Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 3

Tallahassee Democrat Friday, Decembari9933A TODAY: 1993 ends; 1994 begins at midnight. Ml RD Cowtown Cowgirl Classic rodeo competition begins in Fort Worth, Texas. SATIRD Mummers "Cakewalk" up Broad Street in Philadelphia's New Year's parade. FAST FOOD WINTER WEATHER The Big Mac: enema on a Nation Am dhim sesame-see I 'fn fevl1 ihi fill ti I in ft; MIKE DERERThe Associated Press Blanket of snow A storm dumped up to a foot of snow in much of the East, but this pedestrian in Brunswick, N.J., found a shoveled sidewalk Thursday. New East and the Great Lakes.

It was 18 degrees Thursday morning in Albany, N.Y., 4 in Cincinnati, 9 in Portland, Maine, and 6 in Lansing, Mich. York City got 3 to 4 inches and Boston received 10 inches of snow by 8 a.m. Thursday. The chill that moved in on Christmas lingered in the BRIEFS CRIME oe The 25-year-old fast-food staple has gone from humble beginnings to a hallowed place in U.S. culture.

By Amy Wallace LOS ANGELES TIMES It was born a mere burger. In 1968, when America first tasted the double-decker called Big Mac, the world barely batted an eye. Back then, uttering the phrase "two all-beef patties" did not prompt children to break into song. It was a simpler time, when people just said Thousand Island dressing, not "special sauce," and the public saw McDonald's wide-bodied, to-matoless concoction as a sandwich nothing more. But 25 years later, thanks to relentless marketing and global expansion, Big Mac has come to mean much more than lunch.

Today, the world's most popular sandwich is as recognizable as Mickey Mouse, as ubiquitous as Coke. More than 14 billion Big Macs have been sold in 66 countries. "With so few icons left that you can really depend on it's dependable one less surprise in a world filled with unpleasant surprises," said Eugene Secunda, a marketing professor at Adelphi University in New York. "It's part of the mythic culture of America." "It's the Paul Bunyan of hamburgers," said Larry Orenstein, an advertising consultant who helped make the. Big Mac famous.

"It's an American institution, like Johnny Appleseed." lis value wholly olher than nutrition like any standard-bearer, Big Mac has borne a heavy burden. In its short lifetime, it's been dissected, deconstructed and vilified. Thanks to President Clinton, it is fodder for comedians. who says Clinton doesn't inhale," goes one joke, "never saw him around a Big Worse, it is held up as a symbol of the deterioration of everything from mass culture to eating habits. "No single brand-name food has clogged more heart arteries," said Phil Sokolof of the National Heart-savers Association.

"It has made many bypass surgeons and morticians independently wealthy." But today, as Americans who can't remember life before the Big Mac threaten to outnumber those who can, its cultural significance has far surpassed its gastronomic value. So what if Big Macs are yucky? They're also intrinsically American. "No one buys a Big Mac for the simple reason of eating it," says Michael Steele, whose anthropological essay about McDonald's is included in the book, "Ronald Revisited: The World of Ronald McDonald." "Instead, the behavior is part of an entire 'gestalt' in which the consumer participates on a subliminal level," Steele writes. "The purchase to stalk criminal of a Big Mac involves a 'deep' interior perception of self, family, country and socioeconomic status. Along with a Big Mac, a consumer 'buys' a vision of himself at leisure on a well-deserved break; a vision of family cohesiveness (and) a particular type of patriotism." All that for just And it all began in Southern California From silver screen to golden arches Richard and Mac McDonald moved to Hollywood from New Hampshire in the summer of 1928.

Their dream was to own a chain of movie houses, but their first theater in Glendora, drew smaller crowds than the nearby hot-dog stand. They took the hint, opening a typical Southern California drive-in with carhop service and 35-cent burgers. Then in 1948, they revolutionized the way Americans eat out "We wondered what would happen if we sold almost nothing else but hamburgers, cut the price to 15 cents, eliminated carhop service, reduced the staff got rid of plates, forks, knives and tipping, and just made the whole thing a cheap, efficient operation where people wouldn't have to wait," Richard McDonald, now 84, says in Jeffrey Tennyson's new book, "Hamburger Heaven: The Illustrated History of the Hamburger." By the time a milkshake salesman named Ray Kroc bought McDonald's in 1961, more than 100 franchisees were peddling burgers around the nation. The McDonald brothers had laid the foundation, but it took another Southern California entrepreneur to build the burger that would beget the Big Mac. In the 1930s, Bob Wian owned a popular hamburger stand in Glen-dale.

One night in 1937, when a regular customer asked him for "something different for a change," Wian carved a sesame seed bun into three slices, placed two patties between them and finished it off with lettuce, cheese and relish. The sandwich, dubbed the Bob's Big Boy, was an instant hit. Word of the unusually built burger and its pudgy-cheeked, overall-clad mascot spread quickly. Soon, according to Tennyson, the hamburger expert, "double-decker burgers were as mmon as bunk beds at summer camp, and rotund little 'Burger Boy' mascots were everywhere." But the descendant that would outshine them all would not make his appearance until the 1960s three decades after the Big Boy's birth. Jim Delligatti, a one-time Southern Californian operating McDonald's restaurants in Pittsburgh, wanted to broaden his customer base by offering larger, adult-sized fare.

The double-decker leaped to mind. "This wasn't like discovering the light bulb," Delligatti admits. "The bulb was already there. All I did was screw it in the socket." The rest is McHistoiy. 16 ruled that expelling Steffan solely on the basis of his sexual orientation violated the equal protection guarantee of the Constitution.

The court considered the old policy banning homosexuals in the military, but its ruling could also raise constitutional questions for the somewhat more liberal policy the Clinton administration has put into effect. The Pentagon earlier this month issued regulations for its new "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy that forbids homosexual practices but does not necessarily discharge members merely for their sexual orientation. Steffan was a model student and regimental commander. In 1987, he confided to a fellow student and a chaplain about his sexual orientation. He resigned from the academy six weeks before graduation, after the board recommended he be dismissed.

Federal agents have turned to Internet users to help find the person responsible for a long string of bombings. By Tim Bovee THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON The FBI is stalking a deadly bomber down a different kind of mean street: the information superhighway. Federal agents have expanded their search for the so-called university bomber to the Internet, a vast network of computers that reaches an estimated 20 million people worldwide. The UNABOM task force is seeking the person responsible for 14 bombings since 1.978. One man died and 23 people were injured in the attacks.

Most of the bombings were targeted at the computer industry, the aircraft and airline industries and universities. The bombings were in seven states: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, Utah and Washington. In the most recent attack, a Yale University computer scientist was injured when a parcel he was opening exploded. In 1985, a Sacramento computer rental-store owner was killed. "Internet users are precisely the type of individuals that to date have been recipients of explosive devices attributed to UNABOM," said FBI Special Agent William Ta-foya in a notice posted on the computer network.

"You are not being asked to place yourself in harm's way. You are encouraged to come forward if you have information." The FBI placed the information on-line on the Internet using a computer owned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. People on the Internet can download the information to their own computers or browse through the documents while on line. The FBI offered a $l-million reward for information leading to conviction of whoever sent the "diabolical devices." The document gives a description of all 14 bombings and lists some clues in the case. The Internet got its start as a way to link universities doing defense research.

It has evolved from a purely academic forum into an on-line community of gourmet cooks with recipes to share, computer-wise kids with games on their minds, anarchists, the White House, neo-Nazis, the Library of Congress, Zen Buddhists, and now, federal agents hoping to solve a string of crimes. The Clinton administration wants to develop an information superhighway by expanding the Internet's capacity to carry information and link it with networks built over the years by the telephone and cable TV industries. Since Clinton took office, government agencies have scrambled to make their information available on the Internet. The UNABOM Task Force documents are located on the Internet at naic.nasa.gov. The files can be downloaded from subdirectory filesfbi using the FTP file transfer program, or browsed using the Gopher program at naic.nasa.gov from the government-resourcesfbi menu.

The UNABOM Task Force can be reached via E-mail sent to btafoyaorion.arc.nasa.gov, or by telephone at 800-701-2662. Morning run President Clinton jogs along the beach Thursday at Hilton Head, S.C. He's there for Renaissance Weekend, a social and public-policy retreat. Clinton is a regular at the annual event. native to putting the teen-ager and 13-year-old Charles in separate foster homes.

Beam based his ruling on evidence of Nevi-ka's "superior personal qualities and her reliability." The siblings face eviction because they don't qualify for housing assistance without their mother, who died in April of complications from AIDS. Raymond Harris, regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, asked Savannah public housing officials not to take any action against the two until HUD officials in Washington review their case. COURTS Government resumes fight against Demjanjuk The U.S. government asked two courts Thursday to uphold its actions that stripped John Demjanjuk of his citizenship and extradited him to Israel to face Nazi war crimes charges.

Government lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Frank Bat-tisti of Cleveland to reaffirm his 1981 ruling that Demjanjuk had lied about his past when he applied for citizenship. Battisti found that Demjanjuk had served the Nazis at the Traw-niki and Treblinka death camps in Poland during World War II. The Justice Depart Demjanjuk ment also asked the 6th U.S. Cir-cuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its Nov.

17 ruling that accused the government of fraud in its prosecution of the retired autoworkgr from suburban Cleveland. Demjanjuk in 1988 was convicted and sentenced to death in Israel for being a sadistic Nazi guard. The Israeli Supreme Court overturned that conviction in July, thus allowing Demjanjuk, 73, to return to the United States in September. SCIENCE New drug will aid heart-bypass patients A drug to help prevent excessive bleeding and reduce the need for transfusions among patients undergoing heart bypass surgery was approved Thursday by the Food and Drug Administration. The drug, called aprotinin, was approved after research showed that it was effective in decreasing the amount of blood lost during bypass operations.

Democrat news services CALIFORNIA Holljivood agent Swifty Lazar dies Irving "Swifty" Lazar, a legendary talent agent in the entertainment community known for his lavish parties the night of the Academy Awards, died of kidney failure Thursday. He was 86. Lazar died at his Beverly Hills home Thursday evening, said Teresa Sohn, his friend and social secretary. Considered among the top tal Lazar ent and literary agents in Hollywood, Lazar was known for the star-studded parties he threw at Spago's Restaurant on Oscar night. Lazar was given his nickname from screen legend Humphrey Bogart.

Dancer Gene Kelly, who knew Lazar for 50 years, said Lazar's death "came as a big blow." Cargo-theft sting nets $14 million A sting investigation targeting cargo thefts resulted in 31 indictments and the recovery of $13.8 million worth of goods, ranging from TVs to salad dressing, authorities said. FBI agents posing as warehouse workers brokering stolen cargo bought dozens of trailer loads of items from thieves during the 14-month Operation Pin-lock, officials said. Twenty-four of those indicted were arrested and 10 pleaded guilty to cargo theft. The others, mostly from Mexico, are fugitives, U.S. Attorney Terree Bowers said.

The operation was launched in October 1991 with FBI agents working undercover in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties. GEORGIA Teens face eviction after mother's death A judge considered 17-year-old Nevika King responsible enough to stay with her younger brother in their public housing apartment in Savannah, after their mother died. But they could be evicted because they are too young to qualify for public housing. They would be eligible if Nevika were pregnant or an unwed mother. The judge, John Beam, named neighbor Brenda Johnson their custodian as an alter GAYS AND THE MILITARY Administration fights order to reinstate gay midshipman SOUTH CAROLINA By Jim Abrams THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON The administration sought a rehearing Thursday of court orders to commission gay midshipman Joseph Steffan, but sidestepped the larger battle over whether banning gays from the military is constitutional.

The Justice Department, filing the petition on behalf of the Defense Department, focused instead on the narrower issue of whether the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington exceeded its authority in ruling that Steffan be given his Naval Academy diploma and commissioned as an officer. The court, it said, raised "the gravest legal questions" in regard to the principle of separation of powers that holds that military officers must be appointed by the president and approved by. the Senate. The three federal judges Nov.

GREG GIBSONThe Associated Press.