May 8, 1994

In more than 13 years as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, Representative Dan Rostenkowski has cultivated a Democratic majority that prides itself on casting tough votes, revels in the committee's entrenched power and believes in its ability to do what the less-entrenched often cannot: move a big, complicated, controversial piece of legislation. Now comes the ultimate test of the Ways and Means mystique.

"Expect Miracles" reads the sampler that hangs on the wall in Phil Jackson's basketball office. Nice work if you can get it, but it seemed mere fantasy, or, worse yet, merely a thing of the past, last Oct. 2 when Jackson, the coach of the Chicago Bulls, sat in a suddenly assembled, overflowing news conference at the Bulls' training center in suburban Deerfield.

Mia Farrow is sitting in her large, dark, paneled apartment on Central Park West. The light shines through her blond curly hair -- hair she says she cuts herself. She is nearly 50 years old, with 12 children, 3 cats, 4 birds, a hamster, a guinea pig. She has been up last night with her new adopted daughter, 3-month-old Keili-Shea. Yet she seems eerily younger than her age. Her skin is luminous, seemingly without makeup -- or makeup applied so expertly it is undetectable. The impression of youth is enhanced by her clothes -- jeans, worn white cotton T-shirt, Doc Martens.

Their streets are blocked by peddlers, beggars and parked motorbikes, their houses are overflowing with young children and visiting relatives, and even after death the urns containing their ashes must compete for space on the crowded shelves of Buddhist pagodas. Vietnam is bursting at the seams with people, and unless the nation can change its demographic, social and economic trends, the Vietnamese will face a catastrophe, many experts believe.

JUST over five years ago Rice Aircraft was a leading distributor of aircraft fasteners. At its peak the small family run company in Hauppauge had annual revenues of $15 million and clients that included the Grumman Corporation, the Martin Marietta Corporation and the United States and Israeli Governments. Then something went wrong. Its president, Bruce J. Rice, pleaded guilty to Federal charges that he conspired to sell old aircraft parts as new. He was sentenced to four years in prison, and the company faced large fines. Barred from Government contracts, which accounted for most of its business, Rice saw its sales plummet.