TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93TT0194> <title> Aug. 09, 1993: The Week:July 25-31, 1993 </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 Aug. 09, 1993 Lost Secrets Of The Maya </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE WEEK, Page 15 NEWS DIGEST: JULY 25-31, 1993 Limping Toward a Budget </hdr> <body> Democrats in the Senate and House stitched together a budget-plan compromise Friday evening--with themselves. The party's conferees resolved most differences between the version passed earlier by the two chambers, but ended up fecklessly falling a bit short of the $500 billion deficit-reduction goal set by President Clinton. The key deal: limiting the gas-tax increase to $04.3 per gal.--$33 per year for an average driver--rather than the larger, broader energy tax that Clinton and the House Democrats had wanted. Republicans are expected to oppose the plan solidly, but Democratic leaders feel they can hold ranks and win narrow passage in the full House and Senate this week. We've Been Here Before Answering President Clinton's challenge, Congress finally got serious about the budget deficit and seemed on the verge of passing his plan to reduce the deficit by nearly $500 billion over five years. Somehow, this all seems terribly familiar. Other "final" and "courageous" deficit-cutting measures that didn't cut the deficit: 1985's Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law and the 1990 "budget-summit deal." Winners & Losers WINNERS MORIHIRO HOSOKAWA Emerging in the new order of Japanese politics as the next PM ANTHONY YOUNG Met pitcher beats Marlins to end record losing streak TED KENNEDY Attack bio discredited; forges compromise to pass national service LOSERS MARTHA RAYE Judge tosses out most of toothy legend's For the Boys rip-off suit VINCE COLEMAN Met outfielder's "joke" goes awry as firecracker injures child VICTOR GERASHCHENKO Russian central bank head devised hare-brained ruble recall Cineplex Odious "It's about wanting a certain atmosphere that attracts a certain demographic."--CINEPLEX ODEON MARKETING EXECUTIVE EXPLAINING WHY THE CHAIN'S 18-PLEX IN L.A. WOULD NOT RUN JOHN SINGLETON'S POETIC JUSTICE; AFTER THE PICTURE OPENED BIG, THE THEATER SHOWED IT. Informed Sources Who Will Fill Colin Powell's Shoes? Washington--President Clinton hasn't made a final decision about who will replace GENERAL COLIN POWELL as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but a source close to the selection process has told Time that two candidates have emerged as front runners. Leading the pack is Air Force General George ("Lee") Butler, and for now Marine General Joseph Hoar is holding on to second place. Since Powell and his immediate predecessor have come from the Army and Navy respectively, the normal rotation would suggest that the next Joint Chiefs Chairman be a general, such as Butler, from the Air Force. Nonetheless, Hoar is considered a strong contender because of what some see as his first-rate job as head of America's forces in the Middle East. The Navy Prevails over Clinton Pledge Washington--Having beaten the President on the gays-in-uniform issue, the military has challenged Clinton's resolve on other campaign promises. In one instance, the Navy appears to have done so successfully: it has persuaded Clinton to drop his pledge to reduce the number of carrier task forces from 13 to 10. A forthcoming Pentagon planning document states that the Navy will retain 12 of its carrier battle groups. Depending on how many vessels each one includes, a carrier battle group costs upwards of $20 billion. The Traditional Sending of the Resumes Chicago--If the loyalty of staff in times of trouble is any indication of a politician's fate, then DAN ROSTENKOWSKI's future may not be bright. The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee faces the threat of prosecution for embezzlement, and his senior aides are experiencing a grave crisis of confidence. Concerned and panicky, some employees of the Congressman who have been with him for many of his 16 terms are working the halls on Capitol Hill looking for new jobs and angling for yet-to-be-filled Administration posts. Rostenkowski has denied that he engaged in any illegal or unethical conduct. There Is Such a Thing as Bad Publicity Joe McGinniss's The Last Brother received a huge amount of attention, but still did not sell nearly as well last week in most stores as did Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. BOOKSTORE AND COPIES SOLD BROTHER WOLVES Sidney Kramer Books, Washington 1 2 B. Dalton Bookseller, Naperville, Illinois 0 1 Tattered Cover Bookstore, Denver 1 27 Barnes & Noble, Manhattan 3 10 B. Dalton Bookseller, Phoenix, Arizona 0 10 Earthling Bookshop & Cafe, Santa Barbara, California 0 10 Barnes & Noble, Hyannis, Massachusetts 10 1 Are Locusts Next? MANY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE WOULD CONSIDER IT HERESY TO THINK GOD WOULD PUNISH INNOCENT PEOPLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS. SOME, HOWEVER, SEEM TO BELIEVE THE MIDWEST'S FLOODS REPRESENT DIVINE RETRIBUTION: "We can look at natural disasters of recent years in America and be reminded that we are in total subservience to a sovereign God who might be a bit unhappy with our treatment of the unborn and the trashing of the Judeo-Christian ethic."--The Rev. Jerry Falwell "Only Allah can bring the rain and only Allah can stop it. In dealing with Pharaoh, Allah sent signs...in direct connection with his rebellion and his transgression...It's just as evident and clear today."--Imam Jamil al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown), who suggests that the floods are punishment for the killing of innocent Muslims during the Persian Gulf war. "The more it rains and the more it floods, the more I think God is trying to tell us something. Recently Missouri and Illinois have allowed riverboat gambling on the Mississippi River."--Judy Martin, Alton, Illinois, resident, in a letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. DISPATCHES Riding the Abortion Circuit By MICHAEL RILEY, in Jackson, Mississippi As the burgundy Cadillac races along the Mississippi highway, droplets of rain stipple the windshield and storm clouds signal rougher weather ahead. Dr. Tom Tucker, a circuit-riding abortion doctor, is on his car phone with a clinic. "How's it look?" he asks. There's a problem: it seems a large, angry man is raising hell in the parking lot while 40 antiabortion protesters picket the clinic. "This," says Tucker, his right hand slowly sliding down to touch the 9-mm Glock pistol wedged beside his seat, "is where I start to feel the tingle." Tucker cranks up the CD player and blasts out his theme song, Simon and Garfunkel's Keep the Customer Satisfied. With fingers tapping on the steering wheel, he belts out the lyrics ("I get slandered/ Libeled/ I hear words I never heard in the Bible"). Then he unsnaps the gun's holster. "They may kill me," he says, "but I'm going to take some of them with me." Tucker knows that someone out there may really mean business; only last winter an antiabortion extremist shot and killed David Gunn, an abortion doctor who rode the circuit just to the south. Tucker, 50 years old, blustery and heavyset, mans the front lines of America's abortion wars. In his Cadillac, usually littered with fast-food wrappers, he travels hundreds of miles each week back and forth across Mississippi and Alabama from one to another of three of the abortion clinics he owns. In a typical year he will perform nearly 7,000 abortions and will make about $200,000. Protesters jam his car's locks with Super Glue, dive under his tires, trail him across the South, phone in bomb threats and even distribute a wanted poster with his picture on it: notorious!! Working six days a week, his only real diversions are playing golf and spending each Tuesday night playing blackjack and craps at the Splash Casino on the Mississippi over in Tunica County. Arriving at the Mississippi Women's Medical Clinic in Jackson, Tucker learns that the cops have chased away the crazed protester, but someone yells, "God will bring you down! Woe to the man who will take the blood of an innocent child!" A young mother displays a diapered infant. Tucker shakes his head and walks inside; he changes into blue scrubs and starts on the first of this afternoon's 23 abortions. Ten years ago, Tucker started doing abortions for the money, but has since become a strong pro-choicer. Of the pro-lifers, he says, "They've got me pissed off, and I'm not going to quit." Yet he can betray an uneasy ambivalence. "I wish I would never ever have to do another one," he says. "I don't like it. It's not fun. It's not like you're curing a cancer or fixing a broken bone. You're terminating a potential life." At day's end, Tucker slumps on the clinic sofa eating a bag of salted nuts when a nurse hands him his latest piece of hate mail--"No one has to kill you. You are already dead," it reads. To get home to Birmingham, Tucker must drive 250 miles that night. </body> </article> </text>