February 7, 1993

By the time Riddick Bowe had stopped throwing lefts and rights last night, Michael Dokes was barely standing. The ropes kept him upright, but he was going down. It was only a matter of when. Riddick Bowe said later that he knew it would end like this. He knew he would win his first defense of the heavyweight title he took from Evander Holyfield almost three months ago. So he moved forward and punched. Dokes bent forward, trying somehow to raise his arms. But there was nothing left.

WHO is Gio? If you don't know now, you will soon enough. Gio is the new fragrance by Giorgio Armani and also his nickname; the question is the theme line of an advertising campaign that already feels as if its gone longer than the Energizer.

BEYOND the jars of finger paint lining the windowsill, a chair is pushed back from a table where a newspaper is still open, as if someone has left the classroom at the Long Island Developmental Center in Melville for just a moment. Even the lights are on. But just as at 12 other state centers for the retarded across New York, the lights are going out forever at the 500-acre center, where brick and concrete residences built less than 30 years ago, but already verging on dereliction, once housed 1,000 patients and a staff of 2,000.

To economists, it makes no sense whatsoever. But in a perverse way, the rather good economic news these days may make it harder politically for President Clinton to ask Americans to tighten their belts for the sake of future prosperity. Before the election, when the economy seemed dead in the water, when the unemployment rate was peaking, when Ross Perot was barking about how the economy was perched on the edge of a cliff, Mr. Clinton had no trouble campaigning for a fundamental change in direction.

Many angry women across the country contended that Judge Kimba M. Wood was being treated unfairly because of the President's political calculations. "Kimba Wood got caught in the wave created by the Zoe Baird situation," one woman said. Article, page 22.