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news of the weird
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Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 23:10:29 CST
From: Kevin Dryman <kevind@saintjoe.edu>
Message-Id: <9302100510.AA01100@zeta.saintjoe.edu>
To: SubGenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Mailing list
Please add me to your mailing list My address is kevind@zeta.saintjoe.edu
Thanks
*Kevin Dryman*
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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 19:30:58 PST
From: Chuck Shepherd <cshepherd@igc.apc.org>
Message-Id: <9302110330.AA03519@igc.apc.org>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: news of the weird
WEIRDNUZ.263 (News of the Weird, February 19, 1993)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* In September, award-winning Bakersfield, Calif., high
school biology teacher David Hanley was ordered by the
principal to stop his unique classroom demonstrations
showing that food is a cultural choice. To make the
point, Hanley had eaten live, newborn mice in front of
two classes. And in Texas in January, former
agricultural sciences teacher Dick Pirkey asked to be
reinstated; he had been fired in October 1991 after a
student, citing Pirkey's suggestion, orally castrated a
pig in class. [Bakersfield Californian, 9-17-92; Austin
American-Statesman, 1-28-93]
Seeds of Our Destruction
* In early November, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi placed
ads in 60 U. S. newspapers proposing that he send
hundreds of Transcendental Meditation followers to
bombard those cities with positive vibrations that
fight crime--for a fee of 10 cents per day per citizen.
The Maharishi guaranteed that all crime would be
eliminated within five years. So far, each city, from
Greensboro (which would be charged $6.7 million per
year) to New York ($266 million), has declined. [San
Francisco Chronicle, 12-23-92]
* In 1975, the Federal Communications Commission
considered, then denied, a formal request from two
citizens to investigate religious broadcasters' alleged
abuses of reserved "educational" radio channels, but
the rumor persisted that the FCC was about to kick
religion off the air. In December 1992, noting that it
had now received more than 21 million letters over the
past 17 years from parishioners urging it to keep its
hands off religious broadcasting, the FCC issued its
annual admonition that the public disregard the rumor.
[FCC Press Release, 12-17-92]
* The U. S. Agency for International Development, which
shipped 200 million condoms to Pakistan in 1991, to
combat AIDS and population increases, said that it
would halt shipments because of questions about the
country's nuclear weapons program. [Independence
Examiner, 12-14-92]
* In January, the U. S. House of Representatives voted
to allow the five delegates representing D. C. and the
U. S. territories to vote on bills for the first time
ever--but only if their votes didn't matter. If those
five votes were critical to the outcome, the House
would vote again, allowing only the 435 Members to cast
ballots. [New York Newsday, 1-6-93]
* As President Bush ordered air strikes during his last
days in office, Patriot missile launchers were set up,
as a precaution, in Kuwait--on what are the fairways
for the last six holes of the golf course at the
Hunting & Equestrian Club in Kuwait City. "I know
national security is a priority," golfer Walid Al-
Tailji told the Associated Press, "but this
[inconvenience to golfers] is another form of
invasion." [New Haven Register-AP, 1-22-93]
* In July, a federal appeals court reinstated an
antitrust lawsuit filed by a homeless man, Gralyn A.
Ancar, who had sued several Houston, Tex., blood plasma
centers for conspiring to suppress prices paid to blood
donors. [Wall Street Journal, 7-6-92]
* In November, David Harkness was elected to the board
of the public Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines,
Iowa, where his wife is a nurse. They loved their jobs
and were dismayed to discover that a state law forbids
the hospital to employ persons married to each other.
In December, the happily-married couple traveled to
Tijuana, Mexico, where they obtained a divorce. [Sioux
Falls Argus Leader-AP, 1-6-93]
Oops!
* The current Albuquerque Yellow Pages ad for the law
firm of Gaddy, Rakes & Hall, which specializes in
personal injury litigation, contains a typo:
"Representing the Seriously Insured" [should be
"Seriously Injured"]. [Albuquerque Journal, 12-20-92]
* In December retired Dallas police officer James
Leavelle, who was the man in the white hat handcuffed
to Lee Harvey Oswald at the moment Jack Ruby shot
Oswald, was in his home recreating for newsman Bob
Porter just how he had grabbed Ruby's gun to prevent a
second shot. Using the same model gun Ruby had used,
while Porter's camera was rolling as part of his
project on the history of the Kennedy assassination,
Leavelle accidentally shot Porter in the arm, sending
him to Parkland Hospital, just like Kennedy and Oswald.
Porter, however, survived. [Washington Times, 12-8-92]
* Over the last three months, at least five trucks have
accidentally spilled these cargos on public highways:
near Levittown, N. Y., in November, mayonnaise; near
Manila in November, coconut oil; near Shelby, N. C., in
January, chocolate syrup; near Hampton, Ill., in
January, hamburger; and near Pataskala, Ohio, in
January, glue. [N. Y. Times-AP, 11-26-92; Chicago
Tribune, 11-5-92; Chicago Tribune, Jan93; Rock Island
Argus, 1-5-93; Columbus Dispatch, Jan93]
The Weirdo-American Community
* According to a January New York Times story Jim
Pierce, father of 17-year-old tennis pro Mary Pierce,
routinely berates and threatens Mary's opponents and
officials who make calls against her during matches.
At one match against a 12-year-old opponent, he yelled,
"Mary, kill the bitch!" At another, he charged in a
parking lot toward another 12-year-old girl who had
just beaten Mary, yelling, "You're never gonna amount
to anything. You only beat my daughter because you got
lucky." Jim Pierce told the Times reporter, "I'm not
threatening you . . . but . . . when I go, I want
everybody to go with me. You have no idea how my mind
works. Anything could happen." [N. Y. Times, Jan93]
The Diminishing Value of Life
* Chicago police charged Roosevelt Bell, 22, with the
New Year's Day murder of his son Bryan, age 5 months.
According to police, the cause of death was seizures
produced by Bell's violently shaking the boy. Bell had
become upset at the way Syracuse University's football
team was playing against Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl.
[Chicago Sun-Times, 1-8-93]
END
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End of Subgenius Digest
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