Virtue's reward--According to Chuck Shepherd's internet column, "News of the Weird," Douglas Ivester pocketed a retirement package of $20 million in February, after laying off 6,000 employees. And John McCoy left Bank One in March with a $13 million retirement bundle after laying off 5,100 employees.

'Waste not, want not'--Chuck Shepherd says he also has a report that Sidney Kosann, former top dog at Shelby Yarn in Shelby, North Carolina, lives in a $500,000 pad and was knocking down $300,000 a year until the plant folded. Reportedly, he was in line with 650 fired employees to collect unemployment insurance.

What capitalist greed?--"In the first of a series of oil industry reports likely to rekindle consumer charges of profiteering, Occidental Petroleum Corp. said its profits surged to a record high. Occidental...said the operating profit for its second quarter rose to $343 million, compared with only $4 million in the year-ago period."--News item.

Tender, loving care--"State [California] health inspectors are accusing a state-run home for retarded adults of violations that include the overdose death of a 33-year-old man, the mysterious poisoning of a 40-year-old woman, and the staff's use of a stun gun on a young man. The state Department of Health Services has issued at least 15 citations since January against the Sonoma Development Center."--News item.

KFC?--In Orono, Maine, 20 postal workers and 20 employees at a neighboring business were evacuated after a postal worker had a bad reaction to a package oozing liquid. A bomb squad X ray showed it to be thawing frozen chicken patties. The affected employee, they speculated, was allergic to the liquid.

He means there might be money in it?--With recent acquisitions, media mogul Ted Turner now owns 1.7 million acres of Western land--more than any other individual. Asserting his concern for the environment, Turner takes umbrage with rancher critics who say he's gobbling up the land simply for the prestige. Declares the nation's biggest landholder: "I've got close to $500 million invested in this. That'd be a pretty expensive hobby."  
 
 
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