REP. SALMON JOINS APCO

Republican Congressman Matt Salmon, who once introduced legislation to put Ronald Reagan's likeness on Mt. Rushmore, is joining APCO Worldwide, Washington, D.C., when his term is up Jan. 3.

The three-term Congressman from Arizona is to open an office in Phoenix, where he will concentrate on PA projects in the Southwest and Asia. Salmon, 42, served on the international relations committee and focused on U.S.-China relations. The Congressman served in Taiwan as a Mormon missionary during the late 1970s.

Salmon did PA work for US West before he was elected to the Arizona Senate.

SARAH HULL TO MONSANTO CO.

Sarah Hull, VP and senior partner in the Kansas City office of Fleishman-Hillard, will join the Monsanto Co., St. Louis, as senior VP, public affairs.

Pharmacia Corp., parent of Monsanto, is spinning off Monsanto as a separate company.

Monsanto, based in St. Louis, is a client of F-H. Pharmacia's h.q. are in Peapack, N.J.

The search for the top PA post at Monsanto was made by Warren Hendriks of DHR Int'l, Chicago.

Joan Walker, who was senior VP-global PA at Pharmacia, is leaving the company after the first of the year. She said she will take some time off before deciding on her next career move.

She was a senior VP at Monsanto before it was acquired by Pharmacia & Upjohn, which later changed its name to Pharmacia.

Earlier, Walker was senior VP-corporate communications for Ameritech, which was acquired by SBC (Southwestern Bell Corp.).

H&K FORMS MED-ED GROUP

Hill and Knowlton has formed a Medical Knowledge Group because "there's a fine line between PR and medical education, especially when a drug is in its pre-launch stage," Joan Garcia told this NL.

She is senior managing director of MKG's "New York" office, which is based in Riverdale, N.J.

The group's services include message development, publication strategy, sales force training and outreach programs targeted at both professional and patient audiences.

Garcia, who has a nursing background, joins H&K from parent company's WPP Group's CommonHealth operation.

LOVING & WEINTRAUB SPLIT UP

Mary Loving and Harriet Weintraub, who have run Loving & Weintraub since 1988, are going their separate ways. Each is setting up her own firm, taking along individual clients.

Weintraub, who handles Burberry and Guerlain, among others, plans to establish a new business partnership with former L&W employees Veronika Ullmer, Jennifer Wolinetz and Virginia Coleman.

Loving's new firm, which is called Mary Loving & Co., will handle such clients as Echo Design Group, Samsonite, La Perla and Target.

She plans to lease new office space and to bring about 10 people with her.

OMNICOM TALKS DEAL WITH CAA

Omnicom Group is discussing a takeover or joint-venture with Creative Artists Agency, one of Hollywood's most powerful talent agencies. CAA has 400+ staffers, and had $200M+ in 1999 revenues.

The companies have held talks off and on for a few months, but negotiations have heated up during the past two weeks, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

CAA represents Tom Cruise and Gwyneth Paltrow, among others, and offers marketing services via its 40 percent-owned Shepardson Stern & Kaminsky unit.

SS&K, on its website, lauds its CAA connection as a means to get a handle on the "twists and turns of popular culture."

Manning, Selvage & Lee could be hurt by General Motors' decision to phase-out its 100-year plus Oldsmobile brand, according to Tom Kowaleski, a GM spokesperson. Oldsmobile "avails itself" of MS&L's services, he said...Global Communicators has been selected by the Croatian National Tourist Board to "introduce" Croatia, a former Yugoslavian republic, to American travelers. GC CEO Jim Harff handled Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo when he was at Ruder Finn in the early 1990s.

IABC CUTS OUTSIDE PR COUNSEL HOLTZ

The International Assn. of Business Communicators has suspended the $8,333 monthly counseling contract with Internet specialist Shel Holtz, who also provides workshops and seminars for the group.

Holtz, who was paid $83,330 for the first ten months of the year, providing about 55 hours of counsel and work each month, put on about 18 full-day workshops for IABC this year via his own firm.

He also worked for IABC via NetGain, a group of communicators who put on two-day "New Wave" conferences "in association with" IABC.

Holtz is paid $2,400 for web-related workshops he conducts himself that attract up to 25 participants. This rises to a limit of $4,500 for those that draw 46 or more registrants.

NetGain, which puts on more elaborate meetings ($795 for members and $895 for non-members), is "a virtual consulting consortium helping clients to communicate online."

NetGain Principals Listed

Its principals, including Holtz, are "six of the communication profession's most noted information technology experts," says NetGain's website.

The others are Craig Jolley, formerly of Mead Data Central, who has his own firm in Springboro, Ohio; Peter Shinbach, a member of PRSA who has a firm in Birmingham, Mich.; Tudor Williams, a member of IABC; Daniel Janal, Internet specialist, and Carol, Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. The next New Wave conference is Feb. 12-13 in Los Angeles.

Holtz said he did not immediately know what his total income was from IABC in 2000. He was initially hired as a consultant to focus on its fledgling e-business called "TalkingBusinessNow." TBN has cost IABC about $1 million for research, planning and other preliminary expenses and currently needs $300-$400,000 to reach the next stage of launching. It will cover the communications aspects of various business situations. IBM Global Services and Nine Dots are major consultants to IABC on TBN.

Holtz said that soon after he started with IABC he learned of the first of the financial issues confronting the group and much of his time went into that.

IABC last Sept. 17-19 co-sponsored the "Fifth Annual Strategic PR Conference" with Lawrence Ragan Communications.

CBS' JACQUELINE ADAMS JOINS C&W

CBS News correspondent Jacqueline Adams is joining Clark & Weinstock as managing director in the new year. She is to advise C&W clients on media and grassroots strategies.
Adams said C&W, which is owned by Omnicom, is at the "intersection of business, media and politics."

The 50-year-old journalist visited the 50 states while covering the Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, Mondale/Ferraro and Bush/Quayle presidential campaigns, according to C&W's website. She also covered the Bush and Reagan White Houses.

She spent less time on politics during the 1990s, contributing a broad range of stories to "48 Hours," "CBS Evening News," "Sunday Morning" and the CBS Radio Networks.

Rx DRUG ADS FAIL TO EDUCATE CONSUMERS

Consumer Rx ads fail to educate, miss the basic points and may obscure the facts about prescription drugs, according to a survey co-authored by Robert Bell, professor of communications at the University of California/Davis.

The results appear in the Journal of Family Practice. The research team studied 320 ads from 1989 through 1998 in 18 magazines ranging from Business Week to Vogue.

It found 95 percent of ads named the condition for which the drugs were prescribed, but only 27 percent mentioned the causes or risk factors for the condition.

"The ads leave you largely uninformed about the medical condition that drug is intended to treat," said Bell.

Among the facts missing in the ads are success rates, how long the drug must be taken and how long it takes for the drug to work.

"If the purpose of these ads is just education, they would be saying a lot of other things," said Richard Kravitz, director of the UC Davis Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care and a co-author of the study.

"The purpose is to encourage patients to use these drugs, which isn't always bad," he said.

Y&R PULLS PLUG ON TREND UNIT

Young & Rubicam is closing its trend and brand consulting unit by the end of the year.

Marian Salzman and Ira Matathia, who founded Brand Futures Group three years ago, are leaving the company, while the other ten staffers in the group are to be transferred to other units.

Y&R spokesperson Liz Reilly cited "legal reasons" as her reason for not being able to elaborate on the shutdown of the Intelligence Factory, which is BFG's revised name.

Scores of Y&R staffers have left the company since WPP Group completed the acquisition of Y&R in October, according to the Dec. 11 Adweek, which says more cuts are expected.

POPE PLAYS BALL WITH THE GLOBETROTTERS

As part of a campaign to promote the anniversary of the Harlem Globetrotters, The Lee Solters Co., Beverly Hills, arranged for the basketball team to meet with Pope John Paul II Nov. 29, before a crowd of 50,000 in St. Peter's Square.

The team presented the pontiff with a team ball and commemorative jersey inscribed with his name and the number 75, representing the team's anniversary.

"The photo opportunity was as good as it gets," said Solters VP Jerry Digney, who oversees the Globetrotter account.

"The Vatican was very receptive to the idea because the Globetrotters are a very positive force and the pontiff has always loved sports and the arts," he said.

The Associated Press, AFP, Reuters, CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox all covered the event.

WEBSITE SPOTS BAD RELEASES

Thanks to a San Diego-based PR firm, publicists now have an online tool to help them write journalistically correct press releases.

After more than six months of research on the words most hated by the media and those most commonly mis-used without definition or elaboration in technology company news releases, the Gable Group has launched jargonfreeweb.com to promote clarity in PR and provide a quick tool-the Jargonator-for measuring the jargon content of copy.

"The daily deluge is so bad many media have created bozo and jargon filters on their e-mail to automatically delete messages that contain words such as `solutions, first, leading, cutting-edge, best, first mover, state-of-the-art, and end-to-end,'" said Gable.

At jargonfreeweb.com, anyone can submit copy to the Jargonator and get an instant reading of its suitability for publication on a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 being jargon-free and suitable for publication, to a 4 which is barely fit for human consumption, to a 6 which is destined for the bottom of a bird cage.

Gable said the words were selected from media interviews, media sites such as buzzkiller.net and the firm's own research, which analyzed news releases issued during one week over PR Newswire and Business Wire.

A new `solution' was promoted every eight minutes on average. More than half the companies claimed to be `leading providers' of something, but never submitted evidence to support the claim.

Rob Calem, who is an editor for The Wall Street Journal Interactive edition, said: "Please don't write to me about solutions anymore... they have become a problem."

"The website also gives examples of what reporters call lame-ass quotes, or LAQs-self-serving statements found in the second or third paragraph of most news releases," said Gable, a former financial journalist.

"Read them aloud and if a human being wouldn't say it, dump it. Good quotes should bring a story to life, not kill it or cause an editor to laugh so hard he herniates, if he or she even reads it," said Gable.

VANITY FAIR OFFERED "BEST-DRESSED' LIST

New York fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert has offered to turn over her annual International Best-Dressed List to Vanity Fair.

"This all happens when I die," the 97-year-old Lambert told Cathy Horyn, who covers fashion for The New York Times.

She has told the editors she will not accept a penny for the list. "I've always tried to keep the list pure from commercial interests," said Lambert, who said the list has never cost her much to produce.

Horyn said other people, including publicist Paul Wilmont, have expressed interest in taking over the list, which Lambert has been producing since the early 1940s.

Each spring, Lambert meets with a committee of journalists and prominent social people in her Fifth ave. apartment to decide in secret who will be on that year's International Best-Dressed List.

PLACEMENT TIPS _________________________

Steven Alschuler of Linden Alschuler & Kaplan said the challenge in pitching news is to "know the media well enough to be able to present your company in a way that coincides with the publication's or program's need to provide interesting material to its audience."

He also believes badly written press releases, that are difficult to understand or full of techno-jargon or never get to the point, are the surest way to lose a reporter's interest.

Technology Review, which was relaunched two and a half years ago by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, goes monthly in 2001.

The magazine's editor, John Benditt, has decided to put an emphasis on stories about emerging technologies. He said stories that focus directly on technology rather than the people, organization and strategies involved in innovation resonate most strongly with readers of the magazine.

TR is read by 875,000 affluent CxOs, senior technologists, investors, entrepreneurs and innovators, who believe technology drives business success.

Benditt heads a staff of nine editors, including Tracy Staedter, managing editor, based at 201 Vassar st., Cambridge, MA 02139. 617/253-8250; fax: 256-8778.

The Economist magazine has begun a new Technology Quarterly supplement. The 44-page launch issue appears in the Dec. 9 issue.

David Hanger, publisher of the Economist, said the new supplement is designed to offer readers a "foretaste of new developments that are threatening to disrupt the way we do business in the years ahead."

The supplement's co-editors, Nick Valery and Jeff Carr, are based in the magazine's London office.

PEOPLE _____________________________

David Burgin, 61, has replaced Martha Steffens, who resigned as editor of The San Francisco Examiner. Burgin's title has not been determined. No replacement was named for Susan Herbert, who resigned as editorial page editor.

Stephen Koepp, 44, previously executive editor, was named deputy managing editor of Time magazine.

Joan Juliet Buck has resigned as editor of French Vogue to return to the U.S.

(Media news continued on next page)

PR PROS PICK BEST REPORTERS

PR professionals picked John Markoff, who covers technology for The New York Times, as the top business/consumer reporter in this year's Press Access PRESStige Awards.

Marcus + Co., a PR firm that publishes the Marketing With Honors directory of awards competitions, administered the competition for Boston-based Press Access.

The winners in the other categories were: Healthcare-Adrienne Burke, BioInform; Technology-Mark Ferelli, Computer Technology Review; "Most Prominent Cyber Writer"-Michael Fitzgerald of Redherring.com; "Pioneering Syndicated Columnist"- Jeremy Caplan, Yahoo!Internet Life; "Most Visionary Editor-in-Chief"-James Daly, Business 2.0; "Most Discerning News Reporter"-Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet; "Most Astute Product Reviewer"-Timothy Dyck, eWeek; Finance-Adam Lashinsky, TheStreet.com, and "Up and Coming Journalist"-Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com.

PR and marketing professionals nominated journalists for the awards. The winners received the most nominations in their respective categories.

Only journalists whose coverage dealt with the business, consumer, technology, healthcare, or finance industries and whose work has been published within the last 12 months were eligible.

Marcus' directory lists 450 U.S. and international high technology awards competitions sponsored by publications, trade shows, associations and organizations, national and state governments, and private individuals.

CREDIBILITY GAP IS WIDENING

The findings of a new Gallup Poll show 65 percent of the public does not believe the press "get the facts straight" when covering political news.

The margin of disbelief has never been greater than now in eight Gallup Polls asking this question since 1985.

The respondents see the Democrats as the media's favored party. Some 29 percent of the respondents to a recent Gallup Poll said the news media favored Democrats; 15 percent said Republicans got the benefit of any bias; four percent said neither political party was favored in news reporting.

Gallup found all-news cable TV channels are the source of news viewed most important by most people who followed the Florida recount battle.

Some 53 percent rated cable channels like CNN, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel "extremely important" or "very important," the highest categories on a five-point scale.

The network evening news programs ranked in the top two categories with 44 percent, followed by local TV news with 38 percent, local newspapers (33%), morning network news programs (28%), and national newspapers (24%).

STOCK ANALYSTS FACE NEW RULES

Financial analysts who make stock recommendations in print or on TV, may face new Federal rules that require them to disclose whether they or their investment firm could profit from such advice.

Regulators for the Securities and Exchange Commission plan to work with the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, which runs the Nasdaq stock market, and the New York Stock Exchange to draft new disclosure rules for financial analysts, according to a Dec. 11 report by The Associated Press.

On Dec. 7, NASD's board of governors approved a resolution supporting disclosure by analysts of potential conflicts of interest during public appearances.

"It is important for investors to have confidence that a recommendation made by an analyst or other financial services professional is based solely on the merits of the investment and not that person's financial interest," said Robert Glauber, NASD's CEO and president.

SEC chairman Arthur Levitt, who said last April that he favored disclosure by analysts, said he believes TV bestows a certain power and celebrity status on those who appear on it.

Investors need to know whether financial analysts,<%0> who reach millions on TV, have "compromised" that power by holding significant positions in stocks they recommend, Levitt told the AP's Marcy Gordon.

CNBC, a financial TV network, already requires analysts appearing on it to make such disclosures.

JUDGE FINES 'ANONYMOUS' LIBELER

A former Emory University school of medicine urologist has been awarded $675,000 against an anonymous libeler.

The urologist, Sam D. Graham Jr., who was the subject of a posting on Yahoo, had resigned in July 1998. He saw the posting seven months later which suggested he had taken kickbacks from a company and had been forced to resign.

The message was later determined to be from a pathologist who operates his own labs.

The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch said lawyers believe it is the first libel judgment against someone who made an anonymous Internet posting.

WABC RADIO ADDS NEW SHOW

WABC radio has added a new show, "The Trouble Shooter," with Tom Martino.

It airs every day from 9-10 a.m. and for three hours every Tuesday through Sunday, starting at 2 a.m., replacing the overnight show, "Coast-to-Coast," hosted by Mike Siegel.

Martino, who is known for his fiery personality and willingness to battle for the consumer, takes caller complaints about products and services. He also tries to get the business on the air to tell its side and tries to work out a settlement.

REVIEW OF 2000

DOT.COM BECOMES DOT.GONE

The bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000 had its effect on the PR/ad worlds.

Closest to home, two dot-com investments of Omnicom that were once worth $1.2 billion all but vanished. Agency.com, briefly $98 last December, hit $3 on Dec. 15, 2000 (off 22% in one day); Razorfish (once $56) sank 50% last week to a new low of $1.37 in what the New York Post said was a "mass sell-off of more than 10 million shares."

Luckily (!?) OMC had unloaded four million RAZF shares on March 14 for a profit of $110M while they were still worth $35 each.

Young & Rubicam's Brand Futures Group last December told what's in and out for 2000 but forgot to include itself in the "outs." It folded.

Oprah Winfrey won a libel suit in Texas, saying "Free speech not only lives, it rocks." But staff said they had to sign strict confidentiality agreements and were "ruled by fear."

Hedgefund titan Julian Robertson, who sued Business Week for $1 billion in 1997 because the mag portrayed him as a flawed genius with a temper, closed his business after its investments dropped.

The May Red Herring (out just when the dot-com market was imploding) said high-techs were being "fleeced of huge fees by PR firms."

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies said the U.S. is again a slave economy only this time the slaves are farm girls in the Far East working sometimes from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. for 13-30 cents an hour making our clothes, sneakers, electronics, etc.

Cluetrain Manifesto said the web has restored the "banter of the bazaar" and that "markets are conversations: talk or die." Company websites are "screen after screen of fatuous self-praise."

"Wild West" message boards (Yahoo! has the best) are under attack. Anonymous postings can be traced and their authors sued for libel (a doctor just won a $675,000 suit for a posting on Yahoo!).

The Wall Street Journal, reviewing "cat" scanners that let readers scan bar codes in ads to access websites, said most sites are not worth accessing. Ten million "cats" were to be distributed.

New York Times ad columnist Stuart Elliott, in a cry of pain, urged PR pros to stop sending e-mails with multiple attachments; stop pestering him with details once he agrees to do a story, and start providing basic facts with news releases. His day goes from 8 a.m. to midnight (when he finally reads the Times), he told PRSA/NY.

George Lazarus of the Chicago Tribune, an ad columnist for more than 35 years, died suddenly at 68; Farley Manning, a founder of Manning, Selvage & Lee, died at 90; writer Claudia Kirschhoch disappeared on a press trip to Sandals, Jamaica.

PRSA and IABC dropped their top staff execs, Ray Gaulke of PRSA making a "soft" landing (shifted to fund-raising for the four years left on his contract) while Elizabeth Allan made a "hard" landing (out as of Jan. 15). Both groups also skipped an issue of their printed directories. Renewals were down for both, PRSA's dropping to 69%/66% for June/July from normal 86%.

Fourteen big ad agency-owned PR firms got together and ranked themselves, bloating their "PR fee" totals with up to 49% in issue and corporate ad commissions.

The SEC, hoping to break up the love affair between IR pros and Wall Street, letting the press get some of the action, instituted "Fair Disclosure." NIRI, seeking a delay in implementation, said the SEC showed "gross insensitivity to the reality of today's volatile market" in turning down the NIRI request.

NIRI's board reaffirmed the group's refusal to set aside (defer) a portion of a member's $425 dues for future services. NIRI says dues are a "gift" used at the sole discretion of the board.

PRSA, after fighting demands for nearly a dec<%-2>ade that it again have a deferred dues account (it once<%0> totaled about $1 million), reversed itself, citing the advice of the Amer. Soc. of Assn. Execs. and CPAs.

Young & Rubicam, newly public, saw its stock dip from $70 to $40 and was bought out by WPP Group. The purchase put Hill and Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller into the same house.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter said that in the event of a "hard landing" of the economy, "no marketing stocks would be worth owning" except long-term...Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette says the conglomerates will start buying each other, the ten crunching down to about five or six...the name Creamer Dickson Basford, dating <%-2>back to 1935, was laid to rest when CDB was merged<%0> into French-owned Havas...a 15-year veteran PR pro said he never had an expense account for lunching with reporters and that most of what he did could be described as "tele-marketing"...Pam Alexander of Alexander Ogilvy was the only PR pro among 50 "eEstablishment" execs picked by Vanity Fair<D>...Ron Levy of North American Precis Syndicate gave stock options to daughter Dorothy York and she exercised them. After a dispute with her father, she ousted him and took control...Howard Chase, the last living founder of PRSA, said the Society has "lost sight of the field" because there is "too much emphasis on marketing and not enough on social institutions" ...Bostonian Terence Clarke, returning from a trip to Eastern Europe and Russia, said PR pros there feel PR in the U.S. has "lost its soul" and cares only about "money-making"...Harper's Bazaar said high-tech PR pros tend to be "attractive women-it's almost part of the job description"...high-tech exec and author Charles Ferguson said high-tech PR is dominated by "attractive women-various combinations of dragon lady and bimbette"...critics replied that PR is "gender blind" and urged Ferguson to "get some therapy."

PR OPINION/ITEMS

The Bush family has strong roots in Greenwich, Conn., where we have lived for 20 years.

George H.W. Bush, former president and father of president-elect George W. Bush, went to school here before going to prep school in Andover, Mass., then Yale, and moving to Texas in 1948 to enter the oil business. H.W.'s father and mother, Prescott & Dorothy Bush, had moved here in 1924, residing in the Deer Park section. Prescott presided over the governing body of Greenwich for 17 years and in 1952 became senator, serving ten years. He died in 1972. Dorothy Bush was a resident of Greenwich until her death in 1992. Prescott Bush Jr., brother of H.W., still resides here.

So it was with interest that we picked up the Greenwich Time to see what it had to say about the disputed election of hometown grandson George W.

"There was no need for the selection to be as arduous as it was," said an editorial Dec. 15.

"A statewide recount of votes in Florida should have been conducted once it was clear that the margin of victory between Bush and Gore was smaller than the margin of error produced by the voting machinery," it continued. That margin was micron-thin-1,655 votes as of Nov. 8 among 5.8 million.

"Quick movement" by all concerned could have allowed uniform standards to be set for hand-counting votes in the entire state in time for the Dec. 12/Dec. 18 deadlines, said the editorial.

Another take on this is that the courts, fighting turf battles and confused themselves about which of many contradictory legal principles to apply, simply ran out the clock. The biggest court of all said there was no time left to do anything and threw up its hands. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said "meaningless dates" came to matter more than the "sanctity of votes." Another Times columnist, Anthony Lewis, was appalled that "a case of this magnitude" was decided with "such disregard for reason." Bill Safire, Robert Novak, A.M. Rosenthal and other columnists felt the right thing had been done by the courts.

Among the many commentaries we read on the election battle was one that said doctors, police, firefighters, lifeguards, reporters and other public service people are required to do their jobs quickly lest they fail at their duties. Why should the law be an exception, it asked? PR that is too late is too little...the Supreme Court that handed the election to George W. Bush is the same court that allowed a sitting president, Bill Clinton, to be hauled into court by the Paula Jones civil lawsuit. This partisan decision, blind to the fact that the lawsuit had virtually unlimited funding from the ideological enemies of Clinton, led to the country being in an uproar for more than a year as Clinton's sex life was endlessly probed. His ideological enemies, using the courts for several other cases, saddled Clinton with $11 million+ in personal legal bills.

Among the trends and developments in 2000 was this one: the shift in PR from urging clients to provide information to their customers to urging them to "build relationships" with their customers. PR firms are also spending a lot of time (and client $$) "building relationships" with their clients...milk took a PR hit this year, activists claiming that it is fattening, hard to digest and that needed vitamins and minerals are better obtained elsewhere. Milk sales have been declining despite the "milk moustache" ad campaign ...this was also a bad year for sodas, especially the No.1 brand, Coke. Sodas are at best a minor vice, pleasurable but fattening. Americans are suffering from an epidemic of fatness, especially in children. Georgia, home of Coke, is the fattest state of all. Bottled water sales are growing at a 30% annual clip...marketing often has little to do with communication and much to do with coercive tactics such as the exclusive contracts Coke and Pepsi have in school systems. A Wisconsin system this year ended such a contract with Coke...while dental floss used to be sold 300 yards at a time for $2.50, it's hard to find a floss longer than 50 yards and the price is $2.50 or near that...misleading information is another popular marketing ploy. For instance, "2% milk" has become a favorite but buyers probably don't know the milk has 64% of normal fat content...ad conglomerates continued their acquisition policies in 2000 but Newsweek columnist Daniel Kadlec noted that there is an opposite trend-spinoffs. Expected "synergies" may not happen and the acquirers start to spin off their purchases, especially when they are in areas far removed from the areas of expertise of the acquirers. Managing such units takes too much time from "core" businesses...the current cost for a family health plan of Aetna/U.S. healthcare in New York is $999 a month. A New York Times article said HMOs are planning 20% hikes in 2001...the O'Dwyer website had three "instant" polls during the vote-counting battle. Respondents thought Bush had better PR than Gore but that Gore actually got more votes in Florida than Bush. By a 3-2 margin, they thought the final U.S. Supreme Court ruling was not "fair"...we played nine holes of par three golf in downtown Chicago during the Oct. 21-24 PRSA conference. But the land has been sold for condominiums, meaning the end of one of the most unusual golf courses in the world...our United Airlines flights were the worst ever because of the tight seats We later read people are dying because such seats can cause fatal blood clots.