NOTEBOOK
By CHARLOTTE FALTERMAYER, JANICE M. HOROWITZ, JOHN MANNERS, J.F.O. MCALLISTER, LAWRENCE MONDI, MICHAEL QUINN, ALAIN SANDERS, MARK THOMPSON
WINNERS & LOSERS
HIGH AND LOW FASHION
[WINNERS]
DONATELLA VERSACE Publicity-shy Woody Allen, Mike Tyson and Lisa Marie Presley come to her Versus show
FAMOUS PEOPLE'S DAUGHTERS Ivanka Trump, daughter of Ivana, and Jillian Hearst, daughter of Patty, strut the catwalk
THE GAP This year's black T shirt gets boost when Sharon Stone wears last year's to the Oscars
[& LOSERS]
DONNA KARAN Gets slammed by fashion press and colleague Calvin Klein for abandoning traditional venue
MODELS WHO WANT TO ACT Showing off costumes at the Oscars requires more than attitude. And smiling is permitted
'70S HATERS The decade isn't going away. Long coats, wide lapels and (eek!) even gauchos are back high and low Fashion
TABOO TATTOOS
For more than a century the Marine Corps' traditional eagle, globe and anchor tattoo has been rippling across the biceps and backs of Leathernecks. But lately, too many recruits are festooned with adornments too tasteless for even hardy jarheads. One Marine wannabe's temple, for example, bore tattoos of bullet holes with blood oozing from them (he didn't get in). Another recruit sported a naked woman (he was barred until he had a bathing suit tattooed upon her). Recruiters are forwarding snapshots of dubious tattoos to senior officers for their approval before the wearers are allowed into the Marines. The issue took a serious turn following the March 5 murder of a Marine lieutenant colonel at Camp Pendleton, California, allegedly by a sergeant under his command. The suspect has a tattooed teardrop coming out of the corner of his left eye, which may be a gang symbol. Under current Marine regulations, though, a teardrop is perfectly unobjectionable. That is expected to change. A corps panel is codifying the rules for just what types of tattoos will pass Marine muster.
WASHINGTON: PIG HEAVEN
No matter how many diatribes echo through the halls of Congress, lawmakers continue to lard the folks back home with old-fashioned, mouth-watering pork. In their just published Pig Book, the group Citizens Against Government Waste ferrets out $12.5 billion of fat in 1996 government spending. A few choice cuts, which we have graded by oinks (out of five) for piggishness:
BENEFACTOR OINK-O-METER
Senator Thad Cochran [4 oinks] Republican, Mississippi -Chairman of the Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee
MORSELS
Nearly $10 million for Mississippi-based projects, including $3 million for the National Food Service Management Institute, $1.9 million for the National Center for Warmwater Aquaculture and $1.6 million for the Center for Water and Wetland Resources at the University of Mississippi, the chairman's alma mater
[BENEFACTOR]
Rep. Thomas Foglietta [3 OINKS] Democrat, Pennsylvania -Member of the House Appropriations Military Construction Subcommittee
[MORSELS]
$6 million to renovate a foundry at the soon to be closed Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, which lies in the Congressman's district
[BENEFACTOR]
Senator Robert Dole [5 OINKS] Republican, Kansas -Senate Majority Leader
[MORSELS]
$33 million for military construction projects, including $7 million for barracks renewal at Fort Riley, in the state of the presumptive G.O.P. presidential nominee
[BENEFACTOR]
Senator Conrad Burns [4 OINKS] Republican, Montana -Chairman of the Appropriations Military Construction Subcommittee
[MORSELS]
$21 million in military construction projects in the Senator's home state, including $681,000 for new latrines at Fort Harrison
[BENEFACTOR]
Rep. Marcy Kaptur [1 OINK] Democrat, Ohio -Member of the Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee
[MORSELS]
$246,000 for an "income-enhancement demonstration" in Kaptur's district. The Agriculture Department refused to fund the program, informing Congress that its prime beneficiary was the Toledo farmers' market
HEALTH REPORT
THE GOOD NEWS
Preliminary reports suggest Advil, Motrin and Nuprin--all pain relievers containing ibuprofen--may reduce the risk of developing ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE 30% to 60%. The drugs may help fight off excessive deposits of certain proteins in the brain linked to the disease. Aspirin and acetaminophen do not seem to have the same effect.
The catastrophic brain damage that can occur with a STROKE may be prevented with a powerful new medication called citicoline. In a study, citicoline appeared to help injured membranes repair themselves.
A major five-year study concludes that people who have had a heart attack may reduce their risk of dying from heart disease or suffering another attack if they go on CHOLESTEROL-LOWERING DRUGS--even if their cholesterol levels are normal.
THE BAD NEWS
Young adults are boozing it up: 1 in 5 surveyed admitted to BINGE DRINKING; 1 in 5 also owned up to occasionally driving while drunk.
Drunk driving--and liver disease--should be enough to deter people from alcohol. Research on rats indicates that even one binge may raise the risk that undiagnosed cancer cells will spread. Rats injected with ALCOHOL AND CANCER cells grew more tumors than abstemious ones.
Owing mostly to mammography, the number of women diagnosed with tiny, noninvasive tumors in the breast's milk duct has quadrupled since 1983. As many of these tumors never spread dangerously beyond the duct, researchers are concerned that women who opt for a MASTECTOMY may be undergoing unnecessarily radical surgery.
Sources--GOOD NEWS: American Academy of Neurology conference; American Academy of Neurology conference; American College of Cardiology conference BAD NEWS: Journal of the American Medical Association; Nature Medicine; Journal of the American Medical Association
LOCAL HEROES
DELORES F. ADAMS, 63; INCLINE VILLAGE, NEV.; retired nurse When Adams won $9.3 million at the slots in Reno in 1992, giving was first on her mind. Initially, she helped her husband, two sons, six sisters and three brothers. Then she donated pews and stained-glass windows to her childhood church in Alabama. Today she funds three $1,000 college scholarships each year and contributes to numerous academic and medical-research organizations. "Anything I've had I've always shared," says Adams. "Now I can share money, too."
JIM STOVALL, 38; TULSA, OKLA.; Narrative Television Network The film buff learned he was going blind at 17 and completely lost his sight by 29. He found his favorite films, like The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, difficult to enjoy. "Even though I had seen it a number of times, I couldn't follow the end." In 1988 Stovall, the author of You Don't Have to Be Blind to See, started NTN to narrate TV and movie classics for an audience that could no longer see them. Today the Emmy Award--winning network reaches 25 million homes in the U.S.
30 YEARS AGO IN TIME
The Missing God A controversial exploration of the existence of God: "Soren Kierkegaard warned that 'the day when Christianity and the world become friends, Christianity is done away with.' During World War II, the anti-Nazi Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote prophetically to a friend from his Berlin prison cell: 'We are proceeding toward a time of no religion at all.' For many, that time has arrived . 'Personally, I've never been confronted with the question of God,' says one ... politely indifferent atheist, Dr. Claude Levi-Strauss, professor of social anthropology at the College de France. 'I find it's perfectly possible to spend my life knowing that we will never explain the universe.' Jesuit Theologian John Courtney Murray points to ... the atheism of distraction, people who are just 'too damn busy' to worry about God at all." --April 8, 1966