Sidelights.

The Federal Aviation Administration ruled that US Airways did nothing wrong when it allowed a 300-pound pig named "Charlotte" to fly first class from Philadelphia to Seattle. * CBS legal analyst Andrew Cohen on trying to predict the outcome of post-election wrangling in Florida: "Our sound man has been right more often then I have." * "Bush has not put together a cabinet to my ideological liking, but he has managed to avoid the unsightly search for this or that token--a black, a woman, a Hispanic, etc. He has one or more of each, for sure, but none of them was picked solely on account of ethnicity or sex," writes Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. * "But should you be using the national airwaves to promote your opinions?" Diane Sawyer asked Fox News talk-show host Bill O'Reilly. * According to the National Taxpayers Union, residents of Washington, D.C., received $24 billion in federal funds in 1998, though they paid only $1.9 billion in federal taxes. ... George W. Bush pledges to remove the D.C. license plates decrying "Taxation Without Representation" from the presidential limousine. * At a meeting chaired by Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi government agreed to donate 100 million euros ($94 million) to America's poor. * Some academics want to remove The Catcher in the Rye from classroom reading lists. Its protagonist, Holden Caulfield," is a white, privileged male" explains Michael Moore of the National Council of Teachers of English. ... A Zogby poll of Floridians asked if they would support legislation requiring all public school subjects to be taught in English, and non-English-speaking students to be placed in an intensive one-year English immersion program: 83 percent of the state approved of the idea, including 80 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of blacks, and 70 percent of Latinos. ... Jim Johnson, city manager of Eugene, Oregon, issued a five-page memo banning Christmas trees from any public space in the city. ... Ohio attorney Richard Ganulin has lost his lawsuit calling for the removal of Christmas from the list of federal holidays. * The play The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, a gay version of the Old Testament featuring "Adam and Steve," enjoys a winter run in our nation's capital. ... A study by the National Fatherhood Initiative finds that only a third of prime-time TV dads are positive characters. ...