At least ten athletes who fell short in their effort to win a spot on the U.S. Olympic team went on to take their cases to arbitration or, in one case, to federal court.

†

In Wales, a set of vigilantes vandalized the home of a prominent doctor, apparently confusing the words "pediatrician" and "pedophile."

†

A fountain in a public park in Santa Fe, New Mexico, features a 1979 sculpture depicting a brother and sister playing—the sister aiming a garden hose at the brother, who's aiming a water pistol back at her. But after vandals targeted the sculpture, scrawling "NO GUN" on the boy's leg, the sculptor vowed to chisel off the boy's hand and make him a new one so that he, too, would be holding a hose.

And in Baltimore, plans for a mural of Harriet Tubman at the headquarters of the Associated Black Charities were shelved because she was to be depicted holding a musket.

†

Nicholas Lemann interviews Vice President Al Gore for the New Yorker, July 31, 2000:

Gore gestured for another piece of paper, and when I gave one to him he bent over the coffee table again and began to draw another diagram.... This second drawing was made up of a circle with twenty little dots floating inside it, connected by wavy lines. "Now, let me come back to your question." He walked me through Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions, apologized for the overused word "paradigm," and explained that every so often an unusually creative scientist finds a new way to connect the dots of unexplained data.... "It appears in fractal theory. If you look at a map of the coastline of New Jersey, and then magnify that a thousand times, the basic design of the ins and outs of the coastline will be the same at every level of magnification. And they call that the self-sameness principle. I don't understand it. It's way beyond my depth. But I do believe there's something about our world that—" He began another long pause. "I'm searching for the right word here—that manifests that self-sameness principle in a lot of different ways. And when we find a brand-new understanding of the world that comes out of a powerful new discovery in science, it often allows us to look at social and political matters and find ways to connect the dots that haven't made sense before." I asked Gore where God fits into all of this. "Give me another piece of paper," he said.

†

Christopher Daly, writing in The American Prospect:

In fairness to Bush and his supporters, there's no evidence any of them seriously wish to restore the American society that existed before the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865—that is, a society where it was legal for one human being to own another.

Daly "teaches writing and American journalism history at Boston University."

†

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals outraged New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for using his image in a parody of the dairy industry's popular "Got Milk?" ads. PETA's ad depicts a frowning Giuliani with a milk mustache and asking, "Got prostate cancer?" The ad claims a connection between drinking milk and prostate cancer, which Mayor Giuliani has contracted, based on an extremely tentative study by the Harvard School of Public Health that focused on the health effects of calcium. The milk industry was quick to point out other research suggesting that dairy products help fight high blood pressure, colon cancer and osteoporosis.

[Ed.: PETA also started a campaign to convince parents that feeding meat to their children "constitutes child abuse," and that heart disease, cancer, and strokes were "unequivocally linked" to eating meat.]

†

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that belief in radically unconventional scientific ideas may merit the same workplace protections as freedom of religion. The issue arose after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office fired one of its patent examiners, Paul A. LaViolette, allegedly because he believes in the existence of alien radio communication, that the zodiac is a "time capsule message" warning of emanations from the galactic center (in the words of his website, etheric.com), and because he has similarly strong views on the Sphinx, the Tarot, Atlantis, and dabbles in the "cold fusion" theory of spontaneous energy generation.

†

A six-year-old boy in Canton, Ohio, had a doctor's appointment one morning, and could not attend school. The boy's mother put him in the bathtub so that he wouldn't get excited or confused when he saw the school bus go by and leave without him. Sure enough, when his sister said she saw the bus coming, the boy jumped naked from the bathtub and ran to a window to shout to the driver to wait.

Since in so doing the boy had exposed himself, the school later ruled that he had harassed the bus's passengers. The school compelled the boy to sign a statement admitting that he understood the nature of the charges against him.

†

In Sweden, a feminist group at Stockholm University is leading an effort to ban all urinals from campus, thus compelling men to sit down while urinating. A Swedish elementary school has already removed urinals. While part of this demand stems from concerns about hygiene—the splash factor—the London Spectator reports that another argument is that if a woman can't do it, then men shouldn't, either. Also, "a man standing up to urinate is deemed to be triumphing in his masculinity, and by extension, degrading women."

†

Interviewed on NBC's "Today" show on August 7, Louisiana Senator John Breaux said, "I think people don't care so much where [Senator Lieberman] goes to church on Sunday, but just that he has the moral values and principles to lead this country."

But apparently not everyone is on board. As soon as Vice President Gore's choice for a running mate was announced, Lee Alcorn, the president of the Dallas chapter of the NAACP, announced his qualms over the radio: "I'm concerned about, you know, any kind of Jewish candidate, you know. And I'm concerned about the Democratic Party. I'm sick of the Democratic Party taking the African-American vote for granted. If we get a Jew person, then what I'm wondering is, I mean, what is this movement for, you know? I think we need to be very suspicious of any kind of partnerships between Jews at that kind of level because we know that their interest primarily has to do with, you know, money and these kinds of things." Just before being fired, Alcorn complained that his comments had been taken out of context. To provide that context, he essentially repeated himself.

†

A New York architect complained about a news report identifying "the architect" of a shooting spree.

†

Approximately 7,000 lawsuits have been filed against Canada's Catholic, Anglican, and United churches by former Indian pupils of boarding schools that were run by the churches and established at the request of the federal government and leaders of Indian bands.

While some lawsuits allege sexual and physical abuse, some charge that teaching native children to speak English and adapt to Canadian culture constituted an act of "cultural genocide."

Ottawa has paid a $350 million "healing fund" as a contribution to a settlement, but Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart said that the churches must also "feel some pain."

†

At Spotswood High School in Virginia, Jeff Newton posted a list of 60 books that have been banned, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Color Purple, and Of Mice and Men. After a parent complained, Principal Jim Slye told him to take the list down because it wasn't part of any class curriculum, and some of the books on the list hadn't been approved by school officials.

†

A suburban Chicago attorney will be awarded upwards of $300,000 in a settlement with his condominium association. Jeffrey Marthon, 54, contended the association violated fair-housing laws by attempting to evict him because he suffered from Tourette's Syndrome. The condition caused him to engage in involuntary loud hooting and foot-stomping that led several neighbors to sign affidavits that they were losing sleep. Engineers said it was impossible to install soundproofing to mitigate the problem, so Marthon agreed to move out as part of the settlement.

†

The British government announced plans to monitor the ethnic composition of visitors to the nation's publicly funded museums, cutting off subsidies to museums that fail to draw a sufficient number of racial minorities.

†

Johns Hopkins researchers found that a sample of consumers could not tell the difference between the caffeinated and non-caffeinated varieties of the same brand of soda. The study, published in the Archives of Family Medicine, concluded that caffeine appears in soda only to addict consumers.

†

A day camp in North Port, Florida, prohibited an eight-year-old girl from singing her campfire favorite "Kum Ba Yah" at a talent show because the song repeats the word "Lord."

†

A federal appeals court ruled that a supervisor who at various times sexually harassed both members of a married couple is not liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The court rejected the plaintiffs' argument that harassers might thus shield themselves from liability by harassing members of both sexes to disguise their real intent.

†

The British Columbia film board declared the "Soldier of Fortune" video game to be an "adult film," meaning only adults can view it.

†

A jury in a class action lawsuit brought by Florida smokers ordered the five leading tobacco companies to pay $145 billion in punitive damages, the largest liability award to date and far exceeding the companies' net worth. The judgement will almost certainly be reversed on appeal, thanks to a change in the rules for appeal brought by the Florida legislature, which feared that the state might otherwise not receive the $13 billion the industry had already agreed to pay in settling the state's own lawsuit. That settlement came only after the legislature rigged legal rules to prevent the industry from putting forth its strongest defense.

[Ed.: In a survey of state treasurers two years later, the Investor Responsibility Research Center found that seven states—Texas, Connecticut, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia—had taken millions of dollars intended to reimburse them for tobacco-related health expenditures and invested the funds in tobacco companies. As little of 5 percent of tobacco-settlement funds were being directed towards smoking prevention programs.]

†

When asked whether he favored a new federal law forbidding the execution of pregnant women, Vice President Al Gore asked to think over the difficult question. The next day, he clarified his position: "The principle of a woman's right to choose governs in that case," meaning that a woman could refuse a delay of execution offered by the state, even though she forfeited her right to choose whether she herself lived or died. Faced with the same difficult question, the House of Representatives voted to exempt pregnant women from the death penalty, 417-0.

†

Questions of racism arose, and images of Rodney King resurfaced, when a group of Philadelphia police officers were filmed beating a black suspect while arresting him. Thomas Jones, 30, who served time for robbery, assault, and theft, was wanted for assaulting an elderly woman while hijacking her car. Jones led police on a wild high-speed chase through crowded streets, nearly running over police and plowing into a crowd of funeral mourners, crashed the car, exchanged gunfire with police in which he was shot several times, still managed to commandeer a police cruiser, and started another chase before finally being stopped and dragged out of the car. Two of the officers who eagerly subdued the suspect were themselves black. One of the officers trying to handcuff Jones received a bite.

†

The city of Eustis, Florida, backed down from an effort by one of its inspectors to close down a lemonade stand that nine-year-old Rachel Caine runs across the street from her home. And in Longmont, Colorado, eleven-year-old Caitlin Rezac was cited for operating a soda refreshment stand without a hand sink and a $100 license.

†

A call for papers from Catherine Jonet, a graduate student at Indiana State University:

THEME: Lived Feminisms/Womanism/New Mestiza Consciousness/Third Wave/Cyberfeminism: The Year 2000 and Looking Forward

We invite contributions of critical, personal, and narrative essays, poetry, interviews, and other forms of (written) expression from women, men, and transgendered people born between 1960 and 1980 who identify themselves as feminists/Womanists/New Mestiza/Third Wave/Cyberfeminists (all, one, or some) and/or who incorporate/modify/exhibit feminisms/Womanism/New Mestiza Consciousness/Third Wave/Cyberfeminism in their lives/conceptions of self and/or work.

Artists/musicians/photographers and webmasters/designers who wish to make creative submissions need to contact the editor directly. The goal of this publication is to create a grassroots effort that makes the voices, stories, experiences, opinions, and personal brands/lived forms of "feminisms" available to Women Studies students, students, instructors, the public/community through a publication to be called a "jourzine," a form that inhabits the spaces between the "journal" and the "zine." The jourzine will also appear in online format. Advice, guidance, and submissions are also sought from Women Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, African American Studies, African Diaspora Studies, Asian Pacific Studies, Chicana/Chicano Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, Jewish Studies, India Studies, Native American Studies, Multicultural Studies, Cultural Studies, American Studies, European Studies, and Political Science professors, specialists, and grad students. We are also interested in advice, guidance, and submissions from (political/cultural) activists, "everyday people," professionals, and nonprofessionals alike. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

your brand of feminism(s) how you developed it and how you use it in your life and/or your activisms
cyberfeminism(s)
race, society, culture, and (your) feminism(s)
racism, society, culture, and (your) feminism(s)
ethnicity, society, culture, and (your) feminism(s)
sexual identity, society, culture, and (your) feminism(s)
heterosexism, homophobia, society, culture, and (your) feminism(s)
class, society, culture, and (your) feminism(s)
"disabilities," culture, and (your) feminism(s)
geography, society, culture, and (your) feminism(s)
religion and (your) feminism(s)
take back the night and (your) feminism(s)
reproductive rights and (your) feminism(s)
the body and (your) feminism(s)
the "job" and (your) feminism(s)
the "career" and (your) feminism(s)
the family and (your) feminism(s)
dating and (your) feminism(s)
love/lovers and (your) feminism(s)
fat oppression and (your) feminism(s)
skinny oppression and (your) feminism(s)
beauty/style, its delights, horrors, joys, and oppressions and (your) feminism(s)
the word "feminist" and (your) feminism(s)
list-serves or discussion lists and (your) feminism(s)
zines and (your) feminism(s)
feminist, Womanist, Third Wave, New Mestiza, mujeres de color theories, and the practice of (your) feminism(s)
"this bridge called my back" and (your) feminism(s)
"to be real" and (your) feminism(s)
"bulletproof diva" and (your) feminism(s)
"making face, making soul: haciendo caras" and (your) feminism(s)
"sister outsider" and (your) feminism(s)
"compañeras: latina lesbians" and (your) feminism(s)
Alice Walker and (your) feminism(s)
bell hooks and (your) feminism(s)
Gloria Anzaldúa and (your) feminism(s)
Audre Lorde and (your) feminism(s)
Rebecca Walker and (your) feminism(s)
French feminisms and (your) feminism(s)
any author, poet, text, film, TV program, "star," performance artist, art, music/musician, social movement, cultural production/producer/icon/iconoclast. and (your) feminism(s) (For example, Louise Erdrich, Jamaica Kincaid, Carole Maso, Gayl Jones, Mitsuye Yamada, Adrienne Rich, Chrystos, Xena, Buffy, Tori Amos, Shabana Azmi, Fire, Girl, Interrupted, Run Lola Run, Dogma, etc.)
grrl movements and (your) feminism(s)
the notion of a "feminist space" and (your) feminism(s)
the First Wave and (your) feminism(s)
the Second Wave and (your) feminism(s)
Women Studies programs and (your) feminism(s)
in-betweeneity and (your) feminism(s)
the notion/circumstances/consequences of "I'm not a feminist, but..." and (your) feminism(s)
the notion/circumstances/consequences of "I'm a feminist, but I'm not a lesbian" and (your) feminism(s)
post-structuralism, post-modernism and (your) feminism(s)

Essays should not exceed 7,000 words and should follow MLA guidelines for citation and presentation. However, importance is placed on the contributors writing in their own style or in a style/manner that emphasizes the form/content of their submissions. Please include a short bio with submissions.

†