Vice Versa

Some strange fads have gripped education over the years, but shutting school in May and going back in August is the weirdest yet.Lord help the U.S. when hostile little powers acquire cruise missiles as good as ours.Imagine dwelling on Ms. Lewinsky with the left side of your brain and Mr. bin Laden with the right, or vice versa.Cheer up. Chernomyrdin is back.Pub Date: 8/26/98

Today, if you're right, you're also wrong.Today is the day to be left and proud. It's International Left-handers Day.International Left-handers Day was started by the now-defunct Lefthanders International, and first celebrated on Friday, Aug. 13, 1976.That day was chosen to counter the superstitions about left-handers and continues to be celebrated by some left-handers.After all, scientists say that if you are right-handed, the left side of your brain is in control, whereas if you are left-handed, it's vice versa -- leading to the inescapable conclusion that left-handers are the only ones who are in their right minds.

Since television was introduced to the throngs at the New York World's Fair in 1939, TV and the movies have had a curious relationship: at times hostile, at times mutually supportive and even, on rare occasions, spurring each other to greater creativity.Film and television have become so symbiotic it's difficult to believe that when TV was first introduced, the movie industry refused to have anything to do with it. Until the mid-1950s, the studios forbade their stars from appearing on television, and banned their films from being shown on the dreaded box.By 1956, the folly of such strategies had been made clear by two groundbreaking TV events: The huge success of ABC's "Disneyland" series, which not only was a hit with audiences but also provided valuable cross-promotion for Disney's theme park and feature films; and the 1956 airing on CBS of "The Wizard of the first feature film ever to be shown on television, and proof positive that Hollywood's movies could be invaluable programming fodder for the networks.

The time to get out of Japanese stocks is five years ago.The strongest Asian currency is the U.S. dollar, more's the pity for U.S. exports.Just because the U.S. has not paid its share into the IMF rescue fund is no reason Bill cannot pontificate to potential borrowers.The exploding deer population is a growing threat to the exploding automobile population and vice versa.Pub Date: 11/26/97

In theory, China is taking over Hong Kong. History will record that it was the other way round.The Supremes could not find the right to suicide in the Constitution, which rarely stopped them before.It turns out the FBI ran the Mob in Boston, or vice versa.Just when we were congratulating ourselves on Tiger, the best golfer around turns out to be some South African white guy named Ernie.Pub Date: 6/30/97

Now the Republican Congress can investigate the Democratic attorney general, and vice versa.According to Justice Department figures, crime is down everywhere but where you may be standing.E7Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, not Brooklyn.Well, it's getting to be nearly time to start thinking about doing the old income-tax return, isn't it?Pub Date: 4/16/97

The Great Architect is taken from us and we really hardly knew him.Chairman Mao sounded paranoid 30 years ago but he was right: Deng Xiaoping really was taking the capitalist road.Big-county executives don't mind how much money is spent on city school children as long as more is spent on theirs.Trustees must face whether to sell the Peale paintings to save the City Life Museums, or vice versa.Pub Date: 2/21/97

Perot will hold his own debate, to which no other candidate is invited.Spiro Agnew made Maryland famous and vice versa.A juiced ball cannot possibly explain all the Orioles' home runs, although it certainly does explain the As' and Mariners'.Atlantis found Lucid lucid.Pub Date: 9/20/96

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sitting by my window in the afternoons I often hear the distinctive sounds of martial arts coming from the karate dojo down the street. Aiee! shouts the blond instructor as he punches the air. Aiee! shout his students, punching the air along with him. It occurs to me they are announcing my arrival.I had resigned myself to the idea that the public and private cultures in America would never meet. Born in Vietnam, I came here when I was 12 and spent my teen-age years and much of my twenties lurking between Little Saigon and the shopping mall.

What's visionary is not always art, and vice versa.Bosnian Serbs were sold out by Serbia in the Dayton accord but will comply because their own army never existed. It was always Serbia's.With the collapse of the Powell and Specter balloons, moderate liberals have found their place in the Republican Party: outside, looking in.After she snared the Prince, Diana did not live happily ever after. Yet. This fairy tale is not over.