Today's Topics:
(2 msgs)
News of the Weird
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Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 08:02:51 EST
From: Wes Morgan <morgan@engr.uky.edu>
Message-Id: <9303241302.AA14519@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu>
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject:
>From: "Mitchell L. Silverman" <mitch@cfraix.cfr.usf.edu>
>Subject: Rev. Gene Scott
>
>The title says it all. I just got cable (at home, thank
>Goddess, not in my dorm room), and I wish to experience the
>wonder of Rev. Gene Scott. He rants, he raves, he asks for
>money for more Learjets. Or so I understand. The man is
>even now one of my most important Shordupersavs--but I've
>never seen him!
>
>What cable channel (or superstation) is he on? Where can I
>get further details?
>
Ah, yes, Dr. Gene.......this guy is fairly oozing with Slack.
I used to watch him for the pure bulldada of his sermons (or
intentional lack thereof). I remember one service (and I use
the term loosely) in which he had some male quartet singing
the opening song; he liked it so well that he said "Sing that
again!" After they had finished, he said "Hell, that'll bring
in more money than me talking -- keep going!" The *entire*
program (60 minutes) consisted of this one quartet singing this
one song over and over and over. Gene kept wandering over to
the phone banks, counting the receipts and bellowing "Sing it
again!" every time they finished. Of course, he was doing all
this in a cowboy hat and fur coat.
I don't think you'll find him on any station on a regular basis;
he flipflopped among several local stations in my area as he
conned his way into air time on account.........when the station
started whining about getting paid, he'd just move to another
station.
What a guy!
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Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 22:55:31 -0500
From: Michael L Turyn <mturyn@world.std.com>
Message-Id: <199303250355.AA24297@world.std.com>
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject:
What does STP mean? It means "Bob".
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Date: Wed, 24 Mar 93 17:19:17 PST
From: Chuck Shepherd <cshepherd@igc.apc.org>
Message-Id: <9303250119.AA02521@igc.apc.org>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: News of the Weird
WEIRDNUZ.269 (News of the Weird, April 2, 1993)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* In the series of stock-picking contests run by the
Wall Street Journal--in which professional stock
analysts match wits with Journal employees who throw
darts at company names on the stock market tables--the
dart-throwers trail by only 18-15. Results of the
latest contest, announced March 4, saw the dart-
throwers' "portfolio" gain by 15% while the
professional analysts' stocks fell by 26%. [Wall Street
Journal, 3-4-93]
Unclear on the Concept
* School officials in Suffolk, Va., suspended an 11-
year-old boy in January after he broke the school rule
against carrying weapons onto school grounds. The
boy's weapon of choice was a toy gun charm, 1-1/4-inch
long, purchased for a quarter from a vending machine.
Administrators said expulsion was in order because the
boy wielded the toy as if it were a gun. [[Newport News
Daily Press-AP, Jan93]]
* In February, an arbitrator ruled that officials at
Ft. Campbell, Ky., must reimburse a civilian employee
who had been suspended from work for without pay for
five days for illegally using a government truck. The
government had originally proposed to suspend him for
30 days, but reduced that to five. However, the
arbitrator ruled that the law requires a minimum
suspension of 30 days and thus that the government must
reimburse him for the improper five-day suspension.
[Federal Times, 3-1-93]
* In September a federal judge in Alexandria, Va.,
ruled against a woman who had failed the exam for her
public school teaching certificate. Sofia P.
Pandazides, 26, claimed the test was unfair and that
she should have unlimited time to take it because she
is "learning impaired." [Washington Post, 10-1-92]
* In December, director Ken Anakin wrapped up work for
an Italian production company's film that Anakin said
will show the human side of Genghis Khan, the 13th
century Mongol warlord known for his cruelty. "The
other side," said Anakin, "is more like a country boy
with a peasant mentality." [Chicago Tribune-AP, Dec92]
* The New York Times reported recently that the
Environmental Protection Agency, asked to officially
respond to a Congressional report charging that the
agency uses too many outside contractors, paid a
contractor $20,000 to write the response. [N. Y. Times,
12-6-92]
New Housing Starts
* This month, near Harrisburg, Pa., former welder
Violet Hobaugh, 76, begins her second year of residence
in a 5-foot by 5-foot tree house, according to a report
from the Knight-Ridder news service. The state
Department of Transportation cut down an adjacent tree
to widen Highway 22, and Hobaugh fears that, if she
leaves the tree, the state will fell that one, too,
which Hobaugh says protects her house from cars that
careen off the road. [Charlotte Observer-Knight-Ridder,
3-3-93]
* In February, Antioch, Calif., artist William Leroy,
39, declared the eucalyptus tree in which he had been
living in a week-long protest to be his official
address. Several days later, he began receiving mail
there from supporters, who join him in urging that the
city not destroy the tree. Leroy can be reached at
604-1/2 Eighth Street, Antioch CA 94509. [San Francisco
Examiner, 2-24-93]
* As of early March, police in Newcastle, England, had
not captured the "Hole in the Wall Boy," believed to be
about 13, who lives in tunnels and air-conditioning
ducts and comes out to rob and terrorize residents of a
local housing project. [Globe and Mail, 3-1-93]
* The Associated Press recently reported that Ernest
Dittemore had completed 18 years of sleeping in a 4-
foot by 10-foot hole in the ground on his property in
Troy, Kan. When Dittemore's house burned down in 1978,
he began to spend nights in the hole, and when
neighbors chipped in to buy him a trailer to live in,
he moved his possessions into it but continued to spend
nights in the hole, which he says is "a lot easier to
heat." [The Tennessean-AP, 2-28-93]
* In December, a court in Oslo, Norway, ruled that Oslo
University did not have to admit a current student, a
39-year-old astrophysics major, to class until he
bathes. The man has been living in a cave near the
campus for 14 years and had sued the University for
$470,000 for denying him access to an exam. He said
the case was about "my right to decide how I want to
live" and "not about whether I smell bad or not," but
the court said it was the latter. [Baltimore Sun, 12-
29-92]
Creme de la Weird
* Tambov, Russia, businessman Vyacheslav Golovin told
the Washington Post in March that the key to his city's
future may lie in making a Western-style tourist
attraction out of the local cemetery, where thousands
of German, French, Japanese, American, and Russian
prisoners died during the Stalin era. He said the
local prison camp had been shrouded in such secrecy
that "thousands" of families do not yet know that their
relatives are buried in Tambov and that they would be
excellent targets of an advertising campaign. He
admitted that the idea is controversial in Tambov: "We
don't care about our own dead, so why should we care
about outsiders?" [Edmonton Journal-Washington Post,
3-7-93]
Least Competent People
* The Los Angeles Times reported in February that
station KCBS-TV recently carelessly edited two drug-
sale news stories, one of which might have led drug
dealers to retaliate against a woman who agreed to be
interviewed on TV only after the reporter guaranteed to
protect her identity. However, the broadcast left
several telltale clues, including the interviewee's age
and occupation, the color of her blond hair, the inside
of her apartment, her first name (inadvertently
mentioned by the interviewee but not edited out by the
station), and a view from a window that made obvious
where the interviewee lived. Three days after the
broadcast, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the
interviewee's window. [L. A. Times, Feb93]
The Diminishing Value of Life
* A 39-year-old man was gunned down by a friend in his
home in Dayton, Ohio, in January, after an argument
over light or dark liquor was better and who could
drink the most. [Dayton Daily News, 1-11-93]
END
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End of Subgenius Digest
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