Despite good examples--According to USA Today, the country's "wealthiest parents" complain that most of their children among other things, place underemphasis on material possessions and spend beyond their means. We're skeptical on one point: Can the children of the truly richest families, even if they want to, spend beyond their means?

Dad's last $?--Benson and Francie Ford just paid $5 million for two adjacent Southern California beach properties. The house on one and motel on the other will be razed and replaced by a single home. It will include a 30' x 60' master bedroom suite, a library-movie theater, and an all-glass stairwell. The parking area will accommodate 11 cars, including several of their own. Their main home is in Detroit and they have crash pads in Key Largo and Dallas. Benson is a great-grandson of Henry Ford I.

Company's gotta make a dollar--California's Dept. of Motor Vehicles charged the state's largest Chevrolet dealer with selling rental cars as new, tampering with odometers, misrepresenting finance terms, etc. They said fraud was involved in the sale of some 1,500 cars. The company assured that two "rogue" salesmen had been confronted with their misdeeds and resigned.

Local Blacks skip the highway?--Recent tabulations confirm a widespread racist "profiling" of Black drivers by cops issuing traffic tickets. In Texas, officials conceded state troopers did pull over a disproportionate number of nonwhites, but said these were mostly from other areas.

Talk about sick--A claimed 3,100 present and former nuclear workers were slated to gather at the Nevada test site for a Family Day celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first test explosion.

Children under 10 were not allowed to come because, we presume, they might crawl under the fences into the zone of death.

Praise the lord and swing that pick--In England, Catholic bishops have embarked on a campaign to persuade people that manual labor can be an antidote to self-indulgence, dishonesty, and individualism.

They hasten to add, however, that such sweat doesn't guarantee salvation, but it can help. And, the good fathers soberly warn, hard work "is a prime way of creating wealth, and so presents the risk of serving only to fill the human horizon with a lust for wealth and possessions."

Didn't work hard enough?-- "Half of elderly patients suffering malnutritution"--headline, The Times, London.

Cast and audience declare solidarity?--Last we heard, backstage workers at London's Royal Shakespeare Company were preparing to shut down Peter Hall's 12-hour production of Tantalus, an epic on the Trojan war.

Electricians, carpenters, sound and lighting engineering, objected to working shifts as long as 24 hours.  
 
 
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