BY HARRY RING
Shrinking name - Xmas note from a Minneapolis friend: "My employer, 3M, just decided to join the list of downsizers. They sloughed off one of their three operating divisions. Now co-workers say we work for `2M.' "
For a prosperous new year - Bloomberg Business News service reported that thousands of U.S. workers would be getting pink slips instead of bonuses this past Xmas period. Explained a consulting economist: "This is the time of year when you're figuring out how to make a profit next year."
Oh - "The popular conception seems to be that American slavery as an institution involved white slave owners and black slaves. Consequently it is easy to view slavery as a racist institution." - The book The End of Racism, by Dinesh D'Souza, which opines that slavery was good for the slaves.
`Our' government? - Ongoing disclosures forced Washington to admit that for years patients were subjected, without their knowledge, to radiation experiments. Now the federal Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments recommends compensation in cases where claimants can establish they were "deliberately" misled, or that there was no medical benefit to the treatment and that they were harmed by it.
They're not really stingy - The feds spent $22 million researching the secret radiation experiments, including $6.2 million to the committee that came up with the shyster formula for settling claims. The 14 committee members were paid $462 a day.
Like fighting City Hall - Relatives of victims of the secret radiation experiments will find it tough going to get much out of the CIA, which claims that "it was unable to retrieve any of its records of its participation in the mid-century panels that met in secret to discuss, among other things, human experiments," according to the federal advisory committee.
Shucks - If we weren't attending the socialist educational conference, and New Years party, in Seattle, we could have grabbed a flight to New York for the special party deal at the Plaza. A lift to the hotel in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce ($1,200), a night in the Presidential suite ($15,000), and breakfast in bed ($35). Noisemakers extra.
Kind of like apartment-sharing - Police investigators dug into a grave at Maryland National Park and found not one but two bodies buried there. Cemetery officials attributed the double sale of the plot to "human error." Industry critics say cemeteries take decades-old unmarked plots, often in choice locations, resell them, and bury the new body over the earlier occupant.
Esthetics dep't - "Rhinoplasty is the most common pageant cosmetic surgery. The goal of nasal cosmetic surgery is to create a nose that is complimentary to other features.... The cost of rhinoplasty in Arkansas is surprisingly reasonable." - Little Rock plastic surgeons James Billie and Roger Anderson.
Thought for the week - "I believe in my cosmetics line. There are plenty of charities for the homeless. Isn't it time someone helped the homely?" - Cosmetics purveyor Dolly Parton.