Capitalism: a flourishing system--In Japan, the ranks of the homeless continue to swell and now include white-collar workers who had traditionally been promised lifetime jobs. Officials say there are 23,210 homeless, with 5,700 of them in Tokyo, double the numbers given five years ago. People who aid the homeless say the real number in Tokyo is 16,000 and the national figure is close to 100,000.

Taking Amtrak while nonwhite?--The Drug Enforcement Agency disclosed it has a computer link with the Amtrak rail station in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ticket agents alert the feds to suspicious purchasers of one-way tickets. If narcotics or cash is seized, Amtrak cops get 10 percent of the take.

Late departure?--A baggage handler at Dallas-Ft. Worth was locked into the cargo area of a Champion Air jet bound for Mexico. The charter line said the worker wasn't hurt but the cargo door was slightly damaged. A spokesperson shrewdly observed: "He was obviously trying to get out."

Big joke--Watsonville, California, is a top producer of strawberries and the big growers get the cream. Mainly Latino field hands and working farmers get little. But now they're being offered a high school site. Interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, was Dan Hern–andez, whose farm is near the proposed site.

Hernandez pointed to the endless flights of crop dusters spewing chemicals over the nearby strawberry fields. And he noted the stench from the neighboring cattle feedlot and solid waste dump. Officials have already named the projected school: "New Millennium."

Hello Mr. Gerrymander--The Justice Dept. said it's checking a slated merger of the Jefferson and Louisville County governments in Kentucky. They want to find out if the merger will reduce Black representation. The 2000 census figures indicated that six mainly Black districts will be sliced down to three.

'99 Cents': price or hourly wage?--In New Jersey, 11 Latino workers got a $100,000 settlement from a 99-cent chain. They accused the stores of treating employees "like animals." Locked into the stores at night, they were compelled to work long hours for miserably low wages, and without overtime pay.

How much is that an hour?--In Canada, Jacques Bougie quit as top dog at Alcan, a major aluminum producer, perhaps because of this low pay. Last year, he received a mere $975,000 in wages and benefits. But, fortunately, since his departure he's been given a $4 million bonus.

To close on a less than cheerful note--In England, more than 900 of the cattle and sheep buried since the foot-and-mouth outbreak may be dug up and reinterred. Government advisers said the animals were buried in the wrong place, contaminating a freshwater spring less than 50 feet away.  
 
 
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