April 1994

4/1/94

Annapolis expels 7% of this yr’s graduating class, for involvement in cheating. They can be made to repay $80,000 of ed. or required to serve 3 yrs

SA dec state of emergency (remember those?) in Zulu, sends in troops to protect the election, take control of KwaZulu police

Rate of quitting smoking 2.5%/yr, less than for heroin

Republican Party’s new body to seek ideas of ordinary Amers. decided not to go for their donations as well; went straight to the giant corps & NRA. This is unregulated because this is the non-partisan part of the party. Right.

At least Ark, SD, LA, KY, Utah, OK flouting fed order to pay for abortions in Medicaid for rape & incest. Clinton admin exacting no penalty

A stay of execution today in Georgia 35 min. before, of a retarded black man (IQ 76, but that’s evidently not good enough to prevent execution – or to stop him acting as his own counsel. One juror says she never voted for death, but the other jurors chose to ignore her & claim unanimity. Another juror corroborates. Racial comments were rife, inc about the sole black juror, the holdout, when she was out of the room. The judge refused to clarify meaning of a life sentence, they were afraid he’d get out, and, hell, Mother’s Day was coming up & they wanted to go home

Project Censored ‘93: 1) US poverty rate for children twice any other indust nation, 2) 4 US oil comps hold what may be huge concessions in oil in Somalia, 3) Bush admin wanted to trash public schools, then suppressed a report it commissioned showing they weren’t that bad, 4) handouts to corps, 5) Chernobyl from design flaw, not operator error, and released 80% of core, not 3%, & killed 7-10,000 clean-up volunteers, 6) US army resumes bio-warfare tests, 7) widespread selenium contamination of W. water supply, 8) incompetent or impaired US drs, 9) poverty profiteering – pawn shops, check-cashing, rent-to-own, 2nd mortgage, 10) Haitian coup leaders trained by CIA


4/2/94

GA executed that guy anyway

Wedowee, Alabama school board refuses to dismiss a white principal who wanted to ban interracial couples from prom & told a mulatto student that she was a “mistake”

Japan’s Mr. Clean PM Hosokawa got a $1m loan from a transportation comp, which he may not have paid back

Head of It. Nat. Alliance says Mussolini the greatest statesman of 20C


4/3/94

Malaysia bans Schindler’s List as propaganda for Jews. This has gotten no publicity compared to Philippine’s concerns about boobs

What to make of this? FBI dep chief of technical services wanted to use a Russian device to send a subliminal message on a phone line to mind-control cult leader David Koresh. Russians backed out


4/4/94

Red Cross to evacuate Muslims & Croats from Prijedor, going against policy of not assisting ethnic cleansing

Hungarian gov starts prosecuting for 1956. Then PM Hegedus says he was forced to sign an invitation for Soviet troops, retrospectively, after Nagy refused, under pressure from Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov

Though 1988’s Prop 99 began an anti-smoking program, Govs. Deukmejian & Wilson have been diverting money from the cigarette tax to other programs


4/5/94

Russian homicides up to 29,000 1993 from 20,000 1992

State Dept report on drugs says Nigerians have a global network providing 35-40% of heroin in US
-Also that Panamanian gov doing nothing

Zhirinovsky’s party gives him full control of all party matters until 2004 & won’t have another Congress until 1997

Red Cross postpones the mass evacuation fo Prijedor, vetoed by Bosnian Serbs, who say they’ll increase protection & send more Serb police. Oh, how reassuring.
-Clinton says Perry’s statement that we’ll do nothing to stop fall of Gorazde is not a green light

Fed district judge bars DOD fining 6 service members challenging Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Even filing a lawsuit against the policy counts, presumably, as “telling”

Medicare pays drs 59% of what priv insurance comps pay, down from 68% 1989, Medicaid 47%


4/6/94

An Aeroflot plane goes down because the pilot’s kid was flying it

Black students boycotting Alabama HS w/racist principal mentioned 4/2/94


4/7/94

Anglican church in Wales bans ordination of women, barely

Justice Blackmun retires. Here’s a bizarre case. 1973 majority that $50 fee for bankruptcy ok because poor could set aside movie & cigarette money

Presidents of Rwanda & Burundi killed when a plane hit, possibly by a rocket. Today, Rwanda’s PM assassinated


4/8/94

Aristide abrogates treaty allowing repatriation of boat people – effective in 6 mos. America says it can cont. do what it’s been doing because rafts & dinghies are not registered vehicles

In 1st month of Brady law, 1,605 fugitives & convicted felons & such prevented from buying guns, inc 45 of former


4/9/94

Japanese PM Hosokawa resigns, admitting he never paid interest on a $1m loan, which was diverted to pol activity

Israel imposes indefinite ban on Palestinians from W Bank & Gaza, will bring in cheap foreign labor – Turkey, Thailand etc

US lets Florida commute prison sentences for 500-1,000 illegal aliens to deport them (w/out notifying countries in advance). Nonviolent only. We got so pissed when Cuba did this to us


4/10/94

Ex-Americans are 15% of settler pop Israel
-No one likes Gaza settlers because they use Arab refugee labor, replaced them w/cheaper Ethiopian Jews whose health care & salaries subsidized by gov, now looking for those cheaper Thai workers.
-Jerusalem’s Likud mayor on definition of Greater Jerusalem: “It’s as much as we can reach.”


4/11/94

Latin American abortion rate higher than US (illegal in all but Cuba)

US puts sanctions on Taiwan for sale of tiger bones & rhino horns. OK, it’s just wildlife product exports, 0.1% of their exports to US, but it is the 1st environmental sanctions

UN/NATO bombs Serbs 2 days running (1st NATO bombing raid ever) around UN “safe area” of Goradze, allegedly to protect the 10 or 12 UN observers there. We hit a tank & a command center. This after Defense Sec & NATO chief said we wouldn’t. Explanation is that it wasn’t us, it was the UN that ordered it. Today’s got them to stop shelling.
-Yeltsin bitches that he wasn’t asked 1st. Zhirinovsky wants to bomb NATO bases in Italy

Hillary Clinton’s commodity orders that did so well (though Safire says that to be fair, adjusting for inflation, it was only 9,987%) were actually made by James Blair, previously called an adviser. He was lawyer for Tyson Foods. This was a violation of commodity trading reg. They also admit having failed to report profits to IRS, & now pay $14,615 back taxes & interest

Kissinger to mediate SA/Zulus. Oh, good


4/12/94

Ukraine to close Chernobyl, finally, well, in a few yrs

Ah, American technology. Of the 4 bombs dropped in Bosnia yesterday, only 1 exploded.

Br gov unwilling to pass law against racial violence, but is willing to censor videos for violence


4/14/94

EU Exec Commission goes to Eur Court of Justice to stop Greek blockade on Macedonia

Leak of some ingredients makes tobacco industry release list of tobacco additives, inc ammonia & pesticides. Their scientists say it is safe, and nicotine is not addictive

Welfare waivers to states for “experiments,” inc reducing payments for mothers who don’t immunize kids (MD) or whose kids skip school (Ohio, Wics), end increases for more kids (Ark, GA, NJ), limits in time, fingerprinting (CA). CA also “experiments” w/smaller payments, and tried to reduce pay to people moving from other states – court overruled

Clinton ambassadors even more likely than Bush’s to have donated huge amounts. Christopher promised max. 30% pol appointees, but there are 40%.

1992 Br prosecuted 244 gays for consensual sex involving men under 21

US planes over Iraq shoot down 2 US helicopters, killing 26 inc misc Turks, Br, Kurds. It was mistaken for a copter that looks nothing like it – which has wings for chrissake! – and though no Iraqi copters in the area in last 15 mos & pilots had been told there were US copters in area

House working on crime bill, restoring 69+ fed death penalties overturned by Sup court, allowing trial as adults to 13-yr olds, requiring flags at half-staff on Peace Officers’ Day, calling for full prosecution of crimes against truckers, increasing penalty for selling a Congressional Medal of Honor. Attempt to kill death penalty altogether lost 294-98. Kept death penalty for drug kingpins w/no death involved – probably unconst (316-108). R’s still trying to allow good-faith exclusion


4/15/94

Vatican allows altar girls

Sen. Armed Services Cmte recommends Frank Kelso, Navy chief of ops, be retired at full rank, despite having lied about seeing sexual terrorism at Tailhook convention. Only 1 ♀ on the panel, voted against. He will get $1,400/mo more

Disney Comp’s profits fell to $300m this yr due to failure of EuroDisney. Chair Michael Eisner is highest paid exec ever, gets $203.1m – 68% of profit

Howard U postpones visit by David Brion Davis to lecture on Haitian Revo of 1791 – he is Jewish & might be heckled. Howard evidently now a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Able to speak next week: anti-Semites Khalid Muhammad, Dr. Leonard Jeffries

NAACP’s new head Benjamin Chavis also taking it in that direction, moving closer to Nation of Islam


4/16/94

US fighters in Iraq gave no warning before firing on the copters, nor got permission – following rules of engagement. Friend-or-foe electronics not working.

Bosnian Serbs going after Gorazde, ignoring previous UN bombing, and attacking UN personnel as well, demanding heavy weapons given up in Sarajevo (& elsewhere) be given back, killing UN soldiers, attacking UN observation post, airport, shooting down Br plane, abducting soldiers, expelling US journalists. UN still being overly hesitant about bombing. Clinton says NATO not trying to change the military balance


4/17/94

Irish PM offers 30% of gov to Ulster if Ireland unifies (30% in relig proportions).

After 11 yrs & $8b, the Pentagon project to keep gov going after nuclear war, is ended. The directive for the program written by Ollie North

SA Nat Party is race-baiting to get Colored vote. One ad asks “can you imagine the Cape Strangler having the vote?”, referring to a serial killer of 20 colored boys, of whom police released a composite picture in time for the election, suggesting he is black, w/a tribal scar – highly unlikely

UN negotiating ceasefires that last several seconds as tanks move in on Gorazde. Since the UN resolution never delimited the safe area, UN defines it as quite small

Phil Gramm used taxpayer money for campaign expenses & personal & family travel. Senate Ethics Cmte “cleared” him

Romanian gov admits 60% of old Securitate employed by new one


4/18/94

Senate women finally unite on an issue – denying 4-star retirement to Adm Kelso of Tailhook

Commander of UN forces in Bosnia complains that Serbs used peacekeeping op as cover for their war. No kidding. Serbs will probably not take Gorazde, just starve it, so Bosnians will lose it in negotiations. UN target-spotters have left, so bombing over. UN now decides it would need formal permission to use bombing to do anything but protect UN peacekeepers (5 left in Gorazde)

A book by Soviet intelligence official Pavel Sudoplatov, who organized the hit on Trotsky, also says that Fermi, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Szilard, Gamow all gave atomic secrets to Russia. They considered themselves to be cooperating w/an ally. Oppenheimer is supposed to have got Fuchs hired. And he says the Rosenbergs were no help at all

Shamir, and various rabbis, call on soldiers to disobey any orders to remove Jews from settlements


4/19/94

Aristide at Berkeley, notes:
-Says US embassy in Haiti buying gas on black mkt, to benefit of military
-US can see the vessels of the boat people, but not the oil ship that comes from Dominican Repub every other day
-1 soldier per 1,000 Haitians, 0.18 doctors
-5% asylum claims processed in Haiti approved. A cynical joke
-The man is speaking Hebrew at us. Invokes Holocaust. I wonder if this relates to Howard U’s postponing of David Brion Davis’s lecture on Haitian Revo?
-Haiti also has a diaspora
-Army 40% budget (.1% pop)
-Says coup largely for drug trafficking. Now 2nd largest in hemisphere, $1.2b/yr to coup leaders
-Here’s an image: pigs eating corpses left by military


Fr the only W Eur country still building nuclear reactors

Senate 54-43 allows Adm Kelso to retire at 4 stars

Zulus rejoin elections – one week from today

Clinton at an MTV youth forum answers the burning questions: briefs, not boxers

Sup Court 6-3 bars sex in exclusion of jurors (like race 8 yrs ago). Scalia, in dissent w/Thomas & Rehnquist, makes fun of being “up-to-date & right-thinking” (i.e., politically correct), and says we can only say that sex (or race) exclusions violate Equal Protection if focus on indiv instances – in larger sense it’s ok because all groups subject to peremptory challenge in one case or another. It’s news to me that const rights count only on average


4/20/94

NYT says Russians also learning sexual harassment from us, advertising physical specifications & “without inhibitions.” Domestic violence also seems to be increasing

After fed courts at ACLU urging block warrantless searches of pub. housing Chicago, Clinton wants leases w/standing consent to searches. Also wants warrant-less entry in “emergencies.”

LBJ didn’t believe in the single bullet theory.

New PBS president Ervin Duggan was Bush appointee to FCC for “family values,” backed by Nat Assoc of Evangelicals, which explains cancellation of sequel to Tales of the City, which was v. popular

House adds to Crime Bill amend allowing challenge to death sentences based on statistical evidence (White House has no opinion)


4/21/94

Br rejecting asylum to Bosnians fleeing conscription by Bosnian Serbs


4/22/94

Ulster court overturns another Irish conviction, that of Paul Hill of Guildford 4, after 15 yrs prison, based totally on a tortured confession. Police are closing the case

Jack Kemp & other R’s want to abolish welfare to women under 21. Sen. Lieberman wants to abolish welfare & return to orphanages

Crime bill, going to cmte, bars sale of guns to minors & now inc non-violent drug crimes in 3 strikes

Clinton wants to get serious on Serbs, really protect the remaining safe zones & stop shelling of Gorazde. He says.

Nixon is dead. Poke him with a stick to make sure

Hillary finally gives press conf on Whitewater – on a Friday when NATO issues warning to Serbs & Nixon dies – admits to having received money from Rose Law’s work on gov, claims never asked why McDougall’s loss on Whitewater so much higher than theirs, though both had 50%. Her conf carried by all 4 networks, Clinton’s on Bosnia by CNN only. On preferential treatment, she answered lawyerly that there is no evidence of it

Some horrendous allegations are made about the drs whose clinic does 2/3 Miss. abortions, same for Alabama 2nd-trimester ones. He is supposed to have let non-doctors perform abortions & other procedures, let one patient bleed to death, etc. Most evidence from an ex-employee (spy?), now working for an anti-abortion group which Ala. Dep Atty Gen, part of this case, advises. Another partial official: head of Ala. Board of Med. Examiners is a state senator who has co-sponsored anti-abortion leg. A member of the board w/drew after referring to an abortion as murder
-suspended 1 yr. 2 drs perform abortions Miss.


4/23/94

Albania trying the main pol opposition leader for corruption, threatening BBC service for its coverage. Opposition paper’s editor acquitted for pub. official secrets – gov then arrested the judge – & the editor got 5 mos from the appeal court, & skipped the country


4/24/94

Gerry Addams of Sinn Fein qualifies for legal aid to fight order excluding him from Br mainland


4/25/94

SA polling today. Bombs have been going off the last 2 dys. Gov using old arbitrary detention power to keep “more than 10” people who might disrupt elections in prison

Serbs pull out of Gorazde, burning houses & blowing up the water treatment plant. Though Serbs cont. mortar fire, UN over-ruled the NATO ultimatum & refused offer of air strikes

Various members of new It. gov (whenever it forms) want to tear up 1975 treaty w/Yug., keep Slovenia & Croatia out of EU, and talk of ethnic cleansing of Its.

Senate version of crime bill demands states make inmates serve longer terms to qualify for fed prison money to relieve over-crowding. House demands HS diplomas before time off for good behaviour but denies Pell grants. Also forbids weights & exercise equipment

H of L 1,203 members, 774 hereditary. And in March it voted to cont. masculine heredity

Jap. socialists pull out of governing coalition as the other parties try to create a parl bloc excluding them. The new PM (if he can manage w/a minority) claims he had no idea about the bloc


4/26/94

Miss. judge reinstates a principal fired for allowing a student to read a prayer over intercom, citing “the loss of moral values in public education.” Since his firing Gov. Fordice got Leg to press law allowing student-initiated prayers

Last week SA police found 4 men caged & beaten in ANC offices. Also recently ANC security guards killed 8 Zulu protesters marching on ANC hq & Mandela refused to let police search for weapons
-Meanwhile, Min of Law & Order admits to shredding “non-essential” police documents
-Nats distrib a comic book claiming an ANC slogan was “Kill the farmers! Kill the Coloureds!” Electoral commission banned it

Sup Court 8-1 says 1991 Civil Rights Act not retroactive (Congress fudged the wording)

Coast Guard bans discrim on basis of sexual orientation (applies only to civilian workers)


4/27/94

Corps are refusing to hire smokers, to keep down health care costs. But in last 5 yrs, 28 states enacted laws against that


4/28/94

CA Demo Party takes ad blaming Wilson for illegal immigrants, saying ½ of approved applications in bracero program (which he created as senator 1986) fraudulent, that he confronted INS on behalf of campaign contributors who hired illegals

Though NATO & UN said Serbs left Gorazda, in fact did not. Serbs claim they’ve only left “policemen”

Berlusconi to become It. PM, w/out giving up interests in tv & publishing

Japan’s conviction rate is 99.8% (1990). No wonder: 91.5% signed confessions, 36% had no witnesses, the rest ave 1.5

Ch. sentences a Hong Kong journalist to 12 yrs for reporting Ch’s policy on interest rates


4/29/94

Zimbabwe’s last batch of compulsorily purchased white farms going to gov & its friends. Surprise!

Rwandan death toll up to maybe 200,000, and 250,000 leaving for Tanzania now. UN Sec Council deciding whether to call it genocide