BY HARRY RING

What's a jackal? - Britain's M-15 political police employs a psychic who has prophetic dreams about Irish Republican Army attacks.

An Phoblacht/Republican News of Dublin reports he dreams in symbols. When he dreams of dogs, it means the IRA. When he dreams of pigs, it's not cops, it's animal liberation activists.

A fearsome threat - Lech Walesa, onetime leader of the Polish union movement Solidarity, returned to the Gdansk shipyard as if to reclaim his old job there. Now an avid free-marketeer, he was defeated in his bid for reelection as president of Poland. His arrival at the shipyard in his chauffeured limo was apparently intended to frighten the parliament into approving a $2,600 monthly pension for him.

Good place to find the arsonists? - Twelve of the federal agents who have participated in the racist Good Ol' Boys Roundups in Tennessee are Treasury Dept. cops assigned to probe recent fires at predominantly Black southern churches.

Praise the lord and pass the gruel - In our depression-era neighborhood there was a flophouse where, to get a meager meal and a night's lodging, you had to attend prayer service and step forward to get saved. We were reminded of this by the proposal of Indiana Senator Dan Coates to skirt separation of church and state by enlisting religious outfits to package "spiritual" and material aid.

Grabscam - The Supreme Court ruled that when defendants agree to forfeit property as part of a guilty plea they are not entitled to a court review of whether the government is taking more than authorized by law.

All's well, and getting better - "New government data shows that a greater fraction of the nation's workers lost their jobs during the economic `recovery' from 1991-93 than during the bleak recession of 1981-83. And many more workers are joining unemployment lines because of permanent job loss rather than temporary layoffs." - San Francisco Chronicle.

Pay more, get less dep't- The main business of Ohio Blue Cross/Blue Shield has been bought by Columbia-HCA, the nation's biggest for-profit hospital chain. The San Jose Mercury notes the gobbling of Blue Cross put Columbia-HCA "in the position of negotiating with itself....The concern is that both provider and insurer would emphasize savings over care."

Isn't that hilarious - An ad for Sauza tequila features a news clipping about a worker getting killed by a portable toilet blown off an upper floor of a building in construction. The snap line: "Life is harsh. Your tequila shouldn't be." Especially if your taste is as good as theirs.  
 
 
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