NO COMMENT.

• Position: Brief Article

Niche Marketing

From an article in The Wall Street Journal on the prison boom, which notes that prisons now house 13 percent of all African-American men: "A small Philadelphia company now produces a line of greeting cards for inmates and their loved ones. `Thinking of you,' reads one card, picturing a young black couple embracing. `Love transcends prison walls. It stands the test of time.'"

IMF Makeover

From an article in The Wall Street Journal: "Besieged by conservatives in Congress and rioters in Jakarta, the IMF [International Monetary Fund] has decided to hire a big-name public-relations firm to figure out why the secretive agency is most unloved just when its activities are most visible.... The IMF has asked major Washington P.R. firms for proposals and is now choosing one of them.... `I suppose they feel that if they put a better face on their operations, they can avoid having to change them,' says Representative Jim Saxton [Republican of New Jersey]."

Frontiers of Free Enterprise

From The Sunday Times of London: "Businesses are planning to ambush revelers with an astronomical `millennium tariff' on New Year's Eve 1999, prompting experts to predict it will be the most expensive night in history. So high will be the cost of eating, sleeping, traveling, and celebrating on December 31, 1999, that it could even force the Treasury to make a special adjustment to its monthly inflation statistics."

Executive Privilege

From a story in The San Diego Union-Tribune: "A bankruptcy court judge yesterday approved a plan that could result in bonuses totaling up to $3.5 million for top executives of FPA Medical Management, the company whose shutdown left hundreds of San Diegans unemployed and unpaid for past work.... The logic of paying bonuses to the management team that led the company into bankruptcy escapes many former employees.... `They need to pay the people who worked for them,' [Elizabeth Marie Sims, a former claims adjuster who is owed about $800] said. `I don't think anyone works for the fun of it or to get out of the house. We need that money.' ... Dr. Stephen Dresnick, chief executive officer, would receive $1.2 million for staying with the company through its reorganization."

Wild Thing

From The Sunday Times of London: "The latest fashion in pets is a 25,000 [pounds sterling] half-leopard half-cat, which has caught the eye of animal-lovers as discerning as the Duchess of York.... Said Cindy Jackson, forty-two, the former photographer...