Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 14, 1993 TAG: 9311140178
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A: There is no cap. No matter how sick you get or how long you live, you'd be covered.
Q: Margaret Thatcher was interviewed on TV and looked almost glamorous compared to the way she looked a few years ago. Has she had anything done?
A: No surgery, according to the London Times, which assured us that they would know. Her new look may be attributed to a lack of stress and frequent massages administered by an Indian woman. Thatcher also has been known to indulge in a water therapy involving sitting in a pool with some sort of electrical current.
Q: I contend that the football game played between Florida and Georgia is called the Gator Bowl, and that the Jacksonville stadium is called something else. My friend says the stadium is called the Gator Bowl. What is the official name of the stadium in Jacksonville?
A: The stadium is the Gator Bowl. The Gator Bowl football game is played every Dec. 31. And the game played recently is called the Georgia-Florida game.
Q: What is the journalistic rule concerning the use of the word "alleged"? For instance, a story said two 11-year-old boys went on trial "for the alleged kidnapping and murder of a toddler." Didn't that event actually happen?
A: To allege means to assert without proof. You'll notice that before a person is convicted in a trial, "alleged" will be used in anything relating to the incident or the accused. While it may be a fact that a killing occurred, the court may decide that that killing was not murder. "Alleged" is dropped if the charge has been proved in court and the person found guilty. Certainly, a newspaper shouldn't judge someone by saying, for instance: "Mrs. Jones, who murdered her husband, will be going to trial next week."
Q: Since the North American Free Trade Agreement is a treaty, why does the House have to vote on it? I thought that only the Senate had to ratify treaties.
A: NAFTA involves tariff reductions, which means it will affect the revenues coming into the U.S. Treasury. Revenues are in the House's purview, so it gets to vote as well as the Senate. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative contends that NAFTA should not be referred to as a treaty. A treaty must be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, while an agreement such as NAFTA requires only majority approval by the two houses.
Q: Where does the term "getting off scot free" come from?
A: The term comes from scot, which was a municipal tax in 12th-century England. One who went scot free was someone who succeeded in dodging the tax. Later, "scot" was used to mean the amount owed for a bar tab. To drink on the house was to drink scot free. Drinks ordered in taverns were "scotched," or marked on a slate, enabling the owner to make a reckoning of how much a person owed.
Q: Which ultimately are more harmful to the environment, paper plates or Styrofoam plates?
A: There is argument on both sides, said David Funderburk of Fernbank Science Museum in DeKalb County, Ga. Even the newer type of plastic foam food-service products (often inaccurately referred to as Styrofoam), which are synthesized from oil and gas, do not degrade as readily as paper does. On the other hand, chemist Martin Hocking of the University of Victoria in Canada has written in Science magazine, "Because six times as much wood pulp as polystyrene is required to produce a cup, the paper cup consumes: 12 times as much steam; 36 times as much electricity; twice as much cooling water; 580 times as much waste water." He also said paper products used for food packaging contain waterproofing resins that make them impossible to recycle.
Q: If you win money on a gambling ship in international waters, will the winnings be taxed?
A: Even if you won the money on the moon, it would be taxed. The gambling establishment is responsible for giving winning patrons a federal W-G2 form to report winnings of more than $600. On winnings of $5,000 or more, 28 percent must be withheld and forwarded to the government. The state also takes its bite.
Q: When was the first credit card introduced?
A: What Jules Verne was to submarines, utopian author Edward Bellamy was to credit cards. In 1888, he wrote about America in the year 2000 and envisioned that it would be a cooperative commonwealth where everybody carried a card with his "share of the annual product of the nation" inscribed on it. Cash would be obsolete, there would be no monthly bills, and all people would get what they wanted by presenting their cards. It hasn't worked out quite that way. The first credit cards were issued by turn-of-the century swank hotels in New York. In 1922, Boston's Filene's department store became the first store to issue credit cards. In 1924, General Petroleum of California became the first oil company to issue them.
The use-it-all-over credit card was started in 1950 by Frank McNamara, who, after running out of cash at a restaurant one night, persuaded a number of New York nightspots to accept a card instead of cash and to pay him a fee for covering expenses. He called it Diners Club. American Express followed in 1958. By the 1980s, nearly every adult American had at least one charge card. It's been said that the popularization of credit cards changed the very character of America, from a puritanical culture to a hedonistic one where we get our pleasures and entertainments before we actually earn them.
Q. What are the unemployment rates of the potential NAFTA partners, Mexico, the United States and Canada?
A. The unemployment rate in the United States is 6.8 percent, in Canada, 11.2 percent. The official Mexican rate hovers at about 3 percent; however, the figure takes into account anyone who works at least one hour a week. Some analysts estimate that Mexico's unemployment may actually be closer to 15-20 percent.
Q. Where does Mexico rank on the U.S. list of trading partners?
A. Trade with Mexico amounted to $75.8 billion last year according to the Commerce Department, making them our third largest trading partner. Canada is No. 1, with $189.2 billion traded in 1992, and Japan second, with $145.2 billion.
Q. The franchise fee for a Carolina team to enter the National Football League is not cheap: $140 million. What are the recent figures for new franchises in other sports?
A. The entrance cost for the two latest additions to major-league baseball, the Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies, was a cool $95 million a piece. Comparatively, basketball seems like a bargain, with the newest teams in the NBA, the Orlando Magic and the Minnesota Timberwolves, each paying roughly $32 million to hit the hard court.
However, give the ever-growing popularity of pro basketball, this is expected to change as new franchises probably will pay well over $100 million in the near future. The latest entrants to the National Hockey League, five teams since 1991, each paid $50 million for ice time in the NHL.
Franchise fees are typically divided into equal shares and paid to each of the existing team owners in the particular sport.
Q. What law allows Congress to exempt itself from the laws it passes, like it's rumored to be planning for the upcoming health care laws? Can the president exempt himself from the plan?
A. There is no law that gives them this perk. They just do it on a case by case basis, inserting a line stating that the provisions of the legislation shall not apply to the employees of the legislative branch. According to the National Taxpayers Union, the most recent of these Congressional sleights of hand were the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Clean Air Act Amendments.
The executive branch, president included, can only be exempted if they get Congress to insert a provision for them, too.
Q: What is "forging and uttering?" What does that mean?
A: "Uttering" is to declare that a negotiable instrument, such as a check, is good when in fact it is a forgery, counterfeit or otherwise worthless.
by CNB