Springfield, Ore., buried two children killed by their classmate Kip Kinkel in
last week's cafeteria massacre . Politicians and experts debated the
meaning of it all. For a review of the arguments, click .
(5/27/98)
Voters in Northern
Ireland approved a peace plan . Among other things, the plan appeases
Catholics by including Northern Ireland in an all-Ireland council, and it
appeases Protestants by abolishing the Irish Republic's constitutional claim to
the majority Protestant North. Editorialists cheered the vote as a rejection of
past violence and an embrace of peace and cooperation. Click for a
dissection of the hype behind the vote.
(5/26/98)
Judge
Norma Holloway Johnson ruled that Secret Service agents cannot refuse to
testify before the Lewinsky grand jury about the president's behavior. She
rejected the argument, advanced by the Secret Service and by President
Clinton's surrogates, that this would endanger presidents by causing them to
evade the Secret Service personnel who are supposed to protect them.
(5/26/98)
Pro-democracy parties won the first legislative elections in Hong Kong
under Chinese rule. The naive spin: The democrats won. The half-sophisticated
spin: The democrats get ripped off, because the Chinese rigged the election so
that only half the legislature's seats were available. The rest are chosen by
organizations from which most voters are excluded. The fully sophisticated
spin: Despite getting ripped off, the democrats have secured a political base
from which to harass and embarrass the Chinese. (5/26/98)
The
Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to a South Carolina
child-endangerment law that has been used to prosecute pregnant women who
imperil their fetuses by using illegal drugs. The challenge by pro-choice
groups was based on narrow arguments, but the media are spinning the court's
action as a victory for fetal rights. (5/26/98)
Retired
Chicago electrician Frank Capaci won the $195 million Powerball lottery .
It's the biggest lottery jackpot in world history, though after taxes it turns
out to be just about $54 million. The spins: 1) Capaci on the moral of the
story--"All my life I worked and learned that I never got nothing for nothing"
... until the lottery proved him wrong. 2) To his adult children--"The only
reason I played the lottery was to give you kids a lift in life." 3) Since the
odds were 80 million-to-1 and everyone but Capaci lost, a Chicago math
professor calls lotteries "a tax on the mathematically challenged."
(5/22/98)
Indonesia's President Suharto resigned. He turned over power to his vice
president/crony, B.J. Habibie. Reactions: 1) Students cheered Suharto's
resignation. 2) President Clinton praised the "peaceful transition." 3)
Indonesia's stock market plummeted to a record low, signaling investors'
jitters about Habibie's flaky economic ideas. (5/21/98)
The
Senate is debating Sen. John McCain's anti-tobacco bill . It would raise
the price of cigarettes (thereby ostensibly discouraging youth smoking) by
imposing half a billion dollars in fees on tobacco companies to support
anti-smoking education, research, health care, and cessation programs. Thus
far, critics have offered amendments to cap lawyers' fees (defeated) and
increase the price hike (defeated). Pundits think the bill will pass
overwhelmingly. For a review of the spin contest, click .
(5/21/98)
The
House voted almost unanimously to ban new U.S.-China technology-transfer
deals while President Clinton is in China next month. This marks the latest
escalation of the Republican Party's campaign to condemn Clinton for allegedly
promoting technology trade with China at the expense of national security.
Speaker Gingrich says he will create a special committee to investigate the
Chinese money scandal. For an analysis of the Republican spin campaign,
click .
(5/20/98)
Eighty percent of pagers
in the United States were knocked out by a satellite malfunction in
space. The technophobic spin: This is what we get for relying on gadgets. The
technophilic spin: "Thank God for cell phones." (5/20/98)
