The Loony Bin
(
loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
)
Thu, 26 Sep 1996 16:24:50 +0100
Hiya All...
More really strange news from Alan...
Wishes & Dreams...
- ANDREA
xx
*************<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>*************
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------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------
LEAD STORIES
* Abdala ("El Loco") Bucaram was elected president of Ecuador in July,
six years after he briefly fled to Panama to avoid corruption charges.
In the campaign, Bucaram sang in his own ads and reminded voters of his
tenure as a moralistic police commissioner of the city of Guayaquil in
the 1980s, during which he sometimes jumped off his motor scooter to rip
the skirt hems loose on women who were showing too much leg. He
downplays his Hitler-like moustache, blaming it on his incompetence at
shaving. [New York Times, 7-22-96]
* In June, radio station WWAX-FM in the Duluth, Minn., suburb of
Hermantown began an all-commercials format. Said general manager J.
Thomas Lijewski, commercials are an "art form that deserves to be
respected." The station will air vintage ads, odd local and national
ads, and bloopers, in addition to revenue-producing commercials.
[Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun96]
* In July in Dadeville, Ala., Mr. Gabel Taylor, 38, who had just
prevailed in an informal Bible-quoting contest, was shot to death by the
loser. [Montgomery Advertiser-AP, 7-19-96]
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
* In an April Associated Press story, Levent Yueksel's and wife Sherri
Kane's 32-seat Dardanelles restaurant in Philadelphia, Pa., was
profiled, not for its food but for its attitude: According to a sign in
the window, the restaurant refuses to serve "negative people" (who are
also referred to in the sign as "assholes"). Say Yueksel and Kane, that
includes people who smoke, who are rude, who demand their food in a
hurry, or who want the music turned down. The owners say they insist on
respect "for the people who feed you." [Newark Star Ledger-AP, 4-22-96]
* The magazine Tokyo Weekender, reporting in late 1995 on the specialty-
bra rage in Japan, cited The Triumph Company's "Body-Warmth Bra Two-Cup
Ozeki." As padding, the bra contains a waterproof pocket sealed with a
cork stopper and which comes with about 40 ccs of sake, which will warm
to body temperature in about an hour. [Far Eastern Economic Review-
Tokyo Weekender, 7-29-96]
* Malaysian Gurcharan Singh announced in April that he was marketing a
breakthrough, $40 "disposable circumcision device" approved by Muslim
religious authorities. It is described as resembling a corkscrew and is
called the Tara Klamp. [Edmonton Journal, 4-17-96]
* Recently, Budapest, Hungary, novelty shopkeeper Ferenc Kovacs, 45,
introduced condoms that, when unrolled, play one of two tunes ("Arise,
Ye Worker" or "You Sweet Little Dumbbell"). And Marc Snyder of Oakland,
Calif., has marketed a $3.95 talking condom using similar technology but
with message options ("You turn me on" or "I love you" or "Thank you for
your business"). And a food company executive in Poland, Dariusz
Napierala, announced in May that he will soon offer a "tourist survival
kit" of canned meat, plastic utensils, tea, and a condom. [Inland Valley
Daily Bulletin (Ontario, Calif.)- AP, 6-16-96] [San Francisco Chronicle,
3-15-96] [AP wirecopy, 5-30-96]
* Frank Fradella of Boynton Beach, Fla., charges $50 for custom-made,
two-page love letters and poetry ("My words . . .on your lips"). In
February, a Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reporter found several male
customers who praised Fradella's work even though their women had left
them. [Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, 2-14-96]
INEXPLICABLE
* In June, Federal inmate Arthur Morrison, who had served 46 months of
his 51-month sentence for threatening former girlfriends, finally got
his wishes to withdraw his guilty plea to those charges, to go to trial,
and to be his own lawyer. New York City prosecutors said their evidence
(including audiotapes) is still overwhelming and that they would seek a
sentence of at least 15 years. Morrison acknowledged that his chances
of prevailing at trial were slim. [New York Times, 6-18-96]
* Earlier this year, Michael J. Lewis, Sr., serving time in Missouri for
a gas station robbery, called the county attorney's office just out of
curiosity, to find out why he had never been prosecuted for a 1993 bank
robbery with which he had been charged. The prosecutor discovered that
that file had been misplaced and that only a few months remained to
bring Lewis to trial before the statute of limitations would run out.
In June, Lewis, already serving 10 years, plea-bargained to another 10.
[St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 6-14-96]
* Last year, at a reception for the African/African-American Summit,
Inc., conference in Senegal (a conference attended by Jesse Jackson and
the late Ron Brown), the Club Med Senegal resort staged a skit in which
two white staff members appeared in blackface, with white lips, garish
clothes, and white gloves to perform a musical number, and a riot nearly
ensued. (In May 1996, offended organizations and individuals filed a $5
million lawsuit against Club Med in New York City.) [New Orleans Times-
Picayune-New York Times, 5-12-96]
* In March in North Adams, Mass., on a public-access cable TV program
about papier-mache masks, Ms. Royce Patton, 28, abruptly changed the
subject and accused a former neighbour of allowing two of her kids to
have sex. Patton named the family, ran a video of all of the woman's
seven children, and used obscenities in describing them. The former
neighbour said the dispute with Patton was really over loans of money
and a bottle of suntan lotion. [Columbia Tribune-AP, 4-3-96]
* In April, a 17-year-old boy drowned in the indoor pool at the Henry
VIII Hotel in a suburb of St. Louis, Mo. The boy had jumped in with
several others, but no one noticed that he had gone under because the
pool's water was so murky that visibility was only three to four feet.
[Columbia Tribune-AP, 4-8-96]
WELL-PUT
* A senior aide to Liberian factional leader Charles Taylor, explaining
to the New York Times in April why this year's civil war is more civil
than earlier ones: "In the past, fighters would rip out people's
intestines and use them to string up roadblocks. This time there has
been none of that." [New York Times, 4-30-96]
UPDATE
* When News of the Weird first mentioned Corky Ra's Summum, Inc., in
1988, the Salt Lake City company had just begun the business of
mummifying dead pets and had only the dream of someday mummifying dead
people, which Ra figured he could do for $7,000 ($18,000 for a mummified
bronzed statue). According to a June 1996 story in the San Jose Mercury
News, Ra has so far serviced three dozen dogs, cats, and birds, and has
a customer list of 137 humans (the oldest of which is 54) who want
someday to be mummified. His chief associate supposedly has practiced
on over 2,000 roadkill animals and on 30 cadavers purchased from a
medical school. The price for humans now starts at $30,000, and
bronzing could run into six figures. [San Jose Mercury News, 6-17-96]
Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. No
commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the
Weird.