A comic strip mocking President Bush has caught on with readers of the Times of India, the country’s leading English-language newspaper.
Never mind that many of them think the “dubya” reference comes from the Hindi word for “sinking,” or that they pronounce it “Doob-yaman.” The exploits of the caped, slightly befuddled, cartoon cowboy who hunts down terrorists also have provided a rare outlet for the writer, Jug Suraiya, to carefully take shots at India’s politics as well.
“Stop this U.S. bashing,” one offended reader wrote, but others have opined that the comic is taking on the wit and importance of “Doonesbury.”
And Suraiya and collaborator Neelabh Banerjee think that they have found the perfect foil.
“He’s a slightly flawed hero, in the sense that he’s not too bright,” Suraiya said.
No O: The Bush administration has postponed plans for a delegation that had hoped to tour Afghanistan’s schools while encouraging support for the education of young girls. Officials had hoped to showcase Bush adviser Karen Hughes and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, but the most important icon on their list declined to join the tour. Oprah Winfrey, a representative said, just didn’t have the time. “Given her responsibility to the show, she isn’t adding anything to her calendar,” the representative said. The Bush administration’s plan also had a domestic agenda: Concerned that key voting blocs are wearying of bloodshed, the president had hoped to show the humane effects of the war in Afghanistan.
Gruesome privilege: The families of those who died on United Airlines Flight 93 have won the right to hear the cockpit tape of the hijacked plane’s last moments, against the advice of the FBI and aviation consultants. The aircraft went down in a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11 after passengers aware of the World Trade Center attack tried to wrest control of the Boeing 757 from their hijackers. “There are sounds of a struggle. It’s fairly graphic,” warned one FBI official, and aviation consultant Peter Goelz said, “Anyone who has heard one of these tragic recordings doesn’t want to hear another one. They are unimaginably tragic.” Deena Burnett, whose husband Tom called her four times from the plane, is undeterred. “When we hung up from that last conversation,” she said, “I felt that Tom had complete confidence that he was capable of handling the situation and that I was going to see him later that day. I want to hear from the cockpit voice recorder what happened after he hung up the phone.” The private airing of the tape is tentatively scheduled for April 18.
Step away from the TV: The first long-term study tracking the correlation of televised violence and real-life aggression was published Thursday in the journal Science. “We found a very significant association between TV viewing at age 14 and subsequent serious acts of aggression . . . at age 22,” said Columbia University psychologist Jeffrey G. Johnson. An average hour of prime time depicts three to five violent acts, he said.
TAKE THREE
Fished out …
It’s a delicacy that finds itself in a delicate position. Like the swordfish in 2000, the savory but slow-growing Chilean sea bass is in danger of extinction, prompting a nationwide campaign to push the fish off restaurant menus. More than 50 Chicago-area chefs have complied, hoping the sea bass population stabilizes within five years. There wasn’t much demand for the fish before the 1990s, when marketers changed its name and suddenly the former Patagonia toothfish got hot. “The non-stop pace of illegal fishing virtually guarantees that the entire species will collapse in less than five years unless we take immediate action,” said Beth Clark, an Antarctic research scientist.
Washed out …
Nuestra America Charter School will close in June, sending 160 students, most of them Latinos, to other campuses. The school, which opened in 1997, is the second charter operation to fail since Chicago Public Schools embarked on the charter experiment. Charter schools are granted more leeway than other public schools enjoy, under the theory that one-size-doesn’t-fit-all when it comes to education.
Cashed out …
A Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed that former UAL Inc. CEO James Goodwin received $5.7 million last year to just go away for the next three years. That was on top of nearly $1.5 million in salary and bonus, $13,900 for financial advisory services, $14,280 for club memberships, and $22,199 for auto benefits he received in 2001. Frank Larkin, spokesman for the machinists union at UAL’s United Airlines, was disgusted by the news. “We have got thousands of people still out of work with their unemployment running out,” he said.
THE STAT
75
(How many cents drivers should expect to pay at Illinois tollbooths by summer. That’s nearly double the current toll of 40 cents.)
CROSSWINDS
‘He’s in a much better position to forgo his pay increase than someone who makes $25,000 a year and supports a family on one income.’ — Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, after Gov. George Ryan offered to give up his 3.8 percent pay raise if rank-and-file state workers would follow suit.
‘I do not understand why AFSCME refuses to negotiate on these reasonable alternatives to thousands of permanent layoffs. We could save jobs, and this process could be a lot less painful.’ — Gov. George Ryan
