1988 Year

THE HIGHWAYS In 1988, 79,300 vehicle hours were wasted daily on congested freeways (a 3.8% increase over 1987). Traffic on state highways in Los Angeles County increased 4.5%. Accidents in Los Angeles County decreased 1.3% but fatalities increased 0.8%. Vehicles registered this year: 6,057,648, up by 2%.

What a way to start a year. Jan. 4 was the first business day of 1988, and it wasn't pretty for a couple of Orange County enterprises. For starters, the J.W. Robinson Co. announced that it would close its Anaheim Plaza store, the smallest in sales volume and productivity of the Southern California retail chain.

Had enough of those predictable year-end entertainment stories? The ones that told you what you already knew--that Glenn Close was in, Joan Collins was out and U2 was the rock band of the year? When it comes to keeping track of show-biz news makers and trend-setters, the real challenge comes in predicting this year's news--a 1988 hip parade 362 days early. Which TV shows will get the ax? Which rap group will be the new teen sensation?

In Orange County in 1988, the natural disasters were few. The human misfortunes were many. The ground didn't shake too much, and even the drought-parched canyons did not ignite. True, there was the winter storm early in the year that caused the newly rebuilt Huntington Beach Pier to collapse. But that was nothing compared to the collapse of careers and the tumbling of stature among many of the county's once-towering figures.

We want Janet. We want Janet shampoo (She cleaned up at Seoul , now she wants to clean up your scalp ), we want Janet toothpaste (She'll do to your plaque what she did to the East Germans) and we want Janet Cliff Notes (When gold medals get in the way of The Great Gatsby) . We want Janet-Jammies, we want JANET-LAND and yes, we want our JTV. We want Janet Evans in our newspapers and magazines, on our coffee tables and television screens.

What is was the most successful film of 1988? "Three Men and a Baby"? "Nightmare on Elm Street IV"? "Bambi"? You would think "Three Men and a Baby" (from Touchstone, the Disney subsidiary) was the highest-grossing film in domestic release, more than $167 million. But how about the re-re-re-release of "Bambi," Disney's 46-year-old animated deer tale? It could easily claim the title, based on its gross of $38 million. "Bambi" involved no production cost to Disney.

Maybe George Bush didn't see it coming: Maybe we're already a kinder, gentler nation. During 1988, cute was in, macho out at theaters throughout the country. Disney drew an animated rabbit so silly and impossibly adorable that he hopped his way into the heart of the screen's crustiest detective, and made "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" the No. 1 film of the year. Fox offered audiences a kid who gets his wish to become a grownup, and then decides there's no place like home.

For Los Angeles, 1988 was a year at the flash point, a volatile period in which spectacular fires and senseless street-gang gunfire dominated the headlines. The most stunning single news event was probably the May 4 blaze that threatened to turn the city's tallest skyscraper, the 62-story First Interstate Bank tower, into a colossal torch. Working feverishly, 275 firefighters quelled the flames within four hours.

The two novels "Summer in the Street of the Prophets" and "A Voyage to Ur of the Chaldees" are the first two volumes in the seven-part book; "The Palace of Shattered Vessels." David Shahar, born in Jerusalem, received major literary prizes in Israel and in France for this book. Jerusalem in the 1930s under the British Mandate is central to it. The main character in the novels is Gabriel Jonathan Luria who returns home to Jerusalem after leaving his medical studies in France.

Federal and local narcotics agents seized more than $100 million in cash and arrested more than 90,000 people on drug charges in Los Angeles during the last year, officials said last week. They also seized about 15 tons of cocaine with an estimated street value of more than $5 billion. The cash seizures and the total number of arrests--most of them related to the flood of cocaine pouring into Los Angeles--were the highest ever in the city. The U.S.