The Buzz

Elián described as sad After the raid Two homeschoolers from Muscle Shoals, Ala., got a glimpse of Elián Gonzalez that news cameramen only dreamed of in the days following the Easter weekend government raid. Six-year-old Ashlie Fristoe and her sister Brittanie, 9, asked to meet the boy after learning that he was staying with his father at the same hotel on Andrews Air Force Base. Juan Miguel Gonzalez agreed, and offered the girls pizza while they spoke through an interpreter to Elián. Brittanie said the boy was nice but quiet, and told the Florence (Ala.) Times Daily that he looked sad. In the meantime, a Cuban delegation was set to arrive at the Elián compound. The group will not include Cuban psychologists, provoking a protest from Fidel Castro and one proposed member of the group, University of Havana psychologist Aurora Garcia, who said professionals needed to be on the scene to help the boy "restore his historical memory." But the armed assault on Lazaro Gonzalez's home in Miami was the continuing focus of controversy. NBC complained that its soundman Gustavo Moeller was ordered away from the house at gunpoint and struck in the head with the muzzle of an automatic weapon. Cameraman Tony Zumbado was knocked to the floor inside the house and told he would be shot if he tried to get up (no photos were available to determine whether the safety was on). Washington-based Judicial Watch asked a U.S. district court judge to order Attorney General Janet Reno to release all documents relating to the April 22 raid. U.S. District Judge James Robertson denied expedited release and instead told the Justice Department to file a schedule for releasing the items by May 12. That deadline is one day after a U.S. Court of Appeals takes up the question of whether Elián should be granted asylum. signs of the times Bong scare Here's an example of post-Columbine campus tension: When a police officer found a cardboard fireworks tube at Roland-Grise Middle School in Wilmington, N.C., the facility was evacuated. When seven teenagers wouldn't tell officers what the tube contained, frightened parents ran to pick up their kids. Then the bomb squad showed up and discovered the tube was a pipe used for smoking marijuana. "What we have is a B-O-N-G, not a B-O-M-B," said sheriff's Capt. David Smithey. That's a sorry sign of the times that officials breathe a sigh of relief that students are "only" involved in illegal drugs. Vermont advances gay agenda Shotgun wedding The Vermont Supreme Court's shotgun wedding between the state legislature and the gay agenda is consummated. Gay marriage, in everything but name, has arrived. Vermont governor Howard Dean approved the infamous bill giving homosexual couples all the benefits of marriage without the word marriage. "We need to value people for who they are, not what they are," he said after the measure passed the state legislature. These couplings won't be called marriages, but "civil unions" that give gay and lesbian partners the property and other legal rights of spouses. They become legal July 1. The state Supreme Court unanimously ruled last December that the couples were unconstitutionally denied the rights and benefits of marriage. The legislature decided to establish a parallel system for homosexual couples rather than change the current marriage statutes-for now. GAO finds "no corroberating evidence" of wrongdoing IRS dodges a bullet Back in 1998, numerous charges of misconduct and abuse were hurled at the IRS at high-profile Senate hearings. Now congressional watchdogs say there's little evidence to support the claims. IRS employees Ginger Jarvis, Michael Ayala, Maureen O'Dwyer, and Minh Thi Johnson testified about various alleged misdeeds by senior managers: They mistreated taxpayers. They forgave taxes for big companies as favors or to improve their own status. They even allowed former IRS agents who now work for private companies to influence audits. Yet a formerly secret General Accounting Office report doesn't support the charges. "Generally, we found no corroborating evidence that the criminal investigations described at the hearing were retaliatory against the specific taxpayer," the report's authors concluded. The finance committee hearings in April 1998 helped lead to the passage of an IRS reform law that was supposed to curb agency enforcement abuses and remake the agency into one that treats taxpayers more like customers. The agency has been on an image-improvement campaign ever since.

FACES

MOTTO RAPPED AS "UNIQUELY CHRISTIAN" Impossible ruling Ohio's state motto, "With God, all things are possible," has been junked by a federal appeals court because it expressed "a uniquely Christian thought" and therefore is unconstitutional. A Cleveland Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister fronted an ACLU lawsuit that doomed the Bible reference. "This is maybe the blandest statement about God that has ever been struck down," said Douglas Laycock, law professor at the University of Texas. State officials said they would appeal. U.S. District Judge James Graham of Columbus ruled back in 1998 that the quote from Matthew was acceptable only in a context that would be compatible with other religions. Following the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the reasoning. "The statement 'With God, all things are possible' is not, as the court states, 'a uniquely Christian thought,'" the CAIR statement said. "In fact, a similar phrase is used many times throughout the Koran.... For example, verse 106 of chapter 2 states: 'Know you not that God is able to do all things?'" S.C. GAMBLING INDUSTRY SMACKED DOWN Hit me again, dealer South Carolinians are banning video gambling as of July 1, but the gambling industry is planning to roll the dice again in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the ban, but the industry is considering a new lawsuit. "We still have some hope of something happening," said Rhea McCary of Fast Freddies, which owns 300 machines across South Carolina.

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logical conclusions Members only James Dale wants to be a Scoutmaster. Never mind that he's homosexual, while the Boy Scouts he wants to lead must promise to be "morally straight." The Scouts are a "public accommodation," his lawyer argued before the Supreme Court last week. As such, they must accommodate anyone. "In your view, a Catholic organization has to admit Jews," said Justice Stephen Breyer to Mr. Dale's lawyer, "and a Jewish organization has to admit Catholics." Not to mention that Hell's Angels would have to admit guys without beer bellies. Here's WORLD's short list of what America would look like if the court accepted Mr. Dale's very broad view of public accommodations: