Life on Mars? And Other College Essays
The New York
Times leads with an assessment of the World Trade Organization talks in
Seattle that ended on Friday; the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post front similar analyses. The former leads
with the latest NASA news. The latter leads with word that AT&T will allow
"customers of rival Internet services to use AT&T's cable lines," a story
not on any other fronts.
AT&T controls more than half the nation's cable lines and had declared
it would only let its own Internet service provider (ISP) use them for at least
two years. The WP doesn't say when this declaration was made or if the two
years are up. On Monday, AT&T plans to send a letter to the FCC Chairman
William Kennard in which it will outline its deal with the nation's second
largest ISP, MindSpring Enterprises Inc., and its concurrent commitment to an
"open access" policy. The piece says "open access has become a pivotal debate
within the telecommunications world." Competitors and consumer advocates feel
AT&T hasn't gone far enough and worry that this is a proactive attempt by
the company to avoid stricter industry regulation. There's also worry that the
telecommunications giant still has the power and potential to "undermine the
free-flowing ethic if the Internet," which it could do by funneling traffic
away from non-AT&T ISPs.
The NYT WTO
story's angle: The lack of a trade deal is a major setback for Clinton. It's
his second major foreign policy defeat since summer; the first was the Senate
rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Clinton issued an optimistic
statement on Saturday, but anonymous members of his administration called the
talks a "fiasco" and "circus."
The WP touches on the fact that the WTO situation was a blow
for the president, but focuses on why the negotiations bombed--labor leaders,
environmentalists and human rights activists credited their protests; trade
ministers said it was the sheer complexity of issues coupled with delegates'
unwillingness to compromise. The Post calls the European Union's refusal to talk about
"eliminating its generous subsidies for farmers and their exports" the biggest
obstacle. Both the NYT and WP state that AFL-CIO president John Sweeney feels no deal
is better than a bad one; the NYT defines this as "one that failed to set up a study
group ... to make recommendations on labor rights."
The LAT has a different emphasis, exemplified by its Sweeney
quote: The talks represented "a stunning breakthrough in the public debate over
globalization." It (almost giddily) states "the unruly forces of democracy
collided with the elite world of trade policy"; "the elitists ... lost and
debate was changed forever." The anti-WTO movement barely existed a decade ago,
it notes, and has been "abetted by global communication ... and
transportation." An LAT piece reefered on its front cites a rebellion of
ambassadors from Third World countries "that helped bring the WTO summit to an
abrupt and embarrassing halt."
The LAT lead says Mars Polar Lander mission officials' mantra
is that the communication failure of the MLP "was not unexpected." (Do those
officials think taxpayers will be comforted by the idea that they thought a
$165 million mission might flop?) The NYT reports on its front that officials haven't given up
hope but conceded that "chances of success would be diminishingly slim if they
are unable to hear from the robotic spacecraft in a test on Sunday." The
WP reefers a story about the MPL news which has a
more pessimistic tone than the others about the likelihood of establishing
contact with the Mars space probe.
The NYT
off-leads an exclusive about two reports prepared by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe on human rights abuses in Kosovo. The first
details the Serbian abuse of power after the NATO air war started. The second
focuses on Kosovar Albanians' efforts, often spearheaded by the former Kosovo
Liberation Army and often evidenced by NATO-led peacekeepers, to drive
non-Albanians out of the province since the conflict's end. The reports will be
released on Monday in Pristina.
Inside, the WP carries news that the "National Commission on the Causes
and Prevention of Violence found that violent crime in major cities reported to
the FBI has risen by 40 percent since 1969." The findings provide a
counterpoint to reports of crime decline based on comparisons between
contemporary rates and those of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when "unusually
high levels of violence" prevailed.
A WP front piece on the presidential hopefuls
discusses the sniping between Gore and Bradley but also talks about the
"remarkably civil ... in comparison" relationship between McCain and Bush. A
NYT story focuses on the Republicans' relationship.
The WP fronts a piece on wacky, esoteric college application
essay questions that colleges like Bennington and University of Chicago are
using for a variety of reasons. How important are these essays compared to
SAT
scores as a college determines acceptances, and are the essays fair assessments
of a students' abilities? The piece might be weightier if it addressed such
issues.
