The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 10

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25. 1987 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1937 EDITORIALS I have been poor and I have been rich. Plug breath test loophole i r. -i I Rich is better." Entertainer Sophie Tucker (1884-1966), known at "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas." 't- CLAIRE'S STORY YOU WANT BEEF? BY DAVID S. BRODER was acquitted and had no previous drunken-driving convictions.

Wisecrackers call the loophole the "Joe Greene" alibi in honor albeit dubious honor of the former Jefferson County sheriff who was charged with drunken driving, refused to take the breath test and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. Instead of losing his license as many assumed he would he received the option of attending a driver-education program. As the loophole has become more widely known, the percentage of defendants who refuse to BY PAULA QUINN EFENDANTS in drunk en driving cases have discovered a hole in Kentucky's slammer bill that, if left un plugged, could undermine law enforcement officials' effort to crack down on intoxicated drivers. It is clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that the 1984 General Assembly intended to stiffen the penalty for drunken driving when it mandated that first-time offenders would lose their licenses. While the law did not say so explicitly, legislators must therefore have intended that all drivers who refuse to take a Breathalyzer test would forfeit their right to drive.

Surely they did not mean to make it harder to enforce the law by allowing first offenders who rejected the test and were later acquitted to keep their licenses. It would make no sense to toughen the law while at the same time making it harder if iT'nteiniii Administering a to drunken driving The writer is an assistant professor of journalism at Western Kentucky University. BOWLING GREEN, Ky. My daughter is kneeling at the coffee table in the living room. Her left arm is around the shoulders of Eddy Koch, a ratty but whimsical-looking brown sock monkey who was rescued last summer from a seedy second-hand store.

Eddy's black button eyes stare straight ahead as Claire helps him with his homework. Tonight Eddy is in the third grade, and he's learning basic new writing from a text by Melvin Mencher. As I watch from my kitchen, I am filled once again with love and wonder for this incredible child as shp I )2j7r WASHINGTON The striking thing about the Democratic presidential field is that it is made up so far of men who are serious about governing but largely devoid of the glamour and charm that this age of television politics is supposed to require. There may be thunder and lightning on the tube later this spring when Jesse Jackson and Sen. Joseph Biden Jr, of Delaware both formidable orators make their formal entries into the race.

But the three who have announced so far, Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, former Gov. Bruce Babbitt of Arizona and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, are serious to the point of dullness. None of them is ever going to be confused with a stand-up comedian.

None has a personality so effervescent it lights up the room. From the hours I have spent with them on both private and public occasions, I would testify that none is a challenge to Ronald Reagan as a raconteur. These are serious government professionals, esteemed by It's clear that the Democratic 'will prepared a serious and just slug each slogans and negative most of contenders be people to conduct seminar on issues policies, not other with below-the-brain jf iwiifirfi 'I suddenly realized that, had I destroyed her, I would have destroyed part of myself, and created a space, a void in the world that no one but Claire could have patiently goes over the lesson, saying finally, "Well done, Eddy, you get an Claire gives nothing but high marks anything below a is foreign to her first-grade experience. But my heart sinks as I recall that this scene nearly didn't occur. I'm proud of Claire.

She is a fine artist and can amuse herself for hours with crayons, paints, and felt-tip pens. She Inves nature She sobriety test suspect IwrwmiiirtBiBMM una Sjmiw e-ourur-aimmai believe we did promise to clean SrS T'Why yes, I for prosecutors to get convictions. But, amazingly, that's exactly what has happened, primarily because the laws pertaining to mandatory license revocation and consent for blood alcohol testing contain bewildering cross-references. After studying the puzzle of words, officials of the Division of Drivers Licensing concluded that they could not lift the license of anyone who rejected the Breathalyzer test, up our emissions. Why, you Canadians still bothered with acid rain?" LETTERS FROM READERS one, was another child.

A dark cloud had emerged on my horizon. The day the pregnancy was confirmed, we had Just returned home after selecting a Hungarian Viszula pup from a litter of nine; that was all the baby I wanted: the kind that would be grown in a year. The nurse who called knew my feelings and was quiet as she gave me the news: "Your test was positive, Paula." I nodded "yes" to my husband and began to cry bitterly this positive test this thing was a curse, a career interruption, another burden on a strained budget "I'm going to get rid of it I'll get an abortion," I told my husband. "I agree," he said. "This is a disruption in our lives.

If you want an abortion, then get one. After all, you're the one who would have to carry the baby, not me. It's your decision." Just then the side door slammed and Ivan ran into the room. He looked at me, called "Just a minute, Mommy!" over his shoulder, and ran back seconds later, a wad of Kleenex in his fist. "Don't cry.

Mama," he said, dabbing at my eyes, "please don't cry." He pulled my head down to his small one, patted my back and whispered, "I love you." I held Ivan close to me, taking in the sweet fresh smell of the outdoors in his clothes, his hair, and looked over his shoulder at my husband. "Suppose this baby were as wonderful as Ivan? Maybe even better? Think what we would be destroying and for what? This little guy just saved his brother's or sister's life." There were hours, days and weeks when I regretted the decision not to abort From the third month on. the baby rarely stopped moving. I was constantly tired and irritable. I began to retain water.

In the fourth month I developed phlebitis in both legs, and faced surgery after the delivery. I had to wear thick, ugly cotton panty hose through the hot summer and on into the ninth month. They were impossible to get on and off, and NOW From Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, Penguin Books, 1986: "Now this" is commonly used on radio and television newscasts to indicate that what one has just heard or seen has no relevance to what one is about to hear or see, or possibly to anything one Is ever likely to hear or see. The phrase Is a means of acknowledging the fact that the world as mapped by the speed-up electronic media has no order or meaning and Is not to be taken seriously. There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly for that matter, no ball score so tantalizing or weather report so threatening that it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying, "Now this." The newscaster means that you have thought long enough on the previous matter (approximately 45 seconds), that you must not be morbidly preoc Beware of plastic foxes their colleagues as unusually hard-working and engaged leaders.

How well they will do is, of course, uncertain, but it is remarkable they are in the race at all. Reagan has established a model of a president as television performer which seemed likely to set a fashion. But none of these men rose to power on the tube and only Dukakis of the trio appears wholly comfortable there. What is it that has impelled such political pros out onto the primary campaign trail, where sheer governmental competence has never been a particularly valuable commodity? Why do serious men take a flyer on winning the presidential prize, when history strongly suggests that first-time, little-known candidates have generally fared badly? One element is surely that the Iran affair troubles have tarnished the Republican Party's most important symbol Reagan sufficiently that the Democrats may actually be able to pick the next president That was not a feeling Democrats could rationally entertain in 1980 or 1984. The last time they had it in 1976, they did nominate a longshot Jimmy Carter.

Even more Important Is the recognition by these challengers that the front-runner in their party, former Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado, is a man of their own stripe a thinker, a doer but not a dazzler. Hart will announce next month. He Is far out front in the polls, being named as the favorite by almost half the Democrats surveyed, while none of the announced candidates has broken out of single digits. Yet it is clear as can be that he is not close to wrapping up the prize.

The party's big contributors, its major Interest groups and its elected officials are conspicuously failing to rush forward to embrace Hart Hart and his aides know foot-dragging by the party establishment adds to his reputation as a political "loner" which grew rather than diminished in his 12 years in the Senate. But they profess total unconcern, saying they are not playing "the endorsement game." Bill Dixon, Hart's able campaign manager, said the other day, "This guy (Hart) doesn't need endorsements. He won 25 ty and the tall ships illuminating an animated and joyous first couple. The throngs cheer, wave their little flags, and chant, "Four more years." For some disquieting reason, I keep thinking of another long-ago movie where Toto pulled aside sheltering curtains to reveal a tired, confused old man frantically pulling levers and pushing buttons that created loud noises, awesome images and puffs of colored smoke. I also keep hearing an insistent small voice that rises above the din; I hear, "The Emperor has no clothes." I stop watching the screen and I feel very sad.

JANET S. BICKEL Louisville 40206 'Must be ever vigilant1 I grew up in an America which told me that if I didn't want to read something or see something or do something, I didn't have to; and if I did want to read it or see it or do, I could. But lately there seems to have sprung up in this community a small minority of people who want to tell us what we can and cannot read or see or do even in the privacy of our own American homes! One of the most blatant examples of this in Louisville lately is the burning of a gay banner at the Bingham Humanities Building on Belknap Campus. What did gay people ever do to these students to deserve such disrespect? Nothing. But what have some of them done to gay people? Plenty.

Is it any wonder that, denied the same privileges as everyone else in this country, gay people are fighting back with the only things the courts have not taken away from them yet freedom of speech and assembly and the right to vote? The people must be ever vigilant against those forces in this country which would take away our freedoms and subject us to their own narrow vision of the truth. This is everybody's country. Let's keep it that way. DAVID N. WILLIAMS Louisville 40208 states (in the 1984 primaries against Walter F.

Mondale, Jackson and others)." But Dixon suggested, without prompting, several other reasons why it is not foolish for such non-dazzlers as Gephardt Babbitt and Dukakis to be mounting challenges. "They can realistically tell themselves that half of Hart's lead is based upon greater name recognition," Dixon said, "because it is. They can also say that they're ahead of Gary in finances, because he's carrying a $1.5 million debt from last "But most important of all, it looks as if this campaign will be about issues. That suits us fine; Hart wants a serious debate on what ev eryone stands for and bow he intends to accomplish his goals. But each of these guys who's come In can certainly say to himself, 'I've got at least as good answers on the issues as Hart has, and I've demonstrated that I can do a This comment of Dixon's struck me as both a generous appraisal of the opposition and a mark of confidence in the front-runner's campaign manager.

It may also indicate his satisfaction that in a low-charisma field, Hart's greater experience on the hazardous presidential primary trail may prove to be decisive. Biden and Jackson, when they come in, have the equipment to stir some passions, as New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo would have done, bad he run. Arkansas Gov.

Bill Clinton, who has room to run now that Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas has taken himself out of the race, has the twinkly charm some voters like, along with a first-rate mind. But it's clear that a majority of the Democratic contenders will be people who are prepared to conduct a serious seminar on Issues and policies, not just slug each other with slogans and below-the-brain negative ads. Lord only knows what us poor sensation-seeking columnists are supposed to do with a bunch like that, WiMngton Post Wrltn Graup KRAZYKAT From Adam Gopnik's "The Genius of George Herriman," in The New York Review of Books, Dec. 18, 1986: George Herriman was 33 when he solved the problem of evil.

This $as in 1913, when he introduced Ignatz the mouse into his comic strip, Krazy Kat Ignatz, who came out of Herriman's pen as a malignant little tangle of barbed wire, with the gaunt form and gimlet eyes of a sewer rat isn't mischievous, like bis sanitized shadow, Mickey Mouse he's wicked. FJrom the appearance of Krazy Kat before the First World War, it's been widely recognized that Herriman had achieved something not only entrancing In its own terms, but also uncannily modern, bearing deep affinities to the spirit and form of crucial styles in vanguard art SOUNDS SHOULD WE DPArpznt pt no rue ekimifiu nAcc rAimo I FINALLY, UB GAIN A MESAVi I I IM6 MASS OF NEURONS. VS-aV. IS take the test has steadily risen in Jefferson County. Remarkably, the conviction rate has not suffered substantially.

About 90 percent of those who refused have been convicted of drunken driving, which is a tribute to skillful law enforcement work. But enforcing the drunken driving law will become more difficult if the refusal rate continues to rise -4 and if the trend catches on statewide. The Breathalyzer, after all is one of the most potent enforcement tools in the campaign to curb drunk driving and provides essential evidence in many cases. The solution is obvious: Legislators must again amend the drunken driving law to make it absolutely clear that first offenders who refuse the test will lose their licenses, even if they are acquitted. Wall Street Journal the other day as warning banks that Optima is a "fox in the henhouse." That's a change.

In recent years, it's the consumers who have been the hens and the banks that have been playing the role of fox. Actually, American Express may have done Visa and MasterCard a favor. Unless credit card rates start coming down, as other interest rates did long ago, Congress may force them down. Already, in the absence of federal legislation, several states have put a lid on credit card rates. Kentucky would join them, if some politicians, such as state Senator Georgia Powers and gubernatorial candidate Grady Stumbo, had their way.

And a bill has been introduced in the Indiana House to lower rates on retail charge accounts, though not on national bank cards. Generally, it's better to let the competitive market set prices including the price of borrowed money than to legislate them. But when competition doesn't work, or isn't allowed to, the public interest requires lawmakers to step in and take action. libraries remain bent on sending their public libraries to the guillotine, school officials will have an obligation to devote more of their resources to school libraries. Free to choose UTAH law that attempts to restrict "indecent," but not obscene, cable telecasts got just what it deserved from the U.S.

Supreme Court rejection. The justices upheld the right of viewers to decide for themselves what they watch on TV. The decision should deter attempts in Kentucky to censor cable programming. Folks who don't like what's on the screen have a simple recourse: Turn the switch to off. A FULL-COURT PRESS BY MIKE BROWN ILLUSTRATION BY ELEANOR MILL every six weeks I had to be measured for new ones, to the tune of another $40.

I gained only 12 pounds during my first pregnancy. This time the obstetrician stopped weighing me in the ninth month at 172 a 54-pound-increase. I resented my aching legs, resented my sleepiness every afternoon as I drove the 40 miles home from my college teaching Job. Finally, I delivered. It was Jan.

6 Epiphany. As I held this 9-pound, 5-ounce newborn in my arms, as I nursed her, as I smoothed her thick, black hair and watched her grey eyes turn dark brown, then black within the week, I suddenly realized that had I destroyed her, I would have destroyed part of myself, and created a space, a void in the world that no one but Claire could have filled. To think, I nearly robbed her of that chance. I nearly robbed her of the opportunity to ride a Ferris wheel, gather seashells at the beach, collect giraffes, to listen to the Manhattan Transfer, Laurie Anderson and Joan Sutherland, her favorites. I nearly robbed her of the chance to give love and to receive it THIS' cupied with it (let us say, for 90 seconds), and that you must now give your attention to another fragment of news or a commercial.

Consider, for example, how you would proceed if you were given the opportunity to produce a television news show for any station concerned to attract the largest possible audience. You would, first choose a cast of players, each of whom has a face that Is both "likable" and "credible." Those who apply would, in fact submit to you their eight-by-ten glossies, from which you would eliminate those whose countenances are not suitable for nightly display. This means that you will exclude women who are not beautiful or who are over the age of fifty, men who are bald, all people who are overweight or whose noses are too long or whose eyes are too close together. You will try, in other words, to assemble a cast of talking hair-do's. dirty and ragged and disreputable, and that's why they're called ragamuffins.

And all of this is a very long way to get to the request of Joan Kay of Louisville, who told me the other night that she really liked the word tatterdemalion. "Why don't you write about it sometime?" she said. "I never hear anyone use it." A ragamuffin Is a tatterdemalion. But a tatterdemalion isn't necessarily a ragamuffin. A tatterdemalion is a ragged and unkempt person, but that person can be an adult-type person as well as a kid-type person.

The word comes from combining tattered with a nonsense ending. And, as Joan Kay says, you don't hear it very much these days. Maybe someone should have a Tatterdemalions and Ragamuffins Ball or something. Then again, maybe not. Here are two more words you don't hear every day: naufragous and jumentous.

Naufragous is an adjective that means "causing shipwrecks." As in, "I told the captain of the Titanic to be careful because that looks like a naufragous iceberg out there." Jumentous is an adjective that means "having a strong animal smell, especially the smell of horse urine." As in, "Where did you get that perfume? It certainly is jumentous." too? and her brother, Ivan, who is 10, spent hours last fall combing a cornfield for ears the farmer had overlooked so that the birds and squirrels might have food for the winter. She is thrilled by the katydids, the praying mantlses outside our apartment by a dog-tooth violet or wild iris on an early-morning walk. Of course, there is another side to Claire. My daughter rarely dresses as I expected in ruffled, be-ribboned outfits and shiny party shoes. Claire's favorite garb is a two-year-old jogging suit that lives in peril of the Goodwill bag.

She begins giggling halfway through dinner and seldom stops before bedtime. She is the sole possessor of the screechiest voice in the universe an annoying, fin-gernails-on-the-blackboard sort of screech that she uses with the utmost effect when Ivan invades her territory, takes her toys, brushes past her in the hallway, leaves for the school bus without her. While Ivan thinks long and hard and then puts four or five things on his list for Santa Claus, Claire simply hands over the J.C. Penney Christmas catalogue with a black crayon on nearly every page. Each day before Christmas this year, Claire thought of something different for her big present: a sleeping Real Baby; an awake Real Baby; a Cabbage Patch Pony; a Cabbage Patch preemie, an $80 Petster.

She finally settled on one of the dolls, but by that time, so had every other little girl. On Christmas morning she opened her new French toddler, curled her lip, and said, "I guess Santa ran out of the Real Babies before he got to me." She worries Murphy and Tobias, our two elderly Persian cats, by dressing them in doll clothes, dangling forbidden foods before them, and using them as hurdles as she careens through the living room. Perhaps the most amazing part of Claire's story is that she almost ceased to be. Seven years and eight months ago I had exactly what I wanted a good-natured, funny son, then two-and-a-half, a new position as an English professor, a home and husband, and a nearly completed What I didn't want after trying desperately for two years to conceive the first Have you tried to fill out your W-4 form yet? You'll need the help of six lawyers, four accountants and a bartender. It requires a real rigmarole, so let me help you take your mind off it for a moment by telling you about rigmarole.

In the Middle Ages, there was a parlor game in which players would draw from a little bin a verse describing one of the many characters in the game. One of those characters was known in Old French as Ragemon le bon, or Ragemon the Good. As the game moved into England, the cast of characters became known because of Ragemon as the Ragmane rolle. The game apparently was quite complex, and that's why Ragmane rolle which eventually became our rigmarole came to mean any complicated and petty set of procedures. Now, the word also means nonsense or confused, rambling or incoherent discourse.

And with any of those meanings, it seems the perfect word to describe the W-4. I got sidetracked on rigmarole while I was checking out ragamuffin, a word that describes a dirty or unkempt child. That word comes from Ragamoffyn, the name of a devil in Piers Plowman, a book that was written in the 1300s and that we've all read about but never really read. In those days, devils tion that honor alternates between AP and United Press International. It was AP's turn; UPI's Helen Thomas would automatically go second.

The voice boomed again, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the president of the United States." Everyone stood, and the clicking of the cameras, more than 50 of them, was almost deafening Each time Reagan moved so much as a finger, the clicks broke out like DOOESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU "OT ALL money machines are automatic tellers that spit out dollars when customers ounch in the right numbers. For bankers, the biggest money machine has been the plastic credit card, with its 18 to 21 per cent carrying charges. These high interest rates enabled U. S. banks to earn $5 billion in pretax profits at the expense of credit cards users last year.

Unfortunately for the banks, but luckily for consumers, 1987 promises to be different. Competitive pressures at last are cracking what appeared to be a tacit agreement among bankers not to mess up a good thing. The main threat comes from American Express, which is offering a new revolving charge card, called Optima. The interest rate, at least for now, is only 13.5 per cent. Naturally, this upsets the other major credit card companies.

Charles T. Russell, president of Visa International, has gone so far as to urge banks that offer Visa to halt sales of American Express services. He was quoted in The Too little for HIS WEEK'S decision by the Jefferson County Board of Education to spend more money on teachers and schools next year is an encouraging sign. But the board's decision to skimp on funding for school libraries was unwise. The additional money will allow the system to create about 45 additional positions for teachers, which will give principals more flexibility in complying with increasingly stringent laws limiting class size.

Having 23 clerks in middle schools should help school officials more closely monitor students with erratic attendance records, which experts say is necessary to address the problem of dropouts. The additional art, music and physicial education teachers are sorely needed. But it's unfortunate that only $100,000 was added to the library budget. So long as county taxpayers Sflje (EomitrSmmal A GANNETT NEWSPAPER Van 'Life imitating art' The last six years have been "Saturday Night at the Movies" for Americans. In fascination, we have watched "Ronny and Nancy at the White House" and have forgotten that actors playing roles and reading other people's words often become confused with the real thing.

We see them elegant and photogenic in tuxedo and designer gown and become dazzled by their footwork and grace. Ron stands on the deck of an aircraft carrier, the "look of eagles" in his eyes while gigantic guns form a backdrop. "America is standing tall," we think and recall John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Charlton Heston in similar poses. We feel uneasy at life imitating art Our president waves to us from a hospital window, grinning, and sending a "thumbs-up" signal. We marvel at his stamina, but someone neglects to tell us he has already forgotten serious conversations held behind closed doors.

Skyrockets explode around Lady Liber The writer is chief of The Courier-Journal Washington bureau. WASHINGTON Whatever its value, and that's a matter of debate, the presidential press conference has taken on a life of its own. "This has been the worst day of my life," a White House press aide said last Thursday afternoon as she tried to ease the name of just one more anxious reporter onto the master seating chart. Yes, Ronald Reagan's infrequent meetings with the press have become an Event And that's definitely with a capital E. South Carolina journalist unable to get a seat Thursday was so determined to attend that he resorted to political pull; he asked home-state Republican Sen.

Strom Thurmond to get him in. It worked. This is a story about the part of the press conference you don't see on TV. Not that there are any great secrets to report But you might be interested in what occurs off-camera when the president decides to answer questions on camera. About two hours beforehand, reporters and photographers begin congregating in the White House briefing room, located in the West Wing just off a driveway that leads out to Pennsylvania Avenue.

You've probably seen the briefing room on TV, at least the podium, with the White House seal behind it It's about as big as a good-sized living room. The blue and gray carpeting is dirty; cameras, two or three thick, line the walls. There are eight rows of theater-type folding chairs, six chairs to a row. Each chair has a metal tag identifying the news organization that occupies it The seating arrangement gives a good idea of the pecking order. The first row belongs to the major networks and wire services.

Behind the chairs are TV cameras on a raised platform. Behind them Is a bulletin board for the president's daily schedule and the text of any official statements. There also is a place for posting unofficial communications. "What would you get if you crossed Sam Donaldson with a rattlesnake?" asks a note mailed in by a Cleveland, Ohio woman. "Nothing.

There are some things a rattlesnake won't do." About 45 minutes before the press con 1 WORDS, WORDS, WORDS BY MICHAEL G. GARTNER ference begins, journalists file out of the briefing room and onto the driveway. Thursday night's line was longer than usual. It was Reagan's first press conference in four months; expectations were high. But not too high.

"All this press conference means is we miss the Georgetown basketball game," groused a cameraman. On direction the line lurches forward, moving slowly around a bank of garbage cans, up an uuisiae stairway, through the north entrance of the White House, and into the East Room, where press conferences are held. From behind a forest of camera tripods, the room's full-length portraits of George and Martha Washington peer out at the arriving throng. The reporters, however, are looking for only one thing: their seats. One hundred and sixty-seven chairs were folding set un Thursday night and reporters went from The i I JS were thought of as dirty and ragged and disreputable the well-dressed devil didn't come along until that dapper and wily fellow corrupted Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, in "Damn Yankees." At any rate, some little boys not yours, certainly are sometimes a cnorus oi cicadas.

While Reagan is answering one question, reporters hoping to ask the next keep their hands cocked, ready to shoot them into the air the moment the president's voice trails off. The most determined Thursday night was a woman dressed all in red; she kept both hands, encased in red gloves, fully extended while the president talked. It did no good; she wasn't recognized. When the press conference Is over, network TV reporters head for their rnmprns MARCH 75 -PROGRESS UP THE BRAIN STEM IS MAPPENIN6LY SLOW. OUR WAY AT EVERY TURN.

'a. IT IS KNOWN AS 7W5 WHAT CEREBRUM, SAHIB. PLACE ll 15 WHERE-THE. ISTHIS? PRESIDENT POES 9 ALL HIS CRITICAL THINKING. jiw Z1I ASSOCIATED PRESS president Thursday night chair to chair looking for theirs.

Frustrated, some asked a White House aide for help. The aide would consult her seating chart, point and say, "You're somewhere over there." There is an urgency about it all. If you don't get a seat you can't stay. Thursday night there were only 19 unreserved chairs, and they were quickly grabbed, leaving a number of reporters without a place to light Thursday night, as the confusion ebbed, press secretary Martin Fitzwater stepped to the microphone and cracked a joke. "I want to take this opportunity to announce my new deputy press secretary Alan Simpson," he said to loud laughter.

Simpson, a Republican senator from Wyoming, had lashed out at the press the previous day for being too hard on Reagan. Fitzwater then explained that Terence Hunt of the Associated Press would get to ask the evening's first question. By tradi set up on the lawn. Print reporters wind their way back around the garbage cans to the briefing room. Meanwhile, White House personnel are already typing the president's remarks.

By the time the reporters arrived back in the briefing room Thursday night the first two pages of transcription were already there. Within a half hour the rest dribbled out into the sea of waiting hands. When they get all the pages last week's was a 12-pager some reporters leave. Some go to work in the closet-sized offices and broadcast booths located off the briefing room. Some chat about how Reagan had done.

"Good questions," a woman told NBCs Chris Wallace Thursday night And a TV-crew interviewed Helen Thomas about what it all meant. "Was It an important press conference?" the TV reporter asked the wire-service reporter. George N. Gill, president and publisher Michael G. Gartner, editor David V.

Hawpe, managing editor A. Cavett, editor of editorials Warren Buckler, Bert Emke, Carolyn Gatz and Laurel Shackelford, editorial writers Hugh Haynie, cartoonist Keith L. Runyon, editor of the Forum Robert T. Barnard, associate editor of the Forum Founded 1826 Ragamuffins are tatterdemalions and jumentous,.