A federal appeals court
upheld California's Proposition 209 , which prohibits affirmative action
in public institutions. A panel of the 9 th Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled that a lower judge's obstruction of Prop. 209 (on the grounds that it
treated race-based discrimination differently from other kinds of
discrimination) perverted the 14 th Amendment, trampled democracy,
and embarrassed the entire judicial system. Proponents of affirmative action
will ask the full 9 th Circuit to reverse the decision. Analysts see
this as a war between liberal and conservative judges that only the Supreme
Court can ultimately resolve. President Clinton conceded that supporters of
affirmative action will have to "find new ways to achieve the same objective."
(4/9)
Election results: Los
Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan crushed challenger Tom Hayden with more
than 60 percent of the vote. The Los Angeles Times emphasized that
Riordan won support from almost every ethnic group (overcoming the city's
reputation for racial conflict) and did better than any Republican candidate in
the city's history. The Times called Hayden's meager tally a "hard slap"
from the voters. Meanwhile, the party of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand
Aristide claimed victory in that country's Senate and local elections. However,
all but a small fraction of Haitians boycotted the vote .
(4/9)
Underplayed: Scientists at
Rutgers University claim to have identified a chemical that causes female
orgasms . The chemical, known as the vasoactive intestinal peptide, appears
to trigger the orgasm sensation in the brain. Researchers found that three of
16 paraplegic women were able to achieve orgasm, evidently by receiving the
peptide through the vagus nerve (which connects the brain directly to the
cervix) rather than the spine. The researchers envision turning the chemical
into a pill, which they claim would be used for pain suppression. The director
of the Kinsey Institute says that while he respects the Rutgers team, it would
be hard to stabilize the chemical in a pill. (4/9)
Foreplayed: The White
House announced that President Clinton will soon issue an apology from the U.S.
government for the infamous Tuskegee experiment , in which hundreds of
poor black men were deliberately left untreated for syphilis from the 1930s to
the 1970s. On April 30, comedienne Ellen DeGeneres ' TV character will
confirm she is a lesbian, consistent with DeGeneres' own (already well-known)
sexual orientation. Scribes and pundits are already reacting to both events,
although neither has happened yet. (4/9)
American girls are
reaching puberty much earlier than previously thought. A study finds that
48 percent of black girls and 15 percent of white girls begin developing pubic
hair or breasts by age 8. Three percent of black girls and 1 percent of white
girls begin acquiring these characteristics by age 3 (yes, 3). This contradicts
textbooks and previous studies that placed the average age of puberty at 11 or
12. The authors of the new study cite flaws in previous studies (they were done
long ago, were confined to British white girls, and didn't include girls
younger than 9). But they concede that the new study might also be skewed,
because girls who develop early sexual traits might be more likely to be
brought to their doctors and hence included in the study. (4/9)
Update from Zaire:
1) The Clinton administration is pressing President Mobutu Sese Seko to end the
war by resigning and leaving the country. The logistical problem here, as with
the Shah of Iran, is finding a country that will accept him in exile. U.S.
officials, while complaining that Mobutu is too selfish and stubborn to quit,
have refused to let him into the United States. 2) Mobutu declared martial law
and ousted the nation's new prime minister, Etienne Tshisekedi, who had seized
political control. 3) Rebels in the east were said to have captured the
nation's second-largest city. 4) The new boss may not turn out much different
from the old boss: A U.N. report says the rebels have massacred hundreds of
Hutu refugees and civilians. (For background on the Zairian conflict, see
Slate's "The Gist.")
(4/9)
Celebrity rites of
passage: Two flamboyant icons died. Beat Generation poet Allen
Ginsberg was remembered as a courageous and lovable nut who spearheaded the
counterculture by letting it all hang out. George Will called him a third-rate
artist but a first-rate self-promoter. (You can hear brief clips of Ginsberg
reading from "" and ".") Sports mogul Jack Kent Cooke was remembered as
a voracious, colorful rags-to-riches entrepreneur who built two dynasties (the
Los Angeles Lakers and Washington Redskins) while living a sumptuous life that
included four successive wives, two of them too young to be his daughters.
Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan , the nonflamboyant, noniconic Federal Reserve
chairman, punctuated his wedding to NBC's Andrea Mitchell with a pair of kisses
that the Washington Post depicted as shockingly passionate.
(4/9)
Update on the Democratic
fund-raising scandal: The Washington Post , having criticized the White
House and the Democratic National Committee for not screening out sleazy
foreign donors from fund-raising events, ran a front-page story implicitly
criticizing the White House for screening out an allegedly sleazy Latvian
businessman by supplying classified information to the DNC . Clinton says
his attorneys have found no evidence "that any sensitive information was
improperly transmitted to the DNC." (4/9)
The Social Security
Administration hastily abandoned a Web site it had created that allowed
workers to check their earnings records and benefit entitlements. Critics,
fearing that snoopers could access the data, called it another illustration of
the Internet's threat to privacy. Defenders of the system argued that it's
cheap (saves the taxpayers money), gives Social Security recipients an easy way
to access their own records, has never been abused, and is safer than the mail.
(4/9)
President Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in
Washington. Netanyahu urged Clinton to host a Camp David-like summit ,
the climax to Netanyahu's proposed shortcut negotiations with the Palestinian
Authority. Clinton said such a commitment might be "premature." Hours before,
Netanyahu had given a speech insisting that Israel would not halt the rapid
construction of a controversial housing project in East Jerusalem or make
further concessions to halt terrorism. But Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
told U.S. officials that negotiation was impossible as long as the construction
continued. Clinton called his talks with Netanyahu "specific," "frank," and
"candid." The media's translation: They had it out. (4/7)
Columbia/HCA , the
country's biggest medical provider, is becoming the poster boy of corporate
health-care greed. Critics' principal target is the company's policy of pegging
doctors' investment returns to profits at Columbia/HCA-affiliated institutions.
This is said to give the "doctor-investors" an incentive not only to cut
corners (the traditional HMO complaint) but also to send poor patients to
doctors outside the company while referring rich patients to doctors affiliated
with the company. Federal regulators are investigating whether this is an
illegal conflict of interest, and Rep. Pete Stark is leading a crusade to stop
the practice. (4/7)
The latest health scare is
hepatitis-infected school lunches . A batch of frozen strawberries
distributed through the federal lunch program caused hepatitis-A liver
infections in more than 160 students and teachers in Michigan. Similar batches
were sent to Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa, and Tennessee, but no
infections have been found there. Early reports blamed Mexico, whence the
strawberries came in violation of the U.S. ban on foreign ingredients in school
lunches. Mexico blames the American company that processed the berries. While
experts explained that this kind of risk is inherent in a complex
food-distribution system, editorialists demanded tighter regulation to make
sure it never happens again. (4/4)
