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THE traveler began to speak:"Every airline has one, but this guy was the original. He started by getting rid of complimentary meals in coach. The savings, when annualized, were astounding."Then he got rid of peanuts by convincing a group to demand peanut-free zones. He is now at work on a plan to catheterize passengers as they enter the plane, explaining the procedure is for `your comfort and convenience.' Covertly, the airline will cut the number of restrooms to one."He is considering eliminating the standard announcement, `If there is anything we can do to make your flight more enjoyable, please do not hesitate to ask.' "The traveler made a curious gesture, then moved off into the shadows.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's Y2K czar, John Koskinen, has asked computer hackers to stand down around the first of the year because "we are going to have enough things going on that weekend." But the FBI and the Defense Department doubt that determined intruders will honor Koskinen's request. Those doubts make news because the long-heralded "network of networks" we know as the Internet has finally emerged as a true mass communications medium. Upwards of 140 million people now have regular access to online facilities, and there will always be some people who desire to challenge authority or vent their curiosity along illegal paths.

IN COLORADO, the mother of a student critically wounded in the Columbine High School massacre goes into deep depression and kills herself in a pawnshop with a handgun.In Ohio, a former state finance director finds he has a bad form of cancer, and dies, instead, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.In the U.S. House of Representatives, members vote 272-156 to make it illegal for doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs for terminally ill patients. No mention is made of guns, one of the principal methods of choice for suicide.

JOSEPH Heller is dead. Everybody dies. Catch-23.Mr. Heller put Catch-22 into our lexicon of ironies. Life, he told us, was crazy and would always get you. "Catch-22," Mr. Heller's great novel, made enormous sense to the Vietnam generation. It would make somewhat less sense to the generation about which it was written, World War II.There is an episode in "Catch- 22" in which the Germans and Americans hire each other to bomb themselves in the name of some greater efficiency. Funny stuff. I hate to be a spoilsport, but I never thought World War II was much of a joke -- Holocaust and all that, I guess.

JOSEPH Heller is dead. Everybody dies. Catch-23.Mr. Heller put Catch-22 into our lexicon of ironies. Life, he told us, was crazy and would always get you. "Catch-22," Mr. Heller's great novel, made enormous sense to the Vietnam generation. It would make somewhat less sense to the generation about which it was written, World War II.There is an episode in "Catch- 22" in which the Germans and Americans hire each other to bomb themselves in the name of some greater efficiency. Funny stuff. I hate to be a spoilsport, but I never thought World War II was much of a joke -- Holocaust and all that, I guess.

I FELL asleep during Monica Lewinsky's famous interview on ABC. Two hours listening to strangers talk about sex is more tedious than might be supposed.Neither President Clinton nor Ms. Lewinsky came off well. He a heedless cad. She sadder, but only somewhat wiser. Don't you know about phone sex? It's fun!She seemed, by turns, peppy, ingratiating, contemptuous, fragile, savvy, coy, apologetic, unrepentant, victim, user, the modern woman, a kid. Mr. Clinton was, in her memory, tender and sensual, a soul mate.

Washington Week in Review," PBS' long-running public affairs program, is a stolid, dependable performer that features Washington reporters talking about current events, adding a bit of information when that seems called for.Its devotees think "Washington Week" is deep. It is, but only as you compare it to the political food fights that take place elsewhere on the television dial.Nevertheless, it is going through a bad time. Its producers want to pep it up, give it more attitude, get panelists to be bolder, edgier.

RONALD Reagan and his fellow Republicans crabbed for decades about the federal deficit. Nothing, not even motherhood, came close to zapping waste, fraud and abuse.Then Mr. Reagan was elected president. He slashed taxes, built up the military and ran up the biggest deficit in the history of the universe. Deficits, Republicans explained, were only bad if you looked at them in some dumb, outmoded way.George Bush, who promised not to raise taxes, did so anyway when he became president, complaining that the tax-and-spend Democrats made him do it.President Clinton raised taxes, too, and now, riding an economic boom, he says we're drowning in cash.

Vice President Al Gore is not boring, I thought to my surprise the other morning. Mr. Gore is sprightly, lively, a life-of-the-party kind of guy. I nearly cut myself shaving.I once saw Mr. Gore spontaneously keep a whole ballroom of newspaper editors in stitches for all of, say, 20 minutes. Not much of an accomplishment, you might say. But I say it is. Newspaper editors are pretty grim folk, take it from me. I are one.Mr. Gore's problem is not that he's dull, but that he's complete. Every word is planned for perfection.

RECENTLY, the Wall Street Journal broke a curious story of such catastrophic social significance that no one could figure out why it was important. Bayer Aspirin is no longer putting plugs of cotton in its bottles.No one, according to the Journal, has much noticed. I didn't, but in my own way I'll miss those useless stoppers. They were originally put there to prevent tablets from chipping and turning into powder as they jiggled in the bottle.All the jiggling in the world wouldn't break the aspirins with the new high-tech coating.

IN COLORADO, the mother of a student critically wounded in the Columbine High School massacre goes into deep depression and kills herself in a pawnshop with a handgun.In Ohio, a former state finance director finds he has a bad form of cancer, and dies, instead, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.In the U.S. House of Representatives, members vote 272-156 to make it illegal for doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs for terminally ill patients. No mention is made of guns, one of the principal methods of choice for suicide.

Vice President Al Gore is not boring, I thought to my surprise the other morning. Mr. Gore is sprightly, lively, a life-of-the-party kind of guy. I nearly cut myself shaving.I once saw Mr. Gore spontaneously keep a whole ballroom of newspaper editors in stitches for all of, say, 20 minutes. Not much of an accomplishment, you might say. But I say it is. Newspaper editors are pretty grim folk, take it from me. I are one.Mr. Gore's problem is not that he's dull, but that he's complete. Every word is planned for perfection.

RECENTLY, the Wall Street Journal broke a curious story of such catastrophic social significance that no one could figure out why it was important. Bayer Aspirin is no longer putting plugs of cotton in its bottles.No one, according to the Journal, has much noticed. I didn't, but in my own way I'll miss those useless stoppers. They were originally put there to prevent tablets from chipping and turning into powder as they jiggled in the bottle.All the jiggling in the world wouldn't break the aspirins with the new high-tech coating.

RONALD Reagan and his fellow Republicans crabbed for decades about the federal deficit. Nothing, not even motherhood, came close to zapping waste, fraud and abuse.Then Mr. Reagan was elected president. He slashed taxes, built up the military and ran up the biggest deficit in the history of the universe. Deficits, Republicans explained, were only bad if you looked at them in some dumb, outmoded way.George Bush, who promised not to raise taxes, did so anyway when he became president, complaining that the tax-and-spend Democrats made him do it.President Clinton raised taxes, too, and now, riding an economic boom, he says we're drowning in cash.

WASHINGTON -- Congress has been dragging its feet on passing even the mildest form of Y2K remedial legislation, thereby offering yet another sign that the sky is not about to fall on our digital desktops. In those rare times in the life of the nation when a true crisis looms, lawmakers have a way of ending their bickering with breathtaking dispatch.In an era when powerful computer networks have revamped Wall Street to look and feel more like a Las Vegas casino, it's quite possible to place bets on whether the Y2K glitch will land a telling blow on the economy.

THE traveler began to speak:"Every airline has one, but this guy was the original. He started by getting rid of complimentary meals in coach. The savings, when annualized, were astounding."Then he got rid of peanuts by convincing a group to demand peanut-free zones. He is now at work on a plan to catheterize passengers as they enter the plane, explaining the procedure is for `your comfort and convenience.' Covertly, the airline will cut the number of restrooms to one."He is considering eliminating the standard announcement, `If there is anything we can do to make your flight more enjoyable, please do not hesitate to ask.' "The traveler made a curious gesture, then moved off into the shadows.

WHATEVER else happens, the difficulties the Senate had in setting up a simple impeachment trial are troubling. Events seem headed toward a straight partisan vote. Hard-core Republicans would like to see President Clinton hanged. Two ideas keep emerging as irritants. The first is the What Will We Tell Our Children Factor. What we tell our children, it seems to me, is none of the Senate's or House's business. I can mislead my heirs without the help of some congressional windbag. The second is the repeated assertion that "The Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the world."

I SAID I wouldn't watch it. But I did, at least about an hour of President Clinton's grand jury performance. I thought it was pretty dull, which, I'd guess, is what the president was shooting for. Only once, when he was denouncing Paula Jones' attorneys with a series of "deplores," did I think Mr. Clinton hit his rhetorical stride, rhythmically matching eloquence with indignation. His strong suit was his supposed unwillingness to kiss and tell. They say a gentleman doesn't.The Monica Lewinsky papers were released about the same time.

I FELL asleep during Monica Lewinsky's famous interview on ABC. Two hours listening to strangers talk about sex is more tedious than might be supposed.Neither President Clinton nor Ms. Lewinsky came off well. He a heedless cad. She sadder, but only somewhat wiser. Don't you know about phone sex? It's fun!She seemed, by turns, peppy, ingratiating, contemptuous, fragile, savvy, coy, apologetic, unrepentant, victim, user, the modern woman, a kid. Mr. Clinton was, in her memory, tender and sensual, a soul mate.

Washington Week in Review," PBS' long-running public affairs program, is a stolid, dependable performer that features Washington reporters talking about current events, adding a bit of information when that seems called for.Its devotees think "Washington Week" is deep. It is, but only as you compare it to the political food fights that take place elsewhere on the television dial.Nevertheless, it is going through a bad time. Its producers want to pep it up, give it more attitude, get panelists to be bolder, edgier.