BY HARRY RING
Crisis, what crisis? - Alexander Trotman, who heads the Ford company's operation in Mexico, received total compensation last year of $8.1 million. That's more than 2,000 times as much as the average wage of a Mexican Ford worker.

Mourning their loss - At a Washington ceremony to salute cops killed while on duty, a bunch of police from New York got drunk as the proverbial skunk and turned a Hyatt hotel upside down. Women were groped and hundreds of people had to be evacuated because of the smoke and fumes from discharged fired extinguishers.

About 20 cops stripped and took turns sliding down the center strip of the lobby escalator.

'Professional courtesy' - Hyatt workers called the D.C. cops to the hotel but no one was busted. A news report said, "Some guests and hotel workers questioned whether D.C. police gave special treatment to their out-of-town colleagues."

Progress report - It was front-page news for the Greensboro, North Carolina, News & Record.

Three of the city's five country clubs now have members who are Black and a fourth may be about to. Officials at the fifth club said they don't discriminate, but have never had an application from a Black person.

Have the baby on the way home - From 1970 to 1992, the time spent in the hospital by women giving birth was cut almost 50 percent.

A Center for Disease Control and Prevention report shrewdly notes the role of insurance companies' pressure.

Sheer coincidence - In 1971, Congress barred tobacco advertising on TV and radio. In the advertising switch that followed, magazines lined their pockets. And, since then, coverage of smoking-related health issues has dropped 65 percent in magazines accepting cigarette ads.

The changing face - The Brooklyn Bagel Factory (in L.A. natch) is now featuring jalapeņo bagels.

Meets gov't standards - Comedy writer Paul Ryan's comment on scientists developing a vaccine that dissolves fat in pigs: "All that's left are hoofs, lips and ears - barely enough to make a hot dog."

The system that works - In a recent survey, the World Health Organization found that more than two billion people - about 40 percent of the world population - are sick at any one time, and that much of the illness and disease is preventable but stymied by the widening rich-poor gap.

Thought for the week - "For many millions of people for whom survival is a daily battle, the prospect of a longer life may seem more like a punishment than a prize." - Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, World Health Organization director.  
 
 
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