AIDS and Aides
The New York Times
says it's the booming dollar. The Washington Post goes with the 2000 Census (Republicans want
to count heads, Democrats want to use statistical sampling). USA Today
leads with President Clinton's support of a bill that would bar health
insurance companies from discriminating against people because of their genes.
And the Los Angeles Times leads with the Los Angeles harbor pilots
strike--they're asking for a 72 percent raise to $195,000 a year (hence the
term "TV pilot?).
Away from the lead story positions (top right, that is) there is more
agreement about the news. The NYT , LAT , and WP each have
front-page pieces about yesterday's announcement that primarily because of
treatment advances, deaths from AIDS continue to drop in the United States. The
point is made though, that worldwide, AIDS deaths are still increasing, and
will probably continue to do so, because of the difficulties involved in
bringing better therapies to Africa and Asia. Both USAT and the
LAT give front-page play to another medical story: the development of a
nasal flu vaccine.
And those two papers also report that President Clinton's lawyer has
complained via letter to the producer of the just-released space movie
"Contact" about the manipulated use of footage of the president in the film.
The studio involved, Warner Bros., says it just wants Clinton to see the movie
first before passing judgment. The LAT reveals that it was former
Clinton press aide, Dee Dee Myers, a technical advisor on the film, who
initially gave the White House a heads-up about the sequences. If so, you have
to wonder why the NYT didn't have the story too, since Myers's
significant other is its L.A. bureau chief, Todd Purdum.
A quick point about that NYT dollar story. The piece says U.S.
currency is up against most European currencies and down against the yen, and
that both developments are good news for the U.S: "For the Clinton
administration, led by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a slumping mark is much
less worrisome than a slumping yen would have been, several economists said
Monday." The Times goes on to explain that the trends mean more buying
power for Americans in Europe and the prevention of further deterioration in
the trade balance with Japan. But it doesn't explain why their other
consequences--less buying power for Americans in Japan and further slippage in
the trade balance with European countries--aren't of equal concern.
According to the front-page "Work Week" column in the Wall Street Journal , workplace equality still has a way to
go when it comes to job-related injuries: 71 percent of the nation's nearly
32,000 cases of carpal-tunnel syndrome involve women, but of the 11,308
amputations, 90% involved men.
