May 5, 1998 All Things Considered (entire program) Requires the RealAudio Player

An index of the day's stories:

Vatican Killings -- NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome that Vatican officials have been quick to dampen speculation about intrigue in connection with yesterday's murder of the newly-appointed head of the Swiss Guard. (3:30)

Swiss Guard -- All Things Considered host Robert Siegel talks with Father Tom Reese, the editor of America Magazine and the author of Inside the Vatican: The Politics of the Catholic Church. They discuss the history of the Swiss Guard -- the remnants of the military force of the Vatican. Members of the Guard, which was formed in 1505 by Pope Julius the Second, now serve as bodyguards and security detail for the Pope. All members of the Guard are in fact Swiss, and have a history of service in the Swiss Army. Father Reese says that there hasn't been a murder at the Vatican since 1848. (Note: Inside the Vatican: The Politics of the Catholic Church is published by Harvard University Press.) (4:00)

Watch Man-- NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports that a special class at a Seattle community college is reviving the dying art of watch repair. The program is headed by a master craftsman, and is the only training course in the U.S. that's endorsed by the Swiss watchmaking industry. (4:30)

It's So Pretty -- Commentator Vertamae Grosvenor talks about the musical patterns of her native speech -- Gullah. Many Gullah expressions are lyrical and circuitous. Grosvenor was determined to learn a less colloquial form of English, and listened to the radio to get a feel for the language. She sometimes didn't understand what all the English phrases meant, but she definitely liked the way certain turns of phrase sounded pretty -- even if what they meant was completely mundane. (3:00)

Health Care Profits -- Only a few years ago, there were dire predictions that hospitals, doctors, and drug companies would be in a financial crisis by now -- overwhelmed by demands to cut costs. But those forecasts have turned out to be wrong and now the industry is thriving. NPR's Patricia Neighmond looks at the booming health care industry, and why economists were so off-base with their forecasts. (10:30)

Reagan Building Dedication -- Today, the new Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, located in downtown Washington, DC, was officially dedicated. We'll hear excerpts from comments made at the dedication ceremony by Nancy Reagan and President Clinton. (2:00)

Bill Viola's Video Art -- Bill Viola, a pioneering video artist, now has a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The show will tour the country and Europe over the next year and a half. Viola's images have a way of drawing viewers into a video world where, often, not much happens -- in slow motion. Viola thinks that seeing the world through the viewfinder allows him to see things that many of us miss -- and he's apparently found a way to communicate that through scenes of people sleeping; meeting on the street; or of viewers seeing themselves in a drop of water. Karen Michel reports from New York. (7:45)

The Science Behind the Cancer Drug Story -- NPR's Joe Palca talks with Robert about the new class of cancer drugs that may some day be used to cut off the blood supply to tumors. So far, the drugs that have gotten so much attention have only been tested in mice. But there are related drugs that are already being tried in humans -- with mixed results. (3:00)

Market Reaction -- NPR's John Ydstie reports that Entremed's stock price continued falling back today, but the decline was small compared to the tremendous run-up that took place yesterday. Entremed's shares closed at nearly four times what a share of Entremed sold for on Friday. Analysts say the market over-reacted to the company's research results. (3:00)

This Has Happened Before -- "Speculative Frenzy" was the headline used by the Washington Post to describe the reaction Monday on Wall Street and in the press to a glowing report on two new anti-cancer drugs published by The New York Times last Sunday. The coverage in print and on television amounted to high profile publicity for the researcher, his drugs, and the company that is developing them. NPR's Richard Harris says that such reports of an impending cure for cancer have captured the attention of the nation's media many times over the past twenty years. He examines one of the most notable examples -- interferon. (4:00)

Who Gets Cancer? -- Robert and All Things Considered host Noah Adams have some facts about cancer and whom the disease tends to strike. Among other facts, the disease kills one in four Americans -- and tends to affect people who are middle-aged or older. (1:00)

Clinical Picture Today -- NPR's Patricia Neighmond talked to several cancer doctors and patients today to find out what their reaction is to all the news reports about the new cancer drugs. For people who are faced with a terminal diagnosis, any tidbit of news about possible new treatments can trigger great uncertainty over how to proceed best with current therapies. (3:00)

We Are A Nation of Patients -- Commentator Robert Lipsyte is a long-term cancer patient who has been fighting the disease for more than twenty years. He says that news of a cure for cancer is thrilling at first glance, but that science can only solve one part of the problem of disease in general. The social side effects that come from living with a debilitating disease need to be addressed as well. (Note: Robert Lipsyte's book, In The Country of Illness: Comfort and Advice for the Journey is published by Knopf.) (4:00)

Executive Privilege -- Judge Norma Holloway Johnson has ruled that President Clinton may not invoke executive privilege in independent counsel Kenneth Starr's federal grand jury investigation of the Monica Lewinsky case. NPR's Chitra Ragavan reports. (3:30)

Tobacco Bill -- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott says the Senate might not consider anti-tobacco legislation this year. Lott says that if a measure does come up, it might not be the leading proposal, sponsored by Senator John McCain. Among those writing a competing bill is Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who warns that high taxes in the McCain measure might drive up cigarette prices so high that it spawns a black market. Hatch says that would make it easier for children to buy cigarettes, although cutting underage smoking is the stated goal of most anti-smoking proposals. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports. (4:00)

Florida Democrats -- Florida Democrats are concerned about their party's prospects against Republican Jeb Bush in this year's race for governor. A group of party activists even tried to convince the publisher of the Miami Herald -- a man with no political experience -- to enter the race. Florida's Democratic Party remained strong for many years after the rest of the South became more Republican, but demographic changes and a lack of inspiring candidates are putting the party's future in doubt. NPR's Cheryl Devall reports. (5:00)

Drug War -- NPR's Tom Gjelten reports on the plan by the U.S. and the other nations of the western hemisphere to set up a multilateral mechanism for evaluating the progress of the drug war. The Clinton administration's "drug czar" sees the new approach as the first step towards scrapping the unpopular drug certification process required every year by Congress. But key members of Congress say they're not about to give up the certification process. (5:00)

Shell Game -- Commentator Andrei Codrescu got some real inside information on the nation's booming economy while he was on a flight recently. He says that while things appear to be fantastic on the surface, the economy's apparent strength is in reality the result of a sophisticated shell game. (2:30)