[592] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.353 (News of the Weird, November 11, 1994)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Wed Dec 7 10:31:25 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 1994 10:28:06 EST
Date: 6 Dec 1994 16:03:46 +0500
From: "Sharalee Field" <sharalee@planning.mit.edu>
- --------------------------------------
WEIRDNUZ.353 (News of the Weird, November 11, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* On the same day (October 17), the federal government
announced it would reduce funding, by $55 million, for
food banks and other programs that feed poverty-
stricken Americans, and spend $47 million in new funds
to create makework jobs and job training for the much-
reviled Haiti police force. [Belleville, Ill., News-
Democrat-AP, 10-18-94]
Well-Put
* Atlanta, Ga., police Det. Chris Brown, commenting in
July on the haplessness of a bank robber who walks with
the aid of a cane and who gave himself up with no
resistance immediately after the chemical dye pack in
his money bag exploded outside the bank: "I don't
think he had a plan." [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7-
15-94]
* Mike McElroy, making an appeal to the West Lake
Hills, Tex., City Council in August of the benefits of
his being allowed to keep his pet donkey, Pearl, at his
home despite regulations against it: "[This] is a
great opportunity for our kids and other kids who come
to see us to be able to recognize and identify manure,
which will help them in the future. Children need, at
an early age, to be able to identify manure." [Austin
American-Statesman, Aug94]
* Adoption agency official Mary Graves, in a
Doylestown, Pa., case in which a girl had been taken
from her father after the mother passed away, testified
in August that she favored keeping the girl with the
adopted family. With her father, Graves said, "She
would have none of the benefits but all of the
disadvantages of a mother who is dead." [Greensboro
News Record, Aug94]
* A New York City Transit Authority spokesman,
describing in August how his agency would handle female
toplessness in subways after a state court ruled that
women had the same public nudity rights as men: "If
[the topless females] were violating any other rules,
like sitting on a subway bench topless smoking a
cigarette, then we would take action." [Globe & Mail-
AP, 9-1-94]
* James A. Kowalski, following his conviction on child
sexual molestation charges in Price Frederick, Md., in
July: "I can't help myself. If I could stop, I would.
It's no fun being the slimy underbelly of human
sexuality." [Washington Post, 7-7-94]
* In a July article, the Daily Oklahoman newspaper
quoted state Sen. John Monks as once arguing, while
defending the "sport" of cockfighting, "The first thing
the communists do when they take over a country is to
outlaw cockfighting." [The Daily Oklahoman, 7-4-94]
* One issue on the ballot in San Francisco this year is
an initiative on whether a subway station should be
constructed inside the San Francisco International
Airport, or just outside the Airport boundary. In
April, a local judge rejected a complaint about the
poor taste of one ad placed by the "inside" advocates--
an ad arguing, "Taking [the train] almost into the
Airport is like not coming." [San Francisco Examiner,
4-15-94]
* Columnist Emil Guillermo, writing in Filipinas
magazine last fall, urging Philippine-Americans to come
out of the closet regarding their appetite for dog
meat: "Whether you have eaten it or not, deep down you
know you'd eat it. Yet that restrictive idea of 'when
in America, do as Americans do' prevents us from
outright declaring 'Mmmm, I prefer my German shepherd
baked and my cocker spaniel sauteed.'" [San Francisco
Chronicle, 10-1-93]
* Christine McKatherine, 43, who staged a 24-hour
civil-rights protest inside her car on a Chicago street
in August after the car was immobilized with a Denver
boot for having 115 unpaid parking tickets: "I'm tired
of people getting harassed in Chicago." [Chicago Sun-
Times, 8-25-94]
* In a prepared statement released in September, the
British firm Proteus International, manufacturer of a
new chemical neutering drug for animals, said the
product works by stopping sperm production. "It also
shrinks the testicles," the firm stated, "but arguably
it is better to have shrunken testicles than no
testicles at all." [Chicago Sun-Times, 10-3-94]
* U. S. Sen. Bob Packwood, describing his experience
with girls as a teenager: "I'd ask girls out and
they'd turn me down, and so finally it got to the point
where you didn't want to be rejected. And so you just
didn't ask." [Atlanta Journal-Constitution-Newsweek,
Aug94]
The Weirdo-American Community
* In September in Pittsburgh, Pa., Dewitt Smith, 46,
received a 5-to-10-year sentence for aggravated assault
for a 1992 incident in which he broke away from
courtroom marshals and bit his judge, Walter R. Little,
on the face, sending him to the hospital for stitches.
Smith said he "did not understand" what he was doing,
because of "voices." [Youngstown Vindicator-AP, 9-7-94]
Least Competent Criminals
* According to the sheriff in Martin, Ohio, two or more
burglars unsuccessfully attempted to break into the
safe at W&W Custom Applicators, Inc., at 4 o'clock one
morning in October. They rolled the 4-foot-high,
concrete-lined safe outside and used a front-end loader
to smash it against the side of a building to open it.
The safe crashed through the wall but did not open.
Then they smashed it against the side of a utility
trailer, with the same result. Then they placed it on
nearby railroad tracks so that a Conrail train could
plow into it, but the train pushed it along the tracks,
far out of the sight of the burglars. The burglars
then fled, nearly empty-handed. (They had remembered
to loot the petty cash box at W&W.) [Washington Times-
Toledo Blade, 10-21-94]
Undignified Deaths
* In October, after an evening of drinking with
friends, Christopher Millwood, 20, was found dead with
his head, shoulders, and upper body wedged into a
Federal Express drop box in Hot Springs, Ark. Police,
who knew of no motive for the incident, said Millwood
suffocated when his head got caught between the box and
a drawer inside. [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette-Hot Springs
Sentinel-Record, 10-19-94]
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.
