tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1932655.post-22848402001-02-07T14:38:00.000-08:002001-03-01T09:02:04.366-08:00IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY IN FEBRUARY 2000! February 1, 2000 RAVENS' RAY LEWIS ACCUSED OF KILLING 2 AFTER SUPER BOWL Baltimore Ravens' NFL Pro Bowl linebacker Ray Lewis was charged with murder in the slayings of two people outside an Atlanta nightclub hours after Super Bowl XXXIV. Lewis copped a plea, agreed to testify against his two buddies accused of the murder, got the murder charges reduced to obstructing justice, and was fined $250,000 by the NFL. When he played in Super Bowl XXXV he was still on probation. Nonetheless, the Associated Press named him defensive player of the year and he was the first middle linebacker to be honored as MVP of the Super Bowl. Yeah, but he won't be featured on a Wheaties box and he didn't get to go to Disneyland. February 2, 2000 NEW STUDY FINDS LARGE INCREASE IN U.S. HOMELESSNESS A new study, based on the latest Census Bureau data, reveals that homelessness has nearly doubled in the past decade. Have you ever seen an empty building or house and wondered, "Hey, why not house some homeless people there? No one's using it." Well some other people thought that was a good idea back in the mid-eighties and they launched a federal program to do just that. The Department of Defense had 600 potential sites but made only two of them available to the Homeless Task Force; the Department of Housing and Urban Development had 9,225 potential homes but made only ten of them available; and the General Service Administration had 3,874 buildings available but made only three of them available. Not surprisingly, the federal program failed. And now we have more than two times the number of homeless people than we did back then. Thank you DOD, HUD, and GSA. February 3, 2000 BEGONE SUSAN B. ANTHONY WELL HELLO SACAGAWEA! A golden dollar featuring Sacagawea, the young American Indian maiden who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Pacific Northwest in the early 1800s, will replace the much-maligned Susan B. Anthony silver dollar. The Anthony dollar was a flop for the U.S. Mint with consumers complaining it looked too much like a quarter and refusing to use it. A year later, after the U.S. Mint's most ambitious effort to launch a metal version of the paper dollar and despite a $ 40 million advertising campaign, Sacagawea also is a flop. It seems the public just doesn't want to give up its George Washington paper dollar. And while there are some 700 million of them in circulation, according to the Mint, many people say they've never seen one. And it's not because of collectors; the Sacagawea can't hold a candle to the Mint's 50 States Quarter program which is minting more than four billion coins a year. When will we start referring to Sacagawea as the much maligned? February 4, 2000 COALITION GOVERNMENT IN AUSTRIA INCLUDES NAZI SYMP'S The European Union (EU) and other world leaders were shocked when Austrian President Thomas Klestil swore in a coalition government that included a far-right party, the Freedom Party, headed by an even farther right leader, Joerg Haider, who openly lauds the Nazi era. Within a few months, Haider solidified his despised image by attacking critics of his party. He compared the EU to an occupying force and criticized his own president. He also compared France's President Jacques Chirac of being "a pocket Napoleon" adding that Chirac's criticism of Austria has the moral value of "Pinocchio." Not surprisingly, by the end of the year, Haider was replaced as leader of the Freedom Party, it lost a regional election and was slumping in the polls, and on February 3, the first anniversary, thousands marched through downtown Vienna shouting, "This government must go." February 5, 2000 U.S. JOBLESS RATE LOWEST IN 30 YEARS The seemingly irrepressible U.S. economy added an unexpectedly high 387,000 new jobs in January 2000, the Labor Department announced. The increase in jobs pushed the unemployment rate down to four percent, the lowest since 1970. While the job market remained strong throughout 2000, it started to weaken by the end of the year. In fact, if you didn't get a job in 2000, you'd better hustle since the economy doesn't look so irrepressible any more. Some of the companies announcing layoffs since the first of the year include DaimlerChrysler (26,000), Lucent Technologies (16,000), Sara Lee (7,000), J.C. Penney (5,300), Xerox (4,000), Nortel Network (4,000), Textron (3,600), Gateway (3,000), Motorola (2,500), AOL Time Warner (2,400) Standard Register (2,400), Hewlett-Packard (1,700), Amazon.com (1,300). And that doesn't include all those once high flying dot-coms that have simply disappeared. February 6, 2000 THERE'LL ALWAYS BE AN AD MAN Madison Avenue, confronted by overbooked media and skyrocketing costs, are seeking new venues for their clients' messages. Some of the locations they've run up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes, include ATMs, gasoline station pumps, dry cleaning plastic bags, fruit stands, parking meters, elevator, restaurant restrooms, golf course locker rooms, handles of golf clubs and baseball bats, and even portable toilets. Maybe it's time to flush it down the toilet to see if anyone cares. February 7, 2000 KIDS BEING FED DISEASED CHICKEN Schoolchildren in 31 states across the country are being fed chicken nuggets made in part from diseased poultry. Chickens with sores, bruises, tumors, or coated with pus are processed at the Gold Kist processing plant in Boaz, Alabama, and eventually turned into chicken nuggets for consumption at school cafeterias. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to release the public inspection records at the facility, federal food safety inspectors said the chicken nuggets will not hurt anyone because humans do not get poultry diseases. Isn't that what they said about the Mad Cow disease? February 8, 2000 HEY LARRY KING WHASSUUUP? FOR PETE'S SAKE! In a column following the 2000 Super Bowl, the King of Talk tossed in his two cents on Super Bowl commercials: "Budweiser had the best commercial in the Super Bowl with the great 'Whassuuup?' campaign, featuring a whole bunch of guys on cell phones, regular phones, phones at the door, all yelling 'Whassuuup?' It's the genius of Brooklyn's Charles Stone III." As a Brooklyn native, I'm embarrassed on two counts: First, for popularizing such a dubious contribution to our pop culture scene. And second, Brooklyn didn't have residents called "The Third" when I lived there. You might have heard the Bronx Cheer at Ebbets Field but not Whassuuup, for cryingoutloud. February 9, 2000 $100,000 HIGHEST OFFER FOR DONOR EGGS An anonymous pair of would-be parents placed an ad offering $100,000 for the eggs of a bright, young, white athlete, the largest sum ever offered an egg donor. The half-page ad ran in the Stanford University student newspaper and specified that the woman be under 30 and an athlete "of proven college-level ability." The ad was placed by Families 2000, a donor-recruiting service based in Southern California. Since no one is talking, we don't know if anyone collected on the $100,000 offer. However, another donor recruiter, Ron Harris, says he has more than 120 donors with "model-quality looks" in his database. "People breed for looks," Harris claimed, adding, "This is how Mother Nature works." We doubt if this is the way Mother Nature works, but you can check it out at www.Families2000.com. February 10, 2000 EARTH DODGES ANOTHER ASTEROID After reviewing new data, astronomers announced that an asteroid initially thought to be on a possible collision course with earth in 2022 will miss us by millions of miles. It was the fifth time in two years reports of Earth-threatening asteroids were proven wrong within days of being announced. Not concerned with crying wolf too often, astronomers announced later in the year that a small asteroid had a 1-in-500 chance of colliding with earth on September 21, 2030. Then, on November 13, 2000, scientists said whoops, it looks like the small asteroid, or it could be a harmless Saturn 5 moon rocket, was 8.4 million miles from here and might not get any closer than 2.7 miles by the new projected doomsday, September 16, 2071. Now doesn't it make you feel a lot safer knowing that some of our best scientific minds are keeping such good track of all those asteroids and space junk out there? February 11, 2000 NEW ANTISMOKING ADS UPSET TOBACCO COMPANIES The tobacco companies are picking up the tab for the biggest antismoking campaign ever with teenagers helping to write the copy. The ads, part of a $1.5 billion five-year campaign, portray tobacco as a killer. One ad points out "Only one product actually kills a third of the people who use it." The ads end with the campaign's logo: "TRUTH." Brendan McCormick, a Philip Morris spokesman, said, "We are very disappointed with the campaign," and we're examining "all of our options." One of the options apparently was to just keep selling more coffin nails. A year later, during a plummeting stock market, Philip Morris stock hit $47, a 52-week high. It had been as low as $18.69. February 12, 2000 RUSSIANS NOT PUTIN UP WITH $ HIKE IN VODKA! Acting President Vladimir Putin (see head above) announced the minimum price of vodka will rise by 30 percent by the end of February. The New York Daily News responded with a clever headline (see head above again). Despite predictions, Putin won the March election for president. Oddly enough, the production of vodka went up 26 percent in 2000. Some said it was because of the declining popularity of bootleg alcohol (blindness may have been a drawback) while others attributed it to the introduction of new brands of, whatyaknow, low-price vodka. Putin knows the Russian people. But just don't call him Rutin Tutin Putin. February 13, 2000 CHARLES SCHULZ DIES ON EVE OF "PEANUTS" FINALE Charles Schulz, the world's most read and revered cartoonist, died of a heart attack at his home in Santa Rosa, California. He lived just seven miles up the road from me and he was a respected local icon, known to his friends as Sparky. He was one of those people who always seemed to do the right thing in his work and in his personal life. Diane Iselin, a spokewoman for United Features, said, "It's almost as if he couldn't bear to live without creating Peanuts every day." Accordingly, he died in his sleep on the evening before the very last "Peanuts" comic strip was to be printed. Now, a year of tributes and testimonials to Charles Schulz has passed, but, thankfully, Charlie Brown and his friends are still with us. And probably always will be. February 14, 2000 ALASKA AIR CRASH JACK SCREW WORN The National Transportation Safety Board said that the jack screw in the tail assembly on the Alaska Airlines jet that crashed last month had been found to be worn and in need of replacement in September 1997. It wasn't replaced and 88 passengers and crew members died when Alaska Airlines Flight 261 plummeted into the ocean off the California coast. In early January, 2001, financial columnist John Dorfman named Alaska Airlines as one of his top ten favorite stocks for the new year. While he acknowledged that some investors scorn the stock because the airline experienced a crash and subsequent questions about its maintenance procedures, he noted it was a good buy now. Less than a month later, some 300 friends and relatives of the victims gathered at Naval Base Ventura County for the dedication of a monument commemorating the crash. They weren't thinking of adding Alaska Air to their portfolios. February 15, 2000 ARTIST CHRISTO RETURNS FOR 25th ANNIVERSARY OF THE "RUNNING FENCE" World renowned artist Christo returned to Sonoma County to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his "Running Fence" creation. The "fence" consisted of 24.5 miles of nylon fencing on Sonoma and Marin counties' hillsides from Cotati (my hometown) to the ocean. My daughter Lisa still cherishes photos and pieces of the cloth she got for helping construct the "fence." Christo also wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in fabric, the coastline of Australia in netting, and installed giant umbrellas in Japan and California. His two current works in progress, discussed in early February 2001, included suspending translucent fabric over four to six miles of the Arkansas River in Colorado, called "Over the River," and installing some 15,000 steel structures with fluttering gold fabric on the paths in New York's Central Park, a project he's been trying to get approved since 1979. February 16, 2000 $8 MILLION NET NAME SETS NEW RECORD FOR DOMAINANAMIA! At the height of the Internet domainanamia and before the fall of the dot-coms, a small Santa Rosa Internet company, about six miles up the road from me, announced it was paying $8 million for a Net domain name. Philip Doyle, president of BrainwareMedia, said, "The reason we spent $8 million bucks is because we had to have it and the kid who owned it drove a hard bargain." It reportedly was the most ever paid for a domain name. A year later, BrainwareMedia was using the multi-million-dollar domain name, mp3audiobooks.com, to hawk its business audio books on the Net. I have no idea what the kid that drove a hard bargain is doing. February 17, 2000 AMERICA'S MOST SHAMELESS COUPLE A new low in television programming, even for Fox, was set when it broadcast a two-hour special featuring a parade of would-be brides competing to be chosen by a multimillionaire in "Who Wants To Marry a Multi-Millionaire?" And some 23.8 million Americans were duped into watching Rick Rockwell marry Darva Conger. The marriage was quickly annulled and the duo became the "most shameless couple of the century," according to the press. Confirming there is no limit to self-degradation, the couple celebrated their one-year anniversary of the day they met by appearing as guest "experts" to litigants on the syndicated TV series "Curtis Court," aired, of course, on Valentine's Day 2001. February 18, 2000 NEW TELESCOPE WILL SEE TO THE END OF SPACE The Washington Post reports that U.S. and Mexican scientists are building one of the world's most advanced telescopes on the top of a mountain in La Negra, Mexico, about 110 miles east of Mexico City. The telescope dish will stand 164 feet high and will pick up faint signals from the far edges of the cosmos, about 71,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. Scientists say that when it is completed it will see to the end of space. Hmmm. Now that's even more impressive than blogger. And the scientists will know that they're seeing the end of space because … February 19, 2000 BANANAS LINKED TO FLESH-EATING DISEASE? A widely-disseminated chain e-mail warned that several shipments of cannibal bananas from Costa Rica have been infected with Necrotizing Fasciitis, otherwise known as flesh-eating bacteria. Fortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta quickly announced that the e-mail warning people not to eat the bananas was a hoax. Personally, I was relieved to hear this since I'd had a banana on my cereal this morning. The Urban Legends Research Centre, at www.ulrc.com.au, provides a full and reassuring analysis of this Internet hoax. February 20, 2000 IN SAN JOSE, $50,000 A YEAR SAYS YOU'RE POOR The New York Times reveals that some people who make about $50,000 a year--including teachers, police officers, firefighters, and commissioned salespeople-in California's fabled Silicon Valley are spending their nights in area homeless shelters. In fact, others use a $3 all-day transit pass to spend the night sleeping on San Jose's No. 22 bus, the only bus route in the valley that runs 24 hours a day. The bumpy bus ride looks pretty good compared to spending three quarters of a million dollars for a small one bedroom cottage. Despite the depressed dot.com market a year later, the housing situation in Silicon Valley hasn't improved. February 21, 2000 SMALL OREGON TOWN CHANGES NAME TO CASH IN ON DOT.COM FEVER A small Oregon town renamed itself after an Internet company in an effort to capitalize on the raging dot-com fever sweeping the nation. The folks of Halfway, Oregon, changed their town's name to Half.com, Oregon. Half.com is a Pennsylvania-based Web site that sells half-priced books, video, and compact discs. Relishing the publicity, the dot.com company went along with the idea. A year later, checking in with half.com will bring you the latest deals on Britney Spears' "Oops!…I did It Again" ($7.10); Frank Herbert's "Dune" ($2.35); and "Revenge of the Nerds" VHS ($3.75). And down at the very bottom you'll find a link to Half.com, Oregon. Going there you'll find photos and glowing words about Halfway, a.k.a. half.com, a picturesque community located 40 miles southwest of Hells Canyon in Eastern Oregon. The town reported more than 185,000 hits on the day I visited it about a year later. Not many towns in America with a population of 345 hard-working, self-sufficient folks, can claim that much attention. February 22, 2000 CLINTON TO FORCE HOSPITALS TO REPORT MEDICAL ERRORS In an effort to reduce medical errors that kill tens of thousands of people each year in hospitals, President Clinton said he will support mandatory reporting of all such errors. Up to now, such deaths apparently were swept under the operating room rug. The medical profession didn't take kindly to the idea and protested the suggested regulation. And enforcement seemed to be a problem. About a year later, on February 13, 2001, the New York Daily News reported that 19 New York City hospitals were among the worst offenders in failing to report medical errors and other "patient-related adverse events" promptly through New York's own Patient Occurrence and Tracking System. While hospitals are supposed to report patient deaths during surgery within 48 hours, that happens just 16% of the time. But at least New York has a "tracking system" to try to follow hospital patients. February 23, 2000 IS AMERICA DRUGGING ITS PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH RITALIN AND PROZAC? A new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, revealed that doctors are prescribing stimulants such as Ritalin and anti-depressants such as Prozac for preschoolers at a rapidly increasing rate. The study found the use of such drugs with children ages 2 to 4 had doubled or even tripled between 1991 and 1995. After the published report it took the medical/pharmaceutical industry just a couple of months to rally it spinmeisters. The New York Times reported on April 9, 2000, that "while concern over the rise in prescriptions is warranted, outrage may be premature." It then went on to criticize the original study. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette warned on April 11, that "concerns by federal officials that the stimulants are overused in children will stigmatize or even restrict their use." On April 17, a headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said, "Psychotopic Medications Can Help Children." And on September 17, The Washington Post urged parents not to be frightened of "medicine that helps." February 24, 2000 TINY PART OF PLANET CONTAINS RICH DIVERSITY OF FAUNA AND FLORA The Associated Press reported that a study by Conservation International indicates that more than a third of the planet's plant and animal species exist exclusively on a scant 1.4 percent of its land surface. The researchers suggest that conservation need not be such a huge, overwhelming challenge. In fact, they say, we only need to focus on 25 species-rich "hotspots" -- mostly tropical rain forests. Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, said, "The whole point of this is that for a few hundred million dollars a year, focused on these hotspots, we can go a long way toward guaranteeing maintenance of the full range of diversity of life on Earth." The organization prides itself for developing innovative ways of protecting the environment. I'd feel pretty good about this if I didn't know that Michael Eisner, the chairman of the Walt Disney Company, was a member of the company's board of directors. It sounds like if we protect these 25 "hotspots," it will be open season on the other 98.6% of the world. February 25, 2000 NEW STUDY: POVERTY KEY FACTOR IN POOR SCORES AT SCHOOL A new study revealed that poverty is the main reason many students perform poorly. To no one's surprise, they discovered that schools serving low-income students have fewer fully qualified teachers, more inexperienced teachers, and fewer advanced high school classes than those with more affluent children. What was surprising was the results of another study, also released on February 25, that revealed billions of dollars in federal anti-poverty aid were sitting unused in state treasuries. No one seemed to make a connection here. February 26, 2000 DOW SLUMPS BELOW 10,000 Frightened by increasing interest rates and an unexpected jump in the gross domestic product rate, investors drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average under 10,000 as they transferred their money from faltering blue chip stocks into exciting shares of glamorous high technology companies. NASDAQ, the high tech market, eventually shot over 5,000. However, a year later, after a bloodbath with dot coms and other high tech firms, NASDAQ was struggling to keep its head above 2,200. And investors were wondering where to put their money now. How about education? (See February 25 above) February 27, 2000 CAPITALISTS' DELIGHT: OFFSHORE, OUT OF SIGHT AND VERY, VERY SECRET The New York Times reported that the Web is a fountain of information for wannabe moguls to find "fast, safe, private and affordable offshore services." It cited one site, offshoreprofit.com that for $399 will establish your account in "one of Estonia's largest banks" and throw in a free "Maestro Card." Ironically, apparently acknowledging the hazards of dealing with offshore banks, many sites warning you about crooked offshore operations: offshoresecrets.com offers you an anonymous VISA card and directs you to an offshore scam site featuring the famed Nigerian letter scam. Offshore-privacy.com urges you to beware of letting the government and others know about your offshore secrets. Naturally, many offer you reliable, trustworthy, and safe offshore income opportunities. Buyer Beware! February 28, 2000 INMATES UNDER 18 DOUBLED SINCE '85 A new Justice Department report revealed that the number of criminals under 18 serving time in adult prisons more than doubled between 1985 and 1997 (latest data available) as states prosecuted more and more young people as adults. In an effort to reverse this trend, Sheriff Joe Arpaio forces juvenile inmates to wear pink underwear, eat green bologna, and live in tents. California's most crowded youth jail, the San Bernardino County's Central Juvenile Hall, also decided to adopt the Tent City concept for its inmates. It passed on the pink underwear and green bologna. February 29, 2000 NO LEAP YEAR BUST; KISSINGER ACCEPTS INDONESIAN POST Like Y2K, the millennium's first leap year came and went without a hitch much to the disappointment of the doomsayers. Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, accepted a new part-time job as political adviser to Indonesia's president Abdurrahman Wahld. Kissinger, calling himself a "patriotic American," said he accepted the position out of friendship for the Indonesian people." It was on Kissinger's watch that human right violations rivaling those in Cambodia occurred with the military support of the United States. In 1985, Amnesty International reported that up to 200,000 East Timorese, a third of the population, died as a result of Indonesian aggression in the region. East Timor is now referred to as th4e site of the world's worse case of genocide, proportionately speaking, since the Holocaust. Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15871674271027612063noreply@blogger.com