American Notes

WEST VIRGINIA "We Are Not Just Animals"

Although inmates of West Virginia's state penitentiary in Moundsville had chafed for years under crowded and restrictive conditions, they were particularly galled at the cancellation of a traditional holiday reception for their relatives. On New Year's Day, the resentment boiled over. Some 200 of the 700 inmates seized control of most of the facility's main floor, taking 16 guards and kitchen employees hostage. "We want to be treated like we are somebody, not just trash and animals," one inmate shouted out to police. "We don't want this anymore than you do."

The hostages were released unharmed by 1 p.m. Friday, when negotiations with Governor Arch Moore brought the uprising to an end. But in the interim three prisoners were stabbed or strangled to death by fellow inmates who suspected them of serving as informants. Moore agreed to allow representatives of the rioters to air their grievances about living conditions in the penitentiary, which have improved little since a state circuit judge declared them unconstitutional in 1983. The Governor also promised amnesty for those who took part in the uprising--but not for anyone who participated in the murders. CHICAGO Redrawing the Political Map

Since his election in 1983 as Chicago's first black mayor, Democrat Harold Washington has been entangled in an epic feud with the party's long-entrenched regulars, led by Alderman Edward Vrdolyak. The result has been legislative paralysis, with the 21 city council votes that Washington controls more than canceled out by the 29 loyal to Vrdolyak. Last week, however, a federal judge ordered special aldermanic elections on March 18 that will probably narrow the margin and could give the mayor the decisive votes. The balloting could ultimately deliver the coup de grace to Chicago's once formidable Democratic machine.

The ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed in 1982 by black and Hispanic groups claiming that redistricting a year earlier was illegally rigged to minimize minority voting power. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Norgle Sr. ordered the boundaries for seven wards redrawn. Observers expect Vrdolyak's forces to retain at least two districts and Washington to pick up a minimum of three. That would leave the balance of power resting on the remaining two races, both in heavily Hispanic wards. Considering the stakes, it is a good bet that Chicago's two Democratic power brokers will spend the winter brushing up on their Spanish. WOMEN Winning a $482 Million Raise

The idea of "comparable worth" was born in Washington State a dozen years ago when union leaders complained that public employee salaries for jobs traditionally held by women were unfairly low when compared with salaries for male-dominated jobs of roughly equal value. But what jobs are of equal value? Is a secretary, for example, worth as much as a janitor? More? And who is to say? Despite such formidable hurdles, state and union negotiators last week reached an agreement to provide 35,000 Washington public workers, most of them women holding clerical and nursing jobs, with pay raises collectively totaling $482 million between now and 1992.

To Helen Castrilli of Tacoma, a secretary and one of the plaintiffs in a 1982 lawsuit that led to last week's deal, the settlement "proved that the jobs traditionally held by women are worth as much as those traditionally held by men." Her $16,800 annual pay will go up by about $1,200, equal to what a janitor makes. Although such states as Minnesota and Wisconsin have also accept ed the comparable-worth concept, more than 20 others are still fighting lawsuits growing out of the controversial idea. LOBBIES Falwell Rechristens His Majority

Even its adversaries would have to admit that in the six years since its founding, Moral Majority has become a household name Then why was the Rev. Jerry Falwell, creator of the New Right lobby, announcing last week in Washington that while Moral Majority was not exactly going out of business, it would henceforth be subsumed by a new citizens' action group, called the Liberty Federation?

Falwell contended that the reorganization was made necessary by the press, which has "bloodied and beaten the name Moral Majority." He also acknowledged that he wanted to be able to speak out not only on such matters as school prayer and pornography but also on budget deficits, the need for a strong defense and other issues that many Americans regard as political rather than moral. When Falwell has taken positions on such questions in the past, he has been criticized for appearing to frame them in religious terms. Noting that contributions toward Moral Majority's $7 million annual budget have leveled off in the past year and that the organization's political clout seems diminished, some observers think that Falwell is simply pouring old wine into a new bottle. NEW YORK Mother Teresa's AIDS Hospice

Starting with a shelter for dying street dwellers in Calcutta in the early 1950s, Mother Teresa has built her Missionaries of Charity into an organization of 2,000 sisters and 400 brothers who reach out to the homeless, hungry and sick in 52 countries. Yet it took all of the Roman Catholic nun's prestige to provide a New York City hospice for patients in the terminal stages of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. At the facility's Christmas Eve dedication, Mother Teresa was on hand. Of AIDS patients, she said, "Each one of them is Jesus in a distressing disguise."

The frail-looking, 75-year-old nun, winner of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, thus accomplished what other church and city leaders had failed to do. Although New York offers facilities for AIDS sufferers, neighborhood groups have blocked hospices in their areas. Backed by Mayor Edward Koch and New York's John Cardinal O'Connor, Mother Teresa persuaded Greenwich Village residents to allow St. Veronica's Church to open its rectory to 14 dying AIDS patients. The first three: prisoners from the state penitentiary at Ossining, released by Governor Mario Cuomo.