[1519] in Humor
HUMOR: NoTW
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Sat Jul 13 22:56:09 1996
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 22:46:39 EDT
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 02:07:10 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 19:05:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Keith Bostic <bostic@bsdi.com>
From: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.436 (News of the Weird, June 14, 1996)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORIES
* Woe unto the Perfectionist: U. S. Attorney Kendall Coffey of Miami,
Fla., resigned in May. He reportedly bit a topless dancer on the arm at
a nightclub to which he had gone to drown his sorrows after losing the
big "Los Muchachos" cocaine-smuggling case. And in May in North
Brunswick, N. J., police charged Rutgers Univ. math professor Walter
Petryshyn, 67, with bludgeoning his wife to death. A friend said
Petryshyn had become despondent recently because he feared his career had
been ruined by an error in his latest textbook, Generalized Topological
Degree and Semilinear Equations. [St. Petersburg Times, 5-18-96] [New York
Daily News, 5-8-96]
* The Bjorer Kagoj newspaper in Bangladesh reported that about 100
criminals attended the nation's first conference of muggers on April 23.
The association decided that the city of Dhaka was prosperous enough to
support a doubling of their daily ripoffs, from 60 to 120. The leader,
Mohammad Rippon, was acclaimed "Master Hijacker" by the group for his
record of 21 muggings in a two-hour period. [San Francisco
Chronicle-Reuters, 4-24-96]
* Breast Exams in the News: This month, the first of six pending lawsuits
for improper diagnoses against Washington, D.C., physician Peter Kwon goes
to trial. According to one patient, Kwon "examined my breasts no matter
what I tell him is wrong." Kwon admitted he gives breast exams to every
female patient if more than 30 days has elapsed since her previous breast
exam. And in May, the Massachusetts Board of Registration of
Chiropractors finally suspended the license of Ronald A. Goldstein [News
of the Weird, January 5, 1996] for giving improper massages to 14 women
over a 17-year period. Goldstein had maintained that the "uterine lift"
and "chest spread" treatments were legitimate. [Washington City Paper, 5-
10-96] [Boston Globe, 5-9-96]
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
* The Floyd County (Ky.) coroner complained in February that ambulance
drivers were taking obviously-dead people to the hospital just so they
could bill the county for rides. One man was rushed to the hospital even
though his suicide shotgun blast was so powerful that it blew both
eyeballs out of their sockets. Another had been dead so long that rigor
mortis had commenced, leaving the body bent at the waist so that it would
not fit on a stretcher, but the driver said he thought he felt a pulse.
[Lexington Herald-Ledger, 2-15-96]
* In January, the New York City Parks Department, which controls permits
for vendors on park land, doubled the annual fee for the hot dog pushcart
that had the exclusive license for the spot just south of the steps of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art--to $288,200 a year. [ARTnews, April 1996]
* In May, the San Diego Union-Tribune profiled Pete Springer of Encinitas,
Calif., and his three-year-old firm, Rats R Us, that breeds food for
reptiles. Wholesale prices range from 60 cents for the "pinkies" to $3
for a jumbo rat. Springer disclosed that he is sometimes disturbed by
the nature of his business but pointed out that, at times, he gives
mouth-to-rat resuscitation to keep frail babies alive. [San Francisco
Examiner-San Diego Union-Tribune, 5-12-96]
* Reuters news service reported in May that German scientists at the Max
Planck Breeding Institute have invented a suicidal potato--whose cells
automatically kill themselves if attacked by potato blight fungi, thus
slowing the blight and saving crops. [Chicago Sun-Times, 5-20-96]
PEOPLE WITH TOO MUCH MONEY
* This summer in Putney, Vt., Honey Loring expects 400 people will enroll
in her two-week, $1,300 camp for dogs and their owners. At Camp Gone to
the Dogs (now in its 6th year), there is doggie square-dancing, doggie
swimming lessons, and a doggie bathing suit pageant and costume parade,
as well as traditional classes in Frisbee-catching. [Good Housekeeping,
June 1996]
* The Central Wholesale Market in Sapporo, Japan, put two melons on sale
in May with a pricetag of about $1,285 each. They were described as
"perfect beauties" in color and sweetness. [Independence Examiner-AP,
5-10-96]
* From a classified ad in the June 1996 Martha Stewart Living magazine:
The Protocol School of Washington is accepting students in its class to
train those who want to become "Children's Etiquette Consultants." [Martha
Stewart Living, June 1996]
GOVERNMENT IN ACTION
* According to criticism in May from Gov. George Pataki, the New York City
school board recently voted to spend $187,000 to put a metal art structure
on the roof of P. S. 279 but not to repair the school's elevator, which
has been broken for nearly two years. Pataki said the board has spent
$11 million on artwork for public schools that have problems ranging from
leaky roofs to outdated textbooks. [USA Today, 5-7-96]
* In February, the Connecticut Division of Special Revenue issued two
pages of regulations to govern charitable artificial-duck races.
Included were requirements to give each contestant a diagram of the
"natural stream of water," which "has a steady current" on which the race
is to be conducted and which shows the starting and finishing points; to
prevent anyone from guiding the ducks down the course; and to require the
ducks to be placed in a receptacle before the race for inspection against
"counterfeit" artificial ducks. [Connecticut Law Journal, 3-19-96]
* The U. S. Treasury Department announced in February that it would spend
up to $32 million in a worldwide public relations campaign on the new
counterfeit-proof $100 bill. (Within two months of the bill's release,
in Richmond, Va., alone, the Secret Service found at least 14 counterfeits
of the new bill that had been passed in stores.) [Park City Daily News
(Bowling Green, Ky.), 2-28-96]
I DON'T THINK SO
* A Hong Kong woman, So Lai-kan, said she would appeal a shoplifting
conviction (which means taking her case to the Privy Council in England)
because a Hong Kong judge did not believe her claim that the reason she
walked out of a department store in March wearing two bras was because it
was cold. [Bangkok Post, 3-4-96]
UPDATE
* Urbandale, Iowa, police officer James R. Trimble made News of the Weird
after his arrest in January, when he was caught driving around in his car
with a battery-operated "sexual device inserted into his body." Police
said Trimble took $20,000 worth of methamphetamine from the department's
evidence locker and also had marijuana, cocaine, and LSD in his car when
he was arrested, along with "scores" of sexually-explicit videotapes and
photos. In May, Trimble was "sentenced" to probation, a $1,000 fine, and
100 hours' community service. Though the police department fired him,
his community service will consist of what he used to do as an
officer--give anti-drug motivational speeches in local schools. [Des
Moines Register, 5-17-96]
Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name
News of the Weird.
