BY HARRY RING
The sane society - "Nabisco Holding Corp., maker of
cookies and crackers, said it will close a processing plant
in Ohio, firing about 140 workers, as it continues to cut
costs to pay for more advertising." - News item.
Besides, they're only numbers - The U.S. conducted above- ground nuke tests in Nevada from 1951 to 1962. A 14-year study of the aftermath was finished last year, but kept under wraps until last month. A researcher said that "nobody was really terribly interested." The study found that fallout from the tests spread further than initially contended. The report guesses the tests caused between 11,000 to 212,000 cancer cases.
Conned again - We took it seriously when the media tagged Bill Gates as the richest man in the world. (One awe-struck financial writer declared him the wealthiest person in the universe). Now we learn he's merely the richest hustler in the computer software racket. According to Forbes, he's "worth" $58 billion.
Temp gremlin? - A reader advises: In the Microsoft Word program, type: "Íd like to see Bill Gates dead." Highlight the sentence, click on the tools menu and chose thesaurus.
It comes up with "I'll drink to that."
A bit of history - Check out the lifestyle of a Soviet- bloc despot with a visit to Romania. Ride in one of the luxury cars of ex-dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, stay at one of his numerous villas. Visit the wine cellars and hunt boar. The Patrimony Department is hustling to raise hard currency. Causescu was shot eight years ago on Xmas day.
Treading water - In 1996 working couples put in 247 hours more a year than in 1989.
The good ol' boy system - The feds have expressed concern that for the fourth year in a row, banks have eased standards on commercial loans, inviting a wave of defaults. One news report recalled that in the early '90s Donald Trump and other real estate sharks forced the banks to renegotiate billions in loans or face default.
....meanwhile - Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts said its chief financial officer has resigned, but they declined to say why. In the past two years the company's stock has dived 67 percent.
Coffin-nail update - The record of the tobacco companies is impressive: Concealing evidence that their product is an addictive carcinogen, adding nicotine to make it more addictive; targeting children, etc. Now documents confirm that Philip Morris and British American Tobacco (BAT) have been fixing prices and dividing markets in Argentina, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries.