Week In Review A Look Back At The Top Stories From The Last Week

CRIME

Should McVeigh die?

He was convicted Monday of the worst mass murder in U.S. history, and now the jury must decide whether Timothy McVeigh should be executed for the Oklahoma City bombing in which 168 people were killed in 1995.

Tuesday, the victims’ testimony began. Jurors wept openly as mothers, sisters, husbands and sons took the stand - voices quivering and tears flowing - to describe how the horror of the bombing still dominates their daily lives more than two years later.

Dr. James Sullivan, a University of Oklahoma orthopedic surgeon, told the jury of amputating Daina Bradley’s right leg without anesthesia to free her from the wreckage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

“She screamed, ‘Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! I’m going to die,”’ he recalled, his voice choking up. “It was gut-wrenching.”

Jury experts say that despite two days of heartbreaking testimony, it is impossible to predict whether the panel will go along with the government’s request for the death penalty. During the selection process two months ago, jurors were required to assure the government that they could consider a penalty of death - not promise to deliver one.

When good news is bad news

The FBI reported this week that violent crime in the United States dropped by 7 percent in 1996, the fifth straight annual decline and the largest on record since the government began keeping track.

The reduction in the number of crimes reported to police across the nation was led by a record 11 percent drop in the number of murders.

The preliminary FBI statistics seem to confirm widely reported evidence of a dramatic reversal in the nation’s long-term trends in crime. The turnaround has been most striking in major cities.

Whom can you trust?

When confronted with the suggestion that Spokane County may have acted illegally in awarding a $134,000 contract for electrical work at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds without seeking competitive bids, Commissioner Phil Harris had somebody to blame.

The contractor, Canter Electric Inc. - specifically its general manager, D.L. “Augy” Augustine - should have told commissioners the county was obligated to seek competitive bids, said Harris.

“I hate to see it in print, but I think Augy’s covering his butt,” said Harris. “He should have known enough to say, ‘Hey, guys, this is getting big enough that it ought to go out to bid.”’

SOCIETY

Time is relative

In case you didn’t know it, the average American has more free time than at any other point in the past three decades, say time-management gurus John Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey in their new book, “Time for Life.”

Americans now are enjoying an average of close to 40 hours of leisure a week - up from 35 hours in 1965.

“We knew people felt more rushed. We knew that stress levels … seemed to be going up,” said Godbey, a professor of leisure studies at Penn State University. “We thought more free time would slow down the pace of life, but what we’re finding is free time is increasing as the pace of life increases.”

And just what are we doing with all this precious time?

By far, Americans are spending the largest single share of it watching television - almost 15 hours a week, more than double the time spent socializing. For every hour spent in front of the TV set, fewer than four minutes are spent on cultural activities.

The results were greeted with derision by other so-called time experts, including Harvard Professor Juliet Schor, author of “The Overworked American,” who concluded Americans have less free time, not more.

In fact, a lot of publishers wouldn’t give Robinson and Godbey’s book the time of day.

Turnabout is fair play

America’s military leaders shouldn’t be held to “notions of perfection,” Defense Secretary William Cohen said Thursday in support of a four-star general who remains a top candidate to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff despite admitting an adulterous affair.

The question of who will become President Clinton’s top military adviser was clouded after the admission by Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston that he had an affair with a civilian woman while separated from his wife in the 1980s. Ralston has been Cohen’s top choice as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to replace Gen. John Shalikashvili in the fall.

Women’s advocates and members of Congress quickly contrasted Ralston’s situation to the discharge of Air Force Lt. Kelly Flinn, who had a romance with a married man, then lied about it and defied an order from her commanding officer.

“How are things this morning at the Department of Double Standards?” asked a prominent Republican politician, with experience both at the White House and in state government. “He says things are getting out of hand with this sex-offense witch hunt. Maybe so. But why didn’t he say that before? Why did he have to wait until a fourstar general, his candidate for chairman of the Joint Chiefs, gets involved? This stuff has been going on for weeks.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos

MEMO: Week in Review is compiled by News Editor Kevin Graman. For more information on these stories, see Virtually Northwest, The Spokesman-Review’s online publication, at www.virtuallynorthwest.com.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by News Editor Kevin Graman