BY HARRY RING
Think you're crazy? - The lead headline in the January 29 Los Angeles Times: "U.S. Prepared to Strike Iraq on Its Own, [U.S. secretary of state] Albright says." And, on an inside page: "Clinton Is Nominated for [Nobel] Peace Prize."

Timely - About 100 British Gulf War veterans in Britain - including some from Northern Ireland - were slated to march on the Ministry of Defense and hand back medals they were awarded. They're part of a group of 1,300 suffering Gulf War Syndrome illnesses. Another 28 have died.

Tanned skinheads -"ZINNOWITZ, Germany - Skinheads who harassed a group of foreigners in northeast Germany got a lesson in picking the wrong target - top boxers in training. In two incidents within the past week, when skinheads insulted or threatened Cuban boxers, the athletes returned fire with their fists and punched the skinheads in the nose, police said." - Associated Press.

Risky business - A defibrillator is available on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The machine provides electroshocks to revive heart attack victims. An official of a nearby hospital says: "It's become legendary that this zip code is the heart attack capital of New York."

Science in service of civilization - Turks and Iraqis seeking to enter Germany on the basis of having relatives there are the target of a trial run in requiring applicants -and their relatives in Germany -to submit to genetic tests to confirm identity. Applicants and relatives, must pay $55 each to cover test costs.

What's dirty? A value judgment - An outfit is peddling a software program including a list of porn web sites that employees are assuredly visiting. The boss can then block them.

An ad features a suggestive picture on a monitor screen and declares: "The most obscene thing? He's doing it on company time."

We're shocked - Host of a crime-watch cable TV show, Police Capt. Richard Pimental of Taunton, Massachusetts, is known as "Capt. Good."

Last month he was indicted on charges of stealing a gun, soliciting a bribe, and interfering with a witness against his nephew.

Barristers trust fund - The lawyers handling the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund denied they were overcharging in submitting an initial bill of 500,000 ($800,000). Fund trustees agreed, saying fees were on the low side.

The `family-values' society -"Los Angeles County has paid $24 million to settle 49 claims of mothers and children who died or were injured when county doctors forced poor women to attempt to deliver babies vaginally - even in high risk cases... The settlements mark the grim cost of the county's leadership in a nationwide movement to reduce the number of costly cesarean sections.." - News item.  
 
 
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