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LETTERS 5

CHRONICLES 9

MILESTONES 13

COVER: Hyperdemocracy! 14

Politicians can barely make it through a day without reading

the latest opinion poll or receiving a blizzard of faxes. But the

instant opinions besieging Washington have not only failed

to cure our ills, they have also made them worse.

The Gurus: Newt's cyberbraintrust 20

Look Who's Talking: The explosion of radio call-in shows has

created a new form of electronic populism and demagoguery

22

Public Eye: Margaret Carlson's dinner with Rush Limbaugh

26

DISASTERS: And the Rain Came Tumbling Down 28

Floods are California's latest set of catastrophes

POLITICS: Struggling to Find a Balance 34

A budget amendment probably will pass, but not easily

Ethics: What Murdoch and Gingrich talked about 343

THE POLITICAL INTEREST: Amendments Good and Bad 36

The balanced-budget law is vacuous, but term limits have virtue

THE PRESIDENCY: Firing Up for a Campaign 37

Clinton assembles a team for '96, including the First Lady

INVESTIGATION: Mourning Becomes Qubilah 38

Malcolm X's daughter is indicted in a plot to kill Farrakhan

JUSTICE: Not a Pretty Picture 41

Prosecutors want jurors to hear evidence that O.J. battered Nicole

ADVERTISING: A Founder's Revenge 42

Ousted from the firm he started, Maurice Saatchi hits back

RUSSIA: Damage Control 46

Yeltsin's nasty war is forcing the West to rethink its policies

Inside the Military: A Russian officer airs his grievances

483

CHINA: Fade Out 50

As Deng Xiaoping nears death, new leaders gird for change

HEALTH: Search for a Pill to Deter Aging 52

Is a drug called DHEA the real thing or a false hope?

THE ARTS & MEDIA

Art: A new look at Franz Kline's underappreciated paintings

from the '50s--powerful slashes of black on white 54

Television: Public TV faces the budget knife 56

Cinema: The pseudo-epic Legends of the Fall 57

John Singleton directs the earnest Higher Learning 57

Books: Pete Dexter mixes murder and journalism 58

The twain don't meet in Salman Rushdie's East, West 58

A clever novel explores the monomania of collecting 59

Technology: Phiber Optik is out of the slammer 61

PEOPLE 63

ESSAY 64