Consider, for a moment, these twin signs of our scrambled times:
-- In Los Angeles, Jesse Mercado was dismissed from his job as a security guard at the Times despite an excellent performance record. The reason? Mercado was overweight.
-- In Wabash, Ind., Janice Bone lost her job as an assistant payroll clerk at the Ford Meter Box Co. The reason? The firm, which will not let its employees smoke either on the job or at home, insisted that she take a urine test, which proved positive for nicotine.
Welcome, readers, to the prying side of America in the 1990s. The...