October 7, 1993

By most accounts, Christine Todd Whitman committed a colossal political blunder when she proposed a $1.2 billion cut in income and business taxes for the financially strapped state of New Jersey. The states' editorial pages have heaped scorn on her plan and, according to polls, 70 percent of the state's citizens -- including a majority of her fellow Republicans -- simply do not believe that she can deliver on her promise to cut taxes. But there is more to Mrs. Whitman's plan than an outlandish notion -- even though her Democratic opponent, Gov. Jim Florio, promptly labeled it a "voodoo re-do," a reference to Ronald Reagan and supply-side economics. Mrs. Whitman is not promising something for nothing.

LUNCH is about to be served at the country home of Niki de Saint Phalle, and there is a worm on her chair. "Yeuuch," the French-American artist says, recoiling in horror. "Do you think you could remove that?" It is a modest worm, quite still in the summer sun. When one remembers that this is an artist who created a sensation in the early 1960's by firing a gun at her canvases in performances (sometimes joined by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns) and who has since sculptured myriad serpents and many-headed monsters, the creature appears risibly innocuous. But there is genuine alarm in Ms. Saint Phalle's cavernous blue eyes. "I tend to paint things I am terrified of," she says. "Worms, snakes, spiders, that kind of thing."

In his first address to the nation since army tanks crushed an uprising against him, President Boris N. Yeltsin called on Russians today to put the "nightmare of these black days" behind them, and affirmed that elections to a new Parliament will be held Dec. 12. Mr. Yeltsin also called for a purge of Russia's regional councils, many of which had sided with the Parliament's defiant leaders during the political crisis that led up to this week's violence. He said the local councils, or soviets, should peacefully dissolve themselves, and also prepare for new local elections, possibly in December.

Magic Johnson once told of how he tried, early in his career, to persuade the sneaker company he had a contract with to market a basketball shoe in his very famous name. He said he was told by a company official, with all due respect, that "no basketball player could ever sell a shoe." "And then," said Johnson, "along came Michael."

When Carl F. Pascarella abruptly replaced H. Robert Heller as president of Visa U.S.A. in late August, he became the third person to hold that job in less than four years. Some of the turnover may stem from the difficulties of 63-year-old Charles T. Russell, the president of Visa International, the parent organization, to settle on a successor. But this latest change clearly stems, too, from the growing pressures on Visa.