Etc...

You can keep your zip code

It has happened again: Some municipality can win valuable commercial considerations from a national enterprise in return for legally changing its name . EchoStar Communications, a satellite TV provider that's up against stiff competition for new subscribers, is offering 10 years of free service for each household - a package that could cost it millions of dollars . As a promotional gimmick, this has a long history, having been tried with mixed success by a computer company, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the producers of the popular 1950s show "Truth or Consequences." EchoStar requires that the winning town agree to rename itself ... Dish. Why? Because EchoStar operates the Dish Network.

"Ask not," President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, "what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." He could just as easily have been speaking not of the American people but about the nation's colleges. As students head back to campus for a new academic year, Washington Monthly magazine has issued its ranking of how well "these heavily subsidized institutions" serve the the national interest. Using three criteria - that schools should be "engines of social mobility," should "produce academic minds and scientific research that advance knowledge and drive economic growth," and should "encourage an ethic of service" - the editors rate Massachusetts Institute of Technology No. 1. But while the list is made up of "academically serious" schools, it isn't dominated by what the magazine calls "the super elite." Washington Monthly's top 10:
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. UCLA
3. University of California- Berkeley
4. Cornell University
5. Stanford
6. Penn State
7. Texas A&M
8. University of California- San Diego
9. University of Pennsylvania
10. University of Michigan