Persian Gulf War

Boosted by rising anti-war sentiment, a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens came back from its collapse in last month's national elections to score a narrow victory in a state election over a coalition headed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats. The balloting in the state of Hesse on Sunday had been expected to serve as the first test of Kohl's strength since the election of his new government in December.

Remember the 45-member choir from Cal Lutheran University that was going to Germany? Well, they arrived safely. University officials contacted them about their well-being just before the start of the war in the Persian Gulf, and the group has received approval to remain on tour. Quite understandably, choir director James Fritschel said last week from Hamburg that there has been "a certain amount of tenseness and uneasiness."

Congressional Democrats assailed President Bush's budget Monday, charging that his priorities for domestic spending are deeply flawed and calling his proposal to cut $25 billion in Medicare spending "an insult to America's seniors." "This is a cross your fingers, close your eyes, hope for the best budget," Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) called it a "don't worry, be happy budget."

In the tense, chaotic weeks preceding the Persian Gulf War, artist Kim Abeles was driven to make art that spoke out about the looming conflict, particularly since she felt the media were depicting it in a one-sided, flag-waving manner. "It was hard knowing I didn't feel (the same) way. I'm patriotic, but that didn't mean I necessarily wanted to jump into a war I didn't understand," she said recently. Abeles soon discovered that she wasn't alone.

Richard Nixon (who once accused the press of kicking him around) raised a few eyebrows in the '70s when Watergate tapes revealed him asking White House counsel John W. Dean III, "Have you kicked a few butts around?" This little phrase, sandwiched between deleted expletives and a big dollop of damns and hells, seemed just a bit, well, less than presidential. True, profanity and vulgarity were no strangers to some earlier residents at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

As the presidential race enters its final weeks, President Bush's role as chief architect of an ill-fated policy toward Iraq is emerging as a potential weak spot in one of his strongest selling points to voters, his reputation as a savvy manager of foreign affairs.

It is Jan. 24--eight tense days after President Bush launched the Persian Gulf War and one week after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lobbed the first Scud missiles into Israel. It is also Mike Medavoy's 50th birthday party. On a sound stage that night at Columbia Pictures in Culver City, some 250 of Tri-Star Pictures chairman Medavoy's closest friends gather. Talk of the war dominates conversation, for even at an A-list party in the land of illusion, war's reality is jarring.

Many were in their 30s, 40s, even 50s--housewives, engineers, doctors, everyday people with mortgages and children, credit card bills and cable TV. Many signed up never expecting to go to war. But a year ago, as the United States stormed into battle in the Persian Gulf, the "weekend warriors" found themselves in action. Plucked from their routines, nearly 240,000 military reservists were scattered across three continents, 106,000 of them in the war zone.

A major military confrontation in the Persian Gulf amid the world's richest concentration of oil fields would threaten the ports, pipelines and other facilities needed to move that oil to market. The greatest danger to oil supplies would come if Iraq successfully invaded Saudi Arabia and seized its oil fields.

A federal appeals court has reversed a controversial decision by a Los Angeles judge to expunge an Army reservist's criminal convictions so that he could accompany his unit to the Persian Gulf War. In a brief, unanimous decision made public Friday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the decision of veteran U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk to annul the criminal record of James Patrick Smith, 45. At the hearing on Aug. 24, over the vigorous objections of federal prosecutor Stephen A.