Single Persons

The Internal Revenue Service announced that it will waive tax underpayment penalties this year for persons on Social Security who failed to take their benefits into account when making quarterly payments to Uncle Sam. The IRS said it is waiving the penalties because many Social Security recipients may not have been aware of new tax provisions involving Social Security benefits.

"Some time the hating has to stop," reads the last line of "The Railway Man," a moving tale of wartime torture and forgiveness by former British prisoner of war Eric Lomax. Lomax was a British army officer when he was captured by Japanese forces during the fall of Singapore in 1942. The Scotsman endured horrific conditions and savage beatings as he and thousands of others were forced to build the infamous Burma-to-Siam railroad, which formed the basis of the 1957 film "The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The recession may have slowed U.S.-Soviet economic activity, but the pace of person-to-person diplomacy is getting a lift, thanks to a Placentia businessman. Robert D. Feldman, a Placentia tour operator, is organizing a group of Southern California single persons to meet singles in three Soviet cities this summer. The tour is the first of its kind organized by a Southern California company specifically geared to match American singles with eligible Soviet singles, Feldman said.

L.A. fire officials declared Monday that the seven fires in Griffith Park over the last three weeks were deliberately set, and investigators are trying to determine whether they are dealing with a single serial arsonist. Fire officials believe the person or people who set the fire were on foot or in a vehicle, perhaps posing as bicyclists or hikers to blend with the park crowd, said Rosa Tufts, a Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigator. "The one consistent item that we've seen is that all the fires are being set by the roadside," Tufts told The Times.

As the High Holidays begin this evening with Rosh Hashana, several Jewish groups have found a way to hit two concerns of modern Judaism with a single prayer service. Or rather, a singles prayer service, a low-cost one. Judaism has been looking for ways to bring more of its own back to the fold after a disaffection in the past couple of decades with synagogue membership. Single people are even less likely to join synagogues, which tend to be family-oriented.

In the modern age of recyclables, try this one on: a matchmaking Internet site where the men come with a stamp of approval from -- get this -- an ex-wife or an ex-girlfriend, or on occasion from a sister, dear friend or even Mom. In fact, no man gets posted on GreatBoyfriends.com by the strength of his own charms: A woman in his life must refer him. And, boy, is the sisterhood stepping up! Since Elle magazine columnist E.

Shortly after James Buchanan, a courtly bachelor, moved into the White House in 1857, hiscritics began wondering if the treachery in his Administration was caused by his unmarried state. "Cain was a bachelor, and so was Judas Iscariot!" one newspaper warned. Buchanan left office as one of the least popular Presidents in American history, and the "experiment to elect a bachelor" was deemed a failure, with the newspaper noting: "For being freed from the cares of domestic life . . .

By day they were loan officers, city planners, law students. But for this one night they were screamers, hundreds of women yelling for Orange County firemen who peeled off their yellow slickers like strippers and bumped, thrust and pranced their way down a runway. The shouts created a wall of sound that crested at the sight of bare, oiled, muscular chests and faded when the bodies were garbed in tuxedoes.

Love in Los Angeles? You want to know about love in Los Angeles? It's still like the man said, some 70 jaded years ago: "It's a Barnum and Bailey world/ Just as phony as it can be/ But it wouldn't be make believe/ If you believed in me." Granted, when the Broadway lyricists E.Y. Harburg and Billy Rose wrote "Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen in 1933, hoping the song would find its way west and into a movie and make them MGM-style rich, they may not have mentioned L.A. outright.

Socially Responsible Singles--the name conjures images of Birkenstock-wearing '60s children discussing Jung, ecology and the pros and cons of midwifery. Images of people who eschew the sweaty smoke of bars for softly lit parlors where the only things floating in the air are ideas and a mild sexual tension. Well, kind of. As a folk singer phrased it at a recent singles meeting: "All my friends are married now and well to do. Mortgages and steady jobs and children too."

Hyundai Motor Co. on Friday named Jae Il Kim to a new post overseeing all sales, production and finance units in North America, after shaking up its U.S. management this year. Kim, 57, becomes group executive president for Hyundai Motor America and will be based in Fountain Valley, home to the U.S. sales unit, the South Korean automaker said. The 29-year Hyundai Motor veteran had been senior executive vice president for its international division.

Unmarried women make up the second-largest group of home buyers -- when marital status is considered -- outpacing unmarried men, according to a recent study published by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. Unmarried women increased their home buying by 50% in the last eight years, and made up 20% of the home-buying market in the last three years. Married couples comprised 63% of the market, and unmarried men made up 17% of the buying pool.

Here's some bad news for the confirmed bachelors and runaway brides of the world: They don't live as long as married people, especially if they never get married, according to new research. Many studies have found that unmarried adults tend to die earlier than those who are married, but most did not differentiate between those who were separated or divorced and those who never got hitched. In the new study, Robert Kaplan of UCLA and Richard Kronick of U.C.

THE best-matched married couple I know, other than my wife and me, are a university professor and a psychological therapist. They met at an Appalachian music camp where each had gone on vacation to pursue an interest in regional folk songs. I'm not suggesting travel as a means for meeting your future spouse. But for single people searching for an interesting way to vacation, I always suggest -- as I did in a recent column -- a tour that focuses on a special interest, theme or cause.

Buy a house, get a bride. Deborah Hale is serious about that. Well, mostly serious. She listed her Denver house for sale on EBay, with a unique incentive: Buy the house for $600,000, get her as a wife. EBay, presuming that the 48-year-old jewelry designer was actually interested in a transaction that was not of a real estate nature, pulled her ad. But Hale has re-listed her house there (without the marriage angle), and also spells out her intentions on her own website, housewithbride.com.

TIRED of personal ads, Internet matchmaking and speed dating? How about Sexless in the City bashes? Every three months, Sam Mistrano and his friend Vicki Curry throw a roving singles party open to anyone in Los Angeles who wants to nudge fate in the search for the One. Low-key and couple-free, Sexless in the City parties are meant for singles in their late 20s to late 30s who have not given up on romance and are willing to try untraditional methods of meeting new people.

Citing concern about "unjust" business practices, City Atty. James K. Hahn announced Monday the formation of a task force to study discrimination against single people and unmarried couples. The task force will hold a series of public hearings focusing on consumer problems, such as discrimination by landlords, insurance companies and even airline frequent flier programs. "I'm married and I get a lot of benefits from being married," Hahn said.

The sour smell of desperation at singles events--however faint--had always offended Alan Feinhandler. However, weary of his bachelor life and wanting to meet Jewish women, he decided to give the 405 Jewish Singles group a whirl. Concerned about the high number of interfaith marriages, a group of rabbis united by something very So-Cal--a freeway--early this year organized a singles group targeting people from 22 to 45.

Love in Los Angeles? You want to know about love in Los Angeles? It's still like the man said, some 70 jaded years ago: "It's a Barnum and Bailey world/ Just as phony as it can be/ But it wouldn't be make believe/ If you believed in me." Granted, when the Broadway lyricists E.Y. Harburg and Billy Rose wrote "Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen in 1933, hoping the song would find its way west and into a movie and make them MGM-style rich, they may not have mentioned L.A. outright.

In the modern age of recyclables, try this one on: a matchmaking Internet site where the men come with a stamp of approval from -- get this -- an ex-wife or an ex-girlfriend, or on occasion from a sister, dear friend or even Mom. In fact, no man gets posted on GreatBoyfriends.com by the strength of his own charms: A woman in his life must refer him. And, boy, is the sisterhood stepping up! Since Elle magazine columnist E.