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Seaside Sentinel - The historic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, located in Buxton, North Carolina, has reached its new resting place a week ahead of schedule. After years of coastal erosion, the 129-year-old structure was in danger of falling into the ocean. The lighthouse completed its 2,900-foot, hydraulic journey on a set of rails and now rests safely 1,600 feet away from the Atlantic. Construction begins soon on a new brick foundation. The lighthouse will be lit and open to the public by Memorial Day 2000. [Wired News]
Secretarial Pool - Can you type? Take a little shorthand? Know your way around a coffee maker? Then you might consider junking your MBA, packing up the truck, and heading out to Silicon Valley to begin your new career as a secretary. While the average secretary in the United States makes between US$25,000 and $35,000 a year, the California variety can rake in three times as much. According to Michelle Burke, president of Executive Counterparts, an executive and administrative staff training agency, there are secretaries in the Valley earning up to $100,000 annually. This is secretaries' week. If you're a Silicon Valley exec, let your administrative assistant pick up the tab. [Wired News]
See Yez, 'Stick' - The freezingest fans in baseball said goodbye to the Park Formerly Known as Candlestick this past week, and as is their San Franciscan, narcissistic wont, they waxed nostalgic about themselves. Here's pitcher Mike Krukow, talking to S.F. Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler: "They hung. They hung like sides of beef in a meat locker." [Wired News]
See the Bear - See the baby boomers. See how many of them there are. See the baby boomers invest in the stock market. Watch the stock market go up. Way up. Soon -- around 2011 -- the baby boomers will start retiring. See the baby boomers pull their money out of the stock market. Watch the stock market go down. Way down. Wall Street is worried. See the stock brokers start to worry. See their furrowed brows. If the baby boomers pull out of the market, who will be left to buy all their wonderful stock? Besides the stock brokers, who gets screwed? Why, Generation X, of course. Bigger, children, is always better. [Wired News]
Seer - Who knows how the economy will fare in 1999? Forecaster James Smith of the University of North Carolina, probably. For the second time in three years, Smith won The Wall Street Journal's semiannual contest to predict future interest rates and inflation. Smith's secret: He keeps a close eye on Fed chief Greenspan, whom he called "the best economic forecaster in the US, probably in the world." [Wired News]
Senator Bill Clinton? - If you think you're rid of Bill Clinton when he leaves the White House, that might just be wishful thinking on your part. The New Yorker ran a little blurb suggesting that Clinton may be considering a 2002 run for the Senate in his home state of Arkansas. Although only one president -- Andrew Johnson -- later served as a US senator after leaving office, the real interest here is what it means for the Hillary-Bill pairing. With Mrs. Clinton expressing an interest in living in New York, whether or not she runs for the Senate herself, a lot of people see it as a sign that the First Marriage is in trouble. When a reporter asked Clinton about The New Yorker article, the president ignored the question. [Wired News]
Separate Surfin' - Saudi law decrees that men and women remain segregated in public places, such as markets, theaters, and cafes. It is also against the law for women to drive a car in the conservative Muslim nation. So it's unsurprising that when the country's first Internet cafe opened in December in the city of Jeddah, it was the boys who got to try it out first. Now the month-long "test period" is over and the Cafe de Paris will open its doors to women, who will be discreetly shielded from the men by a wall, with this caveat: "We ask our female clients to alert us and cut any connection which stumbles across a site that fails to respect our Islamic values." [Wired News]
Separate but Equal - In order to be a member of the Monticello Association, you must be able to claim direct lineage from Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president and primary author of the Declaration of Independence. The current membership stands at around 700 and will probably remain there for a while despite claims by the descendants of Sally Hemings that they should be allowed to join. Hemings was a slave owned by Jefferson and it is widely believed that he fathered at least one child with her following the death of his wife. Despite DNA tests suggesting that Jefferson knew Hemings as a little more than "the help," the president's descendants are holding firm, at least for now. After hosting the Hemings clan at a family dinner Sunday, the Monticellans decided that they should not be admitted to the association until the proof is conclusive. "We're not racists," one Jeffersonian said. "We're snobs." [Wired News]
Seventy-Year Itch - Young men are discovering that a liberal application of Gold Bond -- a medicated foot powder for the elderly -- can turn them into James Bond in the sack. According to one report, more and more men have taken to sprinkling the powder into their shorts when a bout of lovemaking seems imminent. The sensation, likened to the tingle of a menthol cough drop, apparently gets lads revved up in all the right ways. Even doctors are giving the green light, while the company that makes Gold Bond is pitching the powder on college campuses. And not as a cure for itchy feet. [Wired News]
Sexing Things Up - What Viagra can do for the old man, testosterone supplements can do for the old lady. But, somewhat suprisingly, it's the young ladies who need help with sexual dysfunction, according to a study by New York Presbyterian Hospital. The study, undertaken to determine whether the sexual-potency drug Viagra is of any use to women (it isn't), found that testosterone supplements like AndroFit were 80 percent effective in stimulating a woman's sexual desire. But the study also confirmed an earlier one saying that younger women -- ages 18 to 39 in this case -- are more likely to lack interest in sex than their elder sisters. While no scientific reason was given, here's a theory: Women over 40 grew up in the '60s and '70s. Pre-Reagan, pre-AIDS, pre-uptight '90s. Sex was FUN then. [Wired News]
Shagapore - Where would Austin Powers be without "shag"? Moviegoers in Singapore were about to find out after the Board of Film Censors there voted to snip the word -- which is British slang for sexual intercourse -- from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, decreeing that it was "crude and offensive." But authorities relented Wednesday and now the International Man of Mystery will be seen at his buck-toothed best, even in the land of corporal punishment. The censors, incidentally, wanted to replace "shag" with "shioked," which means "good" or "nice" in the city's hybrid dialect known as Singlish. Now that would have gotten a few laughs. [Wired News]
Shaken, Not Stirred - This might be taken as a sign that Mr. Bond has finally shot his bolt: The best they can apparently come up with to sing the theme song for the 19th James Bond flick is Mel C, aka Sporty Spice. No less an authority than The People, an English publication, dropped this cultural bon-bon to the masses. But if Sporty is to be so anointed, it won't be without controversy: Another august rag, calling itself Zen, reports that "heartthrob" Robbie Williams thought he was in line for the gig. Maybe Robbie can get Q to devise a diabolical method for dispatching the overreaching Spice Girl. [Wired News]
Shatner's Wife Drowns - Nerine Kidd, 40, the wife of actor William Shatner, was found dead in the swimming pool of their North Hollywood home late Monday. Kidd was discovered by her husband after he returned home around 10 p.m., police said. Shatner performed CPR on Kidd but was unable to revive her. Police are so far treating the death as an accidental drowning. Shatner, 68, is best known for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek TV series and subsequent movies. [Wired News]
Ships of Antiquity - Two Phoenician cargo vessels lying 1,500 feet under the eastern Mediterranean since sinking in a storm more than 2,500 years ago have been discovered by undersea explorer Dr. Robert Ballard. Ballard, who made the announcement at a press conference Wednesday in Tel Aviv, described them as the oldest deep-sea shipwrecks ever found. "A lot of history books will be rewritten from what we are finding in the deep seas," he said. The two vessels -- measuring 60 and 45 feet long, respectively -- were found sitting upright and nearly intact on the sea floor. Their cargo of wine seeped out long ago, but the ceramic containers that held the wine were largely unbroken and still stacked in neat rows. The vessels were located using the same tracking equipment Ballard employed while hunting for the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. [Wired News]
Shooter Surrenders - Buford Furrow, the suspect police had sought in the Tuesday shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center near Los Angeles turned himself in to authorities in Las Vegas early on Wednesday. Five people -- including three children -- were wounded in the shooting, when Furrow sprayed the lobby of the building with more than 70 bullets from what was believed to be a 9-mm weapon. Furrow has ties to hate groups in the US Northwest, including Aryan Nation, the Order, and Christian Identity. More coverage from Lycos [Wired News]
Shooter Was a Student - A 15-year-old sophomore, distraught over breaking up with his girlfriend three days earlier, is being identified as the gunman who opened fire at a high school in Conyer, Georgia early Thursday, wounding six students. The boy, whose name was not released because of his age, was identified by other students at Heritage High School as the shooter. One witness said that he dropped his rifle and fled after the shooting, then pulled out a pistol and put it in his mouth. He was prevented from shooting himself by an assistant principal, and reportedly surrendered in tears. The most seriously wounded student, a 15-year-old girl, was reported in stable condition at an Atlanta hospital. She was shot through the intestines. [Wired News]
Shooting Toll: 15 Dead - The death toll for Tuesday's shooting rampage at a Littleton, Colorado high school has been lowered to 15, but it remains the worst instance of school violence in American history. Although medical examiners have not removed the bodies from the Columbine High School campus because of the threat of booby traps, all the victims have been identified and all survivors accounted for. At least 20 victims were hospitalized, some in critical condition. Among the dead are the two suspects, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, students at the school, who apparently killed themselves after slaughtering their classmates. Police are describing the assault as a "suicide mission." [Wired News]
Silent Treatment - And you thought space was quiet and peaceful. Astronauts say the Russian half of the international space station sounds like rush hour on a busy freeway. That's why they're packing earplugs for this week's repair mission to the space module. The crew will install foam covers over the fans, ducts, and vents in an effort to muffle the noise. If that doesn't work, permanent crews will just have to get used to those earplugs. [Wired News]
Six Billion and Counting - There will be more than 6 billion people on the planet to greet the dawning of the new millennium, according to a report by the US Census Bureau. By 2026, that number is expected to be 8 billion; by 2050, 9.3 billion. The good news is that population growth is slowing down. The bad news is that more than 90 percent of new births will occur in countries least able to deal with a crush of new mouths to feed, primarily in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In developed countries, meanwhile, the population will actually decrease as the death rate outstrips the birth rate, a natural occurrence, we are told. [Wired News]
Slam Dunked - How chaotic was the first day of the truncated 1998-99 NBA season? The Chicago Bulls, the defending world champion, couldn't muster enough bodies to conduct practice. With Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman gone and several others still unsigned, the Bulls have only six players under contract. Elsewhere, the day was taken up with signings and trades and a number of players were moved. Notable among them: Golden State finally unloaded its b te noire, Latrell Sprewell, dealing the coach-choker to the New York Knicks for three players. When the wheeling and dealing is complete, teams will play a two-game exhibition slate before the regular season opens on 6 February. [Wired News]
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