Young Americans

WASHINGTON - My wife constantly regales me about her favorite National Public Radio show, Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me. The show features three journalists who have to answer questions about the week's news. Some of the news stories they are quizzed about seem totally unbelievable, while others are straightforward. Well, this is my last column for 2004, so let's play a little Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me. I'll give you 10 news stories from the past few weeks and you tell me what they all have in common.

CHICAGO -- They're everywhere these days. A hip couple kissing in a Perrier magazine ad. Any number of professional athletes and their wives. The young lovers in the movies Save the Last Dance and crazy/beautiful. They're all something that used to be almost unknown and, to most people, quite shocking: interracial couples. To young Americans, a black-white pair may be about as novel and daring as a Toyota Camry. But once upon a time, the idea was more controversial than gay marriage is today.

WIMBLEDON, England -- There was a time when Americans came to Wimbledon to win championships.Now, they're having a tough time just winning matches.Yesterday, it was No. 5-seeded Lindsay Davenport's turn to suffer a Wimbledon embarrassment, losing in the second round to Denisa Chladkova, 7-5, 6-2.The outcome left two American women in the draw, Monica Seles, a 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 winner over Kristina Brandi, and Mary Joe Fernandez, a 6-4, 6-0 winner over Aleksandra...

DEAR Rep. Robert Dornan:I confess that I was in Moscow in 1990, and I think I had contact with the KGB.In case I declare for public office, I want all of this to be out on the table now.Perhaps this early disclosure and my patriotic contrition will soften later attacks from Orange County, Calif., and the political descendants of the Bush-Quayle administration who recognize this as a vital issue.In November 1989, the Baltic states of the Soviet Union were in revolt. People protested in the streets, and once puppet-like parliaments were giving lip to the Kremlin.

LOS ANGELES -- Why are we in Kosovo? Because we have no draft. This war, in the air or on the ground, means nothing to most Americans. The military, all volunteers, go about their business and the rest of us go about ours.On the campus of the University of Southern California, where I lecture on the relationship between presidents and the press, there are more than 20,000 young Americans. You can walk from one end of the campus to the other on a fine, sunny day in the spring and never hear the word "Kosovo."

WASHINGTON -- Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates told lawmakers yesterday that the United States should welcome an "infinite" number of high-skilled foreign workers to fill engineering, computer programming and other jobs that otherwise would go vacant. Employers face a "critical shortage" of high-tech workers, Gates said. "There is only one way to solve that crisis today: Open our doors to highly talented scientists and engineers who want to live, work and pay taxes here." Gates told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that Congress should fix the "terrible shortfall" in H-1B visas, which allow well-educated foreigners to work in the United States for several years.

HOLLYWOOD - Jake Foley is about to learn a lesson the hard way, the one about being careful of what you wish for. A computer technician at the National Security Agency, Jake would love to become a secret agent, swapping his geeky little job for a life of glamour and intrigue. When a shootout erupts at a classified government lab, he gets caught in the crossfire and is accidentally injected with nanites - microscopic machines that can do amazing things, at least in science fiction. Such is the premise for UPN's Jake 2.0, which premieres tonight at 9 Eastern.

Thousands of young Americans were on the move in summer and fall 1967, on journeys that helped alter the path of the United States. In San Diego that summer, several thousand young soldiers boarded the USNS General John Pope and sailed to Vung Tau, South Vietnam. The enlisted men among them slept in bunks stacked seven-high. Walking ashore after a 6,000-mile journey, the men joined 500,000 other Americans fighting a war against an enemy the Pentagon was coming to regard as both ever-present and frustratingly elusive.

PRAGUE -- Forget California. Forget Broadway. You can even forget Seattle. Thousands of young Americans have found a new promised land, and it's an unlikely spot -- the Czech capital.A year and a half ago, John-Bruce Shoemaker arrived in Prague with $600 in his pocket and time on his hands. Today he works 16 hours a day at the three restaurants he runs in a historic building in the city's Old Town."Prague's beautiful, it's cheap, and there are lots of opportunities," said Mr. Shoemaker, 30. "There's a lot of cool stuff that can be done here."

IT ARRIVED in the mail impressively stamped in raised blue ink: business cards etched with the seal of National Republican Senatorial Committee, my name, and the words "National Campaign Adviser" underneath.The accompanying letter, from NRSC chairman Sen. Al D'Amato, R-N.Y., explained: "When discussing the 1996 campaign with voters in your community, please don't hesitate to use your cards to identify your status as a national campaign adviser to the NRSC."What did I do to deserve this?Well, last year, my best friend's brother ran for Congress and, in a fit of improvidential generosity, I did something I had never done before and plan never to do again: I gave money to a political campaign.