Altruism

They want a world where you can depend on the kindness of strangers. A world where instead of flashing the high beams at a freeway slowpoke, you toss them a smile. A world where instead of chuckling as the elevator door shuts on some chump, you--perhaps even surprising yourself--tap the "Open Door" button. What imaginary planet was this again? Our own Spaceship Earth, they say.

It's probably the most loathed mammal on the planet. Although only a few inches long, with the fewest teeth of any bat species, the common vampire--the Latin American blood-eater that inspired the 1899 tale of Dracula--arouses more horror and hatred than any other creature in the animal kingdom except, perhaps, snakes. But the vampire's true life story, new research shows, is far more intriguing than the myths it inspires. As it turns out, the vampire is really--well, a very nice animal.

The money in the white envelopes bought one cancer patient a beautiful ham. It bought nine disabled children an afternoon of golf and giggles. True, some money may have been squandered on an addict's high. But it did buy an exhausted mother a massage. In $50 increments, the money in the white envelopes spread hope. And it left some folks thinking they could make a difference in the world.

Tatum Winslow thought she was ready. The 13-year-old Balboa Middle School student had prepared all year to give up her long, brown locks for children suffering from medical hair loss. But when the moment of truth arrived Wednesday morning, the Ventura eighth-grader couldn't help but shed a tear for her own loss. Fourteen inches. Gone in a single swipe of a stylist's scissors.

The search for the next Mother Teresa or St. Francis of Assisi will more likely begin on the bare floor of a chapel than in the teeming streets of Calcutta, a new study has found. In an effort to determine why some people are exceptionally caring, psychologists studying members of religious orders found that the quality separating members who find joy in caring for the poorest of the poor from those who respond out of duty is the depth of their personal relationship with God.

Two major U.S. corporations--Xerox and IBM--allow their employees to take paid leave so they can help nonprofit organizations. All 56,000 Xerox employees in the United States are eligible, provided they have the endorsement of their supervisors, says corporate spokesman Judd B. Everhart. Participants are picked by employees of all ranks, rather than by management. About 60 applications come in annually for review by a five-member committee.

AT lunchtime, office workers and tourists picnic on the manicured lawns of New Delhi's Jantar Mantar, a celestial observatory built in 1724 by Maharajah Jai Singh II. Its benches, flowerbeds and a huge pink sundial make it a welcome oasis in India's crowded, dusty, jangling capital. However, if you walk by at night, as I did a few years ago during a visit to New Delhi, the Jantar Mantar is a shockingly different place.

And The Winners Are. . . 1992 CITY OF ANGELS AWARDS Long Beach Little League, for winning the Little League World Series title after a Filipino team was found to have cheated. Oscar De La Hoya, the boxer from Los Angeles' Eastside, for fulfilling a promise he made to his dying mother: winning a gold medal in the Olympics. Ric Munoz, a 34-year-old West Hollywood legal secretary and marathon runner, for completing his 50th marathon despite being infected with the AIDS virus.

They come as a team from jobs as disparate as engineers or elevator technicians to wherever the disaster may be, hoping to pull closure for despondent families from the deep water. The specialty divers have no official name, pay for their training and equipment, and earn no money for their efforts, whether they are finding bodies, black boxes or murder weapons in water so deep that even seasoned county rescue divers cannot reach them.

JUNIOR WILSON was holding court for a group of vacationers amid a pile of lumber and a pair of sawhorses. He called it "Junior's School for the Carpentry Impaired." "You'll use four nails on this stud," he said, demonstrating proper hammering technique. Three or four strikes to each nail, and it was home. I took a turn. Twenty-eight strikes and my first nail still hadn't flattened into the stud. "You're being too nice to it," said a woman working nearby. "Knock the hell out of it."