After Hurricane Bonnie caused North Carolina's Topsail Island to be swept over by ocean floods for the third time in two years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency allocated $115 million to rebuild it along with two other barrier islands. At least three houses on the island have had to be repaired so many times over the past two decades that taxpayers have put more money into them than the homes and the property combined are worth, according to FEMA records. One building cost the agency $458,000 and had to be repaired six times and substantially rebuilt two times in the past 15 years. FEMA records, for purposes of insurance, put the value of the building at $424,900.

Meanwhile, North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt said the state should toughen restrictions to discourage rebuilding on the island. That may account for the Inland Development Group's problems with their 25-acre property on the island. After performing the necessary environmental impact studies, development was held up for a year when the state Department of Archeology registered the island as a site of possible archeological significance because a pre-colonial Indian tribe may have lived on the island at one time. When the company asked why they weren't informed of the site's designation when they bought the property, the state archeologist said he feared graverobbers might desecrate the site if the information were made public. After long negotiations, Inland agreed to pay $65,000 for a study that yielded no artifacts of significance.

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A draft, authored by senior adviser Paul Begala and distributed informally to members of the press, of the address President Clinton was to have delivered to the American people on August 17, 1998. The President surprised many observers when he rejected this speech in favor of one with a significantly more belligerent tone.

My fellow Americans:

No one who is not in my position can understand fully the remorse I feel today. Since I was very young, I've had a profound reverence for this office I hold. I've been honored that you, the people, have entrusted it to me. I am proud of what we have accomplished together.

But in this case, I have fallen short of what you should expect from a President. I have failed my own religious faith and values. I have let too many people down. I take full responsibility for my actions—for hurting my wife and daughter, for hurting friends and staff, and for hurting the country I love. None of this ever should have happened.

I never should have had any sexual contact with Monica Lewinsky. But I did. I should have acknowledged that I was wrong months ago. But I didn't. I thought I was shielding my family, but I know that in the end, for Hillary and Chelsea, delay has only brought more pain. Their forgiveness and love, expressed so often as we sat alone together this weekend, means far more than I can ever say.

What I did was wrong—and there was no excuse for it. I do want to assure you, as I told the Grand Jury under oath, that I did nothing to obstruct this investigation.

Finally, I also want to apologize to all of you, my fellow citizens. I hope you can find it in your heart to accept that apology. I pledge to you that I will make every effort of mind and spirit to earn your confidence again, to be worthy of this office, and to finish the work in which we have made such remarkable progress for the past six years.

God bless you and goodnight.

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After the late Italian artist Piero Manzoni canned 90 separate 30-gram specimens of his feces as art objects in 1961, the value for one tin soared to $75,000 in 1993, but in 1998 fetched only $28,000 at a Sotheby's auction in London. Forbes notes that even with the recent drop in value, at $1,000 per gram, it is still almost 100 times the price of gold.

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After animal rights activists liberated several thousand minks from a fur farm in Hampshire County, England, the hungry creatures were blamed for killing birds at a local sanctuary along with some domestic pets, and have disrupted the local ecosystem considerably. "They can climb a tree like a squirrel and dive in a stream like an otter. They are an efficient killing machine and our native species are not used to having to cope with them," commented local forest-keeper Howard Taylor. A spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front said that though many mink may indeed die, "At least they will have had a taste of freedom."

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A federal judge has thrown out the results of a 1993 report by the Environmental Protection Agency that attributed 3,000 annual lung cancer deaths to secondhand tobacco smoke. The decision cited the agency's own internal records noting the study's methodological flaws, judging the study to be politically motivated. Indeed, the study was used to justify numerous local indoor-smoking bans, which would otherwise have been justifiable simply on the grounds of nuisance.

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In 1994 a Florida teacher was discovered to have coaxed a student into a sexual relationship that included oral and anal sex. The teacher resigned, but insisted on keeping his license so that he could work elsewhere. Despite support from the local affiliate of the National Education Association, an administrative law judge ruled in support of the Florida Department of Education by having his license permanently revoked, but only after two years and tens of thousands of dollars in legal and administrative costs. In 1989, a female teacher was caught naked with one of her students in a car near a public park, and having her license revoked took more than three years and cost close to $100,000.

In 1996, a San Francisco teacher was discovered placing six-year-old students in a trash can, closing the lid, and kicking the can, and was only suspended when a fellow teacher overheard her threatening to cut off a boy's private parts with a pair of scissors. Her dismissal cost $100,000, and she later obtained a teaching job elsewhere. Due to the difficulty in firing bad teachers stemming from heavy pressure from their unions, many are quietly traded to other school districts accompanied by good recommendations, a practice informally referred to by administrators as "passing the trash." In 1981, Robert Devaney resigned as a special-education teacher in Providence, Rhode Island, after a student complained that he had made sexual overtures. But Devaney got good references and taught in Charleston, New Hampshire, until 1986, when he was dismissed for sexual misconduct. The next year he resigned from a Connecticut junior high school following a complaint that he had asked to photograph a student nude in exchange for cash. He turned up again as a substitute teacher in Rhode Island, and finally wound up in jail in 1996 on a twenty-year sentence for sexually assaulting a special-education student and making sexually explicit videotapes and photographs of two other students. The judge who sentenced Devaney commented, "The employment background of this defendant who was shuffled from one school department to another, from one bureaucrat to the next, is a crime in itself."

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In Ventura, California, devout Hindu Mulkesh K. Rai is suing a Taco Bell for serving him a beef burrito rather than a bean burrito, thus violating his religious principles. Rai says the incident caused him emotional distress, loss of wages, medical and psychiatric expenses, and the need to travel to England and India to perform religious purification ceremonies, including bathing in the Ganges River. Taco Bell had offered to exchange the beef burrito for a bean one, but would not refund Rai's money.

And vegetarian Patrick Fish filed a $30 million lawsuit against the Wendy's restaurant chain after discovering a veggie pita he ordered from a Utica, New York, franchise contained gelatin, which is made from animal tissue. Lige Weill, president of the Vegetarians Awareness Network, has announced that the Washington-based group is considering filing a class action lawsuit on behalf of all similarly duped vegetarians.

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According to the General Accounting Office, Amtrak spends on average almost $2 for every dollar of revenue it earns, and on some routes the ratio is as high as three to one. Since 1994, it lost more than $3.1 billion—$47 per passenger in 1997.

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A jury awarded a 27-year-old Michigan man $200,000 following a rear-end auto collision that he claims turned him into a homosexual. The man said that although his only physical injury was to his back, the accident had a jarring effect on his personality and prevented him from having a normal sexual relationship with his wife. Soon after the accident, he left his wife, moved in with his parents, and started hanging out in gay bars and reading homosexual literature. In addition to the $200,000, the jury also awarded $25,000 to his wife.

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After the Chicago Bulls won another NBA championship, Vice President Al Gore marveled at the team's star player. "I tell you, that Michael Jackson is unbelievable, isn't he? He's just unbelievable. Three plays in 20 seconds." Previously, Gore declared that a leopard cannot change its stripes, mistranslated the Great Seal's e pluribus unum as "out of one, many," and claimed that he and his wife Tipper were the real-life models for the Ivy League couple in Erich Segal's Love Story, an assertion the author felt obliged to correct. While touring Monticello during an important photo opportunity in 1992 as vice president-elect, Gore asked the guide about all the white marble busts that lined the walls. "Who are these people?" he asked. Somewhat taken aback, the guide hesitated, then identified George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson...

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Following a deadly attack on the Capitol, Katie Couric interviews two psychologists on the "Today" show, July 29, 1998:

Quickly, we're almost out of time, but it seems to me that money is an issue. That [mental health] funding was cut 25 percent during the Reagan administration. It's gone down ever since. Don't we need to funnel more money into helping these people? The fact that half of the homeless population may be untreated mentally ill is a real tragedy don't you think?

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke before the National Bar Association, the nation's largest group of black lawyers, despite their often passionate loathing of him. Among other things, members criticized Thomas as hypocritical for opposing affirmative action even though, they said, he had benefitted from the policy in the past and had only been selected to the high court because of his race.

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In the midst of a seven-year, $1 billion computer systems upgrade, the Social Security Administration is finding that the 56,000 intelligent workstations being installed by a contractor are becoming difficult to purchase and may be underpowered. The General Accounting Office found that the SSA's new systems were three times slower than the average personal computer being sold retail.

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Operating out of a church basement in Durham, North Carolina, the Healthy Start Academy has done a dramatically good job educating poor children. After a full year at the charter school, performance of kindergartners on standardized tests jumped from the 42nd percentile to the 99th percentile, first-graders from the 21st percentile to the 34th, and second-graders from the 34th to the 75th—all for $2,800 less per pupil than the state's public schools. But the state Board of Education is now threatening to close down the school because its student body is not racially balanced. While the surrounding school district is 45 percent black, Healthy Start's student body is 99 percent black. Twelve other charter schools, eleven of which are majority-black, are also threatened with closure.

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Citing research that claims adolescents are drowsier and have a particularly difficult time waking up in the morning, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) offered a bill that would give $25,000 grants to high schools that start classes after 9:00 A.M.

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Perhaps helping explain why 59 percent of prospective teachers flunked a state competency test, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst listed the following teacher-education courses: "Leadership in Changing Times," "Embracing Diversity," "Diversity & Change," "Oppression & Education," "Introduction to Multicultural Education," "Social Diversity in Education" (four courses), "Black Identity," "Classism," "Racism," "Sexism," "Jewish Oppression," "Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Oppression," "Oppression of the Disabled," and "Erroneous Beliefs."

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In case you, too, were wondering where postmodern leftism came from, a bewildered William Phillips, editor of the Partisan Review, disclaims responsibility on behalf of orthodox Marxists in that publication's Spring issue:

I've been wondering where the ideas and movements of the left today come from. They do not have their source in either Marx or Lenin, yet they are deemed by the left itself to be authentic, especially in the academy. There is some Marxism in the universities, but it is marginal and not very exact. If we take the credos of the left one by one and compare them with the ideas of Marx or Lenin, I think we should find them appallingly without ancestors.

1. Cultural Diversity. Neither Marx nor Lenin was interested in any kind of cultural diversity. Lenin supported the various nationalisms in Russia, but that was mainly a part of his revolutionary strategy.

2. Gay liberation. Neither Marx nor Lenin had the slightest interest in homosexuality of any kind. As far as I know, neither referred to it in their writings. And certainly they had no notion of an "alternative lifestyle."

3. Radical feminism. Neither Marx nor Lenin was especially concerned with feminism, though they did not directly oppose it. What they actually believed was that no questions concerning feminism could be adequately solved under capitalism, and that only under socialism would people be free of prejudice or bigotry. And women would be equal to men in all respects.

4. Gender studies. Marx and Lenin, of course, never heard of what are called gender studies. But obviously they would not have had the slightest interest in them and would have thought of them as intellectual and political distractions.

5. Affirmative action. Marx and Lenin never heard of affirmative action. But they would have been against it, for they had a firm belief in merit and meritocracy.

6. Populism. Marx and Lenin did not care for populism in any form. It will be recalled that Marx went so far as to speak of "the idiocy of rural life."

7. Relativism. Marx and Lenin did not believe in any kind of relativism. Their thinking was founded on absolutes.

8. Elitism. As far as I can recall, neither Marx nor Lenin used the term "elite" or "elitism." But certainly they both supported the idea of intellectual quality and an intellectual vanguard.

9. Deconstruction. Marx and Lenin obviously never heard of deconstruction. But it goes without saying that they would have been opposed to it.

10. Tradition. Marx and Lenin had enormous respect for the achievements of the past, particularly in the arts, and they felt that the legacy of the past was to be built on. Neither was bothered by the fact that past achievements in philosophy and the arts were made by dead white males. Karl Marx was himself a dead white male.

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The Family Research Council, the Christian fundamentalist group led by Gary Bauer, posted on its website an article, by Patrick Henry Reardon of Touchstone magazine, claiming that the wildly popular movie "Titanic" is satanic. At issue is heroine Rose's line that the hero Jack Dawson "saved me in every way that a human being can be saved." "Anything that says that a human being is saved by purely human means is satanic," comments Reardon. "I believe [Rose's words] also to have been the interpretive, defining line of the film: the assertion that the sort of saving that Jack did was, ultimately, the only kind of saving possible. If that was the thesis statement of the film, then I start looking for the cloven hoof and sniffing for brimstone."

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While promoting her new book, former Time correspondent Nina Burleigh claimed in an interview in Mirabella that she and President Clinton played footsie during a game of hearts on Air Force One. She later commented that she would have been "happy to give him [oral sex] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal... If he had asked me to continue the game of hearts back in his room at the Jasper Holiday Inn, I would have been happy to go there and see what happened."

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A federal judge in Houston ruled that there is "an important governmental interest" in compelling otherwise nude dancers to wear their city licenses somewhere on their bodies while they perform.

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The London Sunday Times reports that Disney is co-producing a children's cartoon about the late Princess Diana that confronts the difficult issues of her failed marriage to Prince Charles and her struggles with eating disorders. Nicholas Allan, author of the inappropriately titled book, The Happy Princess, on which the cartoon is based, says that far from being in bad taste, the show may prove to be a useful therapeutic device. "Parents have told me their children need something to help them cope with Diana's death," Allan commented.

U.S. News & World Report notes that Diana is also emerging as popular academic subject matter. Lecturing in Bristol, Diana scholar Tim Dartington spoke, in a dramatic whisper, of Diana as "mother, madonna, whore," and, inexplicably, as a "homeless rent boy." She "died of road rage," he said, a victim of "the damned reaching out to pull the living into their hell." Many anthologies are in the works, including Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning, from Australia's University of Western Sydney. One of the volume's authors declares that "Dianaland would evolve from a saccharine wedding ride into a fatal sadomasochistic pleasuredome." Another author observes: "As cannibalistic mourners, Diana and the public which tirelessly consumed her in death as in life, both represent aspects of the one digestive system." Another evaluates Diana's public image thus: "The postmodern saint [Diana] disrupts standards and customs, generally through excessive forms of behavior where such excess has the possibility to expose any contradictions at play in the legitimation of institutional culture."

Speaking of digestive systems, Princess Diana's memorial fund made a deal to put its official Di logo on plastic tubs of margarine. A British publisher also released Poems for a Princess, a collection of 1,562 amateur tributes to Diana, which included the lines "She touched our hearts, filled a void / Her sudden death has left us annoyed."

And from their headquarters in Poona, India, the followers of the late guru and free-love advocate Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, who was deported from the U.S. in 1985 on immigration-fraud charges and who died in 1990, issued a directive for Diana's chronic grievers. The recommended procedure starts with "deep, fast, chaotic" breathing, followed by "total catharsis," to expel the bad emotions stirred up by the breathing. Mourners must then jump up high with arms raised while shouting, "Hoo!" followed by total silence until they feel like dancing. This regimen should be followed for 21 days.

Finally, when it started to rain at an outdoor concert dedicated to the memory of Diana, singer and "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff prayed to Diana to make the rain stop. It did.

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The transcript of a live chat session with Koko the Gorilla on America Online, April 27, 1998. Koko's trainer, Dr. Francine "Penny" Patterson, used sign language to relay the gorilla questions from the on-line audience. The chat was moderated by Jenny Hansell, a.k.a. "HaloMyBaby."

HaloMyBaby:

Welcome, Dr. Patterson and Koko, we're so happy you're here! Is Koko aware that she's chatting with thousands of people?

LiveKOKO:

Good hear.

DrPPatrsn:

Koko is aware.

HaloMyBaby:

I'll start taking questions from the audience now. MInyKitty asks, Koko are you going to have a baby in the future?

LiveKOKO:

Pink

DrPPatrsn:

Koko was commenting on the color of my shirt. We had an earlier discussion about colors today.

LiveKOKO:

Koko—love eat.

HaloMyBaby:

In case you're curious, here's how Koko is able to participate in this chat: Dr. Patterson is signing the questions from the online audience to Koko and a typist is entering for her. Rulucky asks: Do you like to chat with other people?

LiveKOKO:

fine nipple

DrPPatrsn:

Nipple rhymes with people, she doesn't sign people per se, she was trying to do a "sounds like..."

HaloMyBaby:

Dr. Patterson, you've devoted your whole life to this project! What are we learning?

DrPPatrsn:

I started the project simply to see if another species could communicate with us in another language, such as sign language. It turns out that Koko is very creative with that language and can talk about abstract things.

HaloMyBaby:

I can see that!

DrPPatrsn:

Koko will respond to things at a sophisticated level ... She actually discriminates English, not just the words but the things words are made of—phonemes.

HaloMyBaby:

Another question from the audience: Does Koko like birds?

DrPPatrsn:

Koko just walked away, she's looking out the window...

HaloMyBaby:

She's looking at the birds!

DrPPatrsn:

There are a number of blue jays that have been frequenting her play yard, exactly! She's going to look at the birds!

HaloMyBaby:

Are there any birds out there now?

DrPPatrsn:

One just flew by.

HaloMyBaby:

Storm1004 asks: Dear Koko, I've watched you for years now ... your gentle spirit is inspiration for many ... I'd like to know what you'd like for your birthday.

HaloMyBaby:

What a sweet question!

LiveKOKO:

Birthday. Food smokes.

HaloMyBaby:

SMOKES?

DrPPatrsn:

You have to understand ... Smoke is also the name of her kitten.

HaloMyBaby:

HMBarbari asks Koko: Have you ever tried to teach your kittens sign language?

DrPPatrsn:

She's looking out the window right now ... Actually, I can tell you that she has not tried to teach them sign language but she has tries to nurse her kittens.

HaloMyBaby:

Wow!

DrPPatrsn:

It's very important to her. She's 310 lbs. I can't get her to turn around...

HaloMyBaby:

Sounds like Koko might have had enough?

DrPPatrsn:

She's got a toy alligator. She's playing with her alligator and her lady doll. Oh, my! she may be doing a little acting out here.

HaloMyBaby:

She sounds like she's working out a bit of aggression! I'm trying to get a picture of where you are, what it looks like.

DrPPatrsn:

We're in Koko's kitchen area. There are toys all around a refrigerator, television, stuffed animals, videos. I gave her a couple of fabric bracelets ... she's looking at them. She's putting them on her head because actually these are scrunchies.

HaloMyBaby:

Does she have hair, or is it like fur?

DrPPatrsn:

She has hair.

LiveKOKO:

fine

DrPPatrsn:

She has fine hair. It's beautiful!

LiveKOKO:

sip

DrPPatrsn:

I think it's about dinner time for her now.

HaloMyBaby:

How do you feel about Michael [a gorilla who has also been trained by Dr. Patterson]?

LiveKOKO:

foot, foot, good

HaloMyBaby:

foot means male, right?

LiveKOKO:

nipple

DrPPatrsn:

She's acting out a little here.

HaloMyBaby:

What about Ndume [a gorilla who is Koko's breeding partner]?

LiveKOKO:

bad

HaloMyBaby:

Oh dear

LiveKOKO:

toilet

HaloMyBaby:

Uh oh! From the audience: Koko, do you feel love from the humans who have raised you and cared for you? Ely35150 asked that.

LiveKOKO:

lips, apple give me

DrPPatrsn:

People give her her favorite foods.

LiveKOKO:

love, browse drink nipple

DrPPatrsn:

Browse is like ... the little food/snacks we give them.

LiveKOKO:

koko loves that nipple drink, go

DrPPatrsn:

She's kissing her alligator.

LiveKOKO:

lights off good

DrPPatrsn:

Ok. She's ready for dinner!

HaloMyBaby:

So we should say goodbye?

DrPPatrsn:

She blew a kiss!

HaloMyBaby:

Good bye and thank you Koko! Thank you Dr. Patterson!

LiveKOKO:

look

HaloMyBaby:

I would be happy to come see her so she could look at me!

LiveKOKO:

hat hat

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