NOTEBOOK
By KATHLEEN ADAMS, DANIEL EISENBERG, IRENE GASHUROV, ANITA HAMILTON, JANICE M. HOROWITZ, NADYA LABI, BARBARA MADDUX, CINDA SILER AND JOEL STEIN
WINNERS & LOSERS
PARTLY SUNNY WITH A FEW CLOUDS
[WINNERS]
AL ROKER President tells weathermen they're not just airheads, plus they get White House lawn stand-up
HOOTERS Joy-Toys Are Us. Pays skimpy discrimination settlement to keep skimpily clad waitresses
MARY LANDRIEU Her election validated. Even G.O.P. can't find irregularities
[& LOSERS]
AL GORE Tick-tock, tick-tock. Reno had no choice. Still, she's getting closer. Al phones home for legal help
ANDREW MORTON Reissues Diana book. Can you imagine, someone exploiting Diana's death? Impossible!
PATRICIA IRELAND Disses Promise Keepers. NOW more irrelevant than ever
POLL DATA
HANDICAPPING 2000 If the presidential election were held today and you had to choose between Al Gore and Republican Colin Powell, for whom would you vote?
Total White Black
Gore 32% 30% 48% Powell 55% 58% 37% Will not vote 6% 6% 5%
SOCIETY'S ILLS What do you think is the main problem facing the country today?
Total White Black
Crime 15% 13% 17% Racism/Race Relations 4% 3% 15%
From a telephone poll of 1,282 adult Americans including 816 whites and 374 blacks taken for TIME/CNN on Oct. 1 and 2 by Yankelovich Partners Inc. Margins of error are +/- for entire sample, +/- 3.4% for whites and +/- 5.1% for blacks. "Not sures" omitted.
UM, SORRY ABOUT THAT
When the French Roman Catholic Church apologized last week for collaborating with the Nazis, it felt a little late. But it turns out a half-century is a rather prompt turnabout. Here's how long it has taken the church to vent its guilt:
Nearly 2,000 years. 1995: Pope regrets church's stance against women's rights
450 years. 1995: Pope asks forgiveness for Counter-Reformation stake burnings
450 years. 1993: Pope expresses guilt for church's condoning slavery
359 years. 1992: Church begs pardon for arresting Galileo Galilei in 1633
57 years. 1997: Church apologizes for its silence during 1940 Vichy regime
IN CASE YOU WEREN'T IN CROATIA LAST WEEK ...
Croatia isn't known for its writers. Still, when the government offered 12,000 kuna ($2,000) in a national competition for a new slogan, the winner--"Croatia, Paradise on Earth"--seemed suspiciously weak. Turns out the author was the wife of Minister of Tourism Niko Bulic, who had entered the contest under her maiden name, Dubravka Petricic. Since the scandal broke, Bulic has resigned and promised to give the prize money to charity. As for a slogan, it appears that they're sticking to the "Paradise on Earth" thing. After all, the previous slogan was "Croatia--A Small Country for a Big Holiday." Maybe she really did win on merit.
DOLLARS AND SCENTS
Anyone who has run the department-store gauntlet, dodging spritzer-wielding salespeople, knows that smelling good is serious business. In the U.S. more than 1,000 fragrances emit a heady bouquet--$5 billion in annual sales. The scent of all that money, however, seems to have lured some unlikely folks into the fragrance business. Some of the more curious perfume personalities:
BILL GRAY III $26 for 1.7 oz. For the American man who likes to take charge, Sincerely Lola Cosmetics is launching Bill Gray III--after the president of the United Negro College Fund. Says Gray: "I have nothing to do with this. I don't want to be like Mike."
DONUT COLOGNE $6.95 for 2.5 oz. Inspired by the natural cologne of a policeman, fire fighters Craig Freeman and Bobby Alamillo decided to capture "the aroma of doughnuts--without the fat." They've sold 12,000 bottles since 1996, all with no reported weight gain.
E $41 for 1.7 oz. Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia created E to evoke the perfume of her grandmother Grand Duchess Helen of Russia. This "scent once known only to nobility" is now available to commoners--on the QVC home-shopping network.
MER (Russian for Mayor) about $7 for 3.4 oz. Moscow's populist Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is bringing his essence to the people--so why does Mer proclaim itself "the cologne for leaders"?
GOSSIP by Cindy Adams $18.50 for 1 oz. Over a bowl of pasta at Patsy's restaurant, the New York Post's society columnist Cindy Adams realized, "Gossip is in the air. Everyone wants a whiff of it." The smell? Spicy, with nothing subtle about it.
HEALTH REPORT
THE GOOD NEWS
CANCER COMBO The best treatment for women who have a mastectomy for breast cancer may be to follow surgery with chemotherapy and radiation rather than just chemotherapy. Studies show the combination reduces breast-cancer deaths by as much as 30%.
VACCINE VICTORY A meningitis vaccine has proved so successful that the disease has been virtually wiped out among kids. So far this year, only 175 cases of pediatric meningitis have occurred, compared with about 18,000 a year in the 1980s.
MINDING PMS The antidepressant Zoloft may relieve severe premenstrual symptoms--even physical ones such as breast pain.
Sources: New England Journal of Medicine (1, 2); Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
THE BAD NEWS
DEPRESSURIZED Who doesn't get anxious in a doctor's office? A study finds that 20% of patients prescribed blood-pressure pills actually have normal pressure when tested in a less stressful setting.
WEIGHTY MATTERS Women who gain more than 10 lbs. in the years before conceiving double their odds of developing diabetes in pregnancy. It usually disappears after childbirth, but chances are strong that it will recur later.
SUPER BUG Nearly half the bacteria that cause pneumonia are resistant to penicillin. That's particularly alarming for the elderly, for whom the pneumonia death rate can run as high as 40%.
Sources: JAMA (1, 2); Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
NUMBERS
100%: Increase in food imports since the 1980s
50%: Cut in food inspections at the border since 1992
3: Number of serious outbreaks of diseases caused by uninspected imported food during 1997
44% of college students are presumed to be binge drinkers
86% of college-fraternity residents are presumed to be binge drinkers
$125,000,000: Amount of Minnesota Timberwolves' Kevin Garnett's six-year contract, the richest in professional sports
$36,500,000: Amount Garnett's contract exceeds the price paid for the franchise in 1995, when Garnett was still in high school
8 years: Median age of a vehicle on the road in the U.S. (the oldest it has been since the 1950s)
$6,000: Increase in average price of a new car over the past eight years
Sources: The New York Times, Associated Press, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, American Demographics
TIME CAPSULE
BUDDHISM may be Hollywood's latest theme, but in the strife-torn Asia of the 1960s, it was the force behind rising political unrest, as TIME reported in its Dec. 11, 1964, cover story:
Throughout Asia today, in one of the little remarked but momentous sea changes of modern times, the sandaled monks with shaved heads have abandoned Buddha's command to be still...and have plunged deep into politics. While most continue their usual duties of meditating...teaching and begging, more and more of them are busy issuing political manifestoes, organizing riots and working for the downfall of governments. From the Indian Ocean to the Sea of Japan, from the Irrawaddy to Tonkin Bay, [Buddhist monks] are causing political waves whose final effect they themselves cannot foresee but which are vitally affecting the Western--and the Communist--role in the fate of Asia... It was only 18 months ago that a 73-year-old Buddhist monk...sat down in...a Saigon street and...calmly set himself afire with a cigarette lighter to dramatize Buddhist opposition to the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem... At the time, the West had great sympathy for South Viet Nam's Buddhists. Now the atmosphere is different.