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Timeline: February 2003
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For Rent: I am Sam
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TIMELINE: FEBRUARY 2003

On the morning of February 1, “seven people plunged toward Earth in an aging spaceship. They were more than 200,000 feet above the surface, traveling 18 times the speed of sound. It was, everyone thought, a routine flight.” So wrote the Washington Post about the “humdrum” minutes before the Columbia disintegrated in the atmosphere, sending debris streaking like shooting stars through the sky. Now our spectacular sojourns into space will not soon be so taken for granted.

The shuttle was not the only terror that darkened our heavens in February.

The U.S. government’s Code Orange alert heightened national anxiety about a terrorist attack, and sent some Americans scrambling to stores to buy duct tape—even though, as one columnist pointed out, “Your risk of dying in a car accident while driving to buy duct tape likely exceeds your risk of dying because you lacked duct tape.” Around the same time, Osama bin Laden re-emerged with an audio message to his followers that expressed both solidarity with and disdain for Iraq. Colin Powell presented his evidence of Iraq’s defiance and deceit to the United Nations, though Hans Blix said he hadn’t found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and millions worldwide marched for peace. Meanwhile, soon after the satirical newspaper The Onion ran the headline, “North Korea wonders what it has to do to attract U.S. military attention,” North Korea fired a missile into the Sea of Japan to spoil inauguration day in South Korea, one week after it threatened to withdraw from the 50-year-old armistice that ended the Korean War.

None of these global menaces was enough for the European Union to get religion; officials in Brussels deleted any mention of God from a draft of the EU constitution. The Vatican was more interested in the will of the divine, and decided to give its approval of the Harry Potter series.

But for all of the threats to peace—and peace of mind—what intruded on American life the most in February was a record blizzard that buried the East Coast. One of the scariest airline incidents of the month turned out to be a misunderstanding; one passenger handed a flight attendant an eerie note that prompted the pilot to turn back to the gate in D.C.; the message turned out to be an ill-repeated Air Force slogan. And at least one tyrant was deterred from his bid to control international airspace, as Rupert Murdoch backed away from his bid to buy Direct TV.

Hans Blix may not have made any big discoveries last month, but scientists did. Astronomers at Harvard found the first asteroid inside the earth’s orbit, a chunk of rock a few kilometers wide that is expected to have company. NASA announced that Mars is wetter than previously thought, and astronomers worldwide celebrated the most convincing evidence yet of the Big Bang. On Earth, imagination and discovery were celebrated by the architect whose fluid design for the World Trade Center was approved by officials in New York City, by the photographer who spotted the first-ever endangered Siberian tiger in China, and by the fishers who found an Antarctic toothfish in Greenland. An earlier discovery met a less triumphant fate, as Dolly, the cloned sheep, was euthanized, but that didn’t deter India from announcing plans to clone an extinct cheetah, or Nancy Reagan from announcing her support for cloning research to help afflicted patients like her husband. Meanwhile, British scientists said the aggression of the Tyrannosaurus Rex has been overstated, and promoted a gentler version.

There was no such airbrushing the frightening image of Michael Jackson, who was examined endlessly in various documentary specials during February’s TV sweeps—so many, David Letterman said, that all that was missing was a Weather Channel special on “Michael Jackson’s favorite tropical storms.” The line between life and the art imitating it seemed ever fuzzier in a month where wrestler-politician Jesse Ventura signed on for a TV talk show, action hero Steven Seagal testified to being the victim of a real-life mob shakedown, and Bill Clinton opened for the Rolling Stones. The day before a Houston jury convicted a woman for running over her husband with her car after discovering him in the act of adultery, the movie musical “Chicago” received 13 Oscar nominations. In that movie, vengeful wronged women sing, “He had it coming, he only had himself to blame … it was a murder but not a crime.”

But as entertainment merged with reality, our sports heroes stretched it. One week before his 40th birthday, playing in his last NBA All-Star game, Michael Jordan hit a fadeaway shot that nearly won the game. Two months after his knee surgery, Tiger Woods returned to the PGA Tour with a commanding win. Annika Sorenstam agreed to be the first woman in 53 years to play a men’s PGA tournament, while Teresa Phillips became the first woman ever to coach a major men’s college basketball game.

Fred McFeely Rogers died of cancer in February at the age of 74; for decades his public television neighborhood was a gathering place for children. Joe Connelly created uplifting TV with Leave It to Beaver; he died at 85. Kemmons Wilson created hearth in hotels; the founder of Holiday Inn died at 90. John McMorran smoked, drank, and scarfed greasy food, but “was never sick;” at 113 years old, he was the oldest American man. At 104, George E. Freestone was the oldest Boy Scout. In its defining moments, Eleanor Daley was the matriarch of the Chicago Democratic machine. Richard Nelson was on board the Enola Gay en route to Hiroshima. Ron Ziegler, President Nixon’s press secretary, downplayed Watergate, while campaign manager Clark MacGregor avoided it. Johnny Paycheck became a working class hero with his song “Take This Job and Shove It.” Jessica Santillan, 17, immigrated to America seeking a life-saving heart transplant, but died when doctors mismatched her blood type.

If you thought President Bush’s threat that Saddam Hussein’s actions would lead to war was a self-fulfilling prophecy, or that the President was a good role model, or that his plan should go through a focus group, you were paying tribute to “Mr. Sociology,” Robert K. Merton, who coined the terms “self-fulfilling prophecy” and “role model,” and invented the focus group. He died in February at age 92.

FEBRUARY 2003 IN HISTORY
Saturday, February 1, 2003
Space shuttle Columbia disintegrates over Texas, killing seven astronauts

Tuesday, February 4, 2003
Yugoslavia changes name to Serbia and Montenegro

Sunday, February 16, 2003
Blizzard of 2003 buries Washington D.C. in worst storm in seven years

Monday, February 17, 2003
City of London starts charging downtown drivers during business hours

Friday, February 21, 2003
Dozens die in nightclub fire in Rhode Island, four days after similar stampede in Chicago

Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Fred Rogers, host of ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,’ dies of cancer at 74

• Previous Timeline: January 2003

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PLACES & CULTURE

From the Washington Post:

HOWEVER cold the war, however bleak and frumpy our images of Moscow and Siberia, Americans have always loved Russia. Which is to say, we have always cherished St. Petersburg, because it is the white city on the dark Neva that was home to the most romantic of Russian images: “The Nutcracker” and “Dr. Zhivago”; Faberge’s imperial eggs; the Winter Palace and the Hermitage; the Versailles-like Summer Palace at Peterhof. The writings of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky. The music of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Stravinsky. … This year marks the tricentennial of its founding by Peter the Great, and the arts communities of Baltimore (which recently arranged a “sister city” relationship with the Russian metropolis) and Washington are collaborating with the great institutions of Russia to offer an unprecedented tour through 300 years of St. Petersburg culture—visual and dramatic arts, fine crafts, design and music.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42088-2003Feb7.html

PORTLAND, Maine—A chef, 26, clean and sober for several months, fatally overdosed on heroin sold to her by a close friend here in January 2002. Then a financial adviser, 27, a heroin addict, was found dead from a methadone overdose. … Last year ended with Portland setting a record for itself, with 28 drug-related deaths, two-thirds of them involving known heroin users. Meanwhile, 80 miles away in the rural community of Farmington, the drug also had made its potent presence felt with three deaths last spring, including two men in their thirties who overdosed together one night. While not creating the number of addicts of larger metropolitan areas such as Boston and New York, heroin is especially devastating in a mostly rural and geographically isolated region. Communities in these small states lack extensive drug treatment centers, and drug-related deaths and crimes are straining the resources not only of police but also of medical examiners conducting more autopsies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42088-2003Feb7.html

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FOR RENT

Of I am Sam‘s many unusual successes, the most striking is Sean Penn‘s ability to suspend our disbelief as he becomes the mentally retarded Sam Dawson, in an unforgettable performance that earned Penn an Oscar nomination. Sam is the single parent of 7-year-old Lucy, played by the prodigious Dakota Fanning. Fanning has the poise and intelligence of an actor three times her age, and this may come to be known as the movie in which she was discovered. The photography is poignant, with its consistent use of vivid reds and blues and brilliant shots from Sam’s point of view, such as the dizzying scene in the grocery aisle. The movie’s use of two disabled actors from LA Goal is also thoughtful. And even if you saw I am Sam in the theaters, the DVD extras justify a rental, with charming outtakes and a documentary on the making of the movie.

The main problem with I am Sam is that it doesn’t create enough tension to justify its length (2 hours and 10 minutes—about 20 too many), and so it falls flat two thirds of the way through. The crux of the movie—Sam and Lucy love being a family together, but Lucy will be taken away by the courts if Sam is found unfit for her custody—is established in the first half hour and not substantially developed after that. The movie never really moves beyond sentimentalism to make the case that Sam could really handle all the responsibilities of raising a daughter. “Love is all you need,” says the movie’s tagline, quoting Sam’s beloved Beatles. But as you see Sam struggling to order at Big Boy and make coffee at Starbucks, you wonder: is that really true? The movie makes you feel guilty for asking (although the irony is appreciated that the courts doubt Sam’s ability to be a parent, when the rest of us, the “sane,” are so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget about the basics that Sam has mastered). Equally disturbing is the anti-feminist pulse beating through this film in Michelle Pfeiffer‘s harried attorney character, Rita Harrison. As with Sweet Home Alabama, the message here is: when smart, articulate women pursue their independence in a high-powered career, they shamefully neglect their homely functions—raising a child (Pfeiffer in Sam) or being a Southern Belle (Reese Witherspoon in Alabama). Men’s own all-consuming careers, and their neglect of home duties, are seldom so scolded (except for Nicolas Cage’s character in the well-made Family Man). It’s a subtext only Dan Quayle could love, and it takes too much energy away from Penn’s powerful portrayal of Sam.

DIGEST

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• Rosalind Franklin was shut out of scientific history because she didn’t have a Y chromosome. The woman whose genetic research led James Watson and Francis Crick to discover the double helix model of DNA was never given due credit. Amid the hoopla over the 50th anniversary of the discovery, Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune tells Franklin’s story and wonders if such sexism in scientific history could repeat itself.

Discrimination can be like the structure of an atom: Even if you can’t see it with the naked eye, you know it’s there. What Rosalind Franklin faced in her scientific career might not have been overt sexism—no one stood at the laboratory door, arms akimbo, and barred her entrance—but rather a subtle, insidious refusal to take her seriously. Yet without her efforts, the two men who mapped the structure of DNA could not have made their discovery 50 years ago [last] Friday. As the world prepares to mark that anniversary, some are pausing to remember as well the woman who did the spadework for understanding DNA, yet received none of the public credit—and to ask if such a miscarriage of justice could happen again.http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0302260068feb26,1,3717987.story*

The New York Times: Was it really sexism that shrouded Franklin?*

Special Times section: DNA at 50*

• In some ways, despair in Africa can be described as the remoteness of hope, but sometimes despair comes from the removal of hope. When a ferry called the Joola sank last fall, the tragedy for one Senegal town was compounded by the snuffed promise of the people on board, says the New York Times.

The ferry that set sail on that Thursday night was the last boat to Dakar before school and university classes got under way. On board that night were an estimated 400 students like Françoise: the brightest young minds of this town, piled virtually on top of each other with their school books, new shoes and dreams by the trunkload. They were the pride and joy of Ziguinchor and of strivers like Mrs. Tendang. When the Joola sank, so too did the future of this town. “It was like a brain drain,” is how Ibrahima Gassama, the head of a local radio station, put it. “A whole generation just disappeared. The cream, the best students.” http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/international/africa/20SENE.html*

• When you run a cover story on the state of African-Americans, as Newsweek did this week with a package on black women, you run the risk of overstating the case and smoothing over the poverty and injustice that still restrains black America. Nonetheless, it is important to note the head-turning rise of black women in society over the last three decades, and it isn’t too hokey to call it one of the finest validations of the American Dream.

Who could have dreamed the day would come when black women would lay claim to “white men’s” jobs … Today a black woman can be anything from an astronaut to a talk-show host, run anything from a corporation to an Ivy League university. Once consigned to mostly menial work, black women (24 percent of them, compared with 17 percent of black men) have ascended to the professional-managerial class. This is not to say that black women have climbed the storied crystal stair. They remain “in the proving stage,” observes Alabama Power executive Alice Gordon. Nearly 14 percent of working black women remain below the poverty level.http://www.msnbc.com/news/875614.asp

Related from theAtlantic:

Kate Boo: The story is less rosy about black men

• Feelings are getting more and more attention in academia, fusing head and heart, says the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Academics are throwing themselves into the study of emotion with the rapturous intensity of a love affair. In a sense, emotion has always been at the core of the humanities: Without the passions, there would not be much history, and even less literature. Indeed the very word “philosophy” begins with philos (love). But, however fraught with strong feelings the primary sources may be, only in recent years have scholars begun focusing, without embarrassment, on emotion itself, producing a body of work that regularly crosses the line between the humanities and the social sciences, with occasional forays into neurophysiology.http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i24/24a01401.htm

• The compulsive greed exposed by last year’s rash of corporate scandals has made fashionable a new buzzword that cynics might say is a contradiction in terms: business ethics. For a cover story called “Money, Family and Ethics” in last week’s USA Weekend,Sojourners executive editor David Bastone was quizzed on ethical dilemmas. See also Bastone’s Sojourners cover story, “Saving the Corporate Soul”:

IS IT REALLY meaningful then to talk of a corporate “soul”? After all, the corporation was created in part to protect individuals from being held personally responsible for the actions of a public entity. It also offers a more efficient structure for aggregating capital that yields the potential for higher profits. None of these objectives depends on promoting the dignity and worth of individuals or their communities. The corporation’s harshest critics depict it as a cold, calculating machine. But I believe that a corporation has the potential to act with soul when it puts its resources at the service of the people it employs and the public it serves.
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm …

• Would it be moral to go to war with Iraq? Would it be moral to continue to appease him?Time magazine features a point-counterpoint on the ethics of war between Catholic conservative Andrew Sullivan and Duke Divinity School professor Stanley Hauerwas. As someone who has plenty of doubts about how just this war would be—because of our lousy record on reconstruction, as I wrote in the Detroit Free Press, and because our sudden ambition to unseat Saddam seems more of a random reaction to September 11 than to anything he’s done since then (that he wasn’t already doing years before)—I was nonetheless much more impressed by Sullivan’s pro-war essay, which was substantively argued, focused, and sympathetic to peace protesters. Hauerwas’ anti-war essay, by comparison, seemed incoherent, slogan-heavy, and recklessly relativist. The result is a deeper sense of ambivalence than I’ve had since this debate started.

Sullivan: No sane person, after all, is opposed to peace as such. The question is, Peace at what risk? Peace on whose terms? Peace for how long? Looked at this way, war is not only sometimes a moral option—as theologians have long argued. Sometimes it’s the only moral option we have. In some ways, this war is a textbook example of that.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030303/esullivan.html

Hauerwas: I have no doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator. And I am well aware that he has failed to live up to the conditions of the 1991 truce. But I doubt that any of this makes him more “evil” than a number of other current officeholders around the world. Nor do I understand why President George W. Bush thinks it is the job of the U.S. to eliminate brutal dictators. America’s foreign policy has often supported these same brutal dictators—including Saddam—when they have been on “our side.”
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030303/esduke.html

Related:The Atlantic, Slate, and Time on postwar Iraq.

• Browsing:The New Republic on “The September 10 President,” the Economist on Jacques Chirac’s dilemma, the New Yorker on Kofi Annan, and more from Slate’s “In Other Magazines.”

http://slate.msn.com/id/2079080