The Village Voice reported that race was the motivating factor in determining which members of the men's Olympic basketball team would appear on the cover of Kellogg's Raisin Bran cereal boxes.

Voice writer Mike Rubin notes that of the five Dream Teamers featured on the box—Larry Bird, John Stockton, Karl Malone, David Robinson and Chris Mullin—three are white, "a percentage considerably greater than the [National Basketball Association's] white population of 18 percent, or for that matter the '92 team's actual 25 percent [really 33 percent] breakdown of four white players out of 12."

Kellogg U.S.A. publicity manager Donna Thede responded that the company attempted negotiations with all the members of the gold medal bunch. The company was foiled, however, by the contractual obligations that are so much a part of professional sports today. Witness Michael Jordan's efforts to avoid compromising his Nike endorsement—covering the Reebok symbol on his medal ceremony outfit with a U.S. flag.

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Naomi Wolf, writing in the 20th anniversary edition of Ms. magazine, tells how she often gives in to the temptation of letting the men in her life fix the television and take care of household chores.

"I have watched myself stand complacently by while my partner wrestles with a stuck window, an intractable computer printer, maps, or locks. Sisters, I am not proud of this, and I'm working on it," she writes. "It's easy to rationalize that the person with the penis is the one who should get out of a warm bed to fix the snow on the TV screen. After all, it's the very least owed to me personally in compensation for centuries of virtual enslavement."

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Twelve-year-old Henry Frank III of Central Islip, N.Y. realized every red-blooded American child's dream when he got to ride on a fire truck. Unfortunately, Henry fell off the vehicle and broke his arm, prompting his mother to sue the Central Islip Fire Department for $1.1 million in damages—even though the attorney for the plaintiffs says the accident occurred through the negligence of volunteer firefighter Henry Frank II, the boy's father.

"The little boy is an innocent victim," attorney Sidney Siben told New York Newsday. Siben, who is representing the boy and his mother, added, "It was careless of the father to allow the son on the truck, but the Fire Department is responsible and they're going to have to pay. That's the purpose of being insured."

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