* Future Feelings: A growing need for...
* Future Feelings: A growing need for instant gratification is leading to America’s decline, consumer activist Ralph Nader contends. At a week-long conference on pleasure in Rochester, N.Y., he said the pursuit of pleasure has put America, which is “wallowing in one fad after another,” at a disadvantage with the more disciplined Japan. The Japanese “have turned adversity into an asset,” he said. “We have turned abundance into a liability.”
* Praise the Law: John Wesley Fletcher pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges he lied to a grand jury about why he introduced Jim Bakker to Jessica Hahn. Fletcher, who claimed in a magazine article last year that he and Bakker had been sexual partners (a claim Bakker denied), was arraigned in Charlotte, N.C. Fletcher, as part of the Praise the Lord (PTL) scandal, is charged with one count of perjury stemming from two appearances before the federal grand jury that indicted Bakker.
* A Different Court: Even if Bjorn Borg hadn’t retired from tennis, he’d be spending more time in a court than on one this year. Borg was in a Stockholm court Tuesday in the first of six lawsuits he’s involved in. In Tuesday’s case, Borg is being sued for $85 million by Lars Skarke, who claims the famed tennis star violated the share-hold agreement in their partnership in the troubled Bjorn Borg Design Group. On Monday, Borg will be taking on a Swedish magazine, Z, in a $620,000 suit because of an article quoting Jannike Bjorling, the mother of his 4-year-old son, as saying he used cocaine.
* Standing Pat: Country singer k.d. lang says people have convinced her that she would sell more records if she would only change her androgynous look. “The country industry is traditional regarding the looks and roles of men and women,” lang says in February’s Glamour magazine. But, she adds, “it would be detrimental for me to compromise. I sing because of the way I am. . . . I like to pretend I’m a farmer and sort of dress for chores. Always ready to feed the cows, drive the tractor, fix the truck.”
