[1143] in Humor
HUMOR? Your Government and Legal System at Work
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Tue Oct 17 14:17:07 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 14:06:18 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
From: cate3@netcom.com
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 08:18:45 -0700
The following are selections that I've pulled from a collection Mike Sierra
has been building over the years
- ------------------------------------------------------------
From Mike Sierra <sierra@ora.com>
This bunch includes material from the Harper's "Readings" section, the American
Spectator's "Current Wisdom" section, Esquire's "Dubious Achievements" awards
for 1993, and pearls from the Media Research Center's Sixth Annual Awards for
the Year's Worst Journalism. There's also an unaccountably large number of
items concerning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Enjoy!
Mike Sierra sierra@ora.com
Since he was judged insane when he killed four people with a rifle in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Michael Charles Hayes has been collecting more
than $500 a month in federal disability payments. He has spent his Social
Security checks on TVs and VCRs for his room at the state mental hospital in
Raleigh, two leather jackets worth more than $300 apiece, some 40 knit shirts
and a secondhand motorcycle that he used for cruising the hospital grounds.
- ------------------------------
Spyros Stanley, who owned a bar in Charleston, West Virginia, purchased $23,000
worth of food stamps for a fraction of their value from welfare recipients and
crack cocaine dealers. Stanley was buying the stamps to purchase food for
himself and his bar.
In Hampton, Virginia, Lazaro Sotolongo sold crack for food stamps at 50 cents
on the dollar. He converted the food stamps to cash by selling them to
unscrupulous authorized retailers. Over three years he took in more than $1
million.
An art aficionado in Albuquerque owned a general store authorized by the
Department of Agriculture to accept food stamps. But instead of milk or eggs,
he gave customers cash at 30 to 50 cents on the dollar for their stamps. Then
he redeemed them at the bank for their face value. With his profits, he bought
$35,000 worth of stolen art.
In Detroit, the department of social services sent $26,000 in food stamps to
Mae Duncan, but she didn't exist. The name was one of 26 invented by Patricia
Allen, a 39-year-old social worker. Over a nine-year period, she collected more
than $221,000 worth of food stamps.
After Dennie Lyons of New Orleans was caught counterfeiting more than $127,000
worth of stamps to sell around the country, he was sentenced to four years in
prison, and his wife was given five years' probation for aiding him. Soon after
her indictment, she was admitted to the food stamp program.
- ------------------------------
The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers approved a new
landfill in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the condition that the city take steps to
collect the American Burying beetle. Landfill officials must set baited traps
throughout the 400-acre construction site and then move the captured beetles to
safer ground. Although about 180 traps were set, only seven beetles were caught
in three months, at a cost to local taxpayers of $78,176.
- ------------------------------
Washington Post, October 23, 1993:
When the GAO asked for evidence that White House employees had actually worked
the days for which they were being paid, the [White House] legal counsel's
response was that the law did not require presidential employees to actually
work.
- ------------------------------
According to a Florida Supreme Court ruling, a police officer who asked a
suspected drunk driver to recite the alphabet from C to W was violating the
state's guarantees against self-incrimination. By asking for only part of the
alphabet rather than the whole 26 letters, the usual test, the court concluded
that the officer was trying to trip up the driver -- in essence compelling him
to be a witness against himself. A request to recite the entire alphabet would
have been legal, the court noted, because it seeks information only.
- ------------------------------
The Economist:
In response to an embarrassing series of break-ins, an Edinburgh police station
has hired a private security firm.
- ------------------------------
After an episode of the "G.I. Joe" Saturday morning cartoon show that had G.I.
Joe battling evil forces trying to destroy the Earth's ozone layer by siphoning
chloroflourocarbons from giant aerosol tanks of shaving cream, the Consumer
Aerosol Products Council launched an education campaign at young people to make
them aware that aerosols no longer contain CFCs since they were outlawed for
that purpose in 1978.
- ------------------------------
After CBS aired a "60 Minutes" story in 1986, numerous members of the newly
formed "Audi Victims Network" brought lawsuits against Audi, claiming "sudden
acceleration syndrome" in the Audi 5000. Any of a number of mysterious flaws
inherent in the car's design were said to have caused the car to rocket out of
control when the driver stepped on the brake. A three-year study by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reinforced what Audi and many
transportation authorities had also concluded: that in each case the driver had
pressed the accelerator rather than the brake. "If a driver unknowingly steps
on the accelerator pedal and continues to push on the same pedal because he or
she believes it is the brake pedal," the car will accelerate and the brakes
will seem to have failed. Shying away from the term "driver error," the NHTSA
preferred to characterize the accidents as resulting from "pedal
misapplication." The NHTSA then initiated another study to determine the
effects of pedal placement on auto
In March 1988, after an accident in which Harold Horowitz's '79 Audi plowed
into the home of Germaine Gibbs, and in which Horowitz admitted that he had put
his foot at least partly on the wrong pedal, a jury awarded $14,000 in damages
and $100,000 in punitive damages to Gibbs, based on the alternate theory that
the Audi was defectively designed because the accelerator and brake were too
close together, making it more likely for plaintiffs to press the wrong pedal.
Audi, like most European automobile manufacturers, place the pedals closer
together to decrease response time when braking, contributing to the car's
superior safety record.
On March 3, 1987, Chicago lawyer Robert Lisco filed a class action lawsuit on
behalf of 350,000 Audi owners, named and unnamed, stating that the Audi's
resale value had been destroyed by the bad publicity over sudden acceleration,
and that the bad publicity was Audi's fault.
- ------------------------------
Before sending troops to Somalia, the United States announced that it was
trying to stop rampant theft of food shipments by sending the Somalis food they
don't like. Andrew Natsios, assistant administrator of the Agency for
International Development, explained that corn and sorghum being sent are ideal
for free food distribution because they are nutritious enough to alleviate
hunger but not popular enough to command high black market prices.
- ------------------------------
In Arlington, Massachusetts, you need a license to become a storefront psychic,
because the city intends to protect the public from fraudulent operators.
- ------------------------------
The Department of Labor has determined that Job Corps trainees are"employed" if
they have had a job interview and counts trainees as"permanently employed" if
they have spent one day on the job.
- ------------------------------
When their apartment in Bnei Brak, Israel, started burning, tenants asked a
rabbi whether the fire constituted an emergency so they could break the Sabbath
and use the telephone to call the fire department. The rabbi considered the
matter for 30 minutes, during which the blaze spread to two neighboring
apartments. The rabbi decided the tenants could call firefighters, but by the
time they arrived all three buildings were gutted.
- ------------------------------
The U.S. Postal Service was sued in 1990 by a job applicant whose driver's
license had been suspended four times, and who claimed that the agency's policy
of not hiring individuals as mail carriers whose licenses had been suspended
unfairly discriminated against blacks -- even though carriers must drive
government vehicles to deliver the mail.
- ------------------------------
The Internal Revenue Service was sued for discrimination after it fired a black
secretary who refused to answer the telephone.
- ------------------------------
The City of Houston was sued for racial discrimination by a white employee who,
as a federal judge noted, was "repeatedly out of the office for long stretches
of time without explanation, slept frequently at his desk, and shirked direct
requests from his supervisors."
- ------------------------------
As has come to be custom for most legislation, the $11 billion California
earthquake relief bill only earmarks $8.6 billion in disaster relief. The rest
goes to such projects as $1.4 million for Maine potato farmers, $203 million
for highway "demonstration projects," $1 million for senators to hire lawyers
to defend themselves against civil rights suits, and $10 million to renovate
New York's Penn Station.
- ------------------------------
Asked why he had entered the California governor's race, state senator Tom
Hayden said, "It was really the psychic impact of the earthquake" that made him
do it. "There is an urgency about the times in which we live."
- ------------------------------
In New York City's School District 7, where most of the students live in
poverty and share outdated textbooks or use workbook photocopies for their
schoolwork, school district officials rang up $323,000 in expenses for
conferences in Hawaii and St. Thomas.
- ------------------------------
In the last five years of the Federal Release Program of Essex County, New
Jersey, 3,885 defendants have had their bail paid by the government because
they were too poor to pay the price themselves. Of that number, according to
the Newark Start-Ledger, an estimated 67 percent "became fugitives or committed
new crimes, including assaults, rapes, kidnappings, robberies and arson." 11
committing murders after their release, crimes that included the shooting of a
teenager and the beating of a woman who was dragged from her bed.
- ------------------------------
The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that the host of a party is liable for
injuries suffered at the hands of someone crashing the party.
- ------------------------------
Washington, D.C., Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, who presides over a $300-million
budget gap, has been found to have had her makeup done at taxpayer expense at
$65 per hour.
- ------------------------------
When Andy Hansen brought home a report card indicating that he got a grade of C
in math, his parents were angry indeed -- they sued his teacher. After a year
and $4,000 in legal fees ($8,500 for the Contra Costa County, California,
school district), the Hansens got a verdict: the C stands. The father says
he'll appeal. "We went in and tried to make a deal: They wanted a C, we wanted
an A, so why not compromise on a B. But they dug in their heels, and here we
are."
- ------------------------------
After a San Diego police officer was sentenced to fifty-six years for raping
women on local beaches, his wife sued the police department for lost income,
claiming that the department should have known not to hire him in the first
place.
- ------------------------------
The Environmental Protection Agency decided that pepper spray was a pesticide
when used to ward off very large pests -- bears -- and attempted to ban its
sale for that use even though it was still perfectly legal to sell it for use
against human attackers.
- ------------------------------
An internationally-known political figure has come out against members of the
American press who allege that Arkansas state troopers helped set up adulterous
affairs for then-Governor Bill Clinton, saying, "It's an interference in his
personal life," and "a violation of [Clinton's] human rights." The man making
these statements was none other than Fidel Castro, well known for his human
rights record.
- ------------------------------
Northern Express:
The House Appropriations Committee's report accompanying the 1994 defense
appropriations bill directed the Defense Department "to increase its purchases
of Jumbo, Colossal, [and] Super Colossal ripe olives in future solicitations of
olive purchases."
- ------------------------------
The London Observer:
The European Community has ruled that stale bread is "waste," and that it
therefore cannot be fed to swans without a $3,000 license.
- ------------------------------
Oliver Stone has a new movie in the works called "Noriega," with Al Pacino in
the title role. The view of the Panamanian dictator will be "somewhat
sympathetic." Screenwriter Lawrence Wright says, "This is a film about
Noriega's spiritual journey."
- ------------------------------
The Lutheran:
Glen Proechel's two-week Klingon Language Camp includes a worship service at
St. John Lutheran Church. Proechel translated the Lord's Prayer, the Apostle's
Creed, and "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" into Klingon for the service.
- ------------------------------
USA Today:
After he was cleared of obscenity charges, video store owner David Wingate
billed police about $8,000 in late fees for two tapes they seized in 1991.
- ------------------------------
In Miami, a group of students was barred from competing in a "brain bowl" -- an
academic contest -- because its racial makeup didn't match that of its home
school. North Dade Middle School's team had five members of Asian descent,
seven Hispanics, seven whites and 17 blacks. Nonetheless, the group failed to
meet new district guidelines mandating that each team mirror *exactly* the
ethnic breakdown of its school. Because North Dade's student body is 70 percent
black, the team was ruled ineligible.
Lois Lindahl, district director for middle-senior instructional support and the
woman who enforced the rule, told the Miami Herald that the guidelines exist to
protect black students. "Eventually you have to take a position," she said.
"Most of all, it's not fair to the children in the school who did not have the
opportunity [to make the team]."
A reconfigured team with six extra black students was allowed to compete after
three non-black participants resigned from the team in protest.
- ------------------------------
Detroit Free Press:
A Houston high school hopes to keep weapons out of the schools by allowing
students to carry only see-through backpacks and purses.
- ------------------------------
After the late homeless activist Mitch Snyder estimated the number of homeless
Americans at three million, a number which he later admitted he made up while
being interviewed on ABC's Nightline show, that number stood as the most
commonly quoted figure in the media.
But now a Clinton Administration plan for dealing with the homeless says that
during the late 1980s as many as seven million Americans were homeless. Paul
Schmelzer, of the National Coalition for the Homeless, commented that the seven
million figure was derived from New York City and Philadelphia housing records
which were then
*xtrapolated* nationally over a five-year period.
On the other hand, when the Census Bureau measured the number of homeless on a
single day as part of its 1990 Census, it came up with a figure of fewer than
230,000. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development arrived at similar numbers.
- ------------------------------
The Milwaukee Journal:
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals brought charges of pet
abandonment against David Sharod, who left two fish alone in their tank for
three days while he was away. He was acquitted after citing the society's own
literature, which indicated that the fish could live comfortably on algae in
the tank for up to two weeks.
- ------------------------------
The New York law that mandates individuals to buckle up while in automobiles,
moving or not, has now been applied against lovers who were, to say the least,
*not* wearing their seat belts while their car was parked.
- ------------------------------
Frederick Newhall Woods and two other men are serving life sentences for
kidnapping a busload of California schoolchildren in 1976. But Woods said ABC
aired "They've Taken Our Children: The Chowchilla Kidnapping Story," a
made-for-television movie, without his consent. Not only that, but "the
portrayal of the plaintiff in the teleplay was false and misleading and exposed
the plaintiff to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy."
Woods's lawyer, Herbert Yanowitz, says the movie wrongly appropriated Woods's
name for commercial purposes and inaccurately pictured Woods as the
kidnapping's engineer. The episode was not exactly a joyride for the children
but, Yanowitz says, conditions were less harsh than the movie depicts.
Can you defame a kidnapper -- unfairly portray him as "callous, vicious,
hardened, wild-eyed, diabolical [and] uncaring"? Yes, says Yanowitz. "If you
make that person appear significantly worse than he was."
- ------------------------------
Eric Engberg, CBS Evening News "Eye on America" segment, April 1, 1994:
The haunting depictions of the bloodshed in Sarajevo found in the diary of the
young Bosnian refugee Zlata Filopovic could just as easily match the
description of many war zones in America's inner cities. Unfortunately, the
shame of our cities and the war against our children remain unrevealed. As a
result of twelve years of ruthless cuts in funding for education, our
youngsters cannot match the ease of intellect and eloquent prose that allowed
Zlata to expose the parallel tragedy of war-torn Sarajevo.
- ------------------------------
Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin Group, April 1, 1994:
Hillary and Bill Clinton cheating on their taxes was a protest against Reagan
era tax breaks for the wealthy. Many educated and enlightened people purposely
paid less than mid-1980s tax rates required. They knew that in five or ten
years the IRS would catch up with them and tack on penalties which would adjust
the payment back up to where it should have been. If more people had been as
far-sighted and altruistic as the Clintons, we could retroactively erase the
deficit.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
1995 Copyright by Henry Cate III All Rights Reserved
The above collection can be forwarded for non commercial use
as long as the signature file below is included
The individual entries of the Life Collection are owned by
the individual contributors who should be contacted
if you wish to forward their entry.
- --
Henry Cate III <cate3@netcom.com>
To learn how to get a MS Windows 3.1 Application with
15,000 jokes from the Life Humor collection, send E-Mail
to life@netcom.com with "Info" in the Subject.
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