Hot Air
The Washington Post and USA Today
lead with the ongoing heat wave and resultant drought--though the heat is
abating, the situation is dire for farmers in the eastern U.S. The Los Angeles
Times and USAT front (and the WP reefers) Hillary
Clinton's comments on her marriage in the premiere issue of Talk
magazine. The LAT leads with a story on increasing reuse of disposable
medical equipment. Such reuse, though potentially disastrous, is largely
unregulated by the FDA. The New York Times leads
with the latest woes of the waning Christian Coalition--reports of falsified
lists of supporters. The NYT and the LAT also front the
beginnings of Mexico's first presidential primary.
Extreme heat has caused over 180 heat-related deaths nationwide. Secretary
of Agriculture Dan Glickman, touring West Virginia and Maryland this week, may
recommend declaring a state of emergency. Nonetheless, given the rainfall the
heartland has had, yields there should be sufficient to prevent nationwide food
shortages or price hikes. In fact, USAT reports that America's farmers
may be on the verge of another crisis, brought on by low prices in the U.S. and
depressed markets abroad.
In today's inaugural issue of Talk, Hillary Clinton blames her
husband's infidelities on psychological "abuse" he suffered as a child,
particularly the fallout from a conflict between his mother and grandmother.
USAT and the LAT (but not the WP ) actually describe the
conflict: Clinton's grandmother petitioned for custody of the 4-year-old when
his mother, Virginia Kelley, decided to wed Roger Clinton, a man his
grandmother deemed unsuitable. (He turned out to be an abusive alcoholic.)
Clinton's "elaborate rationale" ( WP ) for her husband's behavior also
involves viewing his lies as "sins of weakness" designed to protect his loved
ones. Talk Editor Tina Brown tells USAT that the timing of the
article had nothing to do with the New York senatorial race. But the WP
reports that Lucinda Franks, Clinton's interviewer, claimed Clinton agreed to
the interview to "defuse the issue in New York politics." Clinton's spokeswoman
wouldn't comment on the first lady's motives. The WP helpfully reminds
readers that Talk is "powered in part by corporate synergy."
To cut costs, the LAT reports, many hospitals process items like
angioplasty balloons or biopsy needles for reuse. A growing number farm out the
reprocessing to cheaper third-party facilities. Even materials marked for
"single use" are reprocessed, sometimes with horrific results--a reprocessed
cardiac catheter, for example, broke off in a patient's heart during treatment.
The FDA, citing a lack of information, exercises little regulatory control on
reprocessing, but a ban on third-party reprocessing is likely. One abuse such a
ban won't fix: manufacturers changing the status of formerly reusable items to
"single use" merely to boost sales.
The NYT reports that even at the height of its influence, the
Christian Coalition kept thousands of dead persons, duplicate names, and wrong
addresses on its lists of supporters. They also hired temporary workers to
provide the press with images of bustling offices. Even their current claims of
almost 2 million members rely on one-time petition signers and erroneous
addresses. Now that the coalition's plea for tax-exempt status has been
rejected, it may split into two wings: a tax-exempt voter education branch and
a political action committee that would endorse candidates and donate to
campaigns.
Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled the
country for 70 years, kicked off its first presidential primary. In the past,
the president has simply hand-picked his successor. The leaders in the
four-candidate primary are Interior Minister Francisco Labastida Ochoa and
Roberto Madrazo Pintado, governor of Tabasco. Though analysts say Labastida
could unite the technocratic and populist factions of the party, polls show
Madrazo to be the early leader, despite longstanding fraud allegations and
campaign funds of dubious origin.
The WP reports that an Air Force nurse was punished for criticizing
the military's use of an anthrax vaccine. Her letter to the military newspaper
Stars and Stripes , which included a request that "numerous individuals
ask the questions" about the vaccine's possible side effects, was viewed by her
superiors as a possible incitement to insurrection. The vaccine is the first
attempt to protect the entire U.S. military against a germ warfare agent.
40 Acres and a Windows Upgrade: A New York Times /CBS News
telephone poll shows that Microsoft's approval rating with consumers is down to
60 percent, compared with 73 percent two years ago. According to the
"relationship theory" of a Harvard Business School associate professor, further
trouble may be on the way. Consumers view their relationship with Johnson &
Johnson as "mother-child," and their relationship with McDonald's as "childhood
buddy." But their relationship with Microsoft? "Master-slave." Today's Papers
agrees: Now get back to work.
