July 30, 1991

President Bush landed in the Soviet Union tonight for a summit meeting with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev that will explore the shape of Moscow's relations with Washington in the post-cold-war era but may also focus on the politics of the Middle East. Mr. Bush's plane arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport here a few minutes before 10 P.M., local time, after a nine-hour flight form Washington. He received a low-keyed greeting from Vice President Gennadi I. Yanayev, reviewed a small honor guard, including a quartet of drummers with red stars emblazoned on their instruments, and then sped into the capital and retired for the night.

For most of the century, few places have been as isolated from the economic mainstream as this venerable mill town where generations worked in the Cannon family mills, lived in the Cannon family rental cottages and shopped in Cannon family-owned buildings. But when about 400 grim-faced retirees gathered at a high school auditorium today, the angry talk was of leveraged buyouts and California bankruptcy law and the way their pension payments, already meager, were slashed by 30 percent after a California financier bought and sold their company and reinvested their pension plan's holdings in an insurer dependent on junk bonds.

Aspen and Monte Carlo too expensive? Bronco-busting at an American dude ranch likely to bust the budget as well? Why not ski the slopes above Zakopane, saddle up near Walbrzych or try breaking the bank at Wroclaw? Such is the pitch from Poland's upstart travel entrepreneurs: Western pleasures at Eastern prices. In a country where tourism was long dominated by Orbis, the state travel company notorious for gloomy hotels, gelatinous food and dormant showers, thousands of businesses have sprouted to house, feed and entertain a growing flock of foreign visitors. About 18 million came last year, up from 8 million in 1989. As Poland proudly proclaims that it is rejoining Europe and the rest of the capitalist world, it is earnestly trying to cater to foreign tastes.

"STAR WARS" is coming down to earth, at least if the Senate Armed Services Committee has its way. The Pentagon's bid to forge anti-missile arms -- after more than seven years and $24 billion -- has produced vast sums of exotic research but nothing to zap warheads lofted from afar. The Bush Administration wants a $40 billion partial shield deployed in the late 1990's, its main feature being swarms of tiny interceptors orbiting the earth.

IN these languid midsummer days, humans who feel the urge to take it easy but remain burdened by a recalcitrant work ethic might do well to consider that laziness is perfectly natural, perfectly sensible and shared by nearly every other species on the planet. Contrary to the old fables about the unflagging industriousness of ants, bees, beavers and the like, field biologists engaged in a new specialty known as time budget analysis are discovering that the great majority of creatures spend most of their time doing nothing much at all.