BY HARRY RING
Dilbert's new boss? - A red mouse pad that "provides traction for your [computer] mouse as well as words of inspiration from Chairman Mao." For instance: "Don't wait until problems pile up and cause a lot of trouble before trying to solve them." From China Books, $9.95.

Lucid, no? - "One theory says that if employers pay their employees more, they will be more reluctant to goof off because higher wages create more unemployment, making it harder to find a comparable job ....

"But offering workers merit pay ... may result in greater effort but won't necessarily reduce shirking because workers may value both higher pay and goofing off, according to Craig Marcott... associate professor in economics." - St. Paul Pioneer Press.

`Capitalism fouls things up (I) - A Texas jury ordered Chevron to pay $61 million to a contractor whose workers were sickened by hazardous conditions at the company's El Paso refinery.

Meanwhile Phelps Dodge, the copper mogul, was ordered to pay the Postal Service $21 million and take back 37 acres of contaminated land it sold the agency in 1986.

Capitalism fouls things up (II) - A study of England's Tyne estuary, found sex changes in 94 percent of male fish. The Times of London said the study "comes amid growing alarm over the effect on the environment of man-made chemicals."

Describing the malformations found in the fish, Christina Lye, the marine scientist who did the study, commented tersely: "I would not like to eat these fish."

From Heaven? - In Greece, a widower filed suit against priests for refusing to bury his wife because they had been married in city hall, not the Orthodox Church. A priest explained, "I receive orders from above. I'm just a plain priest."

Breeding counts - Somewhat like working people, aging horses often face glum times. When they can't work any more, it's the glue factory or the slaughterhouse. Except for some thoroughbred race horses. "A tranquil life, marked by constant and loving care." That's what the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation says your check will help provide.

...meanwhile - The federal Bureau of Land Management is supposed to save wild horses from the slaughterhouse by rounding them up and offering them for adoption for a $125 fee.

But a survey found that of those adopted - mainly by people connected with the program - 90 percent wind up in slaughterhouses. Horse meat fetches a good price abroad and slaughterhouses are paying $700 each.

Also, don't call them -Sweden's state-operated employment agency - perhaps at wit's end - drew flack with a suggestion to job-hunters: approach a pregnant women; ask where they work and if they're planning to take a maternity leave.

Funniest idea of the week - To cope with London police corruption, Scotland Yard will use undercover cops posing (?) as criminals to catch other cops.

New York's "finest" - whose corruption is exceeded only by their brutality - will crack up to learn that the Yard says many of its ideas on this came from a study of internal affairs operations of the New York force.  
 
 
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