[1261] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.411 (News of the Weird, December 22, 1995)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Thu Jan 11 15:29:30 1996
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 15:12:57 EST
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 19:32:45 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 14:48:24 -0500
From: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
From: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.411 (News of the Weird, December 22, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
* In October, the Miami (Ohio) University Student Senate voted official
recognition to the Miami U. Masturbation Society, thus permitting MUMS to
use University facilities for its meetings. According to its
constitution, MUMS hopes to promote "the safest sex possible," as well as
to "challenge social prejudice" and stereotypes, and "to strive toward
manual dexterity" and "hand-eye coordination." [The Miami Student,
10-27-95]
COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE TRUE
* In November, LaVerne Pavlinac was released from prison in Salem, Ore.,
after a man confessed to the murder she originally said she and her
boyfriend had committed. A jury believed her confession in 1990 that she
and then-boyfriend John Sosnovske killed a woman; both were sentenced to
life in prison. It turns out that Pavlinac confessed because it was the
only way she could think of to get out of her relationship with the
allegedly abusive Sosnovske. Said Pavlinac, "These things don't happen
except in the movies." [San Jose Mercury News-AP, 10-28-95]
* In a first-person account in London's The Independent in September,
Jenny Gathorne-Hardy reported that she drilled a hole in her skull (with
pain relief only by local anesthetic) to test the theory that adults'
brains would function better if blood were allowed to circulate to the
topmost part, which is made difficult because of natural fusing at around
age 18 to 21. Reported Gathorne-Hardy, "I feel calmer, and that
particular mental exhaustion I became so used to has gone." [Globe and
Mail-The Independent, 9-22-95]
* Bronx, N. Y., deputy police inspector Anthony Kissik established
guidelines in October to help limit paperwork from rising crime in the
50th Precinct: Henceforth, no assault charges will be filed if the victim
suffers merely bleeding, bruises, a fat lip, or a black eye. Only broken
bones or wounds requiring stitches will qualify. [New York Daily News,
10-11-95]
* According to a Knight-Ridder News Service report from Hanoi in
September, one of the country's most popular TV programs is "Ba Nu Tham
Tu" ("Charlie's Angels"). According to an official for the company that
distributes the show, it is very popular among "intellectuals." "The
[actresses] are very intelligent," he said, "and the acting is good." [The
Oregonian-Knight-Ridder, 9-24-95]
* Bernard Eaton, 36, was freed by a jury in September in Washington, D.
C., even though he had admitted strangling his roommate. A judge had
ruled in March that Eaton is mentally retarded and therefore cannot be
prosecuted because D. C. law says such a person is not "competent" to
stand trial. The September jury decision held that Eaton is not mentally
"ill" and therefore cannot be hospitalized against his will. [Washington
Post, 9-29-95]
* In 1991 Linda Mathews drove through a stop sign and hit another
car--which resulted in catastrophic injuries to the couple in that car.
In September 1995, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Mathews had
cut a deal with her insurance company that paid her $50,000 while the
victims of the crash, who require expensive caretaking, have so far been
paid nothing. Mathews took an early settlement on her policy (made
possible by the company's need to protect itself on a legal issue), bought
a house with it, and then declared bankruptcy to shield herself from the
expected huge judgment coming against her personally when the victims'
claims exceeded the amount of her policy. [Star Tribune, 9-18-95]
* In August Kim Sun Myung, 70, thought to be the longest-serving prisoner
of war in the world, was freed in South Korea, where he had been
held--mostly in solitary confinement--since the outbreak of the Korean
War in 1951. Officials said he would have been released years ago had he
only publicly renounced his support for North Korea. [Columbus Dispatch-N.
Y. Times, 8-20-95]
* Kim Perisie was sentenced to five years in prison in Riverside, Ohio,
in November for hiring a hit man to try to kill her husband in order to
get his $3.1 million in lottery winnings. Nonetheless, Stephen Perisie
wants the couple to stay together. "You don't wash 22 years under the
bridge," he said. "Love is a state of insanity anyway." (Stephen said
his main complaint was that Kim had offered only $500 to the hit man.)
[Times-Picayune-AP, 10-31-95; Columbus Dispatch, 11-18-95]
* In September, the Brazil Health Ministry cancelled a TV AIDS-education
ad campaign because of complaints from at least 18 men named Braulio. In
the ads, an unnamed man is conversing with his penis, whose name is
Braulio, about the pros and cons of indiscriminate, condomless sex. In
preparing the campaign, the Health Ministry had commissioned a poll which
revealed that Braulio was one of men's top five names for penises.
[Arizona Daily Star-AP, 9-17-95]
NEW RIGHTS
* Hong Kong High Court judge Raymond Sears ruled in November, on a
petition from a drug trafficker, that a prison's practice of removing the
horse-racing results from daily newspapers before distributing them to
inmates violates prisoners' human rights. [Edmonton Journal, 11-4-95]
* William Townsend, Jr., was awarded $20,000 by a jury in Louisville, Ky.,
in November because he was excessively punished while an inmate at River
City Corrections Center. A guard had found contraband (two cans of Vienna
sausages) in Townsend's underwear and had squeezed his testicles three
times, causing a contusion and leaving him with pain long after his
release from jail. According to Townsend, the guard told him at the time,
"That'll teach you to bring Vienna sausages up here." [Louisville
Courier-Journal, Nov95]
* According to an October Washington Post story, the Federal Labor
Relations Authority recently ruled in a longstanding dispute that the
Federal Aviation Administration might have to tear out the interiors of
the offices in the radar tower at Denver International Airport. FLRA had
found that FAA had installed the tiles, wallpapering, and carpeting
without consulting the air traffic controllers' union, and that the union
didn't like the color scheme. [Washington Post, 10-27-95]
* In March, a mother and her two adult sons and two adult daughters
pleaded not guilty to incest in Nova Scotia, claiming such acts between
consenting adults are protected by Canada's Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. (In August, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court rejected the claim.)
[Globe and Mail-CP, 8-17-95]
Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers. No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.
