Chapter 77: January 1998 – December 1998
“Conviction creates indomitable efforts. This is the key to (true) miracles…Man’s potential is limitless.”
– Chung Ju-yung (OTL)
…After discussing South American conditions with several US Ambassadors, US State Secretary Susan Livingstone today issued a new set of travel guidelines for Americans visiting the Latin American countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, and Colombia. Forming a connection chain of nations across the map as you can see on this graphs, these countries are seeing a rise in the cultivation and/or trafficking of recreadrugs illegal in the United States. Recreadrug cartels are becoming especially active on opposite ends of the chain. In Colombia, manufacturers of illicit narcotics are fighting off the local government and US-led peacekeeping forces, while Mexico’s economic downturn has emboldened narcotics pushers. As a result, cartel-related hostilities and acts of violence are on the rise in Mexico and along the US-Mexican border…
– CBS News, 1/2/1999
There was reason to suspect that she would “sell” her country to the US. Janet Jagan (20 October 1920 – 28 March 2009) and, to a greater extent, her son Cheddi “Joey” Jagan Jr., were at least open to the idea. Contrary to foreign fears, Cheddi Jagan Sr. had ruled as a dictatorial democratic socialist; nevertheless, Guyana’s economy remained sluggish, and with each passing year, more people who could move to the US were doing so. To counter these trends, both Jagan Presidents encouraged US investment, and that seemed to include NASA. Whether via a base, a basic station, a vast launching center, or even more, the Dinger administration was listening to calls from NASA to take advantage of the nation’s close proximity to the equator. Dinger also considered taking advantage of Guyana’s close proximity to Colombia, as well. To the rumblings of strengthened ties, the European Space Agency (or ESA) hoped that Janet Jagan would be strongly opposed to allowing NASA to expand into Guyana over concerns of NASA not sharing data and advancements with the international community…
– Uzo Marvin’s The History of Guyana, Independent Platforms Publishing, 2018
SHOULD GUYANA BECOME A PART OF THE U.S.? MAYBE!
[1]
…The nation holds strategic value for current and any future wars in central and South America. It lies on the equator, which is beneficial for anyone attempting to fly anything into outer space, as the Earth rotates faster the closer you get to the equator. 99% of its population speaks English because it is a former British colony, and the natives are already heavily supportive of the US. In fact, their President, Janet Jagan born in Chicago to Jewish-American parents! The alleged possibility of there being vast amounts of crude oil off the nation’s coastline, according to recent surveys conducted by various American oil companies such as Chevron, is also a plus…
– Former US Congressman-turned-D.C. corporate lobbyist Richard Bruce Cheney, The Washington Post, 1/15/1998 op-ed
…By 1998, the cost of reuniting and covering damages still remained overwhelming for the United Korean government; food aid and humanitarianism had helped significantly, but Korea’s government was still facing high unemployment. …At the beginning of reunification, in 1996, many former Northerners, demoralized and defeated, had opted to kill themselves rather than accept food from “the enemy.” Children, and people disillusioned by the Kim regime, however, gladly accepted the food. …On top of providing adequate housing and employment for the 20 million new citizens, the Korean government also focused on trying to convince citizens of the south that northerner radicals were not representative of all northerners...
– Choe Yong-ho’s Bittersweet: Korea After Reunification, Columbia University Press, 2010
“It’s a beautiful tower, isn’t it?” Donald’s “Trump Sunrise Tower” featured large balconies on the east and west sides of all 76 stories, with penthouse apartments having gorgeous views of the sun rising above the Hollywood Hills on one side and of the sun setting on the horizon of the Pacific on the other side. …The tower’s two street-level floors hosted high-quality restaurants, but also featured a “pedestrian” food hall due to Donald’s predilection for fast-food leading to him wanting to have them right in the building for his convenience.
At 7:44 AM on January 29, 1998, an assistant D.A. for California’s Attorney General, assigned to overseeing the crackdowns on the crack cocaine seeping into California from their Mexico border, checked into the hotel to meet up with an alleged informant for the Tijuana Cartel, the meeting place being the pedestrian food court. At 8:15 AM, the alleged informant, an elderly man suffering from terminal cancer, approached the informant. He sat down, and simply opened up his suitcase, detonating the bomb within.
Above: the food hall after being cleared of people; the Chick-fil-A (center), which was planned to fully open in two months, was damaged by the explosion.
Six people were killed and another 29 were injured in what was initially reported to be an attack on the Trump Sunrise Tower itself, with local news reporting unconfirmed allegations of former North Korean agents setting off a poisonous gas bomb. Panic slowly subsided, though, as the hours wore on the clear picture appeared. Trump responded to the attack – orchestrated by the Tijuana Cartel to take out a key member of the state AG department’s legal team – by increasing security measures. Privately, he began to travel with more security guards in case of emergency. This bombing, coupled with him being present when President Iacocca was assassinated, made Donald a greater fan of New York City, calling it “a much safer place than Hollyweirdland” and a fierce supporter of anti-gun and anti-bomb security measures. …In 2017, Donald once ranted to Larry King: “they got those guns that are very long so the bullet comes out faster, and they make it so you have to go through all these legal hurdles to get them, right? That’s good, except hunting rifles are still allowed. What the hell are we doing? Lee Iacocca was a very, very, very good friend of mine, and he died because of a loony with a sniper rifle! Why do we let people have rifles when you can just shoot Bambi with a bow and arrow? Or better yet, we have farms, the kind of farms where the beef and the deer and the pork all are prepped for butcher time. You-we don’t need to hunt now that we’ve got those places prepping the meat for us, so what are we doing?”
– Kate Bohner’s The Art of The Don: The Unofficial Biography of Donald Trump, Times Books, 2017 edition
…The violent and brutal murder of an assistant District Attorney in Los Angeles had ramifications across the US. The state governments of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas increased focus on the border, while President Dinger greenlit several CIA operations to “nip [recreadrug production] in the bud” in Colombia. Dinger also strengthened US relations with Afghanistan even farther in order to better monitor possible drug cartel members purchasing poppy plants for narcotic production. On the domestic level, fears of drug lords seemingly running rampant in Mexico lowered American tourism south of the border, worsening Mexico’s financial situation. Mexican families grew more worried about their own safety, and may have contributed to the 1998-2000 spike in Mexican citizens applying for US citizenship. Mexican-American communities, meanwhile, sought to stand firm and united against a rise in racism against them…
– Roberto Roybal’s South of the Border: US-Mexico Relations During The 1990s, University of Oklahoma Press, 2015
SWEDISH PEOPLE’S CANDIDATE RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT OF FINLAND
…In tonight’s runoff election, the top two winners of the country’s 16 January first round of voting faced off against one another. Incumbent Elisabeth Rehn of the Centrist Party/Swedish People’s Party Alliance ultimately won re-election over Tarja Halonen of the Social Democratic Party. The confirmation of the results concluded the first Finnish Presidential election in which both second-round finishers were women...
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 6/2/1998
“For example, there was this militant compound in the mountains north of Kimch’aek. And we kept getting reports of gunfire going off up there. We thought it was just idiot university students who’d gotten their hands on some old abandoned Northerner weaponry. We went up there thinking we’d just scare them into handing in the arms like they were supposed to. Instead, deep in the underbrush, we found this pocket of diehard Kim supporters. They were testing their ammo, and were holed up in a little den of a bomb shelter sticking out of the side of this foothill. When we first came upon them, they immediately fired on us. Then we tried to sneak around them and they fired on us from there. They shot at anyone who approached, as it turned out. When we found out who they were, one of them had an ex-wife, who tried to talk to them. They just shot at her!
See, other fundamentalist groups and radical clans that had tried to stay holed up in less secure locations had already been captured. But the Kimch’aek Gang were different. They were the last of the nut-jobs. We informed them of the amnesty, and they refused. We tried to get anyone connected to them to try and convince them to give up, and they refused. They even refuse to recognize Kim Jung-nam when we flew him in from his Tokyo penthouse – the one near Tokyo Disneyland – to, uh, to try and talk some sense into them. It was no use.
So, we did what we had to do. We had the whole area cordoned off, and we bombed the crap out of their hideaway. By the time the fires died and the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of them at all.”
– Park Jae-beom, retired Korean police officer and KW2 veteran, 2019 interview
The Congressman was known for having a close family, attending Roman Catholic mass every Sunday with his wife Bernadette and their four children, and for his former work as a member of the FBI. Only those close to him knew of his tendency to visit strip clubs often, and only a select few were privy to him allowing certain friends of his to watch him make love to his wife via a video camera hidden in his master bedroom. Those indecent acts, however, paled in comparison to what ultimately booted him out of public office.
On February 12, freshman Congressman Bob Hanssen (R-Virginia), was giving speech at a private luncheon/fundraiser, condemning “the godlessness” of the Chinese government, when FBI agents entered the room. Hanssen initially welcomed the agents over, recognizing some of them from his time at the bureau, and believing they had arrived to congratulate him on what would surely be an easy bid for a second term.
His invited smile quickly faded away into a frown of disbelief as the agents he knew coldly arrested him for treason.
– Lawrence Schiller’s Into The Mirror: The Life of Master Spy Robert P. Hanssen, Diane Publishing Co., 2004
Robert Philip Hanssen, (b. April 18, 1944), codenames/aliases
Ramon Garcia,
Jim Baker, and
Mr. Graysuit, is a former US Congressman and FBI agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 1985 and again from 1995 to 1998, even after being elected to the US House of Representatives, as a Republican from Virginia, in a 1997 special election. The Department of Justice calls his espionage as “most likely the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history.” He is currently serving 14 consecutive life sentences (pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty) at a federal “supermax” prison in Colorado, US.
In 1979, three years after joining the FBI, Hanssen approached the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) to offer his services, launching his first espionage cycle, which lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1985, at which point he broke off all communications out of fear of being exposed. However, ten years later, shortly after Viktor Chernomyrdin became President of Russia, Hanssen resumed spying for Russia, until his 1998 arrest.
In 1997, Hanssen, who reported to Russia anonymously for large sums of “financial compensation,” was inspired by the Second Korean War to run for a special election. Hanssen believed he would better serve “his associates” from a foreign affairs-related House Committee…
[snip]
…For older Americans, and for people in the UK, Hanssen’s arrest brought back memories of Prime Minister John Stonehouse... [snip] Hanssen’s wife, Bernadette Wauck, divorced her husband during the trials and was ultimately granted full custody of the couple’s four children...
– clickopedia.co.usa [2]
WINTER OLYMPICS CONCLUDE IN BAVARIA; US, Norway Celebrate Record Victories
– The Los Angeles Times, 2/22/1998
“REPEAL THE B.B.A.” MOVEMENT GAINS SUPPORT FROM SOME D.C. LAWYERS
…Two U.S. Congressmen from California today joined the ranks of several prominent Democrats promoting the rising movement to repeal the Balanced Budget Amendment. “The Amendment prevents the government from making necessary investments in social programs… The government has increased its reliance on foreign imports to balance the budget, much to the detriment of American workers,” says U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Today’s representatives have called for amending the BBA with a “Budget Reconciliation Process,” which they say would allow Congress to extend the BBA’s annual deadline for when the feds have to “return from the red.” Congress would need to vote on a yearly extension each year under such a revision. The idea the BRP is that, with it, the government can invest in programs that may not see money back within a year. “The BBA in its current form has created an unrealistic confinement for the federal government,” says Brown. “When President Colonel Sanders balanced the budget, he did so without this amendment. We need to correct the BBA before more social programs are cut to make way for it and its supporters’ ‘no-risk, no reward’ way of managing things.”
– The Washington Post, 2/27/1998
Host KEN HAMBLIN: Governor, you signing off on this marijuana legalization bill makes Colorado only the third state to pass such a law, the first two being California and Massachusetts. Now those two I can understand because they lean to the left on most things, but Colorado’s a lot more conservative, so do you think all Coloradans will be able to get behind this sort of thing?
Governor WELLINGTON WEBB: They will when they see the revenue we’ll bring in by regulating the stuff. The Bay State and the Golden State are already starting to see profits from legalizing recreational marijuana, and the money from this will go to paying for social programs such as educational after-school programs, urban renewal, and –
HAMBLIN: But, see, I think a lot of conservatives like me will not like the idea that these good things, these good programs, are being funded by this gateway drug, like you’re saying ‘Make yourself an addict so my kid’s school can have more chalk.’
WEBB: It is not a gateway drug, and if anyone becomes addicted, and most Mary Jane users do not become addicted to it, we are opening up rehab and treatment centers for them. This is not a sinful thing, this not an immoral thing, because like it or not, people do like marijuana, and if we keep it illegal, we’ll see more criminal activity linked to it, and more people improperly using it. Legal, people can learn about it and its benefits and positive attributes. Illegal, and it’s just a waste of something that can be taxed and monitored properly, just like alcohol and cigarettes.
– KXKL Radio Denver’s The Ken Hamblin Show, local talk/news program, 3/1/1998 broadcast
DEMOCRATS DECRY BORDER REFORM EFFORTS AS “TOO FAR”
…President Dinger’s recent executive orders extending the rights of customs agents and border patrol personnel in order to better combat “the recreadrug epidemic plaguing” the US have received condemnation from several Democratic Congressmen. “I agree with the President when he states that this is a new kind of war,” says US Rep. Al Bustamante (D-TX), “That the enemy is not a nation’s military but an organization permeating several nations like how a parasite can invade several organs. But the President is overstepping boundaries by essentially giving border agents the ability to step on civil liberties. This will not go well.”
– The New York Times, 3/2/1998
THE “UNLUCKY AT 33” CLUB: Celebrities Who Died At The Age of 33
[snip]
Nicole DeHuff (actress)
[snip]
Robert Downey Jr. (actor)
An infamous drug user, Downey began abusing marijuana at the age of six, as he and his father, filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., also drug addict, bonded over the recreadrug. Downey Jr. won accolades for his acting in films like Chaplin (1992), for which he won an Academy Award, but starting in 1994, the rising star’s career hit trouble when he was arrested for possession of heroin and cocaine. In 1997, he was arrested again for committing a public disturbance while under the influence of an undisclosed substance. By the end of his life, Downey was failing to find work, but was willing to perform his own stunts in dangerous scenes that put stress on his body. On March 4, 1998, while attempting to jump down from a moving car for a minor role in “Jaws 6: Hellbeast of the Sea,” Downey suffered a seizure, and died on route to the hospital. According to the official report, he had high levels of valium and cocaine in his system, both of which were listed as contributing factor to his hematoma-related attack, along with aggravation to his body from performing a physically stressful stunt. In was just under a month shy of turning 34. In the aftermath of his demise, conservative pundits in the US used his death as an example of the need for anti-recreadrug laws, similar to what was done with Elton John's demise in the 1980s. Downey Sr. still deeply regrets introducing his son to drugs, and has since established three drug rehab charity organizations.
[snip]
Eazy-E (rapper)
[snip]
Elton John (singer)
[snip]
Elizabeth Taylor (actress)
[snip]
Jim Morrison (singer)
[snip]
– thehollywoodreporter.com
KOREAN MARKET STILL UNDERPERFORMING: Downturns Heighten Stability Concerns
– The Wall Street Journal, 3/5/1998
…Even at the age of 82, businessman and billionaire philanthropist Chung Ju-yung worked diligently to normalize relations between “the two halves of one Korea.” In 1998, he sought to provide even further economic assistance to Korea by providing a $100million donation to the nation Treasury, per request from President Kim Dae-jung. Chung also sent well over 1,000 “unification cows” to the north; bovines he’d purchased from other countries as a gift, and to promote ongoing efforts to terraform the north into a more arable and economically sustainable place for all Koreans to live and work… Meanwhile, American Rev. Jerry Brown began contacting multiple talent agents of a proposal for “an international version of Farm Aid”…
– Choe Yong-ho’s Bittersweet: Korea After Reunification, Columbia University Press, 2010
…In order to demonstrate how wealthy their nation would be if their narcotics industry was controlled and regulated, the Colombian government today announced that it will include the estimated value of Colombia’s illegal drug crops, which may amount up to nearly US$1billion, in its official Gross National Product amount for its 1997 fiscal year report...
– ABC Morning News, 3/21/1998 broadcast
KING OF THE STAGE: Titanic Wins Six Oscars Out of Ten Nominations
…at the 70th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Brandon Lee and held at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A., James Cameron’s epic “Titanic” swept six categories, including Best Picture, Best Leading Actor, Best Leading Actress and Best Director...
– The Los Angeles Times, 3/23/1998
…As the Governor of Tokyo Prefecture, Yukio Aoshima knew it was impossible to fully exterminate the yakuza from Japan, at least not in his lifetime. Nevertheless, he was determined to snuff out as much of their influence as possible. “They were not underground like America’s mafias, but out in the open. We knew their operations, knew their locations, their hideaways and routes, and we knew all of their dirty habits, tricks and trades,” he once said in a 2001 interview. “In early 1998, the police chief of Minato City decided to use all that for our advantage. His plan went into motion on 25 March. He had my backing because the plan looked like it would work. After all, lift a rock and roaches will scatter.”
However, 25 March would turn out to be a bad day for the Minato Police. A plan to ambush and apprehend Kakuji Inagawa, the founder of the Yakuza syndicate Inagawa-kai, failed on this day, when city police were met with Uzi fire from Inagawa’s bodyguards. Inagawa’s vehicle, a customer stretched white limo, sped onto the nearby city motorway, the busy National Route 1. In hot pursuit, the city police took off after them in five police cars, on of which contained an RPG (a rocket-propelled grenade) from a recent SAT exercise. One policeman thought it was a smart idea to try and take out the limo’s tires with it. Unfortunately, the officer was unfamiliar with the launcher, and when firing hit, hit the side of the limo. The blast knocked the limo’s driver unconscious, causing the vehicle to bang into three civilian cars as it swerved across the highway. After this chaotic moment, the limo stabilized, likely as the bodyguard in the passenger seat took over driving. At the next exit, the limo gained distance from the police and, ultimately, the police lost track of the vehicle. It most likely snuck into a nearby location run by a syndicate.
The most damaging action of the day – the foolish rookie’s use of an RPG – led to the Minato PD being accused of incompetence by local news, while the drivers of the three cars damaged in the police chase sued the department for reckless endangerment. Among the rest of the people, though, the embarrassing fiasco only raised support for Yakuza syndicates even further. In turn, this rise in popularity emboldened more yakuza clans to resume more of their practices, as the tide of public opinion turned back to their favor once more.
Meanwhile, other yakuza clans allied with Kakuji Inagawa went after police with a vengeance. Cornering police officers in alleys and attacking them with baseball bats (mean-spiritedly dubbed “The Iacocca Special”), and knifing them in crowded marketplaces became more common. That summer, the number of incidents in which yakuza members shot up a police “Koban” (a very miniature office building, typically for bike patrol officers, often found near street corners) with AK-47s reached an all-time high.
Governor Aoshima was nonetheless steadfast in his determination to cut down the influence of the Yakuza…
– Alec Dubro and David E. Kaplan’s Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld, University of California Press, 2003 [3]
MASSIVE BRIBE TO STOP POLICE PROBE OF CARTEL WAREHOUSE INTERCEPTED
El Paso, TX – Federal officials on Thursday announced that the US Border Patrol had intercepted a $5million bribe attempt to stop a criminal investigation into the owner of a warehouse on the southern edge of the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez. The warehouse was allegedly used to store various items for local cartels. At a news conference, the officials displayed large bags of seized US and Mexican currency in a major blow for local recredrug pushers...
– The Los Angeles Times, 4/5/1998
KOREA OFFICIALLY ENTERS RECESSION!
– The New York Times, 4/7/1998
…As it turned out, the US’s handling of post-war Korea’s security was better than its handling of Korea’s economy. The official declaration of a recession raised the number of Americans worried that the US's economy was the next to fall. Dinger responded to the sudden drop in consumer confidence by cutting federal spending yet again...
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
LINDA MCCARTNEY, PHOTOGRAPHER OF ROCK STARS, DIES AT 56
...the wife of musician Paul McCartney passed away after her breast cancer spread to her liver, a family spokesman says. An ardent supporter of animal rights and vegetarianism, her activism led to her working with Prime Minister John Lennon on several nature preservation efforts…
– The Daily Telegraph, UK newspaper, 17/4/1998
GREENS WIN AUSTRIAN PRESIDENCY
…Freda Meissner-Blau, 71, a leading member of the Austrian Green Party in her nation’s parliament, a former party spokesperson, and a candidate for President in 1986, successfully challenged incumbent President Thomas Klestil, an Independent, in Austria’s presidential election held tonight. Klestil failed to win over the support of the Austrian People’s Party, while Meissner-Blau won the crucial endorsement of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, while the Austrian Freedom Party supported neither candidate…
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 19/4/1998
…The civil conflict in Syria intensified as war progressed, but President Abdul Halim Khaddam remained steadfast. On April 21, he reiterated that he would not leave Damascus, and retained that promise even when Bassel-backing militias came close enough to the Presidential Palace to be able to hit its outer walls with mortar blasts and machine guns smuggled over from the land formerly known as North Korea. Syrian military loyalists repelled these anti-government forces in the Labour Day Battle of May 1-16, 1998.
Shortly afterward, a new variable entered the conflict in the form of Jamil al-Assad, the younger brother of Hafez. More popular than their brother Rifaat, Jamil began promoting himself as a “compromise leader” to both sides of the war; however, Jamil was a deeply religious practitioner of Shiism while Hafez had spent literally decades enforcing secularism onto the Syrian people. As a result, instead of appealing to both sides, Jamil peeled off strips of religiously fundamentalists from the religious-and-pro-Israel Khaddam government and the secular-and-anti-Israel Assad militias. By the summer of 1998, Assad’s son Mundhir had begun trafficking arms into Syria to back the Jamil supporters…
– David Tal’s US Strategic Arms Policy After the Cold War: Globalization & Technological Modernization, Routledge, 2020
“Now, I’d like to say something about all the baseless claims I’ve been hearing lately, claiming that the atrocious conditions of the North Korean Kim regime were exaggerated. Especially because a lot of these claims are coming from people who are, like me, are supportive of democratic socialist policies that go even farther than the policies of Mike Gravel and Carol Bellamy. I want to set the record straight and clarify that North Korea was a totalitarian dictatorship, not a working, functioning, democratic socialist state, and anyone sympathetic to the former dictatorship needs to study it better. Take a better look at the real facts of what went on over there, because reports of atrocities, laid out for the world to see during last year’s trials of the NPDK’s war criminals, were not exaggerated. The evidence of poverty, of people tortured and deformed by malnutrition, were everywhere and were obvious. To hide it or exaggerate it would be the greatest parlor trick in the history of trickery. Not to compare one atrocity to another, but to say that the anguish of the northern Korean people may not have happened the way it happened is like saying the atrocities of Holocaust was exaggerated.”
– Bern Sanders, NYC radio discussion, 4/22/1998
…In 1998, two state courts – one in January, and the next in April – ruled that discharging homosexual individuals from the military solely due to their sexual preference(s) was unconstitutional, leading to the US military finally allowing open BLUTAGO-Americans to serve in the armed forces, starting in January 1999. The declaration fueled conservative rhetoric about preserving traditional values among conservative radio programs and made many Republicans confident that the GOP would retain both chambers of congress come November. Meanwhile, with the other state courts still debating the merits of similar same-sex legalization processes unfolding in three other states, the US Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Frank Minis Johnson declined to hear an appeal until the start of the next year…
– Brandon Teena’s The Rise of BLUTAG Rights: The Story of the Bi-Lesbian-Undefined-Trans-Asexual-Gay Movement, Scholastic, 2019
…With the rise of same-sex marriage in the news came a rise in more prominent focus on trans rights, and an early news story in the US concerning that group focused on Kristin Beck. Born in 1966 and given the name Christopher, Beck graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1987 and began serving in the Navy SEALs in 1991, becoming a part of SEAL Team Six and being in counter-terrorist and active combat missions during the Second Korean War; Beck was awarded a Purple Heart in 1996. Two years later, Beck was encouraged by close friends to “unmask herself,” identifying herself “Kristin” and wearing feminine clothing by 1998. …In May 1998, Marine Commander Harley Brown, as well as several of Beck’s fellow soldiers defended her choice to be openly BLUTAGO in an interview for Time Magazine, with Brown saying “he – sorry, she – almost got, uh, herself, right – she almost got herself killed kickin’ the crap out of the commies up in the North, putting herself in the thick of things up there. If anyone has earned the right to dress as fancy as they like, it’s Petty Officer Beck.”…
– Matthew Wayne Shepard’s Unmasked And Unafraid: A History of the BLUTAGO Rights Movement, Pressman Publications, 2020
ELECTION RESULTS: Pm De La Hunty (Barely) Keep Liberals In Power
…Incumbent Shirley de la Hunty barely won over the increasingly popular Michael Ignatieff, who lead the Labor party to victory in several traditionally-Liberal places, and as such will likely stay on as party leader. Green party leader Christine Morris and Fred Valentich, founder of the “Open” party calling for full government transparency over “all extraterrestrial events,” each lost both of their seats...
…Due to only obtaining a slim plurality of seats, the center-right Liberals have once again formed a “coalition” government with the agrarian-conservative Nationals. The leader of the Nationals, Dr. Ben Carson of Perth
[4], and the leader of the Country Liberals, anti-recreadrug businessman Donald Mackay of the Northern Territory, will have positions in this new government. …Trade Minister Barry Goldwater Jr. will likely be elevated to Deputy Prime Minister…
– The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian newspaper, 5/5/1998
CANADA LEGALIZES BLUTAG MARRIAGE!
…first legalized in Ontario in 1995 following a provincial court of appeal ruling, same-sex marriage was subsequently recognized in several additional provinces in 1996 and 1997. Prime Minister Margaret Mitchell approved of the enactment of “The Civil Marriage Act” in January, and it received “royal assent” from Queen Elizabeth soon after…
– The Boston Globe, 5/19/1998
…On May 21, Dinger signed into law a capital gains tax cut bill dubbed “The Taxpayer Relief Act” that stripped several UHC and non-UHC programs, “because nobody ever wants or likes getting a tax hike,” as he privately put it. The top marginal long term capital gains rate subsequently fell from 28% to 20%, and the 15% bracket was lowered to 10%; retirement accounts were made exempt from the capital gains tax as well
[5]. …House Speaker Emery was heavily criticized for allowing the bill to pass, with Congressman Bill Weld (R-MA) calling him a “traitor [to] liberal Republican ideals” for not putting up a stronger opposition to it. As it turns out, though, Emery – at least, according to his memoirs, believed that the TRA would improve consumer confidence (and thus ward off recession, which was bothering Mexico and Korea at the time) and promote more people saving more for their retirement. Thus, Emery thought he was doing the right thing at the time…
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
LATEST POLL: President Dinger Approval Ratings Among U.S. Citizens
Approve: 49%
Disapprove: 41%
Undecided: 8%
– Gallup, 5/24/1998
On May 25, an American newspaper, “The New York Post,” was forced to make a retraction of an article published the week before that claimed that more Koreans had been killed in post-war cam bomb attacks ignored by most media outlets than in the actual 1996 war. When published, the article was immediately castigated, with citizens from across the American classes and political spectrum condemning the pushing for such an obviously false report. Korean news outlets caught wind of the article, and responded to it with an increase on reporting the overall smooth transitioning of “the two Koreas into one.” The NYP inevitably apologized for, but the embarrassing moment left behind a long-lasting negative reputation for that newspaper.
– Choe Yong-ho’s Bittersweet: Korea After Reunification, Columbia University Press, 2010
…By May 1998, the Wide-Awakes were gaining more attention, and support in the wake of recent pro-BLUTAGO court rulings that were slowly clearing the way for same-sex marriage. One congressional candidate, Republican Tommy Tancredo of Colorado, opted to wear the group’s endorsement like a badge of honor, saying he was “proud to be recognized by my fellow patriots for my long-held belief in the need for stronger defense of our nation’s values and laws.”…
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
CHEECH MARIN WINS DEMOCRATIC AND LA RAZA UNIDA NOMINATIONS FOR GOVERNOR; John Dendahl Wins GOP Spot With Ease
…Richard Anthony “Cheech” Marin (RU-NM) was elected Mayor of Las Cruces, the second-largest city in the state, on November 7, 1995, in an officially nonpartisan race. Located north of El Paso, Texas, Las Cruces joined Albuquerque and Santa Fe in legalizing marijuana use within city limits in defiance of Governor Cheney’s executive order outlawing such declarations. Before entering office, Marin started out as a musician, playing backup for the late Frank Zappa in the 1960s before turning to Hispanic labor rights activism in the 1970s. After serving over six years in jail for possession of one gram of marijuana, Marin entered the film industry, and produced, wrote and starred in five pro-recreadrug films between 1982 and 1993.
Marin’s success in both of tonight’s primaries has surprised political pundits who believed US Representative Bill Richardson was a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. Instead, Marin defeated Richardson, state representative Gary K. King, and state auditor Robert Vigil in said primary, and defeated activist Frankie Salas in the LRU primary.
…Despite being a progressive politician, Marin was endorsed by certain Republicans (most notably the pro-recreadrug Gary Johnson, the mayor of Albuquerque since 1993) and by moderate Democrats (such as pro-recreadrug Debbie Jaramillo, Santa Fe Mayor from March 1994 to March 1998).
…Governor Cheney stated previously that he believes Marin is a “weak” candidate: "he'll lose spectacularly.” We will see if Cheney is correct…
Above: Mayor Marin and Governor Paul Wellstone (D-MN) attending the CA-DEM Convention in 1996
– The Gallup Independent, New Mexico newspaper, 6/2/1998
…Chinese citizens in northern China were faced with the problem of refugees from North Korea still popping out of the woodwork from time to time. With most of them being former DPRK soldiers, their presence made immigration across the China-Korea border a major issue. In early June, in response to the rising number of refugees found in China, mostly residing near the north side of Mt. Pektu (mainly former troops who, while underfed during the war, had fled across the border to steal food from Chinese citizens), Zhu discussed the matter with Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, who agreed to letting Zhu send additional troops to the Chinese side of the China-Korea border. This action cut down on refugee incidents considerably…
– Shan Li’s China in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge Press, 2003
The most iconic of the online music-downloading services of the 1990s, though, would have to be Pepvibes, which soared onto the national scene in the late 1990s. Founded in 1996 by a 21-year-old computer programmer named Tom Pepper, with help from fellow programmers Jeff Bates and Gene Kan, Pepvibes offered technetters a music-focused on-tech service with pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing software, focused on digital audio files with an encoded MP3 format. By 1998, the service site had gradually grown in popularity, surpassing other already-established file-sharing sites, due to its user-friendly interface. By the end of the decade, Pepvibes had transformed music selections into public goods – and in doing so opened a torrent of legal legislation and debate over availability, fair use laws, parody law, copyright law, and record label distribution sales. Lawsuits presented to Pepper and company for claimed the site was the equivalent of piracy, as recording label releases lost revenue from the site’s download.
The controversy opened up a national debate on the right of sharing music. If someone plays a recording from off a public technet site, but for private consumption, is it still considered public use because it is not a privately-owned legal-purchased copy of the song? Singers like Chuck D, Biggie Smalls, and Tupac Shakur backed the new technology, believing sites hosting “fan-sharing” activities promoted their music by word of mouth. Other singers, though, such as Madonna, Tiffany, and Elvis Presley, opposed these alleged examples of pirating songs, believing “song drips” (songs “dripped” onto the site) would make it impossible for anyone to make a profitable life out of recording music. As a result, the millennium began with several district courts issuing resolutions and clarification on these matters…
– Joy Lisi Rankin’s Computers: A People’s History of the Information Machine, Westview Press, 2018
DES MOINES MAYOR AWARDS DINGER BROTHERS KEYS TO THE CITY
…the ceremonial keys to city are to honor the Dinger brother’s success at ending a union disagreement back in 1991, when Larry Dinger was still a US Senator. John Dinger joined his more famous brother in overseeing negotiations between pig farm union leaders, farm management, and the state Agriculture Department over insurance coverage controversies. Seven years later, and Iowan pig farmers have a strong relationship with management while the Iowan economy remains one of the strongest in the Midwest.
Above: President Larry Dinger (right) and his brother, US White House Chief of Staff John Dinger (left)
– The Des Moines Reigster, 6/10/1998
RUSSIA CIRCULATES NEW RUBLES TO NIP RECESSION FEARS IN THE BUD; Chernomyrdin Seeks To Stem Inflation, Promote Market Confidence
– The Wall Street Journal, 6/14/1998
…The war was a boon for the careers of so many of my brother-in-arms. Eric Shinseki was promoted to US Army General in May 1997, while Larry R. Ellis was promoted to US Army General in October 2000, and while some like Gary Luck retired from the military on a high note and went about writing memoirs, others such as Harley Davidson Brown became more politically active once ultimately leaving. Others still, though, stuck around to rise even higher in the ranks, such as yours truly…
[6]
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
…On the Fourth of July, 1998, the Chrysler Corporation unveiled the 1999 Chrysler Iacocca, a luxury car containing a transverse engine and all-wheel drive. Its design was an attempt to combine the best features of the late, great President’s two favorite cars – the Lincoln Continental Mark III designed by Ford’s Gene Bordinat, and Chrysler’s own Plymouth Reliant K-Car. Externally, the car more closely resembles an updated version of the Mark III’s design than a K-Car’s design, but internally, its suspension configuration made it drive much more like a luxury K-Car than anything else. The vehicle was a modest market success…
– Doron P. Levin’s Behind the Wheel: Iacocca’s Handling of Cars, Sports, and Politics, Opus Publishers, 2012 edition
FEED THE WORLD: One Day Of Global Unity
It was like another version of The Righteous Brothers’ 1974 hit “Rock And Roll Heaven.” The Rolling Stones and the temporarily-reunited The Who were sharing jokes. Jaco Pastorius passed around beer while David Bowie chatted with Boy George over makeup tips. Led Zeppelin Reunion, Cat Stevens, Kurt Cobain, and Tommy and Yoko Chong formed a circle on the floor and passed around some Mary Jane. At some point in the festivities, The Spice Girls and Take That partook in a friendly impromptu dance-off. When Marvin Gaye accidently knocked half of The Kinks into a pool, Mick Jagger proclaimed “Now this is what I call a party!”
The icons were celebrating the completion of Feed The World, a.k.a. the Care For Korea drive initially conceived in 1996 as reports of starving former prisoners of the Kim regime flooded the news cycles. On July 4, 1998, just under 2 billion people from across the globe turned on their radio and TV sets, or, for the more tech-savvy, had logged onto on-tech “live pouring” services to watch a huge gathering of musicians from across the music genres – over seventy performers in total – play their greatest hits in stadiums in Paris and New York City. The next day, at 2:30 AM, a time when the parties inside those cities’ top-class suites were still going strong, the amount of money raised for the “nutritionally insecure” people of post-war, economically devastated United Korea had already exceeded a whopping $90 million. It would turn out to be more than double that in the end, leading to Korea actually sharing some of the money with charities in Japan and China in order to ease regional tension. The record-breaking event most likely warded off further economic collapse for Korea, keeping them from descending from recession to depression.
The Scene That Celebrates Itself, on the decline in the United States and then in London as the 1990s came to a close, had One Last Hurrah in this star-studded moment, as the biggest names in music shared sofas, toasted one another, and shared laughs, putting aside their egos for the collective pride of a successful group effort.
Elvis, The Police, Queen, The Talking Heads, Billy Joel, Duran Duran, Hall and Oates, Diana Ross, Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson, and several young up-and-comers based out of London, Paris, Beijing, and even Korea itself, serenaded millions in a collaborative feat that has yet to be equaled…
Above: Elvis on dual jumbo-tron screens at the “Feed the World” section hosted by the Trump Sports Stadium in New York City
– Tumbleweed magazine, July 2018 special issue [7]
“Yeah, I already had out my first album by then, but I wasn’t a big enough star for them. But, hey, not every bigshot went to shore up money for the Koreans. Biggie didn’t go and do it. Tupac didn’t go and do it. But lots of rappers who were, you know, around Biggie and Tupac went over. But, you know what, don’t matter, because that concert marathon sh*t was great even without me there!”
– Marshall Bruce Mathers III, a.k.a. Eminem, 2013 interview
SANTA FE WORKERS’ STRIKE ENDS AFTER JESSE JACKSON AND CHEECH MARIN LEAD NEGOTIATIONS!
– The Houston Chronicle, 7/7/1998
LONG JOHN SILVER’S FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY! Franchise Seeks to Reorganize While Tricon Agrees to Buy L.J.S. and A&W
– The Chicago Tribune, 7/9/1998
“When, LJS’s, Stephen’s former employee, essentially kicked the bucket, I thought it was hilarious, because Stephen had said they would regret firing him! I mean, yeah, they were sort of already having trouble by the time they pink-slipped him, but the surprisingly quick rise of SpongeBob’s just really overwhelmed them, and it probably hastened their demise. Stephen, though, he was more concerned about all the employees now out of work.
So he went, ‘Well, if SpongeBob’s is going to expand, we’re going to have to hire more people.’ So we started hiring the workers laid off by LJS’s!
At the same time, the franchise was starting to expand not only into the world of cartoon TV, but into other geographical areas in the United States, some with nautical history or some other kind of oceanic connection, but also other place nowhere near any major bodies of water, where seafood wasn’t exactly a local food staple. Basically, we were throwing everything we had to the wall and seeing what stuck. And, boy, a lot of stuff stuck!”
[8]
– Bryan Hillenburg, 2019 interview
DINGER BACKS FURTHER STUDY OF ANTARCTIC GLACIER MELTING RATES
– The Washington Post, 7/23/1998
“I really think this whole Global Climate Disruption thing really being overblown here. Thousands and thousands of experts were telling us for decades that the Cold War would lead to all of us being killed in a fiery nuclear exchange. But that didn’t happen. We all got scared and anxious over what ended up as nothing. You see, listeners, people – especially people in charge – tend to exaggerate minor issues to make them seem like major disasters. Does that mean G.C.D. isn’t real? I’m not saying that. What I am saying that people exaggerated back then, during the Cold War, and now people are exaggerating about this, in whatever freakin’ era we’re living through right now.”
– Rush Limbaugh, KFBK-AM radio, 7/24/1998 broadcast
“The Battle of Hayes Pond,” director Spike Lee’s latest movie, chronicles the real-life Battle of Hayes Pond that unfolded in 1958. The film portrays the events leading up to the North Carolina confrontation with a raw sense of intensity, as a black woman dating a white man, the local bar owner, and the local Lumbee family joined the local Native Americans who take a stand against the local Ku Klux Klan targeting them all. The film, produced by Bern Sanders and staring an all-star ensemble cast, is sure to win several awards for its performances, historical accuracy, and directing…
– The New York Times, film review section, 7/30/1998
When it came to financial oversight, Zhu limited monetary supply, cut interest rates, and reformed the tax system to curb inflation; tax reformation happened again in response to Korea entering recession. In order to sell his reform ideas to the people, Zhu personally visited the capital city of each province to sell a new “tax sharing” idea modeled on the U.S. federal tax system, in order to raise the central government’s cut of total national revenue, which brought the highly decentralized banking system under closer Beijing direction, in the name of “marketized socialism.” Premier Zhu’s reforms were seen as successful at the national level, but nevertheless received backlash from regional leaders; controversially, Zhu responded to their complaints of losing the unbalanced-in-their-favor funding and attention they had relished in over the years by simply forcing them into retirement and replacing them with more complacent provincial leaders.
To strengthen the nation’s growing markets, Zhu invested in transportation, agriculture, and energy sectors. Greater oversight of the banking sector to discourage reckless spending and poor choices the nation’s rudimentary-but-growing “free” markets, again in the name of “marketized socialism,” became especially important to Zhu as the millennium came to a close. Zhu responded to woes of an impending recession by reducing state bureaucracy and streamlining banking systems to prevent future financial panic, plus maintaining strict “capital controls” (residency-based measures meant to monitor, regulate, and promote cash flow) in order to keep massive infrastructure projects from losing funding. Despite all these “adjustments” to China’s financial systems, Zhu refused to devalue the Chinese Yuan.
In 1997, in an example of his anti-corruption crusade, Zhu expelled the leader of Guangxi Province from his position after he was found guilty of receiving kickbacks from businessmen connected to embezzled state funds and “tilted” government contract bids. In August 1998, his administration uncovered the largest corruption ring in modern Chinese history, with high-ranking officials in Fujian orchestrating a massive arms smuggling operation. “Purge” became the new word of the month, as several government officials were sentenced to life imprisonment and talks of strengthening trade and commerce security measures intensified. Upon facing international criticism for two embezzlers being sentenced to death for treason and executed, though, Zhu proclaimed “I will prepare 100 coffins for the corrupt, and one for me, for I will die of fatigue.”
[9]
– Shan Li’s China in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge Press, 2003
The reasons behind the idea were sound. Young people were not so familiar with the Colonel’s iconic image as their parents were. The company feared it was soon to fall behind to Chick-fil-A and other chicken-centric companies. Plus, many at KFC’s advertising department feared that, possibly, the company was losing customers due to their mascot being a known dead man; “death doesn’t make you hungry,” noted board member Bob Yarmuth. The decision to “rebrand” the Colonel’s likeness – to “breathe life” back into the former world leader – was a delicate process, requiring the development of something that would be fun and exciting but still respectful to the real life founder’s life, legacy and memory.
KFC R & D ran with the prior notion of a KFC cartoon show and developed an Animated Colonel for KFC commercials. Mildred, Margaret and Harley all were enthusiastic for the idea, but all three turned to Pete Harman for his input. A 79, the elderly Harman was still serving on the board, and even he “believed in” the notion.
When the news of the Colonel was turned into a cartoon character in order to return to KFC’s commercials, news decrying “Colonel Reincarnated!” and similar exclamations hit the pavement and cyber-pavement. KFC chief concept officer Jeff Moody said the so-called “resurrection” of The Colonel was “a fresh new way to reach out to the young adult consumers of today.” KFC CEO James A. Collins, still precariously in the top chair, praised the “forward-thinking” decision, as did COO Floyd “Sonny” Tillman and, David Charles Novak, a rising star in the company who, at under 50, was one of the younger bloods in the board room.
In the summer, the first batch of these “Animated Colonel” commercials began airing.
– Marlona Ruggles Ice’s A Kentucky-Fried Phoenix: The Post-Colonel History of Most Famous Birds In The World, Hawkins E-Publications, 2020
[vid:
youtube.com/watch?v= LEYSsshadN0 ]
– A commercial for KFC’s Spicy Tender Roast Monterey Sandwich, c. August 1998
…These new commercials advertised the company’s latest offerings, with CCO Jeff Moody explaining “Our new line of sandwiches is meant to appeal to more health-conscious people. Just because ‘fried’ is in our name doesn’t mean everything on the menu is fried.”
Consumer responses to the commercials were polarizing. Many young consumers surveyed in the days and weeks after they began airing said they were much more “exciting” than commercials of the previous few years. Many older consumers, however, disliked the new depiction of a former US President; some called it “disgraceful,” other “offensive” or “cheap.” The voice, providing by award-winning actor Randy Quaid, was also polarizing; while most approved of Quaid’s “boisterous” energy, those same older customers who could still firmly remember the Colonel’s distinct voice – one much lower and gravelly than Quaid’s – disapproved of it, complaining about it being too inaccurate.
Among the board, reactions to these reactions were mixed. “It’s a new age, the information age, the technet age,” bemoaned the aging Mildreds, “Complaints on technet sites are now becoming news article sources!” Indeed, media sites were truly beginning to utilize the commercial, informative, and communicative capabilities of the technet by the end of the decade. By the end of 1998, the White House already had established an official website, as had KFC – one of the first major corporations to establish one, in fact. But not
the first.
However, because these new commercials were producing controversy, and the controversy was giving the company much media attention, the decision was made to continue making and airing ads featuring “The Animated Colonel,” though for many in the “second batch” of them, Quaid used a lower and more gravelly voice…
– Marlona Ruggles Ice’s A Kentucky-Fried Phoenix: The Post-Colonel History of Most Famous Birds In The World, Hawkins E-Publications, 2020
As warfare continued on at a steady and sluggish pace across Colombia, Dinger signed off on a new tactic in the war on recreadrugs: civil asset forfeiture. A process dating back to the 1600s, civil asset forfeiture allows the government to take assets from any suspected of a crime without formerly charging said persons of a crime. Excessive, invasive, and possibly in violation of the fourth and fifth Amendments of the US Constitution, Dinger nevertheless signed off on the GOP-majority congress heightening US federal laws, and encouraging federal law enforcement agencies to use civil asset forfeiture liberally. The Dinger White House also encouraged its use at the state level as well, with outgoing Governor Richard P. Cheney (R-NM) being a strong support of it being used as “a vital and necessary tool,” as he put it.
Opponents, on the other hand, were outraged by the President increasing its use. “Christ, they’re taking away all our stuff now, too? What next? Where does it end?” asked then-Mayor Cheech Marin of Las Cruces, New Mexico, in an August 1998 NBC News interview, “Does President Dingo Dodo really think thousands of our fellow American citizens spending the rest of their lives in prisons, jail cells crammed with teens and old shoutniks, is a sign of victory? How many more of us have to go to jail before we, heh, win, heh, this alleged war? When there’s more people in prisons than out of them?”
– Maurice Isserman’s Confrontational: The Larry Dinger Wars, Borders Books, 2004
Governor of Tokyo Prefecture Yukio Aoshima’s opportunity to cut down the Yakuza’s influence arose during a moment of crisis and carnage, an incident known as the Shinjuku Shootout. It began on August 22, when two groups, members of two rival Yakuza groups (the Inagawa-kai and the Sumiyoshi-kai, both from Minato, Tokyo, groups competing for turf in the city and greater prefecture of Tokyo), encountered each other on the Odakyu Electric Railway. According to witnesses, the two groups immediately began arguing verbally, and the conflict swiftly escalated.
Then, the rival syndicate members drew their weapons, instigating a shootout on a train bound for Tokyo during rush hour. The fairly crowded train car began to panic as handguns began firing in closed quarters. Ricochet struck several innocents as a mass run for the adjacent cars occurred. Among the citizens, 5 were seriously injured from bullets, while 8 people were injured from being trampled in panic unfolding in such closed quarters.
The train conductor learned of the chaos, then phoned ahead, so to speak, and continued on to its stop at the close-by Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, the oldest and busiest railway stations in Japan. Police there typically have New Nambu M60 guns, which would be called “pea-shooters” by Americans for their diminutive size. However, the station’s security guards had recently begun storing bigger ammo (mainly bolt-action rifles, like what the local police stored), in case of emergencies.
And this was an emergency. Station security was soon joined by local police and members of the SAT (or “Special Assault Team,” a police tactical unit established in 1977 (though their existence was not officially revealed to the public until 1996) for emergency and special counter-terrorism and/or law enforcement situations). When the train pulled into the station, frightened citizens spilled out as soon as they could. The yakuza members only stopped shooting when they heard the chief deputy police officer use a bullhorn to inform them that they were surrounded.
Putting their differences aside, the yakuza members joined forces to partake in a hopeless standoff, being completely surrounded by station police and the train’s security guards. The station was cleared and put in emergency lockdown as the members fired all of their rounds at the slowly approaching police. When the bullets stopped firing, six SAT officers charged into the subway car. With the last of their bullets spent, the yakuza members tried and failed to attack with their knives and other blunt objects. In the end, however, the yakuza members that weren’t killed in the shootouts were apprehended and removed from the train station, allowing commuters to return to their routes.
Public opinion on how police were handling yakuza-based crime and corruption went from low to lower after that March’s limo snafu, only for the police’s handling of the train station shootout to be praised as being effective and highly successful. It was enough to finally win back the people’s support. Governor Aoshima beamed with glee.
– Alec Dubro and David E. Kaplan’s Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld, University of California Press, 2003
…The “Wednesday Demonstration” protests had been held weekly at noon on every Wednesday in Korea since 1987
[10], after the Second Ark Wave hit the region, as a means of raising awareness of a grave injustice in need of correcting. When the Korean peninsula was under the rule of Imperial Japan during World War II, the Japanese government established a large scale sexual slavery system that forced its female Korean victims into being “comfort women,” a Japanese euphemism for “prostitutes.” Survivors were often, if not always present at these demonstrations, largely consisting of protests demanding the Japanese government not only recognize and apologize for these actions, but to also agree to pay reparations to its survivors.
Thousands annually gather across Korea for this movement, but after the liberation of the North, the demonstrations took on a second subject, namely the sexual slavery and human trafficking activities undertaken by the former DPRK government. These “new Koreans” or “new protestors” as called by some, stood in solidarity with fellow victims demanding the restoration of their dignity. For the former Northerners, this meant persecuting additional former DPRK members who were tried for war crimes, but not for their involvement in the rape and trafficking of former North Korean prisoners. These accusations saw more of an immediate response, as the Korean government placed uniting the peninsula’s populace above addressing Japan’s decades-old wrongdoings.
However, things became awkward for many involved in September 1998, when investigative journalists from the Japanese newspaper “The Asahi Shimbun” published extensive reports of South Korean soldiers raping North Korean women during the final weeks of the War of Reunification. Korean President Kim Dae-jung approached the dilemma boldly, by announcing that “all accusations” would be treated “equally and without prejudice,” believing this to be the only way to ensure “national cohension” in regards to these unsavory scandals…
– Choe Yong-ho’s Bittersweet: Korea After Reunification, Columbia University Press, 2010
SYRIA DELEGATION AT CHICKEN DINNER SUMMIT PLEAD FOR AN END TO CIVIL WARFARE
…fighting between pro-Assad and anti-Assad forces led to a heavier vetting of Syrian invitees in order to ensure a fair and balanced collection of voices representing said nation, according to a spokesperson from Finger Lickin’ Good, Inc., the primary sponsor of these annual congregation of various local community leaders such as Mayors, aldermen, and religious leaders…
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 14/9/1998
…Digimon, a Japanese video game series, was created in response to the popularity of Pokémon and Tamagochi (but failed to outlive either), and was introduced to American markets in 1998… In the American music, the “Scene That Celebrates Itself” began to wane considerably. An early example of this can be found in the girl band S Club 7. Created in 1998 in a poor attempt to create another “Spice Girls” group, S Club 7 remained in the shadow of the “Spice Girls” and from that position often criticized said rival’s music… …Turbo Folk, described by Freddie Mercury as “folk music on cocaine,” found a niche pocket of fans in Europe by the end of the decade…
– clickopedia.co.usa/The_1990s/popular_culture
…By the end of the 1990s, Ireland’s agriculture sector was still important, but its modern technological industry was the most prominent section of its national. In social trends, the Catholic Church continued to lose influence due to the younger generation being at the forefront when America’s “Ark Waves” of 1970 and 1986 found their ways overseas in 1971 and 1987, respectively, questioned the morality of church representatives. The most prominent of these cases, such as the court procedures surrounding disgraced Eamonn Casey, Bishop of Galway, and other, more heinous “collar criminals,” left a bitter taste in the mouths of a populous that was moving on from “the old ways” of yesteryear...
[snip]
INDEX
[snip]
List of Presidents of Ireland
[snip]
19/12/1974-21/3/1978:
Cearbhall O Dalaigh (All-Party Nomination)
22/5/1978-21/5/1992:
Patrick Hillery (Fianna Fail)
22/5/1992-present:
Mary Robinson (Independent)
– Daniel Hollis’ The Emerald Isle: A Brief History of Ireland, Contour Publications, 2003
Pundit 1: “The Second Korean War only happened in the first place because of America’s first intervention in the peninsula, back in 1950.”
Pundit 2: “Then they are just finishing what they started.”
Pundit 1: “But when will that happen? The American military has been in Korea for nearly three years now. I thought the war had been won!”
Pundit 2: “Yes, but another one needs to be prevented now. Despite them initially planning to lower military presence in Korea once the situation was under control, the fact that recent reports revealing that the PRC has begun to strengthen their border with Korea has made the Korean government more willing to keep their allies close.”
Pundit 1: “If the Chinese didn’t intervene in ’96, then they are not going to now.”
Pundit 2: “Even still, the situation is forbidding. It is almost as if the Korean Demilitarized Zone was just moved up a ways on the map!”
– BBC1, roundtable discussion, 9/23/1998
LATEST POLL: American Military Presence In Korea Approval Ratings Among U.S. Citizens
Approve: 43%
Disapprove: 39%
Undecided: 15%
– Gallup, 9/24/1998
– First-term US Congresswoman Laura Welch (R-TX) meets with MLB Commissioner George Bush while on the campaign trail for a second term, 9/27/1998
IT’S WATCHING YOU
Premiered: September 30, 1998 (U.S.)
Genre(s): suspense/horror/thriller
[SNIP]
Synopsis: A small group of people survive underground in a post-apocalyptic “eastern Europe,” but are on the verge of societal collapse due to bickering, paranoia, suspicion and infighting. The group must put aside their differences, though, when a beast from mythology breaches their borders, threatening to doom them all with either radioactive fallout or its terrifying taste for human flesh.
[SNIP]
Trivia Facts:
Trivia Fact No. 1: The Creature in The Film Is Based on A Real Myth
{spoiler} The Psoglav, or Psoglavac when plural, is from primarily Croatian and, less commonly, Slovenian, folk tales that describe a beast with a man’s body and a dog’s head that digs up graves to eat human remains
[11]. Like in the film, the Psoglav’s most iconic characteristic is its single eye in the center of its face. It is described in the movie as the only animal to naturally develop cyclopia, which is the inability of the embryonic forebrain to properly divide the orbits of the eye into two cavities. In psoglavs, according to the film, this event naturally occurs due to the psoglav’s natural habitat – underground caves and tunnels, where vision is limited; nostrils and olfactory glands develop farther south of the snout than on regular wolf-based animals. The scientist character in the film states that another possible reason for their cyclopia is the plant veratrum californicum (corn lily), which contains the toxin 2-deoxyjervine (cyclopamine), a highly teratogenic alkaloid toxin that has been documented as misdirecting the embryonic forebrain-dividing process in farm animal births over the centuries. This plant is found growing all over the psoglav’s tunnels in the third act of the film.
Trivia Fact No. 2: The Movie Spawned Cincinnati’s Movie Industry
The city of Cincinnati, Ohio hosts the largest abandoned subway tunnel system in the US, as construction on the costly endeavor halted during the Great Depression
[12]. Without any plans to revive the rapid transit project, the city began seeking other ways of using the roughly over 2 miles of empty tunnels. Proposals varied over the decade, but often faced issues; the space was inadequate for use as a city storage facility, as a fallout shelter, or as a train line due to its small space and sharp turns inhibiting mobility. In the 1970s, businessman Nick Clooney managed to turn a small part of the tunnels into an underground night club, with plans on expanding the area into an underground mall, until insurance costs and liability concerns scrapped both the club and the mall proposal after the US entered recession in 1978. However, in the 1990s, filmmakers in Hollywood learned of the abandoned systems’ existence due to technet forums raising awareness of it. Paramount initially planned to use only the Race Street station in this the horror film and produce the rest in Yugoslavia, but ultimately chose to film most of the film in Cincinnati due to the much lower costs. “It’s Watching You” performed modestly at the box office and developed a cult following. Since the film’s release, interest in the tunnels has gradually increased; since then, other major Hollywood films (such as Look Out Below, Afghan Junction, Dead Quiet, and The Warriors 2), as well as several independent films, have been filmed in the tunnels, and the city has seen a rise in tourism and in films being shot in the city.
– mediarchives.co.usa
…President Chris Hani’s “camaraderie committees” were bearing fruit by the end of 1998, as race riots reached an all-time low. Hani hoped to unite white and Black citizens of South Africa under the “Africa For All” concept, opening markets and trade to left-wing democracies and to all stable African nations. To this end, South Africa added to its automobile consumption by investing in the Kantanka car company headquartered in Ghana. …On the military side of things, President Hani received criticism for supporting UK Prime Minister John Lennon’s refusal to commit UK troops to military intervention in northern Korea in early 1996; by 1998, Lennon had apologized for the decision, while Hani refused to follow suit, arguing “he [Lennon] was right at the time.” In October 1998, though Hani did attempt to play a role in brokering peace a deal for warring groups developing chaos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo…
– Julian Brown’s The Road to Soweto: Resistance & Revolution in Post-Soweto South Africa, Jacana Publishers, 2016
“Korea’s recession spurred on the Feed The World concert, and that collaborative musical showcase did helped the Koreans ward off further economic disaster, but in doing so, it may have lessened the Democratic Party’s impact in the November midterms. Without Korea’s economic collapse, our own economy stayed strong, and who’s going to vote out the incumbents when the economy’s not doing too bad?”
– James Carville, former political advisor to John Glenn, TON Nighttime News, round-table discussion, 10/30/1998
…In October 1998, Wendy’s decided to discontinue The SuperBar, a generous buffet-style offering at select stores that had been first introduced in 1988, in over 75% of participating outlets. Financial statements confirmed that in high overhead costs were responsible for the company’s drop in total profits margins; to put it simply, the SuperBar was too expensive to retain – not to mention being very difficult for employees to maintain due to the need to frequently sanitize multiple trays and distribution utensils – without large a number of customers using it. And Wendy’s outlets only rarely saw such a large number of customers...
– Marlona Ruggles Ice’s A Kentucky-Fried Phoenix: The Post-Colonel History of Most Famous Birds In The World, Hawkins E-Publications, 2020
[vid:
youtube.com/watch?v= B2pzL_mysBI ]
– A commercial for Wendy’s The SuperBar, c. 1989
THE EVOLUTION OF FRITZ HOLLINGS: Why A Former Segregationist Is Passionately Backing Jesse Jackson
…Fritz Hollings, who supports Jackson’s plans for economic revival for the state, was a supporter of industrial training programs during his own time as Governor, from 1959 to 1963... Jackson served as Governor from 1987 to 1991, winning during the “blue wave” of 1986 midterms. In September 21-22, 1989, Hurricane Hugo destroyed billions of dollars of upscale housing built along the coastline during the 1970s. Jackson, with the help of historical preservation groups and construction firms, built the city of Charleston back to its pre-Hugo conditions within a year. Limited to one term, Jackson spent the rest of his term fighting tooth and nail to overhaul education. The state economy had focused on offering low-wage industrial jobs since the 1970s, and so was failing to attract high-wage industries and the kind of workers who can afford high taxes imposed under Governors Westmoreland, Riley, and Stevenson... …Jackson’s opponents claim he is only running for the Governor’s seat once more to use it as a stepping stone for another run for the White House in 2000; however, Jackson remains popular among SC Democrats, especially those who don’t mind. “If he wants that higher-up job,” says one support referring to the White House, “then you’ll know he’ll put his nose to the grindstone and do a good job during his first year, so that way he can run for President in the second year and win.”
– Time Magazine, mid-October 1998 issue
5 KILLED, 21 INJURED IN SOUTH SIDE TERF WAR BETWEEN RIVAL DRUG PUSHERS
– The Chicago Tribune, 10/20/1998
…news of more violence coming out from Korea and Mexico concerning Black Markets, gunrunning and drug trafficking made many American voters begin to question if Dinger was indeed handling these situations as well as the GOP claimed he was. In October, Mexico’s civilian death toll rose as more locals began to rise up against cartels, after a 5-year-old boy was killed in crossfire during a cartel-police gunfight north of Cabo on October 21 jumpstarted a popular grassroots-based anti-drug movement among locals in northern Mexico. Concurrently, the marijuana legalization movement was making headway in political discussions leading up to the 1998 midterm elections; it even began to gain supporters in Mexico as well.
On October 26, gunmen working for the Juarez Cartel overwhelmed a local jail and “liberate” the drug cartel members being temporarily held there; local citizens responded by planting cam bombs outside one of the cartels’ warehouses, setting it ablaze. The cartel replied by shooting a local community organizer, to which the citizens responded by giving further support to police...
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
“Liberty must be defended at all levels of government and in all troubled lands. Whether Americans and their fellow lovers of freedom and democracy are separated by an ocean, a language or a religion, the principles of life, liberty and happiness are universal, worldwide truths. We have pulled these principles out from under the thumb of oppression in northern Korea, and we will pull these principles out from under the thumb of oppression in Mexico, and Colombia, and every nation in between where innocent citizens live in fear of violent recreadrug cartels. The same cartels that threaten the lives and health of our children with their narcotics. Their lives must be protected, and that starts with a strongly anti-drug Senate!”
– US Sen. Patrick Downard (R-KY), 10/28/1998 stump speech
STOCKHOLDERS WORRIED OVER LATEST DOW JONES CLOSURE
– The New York Times, 11/1/1998
November United States Senate election results, 1998
Date: November 3, 1998
Seats: 36 of 100
Seats needed for majority: 51
Senate majority leader: Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Senate minority leader: Bob Dole (R-KS)
Seats before election: 53 R), 45 (D), 2 (I), 0 (LU)
Seats after election: 50 (R), 47 (D), 2 (I), 1 (LU)
Seat change: R v 3, D ^ 2, I - 0, LU ^ 1
Full List:
Alabama: incumbent Mary Texas Hurt Garner (D) over Jerome Shockley (R)
Alaska: incumbent Frank Murkowski (R) over Tony Knowles (D), Billy Toien (L), Jeffrey Gottlieb (G) and Marc Millican (I)
Arizona: incumbent Eddie Najeeb Basha Jr. (D) over Robert Lee Park (R)
Arkansas: incumbent F. Winford Boozman III (R) over Lottie H. Shackelford (D)
California: Mike Gravel (D) over Edward C. Nixon (R); incumbent Mario Obledo (D) retired
Colorado: incumbent Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R) over Dottie Lamm (D); incumbent Pat Schroeder (D) retired
Connecticut: incumbent Chris Dodd (D) over Wildley Moore (R)
Florida: incumbent Michael Bilirakis (R) over Frank Mann (D)
Georgia: incumbent Dr. John Skandalakis (D) over Paul Coverdell (R)
Hawaii: incumbent Daniel Inouye (D) over Crystal Young (R)
Idaho: incumbent Bethine Church (D) over Mike Crapo (R)
Illinois: Cardiss Collins (D) over George Ryan (R); incumbent Alan Dixon (D) retired
Indiana: Evan Bayh (D) over incumbent Richard Lugar (R)
Iowa: Patty Jean Poole (D) over incumbent John Judge (R)
Kansas: incumbent Bob Dole (R) over Gloria O’Dell (D)
Kentucky: incumbent Patrick “Kelly” Downard (R) over Scotty Baesler (D)
Louisiana: incumbent Buddy Roemer (R) over Marty James Chabert (D)
Maine (special): incumbent appointee Olympia Snowe (R) over Sean Faircloth (D)
Maryland: incumbent Barbara Mikulski (D) over Ross Pierpont (R)
Missouri: incumbent Wayne Cryts (D) over Tamara Millay (R)
Nevada: Patricia Anne “Patty” Cafferata (R) over James Bilbray (D); incumbent Barbara Vucanovich (R) retired
New Hampshire: Lou D’Allesandro (D) incumbent Kathy Alexander (R)
New York: incumbent Mario Biaggi (D) over Will McMillen (R)
North Carolina: incumbent Nick Galifianakis (D) over Barbara Howe (R)
North Dakota: incumbent Kent Conrad (D) over Donna Nalewaja (R)
Ohio: incumbent Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr. (D) over George Voinovich (R)
Oklahoma: incumbent Mickey Edwards (R) over Laura Boyd (D)
Oregon: incumbent Les AuCoin (D) over Tonie Nathan (R) and Aaron Dixon (Green)
Pennsylvania: incumbent Bob Casey Sr. (D) over Barbara Hafer (R)
South Carolina: incumbent Fritz Hollings (D) over Richard Quillian (R)
South Dakota: incumbent Teresa McGovern (D) over Ron Schmidt (R)
Utah: incumbent James V. Hansen (R) over Scott Leckman (D)
Vermont: Peter Diamondstone (Liberty Union) over Bob Melamede (D) and Hugh Douglas (R); incumbent Madeleine Kunin (D) retired
Washington: incumbent Gary Locke (D) over Linda Smith (R)
Wisconsin: incumbent Bronson La Follette (D) over Stephen B. “Steve” King (R)
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
…Senators Angus King, Ralph Nader and Senator-elect Peter Diamondstone were willing to caucus with the Democrats, while the centrist wing of the GOP still tried to get Nader to caucus with them more often. Together, the three made up “the triumvirate,” the “kingmakers” of the senate for the next two years. With their caucusing, the Senate was split evenly, 50-50, but with a sitting Republican VP, Republicans remained in control …A possible wildcard during this period was conservative Senator Biaggi (D-NY), who had more than once been rumored to be considering “defecting” to the Republicans over his alleged “poor treatment at the hands of the Democratic establishment.” Such a defection during this session would give Republicans 51 seats; this would have been enough for a clear, albeit narrow, majority for the GOP in the Senate, without the need for the VP’s tiebreaker vote...
– Gary C. Jacobson’s The Power and the Politics of Congressional Elections, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015
United States House of Representatives results, 1998
Date: November 3, 1998
Seats: All 435
Seats needed for majority: 218
New House majority leader: David F. Emery (R-ME)
New House minority leader: Barbara B. Kennelly (D-CT)
Last election: 265 (R), 169 (D), 1 (I)
Seats won: 242 (R), 191 (D), 2 (I)
Seat change: R v 23, D ^ 22, I ^ 1
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
…In California, Jim Gray, a Republican Superior Court Judge in Orange County since 1989 and an early supporter of legalizing “low-harm recredrugs” such as marijuana since the early 1990s, successfully primaried incumbent Bob Dornan of the 46th District, and barely edged out a win in November…
…While Tancredo, Gritz, and Wilson were elected to congress from Colorado, Idaho, and California, respectively, all other candidates endorsed by the Wide-Awakes lost in either their respective primaries or general elections. Most notably, libertarian-leaning US Senator M. Katherine Alexander (R-NH) lost re-election in a surprise upset, as did fellow incumbent US Senator John Judge (R-IA)…
…Florida’s most notable freshman congressman, however, was Willie Logan, the African-American state representative and former Mayor of Opa-Locka, who ran a quixotic campaign for southern Florida congressional seat as an Independent. With anti-establishment platform calling for a combination of Gravelite Progressivism and “fiscal responsibility,” Logan narrowly edged out the major-party nominees to become one of only two Independents in the 1999-2001 Congress, the other being Bill Sorrell of Vermont…
…Texas Democrats stood firm as the state veered further to the right and to the GOP. Governor Henry Cisneros pulled off a very narrow victory; US Congressman Bill Sarpalius road on his coattails into another House term, as did incumbent Pete Geren and Jack Brooks, as well as six new freshmen Democratic representatives…
…Pennsylvanians elected female African-American banking executive and former CEO of the United Bank of Philadelphia Emma C. Chappell, a progressive Democrat who supported Jesse Jackson’s 1996 Presidential candidacy, to an eastern PA Congressional seat…
– Gary C. Jacobson’s The Power and the Politics of Congressional Elections, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015
United States Governor election results, 1998
Date: November 3, 1998
Number of state gubernatorial elections held: 11
Seats before: 29 (D), 19 (R), 1 (I), 1 (G)
Seats after: 31 (D), 16 (R), 3 (I), 0 (G)
Seat change: D ^ 2, R v 3, I ^ 2, G v 1
Full list:
Alabama: Winton Blount (R) over Lenora Pate (D); incumbent Bettye Frink (R) was term-limited
Alaska: Robin Taylor (Libertarian-Republican Alliance) over Sam Cotton (D), Jim Sykes (Green) and Joe Vogler (AIP); incumbent Nora Dauenhauer (Green) retired
Arizona: David Nolan (R) over incumbent Sam Goddard III (D), Paul Johnson (I) and Scott Malcolmson (I)
Arkansas: Nick Bacon (D) over Sheffield Nelson (R); incumbent Mike Beebe (D) retired
California: incumbent Kathleen Brown (D) over Dennis Peron (R)
Colorado: incumbent Wellington Webb (D) over Gene Nichol (R)
Connecticut: incumbent Barbara Kennelly (D) over Jodi Rell (R) and Sandra Bender (Independent Democratic)
Florida: incumbent LeRoy Collins Jr. (D) over Joe Scarborough (R)
Georgia: incumbent Eston Wycliffe “Wyc” Orr Sr. (D) over Mike Bowers (R)
Hawaii: incumbent Pat Saiki (R) over Jackie King (D)
Idaho: Larry J. Echo Hawk (D) over Dirk Kempthorne (R) and Peter Rickards (I); incumbent Butch Otter (R) retired
Illinois: Darrell Issa (R) over Glenn Poshard (D); incumbent Jim Edgar (R) retired
Iowa: Sally Pederson (D) over Tom Tauke (R); incumbent Joy Coming (R) retired
Kansas: incumbent Martha Keys (D) over Bill Graves (R)
Maine: incumbent Jim Longley Jr. (I) over Tom Connolly (D) and William Clarke (R)
Maryland: Eileen Rehrmann (D) over Helen Delich Bentley (R); incumbent Decatur “Bucky” Trotter (D) retired
Massachusetts: Michael Dukakis (D) over George Bachrach (R) and Paul Loscocco (I); incumbent Evelyn Murphy (D) lost re-nomination
Michigan: incumbent James Blanchard (D) over Allen Alley (R)
Minnesota: incumbent Paul Wellstone (DFL) over Frank Germann (IRL) and Warren Limmer (Sanctity)
Nebraska: incumbent Kay Orr (R) over Kim Robak (D)
Nevada: incumbent Doug Swanson (R) over Jan Laverty Jones (D)
New Hampshire: George Condodemetraky (D) over incumbent Ovide Lamontage (R)
New Mexico: Richard “Cheech” Marin (D/La Raza Unida) and John Dendahl (R); Richard P. “Rick” Cheney (R) was term-limited
New York: Bernadette Castro (R) over Mary Anne Krupsak (D), Tom Golisano (Independence), Roy Innis (Working Families), Rudy Giuliani (Conservative), Al Lewis (Green), Evan Galbraith (Liberal), Lenora Fulani (Natural Mind); incumbent Mario Cuomo (D) retired
Ohio: incumbent William J. Brown (D) over Greg Lashutka (R)
Oklahoma: incumbent Robert S. Kerr III (D) over Hoppy Heidelberg (R)
Oregon: John Elwood “Bud” Clark (I) over John Kitzhaber (D) and Bill Sizemore (R); incumbent John Lim (R) retired
Pennsylvania: incumbent Lynn Yeakel (D) over Ernie Preate (R)
Rhode Island: Bob Healey (I) over Jack Dennison Potter (D) and Lincoln Almond (R); incumbent Bob Weygand (D) retired
South Carolina: Jesse Jackson (D) over Carroll Campbell (R) and Jim Hodges (I); Robert Inglis Sr. (R) was term-limited
South Dakota: Susan Wismer (D) over Jack Billion (R); incumbent Gus Hercules (R) retired
Tennessee: Bill Haslam (R) over John Jay Hooker Jr. (D); incumbent Frank Clement (D) was term-limited
Texas: Henry Cisneros (D/La Raza Unida) over Ray Hollis (R); incumbent Rick Perry (D) retired
Vermont: incumbent Howard Dean (D) over Ruth Dwyer (R) and Richard Gottlieb (Liberty Union)
Wisconsin: Kathleen Falk (D) over incumbent Margaret Farrow (R)
Wyoming: incumbent Harriet Elizabeth Byrd (D) over Bill Taliaferro (R)
– knowledgepolitics.co.usa
REFERENDUM RESULTS: 60% VOTE FOR STATEHOOD; Historically High Voter Turnout Likely Fueled By Years of Commonwealth Corruption
…Two weeks after Villaronga narrowly won a second term as governor, Puerto Rican voters participated in yet another status referendum. This time, however, turnout was at an all-time high, amid more and more reports of corruption in the commonwealth government. Additionally, the commonwealth has played a vital role in helping the federal government crackdown on recreadrug trafficking and smuggling in the Caribbean. …“The Three Options” appeared on the ballot as usual. Statehood would make us no longer autonomous and would make us be ruled by a capital that has different language and different values and traditions; remaining a commonwealth would ensure further corruption from the local and mainland governments would go unchecked; independence would allow domestic corruption to go unchecked by a greater government agency. After the ballots were tallied, “statehood” had clearly obtained 59.1% of the vote, while “commonwealth” received 39.2%; “independence” once again received under 2%. Marking the first time that “statehood” has surpassed 50% in one of these referendums, and due to the high voter turnout, these results may just finally initiate mainland congressional action…
– El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico newspaper (English version), 11/17/1996
…appeal to more conservative demographics and in turn develop pro-conservative atmospheres in their workplaces and advertisements, leading to some controversy later on…
[snip]
…by the 1990s, Jell-O had shifted completely from being a stereotypical go-to dessert for shoutniks in the 1960s to being a common staple at conservative homes and social events in conservative communities. This was especially true out west, most noticeably in Utah, where Mormons seemed to embrace Jell-O as a proud stereotype of theirs. The company only began to distance themselves from this “niche” customer base and expand their marketing operations to a try and appeal to a wider range of customers in the late 1990s. This second shift was in response to many conservatives ontech promoting Jell-O products despite not being paid to advertise these products. Jell-O subsequently developed a negative stigma among liberal consumers who associated their products with groups such as The "Wide-Awakes" and several conservative activists who got into legal trouble for pestering people ontech. The bad image was slowly rejected – surveys conducted by Jell-O show that in 2010, Mormon customers still strongly supported their product, “radicalism” was no longer associated with their productions, and sales results were actually improving among “liberal” consumers…
– pointlessfacts.co.usa/why-were-shoutniks-sometimes-called-the-jello-generation-question-mark
“By the end of 1998, the Drug Enforcement Administration could confirm that most of the heroin was coming in from Mexico after being grown in Afghanistan. Their King was trying to work with us, but his job security was a bit on the precarious side. A lot of locals weren’t keen on America’s secular nature and often caused trouble when the King showed off his allegiance to us too much. Heh, despite all we did for them in the ’70s. But anyway, the fact of the case was that we needed to nip in the bud the cartels’ attempts to set up operations in Afghanistan and Nepal, due to the former’s poppy fields – a big source of opium – and in Tajikistan, too. A lot of scumbags, a lot of arrogant murderers and torturers, could be found over there, giving law-and-order officials headache after headache. Instead of cops and robbers, it was cops and dealers.”
– Former White House “drug czar” Robert Smith Walker, 2006 interview
SUPREME COURT'S HIGGINBOTHAM DIES, 70
…the progressive Associate Justice had served on the bench for over 23 years...
– The Washington Post, 12/14/1998
REFERENDUM ON BELARUS-RUSSIA REUNITING FAILS TO PASS
…Despite being backed by the popular incumbent President (since 1996) of Belarus, Zianon Pazniak (of the Conservative Christian party), Belarussians voted against becoming a part of Russia again by the narrow margin of 1.1% in a Yes-No nationwide referendum. While the government and the people of Russia and Belarus have maintained very strong and very close ties since the latter’s independence in 1984, this referendum marks another unsuccessful attempt to unite the two groups into one. “We work better separately, with open borders and free trade and travel, but with separate laws and leaders, and I think the Belarussian people made that perfectly clear tonight,” says Belarus’ Commerce Minister, who confirmed for us that a recount is already underway in several villages. The Minister, though, notes that “I don’t think the results will change. It was narrow, but not very narrow.”
– The Guardian, UK newspaper, 17/12/1998
…The results of the 1998 Belorussian Referendum were so narrow that Russian President Viktor Chernomyrdin considered annexing the country anyway! His defense minister drafted a plan to stage nationwide riots the next time their economy had a little hiccup. The idea would be to intimidate investors with the riots, causing the economy to worsen, and requiring Russia to step in to restore peace and order to Belarus. However, after several weeks, Chernomyrdin cancelled the operation. Concerns that the invading forces would actually turn Belarussians against Russia gave Chernomyrdin pause, and in the end he changed his mind. Still, for a while, at least, the people of Belarus were incredibly close to their closest ally invading them, and never knew it until; the proposed annexation would not become public knowledge until 2018…
– Alexander Korzhakov’s After The Pact: Post-Cold War Russia And The Twenty-First Century, St. Petersburg Press, 2020
DID WE INVADE KOREA TO BETTER STUDY THEIR STRAND OF THE HANTAVIRUS?
Hantavirus had the whole nation – and the federal government – on edge for several weeks in early 1991, and American scientists knew that another version of the deadly virus had existed in North Korea as far back as the 1950s, when American soldiers got the thing during the Frist Korean War. Is it possible that the Bellamy, Iacocca and Dinger administrations put into motion an elaborate plan to simply invade the north just so American scientists could get their hands on that virus? The motive – to see if the Korean strand holds the secret to finding a vaccine to beat the hantavirus. After all, nobody would notice a bunch of scientists running around during a war. Plus, the Bellamy administration did leave behind an extensive collection of files or whatever you call it – a large amount of protocols, simulations and instructions for hypotheticals concerning a resurgence in hantavirus cases. Maybe not all the documents were publicly released. Maybe the docs mapping out the war were never publicly released, because they were destroyed? And thirdly, a war would kill two birds with one stone – work as a cover for a secret scientists team, and topple an anti-American regime!
It may look like a stretch, but if you connect the right dots in the right way, the whole picture becomes perfectly clear!
– conspiracytheoriesforum.co.usa, 1/11/2013 posting thread “motherpost”
JAPAN’S YIELD CURVE MAY BE INVERTING DESPITE CONSUMER CONFIDENCE REMAINING HIGH
…At the moment, more Japanese citizens are purchasing items on credit than ever before – despite Korea’s economic downturn possibly sending ripples over to Japan’s Treasury and business sectors…
– The Wall Street Journal, 12/19/1998
– Christmas in United Korea, c. December 1998
WHY ARE KFC SALES STAGNATING IN THE US?
…An analysis of the world-renown franchise’s business model of emphasizing quality at established locations reveals a slow-down in expansion over the past eight years. …The chain’s parent company, Finger Lickin’ Good, Inc., have only recently relegated 20% more funding to KFC’s advertising department, with results being overall mixed…
– The Caterer, weekly UK business magazine for hospitality professionals, late December 1998 issue
SOURCE(S)/NOTE(S)
[1] Inspired by this:
https://www.guyanausa.org/
[2] Parts of this segment are verbatim from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen
[3]
@ajm8888 came up with the idea of this segment
[4] I covered Carson moving to Australia and getting involved in local politics in the 1983 and 1991 chapters.
[5] Same as OTL except the act is a bit more damaging ITTL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Relief_Act_of_1997
[6] Both of these promotions come a bit earlier than in OTL
[7] Based on this:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/live-aid-1985-the-day-the-world-rocked-180152/
[8] I’ll go into more detail in the next chapter
[9] OTL quote!
[10] Real life demonstration, just founded five years earlier than IOTL.
[11] OTL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psoglav
[12] Also OTL!:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Subway
The next Chapter's E.T.A.: August 10 at the latest!
I have a little question that came to mind upon seeing Elvis at the Trump Stadium bit; What has happened to this timeline's version of Johnny Cash?
His biography is similar to OTL. He spends his life battling pill addiction and getting arrested on occasion in the 1960s, but maybe he doesn't accidently burn down a national forest here like he did IOTL. It's possible that, if the pivotal 1967 arrest in Georgia that caused him to get his life together and not let his pill addiction overwhelm him didn't happen, than some other, similar event unfolded instead, maybe during the anti-war shoutnik music scene of the early 1960s. He most likely was very happy when LBJ expanded Native American lands, even if it was just to get out of the Curse of Tippecanoe (covered in a prior chapter).
Like in OTL, Cash was on friendly terms with all the US Presidents, here starting with Sanders. As a devout Christian, Cash likely supported Sanders' post-Presidential religious activities, and prayed for him when The Colonel got shot in early 1980.
If he has a cameo in TTL's Futurama, the Space Coyote may be a "real" creature in the show, instead of a figment of Homer's insanity-pepper-influenced imagination!
Cash wasn't in the 1998 Feed the World concert because his health was in decline and his doctors advised him against it; I think 40 years of intermittent drug abuse, and having heart issues in the '80s, would catch up to him one way or another. Under UHC, though, his condition is correctly diagnosed as a neuropathy in '97, instead of it being twice misdiagnosed like IOTL. So, because of that, and maybe due to easing up on the pills a bit more successfully than IOTL (plus butterflies), he may live a bit longer here, but not by that much. Eight more years, tops, I'd say. Maybe I should cover all this in an obituary in a later chapter?...
Uh over half it it has a line through it.
I don't know why that happens, this isn't the first time it's done that. Check again - is it alright now?
Great!
Great chapter I liked President Dinger's cabinet. Nice to see Korea has a new leader now hopefully peace can last
Thanks and thanks; indeed!
How's Ireland doing? The mid-90s was when the economy really began to grow and led to the Celtic Tiger book. The overall nature of this timeline makes me think any economic growth will be much more tempered here. But who knows, maybe the Northern Ireland Peace Accords in the 70s have led to more investment in ireland sooner and butterflied the whole 90s boom away
Ireland's economy was sluggish during the early 1980s due to the effects of the Crash of 1978, but was doing very well by the end of the decade. Europe's tech boom is sort of coming earlier here, and Ireland is sort of at the forefront of it. The growth isn't as rapid as OTL, though. I'll go into more detail in the next chapter.
I wonder what the exposure of SpongeBob Squarepants, the show, is like TTL. Does it stay a niche show that's mainly confined to the countries where the restaurant is located in? Does it match the popularity of OTL SpongeBob, possibly being more popular than the restaurant in some degree (with exposure in countries where the restaurant isn't located yet, thus giving potential avenues to expand)? It really makes me wonder, especially being familiar with the 2000s fever for the show that I personally experienced in Europe.
Excellent question! Hillenburg cares about the quality of the show like in OTL, so it won't be a shameless cash grab; the latter may be more likely, then, right? What do
you think? (I'll cover it in either 1998 or 1999)
This timeline remains interesting. Wow. That Dinger cabinet is something else.
Thanks!
I suppose it all depends on the interests of all parties involved (Hillenburg, S.B.S.C. execs, DDB Needham, Klasky Csupo, etc.) and what those interests are, whether or not SpongeBob the show is licensed out (whether for airing in English, airing with subs, or getting a dubbing company to make a dub for a given market) in the same/similar fashion as OTL SpongeBob.
For instance, in Europe, there's the German sea food fast food chain Nordsee, primarily focused in Germany and Austria. According to the German Wikipedia article, in 1997, it was sold to Apax Partners, brought together under the subsidiary Nordsee Holding, later in 1999 introducing the smaller Snack-Shop eateries. It wouldn't be until 2004, as the brand reorganized and tried to improve its image, that it began expanding out of Germany and Austria, going into the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, and Switzerland (franchised branch, legal owner Candrian Seafood AG). It'd recommend more research into this, though it seems this is largely accurate. SpongeBob receiving dubs in Europe might be perceived by Nordsee (and any other sea food chains, if there are any, which I'm unaware of) as a Trojan horse of sorts, to get audiences (including kids) used to the brand, before the company officially expands into those regions. And I'd imagine there'd be S.B.S.C. execs who'd be thinking the same thing.
Of course, for those who care about the show, SpongeBob being licensed out is effectively an easy stream of revenue, especially if the show is a hit in America. So, honestly, the latter option of TTL SpongeBob being as popular as OTL SpongeBob seems likely, with the additional bonus of online discussions like "which are you more familiar with, the restaurant or the show". Heck, if the show becomes that popular, and there's countries which don't have branches, there'd likely be tourists who'd have their kids beg them to go to a SpongeBob's so that they can have a Krabby Patty.
Thanks!