Federal Government

For adventurous seekers of solitude, like the Gary Guess family, Crab Creek is just a few oar strokes away from the cares and commotions of this coastal city. But it might as well be in another world. No roads lead to Crab Creek. The only full-time residents of Crab Creek and similar other swampy backwaters of what is known as the Mobile Delta are creatures such as rats and alligators and black bears. People, such as Gary and Irene Guess and their 3-year-old son, Christopher, are only visitors.

Every four years Americans are presented with different visions of the future and are asked to choose between them. This year, we've been told, the choice is between two conceptions of government: small versus big. The Republican presidential ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan has promised to "restore" America to its "small government" past. Any vision of the future is built upon a certain understanding of the past. Although past and future are inextricably linked, we spend much less time evaluating candidates as historians than we do assessing their skills as fortunetellers able to predict the future.

Vice President Al Gore highlighted one of Orange County's corporate success stories Tuesday as he told workers at an AST Research plant here that he hopes the federal government can operate a bit more like the computer manufacturing company. Touting his own plan to reinvent government, the vice president described the federal bureaucracy as a place where creativity is stifled, employees are uninspired and over-regulation has strangled efficiency.

A federal judge Monday threw out a lawsuit filed by the state of California seeking billions of dollars from the federal government to cover the cost of providing services to illegal immigrants. Gov. Pete Wilson, who had ordered the lawsuit filed as part of his tough stand against illegal immigration, vowed to continue the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. "Californians should not give up hope," Wilson said. "Major groundbreaking court decisions are rarely made at this level in the court system."

Catherine Keddie does not recognize the authority of the U.S. government. She believes the income tax is illegal. And she thinks the "freeman" in Montana are being treated harshly. "I am a sovereign," said Keddie, a 58-year-old unemployed Orange resident. "The federal government cannot tax people in this country. The only person above me is God."

The California State University system's Board of Trustees on Wednesday authorized talks with the federal government to obtain a large chunk of land for a possible new campus at Ft. Ord, the military base in Monterey County that is being closed in a few years. Trustees hope that Washington will give the university system about 2,000 of the fort's 28,000 acres for a school that might focus on environmental and biological sciences because of its location near the ocean.

Ethnic violence spread to Croatia's Adriatic Sea coast Monday when more than 30,000 angry protesters stormed the main Yugoslav naval base at Split, killing a federal soldier and commandeering armored vehicles. Military commanders in Belgrade ordered troops on combat alert and issued a veiled warning to Croatian leaders that they would be held responsible for any further violence against the army.

The chairman of Guardian Savings & Loan tried to interest regulators last month in a plan to turn the failed Huntington Beach thrift into an employee-owned, minority-controlled financial institution. But the federal government, which seized the S&L in June, would have had to put up $25 million to make the deal go through, and "there's no money for that," William J. Crawford, the thrift's chairman and president, said Wednesday.

Sunkist Growers Inc., which is facing a lawsuit by the Justice Department for allegedly violating federal marketing quotas, joined forces with its German marketing partner to donate more than $150,000 to two dozen charities Wednesday as part of its celebration of 100 years in business. Representatives of groups ranging from San Fernando Valley Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts to AIDS Project L.A.

Outlining a major policy shift, Atty. Gen. William P. Barr said Tuesday that the Justice Department will be "receptive" to states' efforts to remove court-ordered population caps at overcrowded prisons. Barr, in a hard-line speech to the California District Attorneys Assn. in Palm Springs, said that many federal judges went too far in the 1970s and 1980s in deciding what the Constitution requires to remedy purported "cruel and unusual punishment" in prisons.