June 6, 1994

The first time around, they parachuted into the dark behind enemy lines, carrying rifles and heavy loads, certain of a hostile welcome. Today, they dropped gently into Normandy beneath multicolored parasails and heard cheers instead of gunfire. Of course, there was one other difference. The 38 World War II veterans who re-enacted the parachute drop that launched the liberation of Europe 50 years ago tonight are older now, some in their 80's. But it took a brave person to suggest that any one of them was past his best.

UNGRACEFUL. Unlovely. Unrevered. These are the New York Knicks, who have now grittily trudged all the way to the finals, out of sheer, dogged gall. They did it their own way last night, in frantic rugby scrums under their own basket, refusing to be beaten by their opponents or their own shortcomings. They like it that way. They'd better. They have no choice. "If we ever swept anybody, or won it, 4-1, it wouldn't be our style," said Anthony Mason, one of their scrappers from the bush leagues. "We don't want it easy. We thrive on danger."

R. J. Reynolds recently opened the first American cigarette manufacturing factory in Eastern Europe, a plant of gleaming glass and green trim set among verdant suburban fields, and said it was doing Poles a favor. Polish smokers rank among the heaviest smokers in the world. Some surveys show they are the heaviest, preferring unfiltered cigarettes laden with coarse tobacco that gives a pungent aroma and is considered a major cause of death among middle-aged Polish men.

After 25 years, it has come to this: the festival commemorating Woodstock this summer in Saugerties, N.Y., will be broadcast live on pay-per-view television, just like Wrestlemania II, championship boxing and Howard Stern's New Year's Eve Party. And that is only one telling difference between the definitive countercultural event of the late 1960's and the attempt by the original organizers, now paired with a $4 billion entertainment company, to rekindle its spirit for another generation.

The technocratic era of the health care struggle is long over, with the White House policy purists consigned to the sidelines. It is June, time is running short for passing a bill, and some major Congressional committees have been stymied for months over one central issue: whether to require employers to contribute to the cost of their workers' insurance. For the lawmakers in the middle, it is time for some serious dealing, time to look for some political fixes and some political cover and time to find a way to finesse the chasm between those who have proudly and angrily opposed those "employer mandates" and those who have just as proudly and angrily supported them. It is the moment, in short, when politicians like Senator John B. Breaux of Louisiana, a conservative Democrat who is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, a quintessential swing vote who loves to deal, become very, very important.