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Thirty Years Ago I'd kill them. I'd do whatever was necessary to get the hostages free, and then put the terrorists on trial and give them the death sentence. If you have to negotiate to save the hostages, you'll just have to fake them out, tell them a lie. -- OFF THE CUFF: "WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE PROPER WAY TO DEAL WITH TERRORISTS?" Jim Kessler, Student, Chula Vista, June 23, 1977

Twenty-Five Years Ago Channel 10's Jack White might be selling Veg-O-Matics at the Del Mar Fair if he doesn't learn to say no. White is Channel 10's Mr. Clean -- handsome, calm, convincing, he's a viewer favorite on the station's evening news with his feature reporting and regular "Restaurant Row" dining reviews. So it was with some embarrassment that Channel 10 executives saw a Los Angeles TV ad that features White extolling the virtues of "Starch Stopper," a controversial diet pill. "Did you ever believe that corn on the cob could be part of a weight-loss program?" -- CITY LIGHTS: "EVEN WALTER CRONKITE HAS TO EAT,"

Paul Krueger, June 24, 1982 Twenty Years Ago On a warm Saturday afternoon, Seymour drove from his home in Escondido to the meeting at Tom Metzger's house and his first face-to-face contact with the Klan. He remembers that at that meeting, Metzger detailed plans for a "political demonstration" to be held at the San Ysidro border on July 4. -- "UNDERCOVER KLANSMAN," Jim Berns, June 25, 1987

Fifteen Years Ago When I first arrived, all nuevos were housed in a cell on the third floor, in an area known as Las Tumbas. This is the prison within the prison. It is to be avoided at all cost. If you have committed an offense within the prison that warrants being sent there, bribe the guard. Two days before I arrived, a guy hanged himself there. What surprised me was, when they cut him down, they found $35 in his pockets. I'm amazed that no one stole the money off the body. -- "THE BIG CASA," Anonymous, June 25, 1992

Ten Years Ago The Kachiriskys' home is in the Guadalupe Valley north of Ensenada, a wide, verdant platter of land near the west end of the Tecate-Ensenada highway. It's a patchwork of olive and carob groves, grape fields, and green-gold pasture. When Gabriel's ancestors came here 90 years ago from the dirt and noise of industrial Los Angeles, it must have seemed like paradise. "This is the father of my grandfather," Gabriel says in measured English, pointing to the gray photograph of a sharp-cheeked, long-nosed old man, unsmiling, with a bristling beard and mustache. He is dressed peasant-style in a high-necked shirt and a billed cap with a soft, flat crown. "He was born in Tiflis," in southern Russia. -- "LAST OF THE SPIRIT JUMPERS," Linda Nevin, June 19, 1997

Five Years Ago Ex-- Union-Tribune political cartoonist Steve Kelley, fired in May of last year after a run-in with editorial page editor Robert A. Kittle, has been named editorial cartoonist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. As Kelley later described it, the dust-up began after Kittle objected to a proposed cartoon showing the "butt cracks" of two teenagers. The next day, according to Kelley, senior editor Bill Osborne got into the act, accusing Kelley of trying to sneak the cartoon into the paper and lying about it. After TV stations picked up the story, the U-T finally reported that Kelley had been dumped. The cartoonist attributed his firing to the paper's leftward editorial drift, but others speculated that it had something to do with Kelley's tryst with Sheila Lawrence, widow of hotel magnate and Clinton crony M. Larry Lawrence. The relationship resulted in an embarrassing custody dispute over an out-of-wedlock child. -- CITY LIGHTS: "CARTOONIST REDUX," Matt Potter, June 20, 2002