December 27, 1992

A SPLIT between Nassau County's two most powerful elected Democratic officials opened the way last week for a compromise on a 1993 county budget that officials said would hold county property taxes at current levels. The split may also signify the passing of high tide for Democratic influence in Nassau less than two years after Democratic gains at the polls ended Republican domination. The two Democrats, Supervisors Benjamin L. Zwirn of North Hempstead and Lewis J. Yevoli of Oyster Bay, had been united for months in a campaign to curb what they said were waste and abuses in county government that reflected long decades of Republican rule.

In Washington and Little Rock, as on the campaign trail earlier, the talk has mainly been about economic recovery, productivity, the deficit, investment and international competition. But churning below the surface of these often technical discussions is a larger unease about social decline, and in particular an anxiety about the next generation of Americans. For many people, the country's economic difficulties are a sign that its seedbed institutions, the families, schools and religious bodies that nurture character, competence, trust and civic responsibility, are coming unraveled.

At noon today, a young man named Sasha stood by the dug-in Serbian tank, its gun barrel pointing out from one of the hills overlooking Sarajevo, and shook his head in dismay at the devastation that he and hundreds of other gunners have inflicted on the city that was their home. "I feel bad, very bad," he said in English. "I love my city. It breaks my heart every time I fire. But we didn't want this war. It is not our guilt that it began, and now that it has, we must defend our people."

QUEEN ELIZABETH called 1992 "annus horribilis." In plain old American English, the year was a royal pain. The recession continued to bite hard. So did Dracula. It was a great 12 months for bondage wear, body piercing and sex with ice picks. Everything seemed to hurt. Ross Perot, representing a triumph of anti-style, won hearts, minds and votes by offering a deficit-busting plan built on shared pain, a kind of Perot Workout that he said would help the body politic shed $3 trillion worth of unsightly flab. The year's top fashion accessory was inspired by a disease, with Hollywood and Broadway actors displaying red lapel ribbons to show solidarity with people with AIDS. The year's top toy, a Schwarzenegger-size water gun, turned the old-fashioned squirt gun into a brutal assault weapon that sometimes provoked return fire from actual Uzis.

A SPLIT between Nassau County's two most powerful elected Democratic officials opened the way last week for a compromise on a 1993 county budget that officials said would hold county property taxes at current levels. The split may also signify the passing of high tide for Democratic influence in Nassau less than two years after Democratic gains at the polls ended Republican domination. The two Democrats, Supervisors Benjamin L. Zwirn of North Hempstead and Lewis J. Yevoli of Oyster Bay, had been united for months in a campaign to curb what they said were waste and abuses in county government that reflected long decades of Republican rule.