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Don't get rid of those DOLE FOR PRESIDENT buttons just yet. While former Senator Bob Dole's electoral career is at an end, wife Elizabeth's may be near to beginning. "If at some point it seemed feasible, that there was an opportunity to run at whatever level, it is an option I might well consider," she says. This is Washingtonese for, Don't count me out in 2000.
On Jan. 2, Mrs. Dole returns to her position as president of the American Red Cross. The view out the former Cabinet member's office window will surely be a distraction: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
EQUAL TREATMENT?
Last week in Charleston, South Carolina, as the Citadel's first four female "knobs" ended their first semester at the military college, lawyers for the families of two of the freshmen brandished nine single-spaced pages detailing what they claim is a series of attacks on the women starting last September. Upperclassmen in their E Company barracks allegedly hit Kim Messer and Jeanie Mentavlos in the head, shoved them against walls with rifle butts, made them sit atop trash cans with legs extended for an hour and a half and forced them to drink alcohol mixed with Mountain Dew and listen to sexually explicit language. Most alarmingly, older cadets allegedly splashed nail-polish remover on the women (and at least one male) and attempted to set their clothes on fire.
While these abuses may fall within the parameters of the Citadel's traditional freshmen hazing rituals, the school has taken the claims seriously enough to suspend two upperclassmen and temporarily, at least, transfer five others. FBI and state investigations into the allegations, launched in mid-December, continue.
The other two female knobs, Nancy Mace and Petra Lovetinska, have brought no complaints. And people who have maintained contact with all four women suggest that Messer and Mentavlos invited ill will by flouting rules--like ignoring lights-out to cruise the Internet. Nevertheless, Messer's father has been quoted as saying that his daughter was "terrorized." Both women took their final exams while living off campus, and it is unclear whether they intend to return next semester.
NOUVEAU FAT
Olestra is coursing through the system, so to speak. In January the "no-fat" fat that Procter & Gamble has spent more than 25 years and $200 million developing was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the manufacture of crackers and other snacks. Since April, olestra-based edibles have been available in a few Midwestern and Western cities, where they've been test-marketed by Frito-Lay as "MAX" versions of the company's Ruffles and Doritos brand chips; and by P&G, which is trying out Fat Free Pringles. So far, the companies are claiming success. In Frito-Lay's three test cities, retailers sold nearly 275,000 bags of MAX snacks in less than six months, allegedly generating more than 1,000 compliments, 1,700 inquiries as to where MAX chips could be purchased (many local stores have been shipping them out of state) and only 148 complaints. Sue Dawson, the food editor of the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch, wrote that the olestra-based Pringles introduced in Columbus tasted "like any other good-quality potato chips." Which is more than you can say about regular Pringles.