Tabitha Soren

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Twentysomething and can't get a job? Your mistake was spending those four or more years in college. Instead of getting that degree in accounting, you should have been in fast food, the military or behind the counter at your local mall. That seems to be the message in tonight's half-hour MTV report "Help Not Wanted," a bleak overview of job prospects for young people, hosted by Tabitha Soren.

Leave it to "MTV: The Year in Rock" (on the network at 7:30 tonight) to include both a summary of the presidential race and a visual medley of supermodels as part of its '92 rock 'n' roll almanac. But in a year when even Bill Clinton was kissing up to U2, and seemingly half the membership of the Ford agency was dating and/or married to Guns N' Roses, why not? Kurt Loder and Tabitha Soren co-host the typically spry hour.

Reluctant Time cover boy Eddie Vedder mumbles incoherently from behind a line of empties. "Pint-sized paparaz-a-phobe" Shannen Doherty proclaims--Nixon-like--"I am not a bitch." The "lead breast" of global phenomenon "Baywatch," Pamela Anderson, extols the wonders of Zen in a meditation-provoking one-piece. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) assails "what is it, Buffcoat and Beaver, or Beaver and something else." Ike Turner swears he only punched her once. Must have been the year in something.

This year in rock, by most media accounts, pretty much consisted of Kurt Cobain going to his grave, Elvis Presley rolling over in his grave, Trent Reznor wishing he were dead and the kicking of a dead horse at Woodstock II. MTV focuses on Cobain, Reznor and Woodstock (stock having been the operative word there) in the 1994 edition of "The Year in Rock," eulogizing the late Nirvana leader at greatest length but stopping just short of wistfully proclaiming the day the music died.

What do presidential adviser George Stephanopoulos, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward and Tabitha Soren of MTV news have in common? They all started their careers as interns. Internships have long been important channels into careers for high school and college students or recent graduates. But how does that aspiring journalist or government bureaucrat find the best one? Two recent graduates of Stanford University in Palo Alto have compiled a book that attempts to answer that question.

To the classic three R's of education, add a major fourth: revolvers. The disturbing statistics in tonight's half-hour MTV special, "Generation Under the Gun" (at 9 p.m.), suggest that illegal gun ownership is about as rampant as sexual activity among urban teens. With a cited Harris poll indicating one in every 25 high-schoolers has actually carried a gun to school , Bosnia doesn't seem so exotic. At least beleaguered L.A. doesn't take any more hits from the program.

What exactly was the purpose of the column, "How to Put Your Wife Out of Business" by Michael Lewis (Opinion, March 6)? I asked this question of my 15-year-old son, as I insisted he read this and discuss it with me. "What a jerk," he replied, adding, "Mom, I think it is supposed to be sarcastic." I'm not sure. If it was intended to be humorous, the humor crossed the line, and was horrifyingly offensive. Is it possible that the man is genuinely threatened and self-absorbed enough to indulge and direct his lackluster writing skills toward his wife and all women who work outside the home?

During the 1992 presidential campaign, MTV reporter Tabitha Soren asked candidate Bill Clinton, "If you could try marijuana again for the first time, would you inhale?" "Sure," Clinton replied, "if I could. I tried before." The casual climate that allowed the candidate such admissions in 1992 stands in stark contrast to the troubled atmosphere governing this year's contest. Chastening Americans is a recent series of dire statistics about teenage drug use.