Notebook: Nov. 4, 1996

WINNERS & LOSERS THE HOME STRETCH

[WINNERS] ROSS PEROT He can still sting! Dole conjures up the nearly forgotten Texan, only to be called weird

HARRY BROWNE Who he? Look at your ballots. The Libertarian is up against Bob, Bill and Ross in all 50 states

DEMOCRATS Toto, they may be back in Kansas–breaking the G.O.P. hold on its congressional delegation

[LOSERS]

BILL CLINTON Not the winner yet, but, uhm…excuse me, Mr. President, is that your hubris showing?

RALPH NADER His unassuming campaign isn’t even unsafe at any speed. It’s unnoticed with no speed at all

DEMOCRATS Can’t count on Arkansas. A seat they need to control the Senate may fall out of their grasp

THE TEN MOST POPULAR CARTOON CHARACTERS AMONG SIX-TO-11-YEAR-OLDS

Q-Score *

1 TIMON AND PUMBAA (from The Lion King) 66 2 RUGRATS 63 3 BUGS BUNNY 60 4 MICKEY MOUSE 59 5 (tied) MILO (from The Mask) 55 6 (tied) ROAD RUNNER 55 7 TASMANIAN DEVIL 54 8 (tied) CASPER 53 9 (tied) GARFIELD 53 10 (tied) SNOOPY 53

*The Q-score is calculated by dividing the number of kids who named the character as a favorite by the number who said they had any knowledge of the character.

Source: Marketing Evaluations/TVQ, Manhasset, New York; survey of 800 children nationwide

HEALTH REPORT

THE GOOD NEWS

–A hormone derived from the urine of pregnant women may lead to a promising new treatment for KAPOSI’S SARCOMA, a type of skin cancer that often strikes people with aids. In a small clinical trial, injections with the compound completely cleared the lesions in 10 of 12 patients.

–Surgery and drugs are equally effective in the immediate aftermath of a HEART ATTACK. Researchers compared an operation that mechanically opens clogged arteries with a medication that dissolves the clots that plug up those same arteries. For both procedures the death rate hovered around 5%.

–Parents who fear LYME DISEASE can rest easy. Treatment with antibiotics cures infected children within four weeks.

THE BAD NEWS

–Researchers reported the first direct link between MAD-COW DISEASE and a fatal brain ailment in people. Sick animals and human victims had the same biochemical patterns in their brains, further supporting the contention that eating tainted meat causes the human illness.

–AFRICAN AMERICANS who must suffer discrimination in silence have higher blood pressure than those who can afford to challenge racist treatment. The finding may explain why blacks as a group have such high rates of stroke, heart disease and kidney failure.

–Half of American women don’t realize how good Pap smears are at finding CERVICAL CANCER. In fact, 80% of women who die of the disease in the U.S. haven’t been tested in five years.

Sources–GOOD NEWS: New England Journal of Medicine (3) BAD NEWS: Nature, American Journal of Public Health, College of American Pathologists

LOVE RULES REDUX?

Authors Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider are the first to admit that their controversial best seller The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right, would seem “to send women back 25 years.” So we went back a bit farther. Using the list of sources below, guess the origins of the words of romantic wisdom that follow:

A. The Rules (1995) B. Amy Vanderbilt’s Everyday Etiquette (New Revised Edition, 1967) C. Emily Post’s Etiquette (revised by Elizabeth L. Post, 1965) D. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Book of Common Sense Etiquette (1962) E. The Girl That You Marry, by Dr. James H.S. Bossard and Dr. Eleanor Stoker Boll (1960)

1. “The male is supposed to be the overt pursuer. The ‘nice girl’ is supposed to find some way in which to make the boys want to pursue… “

2. “Men are different from women. Women who call men, ask them out,…or offer sex on the first date destroy male ambition and animal drive.”

3. “A woman would like to have at least four or five days ahead for an invitation to an informal evening on a weekend, two or three days ahead for a weekday date, and a week or two ahead for a formal dance or dinner or a house party.”

4. “Don’t accept a Saturday-night date after Wednesday.”

5. “If you don’t get jewelry or some other romantic gift on your birthday or other significant occasion, you might as well call it quits… “

6. “Convention decrees that he may give her flowers, books, knickknacks for her room, candy, and similar things, but not wearing apparel–especially not lingerie, stockings, or jewelry.”

7. “It is the man’s responsibility to plan and pay for everything they do that evening…”

8. “It’s just chivalrous…for men to pick up their dates and pick up the checks.”

9. “The girl [indicates when to leave]. She places her napkin unfolded at the left of her plate, looks questioningly at her escort, and then prepares to rise.”

10. “[Women should] always end the date first…A good way to end the date is to nonchalantly glance at your watch and say something like, ‘…I have such a busy day tomorrow.'”

ANSWERS: 1. E, 2. A, 3. C, 4. A, 5. A, 6. D, 7. C, 8. A, 9. B, 10. A

LOCAL HEROES

JIM KERN, 62; ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA.; real estate broker

An avid outdoorsman, Kern believes that the challenges of nature offer lessons that can be applied to everyday life. In 1990 the sometime wildlife photographer started Big City Mountaineers, a mentoring program that takes inner-city teenagers on high-adventure backpacking trips in the West. To date, 150 teens have gone on the excursions. “These kids come to us as followers,” says Kern. “When they leave us, they are achievers.”

MARY WATTS, 52; SACRAMENTO, CALIF.; soup-kitchen director

Watts co-founded the TLC (Tender Loving Care) Soup Kitchen five years ago after she saw a child eating out of a Dumpster. Today the group feeds more than 200 people each Friday. When harsh welfare rules are imposed in 1997, it plans to add Wednesday seatings. TLC also offers food “hand-ups” (not handouts)–groceries in exchange for community service. “It’s addictive helping others,” says Watts. “I get a high doing it.”

NINE YEARS AGO IN TIME

Black Monday

“Slowly at first, the anxiety began to take on a shape that could be sensed if not exactly foreseen. On all the world’s stock exchanges, prices had leaped up too far, too fast, to be sustained. The mood in the markets shifted from fantasy about instant wealth to nervousness about an inevitable ‘correction’ (a wonderful euphemism). By Monday morning the concern was no longer vague but had taken on physical form–piles of papers littering brokers’ desks, each representing a hastily scribbled order to sell stock; rows of numbers flashing on computer screens, bringing news of alarming price breaks in all the early-opening markets: Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Zurich…Then trading began in New York, and the unimaginable happened…” –Nov. 2, 1987