[227] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.322 (News of the Weird, April 8, 1994)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Sat Apr 23 11:23:11 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 94 11:17:05 EDT
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 16:51:56 -0600
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <matossian@aries.colorado.edu>
From: dave-barry@marble.com (Keith Bostic)
Subject: WEIRDNUZ.322 (News of the Weird, April 8, 1994)
WEIRDNUZ.322 (News of the Weird, April 8, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* In February, Philadelphia's Department of Licenses and Inspections
served notice of a violation on dancer Crystal Storm at The Doll House.
The Department's weights and measures division, whose primary job is
checking the accuracy of meat-market scales, ascertained Ms. Storm's
bust measurement at only 50 inches, versus her advertised measurement
of "127," which Ms. Storm said was in centimeters. Said Department
official Frank Antico, "That's deceptive advertising." [Philadelphia
Inquirer, Feb94]
Tacky, Tacky
* According to a report in the Arizona Republic, artist Fritz Scholder
of Scottsdale, who said he "buys a book a day," divides his library into
two parts: books that mention him and books that don't. [Arizona
Republic, 1-26-94]
* The Washington Times reported in February that D. C. Mayor Sharon
Pratt Kelly has used public funds to retain Julie A. Rodgers-Edwards
since 1992 as a $65-an-hour makeup artist, in order to pretty up the
mayor for all public appearances and photo and TV sessions. In March,
the Times reported that Rodgers-Edwards has all along lacked the $45 D.
C. cosmetology license because she had not yet taken the proper tests.
[Washington Times, 2-23-94, 3-2-94; Washington Post, 2-24-94]
* In January, the U. S. Postal Service withdrew from circulation most
of the rare, misprinted 29-cent stamps honoring cowboy Bill Pickett but
picturing his brother Ben. To recover one outstanding stamp, which may
be worth $1 million to collectors, the Postal Service offered the owner,
Dan Piske of Bend, Ore., 29 cents and a USPS coffee mug. (Piske
declined.) [Des Moines Register-AP, 1-23-94]
* Courthouse officials in Durham, N. C., suspect that in February a
disgruntled lawyer or lawyers stole a big stack of brochures that
explained how battered women could obtain court orders against their
husbands without resorting to a lawyer. [Durham Herald-Sun, 2-28-94]
Multiculturalism
* The Associated Press reported in August on the growing movement in
Muslim countries to abandon the ancient tradition of permitting husbands
to divorce their wives by shouting "Taraq!" three times. Pakistan,
Turkey, Syria, and Indonesia are among the nations that have abandoned
the tradition, but it continues in India. In India, a man may either
shout "Talaq" three times at once, with the divorce effective four
months later, or shout "Talaq" one time during each of three consecutive
menstrual periods and be divorced immediately after the third shout.
[Bozeman Daily Chronicle-AP, Aug93]
* In August near Denver, two Tarahumara Indians from northern Mexico,
one aged 55, finished first, second, and fifth in the U.S.'s
highest-altitude 100-mile race, the Leadville 100, even though they were
the only runners not wearing conventional running shoes. Both wore
homemade sandals made from used automobile tires. [Rocky Mountain News,
8-23-93]
* In September, The Economist magazine reported that Japan's meteorology
agency had recently completed a seven-year study to ascertain the
validity of the Japanese legend that earthquakes are caused by catfish
wiggling their tails. After trying to match catfish tail-wagging with
a number of small earthquakes, the agency abandoned the study, refusing
to confirm or criticize the legend. [The Economist, 9-4-93]
* Last year, Tel Aviv University and the Warner-Lambert Company
sponsored the First International Workshop on Bad Breath. Shlomo Goren,
former chief rabbi of Israel, told the conference that Jewish law makes
bad breath a legitimate ground for divorce. (One study by the Kyushu
Dental College in Japan used human sniffers to categorize the smells in
the mouths of 2,600 subjects.) [Hartford Jewish Ledger, 6-18-93]
* The Vancouver Sun reported in July that the local school board was
aware of more than a dozen cases of Asian parents who immigrated to
Canada with their children and then moved back home when they could not
find work, leaving the kids, mostly 15-and 16-year-olds, behind so
that they could attend school for as many as two years. Canadian law
calls it "abandonment" only when the child is under 10. [Edmonton
Journal-Vancouver Sun, 7-22-93]
* A February Associated Press dispatch from Pakistan reported on a
tradition dating from around 750 A.D. of chaining a mentally ill person
to a tree near the graveyard of saint Haji Sher so that the saint will
rescue his soul. Typical waiting time is nine days, but some stay
longer, and one man has been chained to a tree for six years. [Des
Moines Register-AP, 2-1-94]
The Weirdo-American Community
* From November until late February, Brenda Butler Bryant filed 335
lawsuits in federal court in Philadelphia, accounting for one fifth of
all new cases; each one, said Judge Jay Waldman, was "frivolous" and
unintelligible. He quoted from one against the Social Security
Administration: "Big Mac? Slave Master Now? No slave ain't master now.
Ride them cowboy. Terrorist, radicals, and militants in authoritative
roles to provoke violent crimes Cecil B. Moore." Several recent
filings have included, as co-plaintiffs, The Pep Boys, who Bryant
describes as her sons. [The Legal Intelligencer, 3-2-94]
Inexplicable
* At a disciplinary conference in February, just before he was fired as
a sheriff's deputy in Kalida, Ohio, for conduct unbecoming an officer,
Ronald E. Young, Jr., denied that he had forced a woman to have sex
while on duty. According to The Lima News, he told Sheriff Ronald
Diemer that what really happened was that while he was sitting with his
wife eating french fries at Rascal's Pub at 12:30 a.m., the woman sat
down next to him and began masturbating him under the table, and that
he eventually achieved climax, apparently unknown to his wife. [Lima
News, Mar94]
Undignified Deaths
* In Commerce City, Colo., in July, a 39-year-old man riding a
motorcycle on U. S. 85 was killed when a 40-pound dog fell off an
overhead railroad bridge on top of him, causing him to lose control of
the cycle and collide with a truck. [Denver Post, 7-17-93]
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.
