November 26, 1994

In the heat and hopes of the civil rights strife of a generation ago, Congress created an agency to stop discrimination in the workplace. Today that agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, is choking on bureaucracy and a mounting backlog of discrimination complaints from blacks, women and other people it is supposed to protect. And even as Congress expands the pool of protected people, most recently with the 1990 law to fight discrimination against disabled workers, the commission's staff is shrinking under the pressure of tight budgets.

Term limits, a balanced budget amendment, school prayer -- these are "phony" solutions to the nation's problems. The military budget needs to be cut. The death penalty violates Christian principles. And there is nothing wrong with being a liberal. Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon, the man espousing those post-election heresies, is a lifelong Republican who is nearing the end of his third full decade in the Senate. He says, proudly, that he spent most of the years under President Reagan trying to undermine his program, and that he is the only active senator who has never voted for a military authorization bill.

Days before a judge is to consider whether to order a school desegregation plan for Hartford and its suburbs, a state effort to avoid such a court order by encouraging voluntary measures is suffering serious setbacks. As cities and towns vote on voluntary plans promoting racial diversity in the schools of the 11 regions covering the state, the plans for two regions have already been killed and two more have been crippled by key communities' refusal to participate.

Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ethnic and religious conflicts that are no less menacing than the divisions of the cold war have erupted, wiping out hope for the progress that was to follow the end of Communism.

Two olive green Panther helicopters droned in wide circles over the vast, human amphitheater of the Nova Brasilia shantytown. But in the shadows of one narrow alley, one cocaine trafficker said an eventual occupation by Brazilian Army soldiers gave him no fear. "The army won't come in to massacre us," said the trafficker, a lean young man sporting new sneakers. "Our guns will be hidden. There won't be any shooting."