Sub-atomic Mass Hysteria
The Supreme Court's refusal to fast-track the legal battle between President
Clinton and Kenneth Starr leads all the papers. The life sentence without the
possibility of parole handed to Oklahoma bombing figure Terry Nichols draws
front-page coverage at the New York Times ,
Washington Post and Los Angeles
Times , but USA Today puts it on page 3. Nichols was expected to be put
away for keeps unless he spoke to the court in a particularly informative or
remorseful way, but he made no statement. The WP and NYT say
Nichols, called an "enemy of the Constitution" by the judge, displayed no
emotion. But the LAT says that upon entering the courtroom, he broke into
tears. As in previous key Oklahoma bombing proceedings, no statements rivaled
in power those of survivors and victims' relatives. The NYT reports that one woman who saw many dead babies
at the bombing site testified that whenever "I see these mothers with empty
arms, I wonder, was that your baby I kissed on his way to heaven?"
The Court's decision to return the Lewinsky case issues of attorney-client
and protective privilege back to the regular appeals court process is generally
taken as a rebuff for Starr's contention that these matters pose a
constitutional crisis of the first magnitude. There is more divergence about
what this does to the course of the case. The LAT says that this might
keep Starr from questioning White House lawyer Bruce Lindsey and Secret Service
officers until "well into next year." But USAT says that the Supreme
Court might well end up hearing the case "by month's end."
The LAT "Column One" fascinates today with a story of
breakthrough genetic research being done in Iceland. It seems that Iceland
provides the best database in the world for trying to isolate genes responsible
for such scourges as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, adult-onset diabetes and
stroke. That's because Iceland has an incredibly homogenous population, further
"culled" by a plague and a natural disaster, and keeps excellent medical
records (including a tissue sample from every autopsy conducted in the country
since the 1930s). This research environment has, reports the LAT , lured
a geneticist away from the Harvard Medical School and enabled him to get
millions in underwriting from drug giant Hoffman-La Roche. The project is set
to sell public stock shares within a year and if the science pays off, could
end up worth billions. Some critics are calling this exploitative "bio-piracy,"
but, the paper reports, any effective treatments it creates will be dispensed
to Icelanders for free.
The Wall Street Journal "Washington Wire" reports that in the
wake of the Indian/Pakistan nukefest, a new buzzword is making the Pentagon
rounds: "rogue democracies." And in a WP op-ed, Stephen S. Rosenfeld makes an important
point about this new leg of the arms race. Previously, it had generally been
held that non-proliferation could be secured via providing for the security
needs of the nuclear have-nots, but, says Rosenfeld, India and Pakistan didn't
really build their bombs to address security concerns. (When was the last time
before all this that Kashmir made the front page?) No, he writes, they went
overtly nuclear to achieve status . And when poor self-esteem is the root
problem, conventional medicine doesn't work. It takes large doses of
"diplomatic therapy," which will, Rosenfeld writes, "take years."
The NYT , LAT , and WP fronts herald the discovery that
the sub-atomic particle called a neutrino, which is chargeless and was formerly
thought massless too, in fact has mass. The papers assure us this is
earth-shaking. "The Universe May Never Be the Same" is slugged over
NYT Universe reporter Malcolm Browne's dispatch. The Times says
the discovery was announced by 120 physicists at a "neutrino conference."
Hoo-boy, bet the bartenders and hookers go on vacation during that one.
