The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 67/No. 35           October 13, 2003  
 
 
Great Society
 
BY HARRY RING  
Naturally
-The superrich getting richer—“The total net worth of America’s wealthiest people rose 10 percent, according to Forbes magazine ranking”—Headline, Los Angeles Times.

It trickles down—“Big pensions for bosses as workers feel squeeze”—Headline, Times, London.

Outside agitators—“When it comes to fair play, capuchin monkeys don’t settle for any funny business. They demand their equal share of food or rewards for tasks they’ve done. They won’t settle for an injustice and are miffed when they think they have been cheated”—Reuters report of primate research findings at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Our pain, their gain—R. J. Reynolds, the tobacco giant, announced it would lay off 40 percent of its work force, throwing 2,600 workers onto the street. Wall Street was delighted—RJR stock jumped nearly 14 percent that day.—News item.

Soft as pavement—The head of an agency handling student loans says that graduates are finding that employment, if available, is not what they thought it was going to be. “Meanwhile they have to make rent, insurance, and car payments while they’re heavily in debt.” One newspaper delicately tagged it “a soft job market.”

What to worry?—“PCB-Laden Salmon Polluting Alaskan Lakes,” “Spanish Navy Tests Take a Deadly Toll of Squid,” “Ozone Hole Expands to Match Previous Record”—Three-in-a-row In Brief science headlines, Los Angeles Times.

…meanwhile—“Military officials are stepping up efforts to locate radioactive material believed to be buried at the Castle Air Force Base, now home to a federal prison housing about 1,400 inmates.”

They do generate affection—Apparently with a distaste for cops, Moses Martin, a cook, pleaded guilty to adding mouse droppings, and his own urine, to dinner he personally served to four cops in Kamikaze, Illinois. He got a four-year sentence.

Try that under your pillow—At a restaurant in New York’s SoHo (cool and costly), a somewhat elderly clipping describes a wedding cake crafted to look like a stack of al la modal shoeboxes. The tab, $3,000.

Doodle Dee dollar—An equally elderly clipping may now be timely. In February, Labradoodles were on a waiting list. The cross between a Labrador and poodle looks shaggy but assertedly sheds little hair. From $900 to $3,000.  
 
 
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