Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993 TAG: 9302210357
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY PARHAM and GERRIE FERRIS COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NEWS
Q: If a meteorite landed in my back yard, who would it belong to?A: You.
Q: Besides the 1973-1987 General Motors pickup trucks, are there other vehicles that have the gas tank on the outside of the frame?
A: No comparable vehicles are being manufactured today. But for one year, in 1972, both Ford and Chrysler trucks had gas tanks mounted on the outside of the frame. The design was changed after that year, according to the Center for Auto Safety.
Q: Which vehicle was more dangerous in terms of people killed - the infamous Ford Pinto or the General Motors pickup truck?
A: There reportedly were 27 deaths connected with the Ford Pinto, whereas the 1973-1987 GM trucks allegedly are responsible for about 10 times that many.
Q: Is writer Gore Vidal related to Vice President Al Gore?
A: Vidal, who is the grandson of the late Oklahoma Sen. Thomas Gore, has said in interviews that he is a distant cousin - "seventh or so" - of the vice president. Apparently Vidal, who supports the Rev. Jesse Jackson, doesn't think much of cousin Al. When asked to comment after Gore became the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, he quipped that that was "a bit like asking who is the tallest man in Lilliputia." The novelist, essayist, critic and media provocateur isn't fond of Gore's wife, Tipper, either. In a 1987 interview, he said his relationship with the senator "will get more and more remote the more I hear about that wife of his."
Q: Regarding the hijacking of the Lufthansa jet: How is it that an Ethiopian national, who hijacked a German airplane in Austrian airspace, is being prosecuted in the United States?
A: He is being held under U.S. air piracy statutes because the plane landed in New York. There is no word on whether another country is interested in prosecuting him.
Q: What is the fee for the lawyer who won the $105 million from General Motors?
A: Most lawyers' contingency fees run from 30 percent to 50 percent of the award. But the lawyer won't get paid until his clients, Tom and Elaine Mosley, do, and that won't be until the appeals process is completed and the final figure is known.
Q: When was the "black national anthem" officially adopted?
A: "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known informally as "the black national anthem," was written in 1900 by brothers James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson for their school choir's Abraham Lincoln Day celebration. The NAACP adopted it as its organizational song in the 1920s.
Q: Are there any gays in the Secret Service?
A: A spokeswoman said there is no policy against hiring homosexuals to the Secret Service ranks, but she knew of none currently serving. The Secret Service uses the standard government hiring form, and a person's sexual orientation is not asked.
Q: When does the family leave law take effect?
A: Aug. 5, six months from the date it was signed.
Q: Whatever happened to the little girl at the center of the landmark desegregation case Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, which was argued at the Supreme Court by Thurgood Marshall?
A: Linda Brown Buckner, now a widow, has led a quiet life in Topeka, Kan. She has two children and is a paraprofessional with the Topeka school system. In 1979, she and 16 other parents reopened the case, charging that the school system had not done enough to desegregate the schools. Further court rulings ultimately decided that enough had been done.
Q: What is the method used to destroy chemical and biological weapons found in Iraq? When I was a chemical weapons specialist in the Army in 1970, the only acceptable way to destroy such weapons was using a special incinerator on Johnson Island in the Pacific.
A: That is still the way the U.S. military disposes of chemical and biological weapons. The U.N. peacekeeping forces, however, do not have to abide by the standards set by the Army. Instead, they follow guidelines set by an international board of overseers, experts on destroying chemical weapons. Some chemical weapons, primarily those containing mustard gas, are destroyed in an incinerator in Iraq. Those containing nerve gas are destroyed at a plant that essentially puts the stuff through a chemical "scrubbing process." Others are exploded on site.
Q: How and when did "gay" come to mean homosexual?
A: John D'Emilio, a historian at the University of North Carolina who has written extensively about gay history, said that despite many theories, it originated in the 1920s when male homosexuals began applying it to themselves. They borrowed it from its earlier use, when it meant prostitutes and loose women. It was used in the closed society of homosexuals after World War II. The general population was mostly unaware that "gay" meant anything more than merry until the closet started opening in the '60s.
Q: Muslims, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia look alike to me. How can they tell who they're shooting at?
A: It's not always easy, because their differences aren't racial but are based on religion and tradition. Troops wear uniforms, and some civilians wear ethnically distinctive clothing, but most don't. In general, rivals in such conflicts know where different groups live and often know each other.
Q: I've heard Sen. Bob Dole and other Republicans refer to themselves as the "loyal opposition." Loyal to whom?
A: The country. The term implies a responsibility to oppose with patriotic motives. In Britain, when political parties were first formed in the 18th century, the term meant that the party in opposition, like the party in power, was true to the royalty.
Q: What is the agenda of a new gay group called Campaign for Military Service being formed to coordinate activity regarding gays in the military? Does it advocate openly homosexual behavior, gay marriages in the military, etc.?
A: A spokesman for the group said its agenda goes no further than getting the executive order signed to lift the ban on gay and lesbians serving in the armed forces.
Q: Have any ex-presidents returned to government?
A: After being president, John Quincy Adams served in the House, Andrew Johnson served in the Senate, William Howard Taft was co-chairman of the National War Labor Board and chief justice of the United States, and Herbert Hoover chaired two key federal commissions after World War II. Oddest of all, John Tyler was elected to the Confederate Legislature from Virginia.
Q: What is the nationality of Boutros Boutros-Ghali?
A: The secretary- general of the United Nations is Egyptian. He had been a diplomat and Egypt's foreign minister.