[Prev][Next][Index]
it's not just a good idea, it's weird
November 25, 1990
KILLER SAYS TRIAL WAS ALL IN THE FAMILY
Convicted murderer Thomas Marston argued in his recent appeal that conflicts
of interest were responsible for his 1985 conviction in Mendocino County.
First, he submitted evidence that his attorney had fathered the child of the
then-district attorney, who was allegedly hassling the father for support at
the time of the trial. Then, a witness informed the appeals court that the
mother told her that the real father was the judge in Marston's case. Both
the judge and the mother denied the allegations.
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
Greyhound Corp. vice president John Munro, despairing of complaints about
dirty restrooms in bus depots, began a policy recently of holding
unscheduled formal dinners with regional managers in their depot restrooms,
complete with tablecloth, flowers and champagne. (And, according to the
leading automobile fact book, only 71 of the 114,700 service stations in the
United States have "clean" restrooms.)
The government of Japan began testing silvery, reflective coats and hats
designed by a Tokyo professor to be worn by cows. The garb is intended to
cool them in summer and warm them in winter and therefore to make them
produce more meat and milk. And Australian researcher Philbert Hausman said
earlier this year that milk production could be increased up to 35 percent
by playing certain background music while cows are being milked. his
favorite was Elvis Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
A 54-year-old Italian schoolteacher was arrested in September for trying to
sell as many as 700 homemade videotapes of couples engaged in extramarital
sex. The teacher was popular in his small town of Striano for offering his
home for trysts, but he would secretly tape the sessions and offer them for
sale in Naples, hoping the participants would not find out.
An inventor, seeking to reduce the litter of abandoned golf tees on the
nation's courses, recently invented a biodegradable tee.
SCIENCE FAIR
A paper presented by a Vancouver consulting firm at the Indoor Air '90
conference in Toronto in August reported that, because of household
cleaners, homemakers have a 55 percent higher risk of getting cancer than do
women who work outside the home.
In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Lomagistro saved the
fingers of a woman who had them almost severed when her boyfriend
accidentally slammed the door on them. Lomagistro attached 35 fat, black
leeches to her fingertips so they could draw blood from her hand down to the
fingers. The operation was pronounced a success in August.
Researchers in Copenhagen recently claimed to have traced a quarter ton of
mercury (6 percent of the country's annual airborne total) to dental
fillings of dead people. Mercury gas was released into the air during
cremation.
The British medical journal Pharos International reported recently that
silicone breast implants will remain in the ground far longer than the
bodies that house them and in fact are non-biodegradable and could pose
future water pollution problems.
A recent medical journal article details the case of a 26-year-old man who
has consistently for 15 years suffered delusions that he is a cat. At 17,
he confessed to eating small prey, to having sex with cats, to having fallen
in love with a zoo tigress and to having attempted suicide when the tigress
was moved to another zoo. He still dresses in tiger-striped clothes.
More than 40 scientists from a dozen nations met in Washington in September
for the First World Congress on the Health Significance of Garlic and Garlic
Constituents, covering garlic's cancer-fighting and cholesterol-lowering
qualities.
Attempting to show the safety of a new printing chemical used to foil
counterfeiting of $50 bills, the Bank of Canada released the results of a
study concluding that the chemical would be fatal only if an ordinary-sized
person ate $9.6 million.
December 2, 1990
DRUG BUSTERS' COLOR SCHEME CANNED
After much criticism, the Naples, Fla., Police Department canceled its
latest campaign against drug dealers in October. The department, which has
one black officer (out of 75), had dressed undercover white officers in
blackface and colorful clothes because, said one official, "sales are made
predominantly by blacks."
THE SITE MADE SCENTS
When promoters of Japan's National Arbor Festival in May realized the site
where Emperor Akihito and his wife would plant a ceremonial tree was
downwind from a 3100-head pig farm, the local government of Nagasaki spent
about $50,000 to perfume the pigs with lemon-and-lime air freshener during
their visit.
Campus police at the University of Alabama at Birmingham guaranteed to
students a maximum 10-minute response time to emergencies (including jump
starts for dead batteries) starting in May, offering as payment if they fail
coupons for free car washes.
San Diego County political leaders were in a tizzy earlier this year when
they discovered that the board of supervisors, to save $600,000 in
constructing a jail seven year ago, ordered dry wall and styrofoam for walls
instead of concrete (making the jail structure weaker than that of the local
dog pound). Eleven jailbreaks have occurred since (most from quick punches
through walls).
In a report by the defense select committee to Britain's House of Commons in
May, private security guards at 56 British military installations were
criticized as being "hopeless," "not strong enough to perform...heavy
lifting," often asleep on the job, and in "some" cases "afraid of the dark."
Findings of a Senate Budget Committee report on Pentagon spending earlier
this year included the revelations that the Army has decided to increase the
variety of sizes in women's shirts from 54 to 126 (despite the fact that the
clothing industry uses approximately 40 sizes) and that the Navy has
acquired 53,268 each of a certain F-14 airplane machine tool whose rate of
usage (four per year) indicates the Navy is now stocked up on it for the
next 13,157 years.
HEIRS (NOT) APPARENT
Esther O'Handlen died near Peoria, Ill., in 1988 at age 72, leaving an
estate of $300,000. Now, five heirs of her father will share half the
estate even though four had never heard of Esther and even though Esther's
heirs claim the father abandoned her after he raped her mother. Esther's
heirs share the other half even though they apparently never took care of
her, either. She died toothless and emaciated, having survived the last
months on milk and Twinkies.
At a joint appearance in June, Little Rock, Ark., black activist Robert
"Say" McIntosh punched out segregationist Republican candidate for
lieutenant governor Ralph Forbes because Forbes had earlier prevented
McIntosh from burning an American flag. McIntosh then endorsed Forbes'
candidacy, saying, "I've always favored white people who will tell you they
don't like you."