Starting Time

Person of the Week
PEACE AT LAST? As the Palestinian death toll from 17 months of fighting exceeds 1,000, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah proposes a deal: Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal to pre-1967 borders. A desperate world applauds, but Israel is ambivalent and militants are unrepentant

Noted
“Trust and reputation can vanish overnight. A factory cannot.”
ALAN GREENSPAN,
chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, on how the collapse of Enron shows the fragility of companies lacking tangible assets

Prime Number
$7.7 billion is how much Americans carry around with them in loose change, according to the coin-cashing company Coinstar

Omen
According to a Gallup poll of six mostly Islamic countries, only 18% of Muslims believe that the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out by fellow Muslims

Winners
DR. “PATCH” ADAMS
Clown doctor administers the gift of laughter to hospitalized Afghan children. His favorite kind of audience: people strapped in beds
MOHAMMED ZAHIR SHAH
Exiled Afghan King confirms he’ll return to the country after 29 years. Turn right at Iran and look for a really big pile of bombed-out rubble
ELIZABETH DOLE
Robo-lady begins candidacy for Senate, gets fund raising help from Dubya. On their wedding day, she and Bob vowed to run for anything
Losers
JAY LENO
TV host in trouble after he cracks a joke about South Korean dog eating. Other dog-eating nations?we won’t name them?feel left out
TIGER WOODS
Golf pro owes $500,000 in Shenzen taxes, highest in the city?for two rounds of work. He might have to play a whole par 4 to pay that off
JIMMY CARTER
Ex-Prez loses out on Grammy for best spoken word album. Next move: auditioning for ‘N Sync. Teens will know him as “the old, gross one”

Milestones
By PENNY CAMPBELL

DIED. LAWRENCE TIERNEY, 82, veteran American actor who excelled at tough-guy roles in 1940s and ’50s films noirs; in Los Angeles. Over an 80-movie career, Tierney was best known for playing the title role in the 1945 gangster classic Dillinger, and enjoyed a resurgence of fame at age 73 playing the sinister leader of a criminal gang in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 cult film Reservoir Dogs.
DIED. SPIKE MILLIGAN, 83, irreverent comedian and founding member of The Goon Show, the anarchic 1950s radio series co-starring Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Peter Sellers that redefined modern British humor; in Rye, England. Milligan started his career at the age of 15 singing in music halls. Injured as a soldier during WW II, he first experienced the mental illness that was to haunt him for the rest of his life. When the The Goon Show ended in 1960, Milligan became a comedy-show host, and appeared in a number of films, including Monty Python’s Life of Brian. A prolific author, he wrote more than 50 books. See Eulogy.
RETIRED. ALLAN DONALD, RETIRED. ALLAN DONALD, 35, South Africa’s all-time leading bowler, from Test cricket; in Johannesburg. Donald, who had taken 330 wickets in 70 Tests, quit after mounting injuries.
VISAS REVOKED. Of SHAWN CRISPIN, 33, and RODNEY TASKER, 56, Far Eastern Economic Review reporters, by Thai police; in Bangkok. The pair face expulsion from the country and possible criminal charges primarily because of an article alleging tensions between Thailand’s King and Prime Minister.
CONVICTED. FRANCOISE SAGAN, 66, French author whose debut novel Bonjour Tristesse, written at the age of 19, became an international best-seller, of tax fraud; in Paris. Sagan was given a one-year suspended jail sentence for failing to declare $726,000.

Eulogy
By GEORGE MELLY

To die at 83 seems reasonable, only of course SPIKE MILLIGAN was the enemy of reason. As a result our genuine sadness is underpinned by a totally illogical resentment.

Most great comics are to some extent manic-depressive, but Spike was an extreme case, swinging between certifiable despair and a spate of creativity that threatened to sweep him away. He once said he would sacrifice everything for mental peace. Had he done so we would have been the poorer.

A friendship with Spike was to walk on eggshells. He once sent me a furious letter because I had called him a genius. Van Gogh, he maintained, was a genius. He, Spike, was not! He was wrong. The best definition of genius was given me by a philosopher: “A genius is one who, however slightly, alters our perception of reality.” The father of the Goons fits that bill alright. Modern comedy owes an enormous debt to that fierce, inventive mania.