Notebook

By M.M. Buechner, Daniel Eisenberg, Tam Gray, Daniel Levy, Tyler Maroney, Declan McCullagh, Michele Orecklin and Joshua Cooper Ramo

WINNERS & LOSERS BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY; BIG BOYS SHOULD

[WINNERS]

AMERICAN WOMEN Slap-shot Cinderellas showed tons of heart in snaring the gold. And they didn't trash their rooms!

TARA LIPINSKI The tiny sprite won it the hard way, coming from behind to top the accomplished Michelle Kwan

HERMANN MAIER Won immortality both for his two golds and for his great fall

[& LOSERS]

AMERICAN MEN A Dream Team of hockey pros produced a nightmare in Nagano. Lucky they got to play Belarus

CANADIAN MEN The old line "We'd win the gold if our pros were there" will never be uttered again

CBS Bad weather, few stars, fluff: Ratings off 40% from '94

TALKING THE TALK

Kofi Annan isn't the first statesman to try to broker a last-minute peace. Here are some past attempts:

[Two fists] Secretary of State William Seward tried to avoid the Civil War in 1861 by offering to abandon Fort Sumter and provoke war with Spain. Lincoln put the kibosh on these plans, and the nationwent to war.

[Two fists] Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, ceding the Sudetenland to Germany and announcing "peace in our time." He went down in history as the personification of misguided appeasement.

[Hands shaking] Jimmy Carter went to Port-au-Prince in 1994 to persuade General Cedras to step down, as the U.S. demanded. After two days of negotiation, Carter succeeded, and Haiti just kind of chilled out.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE DOLLARS GONE?

Combat ain't cheap. The Gulf War in 1991 lasted a mere seven weeks, yet cost about $70 billion, as much as bailing out one or two Asian economies. Should battle resume, the money will once again start to burn.

TOMAHAWK CRUISE MISSILE In 1991 a stunned CNN newsman watched a ship-launched Tomahawk navigate past his Baghdad hotel room toward its last stop. We used 288 last time Cost: $750,000 each

AGM-88 HARM At least 1,000 of the creepy-sounding air-to-surface anti-radiation missiles helped deafen Iraq's air-defense radar system Cost: $200,000 each

F-16 FIGHTING FALCON The Fighting Falcon's jamming equipment sent Iraqi missiles swirling off course. They flew 13,500 combat sorties, but seven were lost during the war Cost: more than $20 million each

AIM-9 SIDEWINDER During the war and the cease-fire, U.S. jets using these supersonic heat-seeking, air-to-air missiles dispatched eight Iraqi aircraft. About 35 Sidewinders were fired Cost: $84,000 each

20-MM SHELL They weigh only half a pound, but when spewed at 7,200 rounds a minute from the six twirling muzzles of a Vulcan cannon, these armor-piercing shells are formidable indeed. Pentagon officials couldn't begin to estimate the number used Cost: around $20 each

AIM-7 SPARROW About 50 cost-effective Sparrows were used to take out 23 enemy aircraft Cost: $125,000 each

GOOD, AL, BUT THAT'S WITH A W

Everyone knows Allen Ginsberg was a great poet. Did he also have ESP? Here is a poem he wrote in 1949:

Sweet Levinsky in the night Sweet Levinsky in the light do you giggle out of spite, or are you laughing in delight Sweet Levinsky, sweet Levinsky

In other lines, Ginsberg asks if Levinsky trembles when the cock crows and employs such words as dissemble, tearful and fearful. The Levinsky in the poem is actually Leon Levinsky, a relatively minor character in Jack Kerouac's first novel, The Town and the City.

QUICK QUIZ

To which resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue does this description refer?

"[He] makes almost never-ending eye contact. The way he looks at you, it's almost like he wants to get inside of you. You feel like you have his undivided attention, like he'd do anything to please you."

ANSWER: It's First Dog Buddy, characterized by trainer Greg Strong in the March issue of George magazine.

NUMBERS

$840 million: Titanic's worldwide box-office gross

$962 million: Box-office gross of the last 11 Jack Nicholson movies, including As Good As It Gets, Mars Attacks!, Blood & Wine, The Evening Star, The Crossing Guard, Wolf, Hoffa, A Few Good Men, Man Trouble, The Two Jakes and Batman

$29,900: Sale price of a 2.4 oz. piece of cake from the 1937 wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor that was auctioned off last week

$29,000: Price of 100 oz. of gold today

12.57: The record-breaking amount of rain, in inches, that has fallen on San Francisco so far in February

120: Number of years that monthly record stood

23: Number of senior and general Army officers accused of criminal offenses in the past 3 years

23: Number of officers who were allowed to retire without prosecution

Sources: Exhibitor Relations, Internet Movie Database, USA Today, Sotheby's, AP, New York Times