The Buzz

but fundraising scams elicit a big-network yawn 'It's a hard day' Do Democratic fundraising scandals ever cease? A Justice Department task force subpoenaed at least a dozen donors and fundraisers who were "somehow connected" to the 1996 campaign of U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli. The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that investigators are trying to learn whether fund-raisers and Torricelli campaign staffers encouraged a practice known as "conduit financing." That's when a donor evades the $1,000 federal limit on campaign donations by funneling money through others. Mr. Torricelli himself is not a focus of the investigation. Another former Democratic fundraiser, Maria Hsia, was convicted of five felony counts for arranging more than $100,000 in illegal contributions to Democrats during the 1996 campaign. The immigration consultant from Los Angeles started raising money for Al Gore more than a decade ago. Among the evidence introduced at the trial was video footage of Vice President Gore attending a now-infamous donor event at a Buddhist temple in California. A judge's order is keeping the tape out of the public eye. After the Hsia verdict, Mr. Gore acknowledged her friendship and political support but wasn't pressed by reporters for any more than his canned statement: "A jury has rendered its verdict and it's a hard day for her." A hard day for Mr. Gore is what Republican operatives sought in the news media-to no avail. Ms. Hsia's conviction received scant coverage on TV news, according to the Republican National Committee, which urged protest calls to network anchors. "I think it's neglect," Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson said. "If she had been a Republican operative who had brought money to a Republican candidate, there would have been an absolute uproar in the media and there should have been in this case." NBC's Nightly News did not even mention the story, he noted. ABC spokeswoman Eileen Murphy brushed off the criticism: "It's politics." GOP campaign committee settles on soft money ... for Republicans, too Democrats aren't alone in facing penalties for campaign irregularities. The National Republican Senatorial Committee agreed to pay a $20,000 penalty for using unregulated soft money to help elect GOP congressional candidates, according to the Federal Election Commission. In the closing weeks of the 1994 campaign, the fundraising group gave $175,000 to the National Right to Life Committee to conduct get-out-the-vote drives in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and other states. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and Rod Grams in Minnesota benefited. While both of them won their races, the FEC said the candidates themselves did nothing inappropriate. NRSC officials denied any wrongdoing but agreed to settle the case to avoid going to court. "Simply put, seven years of your process was penalty enough," general counsel Craig Engle wrote the FEC.

Ups & Downs of the Week Awareness of fetal-parts trafficking: One cheer for ABC News, whose 20/20 newsmagazine caught up with a story WORLD reported five months ago about the selling of aborted children's organs and limbs ("The harvest of abortion," Oct. 23, 1999). The ABC piece prompted a congressional hearing held last week. Why just one cheer? The piece bent over backwards to whitewash the abortion industry. The problem, as ABC put it, was not the trafficking of human remains, but the shameless profiteering from it. The made-for-TV marriage of Rick Rockwell and Darva Conger: The unhappy bride from Fox TV's now-defunct Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire? filed for annulment, arguing that "neither the contestants nor the show's producers seriously contemplated creating a proper marriage."

Close call for Southwest flight 'Jet Bomber' Southwest Airlines Flight 1455, from Las Vegas, barreled right off the runway at Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport last week and hit a car. The airliner skidded through a fence while landing and wound up on a city street, just missing a gas station and slightly injuring 15 of the 142 people on board. "I felt like we were a jet bomber," passenger Kevin McCoy said. "We were coming down so fast, so steep. I've never experienced an approach like that before. It was almost like a sudden dive." Southwest CEO Herb Kelleher said the crew did not report mechanical problems during the flight. Sudan tries bombing charity hospital into submission Defiant relief agency: We won't be intimidated Bombs twice fell on a hospital in southern Sudan run by Samaritan's Purse, the North Carolina-based relief organization headed by Franklin Graham. In the first attack, on March 1, Sudan's Russian-made MU2 Antonov aircraft dropped 12 bombs on the compound, killing two people and injuring a dozen more. Workers at the hospital said 15 more bombs were dropped in a second attack, on March 7, but all landed at least 50 yards from the already damaged facility, and no one died. Four Americans work at the hospital, which was treating 100 patients at the time of the attacks. The hospital has treated over 100,000 patients in 2H years of operation. The first attack came on the day that Samaritan's Purse, along with 23 other relief organizations, signed an agreement with Sudan's leading rebel group to continue supplying food and medicine to rebel-controlled areas in the south. The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has been pushing for increased say over aid distribution, now largely controlled by the hard-line Islamic regime in Khartoum. Government officials have prohibited UN and private aid agency deliveries into areas that are predominantly Christian and controlled by the SPLA. Eleven international agencies, including CARE, Oxfam, Save the Children, and World Vision, refused to sign the agreement and pulled staff out of the region March 1. "Three years ago, we decided not to play the malicious games of the Sudan government by allowing them to dictate who we could and couldn't help," said Samaritan's Purse projects director Ken Isaacs. "We didn't do it then and this bombing will not make us do it now." Agency reports 35 missing amid worst flooding in 50 years Relieving relief workers Relief workers in Mozambique's severe floods are in need of relief, too. World Relief reported 35 of its staff missing one week after the south African nation's worst rainfall in 50 years. Records and offices were under water, but rescues continued. Pieter Ernst of the aid agency reclaimed a 7-year-old boy, who held an infant-his 2-week old sister-atop a completely submerged hut. Inside, his mother had drowned. Offshore, in Madagascar, 600,000 people were forced from their homes by flooding. The latest Indian Ocean cyclone, Gloria, sent heavy downpours on the island and was making its way toward Mozambique.

FACES

The No-Comment Zone

Obstruction charges in Louima case Guilty in NYC Three white officers wept and cursed after a racially mixed jury found them guilty of trying to cover up the torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in a police precinct bathroom. Officers Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder and ex-patrolman Charles Schwarz face up to five years in prison for obstruction of justice in concealing Mr. Schwarz's role in holding down the handcuffed Haitian immigrant while another officer, Justin Volpe, sodomized him with a broken broomstick. Attorneys for all three men said they would appeal. thou shalt not quote the bible Inflammatory religion Judges who post biblical commandments in their courtrooms run into a legal buzzsaw. On March 6 the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that lawyers who make biblical suggestions also are in trouble. The court affirmed the 1995 murder conviction of Anthony Carruthers but overturned the death sentence a jury gave him. The reason: During closing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial, D. Brandon Hornsby, the assistant district attorney, cited passages from the books of Genesis, Matthew, and Romans, and told jurors "all they who take the sword shall die by the sword." Georgia Presiding Justice Norman Fletcher wrote that such references "inject the often irrelevant and inflammatory issue of religion into the sentencing process and improperly appeal to the religious beliefs of jurors in their decision on whether a person should live or die." Georgia law requires the Supreme Court to review death sentences to determine whether they were imposed "under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor." A new jury, one purportedly neither informed nor prejudiced by an often irrelevant Bible, will decide whether Mr. Carruthers, found guilty of cutting a woman's throat and almost severing her head, lives or dies. Pinochet receives hero's welcome, but may face trial in Chile General confusion? A Chilean military jet took off from eastern England on March 2 with an ailing general aboard, ending a nearly two-year court battle over the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Legal wrangling that spanned three continents ended when Britain dropped extradition proceedings, declaring that the 84-year-old Pinochet was too ill to stand trial. British Home Office Minister Jack Straw, noting that Mr. Pinochet had suffered brain damage from two strokes last year, said the general was incapable of assisting or conferring with counsel in a trial. Extradition requests from Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, and France were turned aside by the decree. Once the archetypal South American military leader, Mr. Pinochet was recuperating in a London hospital from a minor back operation when he was arrested on Oct. 16, 1998, and held for extradition. He ousted the elected government of Socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973 while commanding Chile's military, and launched a brutal crackdown on the left. He ran Chile for 17 years as the head of a military junta, reinstating democracy in 1990 after he failed to win a majority in a plebiscite on his rule. Pinochet supporters gave him a hero's welcome in Santiago, but opponents said he could face trial in Chile as well as overseas. Plaintiffs petitioned the courts to strip Mr. Pinochet of congressional immunity so that he can face more than 72 lawsuits pending against him.

QuickTakes

Guys: Don't leave it long in back anymore The perils of fashion Are you a man with big hair? If so, you may be caught up in the biggest fashion backlash to hit since bell-bottoms were sent to oblivion in the 1970s. The cut is technically known as the mullet: Feathered and puffy, it's short on top, long in the back and hanging down on the side. Think 1980s. Think early Michael Bolton, Kenny G, early Jerry Seinfeld, Hall & Oates, Billy Ray Cyrus, Joey Buttafuoco, or even Donald Trump. Websites all over the place post photos of famous and non-famous people all sporting the dreaded ape drape. The mockery has driven the cut almost to extinction. Mullets are still worn today by a few country singers, hockey players, and people who still wear acid-washed jeans. What once was a symbol of coolness is now the apex of tackiness. People who have these cuts are now considered to have "mulletude" (in other words, low class). Many women have had mullets, but they aren't in for as much abuse. Pro wrestlers and hair-metal singers wore them as a sign of rebellion, yet their every move was choreographed and commercialized. The 1990s equivalent is the Michael Stipe-inspired baldness mixed with a super-short goatee. Why is the mullet a cause for mockery? Because it gives an aura of phoniness and last year's conformity. Long hair in the back traditionally is the domain of ladies, but many guys thought it was the sign of masculinity. The anti-mullet backlash is an example of the way pop culture shoots its wounded. People who try hard to be cool take high risks, and those who fail end up being the opposite of what they intend. And if what you try becomes dated, hope that your fashion statement will be seen as nostalgia instead of completely out of style. -Chris Stamper The Indescribable toy has golden anniversary Silly putty turns 50 James Wright was trying to invent a rubber substitute during World War II and wound up inventing one of America's most familiar toys. His bosses at General Electric couldn't convince the government to use the mixture of boric acid and silicone oil. So a creative ad man named Peter Hodgson bought the rights, stuffed the bouncing polymer into plastic Easter eggs, and named it Silly Putty. By the late 1950s, Hodgson's $147 investment had become a $140 million success. Peter Hodgson Jr., the marketer's son, said that "Americans have seized on it ... precisely because it doesn't fit in any category." Today, as Silly Putty celebrates its golden anniversary, its most famous use is as a stress reliever. Corporate managers and human resources types pass the eggs around to employees so they can take their frustrations out on a slab of plastic. Globs of the "real solid liquid" can be found lurking on desks as decorations. -C.S. The nostalgic snack with a toy makes a comeback A cracker-jack idea Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack!" The song is still sung at the ballpark, but the famous snack food is coming off hard times. Sailor Jack, his dog Bingo, and the prizes are now the property of Frito-Lay, which is working desperately to revive the mix of popcorn, caramel, and peanuts. The hard-to-open box is disappearing and bags are popping up in stores. Louis and F. W. Rueckheim originally invented the stuff and cooked up a way to keep the coated popcorn from getting too sticky. They also created the gimmicks that made a legend, including a classic set of baseball cards. Cracker Jack helped originate the idea of spiking a food package with a small bribe to entice kids. Billions of stickers, stamps, and toys have been ripped from the boxes and bags over the years. Frito-Lay is trying to expand the brand with all sorts of changes to bring it back into prominence. One of the more reused jokes in the English language is that someone got an engagement ring, college diploma, or driver's license from a box of Cracker Jack. You can't get that kind of cachet from pretzels. -C.S. PC speed now measured in gigs The need for speed Wow, that's fast! The first computer processors running at 1 gigahertz are being installed in new PCs. That means they can handle 1 billion bits of information per second. Manufacturer AMD claims to have been first with these chips, with new high-speed Athlons being used by Gateway and Compaq. Industry leader Intel soon followed, and these speeds will be commonplace by the end of the year. The 1 gigahertz level is a psychologically important marker in the ongoing spiral of microchip speeds. It means that home PCs will be able to handle everyday tasks at a far more efficient rate. Soon, processors will be thought of in terms of "gigs" as hard drives are now. But this won't affect price levels much. Why? Because of a computing theorem known as Moore's Law. It states that chips will double in speed yet halve in price every 18 months. That's why new computers are always getting faster and old ones become obsolete quickly. When one chip comes out, its successor is already waiting in the wings. In this case, Intel plans to release a chip called Willamette that runs at 1.5 gigahertz this fall. Does this mean users should wait for a superfast computer? Probably not. Computers are always getting faster, so by the time today's cutting-edge computer is affordable, another will be out on the horizon. And for those doing typical PC tasks-word processing and surfing the Net-a typical machine works just fine. Also, the critical computing speed issue is more and more centered on the user's Internet connection. A 56K modem is a 56K modem on last year's $500 machine as on today's $3,000 model. -Chris Stamper solving the hacker crisis Serious business The Internet isn't a novelty anymore. When a website goes down, it isn't just a quirk from an experimental technology. That's why this year's spree of hacker attacks sent some companies calling insurance agents looking for high-tech disaster coverage. Today, more and more insurers are offering coverage for Internet losses. One San Francisco company, Marsh Inc., has a policy called NetSecure with up to $200 million in coverage. E-commerce companies pay premiums to protect themselves from lost revenues if something happens to their website, from a computer crash to a hacker invasion. "Technology is not bulletproof," said Emily Freeman, director of the company's e-business division. While some companies are looking for coverage, most show little interest in calls for new anti-hacker legislation, perhaps out of fear of expanded intrusion from the feds. "Infrastructure security ... does not lend itself to government management," Microsoft's chief information security officer, Howard Schmidt, said in remarks prepared for a congressional hearing. "The private sector has the knowledge and expertise to help fight against computer crimes on the infrastructures on which they operate." Meanwhile, 17-year-old Dennis Moran admitted using the screen name "Coolio" to hack several websites, including ones run by the Commerce Department, a California anti-drug group, and encryption company RSA Security. The high-school dropout says he's done some "small hacking" but said he was kidding when he boasted in a chat room that he had helped attack Amazon.com, Yahoo, and other sites. He told investigators he spent about 16 hours a day on the Internet, at least until the FBI confiscated his computers. -C.S. the ultimate isolating technology? Loners on the Net A controversial Stanford University study says that cyberspace keeps people away from friends, family, offices, stores, and television. "The more hours people use the Internet, the less time they spend with real human beings," concludes Stanford's Norman Nie, who directed the survey of 4,113 adults in 2,689 households. Mr. Nie says the Net might be "the ultimate isolating technology." His study found that one-fourth of regular Net surfers say their use "has reduced their time with friends and family, or attending events outside the home." The same number say they do more work at home instead of the office. TV viewing was down for 60 percent and newspaper reading was down for one-third of Internet regulars. Web design guru Jakob Nielsen questions the Stanford conclusions, saying that the "new human experience" of chat rooms, message boards, and email is stepping into the gap. "How do you define what you count as personal contact?" Mr. Nielsen asks. "You could have had some other report a hundred years ago that says the telephone would cause a loss in social relations and human contact." Nevertheless, the Stanford survey raises some important questions about how the Net is changing, if not depleting, America's social worlds. What happens when most people spend most of their vital hours staring at a screen and punching buttons? What becomes of community, place, hearth, home, and other elements of physical society? Technology can bring some people together, but it can rip others apart. -C.S.