For some reason, people in 1994 seemed impatient with government. Four women living in a Hampton, Va., public housing project were threatened with eviction because they cleaned up a playground without asking the government’s permission. A California woman, unamused by the Fed’s administration of the Endangered Species Act, said, “The federal government owns 50 percent of the dirt in this state. My personal feeling is that if the critters can’t live on 50 percent of the land, then God is calling them home.”
Moffett, Okla., has a population of about 300 and an annual budget of less than $20,000, and not much of a crime problem, although two people were shot last year because (according to a person in the know) they were “trying to be overbearing.” Someone may have overreached a bit in asking for $106,000 as Moffett’s share of the crime bill pork. National politicians threw caution to the winds and endorsed “family values.” A New York Times headline announced:
GAY SPERM DONOR AWARDED
STANDING AS GIRL’S FATHER
ENABLED LESBIAN COUPLE TO HAVE THE CHILD. The Surgeon General said perhaps schools could teach masturbation. (America’s schools may have nothing more urgent to do, having taught everything else perfectly.)
A few hours after 100 pounds of undelivered mail was found burning under a Chicago viaduct, a quarter of a ton of mail, some of it nearly 20 years old, was found in a Chicago-area post office. Congress declined the Clinton’s invitation to turn delivery of health care over the government that delivers, sometimes, the mail. Regarding the most important act of the 103rd Congress, Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican and a recklessly honest man, mused, “People in my area called and said. ‘How can you support [GATT] when you haven’t read it? They assume I haven’t read it. They’re right, of course–but I resent a little that they assume I haven’t read it.”
Tonya Harding left the violent world of figures skating. Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted of “malicious wounding” in her dispute with the man who subsequently starred in the porno movie “John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut.” A judge warned Colorado prison officials to provide an inmate with a black robe, a gong and incense to avoid violating his rights as a Satanist. Rodney King received $3.8 million in his civil rights suit arising from his videotaped beating by Los Angeles police, and also received lawyer’s bills totaling $4.4 million.
A jury awarded $2.9 million to a woman who burned herself when, in a moving car, leaving a McDonald’s with a cup of coffee between her legs, she spilled it. She said the coffee was hot. In a New Haven theater a member of the audiences stormed onto the stage to demand that an actress extinguish her cigarette. An Indiana dancer, Cynthia Hess, a.k.a. Chesty Love, won a court’s approval to treat her surgically enhanced breasts as business assets that can be depreciated for tax purposes. Her fees for dancing expanded dramatically when her breasts did, but there was a downside: Because of her new imbalance, she slipped and feel on ice, rupturing one of her implants.
The United States, home of the Menendez brothers, lectured Singapore about the inadequacies of its justice system. Robert Sandifer, the 11-year-old Chicago gang member who allegedly murdered a 14-year-old girl and then was murdered by other gang members, was buried with his teddy bear. Citing violence, poverty and despair, President Clinton ordered an invasion of– no, not Chicago–Haiti. North Korea succumbed to Jimmy Carter’s charm, promising not to proceed with its nuclear weapons program until it is ready to do so. In Northern Ireland and South Africa old wounds began to heal. In Bosnia and Rwanda the century’s 10th decade was stained by genocide. Americans were mesmerized by two murders near O.J.’s house. Malaysia banned the movie “Schindler’s List” because it “asks sympathy for only one race.”
Britain’s Windsor’s pioneered a new category–tack royalty–and America’s president discussed his underwear on MTV. Paula Jone’s court documents discussed the presidential penis. Hillary Clinton, scourge of those who did well in the “decade of greed” because they did not “play by the rules,” turned out to have played by amazing rules, turning $1,000 into $100,000 in a one-shot fling with cattle futures. Richard Nixon’s funeral was hijacked by various politicians who extolled him as emblematic of America’s spirit. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, but that was ridiculous. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a reminder of vanished dignity, died.
So did baseball’s season. The owners were furious at the players because the players irresponsibly refused to stop taking the salaries the owners offered to them. To protest the player’s strike, WJMP radio in Akron played nothing but “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” 57161 times through 69 days. In his 78th year in professional baseball, Jimmie Reese, most recently with the California Angels, died at 92. Reese roomed briefly with Babe Ruth. Actually, he roomed with Ruth’s suitcase, the Bambino having been a late-night rambler while on the road. A casket company found a market niche: a deluxe model in the red and white colors of Indiana University, with the option of an embroidered basketball hoop.
The year ended with Washington reeling under the impact of radical questions, such as: What if there were no Energy Department? Why does the government run a railroad? Was there art in America before there was a National Endowment for the Arts (that is, before 1965)? The year ended with the rest of the country marveling that Washington thinks such questions are radical.
