplifting. No plaintiff has ever won damages in a lawsuit against a tobacco company, but a ruling by a Mississippi judge may provide plaintiffs with their strongest ammunition yet. The judge wrote that cigarettes are "defective and unreasonably dangerous" because they cause illness when used as intended. If his reasoning becomes generally accepted, plaintiffs in smoking cases will no longer have to prove that tobacco companies were negligent but simply that cigarettes led to illness or death. SCIENCE The Environmental Protection Agency has completed a survey of lead in U.S. drinking water. The result: 819 water systems, serving 30 million people, have too much of the toxic metal. Most of the bad systems were in the East. A geologist reports that two major earthquake-prone faults in southern California have achieved synergy. An 1857 rupture of the San Andreas fault, he says, has been triggering aftershocks on the nearby San Jacinto fault ever since. If he's right, the next great earthquake near the Mexican border will happen 20 years from now. INFORMED SOURCES U.S. Forces Are Already in Bosnia WASHINGTON--While President Clinton goes through some very public soul-searching about whether the U.S. should send an expeditionary force to Bosnia, sources have told TIME that U.S. Special Forces are already on the ground there, although the Pentagon officially denies it. Sources say these advance troops are, for now, reconnaissance operatives, keeping Washington "incredibly well informed," and are providing intelligence to Muslim enclaves. But they are also equipped to assist in any military action Clinton may order. Price War in Imported Assault Weapons WASHINGTON--The market for assault weapons is going great guns, thanks to the collapse of the Soviet empire. Freed from government restraints, arms merchants in Russia and Eastern Europe are selling their wares abroad at low, low prices. In recent months, says a U.S. Customs Service source, the price of a Russian-made AK-47 assault rifle has dropped a third, from around $480 to about $320. Raining on the White House Star Parade WASHINGTON--From Barbra Streisand to Richard Dreyfuss, dozens of Hollywood types are treating Washington like Malibu East. Now Designing Women producer and Clinton adviser Harry Thomason, who has ensconced himself in a White House office, is trying to curtail the trend. "We don't want to discourage the enthusiasm," said Thomason last week, "but yes, there may be too many of them around." Maybe so, but Hillary Rodham Clinton was so impressed by a recent Liza Minnelli performance that she invited the singer to stop by for a visit next month. HEALTH REPORT The Good News A study confirms folk wisdom that breast-fed babies have fewer ear infections than kids who drink from bottles. Breast milk is fortified with infection-fighting antibodies. A simple test for fecal blood can point to colorectal cancer long before other symptoms show up. The resulting early treatment reduces overall mortality from the second commonest form of cancer by one-third. The mind-body connection, much loved by New Agers, has won a bit more credibility: doctors have demonstrated that a nervous-system chemical can affect immune-system cells and thus, presumably, the body's response to disease. The brain is part of the nervous system, indicating a plausible link between mental state and health. The Bad News Managed health care is designed to limit costs partly by reducing excessive treatment. But a survey of seven such plans shows that they did no better than conventional plans in cutting down on the number of unnecessary hysterectomies. New mothers' use of creams, vitamin E and exercise to avoid post-childbirth stretch marks are apparently useless. Weight gain is the main reason for the marks, and there is no way to prevent them. The "fast track" for making AIDS drugs available without rigorous testing may end up backfiring: the more AIDS patients who take untested drugs, the fewer there are available to participate in studies to determine which medicines are most effective. SOURCES: Journal of the American Medical Association; Pediatrics; Annals of Internal Medicine; Archives of Family Medicine; New England Journal of Medicine Terror On Your Television: NBC's Docudrama Glut Over four days during the May ratings sweeps, NBC will air three TV movies based on horrifying real-life tragedies. "It's unfortunate that people are lumping them together," says an NBC executive."They really are very different stories." Unlikely National Self-Assessment Of The Week "We were trying to be modest, we were trying to be nice, to be un-French for a change."--SENIOR FRENCH OFFICIAL EXPLAINING HOW AMERICAN DIPLOMATS MISCONSTRUED FRENCH SIGNALS INDICATING WILLINGNESS TO SUPPORT LIFTING THE ARMS EMBARGO IN BOSNIA Bill Clinton, the George Bush of Our Time NOW "I have decided today to propose that we establish a deficit-reduction trust fund and put every penny of new taxes and the budget cuts proposed in my budget into the trust fund so that the American people know that it has got to go to deficit reduction."--BILL CLINTON, MAY 12, 1993 "The President's proposed `tax-increase trust fund' is just a gimmick to make his unpopular tax increases look good."--SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER ROBERT DOLE, MAY 12, 1993 THEN "I have a brand-new idea. Taxpayers should be given the right to check a box on their tax returns so that up to 10% of their payments can go for one purpose alone: to reduce the national debt."--GEORGE BUSH, AUG. 20, 1992 "I don't understand how earmarking a portion of the individual taxpayer's taxes for debt reduction can make a difference when we're running a deficit. It's really just a gimmick."--ALICE RIVLIN, NOW DEPUTY BUDGET DIRECTOR FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON, AUGUST 1992 WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS LEONARD JEFFRIES Judge calls prof's wild anti-Semitism free speech TONY KUSHNER Playwright's Angels in America up for nine Tonys DAN ROSTENKOWSKI Tax-bill win shows he still rules Ways and Means LOSERS ROSEANNE AND TOM ARNOLD ABC canceled his Jackie Thomas Show WARREN CHRISTOPHER That European diplomatic trip yielded nothing RON GALOTTI Vanity Fair publisher broomed Former Superpower for Sale, Cheap How would you like to buy nearly half of Russia's industrial base for less than the cost of a B-2 bomber? Well, in fact, you could. Last winter the Russian government began privatizing thousands of large and medium-sized companies--car manufacturers, cementmakers, department stores and so on. The government issued coupons to every Russian citizen, which they could use to buy shares in those firms. At a face value of 10,000 rubles, each coupon is worth about $12, but they are actually being sold for $6 or $7. Some speculators, including Westerners, are buying up the coupons, and to acquire all of them--good for half the economy of our former archnemesis--could cost as little as $840 million, well within reach of a score of Americans. It's hard to imagine a better deal--here's what else you could do with the money: -- Buy the Alberto-Culver Co., maker of Alberto VO5 -- Purchase one-eighth of Bill Gates' Microsoft stock -- Cover the entire annual U.S. expenditure on peanut butter -- Run the nation's intelligence establishment for 10 days The Morning Line Associate Attorney General-nominee WEBSTER HUBBELL is one of Clinton's best friends. He's under fire for his membership in an almost all-white country club. What are the odds he'll be rejected after Senate hearings this week? New What? At the Democratic convention, Bill Clinton summed up his moderate, New Democrat ideas--to which he now says he's returning--with the resonant, unforgettable phrase NEW COVENANT. Here's a tally since July of NEW COVENANT mentions in five major newspapers. Annals Of Haughtiness "I couldn't believe it. A limo driver was telling me what to do." -- TORI SPELLING, STAR OF BEVERLY HILLS, 90210, ON A CHAUFFEUR'S ATTEMPT TO BREAK UP A WRESTLING MATCH BETWEEN HER AND HER BOYFRIEND </body> </article> </text>