Taking stock of people and ideas in the news.

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• Charles Schulz Peanuts requiem.
  Mark Alan Stamaty Dec. 30, 1999
  
• Richard Avedon The photographer who pushes our bellybuttons.
  A.O. Scott Dec. 18, 1999
  
• Croatian President Franjo Tudjman The Balkans' (not much) lesser evil.
  David Plotz Dec. 10, 1999
  
• Richard Posner A human Pentium processor has been assigned to settle the Microsoft case.
  Dahlia Lithwick Nov. 24, 1999
  
• Regis Philbin The cotton candy genius.
  David Plotz Nov. 20, 1999
  
• Pokémon Little. Yellow. Different. Better.
  David Plotz Nov. 13, 1999
  
• Naomi Wolf Al Gore's alpha female.
  Jodi Kantor Nov. 6, 1999
  
• Martin Scorsese The vicar of cinema.
  A.O. Scott Oct. 30, 1999
  
• Martha Stewart She's a good thing.
  David Plotz Oct. 23, 1999
  
• Edward W. Said The Palestinian Tory.
  A.O. Scott Oct. 2, 1999
  
• Mother Nature Why you can't trust Mom.
  David Plotz Sept. 25, 1999
  
• The American Teen-ager Why Generation Y?
  David Plotz Sept. 18, 1999
  
• Janet Reno The Independent Attorney General.
  David Plotz Sept. 11, 1999
  
• Warren Beatty He doesn't really want to be president. He wants to be campaign manager.
  David Plotz Aug. 20, 1999
  
• Pope John Paul II The fearless politician.
  Michael McGough Aug. 6, 1999
  
• Douglas Brinkley John Kennedy Jr.'s most prolific mourner.
  David Plotz July 24, 1999
  
• David Rieff Why does the intellectual conscience of the new world order contradict himself? Because he is large. He contains multitudes.
  A.O. Scott July 13, 1999
  
• Tarzan Disney turns Burroughs' Ape-Man into a Momma's Boy.
  Michael Lind June 26, 1999
  
• Janet Maslin Why can't the New York Times movie critic tell us what she really thinks?
  Sarah Kerr June 5, 1999
  
• Cody Shearer If he didn't exist, the vast right-wing conspiracy would have invented him.
  A.O. Scott May 22, 1999
  
• Viktor Chernomyrdin The minister nobody knows.
  Masha Gessen May 11, 1999
  
• Madeleine Albright The diplomat who mistook her life story for statecraft.
  A.O. Scott April 25, 1999
  
• Maureen Dowd The sassy columnist with something to offend everyone.
  A.O. Scott April 18, 1999
  
• Matt Groening When reality grows cartoonlike, a realist cartoons.
  A.O. Scott April 10, 1999
  
• The Phantom Menace The stealth bombers don't cause war. They just make it easy to go to war.
  Michael Crowley April 4, 1999
  
• Stoppard in Love The playwright's infatuation with smart fun ... and with himself.
  A.O. Scott March 21, 1999
  
• The First Bimbo Monica Lewinsky, patriot.
  Walter Shapiro Jan. 30, 1999