Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 16, 1993 TAG: 9310160111
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From wire reports
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Comparing West Virginia to television's archetypal small town populated with dense people, Dennis Miller told a national audience five years ago that "West Virginia makes Mayberry look like a think tank."
And West Virginians won't let the ex-talk show host and "Saturday Night Live" alumnus forget. "I'm amazed at how ruffled people get about it," he said.
Miller said he has good reason to ridicule West Virginia: He once got beaten up at a football game in Morgantown. "So when I go to write a mean joke, I write it about them. It's cathartic," Miller said.
Don't expect to find "Beavis and Butt-head" hanging out in "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." The creator of the public television children's program is calling for producers to turn out higher quality shows for kids.
"Why can't we give them the best, rather that what might not be?" Fred Rogers asked after he was honored Thursday by the Pittsburgh Presbytery for his work. Rogers, who has been host of the gentle, upbeat show for 25 years, is also a Presbyterian minister.
Shows like MTV's popular "Beavis and Butt-head" cartoon just don't meet that lofty mark, he suggested. True to his kindly TV temperament, he steered clear of direct criticism of the show, which features a pair of pyromaniacal teen-agers. "It's not a matter of censorship," he said. "It's a matter of setting some goals and trying to reach them."
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg picked up just the thing this week to wear under those drab Supreme Court robes: Hers-and-hers T-shirts that say "The Supremes" on the front and on the back, "I'm Sandra, Not Ruth" or "I'm Ruth, Not Sandra."
The gifts were from a court reception presented by the National Association of Women Judges and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Mass.
The women of the high court seem to be getting on nicely. "I've always wanted a big sister and it's great to finally have one," Ginsburg said.
Growing up in Lebanon, Stewart Copeland never dreamed his father was a spy.
Not until years later did Copeland, founder and drummer of The Police, learn his father, Miles, had been a CIA operative in the Middle East.
"He was an old Cold War warrior, doing the job for his country the way he saw it," Copeland said.
"He was amoral politically. I mean, he was personally responsible for bringing down and setting up half, I think, of the 14 regimes that took over in Syria over the 10-year period or something like that before Hafez al-Assad came in [in 1971]," he added.
The 41-year-old musician was born in Alexandria, Va., and lived in Egypt and Syria before his family moved to Beirut when he was about 4.
"My earliest memories are of Lebanon," he said. "I played in my first band there, kissed my first girl there."
Knute Rockne got tickets for today's Notre Dame-Brigham Young football game, but it wasn't easy.
When the grandson and namesake of Notre Dame's famed football coach first called the school's football office, identified himself and asked about tickets, the secretary laughed and hung up.
"You get used to all kinds of responses," said Rockne, a high school history teacher and assistant football coach.
On the second call, he asked for George Kelly, a Notre Dame administrator who got Rockne the tickets.
Rockne, his wife, Patsy, and three daughters will sit with about 2,000 Irish fans and cheer for the team his grandfather guided to six national titles in 13 years, between 1918 and 1930.
by CNB