November 19, 1992

SOCIAL standing won't do it. Ancestors, other than top-of-the-line royals, don't mean a thing. Money helps, as always, but it's no guarantee. Achievement? Now you're getting closer, but the competition is fierce. Physical beauty? Nice but not enough, unless it's an adjunct to fame or notoriety in some field. So just how are those guest lists made up, the lists that are an open sesame to the glittering, glossy parties that titillate the gossip columnists and lure the paparazzi, the lists that validate, in their own eyes and the eyes of others, the importance of the men and women on them?

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops refused today to adopt a proposed pastoral letter on the role of women in the church and society, a document nine years in the making that had ended up being dominated by traditional church views. The vote marked the first time since the National Conference of Catholic Bishops was formed in 1966 that the nation's Catholic hierarchy failed to reached a two-thirds majority consensus on a proposed pastoral letter, the bishops' weightiest form of policy statement.

Reports that the Government had urged big institutions to undertake a buying campaign sent share prices rocketing here on Wednesday, but analysts said the explosive rally did little to turn around the generally gloomy sentiment caused by continuing signs of weakness in the economy. Battered by slumping industrial investment, evaporating corporate profits, a banking crisis and a political scandal that has paralyzed Parliament, the market has been steadily sliding. It set off alarms on Tuesday when the Nikkei average of 225 issues fell below the 16,000 mark.

It was 1955, there was a revolution on the radio, and five kids from Washington Heights signed up as foot soldiers. Just after the birth of rock-and-roll, they had their moment. That moment was a simple, tender song called "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"; the group was Frankie Lymon and the Teen-Agers. For nearly 40 years -- as the song was recorded and rerecorded into the pop music pantheon -- the boy with the sweet soprano and that first blockbuster hit were joined in rock 'n' roll immortality.

The nation's trade deficit with Japan jumped sharply in September even as the overall deficit narrowed slightly to $8.31 billion, the Commerce Department announced today. The overall deficit showed only modest improvement from the August deficit of $8.95 billion, which was the largest in nearly two years. The politically touchy deficit with Japan widened to $4.44 billion, the biggest this year and considerably wider than the August deficit of $3.73 billion.