NOTEBOOK

By JANICE M. HOROWITZ, NADYA LABI, LINA LOFARO, JAMIE MALANOWSKI, EMILY MITCHELL, MEGAN RUTHERFORD, ALAIN L. SANDERS AND STEVE WULF

WINNERS & LOSERS

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

[WINNERS]

MACAULAY CULKIN The real-life Richie Rich. The 16-year-old wins access to his $17 million bank account

PRINCESS DIANA Spared a court ordeal, she settles with fired housemaid for secret cash amount

HENRY ESPY The former Agriculture Secretary's brother cleared of charges of lying to get a bank loan

[& LOSERS]

JEREMY ANDERSON For scrawling his name in a sidewalk's wet concrete, the Las Vegas third-grader faces trial

THREE-STRIKES LAW Crime rates have declined more in states without the law than in those with it

DALLAS MORNING NEWS Publish and be damned? Yes, for running a dubious confession by Timothy McVeigh

THE IDES HAS IT

Julius Caesar had good reason to beware the day he was assassinated in 44 B.C. But despite the oft repeated admonition for the rest of us, history records no special reason to lie low on March 15. In fact, some pretty darn good things have happened on the fateful day. (See the birth of Fabio, 3/15/61.) So as the Ides of March approaches, take a backward glance, seize fate and go forth!

1493 Columbus returns to Spain after his first voyage to the New World

1767 Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the U.S., is born

1820 Maine enters the Union as the 23rd state

1875 John McCloskey is named the first U.S. Roman Catholic Cardinal

1919 The American Legion is founded in Paris

1933 Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is born

1956 The musical My Fair Lady opens on Broadway

1964 Elizabeth Taylor marries Richard Burton

1965 President Johnson proposes the Voting Rights Act

1997 Deadline for the start of talks on a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace

THOSE OBSCURE OBJECTS OF CURATORIAL DESIRE

From the mountains to the prairies and the oceans white with foam, ours is a nation of small, odd museums. Mostly they honor the stuff of everyday life, showcasing curiosities of the past along with obsessions of the present. A sampling:

A STITCH IN TIME When Elias Howe finally patented the first practical sewing machine in 1846, he revolutionized the way clothing was made. Among the 155 exemplars displayed at the Antique Sewing Machine Museum in Arlington, Texas, Howe's early, ingenious appliances get pride of place.

NOT COVERED BY ANY H.M.O. Snake oil salesmen, beware. The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in Minneapolis features 200 years of scientific chicanery, including a male "corset'' that generated a small shock to enhance the wearer's love life and the Nemectron, right, a gadget that supposedly overcame age's ravages, cured acne and lifted fallen arches.

A WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN' GOIN' ON Uh-oh, it's Jell-O. This year the gelatin dessert has its 100th birthday, and so in June its hometown of LeRoy, New York, opens an exhibit that will be part of a permanent museum. Trivia fact: an electroencephalogram shows that a human brain and a bowl of quivering lime Jell-O have the same waves.

DOES MICHAEL KINSLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS? Since 1839, a mineral vein along the Vermont-New York border has furnished slate for thousands of roofs, including that of the White House. The Slate Valley Museum in Granville, New York, documents the quarry region.

EVEN PARANOIDS HAVE ENEMIES (not illustrated) Free admission for Oliver Stone? The Conspiracy Museum in Dallas explores the tangled weave of intrigue around assassinations from Lincoln to J.F.K. to Martin Luther King.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN' Vintage vehicles at Chattanooga's International Towing & Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum remind us that in America's love affair with the auto, the humble tow truck has been the car's faithful attendant.

HONOR ROLLS Please don't squeeze the exhibits. Wisconsin's four-year-old Madison Museum of Bathroom Tissue has reached the 3,000-roll mark. One valued relic: loo paper from Graceland.

HEALTH REPORT

THE GOOD NEWS

--A hard choice made easier. One of the largest studies yet on treating CLOGGED ARTERIES shows that both balloon angioplasty and more invasive coronary-bypass surgery yield the same quality of life and relief of symptoms for at least five years. One caveat: angioplasty patients may need the procedure repeated.

--PROZAC pick-me-up. Early reports indicate that taking estrogen seems to enhance the ability of Prozac to alleviate depression in older women.

--More folks are just saying no. A survey of 4 million employees finds that positives on DRUG TESTS in the workplace hit a 10-year low in 1996. Only 5.8% of workers came up positive, down 13% from a year earlier.

THE BAD NEWS

--Asthmatic alert. Elderly ASTHMATIC patients who use high doses of steroid inhalers (two deep puffs four times a day) may be increasing their chances of developing glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness. Patients should not stop using inhalers, but they should get regular eye exams.

--Imperfect IMPLANTS. A major study shows that within five years of having breast implants, one-quarter of women require additional surgery for excessive scarring, a ruptured implant or other complications.

--Like powder after a shower? Save it for your feet. Research suggests that applying powder or deodorant spray to the genital area can increase a woman's risk of OVARIAN CANCER. The worst offender: the sprays, which may up the odds 90%.

Sources--GOOD NEWS: Journal of the American Medical Association; American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry meeting; SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories BAD NEWS: Journal of the American Medical Association; New England Journal of Medicine; American Journal of Epidemiology

FLASHBACK

Little Big Man

Scrappy second baseman Nellie Fox, who died in 1975, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee last week. While stories on Fox referred to his .288 lifetime batting average, his 1959 American League MVP award and his record for most consecutive games at second base (798), no mention was made of his abduction by aliens. It happened in 1959, when a helicopter filled with Martians landed at Chicago's Comiskey Park and captured both Fox and his equally diminutive double-play partner, Luis Aparicio. The stunt was dreamed up by White Sox owner Bill Veeck, who eight years earlier had shocked baseball by sending 3-ft. 7-in. Eddie Gaedel to the plate for the St. Louis Browns. In fact, Gaedel was one of the four Martians (all of them very little people) who tried to enlist Fox and Aparicio in their battle against giant Earthlings.