BY HARRY RING
Touching - Apparently assuming we were short on last-minute gift ideas, a reader sent a sheaf of ads for Princess Diana memorabilia, including porcelain dolls with "authentic" garment reproductions, a calendar, and a plate featuring an original painting and platinum border trim.

A real holiday gift - In England, the Karl Marx Memorial Library was granted 359,00 (nearly $600,000) in national lottery profits. The library is housed in the London home where Marx, and later Lenin, worked. The library said it will use the grant to catalog its 150,000 books and pamphlets and put them on the Internet.

Oh - A study of the salaries of Senate staff members found that staffers who are Black get 76 cents for every dollar paid to whites. Latinos fared slightly better. A report said the study "attributed the disparity to a higher percentage of minorities in lower-paying jobs."

Blood-soaked Q&A - Discussing why George Bush aborted the invasion of Iraq, USA Today columnist Richard Benedetto said the ex-president "worried about media criticism that could have built as allied troops attacked retreating Iraqi soldiers along what became known as the `Highway of Death' leading from Kuwait to Iraq." He cites a question posed by Bush: "If we continued the fighting another day would we be accused of slaughter of Iraqis who were simply trying to escape?"

Capitalism? - According to one survey 52 percent of adults believe there is a hell.

A slice - Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the collapse of the Soviet regime, has made a Pizza Hut commercial. He sits at a table with his granddaughter, while other patrons argue about him. Finally, to a standing ovation, one declares, "Because of him we have things like the Pizza Hut." Reportedly, he'll pocket nearly a million. The commercial won't be shown in Russia, where his name is mud.

2$$$ A.D. - Trademarks have been approved for 117 products that include "millennium" in the name, and 1,500 containing "2000."

Thousands more are pending, including an offer by Miller beer to be the "Official Sponsor of the Millennium," and Playboy, which wants to be "Official Magazine of the Millennium."

Shopping tip - Spend $3,000 at Neiman-Marcus and you're enrolled in the In Circle club. Spend $300,000 and get a free flight to France. Rack up a million points and choose any global destination.

Whatever turns you on - "Her personal dream .. getaway is to check herself and her husband into the $2,800-per-night Charles Pierre suite (her dogs like the terrace) at the Pierre, dine well ... and shop relentlessly." - USA Today interview with Baroness Penelope von Kalinowski, operator of a Los Angeles celebrity-oriented travel agency.  
 
 
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