* Dubious Achievement: Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.)...

* Dubious Achievement: Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) has been given an award--of sorts--by a women’s rights group: a ball and chain. Helms was chosen Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., by the Susan B. Anthony Committee for his stands against the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, civil rights and affirmative action. Helms did not attend, so an impersonator stood in, wearing pink pig ears. “On the issues, I am precisely where I was 20 years ago--30 years ago,” said the impersonator.

* Caesar’s Ghost: A major piece of vandalism in 48 BC by Julius Caesar is about to be rectified. Egypt plans to rebuild the Alexandria Library, the repository of ancient knowledge in mathematics, the arts, medicine and philosophy. The library is 100 miles north of Cairo. Two people will have no trouble getting library cards. Zayed ibn Sultan el Nahayan of the United Arab Emirates contributed $20 million Monday for the facility. Saudi Prince Turki ibn Abdulaziz chipped in $3 million.

* Book Him: Imprisoned evangelist Jim Bakker is studying English while in prison in Rochester, Minn. He is serving a 45-year sentence for bilking his PTL ministry followers. His mother, Furnia Bakker, says Jim is a good student when he isn’t doing prison janitorial work. “He got 100% on his test,” she says. “Maybe now they won’t make him clean those toilets.”

* Good Read: E.L. Doctorow was one of the winners of the 1989 National Book Critics Circle awards announced Monday in New York. Doctorow won in the fiction category for “Billy Bathgate.” Other winners were Rodney Jones, poetry, “Transparent Gestures”; Geoffrey C. Ward, biography/autobiography, “A First-Class Temperament”; Michael Dorris, general nonfiction, “The Broken Cord,” and John Clive, criticism, “Not by Fact Alone.”