A ‘Pigasus’ for the ‘Porkopolis’

Some Cincinnati residents are not exactly hog wild about plans for a bicentennial sculpture. Andrew Leicester, who is designing an environmental work for the city’s 200th anniversary next year, decided to include flying bronze pigs atop pillars representing river boat smokestacks. Leicester said the city got the nickname “Porkopolis” because of its meatpacking prominence in the 1800s. “This is an embarrassment to the entire area and will make us the laughingstock of the whole country,” said Marian Benz, one of dozens of residents who wrote a local newspaper opposing the figures. But others approve of the idea. “Society needs more humor, whimsy and creativity in its life,” Jane Cochran of Rabbit Hash, Ky., said.

--An Arizona gunshot victim who turned to a traditional healing ceremony performed by a Navajo medicine man was paid $4,140 by the Crime Victim Foundation. Regular medical doctors said they could not remove a bullet because it was too near the heart of the wounded 56-year-old Indian, who was not identified by officials. The man made four visits to the medicine man and paid the bill with 69 sheep, a frequent form of payment on the Navajo Reservation, which covers parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The cash will allow the man to buy 69 new sheep, officials said. The man did not have the bullet removed but considered himself to have been helped by the treatment, said Jay Emmerich, federal victim witness coordinator for Arizona. “We don’t see ourselves as being in a role of saying ‘Well, that doesn’t fit our culture, so it doesn’t count,’ ” said Carol Hebert, executive director of the foundation. “We have to look at it from the victim’s point of view.”

--President Reagan and baseball star Dwight Gooden were two of 1987’s best-dressed men, but Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev was dropped from the list compiled by the Fashion Foundation of America. Gorbachev opted for a business suit at a black-tie dinner hosted by Reagan during the two leaders’ meetings this month in Washington. “Apparently Gorbachev didn’t have a tuxedo with him for the summit,” said organizer Charles Richman. “We consider a well-dressed man as one who has a tuxedo when he travels.” Others named in the 46th annual poll of designers and custom tailors include Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney; Spain’s King Juan Carlos; Lt. Col. Oliver L. North; Dr. Allan O’Brien, the chief of staff at City Hospital in East Liverpool, Ohio; Newark, N.J. Mayor Sharpe James; Robert Novak of NBC’s McLaughlin Group; Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Milton Berle.