Week of August 1, 1987

402 people are killed during clashes touched off by Iranian pilgrims in Mecca,

where more than 2 million Muslims were making the annual trek.

Goodbye Fairness Doctrine For Good - This week, the FCC repeals its 38-

year old policy requiring broadcasters to air all sides of controversial public

issues. The decision to junk the fairness doctrine comes a month and a half after

President Regan vetoed legislation that would have made the policy law.

Secretary of State George Shultz publicly endorses Panama’s main opposition

movement and states that the Reagan Administration has decided to continue its

freeze on aid to the regime of military strongman Manuel A. Noreiga.

Doctors say that New York Mayor Edward Koch

has suffered “a tiny, trivial stroke” slightly affecting

his left side, but they add, the ailment did not

present any major immediate concern.

Five assassins ambush and kill Jaime Ferrer, one of

President Corazon Aquino’s most influential Cabinet

members as he rode home from church in Manila.

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger - the last

public witness of the Iran-contra hearings says the

President Reagan made his decision to sell arms to Iran based on erroneous

intelligence that contradicted all other official U.s. assessments of the situation in

that country.

The Iran-contra hearings end - bringing to a close a three-month public inquiry

into high-level chicanery that found no evidence of wrongdoing by President

Reagan.

Surgeons remove a small patch of cancerous skin from the tip of President

Reagan’s nose in a two-hour procedure.

The presidents of five Central American nations, setting aside a peace proposal

by President Reagan, agree on a regional peace plan that rests on their being

able to work out further, delicate agreements that have eluded them for years.

A Pentagon guard shoots to death a shouting intruder who drew a handgun,

demanded to discuss missiles and burst past a security station toward the offices

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was identified as Dwain Wallace. Of Youngstown,

OH.

Week of August 1, 1987

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) - who

coined the phrase “Teflon president” and

jokes that President Reagan “thinks arms

control means some kind of deodorant” is

testing the waters here and there, to see if

she’ll run for President herself.

Vice President George Bush, said an Army-

Navy football game him from haring tow

Cabinet officers strongly object to the Iran

arms sales and thus, he cannot be faulted by

other presidential candidates for not offering

his own objections.

The Senate confirms the nomination of

conservative economist Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve

Board. He’ll succeed outgoing chairman Paul A. Volcker.

The National Institute of Justice says police departments can protect their officers

from the risk of contracting AIDS by adopting clear-cut policies such as hand

washing and the use of protective gloves.

John Connelly, former governor, former Treasury secretary - a former millionaire,

files for bankruptcy. “I’ll have to start making a living now.’

New York Democratic State Sen. Andrew Jenkins is arrested after an undercover

agent gave him $150,000 in cash to spirit out of the country. Federal laws make it

a crime to transport more than 410,000 out of the country without notifying them.

A computerized contributor list from the Gary Hart presidential

campaign seized by a creditor fetches 46,500 at an auction from

a political marketing firm. The magnetic tape, said to contain

about 40,000 names of donors to the former Colorado senator’s

1984 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, was

confiscated by marshals at a Marin County computer facility in

June at the request of tri-state envelope Corp of Beltsville, MD.

Trending down - Granola Bars - after zooming in sales during the early 1980’s,

have tumbled in sales - by nearly a third. Many say food companies are to blame

- while trying to broaden their appeal - they turned granola bars, a health food,

into candy bars - some covered with chocolate. Popular in the 1960’s as a

counter-culture food, they became mainstream during the early 1970s after

Week of August 1, 1987

General Mills introduced a granola cereal - Natural Valley Granola. After fining

out that people were using the cereal as a finger food, the company introduced a

dry and crunchy bar under the same name. Sometime in 1981 - Quaker Oates

came out with a sweeter and moister version of the granola bar. Called Quaker

Chewy Granola Bars, it quickly became the sales leader. The market for granola

bars is expected to continue to shrink.

Good buy AMC - American Motors

- the company that gave such autos

as the Pacer and the Gremlin,

ceases to exist as of this week. It is

now the Eagle-Jeep division of

Chrysler.

Technology - IBM - in a bid to

expand in the educational, home and

small business markets, announces a

small low priced personal computer -

the Personal System/2 Model 25. It is

expected to compete with Tandy and

Apple.

Playing in Las Vegas -

Sammy Davis Jr., Jerry Lewis - Bally’s

David Copperfield, Petula Clark - Caesars

Rich Little - Desert Inn

Entertainment news -

Comedian George Carlin is bouncing back from a career funk. In 1982, he

suffered a heart attack and has had two heart surgeries since.

Donna Rice tells “Entertainment Tonight,” that she has no plans to reveal

whether she was intimate with Gary Hart. ABC wants to make a movie-of-the-

week on her life, but she says - “This is a perfect example of the media’s desire

to sensationalize everything I do; this will not be a ‘kiss and tell’ movie.”

Music news - Now that hubby Sean Penn

begins serving a 32-day jail sentence, Madonna

says he gets a lot of baiting. “He’d have to

become a pacifist or a Buddhist” to tolerate the

baiting he undergoes. They bait Sean in ways I

can’t even tell you. They call me obscene names

in front of him just to get him to react, but Sean

Week of August 1, 1987

is trying to learn not to take to bait… I think he will emerge from jail as a better

person and as an even greater actor.” Madonna says the man he it was a

photographer posing as an extra on the set of the movie “Colors” in April.

Television news - At 38, Phil Hartman of Saturday Night

Live says cast members who joined the show at a younger,

saw the show as a springboard, but Hartman says for him,

the show is “the pinnacle.” “This is it. This is Rockefeller

Center, New York City, live comedy television. There’s

nothing like it.”

Producer Barry Sand leaves Late Night With David

Letterman after five years and instead, will produce Fox’s

“the Late Show.”

Lormar Productions gives Valerie Harper one week to return to the set of her

NBC show “Valerie” or the series will be recast.

Week of August 1, 1987

Saturday night television -

CBS - Movie, West 57 th

NBC - Facts of Life, 227, Golden Girls, Amen, Hunter, Saturday Night Live

ABC - Webster, Movie

Fox - Down and out in Beverly Hills, Adventures o Beans Baxter, Werewolf,

Karen’s Song

HBO - Boxing, Movie-Psycho III, Movie-Used Cars

Hunter - Hunter goes solo in a highway prostitution ring investigation.

Saturday Night Live - John Larroquette is joined by musical guests Timbuk 3