DEJA VU 2000

2001-03-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 11, 2000

TED TURNER IS
LARGEST PRIVATE
LANDOWNER IN U.S.

Associated Press reported that Ted Turner has bought a staggering 1.7 million acres in Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas -- becoming the largest private landowner in the United States. He's using his fortune to restore the buffalo and other native animals and plants and tearing away the barbed wire, bringing back the wide-open vistas that existed before the west was won. His largesse is not limited to conservation issues. In 2000, he pledged one billion dollars to United Nations humanitarian programs. And in December 2000, he gave an additional $34 million to the United Nations to help make up for a reduction of the United States' contribution. Ted Turner is one terrific role model for billionaires.

2001-03-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 10, 2000

NEW ECONOMY NASDAQ
BLOWS PAST 5,000
ON BORROWED MONEY!

The Washington Post reported that the NASDAQ composite index closed at a new high, 5,048.62, sweeping past another milestone in a blur of buying, often by individual investors pouring borrowed money into technology stocks. On March 10, 2001, a year later, The New York Times reported that the NASDAQ plummeted 115.95 points, to close at 2,052.78--down nearly 60% from its March 2000 high. Once sought after stocks took heavy hits during the yearlong decline--e-Toys.com -99%; Priceline.com -99%; Yahoo -91%; RealNetworks -90%; Amazon.com -83%. Seeing high-flying stocks, bought with borrowed money, nearly disappear, can inspire a sense of sheer fear. Or, at the least, embarrassment.

2001-03-09T08:31:00.000-08:00

March 9, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON
ASKS CONGRESS FOR
MINIMUM WAGE HIKE

Charging Congress with "nickle and diming the American people," President Clinton urged Congress to increase the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour to $6.15 over two years instead of three. The next day the House of Representatives passed two companion bills; one would increase the federal minimum wage by $1 to $6.15 and the other would provide substantial tax cuts for businesses and upper income individuals. Good thing they thought of helping out the wealthy. On March 10, 2000, USA Today reported that some commuters had been forced to commute by helicopter to avoid traffic gridlock and save time. And you know how expensive helicopter fuel is.

2001-03-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 8, 2000

PRIMARY SUCCESS
NAMES NOMINEES
BUSH AND GORE

Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore crushed their major rivals, Senator John McCain and former Senator Bill Bradley, from ocean to ocean on Tuesday in a powerful display that assured them their parties' nominations. From there on it was all downhill until it ended up in a flurry of chads and a partisan U.S. Supreme Court.

2001-03-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 7, 2000

NEW FORMULA
MAKES BABY SMARTER

A new study reveals that enriching bottle formula with two essential fatty acids (DBA and AA) can cause a significant improvement in the mental development of babies. The key point here is that those two fatty acids are found naturally in mother's breast milk. The enriched formula only outperforms the unenriched formula, not mother's milk. A top censored story of 1977 revealed that infant formula manufacturers (like Nestle and Bristol-Myers) were using exploitative and deceptive tactics to sell the product to Third World mothers. Malnutrition and denial of natural immunities, found in mother's milk, caused by infant formula feeding, account for 35,000 deaths and untold brain damage in babies of predominantly Third World countries. As a result of the worldwide outrage over this issue, the United Nations passed a rigid code for marketing breast-milk substitutes in 1981. The final vote was 118 to 1. The United States cast the sole negative vote.

2001-03-06T09:10:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 6, 2000

WORLD'S POPULATION
GETTING FATTER!

New research revealed that, for the first time in history, there are as many overweight people in the world as underweight people. Overweight people outnumber underweight people by more than ten to one in North America. There are also more overweight people in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Meanwhile there are more underweight people in Africa, Asia, and South Asia where the underweight people outnumber the overweight people by five to one. The moral to this story is that Americans should eat less and share more.

2001-03-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 5, 2000

U.S. GAVE NERVE GAS
SECRETS TO SOVIETS

An American double agent working for the FBI gave the Soviet Union critical nerve gas data in the 1960s ... with the encouragement of the U.S. government. It seems the U.S. thought this reportedly invalid data would stall the Soviet's research on chemical weapons. Instead, it prompted the Soviets to conduct more intensive research and development on their own program. I thought that was one of the stupidest spy intrigues I'd ever heard until March 4, 2001, when the U.S. admitted it had built a secret tunnel under the Soviet Union's embassy in Washington in the 1980s. The purpose was to eavesdrop on the Soviets, a goal that was never achieved. It takes a spy to know one.

2001-03-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 4, 2000

PENTAGON BUDGET
IN TOTAL DISARRAY;
CAN'T FACE AUDIT

The Pentagon's accountants made $7 trillion in adjustments to their financial ledgers in 1999 in hopes of balancing the books but still couldn't make them add up. They finally just quit after being unable to show receipts for $2.3 trillion of those changes. The inspector general said the military budget was not in good enough shape to face an audit, let alone pass one. In early 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, some generals, right-wing conservatives, and Congress are all interested in increasing the Pentagon's budget from $296 to $319 billion. The General Accounting Office says that the Pentagon's inadequate financial record-keeping puts public money at "high risk" for waste, fraud and abuse. Damned right it does. We think the military should be able to show us what happened to that $2.3 trillion before giving them another $319 billion to lose.

2001-03-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 3, 2000

GENERAL MOTORS RECALLS
ALL OF ITS EARLY ELECTRIC
CARS -- PERMANENTLY!

General Motors Corp. told owners of its original EV1 electric cars to leave them in the garage until tow trucks could pick them up to haul away for good. It probably was the most embarrassing recall in automotive history. The EV1 cars were a potential fire hazard. GM had promoted the car as a symbol of its commitment to the environment. Yeah. Right. About a year later, GM filed suit to invalidate a new California rule that would require automobile manufacturers to sell thousands of electric cars in the state each year starting in 2003. So. How about your commitment to the environment, GM?

2001-03-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 2, 2000

BALLOT MEASURE REQUIRES
LOTTERY FUNDS FOR BOOKS

In 1996, when Tony Cardenas visited schools in California's northeast San Fernando Valley, he was appalled to find them using books up to 30 years old. As a California Assemblyman, he had an opportunity to do something about. He persuaded his colleagues in Sacramento to put a proposition on the March 7, 2000, primary ballot that would commit some of the lottery funds to purchasing new textbooks. Fortunately, for California school children, the public agreed with him and passed the proposition by a vote of 53% to 47%.

2001-03-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 1, 2000

SIX-YEAR OLD BOY
FATALLY SHOOTS
SIX-YEAR OLD GIRL

Kayla Renee Rolland, a six-year-old girl in Mount Morris Township, Michigan, was shot to death in front of her first-grade classmates by a six-year-old boy armed with a stolen .32 caliber handgun. Once again there was a national outcry over violence in the schools. A year later, to the day, California reported that violent crime rates at its public schools rose 17 percent--the fourth year of increase in a row.

2001-02-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

IT 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.

2001-01-31T07:21:00.000-08:00

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

It's just like deja vu all over again. Now you can relive the first year of the third millennium or the last year of the second millennium through the headlines that made news from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2000.

January 1, 2000

Y2K LAYS AN EGG;
LIFE GOES ON!

The whole world was watching as clocks tolled midnight starting in the Pacific and circling the world back to the Pacific ... and by George nothing happened! Nuclear missiles didn't launch, planes didn't fall out of the sky, computers didn't melt down; hospitals, electric power plants, telecommunications, banking, and even your own PDA functioned normally. The world spent more than five hundred billion dollars to make sure nothing happened. Think of how many starving children that could feed. Bill Clinton's Y2K Czar John Koskinen boasted that he had "snookered" the world into preparing for a calamity that didn't calamatize. New Zealanders wept as they watched their NZ Reserve Bank shred 1.35 billion dollars worth of banknotes it had printed in case there was a cash shortage. The hardcore nuts said, "Yeah, just wait until January 1, 2001, the real new millennium."

January 2, 2000

DOTCOMGUY
GOES ON-LINE FOR 2000

Mitch Maddox, a 26-year-old former computer systems manager, inspired by the failure of Y2K to destroy the world, legally changed his name to DotComGuy. He moved into an empty house in Dallas with his laptop and said he wouldn't leave until 2001. He promised to live exclusively online, ordering in food, furniture, clothes, other necessities and star in his own 24-hour live video feed of his hermit's retreat. As the clock tolled midnight, Sunday, December 31, 2000, a somewhat subdued DotComGuy walked out of his retreat saying, "I wouldn't do that again," and rode off on his small motorized scooter into his own cyberspace. Later reports revealed he would legally change his name back to Mitch Maddox.

January 3, 2000

UFO SIGHTINGS
INSPIRE CHINESE

Possibly agitated over the failure of Y2K to cause a stir, poor farmers in the hills near Beijing, and in a dozen other Chinese cities, saw a multicolored object streak heavenward and declared it to be a UFO. Meanwhile, UFO researchers were looking into a reported alien abduction in Beijing. Many poor people throughout China perceived this as a fulfillment of Mao Tse-tung's prophecy, "Poverty gives rise to the desire for change, the desire for action and the desire for revolution."

January 4, 2000

BIG RETAILERS
DROP BIO-FOODS

The nation's two largest natural foods retailers -- Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Markets -- cleared their shelves of many genetically engineered foods and vowed to stop selling bio-engineered corn, soy, canola oil and other products in 2000. Margaret Whittenberg, vice president at Whole Foods, said, "There's an absolute anger among customers that foods are being genetically modified and they don't know what ingredients are in their foods." Imagine that, people want to know what's in their food.

January 5, 2000

STOCKS DIVE ON
RATE HIKE FEAR

Fear of higher interest rates, coupled with profit taking in the new year, caused the Dow to drop 359.58 points and the NASDAQ to close down 229.46. It was the Dow's fourth-worst one-day point fall in history and the tech-heavy NASDAQ's biggest drop in its 29-year history. The plunge wiped out more than 600 billion dollars in stock market wealth, but, compared to what would happen to NASDAQ investors later in 2000, it was like a walk in the park.

January 6, 2000

LABOR DEPARTMENT
ISSUES HOME WORK
SAFETY RULES

Eager to protect at-home workers with traditional workplace safety protections, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered "All employers, including those which have entered into 'work at home' agreements with employees, are responsible for complying with ... safety and health standards." OSHA also suggested that companies should periodically inspect at-home workers' quarters. After being ridiculed by Republicans who wondered whether dirty dishes, dust bunnies, and spider webs violated the OSHA rules, the Labor Department quickly withdrew the order and said, "Never mind."

January 7, 2000

MICROSOFT ADS
DRAW THOUSANDS
OF CUSTOMERS

Thousands of consumers in California rushed to retailers to take advantage of a unique advertising offer by Microsoft. The giant software company was offering $400 worth of electronic equipment free. Well, not exactly. It was offering $400 of free electronic stuff to consumers who signed up for three years of Microsoft Internet Service. But the ink on the ads was barely dry before some shrewd shoppers discovered they could cancel the Microsoft Network access immediately without penalty. Microsoft stopped the rebate program quickly but not before a lot of shoppers had taken advantage of the loophole. As Jenny Ives, a 20-year-old student in Pasadena who spent her in-store credit on a bread maker and combo TV/VCR, said, "It works, and Microsoft isn't gunning after anyone." Sorry Jenny, Microsoft knows where you live.

January 8, 2000

$3.8 TRILLION ESTIMATE
FOR FEDERAL SURPLUS

Washington politicians were salivating over the news that the federal budget surpluses for the next decade could be up to $800 billion larger than last year's $3 trillion estimate. Arguments broke out on Capitol Hill whether to use the windfall for tax cuts (the Republicans' fantasy), spending (the Democrats' fantasy), or debt reduction (Alan Greenspan's fantasy). And like Pinocchio's nose, the estimates of the federal surplus kept growing throughout the election year, finally peaking at $5 trillion. By the end of the year, talk of a slowing economy and possible recession started to cut into the size of the surplus. The moral to the story: spend your surpluses when you've got them.

January 9, 2000

RICH KIDS GET
SAT TEST BREAKS

The College Board, which administers the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) for college bound students, was intrigued by an increase of more than 50 percent since 1994 in the number of students who claimed a learning disability to win extended time or other special accommodations on the test. Upon closer look, it appeared that the bulk of the growth came from exclusive private schools and public schools in mostly wealthy, white suburbs. The Board wondered whether the predominance of rich, white, teenage boys among those claiming disabilities allowed privileged families to gain advantage on the exam that opens the door to college. Duh!

January 10, 2000

MEDICARE DISCOVERS
THAT DOCTORS CHEAT

In a stunning reversal, Medicare's spending growth slowed to its lowest level in the program's 25-year history. It seems that the Justice Department launched a high-profile campaign against health-care cheaters in a profession generally considered to be trustworthy. The government crackdown on healthcare fraud and abuse forced doctors, hospitals, home-health-care agencies, testing laboratories, and medical equipment providers to pay back nearly $500 million to the government for fraud in 1998 alone. But there's still a long way to go. A March 1995 article in Mother Jones suggested the annual loss is as high as $100 billion but that no one really knows how much money is stolen from the medical system every year. One physician, when asked about medical fraud, said he doubted it, and added, "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

January 11, 2000

UPSTART AMERICA ONLINE
BUYS VENERABLE TIME WARNER

America Online, a startup Internet company, announced it is buying Time Warner, the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world, for $164 billion. In 1989, Time Magazine, founded in 1923, merged with Warner Brothers, also founded in 1923, to form Time Warner. Meanwhile, in 1985, an Internet entrepreneur named Steve Case, founded America Online. Now, AOL, a 15-year-old startup, is the world's largest media megamonopoly. Henry Luce, who founded Time, Fortune, Life, and Sports Illustrated, and Harry Warner, who produced the first talkie, "The Jazz Singer," and film classics like "Casablanca," would never have sold out to Steve Case.

January 12, 2000

SEEING IS BELIEVING
EXCEPT ON CBS

Sharp-eyed viewers of the "CBS Evening News" broadcast live from Times Square on New Year's Eve, saw a billboard advertising CBS News out in the square behind Dan Rather. Hundreds of thousands of shivering celebrants standing in Times Square saw the NBC jumbotron and a Budweiser ad in the same location. CBS producers used electronic insertion technology to insert digital images promoting CBS over the NBC/Budweiser ads. So now you know. Just because you see something on the Tiffany Network, the home of legendary Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, doesn't mean it is really there. It's not Big Brother you have to worry about, it's Madison Avenue.

January 13, 2000

AMERICAN POPULATION
TO DOUBLE BY 2100;
FEWER KILLER ASTEROIDS FOUND

The Census Bureau predicts that there will be 571 million Americans alive in the year 2100, about twice the number here in 2000. But, it assures us, not to worry. Our population density in 2100 will be just 161.4 people per square mile, or about a quarter of the current population density of Germany and the United Kingdom. Those expecting enforced population control from outer space, possibly including some hardcore followers of Dr. Paul Ehrlich, were disappointed to learn, also on this day in 2000, that there actually are fewer killer asteroids than thought. There are only 700 of those large "near-Earth" asteroids capable of slamming into Earth with catastrophic consequences. Previously it was thought there might be as many as 2000 of them with a 1 percent chance of them striking us in the next 1,000 years. Nonetheless, Professor David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, co-author of the study, warned, "I'm not getting any more sleep knowing this."

January 14, 2000

ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER
MILLIONS OF BLACK HOLES

NASA Astronomer Richard Mushotzky announced at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society that the universe contains at least 100 million "black holes," five times more than previously known. And added there are probably more than a billion more yet to be found. A black hole is a collapsed star that is so heavy and dense that nothing can escape its gravity. Matter and light simply disappear in its core. Almost a year later, to the date, on January 13, 2001, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope said they had evidence proving the once-hypothetical existence of black holes. They said the evidence was that they saw almost nothing when observing a black hole. They said matter disappears into a so-called event horizon. The event horizon is a gravitational point of no return, a one-way membrane through which matter and light leave the known universe forever. No astronomers ventured to say where the matter and light went after it left the known universe.

January 15, 2000

CENSORING THE LIST
OF CENSORED BOOKS

A rural Virginia school teacher posted a list of often-banned books on his classroom door "to inform students about that touchy area between art and government." The list includes books banned by school districts. A rural Virginia parent noticed the list, was offended by some of the books, filed a complaint with school officials, and succeeded in having the banned books list banned from the door. Books on the banned book list of 2000 distributed by the American Library Association include "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twin, "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, and the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

January 16, 2000

RICH ARE GETTING RICHER;
POOR ARE GETTING SCREWED

A new study by the California Policy Institute reveals that the income gap between the rich and poor in California is wider than at almost any time in history. While the poor are struggling -- they now bring home 21 percent less in real dollars than they did in 1969 -- the super rich haven't been this flush since the last days of the Roaring '20s, economists say. To put this into a national perspective, on the eve of the Civil War, one percent of the people owned 24 percent of America; then, by 1978, a new study revealed that the top one percent of the people owned 25 percent of America. The income gap stayed pretty steady for more than a century. But by the end of the 20th Century, there was a massive redistribution of wealth in America. And in 1999, the top one percent of the people owned 42 percent of America; 68 percent more than just a decade earlier! Stanford Jacoby, a UCLA labor economist ominously warned, "It is a truism going all the way back to the French Revolution, that when there are tremendous disparities in income and wealth, it creates social instability." And now the gap between rich and poor in America is greater than the gap in any other industrial nation in the world. Let them eat cake!

January 17, 2000

SOCIALIST WINS
ELECTION IN CHILE

Ricardo Lagos won a narrow victory to become Chile's first Socialist president since President Salvador Allende. For those with short memories, Allende, an acknowledged Marxist, was elected president of Chile, the oldest democracy in South America, in 1970. The United States, under the leadership of President Richard Nixon, was appalled at the idea of a freely elected Socialist president in the Western World. Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, said, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people." And they didn't. In September 1973, a CIA-back military junta, led by Chilean General Augusto Pinochet, and U.S. trained extremists, overthrew the government and assassinated Allende and several cabinet members. Pinochet became dictator and thousands of Chileans were tortured and killed. It took 28 years before the will of the people in Chile was finally heard.

January 18, 2000

46,000 PROTESTORS
MARCH IN SOUTH CAROLINA
OVER CONFEDERATE FLAG

46,000 people marched on the state capitol in Columbia, South Carolina, to protest the Confederate flag flying over the capitol building and the failure of the state to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., with a holiday. South Carolina is the only state that still flies the Confederate flag over its capitol and the only state that does not officially recognize King's birthday as a mandatory holiday. And their voices were heard, to a degree. In July, 2000, the Confederate flag was taken down from the capitol building but relocated to the Statehouse lawn. And the state officially celebrated the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., on Monday, January 16, 2001. Meanwhile some flag supporters are still pressuring the state legislature to put the flag back on the dome.

January 19, 2000

MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM
FAILS CRITICAL TEST

A test of the controversial missile defense system, aka Star Wars, failed when a missile fired from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific failed to find and hit a mock warhead fired from Vandenberg AFB in California. After a series of test failures, strong opposition from our European allies as well as Russia, and a legal dispute whether the system violates an important arms control treaty, the Pentagon postponed further tests until 2001. Undeterred by such problems, in January, 2001, president-elect George W. Bush was still pushing for the super deluxe Ronald Reagan Star Wars Model System. When told it could cost up to $ 600 billion, Bush briskly pointed out, "We have a $ 4 trillion surplus." He also has staunch supporters in Colin Powell, his choice for Secretary of State, and Donald Rumsfeld, choice for Secretary of Defense, both of whom are ardent Star Wars supporters.

January 20, 2000

PEOPLE WHO LIVE
IN GLASS HOUSES
SHOULDN'T THROW STONES

The gray eminence of journalism was quick and merciless in its attack on President Clinton's drug policy advisor and the television networks for cooperating on anti-drug efforts. The New York Times' lead editorial said such arrangements could lead to "the possibility of censorship and state-sponsored propaganda." What it didn't mention was that the Times had its own cozy relationship with the drug control office; in fact, it received financial benefits in exchange for activities in conjunction with the White House. Not to mention $893,000 from the drug office for advertising. Howell Raines, the Times editorial page editor, said, in a manner reminiscent of Colonel Klink, "I knew absolutely nothing about this."

January 21, 2000

JESSE HELMS
FIRES AWAY AT
UNITED NATIONS

Jesse Helms, the cantankerous reactionary Republican Senator who won a reputation for his relentless criticism of the United Nations, was the first member of Congress to address the UN Security Council. He spent about an hour criticizing the UN and warning it that it must drastically reform if it "is going to survive into the 21st Century." In turn, members of the Security Council spent several hours criticizing Helms. The odd meeting was arranged by Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nation, who hoped to get Helms to soften his stance on the UN. When asked if the meeting had changed his mind about the UN, Helms said, "Not really." But less than a year later, in early January 2001, Jesse Helms surprised UN supporters and critics alike by taking a conciliatorial approach to the UN and releasing $582 million in past U.S. dues to the UN. Kudos to Richard Holbrooke.

January 22, 2000

CREAM SODA
CHANGES COURSE
OF U.S. HISTORY

After more than a year on the run from coast to coast, building momentum and support for his Democratic primary race for the presidency, Bill Bradley suddenly was put on the defensive by new disclosures about his heart condition. Initially, on December 10, 1999, he had had to cancel some campaign appearances after suffering an irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation. But after a brief respite he was back on the campaign trail promoting his agenda of universal health care, gun control, racial unity and campaign finance reform that resonated so well with the public. However the media focussed on his health and he finally was forced to disclose he had four more episodes of atrial fibrillation since December 10. He said it was the caffeine in cream soda, his favorite drink, that probably was the cause of his problem. He switched to Sunkist diet orange soda until he discovered it also had some caffeine in it. He finally withdrew from the race on Super Tuesday in March, abandoning the Democratic nomination to Al Gore.

January 23, 2000

FEDERAL ADVISORY WARNS
FUTURE OF STOCK
OPTIONS IN DOUBT

The Department of Labor issued a controversial advisory letter warning the public about possible drawbacks of stock options. Corporations, employer groups and congressional Republicans all rushed to demand that the Labor Department withdraw the advisory. They contend it would kill the increasingly popular way of attracting employees in a tight job market. Less than six months later, the stock market's plunge, especially in high-flying NASDAQ stocks, left millions of workers with worthless options or paper riches turned to pocket change. The dreams of high-tech workers about expensive cars and million-dollar mansions turned to nightmares over night.

January 24, 2000

POLITICIANS
AND NEWS MEDIA
DESCEND ON IOWA

It was Iowa's quadrennial day in the Sun -- the day of Iowa's election caucuses. It was packed at the Waveland Diner in Des Moines where NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said that if the reporters and editors covering the caucuses were voting in them, they would make up one percent of the electorate. A New York Times reporter said, "If one more journalist were to set foot here, Iowa would collapse under the weight of ink and wiring." The normally huge media turnout was amplified by the advent of cable news channels and the Web. All this fuss over Iowa and it was Florida that ran away with the fame. Unaware of the hazards of cream soda (see January 22), Bill Bradley noted, "This is the first step in several steps of the journey."

January 25, 2000

SUPREME COURT
OKAYS LIMITS ON
CAMPAIGN DONATIONS

The Supreme Court ruled that the government has broad power to limit how much money rich donors give to political candidates. Justice David H. Souter said, "Democracy works only if the people have faith in those who govern," adding, such faith could be shattered if the voters come to believe "large donors call the tune." Oh we of little faith. Let's see, on January 23, 2001, nearly a year later, the Los Angeles Times reported, "Last year a record $ 3 billion was spent on presidential and congressional campaigns, up from $ 2.2 billion four years earlier." And with Dubya in, I guess those donors are going to get to call one helluva tune!

January 26, 2000

BAD HAIR DAYS
AFFECT WHAT'S
IN YOUR HEAD TOO

A scholarly Yale University study of the psychology of bad hair days found that people's self-esteem goes awry when their hair is out of place. This was good news for Proctor & Gamble which paid for the study and planned to announce a new hair-care line called Physique. In November 2000, Cosmpolitan rhapsodized, "When it comes to hair this season, size does matter--and we're not just teasing. So jack up your mane's magnetism with these amazing megavolumizing tips." It then heralded Physique for "volumized vixen." All this was too much for Warren Clement, a critic for the Canadian Globe and Mail, who later said, "Until a television commercial for Physique popped up on Monday night (1/1/01), I had never heard the word 'volumize.' The announcer insisted this hair-care product would make women's hair fuller and give it body -- in short, would volumize it." Yale scholars must be elated with the impact of their research on the English language as well as on hair-product sales.

January 27, 2000

L.A. SCHOOL BOARD
KILLS NEW SCHOOL
FOR LOW INCOME STUDENTS

The Los Angeles Unified School District board stopped construction of the state-of-the-art Belmont Learning Complex in one of Los Angeles' poorest neighborhoods. The high school, at $170 million, would have been one of the most expensive schools built in the nation. It was being built on an abandoned oil field contaminated by methane gas and other toxic substances. Naturally. L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina later charged, "Close to 200 million of taxpayer dollars later, it is not the underground natural gases that have prevented the completion of the school, instead, poor management, outside political interests, and the new school board majority's pledge to deliver on a campaign promise to stop the 'Taj Mahal' from ever being built brought us to where we are today (12/18/2000)." On January 23, 2001, the L.A. Board of Education voted to seek proposals from the private sector to buy the half-finished high school or clean it up and complete it. Maybe the process could be speeded up by bussing the students into Beverly Hills High.

January 28, 2000

ICE CREAM CONE
SHORTAGE FEARED
FOR SUMMER 2000

Ice cream lovers were warned to expect a severe shortage of ice cream cones this coming summer. It was not because of Y2K but rather because the nation's number one cone producer, Ace Baking Co., went bankrupt. The ice cream cone doomsday prediction said Americans may be forced to eat ice cream with a spoon come the dog days of August and September. But, once again, the free enterprise system came galloping to the rescue. Cookie-and-cracker King Nabisco joined Keebler elves to guarantee that America won't suffer a summer ice cream cone shortage after all. Nabisco said it would boost its production of Comet and Oreo brand cones and Keebler took over Ace's cone production facilities in an auction and promised to crank up production immediately. Ice cream aficionados heaved a sigh of relief.

January 29, 2000

NUCLEAR WORKERS
DIE FROM EARLY
RADIATION EXPOSURE

The government finally admits that workers who helped make nuclear weapons were exposed to radiation that produced cancer and early deaths. Unfortunately this disclosure was a quarter century too late. In 1976, a government research scientist, Dr. Thomas Mancuso, discovered that even low levels of radiation, previously thought to be safe, were actually deadly. His warning was ignored and Dr. Mancuso was shoved into premature retirement and the government seized his research findings. It was one of the top censored stories of 1978.

January 30, 2000

U.N. MAKES FIRST
AGREEMENT ON
FRANKENSTEIN FOODS

At the United Nations, 138 countries produced the first international agreement on trade in genetically modified agricultural products. The ruling requires exporters to label shipments that may contain added genetic material with the phrase, "May contain living modified organism." And not a minute too soon. On September 19, 2000, The New York Times announced the government was investigating whether some genetically altered corn not approved for human consumption was used in taco shells sold in grocery stores. By November, Kraft Foods had recalled millions of taco shells and there was major concern about the agriculture industry's ability to track the mix of traditional and biotechnology crops from the field to the grocery store.

January 31, 2000

DOT-COMS ADS
FLOOD SUPER BOWL
BUT FLUNK TEST

Seventeen dot-com hopefuls spent an average of $2 million per 30-second television commercial during Super Bowl XXXIV but didn't get their money's worth. Ad legend Stan Freberg sneered, "The dot-com commercials had more incomplete passes than the game." It appears that they bet the farm and lost it. Of the 17 dot-coms in Super Bowl XXXIV, only three returned for Super Bowl XXXV. They spent an average of $2.3 million for a 30-second spot this time and one of them should have known better. Monster.com was the least popular dot-com advertiser in 2000 and didn't make the top 20 in 2001.

2001-01-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

[dejavu2000]