Geraldo

Simon Says:I don't understand evaporated milk. If it's evaporated, what's in the can?*Never rest anything on the roof of your car. Whether it is your briefcase or your baby, you will forget it there.*First Reporter: Do you think Bill Clinton will be a one-term president?Second Reporter: Yeah, I think he'll last that long.*If you cannot successfully complete the TV Guide crossword puzzle every week, you probably died a few years ago and didn't notice it.*A recent Times Mirror poll on believability indicated that "Geraldo Rivera had the distinction of being the least believable person tested -- 22 percent of respondents found him believable while 70 percent said they believed almost nothing of what he said," according to the summary.

Fox News Channel yesterday agreed to sideline Geraldo Rivera, its senior war correspondent, after U.S. military officials said he compromised the security of troops in Iraq. In a statement, the network said that Rivera had "volunteered to return to Kuwait," though Pentagon officials had insisted on his departure from Iraq. Rivera had arrived late last week to accompany the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division's push toward Baghdad. In reports that appeared on Fox News late Sunday and early Monday, Rivera sketched maps in the sand of that unit's activity, drawing the ire of U.S. commanding officers.

Another look at Geraldo's Diary:Jan. 3 -- Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of . . . aw, hell. We all know the answer to that one. Geraldo's nose is looking especially good today, amigos. Finely chiseled yet manly. Prominent yet not overwhelming. Then again, for what I paid, it should open garage doors and double as a reading lamp.Jan. 10 -- Message on my desk says that a Yitzhak Shamir called. Hmmm, Shamir, Shamir . . . is that the guy who used to play on "Falcon Crest?"Jan. 19 -- Liz Taylor wants me. Ran into her at a party at Le Cirque.

Fox News Channel war correspondent Geraldo Rivera is being forced out of Iraq by U.S. military officials, just days after joining an American combat unit there. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command based in Doha, Qatar, said Rivera was to be escorted from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division's encampment inside Iraq to the Kuwaiti border some miles to the south. Fox News had little official comment yesterday afternoon. "We're in contact with the Pentagon, and we're looking into the matter," Fox spokesman Robert Zimmerman said.

WMAR-TV said "operator error" was responsible for a sudden change in the "Geraldo" program Tuesday. A show on women members of the Ku Klux Klan was stopped about five minutes after it started; the rest of the hour was filled with a show about survivors who forgave murderers of their relatives.Emily Barr, chief of programming at Channel 2, said that the Klan show had aired last week, but that the tape was played again Tuesday by mistake. When the error was discovered, the Klan show was pulled and replaced by the correct tape.

WMAR-TV said "operator error" was responsible for a sudden change in the "Geraldo" program Tuesday. A show on women members of the Ku Klux Klan was stopped about five minutes after it started; the rest of the hour was filled with a show about survivors who forgive murderers of their relatives.Emily Barr, chief of programming at Channel 2, said that the Klan show had aired last week, but that the tape was played again Tuesday by mistake. When the error was discovered, the Klan show was pulled and replaced by the correct tape.

Reflections on the end of World War II continue with an NBC report on a battle that might not have been necessary, while Elizabeth Hurley, whose boyfriend is Hugh Grant, goes girl-to-girl with Barbara Walters.* "Diagnosis Murder" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Stars of the daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless" come out at night. In this repeat, Amanda (series regular Victoria Rowell, who also appears on the weekday serial) wins a walk-on appearance on the show and discovers a stalker is threatening the cast.

Trying to find the low point of Ronald Walter Price's appearance on the Thursday edition of "Geraldo!" is like trying to pin blame for the smell of a barnyard on one particularly strong source.It might be impossible to say, for sure, where the taped show realized its foulest potential, and the exercise is purely subjective. But I'll tell you this: My nose twitched significantly when attorney Tim Umbreit raised a hand and announced that he and his client had a correction to make for the national television audience.

Gather up some old shoes if you intend to watch NBC's "Empty Nest" and "Nurses" tonight. You'll end up throwing them at the screen in despair over a sweeps month ratings ploy so trashy it can be defined in one word: Geraldo.That's Geraldo, as in Rivera, the syndicated talk-show host. He makes guest appearances in both shows tonight (at 9 and 9:30, respectively, on Channel 2), in the latest "seamless" story line linking the two sitcoms set in Miami.In "Empty Nest," we even hear a line that perfectly describes the gimmick.

As a public service, I offer you the example of Ron Price -- the man who would be Joey Buttafuoco -- and hope you can learn from him. I know I have.Here's the deal.You're an Anne Arundel high school teacher. You have sex with a number of your students, some as young as 14 years old. You get caught.And now, what's the first thing you do?That's right. Very good. You claim you have a sickness. This is known in the trade as the Four Tops defense -- Can't Help Myself.And then, as if to prove you're mentally unbalanced, you go on "Geraldo!"

In recent days, as Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera says he has been ducking fire in Afghanistan, he has also been drawing unwanted attention at home. News executives and journalism ethicists say Fox News needs to investigate and explain publicly the genesis of a discredited report by Rivera from the front lines of the war. "If it's found that a reporter hasn't let the facts get in the way of a good story, then I think that's a firing offense," said Jeffrey Dvorkin, ombudsman and former vice president for news at National Public Radio.

The day after three American servicemen and several Afghan opposition troops were accidentally killed in a U.S. bombing raid last week, Fox News Channel war correspondent Geraldo Rivera told viewers that he had said the Lord's Prayer over that "hallowed ground," where "the friendly fire took so many of our, our men and the mujahedeen yesterday." But Rivera now acknowledges that he never visited the site where the U.S. servicemen died last Wednesday, just north of Kandahar in the southern region of Afghanistan.

Recently I watched as a professional engineer attempted to flush fermented bean curd down a toilet. This was not some fun engineer prank. This was a laboratory test conducted at the research center of the National Association of Home Builders, which is trying to develop a laboratory test for toilet performance that simulates the challenges faced by toilets in the real world. This research is necessary because Americans are unhappy with the wimpy toilets we are now required to buy. We yearn for the glory years, when our toilets were among the most powerful on earth -- when the standard American household commode could, in a single flush, as proven in actual tests, suck down a mature sheep.

NEW YORK -- Geraldo Rivera has made a reputation for himself with grand events such as the opening of gangster Al Capone's vault.The vault turned out to be empty, as have so many of the claims from the TV talk show host. Yet, stories such as these, devoid of factual content, haven't stood in the way of Rivera's rise to television fame.He commands a salary well into seven figures. His television persona (on display on the CNBC talk show "Rivera Live!") is based on indignation -- over the way President Clinton has been treated, over the O.J. Simpson verdict, over political views he doesn't share.

WASHINGTON -- When Lanny J. Davis walks the halls with a frown on his face -- even when he's just lost in thought -- his fellow White House staffers shudder. "Uh-oh, what's wrong?" they ask. "Are we going to have a bad day?"In tough times -- Davis' specialty -- most avoid him. "It's like I'm a walking dead man," he says. Afterward, when the bad stuff is all over the news, sympathetic colleagues pat him on the back and console him, saying: "You've got the worst job in this place."Davis is the White House flak catcher.

Laura Lane and Tina Leisher cannot bear the idea of Nancy Riggins -- their 38-year-old co-worker missing since last summer -- fading from the public's memory.On Wednesday, the women will travel to New York City to be guests on "The Geraldo Rivera Show" -- hoping that their appearance on the controversial talk show will keep alive attention about the Elkridge woman's case."This is our first opportunity to tell her story nationwide," said Lane, who worked as a cashier with Leisher and Riggins for eight years at the Burtonsville Giant Food store in Montgomery County.

Sex, conflicting statements and videotape.That could be the title of a screenplay describing the Northeast High School sex scandal that continued to unfold this week.On "Geraldo!" -- which aired yesterday in Washington and will air today on Channel 2 in Baltimore -- social studies teacher and softball coach Ronald Walter Price nodded his head to indicate "yes" when a member of the audience asked if he had practiced "safe sex" with his students. Mr. Price continued nodding yes when asked by host Geraldo Rivera whether he had used condoms.

The story of "Geraldo!" and the Northeast High School softball coach facing charges of having sex with a student is going to take another strange tabloid-TV turn this week.Last week, an attorney for Ronald Walter Price charged that his client was being held without bail to gag Price by keeping him off the syndicated talk show "Geraldo!" Price was eventually released from the Anne Arundel County Detention Center and taped the show with Geraldo Rivera in New York.Now comes word from Arnold J. Kleiner, general manager of WMAR (Channel 2)

Barbara Eden got to show off plenty of her anatomy during the five-year run of "I Dream of Jeannie," but one seemingly innocent body part was always kept under wraps. Know which one?* "Geraldo!" (10 a.m.-11 a.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Jeannie, Florence and Carol all on the same show! What riches! You may hear why Jeannie never got to show her belly-button, whether George Jefferson was ever anything but irritating and whether Carol ever found a job after Dr. Hartley left Chicago and opened that inn in Vermont.

Reflections on the end of World War II continue with an NBC report on a battle that might not have been necessary, while Elizabeth Hurley, whose boyfriend is Hugh Grant, goes girl-to-girl with Barbara Walters.* "Diagnosis Murder" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Stars of the daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless" come out at night. In this repeat, Amanda (series regular Victoria Rowell, who also appears on the weekday serial) wins a walk-on appearance on the show and discovers a stalker is threatening the cast.