In TIME This Week:
A New Man In Donorgate?
Chasing Good Time Charlie
Losing The Stomach For Politics
The Notebook

Back In TIME:
On the Intellectual Ramparts (9/1/86)

Archives
More political coverage from TIME magazine.

Back In TIME
Tap into AllPolitics' archive of TIME articles from the days before the internet.

Navigation


The Notebook

cover

By Kathleen Adams, Janice M. Horowitz, Aisha Labi, Nadya Labi, Lina Lofaro, Alain L. Sanders, Gabriel Snyder, Joel Stein

A Senate for A Video Age

(TIME, September 8) -- A bipartisan working group in the Senate, led by majority leader Trent Lott, has spent the past few weeks thinking of ways to redesign the Senate Chamber. The group wants something tasteful, historically appropriate and, unsurprisingly, TV friendly. It's an intriguing problem: What should a Senate for the 21st century look like? We posed the question to four talented designers and architects.

Adam D. Tihany, designer: Le Cirque 2000 and various Spago restaurants.
Screens in the front of the chamber allow Senators to see their constituents and remind the lawmakers that the people are watching. The large clock helps discourage long-windedness.

Roy Christopher, TV designer; Emmy winner for The Academy Awards.
Each state contributes one sculpted tree to surround the chamber. The eagle with shield is a giant, 24-ft. replica of the one that overlooked the original Senate.

Sheila Kennedy, Kennedy & Violich; professor, Harvard School of Design.
Minicameras are fixed to each desk, which have wheels to simplify "crossing the aisle." Skylights are replaced with a translucent screen showing the caucuses in the hallways outside. World events are projected onto scrims in the gallery.

Gary Panter, designer: Pee Wee's Playhouse.
The chamber is a concrete island floating in a burning sea of oil. Speakers are lowered onto the floor by their ankles through a skylight. Seating is quite diverse.

Verbatim

"Almost everything I do in my private personal life has been a part of the public record since I was a little boy. People have dark secrets in their closets. I don't think I have a secret left."
--JOSEPH KENNEDY II, as the Congressman from Massachusetts announced he was giving up his run for Governor, citing recent scandals involving his marriages and his brother and campaign manager Michael

The Scoop:

Terrorism: America is target rich, a presidential panel finds

(TIME, September 8) -- Terrorists wreaked havoc on the World Trade Center in 1993. Could larger targets--the Wall Street financial network, Midwestern water supplies, California power grids--prove as susceptible? For almost a year, a presidential COMMISSION ON CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION has been quietly collecting intelligence reports and interviewing business executives and local officials to determine how vulnerable banks, telecommunications systems, utilities and transportation networks are to attacks from terrorists or cyberbandits.

The preliminary assessment: very vulnerable. "The only question is when," says Arizona Republican SENATOR JON KYL, who pushed for the formation of the commission, which will deliver a secret report to the President in October. The panel's chairman, Robert Marsh, says radical groups like the Irish Republican Army are looking at ways to wage "economic terrorism," and computer assaults are already rampant. A hacker shut down computers at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia last winter by sending in 30,000 E-mail messages. The Langley machines were paralyzed for six hours.

--By Douglas Waller

The Early Line

Senate hearings on campaign financing are back. Watch for these potential highlights:

What Could HappenHow It Could Play
Buddhist nuns could cop to laundering money for a Vice President Al Gore event Saffron robes make good TV, catch the public's eye
Former presidential aide Harold Ickes may explain donor sleepovers in Lincoln bedroom Celebrity names boost the ratings, feed Leno jokes
Johnny Chung could explain why he gave $366,000 to get White House entry for Chinese business associates First admission by a donor might persuade other witnesses to open up
Dem Party chief Don Fowler may face data showing that contrary to his denial, the CIA was called to open White House doors for a shadowy big donor A cloak-and-dagger element always plays well on talk radio

--By Michael Weisskopf

It's Indiana Newt!

There are people who think some of Newt Gingrich's policies are straight out of the Paleolithic era. The Speaker may not necessarily be offended by that, given his fondness for fossils. Gingrich was able to indulge his fondness last week, first taking part in a debate on how predatory Tyrannosaurus rex really was (Gingrich's view: very) and then participating in a dig in Paradise Valley, Mont., where, under the eye of local celebrity Peter Fonda, he actually found a dinosaur bone. And no, his aides didn't bury it there for him to find. It took several discouraging hours of picking at rocks and soil under the hot sun. But the Speaker was exuberant. "This," he told the assembled reporters, "is sheer pleasure."

--By Belinda Luscombe





home | news | in-depth | analysis | what's new | community | contents | search

Click here for technical help or to send us feedback.

Copyright © 1997 AllPolitics All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this information is provided to you.