After the Christmas Russian, Greetings to Gorbachev

--An Iowa businessman is organizing “America’s greeting card to Russia.” On the Russian Orthodox church calendar Christmas is celebrated Jan. 7, but the main winter holiday in the Soviet Union is New Year’s Day. James Lawlor, who manufactures safety goggles in Fairfield, Iowa, hopes to gather 2 million signatures for the 45-by-12-foot scroll-like card, which reads, in Russian: “Dear Mr. (Mikhail S.) Gorbachev, We citizens of the United States of America wish to extend to you and the people of the Soviet Union our great appreciation for your courage and dedication in bringing peace to the world. Merry Christmas.” Lawlor received 30,000 signatures by mail, including those of former Democratic presidential candidates Michael S. Dukakis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and singer-actress Barbra Streisand. In Chicago, Mayor Eugene Sawyer was the first to sign. Lawlor plans to collect signatures in Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia and New York.

--Robert A.K. Runcie’s path to becoming Archbishop of Canterbury had less than spiritual beginnings. “A friend of mine at school and I were both keen on the same girl. . . ,” Runcie said. “So when we heard that she was going to confirmation classes we thought we would go along too. And I have to say, that was how it all started.” Runcie told the British Broadcasting Corp. in an interview to be broadcast Sunday that the girl, whose name was Betty, “didn’t subsequently figure in my life at all, but she was the unknown agent of my being led into the way of religious orthodoxy.” Runcie married his wife, Angela, in 1957.

--If you thought you heard a lot of whining on the day after Christmas, you were right. Dec. 26 was National Whining Day, according to the holiday’s founder, Kevin Zaborney of Monroe, Mich. To mark the occasion, Zaborney named Jimmy Swaggart and Tammy Faye Bakker the 1988 co-Whiners of the Year. “They were the most visible and most vocal whiners over this last year,” said Zaborney, 24, who started the holiday in 1986. Why Dec. 26? “When people exchange their gifts, they whine. They look around to make sure other people hear it,” Zaborney said.