Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Headline Article Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 15:11:15 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION;INSIDE THE BELTWAY \BY John McCaslin \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES ON SECOND THOUGHT On Tuesday, the Virginia State Council of Higher Education released a report recommending that Virginia's four-year schools refuse to admit students who aren't prepared for college-level work. A given, right? Well, almost. Just when Virginia appeared to be putting its foot down and taking the extraordinary step of not allowing into its colleges those high school students who don't qualify comes new word from Education Secretary James W. Dyke Jr. that this week's report may have sent the wrong message to Virginians. Mr. Dyke said he was concerned that the council would next recommend that some students may be so ill-prepared that even two-year community colleges should not accept them. NEW FRONTIER OK, you computer nerds who've been too busy behind your screens to pick up the latest copy of Penthouse and read about Gennifer Flowers' alleged 12-year affair with President-elect Bill Clinton. Now's your chance to bring Miss Flowers "on-line," and as an added bonus you'll be able to view on your own terminals several unpublished photos of the Penthouse shoot that the rest of us noncomputer types didn't get to see. That's right, lots of your favorite words, with photos! This new state-of-the-art service, called Penthouse OnLine, is made possible through high-speed (9600 bps) capabilities. Real-time graphics permit nearly instantaneous viewing of photos right in the comfort of your own home - for a mere $27.95. INSIDE MCLAUGHLIN There are no revealing photos of John McLaughlin in the December issue of Playboy, but you can read what "The McLaughlin Group" regulars - Kondracke, Barnes, Germond, Clift and Page - really think about the freewheeling gab fest. Playboy said it instructed author Warren Kalbacker "to peel away the layers of artifice that so often separate fact from fiction." The results? Fred Barnes: "John's perfect for television. He's a ham, a blowhard, histrionic, mean and abusive." Jack Germond: " 'The McLaughlin Group' put my daughter through medical school." Clarence Page, who is black, on former regular Pat Buchanan: "He thinks the wrong side won the Civil War. He thinks the South got a raw deal. I'd tell him, 'But Pat, we'd still be property.' Pat was a bully character. He would have beat me up in grade school." Eleanor Clift: "At first I felt I just interrupted a men's game. They'd let me speak and then go back to what they were doing. . . . I'm in that outside chair and smaller in body size, so I do have to come out of the chair a little." Morton Kondracke's kids, thanks to host McLaughlin, now call him "Mor-TAHN." GETTING THE MESSAGE The Washington Post ad running on practically every radio station in town says if you buy eight Sundays of The Post they'll throw the weekdays in your bushes for free. This is what those who accepted the deal got this week. On Wednesday, The Post placed on Page One a photograph of George Bush, head lowered into his hands, overcome with emotion at a Republican tribute dinner. For those whose eyes weren't open when reading Wednesday's paper, The Post published the exact same photograph yesterday - in the same corner on Page One - this time with a story about the president's dejected mood in the wake of his Election Day defeat. Trying to fill news pages with news can also be tough. On Wednesday, The Post placed on the top-left of the World News page a staff-written story headlined, "Europeans Move to Revive Stalled U.S. Trade Talks." On the top-right of the same page was the same staff-written story, with the same headline. SAMIZDAT Virginia Delegate Marian Van Landingham is not a big fan of the U.S. Postal Service. That's obvious from her most recent newsletter, in which she advises Alexandria and Mount Vernon constituents that she's resorting to old Russian ways to get her word out. "Before the U.S.S.R. meltdown, 'unofficial' news and literature circulated in Russia through an underground network by passing photocopies from hand-to-hand. It was called 'Samizdat.' Well, with the cost of printing and mailing in the U.S.A., I'm resorting to a similar system these days. Each month I plan to mail my newsletter to a different 1,500 constituents. I urge you to share it with friends." Mrs. Van Landingham complained that "all this is necessary because the General Assembly of Virginia, unlike the U.S. Congress, does not provide franking [free mailing] privileges for constituent communication." In a closing swipe at mail carriers, the delegate asks those who receive the newsletter to call her office and leave name, address, zip code and the day the newsletter arrived. "This is the only way for me to know if the U.S. Postal Service has, in fact, delivered the mail." THE BIG QUESTION What most callers to this column wanted answered yesterday was what on earth was "that thing" on President-elect Bill Clinton's upper lip during his news conference yesterday? Since one Clinton spokesman didn't know, your guess is as good as mine. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM