EARTH INVADES MARS!
Did it just happen that as Jodie Foster's "Contact" is revving to
open, a mission to Mars is grabbing the headlines? All three of the majors
working the weekend are leading with the story of how yesterday, the Mars
lander's communications problems with the rover vehicle it will deploy were
solved.
There being no way into this story other than through the briefings and
access provided by the mission's organizer, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the
Mars pieces in the New York Times,
Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times
are relentlessly similar. Still, here and there individual touches emerge. The
LAT has the news that the engineers were able to solve Pathfinder's
initial problems in part because they had, before the landing, replicated them
in a 30-by-50-foot sandbox. And the NYT captures an example of what
apparently goes for rocket scientist humor. The paper mentions a mysterious
object in the landing area that scientists are anxious to investigate with the
rover, and quotes mission team member Dr. Peter Smith as saying that it
"appeared to be something long, dark and shaped a little like a couch. 'Someone
suggested that was a homeless person out there,' the scientist joked." I guess
destitute people are pretty funny when you're federally subsidized.
Meanwhile, back on earth, the Post fronts an interesting piece
revealing that "the last great oil rush of the 20th century--targeted at a
potential $4 trillion patch in Central Asia's Caspian Sea region--has lured a
prestigious group of U.S. prospectors: former high-ranking government officials
bent on winning a stake in the bonanza for themselves or their companies." The
article's subhead mentions lobbying by former Reagan and Bush national security
advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Bush chief of staff John Sununu, former Bush
Secretary of State James Baker, and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lloyd
Bentsen. The body of the piece also reveals the similar activities of former
Bush Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney and former Carter national security
advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. It's not clear why the latter two were left out of
the bold type. This is tricky because it's also not clear whether in Washington
it's bad to be prominent in articles like this. After all, being certified by
the Post as working on something big could be great for business.
The piece mentions that Scowcroft has already made $130,000 from Pennzoil in
connection with the Caspian site. Of course, for him, money has nothing to do
with it. He tells the Post he's on the case "because the United States
has big interests out there." Incidentally, Scowcroft is fresh from a $50,000
one-day paper profit as a result of Lockheed's announcement last week of its
intention to purchase Northrop, where (a few Web keystrokes quickly revealed)
he is a director holding shares and options worth more than a quarter of a
million dollars.
The LAT also has a scoop on the front today--the revelation that the
Pentagon and CIA have worked up a plan for nabbing former Bosnian Serb leader
Radovan Karaszic to bring him up on international war crimes charges. The paper
states that President Clinton hasn't approved the plan yet, but that he's not
ruling it out either.
Remember that study a while back that concluded that 65 percent of teenaged
mothers were impregnated by adult men? It prompted much discussion of a
theretofore-unnoticed problem. Well, today's NYT 's "Week in Review"
section brings the news that the study was wrong. Seems that the investigators
neglected to mention "that 62 percent of the teen-age mothers were 18 or 19
years old and, therefore, like the fathers of their babies, adults." Never
mind.
