The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 68/No. 16           April 27, 2004  
 
 
Great Society
 
BY HARRY RING  
And they still are, Lucy
—Chicago cops are resisting a proposal to name a neighborhood park in honor of the late Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons, a heroic fighter for workers’ rights and widow of Albert Parsons, a 19th century anarchist and fighter for the eight-hour work day. Along with seven comrades, he was the victim of the 1886 Haymarket Square bomb frame-up. He and three others were hanged. Fighting on their behalf, Lucy Parsons aptly branded the cops “organized bandits.” A fighter to the end, she died in 1942.

Praise the Lord and pass the beaker—Three years ago, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta authorized employee Angie Tracey to solicit the faithful. She says 200 coworkers responded “yes” to her e-mail pitch to the center’s 8,000-member work force. Recently she offered the New York Times an appraisal of her work for the Lord: “It’s a tremendous benefit to management,” she said. “We teach biblical principles like rendering yourself as a servant. That’s very pro-management….We solve many disputes using prayers or applying passages from the Bible.”

You paid yours?—A government audit showed that between 1990 and 2000, 61 percent of U.S. corporations brushed aside paying income taxes. “Foreign” companies also stiffed the tax collectors. But, surprise, surprise, the biggest U.S. corporations paid the least.

Pinch for rigor mortis—In England, the Consumers’ Association got a warning from whistle-blowers that supermarket chickens sold as “fresh” can be as much as three weeks old and prone to disease. Food processors repackage them and append fresh “sell by” stickers. It’s being looked into.

Waistline special—And at MacDonald’s in England, you can have a Caesar salad with your hamburger. The salad has more fat than the burger. One London media cartoon depicted a couple at the counter, with the guy saying, “Let’s pig out and have the salad.”

And how are you doing?—“America’s top executives pocketed about $2 million each last year.”—Economic report.

Keeps them fit—In the fraud trial of Aldelphia Communications, it was disclosed that a key manager and his two sons used company money to build a $13 million golf course.

How green is our ballroom—What with continuing vacancies, hotel operators are taking a calculated look at same-sex marriages—honeymoon suites, catered parties, etc. Like the Cape Cod resort in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which promotes itself as the “Gay Niagara Falls.”  
 
 
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