Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: LET'S CALL COMSAT COMSAT < Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 09:54:16 EST Message-ID: <47.1992Nov23.095416@AmeriCast.com> LET'S CALL COMSAT COMSAT < Last week, Bloomberg News Service reported that Bruce Crockett, president of Communications Satellite Corp. of Washington, said the company, more commonly known as Comsat, "will change its name in April, but he didn't say to what." This set off a flurry of calls and a guessing game as to what the new name would be. "I don't think it will be Acme Communica- tions," assured one company spokesman, who was trying to track down the item. It turns out the new name Crockett is planning to ask sharehold- ers to approve in April is not a radical change - Comsat Corp. In fact, in recent weeks the company has already dropped the longer Communications Satellite and started using Comsat in letters and other material.BEATS TWO SOUP CANS AND A STRING< Give this man a videophone. Alfred Sikes, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has been recovering nicely at home since undergoing prostate surgery Oct. 29. The way he keeps in touch with the office from his home in Bethesda is by calling in every half hour or so and keeping the fax machine running. He's expected back in a couple weeks, but in the meantime, Sikes has to be satisfied with what folks in telecommunications call "POTS," or plain old telephone service. "We're obviously anti- quated," an FCC staffer said.ATTENTION, WEALTHY SHOPPERS Christmas sales prospects may be bright at his department stores, but Woodward & Lothrop owner and shopping center landlord A. Alfred Taubman had a tough week at his other retailing side- line - Sotheby's auction house. A recently completed series of auctions of impressionist, modern and contemporary art was a major disappointment for Sotheby's, according to news service reports. Almost half of the impression- ist works and a third of the contemporary pieces put up for auc- tion failed to sell because no bidders were willing to match the minimum prices set by the sellers. Among the paintings left hanging were three from Taubman's private collection, which Sotheby's had predicted would bring a total of $3.5 million. Taubman also is having some trouble getting people to buy his shopping center real estate investment trust. The REIT offering already was revised several months ago to make it more attractive to investors, and last week the offering price was marked down to $11 a share from the $14.50-to-$12.50 range that originally was sought. BEATING AROUND THE BUSHES< Two business plaintiffs at Landlord-Tenant Court bumped heads in the bushes at the steps of the District of Columbia Courthouse at 500 Indiana Ave. NW last Friday. They were looking for identical antique Boy Scout knives. It seems recently enhanced security procedures require that visitors to the court be met at the door by guards and metal detectors. Courthouse employees report that they are used to the sight of businessmen digging around in the shrubbery on their hands and knees after their cases have been heard, trying to re- trieve whatever metal possessions they have been temporarily re- lieved of. The court won't check anything for its guests, so the azaleas and other bushes outside have become a hiding-place-in-a-pinch to more than rodents and squirrels. One executive from the federal systems division of Wang Labora- tories Inc. in Bethesda, C.N. Karafas, said he wishes he had spotted the bushes. "I had to hike a mile back to my car to leave off my tiny little Swiss Army knife," he complained. NOT JUST PIE IN THE SKY< Is Bert C. Roberts Jr., chairman of MCI Communica- tions Corp., a sport or what? At a senior management meeting a few weeks ago, Roberts took a cream pie in the face from a vice president who was prompted to throw only if Roberts was on the losing end of a card trick with MCI President Daniel F. Akerson. As it turned out, Roberts didn't lose, but the pie was thrown anyway. The report on Roberts's reaction was that he didn't exactly eat it up, but took it all good humoredly. The pie-tossing vice president, who still works at MCI, now has the reputation of someone with a fast hand. As Akerson put it, he'd hate to go deer hunting with that vice president.< - Sandra Sugawara, Cindy Skrzycki>Jerry Knight and Marianne Kyriakos>09:29 11-23C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)