Punishing the victim - An Ohio judge ordered probation for a man convicted of domestic violence. He stipulated that the man support his child, seek family counseling, and join an alcoholic treatment program. His key condition was that the guy marry his unwed, battered spouse. Declared the judge: "I believe strongly in family values."
The civilized society - In Alabama, 10 women prisoners in an HIV isolation unit, and four on death row, had been allowed to plant vegetable gardens and grow potted vegetables. State prison commissioner Ron Jones - who revived use of prisoner chain gangs in the state - ordered an end to the gardening. "Today," he declared, "it's tomatoes and tomorrow it's marijuana and God knows what else."
Thanks Newt - Cassandra Mosley, 12, of Douglasville, Georgia, was the hands-down winner in Newt Gingrich's Earning by Learning program, which pays children $2 for each book they read in 1991. Cassandra read 207 books in six weeks, earning $414. Much of the reading was done at her housing project "summer camp," a back room of the project manger's office where as many as 60 youngsters crowded in to study or play.
Learning by Earning - The Earning by Learning program, which is privately funded, received $20,000 in contributions in the past year. Of this, $18,000 went to three professors, Gingrich buddies, for helping him "eval uate" the program.
Next case - New York police officials conducted a two- month probe of that Washington wing-ding where drunken New York cops, "commemorating" fallen brothers, groped women, sprayed fire extinguishers, etc. A highlight was nude cops sliding down hotel banisters. For all this, seven cops, max, will face serious charges.
And you thought cops were dumb - The accounts of wild behavior by New York cops were exaggerated, investigators found. Like the report that six cops did the strip slide. Probers said, two cops went down three times.
Also, some of the pranks were by cops from other cities wearing N.Y. shirts and caps. We assume they picked them up at the top of the escalator.
Thought for the week - "Increasing labor market flexibility - despite the bad name it has acquired as a euphemism for pushing wages down and workers out -is essential in all the regions of the world undergoing reforms."- World Bank annual report urging lower minimum wage standards and a curb on "monopolistic" union power.