The one chicken in every spot at Far West sports and public events is the flappable radio station KGB chicken from San Diego. With its infowlable agility to leap and cavort, the chicken clucks up everything from San Diego Padres baseball games to supermarket openings. Feathered by Ted Giannoulas, 24, who now earns more than $50,000 a year for such appearances, the bird has flown as far as New York City with increasing recognition. Now, however, Giannoulas and KGB, which conceived the bird, are tangling over rights. KGB has filed a $250,000 damage suit claiming ownership of the chicken concept and costume. The station is seeking an injunction to stop Giannoulas' performances. Crowed Giannoulas: "I intend to win this chicken suit."

If this is Friday, that must be Rosalynn Carter in Rome, tossing coins into the Trevi Fountain to ensure another trip to the Eternal City. With daughter Amy in tow, the First Lady made a whirlwind six-day tour of Geneva and Rome last week, meeting with World Health Organization experts to discuss mental health, and for 35 minutes at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II. Leaving the papal study in long dress and veil, the First Lady said: "He's such a wonderful person, it was a great thrill for me." The Pope was obviously moved as well. He gave Mrs. Carter an autographed photograph of himself, which Vatican Pope watchers called an unprecedented gift. Later she told Italian political leaders that Husband Jimmy will visit Rome after his summit meeting in Vienna next month. If the Trevi coins are potent enough, Rosalynn will go along as well.

There comes a time when even a Vice President would just as soon not demonstrate leadership. As when Walter Mondale flew back to Minnesota for the funeral of a longtime political friend. After the church service, Mondale's car shot off toward the Twin Cities airport, where Air Force Two was waiting. Following such a leader, the cortege went where he did. At graveside, confused relatives wondered what had happened to the band of mourners that had filled the church. The misled cortege was finally halted four miles out of town by a sympathetic policeman, who turned the cars around and escorted them back to a post-funeral reception.

Out but not down, former Massachusetts Senator Edward W. Brooke, 59, is now "restructuring my life." Brooke, defeated for a third term last fall largely because of the damaging publicity churned up by a messy divorce, scored a demi-triumph as a lobbyist for low-income housing before the same Senate subcommittee on which he once sat. Now Brooke is taking a second wife: Anne Fleming, 30, of Saint Martin in the West Indies. Fleming speaks four languages, is a gourmet cook and opera buff. But her husband is obviously as impressed by her political credentials: her great-grandfather, grandfather, father and uncle have all been mayors of French Saint Martin.

On the Record

Robert Byrd, Senate majority leader, receiving a letter from Jimmy Carter to "Senator Bob Byrd": "I wish they'd call me 'Robert' down there."

Midge Costanza, feminist and ex-White House aide, on the British election: "I myself am a liberal, and Margaret Thatcher is conservative. But we've all been run by men whose philosophy we don't agree with. Why not a woman?"

Bishop Abel Muzorewa, new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia on his election: "I'm quite convinced that it's because of the power of God."

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