A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

fice over Memorial Day weekend . That 's a record for any holiday weekend in whi

ch people also ate genetically altered tomatoes . `` The Flintstones '' is , of 

course , a movie based on a cartoon TV show based on a real TV show . This is wh

at we call sub-referencing . Which often , if not necessarily in this case , can

 lead to humor . Still , I should have watched . Then I could have written the s

cript of a hit movie . I also didn't watch `` Maverick , '' which was the weeken

d runner-up at the box office and now stars the original TV Maverick , James Gar

ner , who does not play the movie Maverick . You explain it . I didn't even watc

h `` Bewitched , '' which seems like a prime candidate for a summer movie , mayb

e next year . I bet somebody 's pitching it now . They can do this one as a cart

oon or maybe a combo-job like Roger Rabbit . Elizabeth Montgomery drove every ki

d I knew crazy , and not just for her twitchy nose . But no , I was way too cool

 for that . Instead of watching dumb TV as a kid and ensuring my future , I spen

t a lot of time up in my room listening to rock and roll music the devil 's musi

c , as it was known then . Bad , bad mistake . And not just because you had to l

isten on non-stereo transistor radios with a single earpiece that would not stay

 in your actual ear unless you taped it to the side of your head . The thing is 

, the bands of my youth are out there touring today . I could have missed the fi

rst 30 years of the Rolling Stones ( how long can time be on their side ? ) and 

still have caught them this summer on their latest tour , sponsored by the Hair 

Club for Men . Believe me , kids , there 'll be Lollapalooza reunion tours long 

after you 've lost most of your hair and look exactly like your dad does today .

 Sorry . Forget music . Forget MTV , unless it 's Beavis and Butt-head . I want 

you to think Fox network . In my childhood years , when I could have been watchi

ng TV , I also spent a lot of time reading . I was an excellent reader . I read 

all the classics , especially Mad magazine and the one issue of Playboy that I h

ad managed to sneak into the house and hide in the back part of the drawer where

 I kept my baseball cards . You know you 've reached a defining point in your li

fe when Miss July becomes more important to you than Minnie Minoso . Now I know 

you 're not reading . In fact , books , magazines and even newspapers as we know

 them will all soon become obsolete . Everything will be on CD-ROM , which I 'm 

told is the merging of computers and MTV . Which means that someday I may be abl

e to bring this column to you each morning the way I always dreamed of doing it 

with backup singers . Ignore your schoolwork . In today 's job market , which fo

r college graduates with advanced degrees runs the gamut from unemployment to wo

rking at the Gap , you can't get a decent job anyway . In summation , study TV .

 The stupider the TV the better . That 's the lesson of `` The Flintstones . '' 

What it means today is that you can't watch enough of the Bundys . Tape the show

s and keep them for reference . Watch `` Family Matters . '' Sure , you may feel

 like a nerd . But someday it could pay off with a McDonald 's Urkel-meal tie-in

 . What I 'm saying is , I hope you were paying attention during `` Major Dad . 

'' Of course , not all of these shows will make successful movies . `` Beverly H

illbillies '' didn't . My advice : A show with a catchy tune , like `` The Addam

s Family , '' helps . It also helps if the characters in your show are eventuall

y turned into kids ' vitamins . I willn't be seeing `` The Flintstones '' myself

 . It 's too late for me . But don't let what happened to me happen to you . You

 don't even have the same excuse I did . You 've got remote control .

 Your kids are grown and you retired several years ago . But you 're still rattl

ing around a four-bedroom house , spending too much time cleaning and too much m

oney on utility bills and real estate taxes . Is that your idea of how to spend 

your golden years ? Perhaps there 's a better way . Why not sell your home and m

ove to a smaller , more affordable house or apartment ? And while you 're at it 

, why not move to a state with a better climate and lower taxes ? Plenty of othe

r people have done it . What 's stopping you ? The question of where to live aft

er retirement is not a simple one . There are many factors to consider , not the

 least of which is your sentimental attachment to your home and its proximity to

 your children . Whatever your final decision , it will affect your finances and

 quality of life for years to come . If you bought your house 25 or 35 years ago

 , chances are that it is much more valuable ; it may be your biggest asset . If

 you stand to make a big gain on the sale of your home , then consider your alte

rnatives . Lee Rosenberg , author of `` Retirement Ready or Not , '' says tradin

g down to a less expensive home can be a very smart financial move because you c

an use what 's left over to improve your standard of living . There 's another p

lus : You may be eligible for a special , one-time capital gains exclusion . The

 IRS says that once you reach age 55 , you can exclude from taxes up to $ 125,00

0 in capital gains on the sale of your primary residence . That means if your ca

pital gain is $ 125,000 , you don't have to put the money into another home in o

rder to avoid taxes . If you want , you could invest the money in stocks and ren

t a condominium . If your capital gain is $ 275,000 , you could take the exclusi

on on $ 125,000 of the gain , and defer taxes on the rest by rolling it over int

o a new home . Before you rush to sell your home , be sure to check the eligibil

ity rules for the exclusion . You must have owned and lived in the home for thre

e of the five years preceding the sale . There is only one $ 125,000 exclusion p

er couple . For example , say that a man is considering remarrying and both he a

nd his fiancee are over 55 and own homes . If they sell the homes before the wed

ding , they each get an exclusion of $ 125,000 . If they wait until the honeymoo

n is over , they get only one exclusion . The capital gains exclusion is a one-t

ime offer , but you can choose when to take it . When you get ready to calculate

 the capital gain , don't overlook the value of any capital improvements you mad

e in your home over the years . If you added a new roof , put in a swimming pool

 , or renovated the bathroom , these things increased the value of the home . ``

 But you need good records to document what you paid for these improvements , ''

 says Ann Diamond , a Manhattan financial consultant . Take the total value of t

hese capital improvements and add it to the original price you paid for the home

 . This is your cost basis . Then subtract the cost basis from the sale price . 

The result is your capital gain . So imagine that you have taken the big step an

d put your home on the market . You 've already found a buyer . Soon you 'll hav

e a windfall in the bank . Now what ? Where should you move ? Perhaps you have f

riends in Boca Raton , Fla. , who 've been telling you how great it is there . T

hey could show you around , help you find a place to buy , and introduce you to 

people . How about it ? Do some research before you select a retirement destinat

ion . You may want to compare several places . Visit them . Find out about the t

axes and cost of living . Consider the climate , public transportation , quality

 of health care , and the amenities available . And remember that it can take ti

me to make friends and develop a support system in a new place . Some people cho

ose to retire in places like Florida because they know so many people who have a

lready moved there . Many people choose Florida because of the tax benefits of l

iving there . It has no state income tax , no gift levy and the estate tax is a 

dollar for dollar deduction from the federal estate tax . And if you live in Flo

rida , the first $ 25,000 of the assessed value of your principal residence is e

xempt from property tax . ( Begin optional trim ) In his book , `` Fifty Fabulou

s Places to Retire in America , '' Rosenberg says that Florida `` ranks first am

ong 10 popular retirement states for smallest tax bite . '' In order to realize 

these benefits , however , you must establish legal residence in Florida . And t

hat means you also must prove that you no longer owe taxes in your former home s

tate . Even if you can prove you 've changed your residency , the state where yo

u once earned your living may continue to lay claim to the taxes on your pension

 income . Some states try to raise tax revenues by aggressively pursuing people 

who claim to have moved out of state . In New York , the Tax Department conducts

 about 4,000 audits a year of such people , says Paul R. Comeau , a Buffalo , N.

Y. , lawyer and co-author of `` The New York Residency Audit Handbook . '' The a

udits have resulted in additional tax assessments of $ 125 million a year , he a

dds . Florida is not the only state without a personal income tax . Alaska , Nev

ada , South Dakota , Texas , Washington and Wyoming also share that distinction 

. ( End optional trim ) In addition , you will want to check the sales tax and p

roperty tax rates before you select a retirement destination . If you take the r

ight steps to establish residency , you can save money by moving to a state with

 low taxes . But financial experts say that taxes shouldn't be your primary cons

ideration . Why move to Florida if you will miss the change of seasons , or if y

ou want to live somewhere you willn't need a car ? `` In the end , you should ne

ver let the tax tail wag the dog , '' says Lawrence A . Greenberg , a senior tru

st officer at Chemical Bank 's Palm Beach , Fla. , office .

 Off to a stumbling political start as it seeks to oversee self-rule in the Gaza

 Strip and Jericho , the Palestine Liberation Organization now faces the stagger

ing prospect of financial collapse within months after assuming authority . PLO 

officials on the ground Chairman Yasser Arafat remains in Tunis aren't the only 

ones frightened by the possibility . Israel , in what some would see as an ironi

c twist , is pondering ways to channel emergency help to the Palestinian interim

 government to keep it afloat . This isn't altruism . It 's prudent self-interes

t . If the PLO can't provide for the necessities of life in the territories it n

ow seeks to govern , its already damaged legitimacy could be terminally undermin

ed . That would open the door to at least an attempted seizure of power by Musli

m extremists . What could follow concerns Israel enormously . It ought to concer

n nearly every Arab state , along with Europe and the United States no less . Th

e World Bank and 40 donor countries that were brought together by the United Sta

tes last October have pledged a total of $ 2.4 billion over the next five years 

to sustain Palestinian self-rule . Much of that is earmarked for specific projec

ts and a lot will consist of equipment and training and other in-kind services .

 The Palestinians say that with all these pledges they have up to now seen almos

t no cash . Without cash , workers in essential services will go unpaid and soon

 will stop going to work , fueling popular disaffection and weakening the govern

ing authority 's standing even more . Dilatory donors aren't wholly to blame , h

owever . Once again responsibility goes to the apex of the Palestinian hierarchy

 , to Arafat , who has always kept the PLO 's finances including its extensive i

nvestment portfolio under his own secretive control . An accounting of what the 

PLO has , or has left after decades of notoriously high living by its top offici

als , is long overdue . At the same time Arafat can blame only himself although 

of course he willn't for the loss of hundreds of millions in aid from the PLO 's

 once-generous oil state benefactors , a circumstance he brought about by rushin

g to approve Iraq 's invasion of Kuwait . Noting all this , those concerned with

 stability in the Middle East can still only conclude that the Palestinian exper

iment in self-rule remains too vital to the security interests of too many count

ries to let collapse . Donor nations must act quickly to speed up their cash tra

nsfers , not to save Arafat from his own folly but to give the Palestinian peopl

e a chance to evolve toward the democratic and secular society that the PLO has 

for so long portrayed as their destiny .

 Rep. Dan Rostenkowski says , `` I did not commit any crimes , my conscience is 

clear . '' And , `` I strongly believe I am not guilty of these charges . '' If 

by those statements he means he did not do what a grand jury in Washington in a 

17-count indictment said he did , then we hope he will be `` vindicated , '' to 

use his word , by a trial jury . But if he means only , as some of his supporter

s have suggested , that he did what is charged but that this should not be consi

dered felonious , then that 's another matter . These are `` very reprehensible 

'' crimes , as U.S. . Attorney Eric Holder put it . If the powerful representati

ve from Chicago employed ghost workers who kicked back pay for work not done , i

f he regularly and for long periods used federal employees for work at his homes

 , if he used official expense accounts for purely personal enrichment in the fo

rm of cash and gifts all to the tune of over $ 600,000 in taxpayer funds if he d

id all those things and then tried to obstruct the federal investigation into hi

s case , as alleged in the indictments , then he deserves the severest punishmen

t the law can impose . Such acts are not , as some defenders of Rostenkowski kee

p saying , standard operating procedure for powerful members of Congress . Rep. 

Robert Torricelli is just wrong when he says , `` ( Rostenkowski ) is being pros

ecuted for things which , a generation ago , were probably somewhat accepted . '

' The things charged in the indictment were never accepted , at least not by the

 public . The things listed in the indictment are not just `` perks '' for the p

owerful . They weren't when Rostenkowski became chairman of the Ways and Means C

ommittee in 1981 ; they weren't when he came to Congress in 1959 . The felonies 

charged in the indictment then as now add up to a `` betrayal of the public trus

t for personal gain , '' to use Holder 's label . Rostenkowski may not have done

 these deeds at all . If he says he didn't do them , then it becomes something a

 jury must decide . Political corruption indictments are almost never shaky ; ab

out 90 percent of them result in convictions , according to Justice Department r

ecords . Still , as we have said before , even the high and mighty deserve the p

resumption of innocence . In just the past 13 months two members of Congress , S

en. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee , beat indic

tments charging abuse of office . If Rostenkowski prevails by convincing jurors 

that he did not behave as charged , good for him . But if he prevails with a def

ense of `` it 's the way Congress works , everybody does it , '' then shame on h

im and on Congress .

 Can you spot the monstrous grammar and usage errors in this conversation betwee

n Dr. Frankenstein and his assistants Igor and Lee ? ( Look for the hidden clue 

in the wording of each sentence . ) 1 ) Dr. Frankenstein : I 'm anxious to sew t

his monster together , Igor , so please give me a hand . 2 ) Igor : My , my , Ma

ster . I didn't realize that you objected to me taking a break . 3 ) Lee : Worki

ng on this monster , it appears that one of his parts is dangling . 4 ) Dr. Fran

kenstein : Only sew those parts that are loose , and place them as carefully as 

you would your own , Lee . 5 ) Lee : While I 'm sewing , can I ask you a questio

n about creating an extra monster next May . 6 ) Dr. Frankenstein : Lee , you se

em to like this work better than him . Hee , hee ! Answers : 1 ) If Dr. Frankens

tein were eager to please language purists , he would say , `` I 'm eager ( not 

anxious ) ... '' 2 ) `` My , my , '' say the experts , declaring that Igor shoul

d say `` my ( not me ) taking a break . '' 3 ) In fact , it 's the participial p

hrase `` working on this monster '' that 's dangling . It should be surgically r

eattached to the subject , `` I '' ( `` Working on this monster , I noticed that

 one of his parts is dangling . '' ) 4 ) Dr. Frankenstein did not place his own 

`` only '' carefully . `` Only sew those parts that are loose '' means that loos

e parts should only be sewn and not stapled or glued . Clarify the meaning by pl

acing `` only '' after `` sew '' as in , `` sew only those parts that are loose 

. '' 5 ) Can `` can . '' Use `` may . '' Lee surely can ask about creating an ex

tra monster next May , but what he means is , `` May I ask about it ? '' 6 ) If 

Lee likes his work better than he likes Igor , `` than him '' it is . But if Lee

 likes his work better than Igor does , it should be `` than he '' because `` th

an he does '' is implied . Hee , hee !

 WASHINGTON The worst financial disaster since the Great Depression came to an u

nofficial end last week when regulators quietly announced that during the first 

quarter of this year , not a single U.S. bank failed or was taken over by the go

vernment . The banking turmoil began in 1980 when the Federal Reserve pushed sho

rt-term interest rates over 15 percent . That set off a chain reaction of fraud 

, stupidity and political cowardice that eventually led to the closing of 2,000 

banks and savings and loans and a taxpayer bailout in the neighborhood of $ 150 

billion . Now , banks are making record profits and adding to their capital rese

rves , their cushion against adversity . Meanwhile , money is piling up in the c

offers of the Bank Insurance Fund , which is operated by the once-nearly-bankrup

t Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. . But a big question remains : Is the banking 

system really fixed , or is it merely enjoying the temporary fruits of an econom

ic recovery that features exceptionally low interest rates ? Instead of patting 

ourselves on the back for saving the banks , perhaps we should be overhauling th

e system completely so a disaster willn't recur . Bert Ely , a well-known consul

tant based in Alexandria , Va. , is pushing hard for an overhaul . He proposes t

o replace government deposit insurance with private insurance a network of `` cr

oss-guarantees '' that would allow banks to protect each other against losses . 

Competing companies backed by the capital of hundreds of financial institutions 

and other large corporations would set premiums based on assessments of whether 

particular banks were likely to fail . The companies would employ their own exam

iners to check on financial soundness . It would be `` as regulator-proof as pos

sible . '' With their own money at risk , the insurance companies would have a t

remendous incentive to step in quickly to minimize losses or stop them before th

ey happen . After all , this is the way property and casualty insurance works ri

ght now . And Ely believes that bank deposit insurance may be an easier game : A

 huge earthquake can strike without warning , but bank insolvencies can be nippe

d in the bud before they blossom out of control . That 's what should have happe

ned in the early 1980s , Ely says . Instead , Congress and the regulators lacked

 the political will to close banks and S&Ls as soon as they got into trouble . A

nd , of course , the FDIC and especially its sister organization , the Federal S

avings and Loan Insurance Corp. lacked the funds to shut sick institutions and p

ay off depositors . So politicians encouraged the banks and S&Ls to grow their w

ay out of insolvency ( which reminds me of the old joke about the retailer who l

oses $ 10 on every dress but makes it up on volume ) . The result , as economist

 Paul Krugman writes , was an `` epidemic of moral hazard '' a phenomenon that s

trikes terror in the hearts of all insurers . Moral hazard is what you get when 

someone is so well insured against a terrible event that he isn't very concerned

 whether it happens or not . If you have $ 200,000 worth of coverage on a diamon

d ring , you 're less likely to leave it in a safe deposit box than if you had n

o coverage . Thanks to federal deposit insurance , bankers could make exceptiona

lly risky , self-serving loans . If the loans went bad , the bankers could just 

walk away and let the government that is , the taxpayers pick up the pieces . Ba

nk examiners should have caught up with these misdeeds , but they were overworke

d and sometimes , as in the case of the Keating Five senators , encouraged to lo

ok the other way . Congress and the White House both preferred to wait until aft

er the election of 1988 before confronting the terrible truth . Then the regulat

ors started shutting banks down and paying off depositors . More important , law

s were enacted in 1989 and 1991 to try to prevent a cataclysm from happening aga

in , but they left the federal deposit insurance system , to Ely 's chagrin , es

sentially in place . Ely believes that the marketplace would impose a more ratio

nal discipline . Well-run banks would pay low insurance premiums and wouldn't ha

ve burdensome capital requirements to prevent them from making loans to invigora

te the economy . Riskier banks would pay higher premiums or mend their ways . Or

 go out of business . And the taxpayers would be out of the loop . Rep. Thomas E

 . Petri , R-Wis. , has introduced a bill to make Ely 's plan law . I 'll admit 

to a bias in favor of market solutions such as Ely 's . But sometimes believe it

 or not the federal government can do things better than the private sector . De

posit insurance appears to be such a case . Remarkably , the 1991 FDIC Improveme

nt Act has really improved the FDIC . It beefs up capital requirements . It effe

ctively eliminates the `` too big to fail '' doctrine that allowed rescues of hu