[204] in Humor
HUMOR: NoTW
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Thu Apr 14 09:33:43 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 94 09:30:25 EDT
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 20:57:55 -0600
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <matossian@aries.colorado.edu>
From: dave-barry@marble.com (Keith Bostic)
Subject: WEIRDNUZ.320 (News of the Weird, March 25, 1994)
WEIRDNUZ.320 (News of the Weird, March 25, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* In February, the Royal Bank of Scotland announced that it would begin
to issue extra check-cashing ID cards to its transvestite customers who
request them -- so that they might have separate cards depicting
themselves dressed as male and female in order to "avoid embarrassment
or difficulties," according to a Bank spokesman. [Globe and Mail-Reuter,
2-25-94]
Oops!
* About 15 customers had gathered their grocery items at a Safeway in
Oxon Hill, Md., shortly after 10 a.m. on Christmas morning and were
lined up at the checkout lanes, but no cashiers were on duty, and no
one answered calls to the back of the store. Local police were called
and after investigating found that the store was supposed to be closed
but that the Christmas Eve crew had accidentally left the lights on and
the doors unlocked, giving shoppers the impression it was open.
[Washington Post, 12-26-93]
* In October, in Iran, where celebratory gunfire is traditional at
weddings, a guest named Rasool lost control of his automatic weapon at
a wedding in Lorestan province, accidentally killing 6 people and
wounding 14. In Champion, Ohio, in January, Rev. Thomas Gillum,
presiding at the burial of a Korean War veteran, was accidentally shot
in the face when the local VFW honor guard fired a four-gun salute.
[Raleigh News & Observer, 10-4-93; Youngstown Vindicator, 1-26-94]
* The international food company Nestle UK was fined about $20,000 in
January for injuries suffered by its employee Alex Tuvey-Smith, 36, at
a plant in York, England. While cleaning excess chocolate off the sides
of a giant mixing bowl, he slipped and fell in, triggering the mixing
paddles, which whipped him for more than a minute before they were shut
off. [[London Independent, Jan94]]
* Car salesman Joseph LaRaviere, 29, attempting to help a couple who
had run out of gas in their car near Ruskin, Fla., in October, got his
right index finger stuck in the gasoline filler pipe. It remained there
for about two hours before firefighters arrived and rescued him. [Tampa
Tribune, Oct93]
Well-Put
* Roy Kinne, 28, an unemployed Chicago-area man who happened to be home
on the December afternoon when an 8-year-old boy fell through the ice
in a lake adjacent to Kinne's house, and who rescued him: "If I would
have had a life, I might not have been [home]." [Chicago Tribune,
12-15-93]
* Milwaukee, Wis., juvenile court judge Mike Malmstadt, quoted in a Time
magazine story on how hostility by drivers increasingly provokes violent
reactions by others: "I don't give people the finger from my car, and
I haven't for a while." [Time, 12-20-93]
* Professional soccer team manager Dan O'Riordan, defending his decision
to levy fines against players for flatulence in the locker room: "It
can get fairly oppressive when you've got 20 players in a tiny dressing
room all suffering the effects of a Sunday night curry." [Soccer
America, 8-9-93]
* Tennessee state Rep. Frank Buck, commenting in January on a report on
the death penalty that fixed the cost of lethal-injection execution at
$46,000 and of a firing squad at $7,000: "With figures like these,
should we wonder why people don't trust government? I believe I can
figure out a way to shoot somebody for less than $7,000." [The
Tennessean, 1-20-94]
* Attorney Daryl Blue announced in December that he would appeal the
conviction of his client Freddie Armstrong for stabbing an 81-year-old
preacher to death and cutting off his head before stunned onlookers who
included police officers, at a Bastrop, La., funeral home. Blue claims
that Armstrong was obviously insane at the time: "A rational man does
not decapitate a man's head in the presence of a police officer." [Baton
Rouge Sunday Advocate-AP, 12-12-93]
* The Swedish hockey team's coach Curt Lundmark, on why he did not
protest more vigorously a disallowed goal by his team in its Olympic
loss to Canada in February: "Sweden's influence in international hockey
is like a duck fart in Africa." [Globe and Mail, 2-22-94]
Creme de la Weird
* The London newspaper The Independent reported in January on the Monday
Club, a group of older men who meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays
at the Porchester Baths in London to be "schmeissed"--whipped while
naked in a steam room by men wielding a ritual yellow wig, then immersed
in ice-cold water. "Your body is like a car," said one, "and a schmeiss
is like being serviced." The ritual has been practiced for over 60
years, and advocates claim it produces deep relaxation and a longer life
span. [The Independent, 1-19-94]
Least Competent Police
* The victim of a car theft while visiting Omaha, Neb., in February,
Algona, Iowa, judge Joseph Straub walked into the lobby of a local
police station around 10 p.m. to file a report rather than wait for
officers to come to the scene. According to the judge, he pushed the
buzzer on the locked front door several times, and saw officers moving
around inside, but no one answered. Using the pay phone in the lobby,
he called the station to ask that an officer open the door and take his
report. Ten minutes passed before an officer opened the door. He went
back inside, and ten more minutes passed before another officer
appeared. Then he left, and nothing happened for ten more minutes.
Exasperated, the judge, still in the lobby, called 911. A few minutes
later, a sergeant came out, then went back in, and finally, a few
minutes after that, an officer drove up to the front of the building,
got out of her squad car, and took Straub's report. [Des Moines
Register, Feb94]
Least Dignified Death
* In October, a police officer in Rock Island, Ill., showing his partner
how a fellow officer had accidentally shot and killed himself during a
training exercise three days earlier, accidentally shot himself to
death. [Chicago Sun-Times-AP, 10-25-93]
Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights
reserved. Released for the personal use of readers.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the
name News of the Weird.
