But will they be able to find...

But will they be able to find any male judges?For the first time in 41 years, the Miss Downey Pageant has eliminated the swimsuit competition, which was deemed outmoded for the young woman of today. Instead, the fully garbed contestants will be graded on such factors as poise, personality and oratorical skills. They’ll also have the option of writing a 150-word essay on the theme, “What’s Right With the Youth of Today.”

That many words?

*

More devastating than any poll: We’re no political pundit, especially after predicting that Melrose Larry Green would be elected mayor of L.A. last year.

But we don’t think it’s a good sign for the Democrats that a whole bin of Clinton CD ROMs selling for three bucks apiece (about an 85% reduction in price) could be found in a local Pic ‘N’ Save. We’ll wait until it reaches the 99 Cents Only stores.

*

Can she pardon herself?This item was on City News Service’s list of news events for today--”11 a.m. GLENDALE--A taping of a new adventure television series, ‘Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills,’ will feature Zsa Zsa Gabor in the role of the mayor of Beverly Hills. . . .”

*

Too bad Henry VIII isn’t available: A Southland newspaper carried a classified ad from a reader who seems to have a medieval outlook.

*

Generous to a fault: When Price Michael of Kent visited Geary’s Beverly Hills, the store gave him an L.A.-type memento to take home--a jar of putty-like material used to secure glassware and other valuables to shelves. Its name: Quake Wax.

*

He lost his Pulitzer eligibility: You may have read about a controversy involving two freshmen USC football players--sources say each is suspected of having had someone else take a college entrance examination for him. A third recruit’s entrance test was disqualified last year.

We must confess that we had direct knowledge of a similar scandal when we were at USC. But this one involved the journalism department. A fellow Daily Trojan staffer had a friend take a Spanish test for him.

When he was caught, the DT staffer had a simple explanation. He told authorities he was writing an investigative piece on cheating. He had heard that it was simple for a student to have a substitute take a test. But--hey!--the fact that he had been caught proved it wasn’t true. He congratulated the school on its security.

Officials considered expelling him but gave him a lesser penalty. Our classmate never did graduate from USC. But he later became a successful comedy writer in Hollywood.

miscelLAny The book, “The Fifty Worst Movies Ever Made,” reports that the 1972 movie, “Godzilla Versus the Smog Monster,” was popular in Japan, where it was set. But it was a flop in this country. And it ran for only two days in L.A., where residents obviously found it hard to believe the story line, which had the smog monster being defeated.