WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2002
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN - 27
Donahue returns to TV
NEW YORK (AP) — Phil Donahue, who hung up his microphone in 1996 after three decades on the air, returned to TV Monday with a new discussion program.
The same silver hair and the same animated but thoughtful style that distinguished him before was evident in the 66-year-old talk show pioneer.
"Well, yes, we think it's about time we got back on the air, just as I'm sure you do," said Donahue, gamely welcoming himself to MSNBC and a Secaucus, N.J., studio "larger than the room in which I had my high school prom."
"Holy cow!" he exclaimed. "Somehow a liberal got in!"
The show, Donahue, air weeknights at 8 p.m. EDT, pitting the veteran host against rival talkers Bill O'Reilly on Fox News Channel and CNN's recently acquired Connie Chung.
His first topic was whether the United States should take another shot at toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, with Donahue playing ringmaster to three opposing guests.
He proved too much of a gentleman (or was he a bit rusty?) to properly officiate the debate, which was dominated by indecipherable crosstalk and had barely scratched the surface before he moved on.
Late in the show, he and sports commentator Bob Costas discussed steroid use in baseball, as well as the chances of a players strike.
"I think it will be avoided," Costas ventured, "because the stakes are too high."
But in the hour's most successful segment, Donahue sparred with MSNBC's newly recruited conservative pundit Pat Buchanan about the "under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Donahue defended separation of church and state as making both institutions stronger, while Buchanan called Donahue "a dictatorial liberal."
"Donahue and Buchanan take on God," the host summed up with a chuckle.
The original Donahue, which premiered Nov. 6, 1967, from Dayton, Ohio, took its host to Chicago and then New York while paving the way for dozens more syndicated talk shows from Oprah Winfrey to Jerry Springer. Losing ground in an increasingly crowded field, Donahue taped his final edition on May2, 1996.
After that, he kept a low profile other than his role campaigning for Ralph Nader during the consumer advocate's thirdparty presidential bid in 2000.
"There was never a smorgasbord of issues in my lifetime like we have now," Donahue said recently, explaining his itch to be back on TV, talking.
Dozens flee as wildfire roars through Sierra Nevada
TOPAZ LAKE, Nev. (AP) — Federal firefighting crews turned their focus on Tuesday to the Sierra Nevada, where firebreaks had been bulldozed around a housing subdivision threatened by an 8,600-acre wildfire.
U. S. Highway 395 along the mountain range was closed from Bridgeport, Calif., north to the Nevada-California state line, where hundreds of residents and staff and guests at the Topaz Lodge hotel-casino had voluntarily evacuated on Monday.
Crew chiefs estimated the fire was still only 10 percent contained and that more than 250 homes were at risk.
More than 600 firefighters, three air tankers and two National Guard helicopters were assigned to the blaze Tuesday.
A Type I fire management team from Oregon, the highest priority federal firefighting team, was scheduled to take over control of the blaze on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The blaze was given a top priority because of the number of homes nearby, said Mark Struble, a fire information officer from the Bureau of Land Management.
Wind blowing at a sustained 25 mph on Monday hampered firefighting efforts in the dry juniper, sage brush and pinon pines in the rugged mountainous area about 90 miles southeast of Reno.
"The wind is the biggest concern," spokeswoman Laura Williams said Tuesday from the Sierra Front Interagency Fire Dispatch Center in Minden, Nev." It is very low humidity. The soil moistures are at the
lowest level they have been for this time of year since Nixon was president."
The estimate of the fire's size was scaled back from 10,000 acres to 8,600 after an aerial survey. That included about 1,400 acres burned during the night, officials said.
Bulldozers had been used to dig about a 2-mile firebreak around 50 homes in the Holbrook Highlands subdivision just north of Topaz Lake.
"They are digging in for big winds expected the next day or two," Williams said.
The area around the Topaz Lodge also remained a concern. "The fire line is within a half mile from there," Williams said.
The blaze was started by lightning last week and grew 20-fold Sunday. The plume of smoke over the fire was visible in Reno, 75 miles away.
The fire cut power lines south of Lake Topaz, blacking out residents as well as the firefighters' command post at the local high school.
Sierra Pacific Power officials said it could be weeks before power is restored to all of the area.
The wildfire was just northwest of the site of a 22,750-acre fire last month near Walker, Calif., where three men died when their air tanker crashed.
Elsewhere in Nevada, a 10,000-acre fire raged unchecked on the Nevada-Uttah line.
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