News...

The Loony Bin ( loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk )
Wed, 30 Jul 1997 19:04:05 +0100


Hiya Folks...

Here are some more strange news stories from Alan...

Wishes & Dreams...

- ANDREA
        xx

***<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>****<ajc6@ukc.ac.uk>***
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***                 THE LOONY BIN                   ***
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**********************ANDROMEDA************************

  ------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------


LEAD STORIES

* In May in Santa Fe, N. Mex., schoolteacher Roger Katz, 50, was
sentenced to 18 months in prison for having sex with a 14-year-old
female student. He was convicted despite his compelling explanation that
had fallen in love with her after she saved him in a previous life
(Tibet, 640 A.D.) when she, then older than he, had stepped in front of
an arrow meant for him.  Said Katz's attorney Aaron Wolf, "I hope my
daughters find men who love them as much as he loves her."

* In the British elections in April, the usual fringe parties were in
evidence, such as the "Blackhaired, Medium-Build Caucasian Party," but
the longest-standing alternative, the Monster Raving Loony Party, ran
the most candidates.  Its main platform plank this year was to tow
Britain 500 miles into the Mediterranean Sea in order to improve the
country's climate, and 50 other MRLP candidates for various offices made
proposals such as requiring dogs to eat phosphorescent food so that
pedestrians could more easily avoid stepping in their poops.

* Unclear on the Concept:  In January, Bamrer Pong-insee, a spokesman
for the Professional Comedians Association of Thailand, said its members
will soon be prohibited by rule from being impolite on stage. 
Especially barred are obscene language, physical humor in which pain is
implied, and being disrespectful to a colleague's parents.

SEEDS OF OUR DESTRUCTION

* The New York Times reported in February on the extraordinary
worthlessness of Zairian currency (denominated in "zaires"), noting that
the new 100,000-zaire notes, worth about 66 cents at that time, were so
undesirable to hold as cash that they were called "prostates" -- after
the terminal cancer with which the widely-disliked President Mobutu has
been stricken.

* The Providence (R.I.) Phoenix newspaper reported in February that the
latest fad at Providence College is handcuff parties, where men and
women are randomly cuffed and must accompany each other the rest of the
evening, no matter what (even for restroom breaks).  At nearby Brown
University, whose legendary concern about gender equality would rule out
such symbolic ownership, the fad is "naked" parties at which there is
virtually no sexual activity.

* In Mill Valley, Calif., in March, tenth-grader Ari Hoffman, who had
just won first place in the Marin County science fair for his study
finding that exposure to radiation decreased the offspring of fruit
flies, was disqualified for cruelty when it was learned that about 35 of
his 200 flies died during the three-month experiment.  Hoffman was
disappointed because he had used extraordinary efforts to keep the flies
alive by, for example, maintaining a tropical temperature for the flies
during the entire experiment.

* The New York Times reported in February that despite the troubles in
Serbia, business was thriving for a transvestite fortune teller named
"Kleo Patra," 36, who charges about $80 a session (a month's salary for
the average Serbian) and includes as a client Mrs. Sloboban Milosevic,
whose husband Mr. Patra supports.  A week before the great winter
flooding in the Ohio Valley and two months before the North Dakota
floods, Mr. Patra predicted the U. S.'s future was rosy except for
impending floods.

* As of February, about 1,500 prisoners in four Bolivian jails were
participating in hunger strikes to protest delays in getting to trial on
drug-trafficking charges.  To improve their chances of sticking to the
strike, several prisoners in San Pedro jail in La Paz sutured their lips
together.

* American William Ping Chen was sentenced to 10 years in prison in
January in Shanghai, China, for smuggling.  Though the reason was not
explained, Chen had tried to bring 238 tons of medical waste and
ordinary garbage into the country by labeling it paper.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

* A Crime Waiting to Happen:  In February, in Sirnak, Turkey, thieves
stole the 210 pairs of shoes left by entering worshipers outside the
Vali Kamil Acun mosque.

* In January, in Bangkok, Thailand, Wien Sudpleum, eight months'
pregnant, crawled under the belly of an elephant three times, which is
supposed to bring good luck in her delivery.  However, the third time
she was gored. The owner agreed to pay her about $240 compensation, but
it was not reported whether the baby survived.

* In January, American long-distance hot-air balloonist Steve Fossett
had to set down in the village of Nunkhar, India, well short of his
around-the-world goal.  However, according to media reports, villagers
were very helpful and friendly despite their first impression of him,
which was awe, because they thought this descending figure was the
second coming of their monkey god Hanuman, arriving in a space-station
temple.

* In February, Judge Salamo Injia ruled in Papua New Guinea that a
quaint custom among some tribes in the south of the country -- the use
of young girls and women as a medium of currency to pass from one tribe
to another -- was illegal.  Miriam Willingal, 18, had been sent, with
another woman plus some pigs and some cash, to compensate a neighboring
tribe for a shooting death.

UPDATE

* In 1995 News of the Weird reported that some New York City
dermatologists were offering a treatment to reduce facial wrinkles by
injections of the bacteria that causes often-fatal botulism, in order to
deaden the tissue.  The New York Observer reported in May 1997 that some
of those dermatologists now tout a side-effect of the $800 treatment:
that it so deadens the forehead that it prevents scowling, which some
patients say is a benefit to keeping a "poker face" during business
negotiations.

BOTTOM OF THE GENE POOL

* Derrick L. Richardson, 28, was charged in April in Minneapolis with
third-degree murder in the death of his beloved cousin, Ken E.
Richardson.  According to police, Derrick suggested a game of Russian
roulette and put a semiautomatic pistol to Ken's head instead of a
revolver.  (For the gun-unschooled:  There is much less mystery to the
game if played with a semiautomatic, in which the one bullet
automatically goes to the firing chamber.)


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