People

By Ellin Martens

AS IF COMPETING AGAINST GERALDO RIVERA WEREN'T BAD ENOUGH

So covering a war in Afghanistan is brutal? Try battling the Wall Street Journal's Tunku Varadarajan. In a column on female war correspondents, CNN's CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR is "second-rate," parachuting into war zones "kitted out in flak jackets"; MSNBC's ASHLEIGH BANFIELD is undergoing "a complex learning process" on air, starring in the story by dyeing her blond hair brown. "Despicable!" Banfield says, comparing talk of her looks and $400 titanium-framed glasses to how the Taliban treats Afghan women. At least when Dan Rather wrapped himself in mufti to report from Afghanistan, he only had to live down the nickname "Gunga Dan."

A Shorts Story

You'd think the NBA would applaud modestly dressed role models such as SHAQUILLE O'NEAL and KOBE BRYANT. But no. The two Los Angeles Lakers stars were among at least nine players fined $5,000 apiece by the NBA for wearing shorts too long. Seems the rule is that basketball shorts must stop at least an inch above the knee. It was enforced before, in 1997, when officials thought shorts were overly baggy-saggy a la hip-hop fashion, violating "the integrity of the uniform," in the words of the NBA's Tim Frank. Shaq says he refuses to wear "John Stockton shorts," referring to the Utah Jazz 39-year-old throwback who wears them shortish and tightish. If he did that, Shaq opined, the kids "would laugh at me, and I wouldn't be their favorite player anymore." He paused before reporters to dab fake tears with a paper towel. Said he: "I'd be the laughingstock of big men!"

J-LO PRESSES ON; TERRORISTS LOSE

No, she's not on all fours searching for a lost contact lens--this is how JENNIFER LOPEZ spits in the eye of al-Qaeda. Because if she couldn't wriggle out of her clothes on a stage in Puerto Rico and ask, as she did in an NBC special aired last week, "Is it hot in here?" then, well, the terrorists would have won. For unlike Janet Jackson, who canceled her European tour, Lopez is going ahead with hers. "These are terrible times," J-Lo says, "but I think that as an artist I have a responsibility now to bring some lightness into people's lives with my music." Oh, yes, her music. She also stuck to a commitment to make two British TV appearances--though the 90-person entourage she brought with her probably made things easier, as did the white muslin and white lilies she requested for her dressing room, to go along with the white sofas she brought over. At the tour's first stop in Stockholm, autograph seeker Jennifer Melin, 15, gushed, "She is an incredible example for us. She says smart things!" Take that, Taliban.

FLASH! AL GORE TO WEAR TIES AGAIN

In politics, as in stand-up, timing is all. But AL GORE never quite mastered either. After all, this is the man who opens banquets with the line "I am Al Gore. I used to be the next President of the United States." He's also teaching at two Tennessee universities, writing a book with Tipper about families...but clearly, time to get a real job. So he has. The former VP will be vice chairman (i.e. rainmaker) for Metropolitan West Financial, a Los Angeles-based firm that manages more than $50 billion in assets. "I am eager to learn more about business as an active executive of this dynamic and community-oriented company," Gore enthused. Detractors said he went West because he couldn't close a Wall Street deal, where he'd hoped to make big bucks for another White House run. Gore's people won't comment. And the beard? Again, timing. Even in Kabul they know beards are out this fall.