Gov. Ventura becoming ‘Prairie Home’s’
By Stephanie Simon,
Los Angeles Times
ST. PAUL. Minn. _ He likes to
portray himself as meek and mushy,
so bland, as he puts it, that he makes
linoleum look like great art. But these
days, Garrison Keillor has an edge to
him.
He’s taking on Gov. Jesse Ventura.
And his radio variety show, "A Prairie
Home Companion," normally such a
mellow mix, bristles now with insults
directed the Minnesota governor’s
way: You have the IQ of a salad bar.
“ “If you were any dumber, we’d have
to water you." "You couldn’t pour
water out ot a boot if the instructions
were written on the heel."
This is more than just a personal
till. This is a culture clash. Keillor is
a Minnesota icon. An aloof, inward
man, he somehow compels 2.6
million listeners to tarry in the on-air
block party he creates every Saturday
night, to listen to his stories and dance
to his music and to feel as though they
know him and he knows them, as
though they might all one day meet
to swap jokes over a backyard grill.
“A Prairie Home Companion" is
celebrating its 25th anniversary this
season, and it attracts more fans than
So when Keillor starts slamming
the governor, folks around here listen.
And of course, this isn't just any
governor. This is Jesse "The Body"
Dole strategy: capitalize, but don’t rely, on gender
By Ceci Connolly.
The Washington Post
SHIPPENSBURG. Pa. _ The first
thing people notice about Elizabeth
Dole is that she's a she. It is a
distinction this presidential
candidate-to-be often highlights. At
a recent appearance in this rural
Republican community. Dole laced
her 45-minute address with tales of
womanhood. Eike the day in 1970
when, as an aide to President Nixon,
she tried in vain to get into the
Metropolitan Club in downtown
Washington for an important
business meeting.
" 'Lady. - " Dole remembered the
doorman replying, " 'I don't care if
your name is Queen Elizabeth;
you're not coming in.' "Today, Dole
noted to hearty applause, women can
enter that club. From her appearance
(painted nails, high heels and pearl
chokers) to her rhetoric ("What does
a woman like me have to offer the
FBI searches home of Los
Alamos spy suspect
By Bob Drogin,
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ Armed with a
warrant, the FBI searehed the New
Mexico home, car and garage
Saturday of a Taiwan-born computer
expert who has been identified as the
chief suspect in an apparent case of
Chinese espionage of U.S. nuclear
weapons secrets in the 1980 s.
After a six-hour search, witnesses
said, the agents removed several
boxes of papers, books and other
items from the home of Wen Ho Lee,
who was fired last month from his
job as a senior computer scientist in
a top-secret weapons modeling
division at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
The FBI obtained the court
authorized warrant, its first since it
began investigating the alleged
espionage more than three years ago,
after Lee’s co-workers told agents in
recent interviews that he had
frequently carried work home from
the lab, according to a senior law
enforcement official.
Lee, dressed in gardening clothes
and fishing cap, stood outside talking
to neighbors during part of the search
at his wood-and-brick bungalow in
White Rock, a suburb of Los
Alamos, which is northwest of Santa
Fe. Lee declined to talk to reporters,
as he has since his name first
surfaced in public, and his attorney
could not be reached for comment.
Lee has not been charged or arrested,
and an FBI official here said the
search did not mean he is guilty of
any crime.
The FBI, CIA and Department of
Energy are seeking to determine how
Ventura, the gun-packing, blunt
talking, bald and brawny head of state,
the former boa-draped wrestler, the
ex-Navy SEAL. The only governor
who’s not only a tourist attraction but
also the inspiration for his own line
of action figures. And a Minnesota
icon in his own right.
Ventura makes a just-about
irresistible target for a humorist. And
Keillor has succumbed to temptation
with gusto, touching off a very public
spat with the governor that has set
Minnesotans buzzing and added a
caustic new twist to the gentle humor
of “A Prairie Home Companion.”
“Em all in favor of a good feud,”
Keillor says.
Good thing, because he’s in the
middle of a doozy. It started when
Keillor described the new governor in
Time magazine as a “great big
honking bullet-headed shovel-faced
‘mutha’ who talks in a steroid growl.”
Next, Keillor whipped out, in three
weeks, a satirical novel about a
wrestler turned governor: “Me, by
Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente.”
Ventura promptly accused Keillor
of “cheating” him by rushing the book
to print before his own ghost-written
autobiography, “I Ain’t Got Time to
Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic
From the Bottom Up.”
Next move, Ventura: The Gov
announced plans to kill state funding
for Minnesota Public Radio, which
produces “Prairie Home Companion.”
country'?”), Dole is capitalizing on
her most obvious asset: She is the only
woman in a Republican lineup that
currently includes nine men.
With the weight of history upon her
as the first truly viable female
presidential candidate, Dole is taking
a calculated risk. She is attempting to
craft a political persona that exploits
the advantages of her gender but does
not rely solely on that fact to woo
voters.
If the strategy’succeeds, Dole's
supporters believe she could be the
first national Republican candidate
since the 1970 s to put a dent in the
huge “gender gap” that has
historically cost the GOP crucial
elections. “To Democrats she is
terrifying,” said Democratic
consultant Dane Strother, who has
successfully run women’s races in the
South. “She begins ahead of the pack;
when she talks about education or
health care she has more credibility
than a while guy in a suit.”
China obtained data that apparently
helped it build smaller and more
powerful nuclear warheads that are
suspiciously similar to the state-of
the-art W-88 warheads that are
carried on U.S. Trident submarines.
"The labs are convinced the
Chinese acquired W-88 information,”
one official said. “How they did it,
where they did it, when they did it, is
still not clear.” Lee has told the FBI
he was approached and asked to
reveal classified information during
a scientific conference in Beijing in
1988, but he said he refused. He was
fired, in part, because he didn’t report
the covert contact at the time.
Shortly after the conference, U.S.
intelligence obtained a Chinese
document that first raised suspicions
about espionage because it
specifically cited the top-secret W-88.
Some U.S. scientists suspect that a
series of underground nuclear tests
that China conducted in the early
1990 s may have used the new design,
although there is no evidence that
China has yet deployed it on any
weapons.
The investigation began in earnest
in 1996 and focused on Los Alamos,
where the W-88 was designed.
Although Lee was quickly identified
as someone who had dealt with
Chinese officials, he was not removed
from his job, until the case erupted
in the news in early March, for fear
of tipping him off that he was a
potential suspect.
The search warrant executed
Saturday is “the kind of thing we’re
able to do now because the
investigation has gone overt and
we’re able to talk to people,” an
official said. Secretary of Energy Bill
W 0 7*ld Cltld Na tlO 71 Thursday,April 15, 1999 - The Behrend College Beacon - page 7
He denies he was out for revenge.
Previously, however, he had
responded to Keillor’s snipes with this
credo: “I don’t get mad, I get even.”
Whatever his motive, Ventura
argued that Minnesota Public Radio
does not need state funds, which pay
for transmitters in rural areas. He
accused unnamed public radio fat cats
of getting rich while accepting
taxpayer subsidies. Then he joked that
he would like a peek at Keillor’s
income tax returns.
Instead, he has received a weekly
on-air walloping. “We have a lot to
fight about,” explains Keillor, a tall,
geeky-looking type with glasses
sliding down his nose and hair ever
flopping on his forehead. The
antipathy, he adds, runs deep: “The
governor owns Jet Skis and loves to
get on them on a quiet Sunday
afternoon and ride the hell out of
them. I’m the person sitting on the
porch of a cabin on shore, quietly
wishing the person making that
infernal buzzing noise would hit a
dock and break a leg.”
Ventura’s tell-it-like-it-should-be
style makes him an easy subject for
parody. The governor has said, for
example, that college athletes should
be exempt from taking classes so they
can concentrate on their games; that
drunken Irishmen must have laid out
St. Paul’s crooked streets; that if
American Indians are allowed to spear
fish according to their traditions, he
Yet it is a delicate balancing act; if
Dole is to win over the largely
conservative base that votes in
Republican primaries, she runs the
risk of offending the moderate and
independent women her aides say
give her an edge. “There is a huge
opportunity there for bridging the
gender gap,” said GOP pollster Tony
Fabrizio. “Meeting the challenge of
that opportunity is kind of tricky. The
question is can you make it through
the primaries without alienating those
swing female voters who may be
looking fora reason to vote for you?”
She has been a trailblazer for
women, Harvard Law School, two
Cabinet positions, head of the
American Red Cross, yet some
professional women scoff at her
sweet-as-molasses approach to
serious matters. For every fan of
Dole’s carefully choreographed,
theater-in-the-round-style
performances, there are others who
complain that the country is not
Richardson announced the warrant.
“The FBI is investigating and
pursuing this case vigorously, and the
Department of Energy is supporting
the law enforcement effort fully,” he
said in a statement.
As part of the investigation, the
Energy Department abruptly ordered
all classified computer work stopped
on computers and related equipment
at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore
in Berkeley and Sandia National
Laboratories in Albuquerque, the
nation’s three main nuclear weapons
facilities, on April 2 pending an
intense review of security
procedures.
The stand-down, as it’s called, is
still in effect, said Jim Danneskiold,
spokesman at Los Alamos. He said
about 2,400 employees with access
to classified computers, servers,
routers, printers and other equipment
have undergone special briefings on
cyber-threats. “The gist was we want
employees to ensure that there is no
way that information can leave the
secure network,” he said.
Under the current system,
Danneskiold said, only some e-mail
to the outside world is monitored, and
rules require employees to lock up
removable hard-drives, zip drives,
discs and other material continuing
classified data in safes at night.
“What’s to keep someone from
sticking a removable hard drive in his
pocket and walking out the gate at
night?,” he asked. “Nothing. Except
the rules. And we’re patriotic
Americans.”
should be able to catch his dinner by
tossing bombs in a lake. Navy SEAL
But Keillor so far has refrained
from picking apart the governor’s
pronouncements. Instead, he delights
in sending up Ventura’s populist
image, depicting him as a thick
headed egomaniac in love with power
but fed up with the burden of running
a state.
In one recent skit, Keillor had the
governor saying he preferred
Hollywood to St. Paul because he
could dress in Day-Glo bikini briefs
and a feather headdress without the
media getting on his case. “People
really appreciate me there,” he had
the governor say. “They don’t come
up to me and bitch about the schools
and stuff.”
The insults Keillor reels off with
such zest mark a departure for
“Prairie Home Companion." He
usually fills his two hours of air time
with a homespun blend of folksy
music and clean-cut skits, such as his
“Guy Noir” parody of detective
novels. In his sleepy, halting voice, a
voice that seems to get where it’s
going almost by luck, Keillor
introduces the tunes and reads
hilariously serious mock
advertisements for "sponsors” such as
the Ketchup Advisory Board, the
American Duct Tape Council and
Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. Each
week, he also runs through the news
electing a talk show host. And for
every voter drawn to Dole’s well
articulated views on issues such as
education, there are many, especially
during this time of war in Yugoslavia,
who express reservations about
putting a woman in the White House.
In a telephone interview last week.
Dole played down the role of gender
in her possible candidacy. “I'm not
running because I’m a woman, and I
don’t expect people to vote for me
because I’m a woman," she said. Yet
in the same conversation. Dole
described taking over the "male
bastion" at the Transportation
Department in 1983 and her efforts
to bring more women into the
management ranks there. "Trying to
help women fulfill their potential has
been important to me in all positions
of government.”
In a recent Washington Post-ABC
News poll, Dole's strongest
supporters were white women in their
40s, two-thirds of whom choose Dole
Park
ideas
By Richard Simon,
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ Politicians wish
they got this kind of attention. A pair
of pesky beavers ravaging
Washington’s beloved cherry trees,
and the government’s inability to
solve the toothy problem, is the talk
of the nation’s capital. Never mind
that the NATO leaders are coming
to town. “ ‘Where can I see the
beaver?’ That has been the No. 1
asked question the last couple of
days,” National Park Service ranger
Erin Broadbent said Friday.
The Washington Post rated it a
Page One story suggesting that two
beavers, rather than the one
suspected, appeared responsible for
the damage. The paper also offered
a Top 10 list of ways to catch a
beaver, including: “Send A 1 Gore out
to the Tidal Basin in a pink sombrero,
with instructions to ‘stand very still.’
A local radio station is sponsoring
a Name the Beavers contest. Wilbur
and Fanne was one suggestion, a
reference to former House Ways and
Means Chairman Wilbur Mills, D-
Ark., whose companion, former
stripper Fanne Fox, was the last
celebrity to occupy the Tidal Basin,
Melting in Antarctic quickens
By Rob Stein,
The Washington Post
Two ice shelves in the Antarctic
appear to be melting more quickly
than had been predicted. Satellite
images show that the Larsen B and
Wilkins ice shelves, which are on
opposite sides of the Antarctic
constant companion
from Lake Wobegon, the hometown
he invented for himself and for all
who long to return to, or are glad to
have escaped from, small-town
America.
That format has proved enduringly
popular. “Prairie Home
Companion's" audience has doubled
in the last eight years, and it’s now
broadcast live on 467 stations.
Although the average listener is at
least 35 years old and college
educated, the program attracts all
types. Ten-year-olds ask Keillor for
autographs. Gen-Xers and retirees
alike line up at 6:30 a.m. to secure
tickets to live broadcasts. Listeners
tune in from Tasmania on the Internet.
And the show's top markets are not
in the rural Minnesota of Lake
Wobegon but in San Fransciseo,
Washington, New York. Boston and
Seattle.
Even the slams against Ventura, so
seemingly parochial, play well to a
broader audience. It doesn't hurt that
actor Tim Russell does a wicked
impersonation of the governor’s
distinct Minnesota accent, flattening
his vowels so taut they all but bounce.
It’s unclear whether Ventura is
among Keillor’s audience. He did tell
an interviewer that Keillor “makes
Minnesota proud." But he hasn't
commented on "Prairie Home
Companion" since Keillor started
spooling him in earnest. He doesn't
have to. While the show is a hit by
over Gore in a hypothetical matchup.
Republicans "have lost support with
younger women, professional
women, moderates and suburban
voters," said Linda DiVall, Dole’s
pollster. “Those are voters she has a
bond with."
That potential was obvious during
her paid appearance at Shippensburg
University, where women of all ages
trilled over the prospect of a President
Dole. Young women called her a role
model. “She sends a message we’re
not limited by gender,” as college
sophomore Crystal Collier put it alter
meeting Dole at a private reception
here.
Middle-aged women praised her as
a trailblazer. "When I was little, I
couldn’t participate in the punt, pass,
kick contest because I was a girl,"
said Sharon K. Cole. “I couldn't go
to Princeton because I was a girl.
That's what I love the most about
Elizabeth Dole."
And many older women are rooting
service short of capital
to foil hungry beavers
around which more than 1,600 cherry
trees are located
George was another suggestion (as
in George Washington, who legend
has it was no friend of cherry trees)
and Theodore (as in Beaver Cleaver).
Park rangers named one of the critters
Rocky (they don't care if that’s the
name of a famous squirrel) but have
yet to name the second beaver.
Federal government workers
joined hordes of tourists at the Tidal
Basin Friday in hopes of catehing a
glimpse of the tree chompers, or at
least surveying the teeth marks left
on trees. “We thought we saw a
beaver, but it was a stick," said a
Virginia woman who. in the true
spirit of Washington, would speak
only on the condition that she not be
named.
The park service has hired a
professional trapper to set “humane”
traps in hopes of capturing the
beavers for relocation to a refuge.
“There are a lot of nice places I think
they would be happier,” said Julia
Long, a biological sciences
technician for the park service.
Added Long, sounding as if this was
a national security matter: "I don’t
disclose anything about the number
of traps or their location. It’s
Peninsula, have lost nearly 1,100
square miles in the past year, U.S. and
British scientists said.
The melting apparently was caused
by a regional warming trend, said
researchers at the University of
Colorado at Boulder and the British
Antarctic Survey. Temperatures have
risen by about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit
radio standards, it attracts less than
half the audience of. say, a typical
televised wrestling match. It hasn’t
made a dent in Ventura's 72 percent'
approval rating.
Perched on a stool at the edge of
the stage, his tuxedo pants hiked up
to reveal red socks, his eyes elosed as
he conjures the words, Keillor spins
tales of family spats and neighborly
one-upmanship, of homecoming
dances and stinky manure, of can’t
fail business schemes that everyone
knows are doomed.
In addition to the Wobegon
segment, Keillor writes all of the
show's humor. He skewers himself at
times, having a character tell him.
"You have the personality of a turtle
on Valium." These days, however, he
more often jabs at the governor.
"Don’t strain yourself making
sentences," one of his characters
advises Ventura. “Just grunt."
For all the mileage he has gotten out
of his feud. Keillor said he’s weary of
the game and plans to write the
governor out of his scripts. “It’s only
interesting for a while,” he said. Such
restraint, if he shows it, may
disappoint some listeners. "You
anticipate certain things," said
longtime listener Jim Hughes, a
Vermont retiree. “Like the monologue.
Or the razzing of Jesse Ventura."
for the 62-year-old Dole as one of
their own. “I'd like to see her
succeed," said June Toole, who puts
her age round 75. “She's a qualified
candidate, and a woman.” After her
speech, a group of students and two
professors huddled in a circle to
discuss Dole’s appearance. Many of
the twenty-somethings like the idea
of a woman in the Oval Office, but
they criticized Dole for delivering a
canned
speech. And several rolled their eyes
at Dole’s idealistic yearnings for the
days when front doors could be left
unlocked.
Thomas Segar, 26, said Dole’s
notions on America's drug scourge
were naive. Steve McTaggart said
Dole came off as just another
packaged politician, despite her
claims to the contrary. "They all seem
like robots," he said. "She didn’t
break a stride."
detrimental if wc have people looking
for them,’
Meanwhile, some tree trunks have
been wrapped in rubber tubing to
protect them from surprise beaver
attacks. Beavergate upstaged the
Cherry Blossom Festival, when the
city celebrates :.l the Tidal Basin the
blossoming of cherry trees, a gift
from Japan in 1012. The basin is an
inlet from the Potomac River where
the Jefferson Memorial is located.
The beavers as of Friday had
destroyed four cherry trees, damaged
four others and damaged five cedar
trees. So far, none of the 150 trees
remaining from the original gift have
been damaged. The park service has
been receiving tips from the public
on how to capture the beavers. One
Pennyslvanian passed along the name
of a "good friend who is an expert
trapper."
Visitors also have been suggesting
what the park service should do, if
they ever defeat the beavers. Bob
Lande of Silver Spring, Md.,
suggested that the rodents be put on
display at the National Zoo. No new
teeth marks were sighted Friday
morning, giving park officials hope
that the critters have moved on.
since the 1940 s
“We have evidence that the shelves
in this area have been in retreat for 50
years,” David Vaughan of the British
Antarctic Survey said in a statement
issued last week. “To have retreat (of
this size) in a single year is clearly an
escalation.”