Next on hit list?--With internet entrepreneurs making fortunes overnight and crashing even faster, a new cottage industry is flourishing--therapists offering counseling to the traumatized momentarily wealthy. Explained one therapist: "A lot of the work we do is grief work. They lost money, lifestyle. They work through the stages of grief, shock, disbelief, anger, depression, and acceptance."

Can you believe it?--"Garages fail to pass on fuel tax cut to motorists."--The Times, London.

Contagious disease--A couple of columns back we reported a sudden shortage of tetanus vaccine. Even with our crystal ball in the repair shop we ventured to suggest an energy-type "crisis." Apparently we weren't being paranoid. A few days later, a headline declared: "Soaring Prices Curb Availability of Tetanus Vaccine."

Semantics--Responding to the market drop, the top dog at the Cisco Corp. announced the company was cutting expenses, including firing up to 5,000 employees. They would be removed, he said, by "voluntary attrition" and "involuntary attrition." One pundit wondered what was "voluntary attrition?" Simple enough. The boss man had intended to say, "voluntary, involuntary attrition." If you think that's an oxymoron, you don't grasp the mind of a capitalist slave master.

Just doing their thing--"WASHINGTON--Police are investigating allegations that a Black officer was beaten by white officers who mistook him for a carjacking suspect. Robert Byrd was off duty when he saw a robbery at a gas station and called for help on his police radio. Byrd's lawyer said responding officers pulled him out of his car and beat him."--News item.

What price sexism--Employers in the United Kingdom can boast that despite an equal pay law enacted 30 years ago, women who work part time draw 60 percent of the wages of men, and full-time women workers get 80 percent. A report said the UK wage gap is the largest in Europe. Meanwhile it was reported that in the United States, women draw 70 percent for every dollar paid to men.

A foul system--"More than 1 billion people have no access to clean water and 3.4 million die every year of diseases that could easily be remedied by better supplies and sanitation, the World Health Organization said. The world's poor pay more than the rich for worse water--up to 20 percent of household income--and face a greater risk of waterborne disease."--News item.  
 
 
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