BS: I Read it in the Newspaper

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 03:34 PM

Actually a search for threads which include the word turns up the following:

The Forum Results (1 to 17 of 17)

0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: La France: Oui ou Non? - Jun 3 2005 8:10AM -   robomatic
Summary: Yeah, I've been dropping in on forums which are opposite polarity to this one and they've been saying "Vive La France!" as well, but I think it's mainly schadenfreude.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: Anti-Depressants / Getting off of - Mar 31 2005 11:35PM -   harpgirl
Summary: If it were prosocial it would reflect empathy. You specifically need to develop some empathy. It is imperative that you study empathy and begin to attain some.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: They sure breed them young - Mar 14 2005 11:43PM -   robomatic
Summary: ard mhaca: how do you say "Schadenfreude" in gaelic?
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: HRH Prince Charles is homosexual ! - Nov 10 2003 2:34AM -   alanabit
Summary: Royalty isn't really the issue Mike. I am a republican (in the UK sense of the word). I respect everyone's right to privacy in their private life whether it's pop stars, film stars, politicians or the man who serves me a pint in the pub.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: German politician dies parachuting - Jun 7 2003 4:17PM -   alanabit
Summary: He always seemed something of an attention seeker to me. He was definitely a troubled man. However, if only for the sake of his family, any sense of Schadenfreude which I might have felt at his fall (whether you take that physically or metaphorically) has long since been put aside.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: Famous exit lines - May 8 2003 2:42PM -   John 'Giok' MacKenzie
Summary: Touch of schadenfreude there Gareth. Remember what BH Calcutta [Failed] said in The Perishers. "It are wicked to mock the afflicted" Giok
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: The FLAGRANT Lady Mary - Sep 30 2002 3:08PM -   Gervase
Summary: Ah, the Lavender List - those of us who grew up in the Sixties always knew tht Marcia Forkbender was servicing "Our 'Arold", but it's nice to see it confirmed! Given that the major imperatives in life are food, shelter and reproduction, the shagging bit features fairly prominenty in the political process. Obviously life would be more serene if we could adopt the French sang froidabout mistresses and the like, but as cold-blooded Anglo-Saxons we just have to get our rocks off ...
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: Lyr Add: Melborn and Sydeny - Sep 23 2002 10:37PM -   John in Brisbane
Summary: I remember the song as if it was yesterday - but I realized this morning that I don't know the name of my Federal Member. I was asked a lot of years ago to participate in a recording project of Stephen Foster songs with PC references to 'darkie' etc removed. I refused - and for the same reasons I'll probably keep the original lyrics of this song intact.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: Corgi Missing, Where's Ozzie? Big 50th! - Jun 4 2002 1:04PM -   Peter K (Fionn)
Summary: I believe Kermit came and went all through the show (most of which I didn't see, because unbeknown to you N Americans the World Cup is underway). I did catch Tom Jones's glance of unease, but it was a fleeting thrill against the schadenfreude that swamped me when Parkinson met Rod Hull and Emu. The revelry has continued today on yet grander scale - some 5,000 gospel-singers under the direction of Pattie Boulaye, and several more thousand Chicken Shed kids have just gone down the Mall in a ...
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: Thatcher speaks no more - Mar 23 2002 3:42AM -   Lanfranc
Summary: I, too, was struck with a wave of schadenfreude when I heard the news. Dubya is as bad, if not worse, than Thatcher - reactionary, bellicose, ignorant, etc. Just because he can't string two coherent sentences together doesn't mean that he's not dangerous! Dubya is, frankly, bloody terrifying, as far as I'm concerned, and, thanks to Blur, we're supposed to be on his side.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 45 - Sep 5 2001 8:26AM -   Aidan Crossey
Summary: br> THE WRECK ON HIGHWAY 38 Who did you say it was, brother? When you heard the crash on the highway, Did you hear anyone pray? CHORUS I didn't hear nobody pray, dear brother I didn't hear nobody pray A shot, then the truck left the highway But I didn't hear nobody pray We thought we was clever in using The slug from my old twenty-two To fix up the lights on my pick-up But it was the worst thing we could do CHORUS<...
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury - Jul 19 2001 12:09PM -   Gervase
Summary: It's made my day! Who'd have thought that Schadenfreude could be quite such fun!!!!! For those who want to know more, click here.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: USA - Socialist Utopia? - Apr 3 2001 10:14AM -   Wolfgang
Summary: Yes, Ed, 'damage joy' it is verbatim, meaning 'joy about another person's damage'. We even have a tongue-in cheek proverbial saying Schadenfreude ist die reinste Freude (damage joy is the purest joy). Wolfgang
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: USA - Socialist Utopia? - Apr 3 2001 9:32AM -   Wolfgang
Summary: Schadenfreude
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: BS: There's no word for it... - Jun 5 2000 12:58PM -   Grab
Summary: If a word in one language doesn't exist in another, it soon gets borrowed. English has loads of French words and phrases ("camoflage", "joie de vivre", "esprit de corps") which have come in wholesale. Equally, French has acquired "le weekend", "le football" and so on.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: INFO REQ: New St. George/Richard Thompson - Sep 24 1997 11:31PM -   NonMember
Summary: Nope, Mr. Thompson isn't nasty, nor did I mean to imply it. I am reminded of the response of Samuel Johnson, English savant and compiler of the first modern English dictionary, when a woman asked him why he had erroneously defined the word "pastern" as "the knee of a horse" in his dictionary. "Ignorance, Madam; pure ignorance," was his reply.
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0.7742 - Thread - Message - RE: INFO REQ: New St. George/Richard Thompson - Sep 5 1997 4:39PM -   NonMember
Summary: Somehow, I think your "noose of joy" interpretation would wring a fine bittersweet grin or wry chuckle from Richard Thompson, given his affection for lyrics brimming with schadenfreude*. I for one certainly enjoyed it! *A wonderful German oxymoron, literally translated as "sad joy".
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 04:38 PM

Well Amos, it was obviously a new word to ME! Of course I don't expect that it has never been used here before. Mudcatters are one articulate group! ;-)

But this is news! I went through botany classes learning that grasses rose after the dinosaurs disappeared, but clearly it is a fragile substance so fossil evidence would be difficult in forming.

Dinosaurs May Have Eaten Grass

November 17, 2005

WASHINGTON - Imagine dinosaur terrain - full of ferns and palms, right? Better add some grass to that picture. A new discovery debunks the theory that grasses didn't emerge until long after the dinosaurs died off. Fossilized dung tells the story: The most prominent plant-eating dinosaurs were digesting different varieties of grass between 65 million and 71 million years ago, researchers report Friday in the journal Science. The earliest grass fossils ever found were about 55 million years old - from the post-dinosaur era.

It's a big surprise for scientists, who had never really looked for evidence of grass in dino diets before. After all, grass fossils aside, those sauropods - the behemoths with the long necks and tails and small heads - didn't have the special kind of teeth needed to grind up abrasive blades. "Most people would not have fathomed that they would eat grasses," noted lead researcher Caroline Stromberg of the Swedish Museum of Natural History. Stromberg and a team of paleobotanists from India analyzed sauropod dung - the scientific term is coprolites - found in central India.

The coprolites contained microscopic particles of silica called phytoliths, which form inside plant cells in distinctive patterns that essentially act as a signature. Amid the expected plants were numerous phytoliths certain to have come from the grass family, report Stromberg and Vandana Prasad of India's Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany. They included relatives of rice and bamboo and forage-type grasses.

They didn't eat a lot of grass, the evidence shows. But grasses must have originated considerably earlier, well over 80 million years ago, for such a wide variety to have evolved and spread to the Indian subcontinent in time to be munched by sauropods, they concluded.

"These remarkable results will force reconsideration of many long-standing assumptions" about dinosaur ecology, wrote Dolores Piperno and Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in an accompanying review. Beyond the great curiosity about dinosaur life, the discovery has implications about the coevolution of this huge plant family - there are about 10,000 separate grass species - with other plant-eaters, Piperno explained.

Indeed, a mysterious early mammal that roamed among the dinosaurs had more suitable teeth for grazing, raising the possibility of an early adaptation, the researchers note.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 11:10 AM

Lottery Winner Dead for Days Before Found
November 26, 2005

NEWPORT, Ky. - A woman who won a $65.4 million Powerball jackpot with her husband five years ago was found dead at her home overlooking the Ohio River. Police said she had been dead for days before anyone found her. Virginia Metcalf Merida's son found her dead Wednesday. Campbell County Police are awaiting autopsy results and toxicology results before announcing a cause of death. Investigators said there was no sign of forced entry at the 5,000-square-foot, custom-built geodesic dome house that Merida, 51, bought for $559,000 in 2000.

Her husband, Mack Wayne Metcalf, died in 2003 at age 45 while living in a replica of George Washington's Mount Vernon estate built in Corbin. His death followed multiple run-ins with the law in the days following the lottery win. When they won the jackpot, the couple refused dozens of interview requests but told lottery officials they were going separate ways to fulfill lifelong dreams. Merida was quitting her job making corrugated boxes and planned to buy a home. Metcalf, a forklift operator, wanted to start a new life in Australia.

The couple split the winnings of the $3 ticket bought at a Florence truck stop and opted to take a $34.1 million lump sum instead of annual installments. Merida took 40 percent, or $13.6 million, while Metcalf moved to Corbin with the remaining $20.5 million. Neighbors said Merida shunned attention successfully until last December, when a body was found in her home. Campbell County Deputy Coroner Al Garnick confirmed that a man died of a drug overdose at the home, but he couldn't recall the person's name. Official records were unavailable because of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Merida had used part of her winnings to buy a second home, but when she tried to evict the resident of the home, the renter sued her in Hamilton County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday. Carol Terrell Lawson, who is still renting the home, said Thursday that she never met Merida in person and only learned of the death after reporters began calling her.

David Huff, who bought the Mount Vernon look-alike home from Metcalf's estate, said Metcalf died of multiple ailments complicated by alcoholism. "It was a classic case of a person who never had anything and didn't know how to handle it," Huff said. "I think things went from bad to worse when he got the money."

After winning the jackpot, Metcalf was first ordered to pay $31,000 in back child support. Court workers in Kenton County said at the time that he was behind in support payments for his daughter from his first marriage since 1986. A judge ordered him to establish an $800,000 trust fund to take care of his daughter's future needs.

A month after winning the lottery win, a Boone County judge issued a warrant for Metcalf's arrest after he failed to appear in court on a drunken driving charge. It turned out that Metcalf had crashed into several parked cars while driving drunk through a mall parking lot a month before he won the lottery.

Metcalf eventually served four days on the DUI conviction but not before he was fined for causing a bar brawl in Florence. He also sued to reclaim $500,000 that he allegedly gave to a woman while he was drunk. Court records were unavailable Thursday to determine the outcome of that case.

Metcalf saw the Corbin home he eventually bought and liked it so much that he made an offer. He asked the owner what it would take to buy the home, complete with all the furnishings, and then handed over the asking price, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Saturday.

The lawyer, Robert Hammons, who still lives in Corbin, declined Thursday to say what he got for the home. The 4,000-square-foot residence estate is on 43 acres, with an outdoor pool and a metal building that would eventually house Metcalf's dozen classic cars. "It is really a bizarre story," Huff said. "Sad, when you think about it. He had a real hard life. I'm sure there are a lot of things that went wrong in his past that no one knows about."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Dec 05 - 03:18 PM

Hymenoplasty

From The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, December 15, 2005
U.S. women seek a second first time with hymen surgery

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 10:21 AM

Whoa, just read that hymen repair article. What a silly procedure to go through.

And now for something completely different:

Wis. Dog Frozen to Railroad Tracks Rescued
December 24, 2005

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. - He's missing a lot of hair, but a Siberian husky has a new name and a new life, thanks to a construction worker and police officer who rescued him from a railroad track minutes before a train arrived.

Jeremy Majorowicz thought it was a little strange that the dog had been sitting on the track for an hour-and-a-half in the cold, and stranger still that he wouldn't accept a bite of muffin. "I have two dogs myself, so I didn't want to leave the dog if there was something wrong," Majorowicz said, so he called police.

Officer Tim Strand said the dog was "shivering unmercifully" when he arrived Monday and would not come to him, so he called animal control officer Al Heyde, who also couldn't get the dog to budge. "I lifted his tail and hind quarters, and saw he was literally frozen to the tracks," Strand said.

Strand pulled hard on the dog's tail and was able to release him, but the dog lost a lot of hair. "He gave a heck of a whelp," he said. Just 10 minutes later, a train came down the track.

"If the dog would have seen that train I'm afraid it would have been the end of the pupster," Strand said. The dog was taken to the Chippewa County Humane Association, where workers named him "Ice Train."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Dec 05 - 08:15 PM

LOL

Sage, that's the story I was going to post when I refreshed this thread. I read it online yesterday and it had me guffawing. I was on the phone with a long distance call at the time and my reaction merited some explaining.

Did you notice the typo in the fourth paragraph?

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Dec 05 - 10:40 PM

That's their typo, I just cut and pasted it. Perhaps there was a pup left on the track after this transaction?

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Dec 05 - 11:49 PM

Heavens. I am aware that it is their typo.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 12:03 AM

So you didn't think I was typing each of these stories in by hand? We're so spoiled today--there have been lots of times in the past when I had to do just that.

:-D

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 12:24 AM

OK, den. :)

My guess is that someone phoned in a story and the person on the other end typed in what he/she thought the reporter said. It just struck me as very funny. That whelping - male - dog was mighty cold and confused.

A songwriter friend of mine wrote 'limpets' in a tidepools song; her transcriber printed it as 'lipids'. Would be funny if it weren't so durn stoopid.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 09:10 AM

One could easily dedicate an entire thread to the goofy typos found in published documents. These are not to be confused with whatever the mistakes are that GW Bush comes up with. Talk-Os? Misspokes? Brain Farts?

Maybe Jay Leno will receive a copy of the dog on the tracks story. It is the kind of mistake he relishes for his Headlines feature on Mondays.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 09:44 AM

Mister Bush's production of brain farts is legendary both forquality and for volume. His handlers tremble every time he has an unscripted mouth-opening event. You gotta wonder whaty his brain is made of, to produce so many.


A

A

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:16 AM

Whoa! Adjust that aluminum foil helmet!

Restraining order against Letterman tossed
link

SANTA FE, N.M. - A state judge has lifted a restraining order granted to a Santa Fe woman who accused talk-show host David Letterman of using coded words to show that he wanted to marry her and train her as his co-host. Judge Daniel Sanchez on Tuesday granted a request by lawyers for Letterman, host of CBS' "Late Show," to quash the temporary restraining order that he earlier granted to Colleen Nestler.

She alleged in a request filed Dec. 15 that Letterman has forced her to go bankrupt and caused her "mental cruelty" and "sleep deprivation" since May 1994. Nestler requested that Letterman, who tapes his show in New York, stay at least 3 yards away and not "think of me, and release me from his mental harassment and hammering."

Lawyers for Letterman contended the order was without merit. "He is entitled to a protection of his legal rights and a protection of his reputation," Pat Rogers, an Albuquerque lawyer representing Letterman, told the judge Tuesday. The New Mexico court doesn't have jurisdiction over Letterman, who is a resident of Connecticut, Rogers said.

Nestler appeared in court without a lawyer and represented herself. Responding to a question from the judge, Nestler said she had no proof of the allegations she had made against Letterman. She also said that if Letterman or any of his representatives came near her, "I will break their legs" and establish proof of her allegations. Nestler said after the court hearing that "I have achieved my purpose. The public knows that this man cannot come near me." She also said that her comment about breaking legs "is not a threat."

"I appealed to the court for a restraining order to keep this man away from me, but now that's been denied me," she said. "He has access to me. He can actually come for me or send people. He has many accomplices. I know this sounds crazy. I was crazy to have listened to him in the beginning."

Nestler's application for a restraining order was accompanied by a six-page typed letter in which she said Letterman used code words, gestures and "eye expressions" to convey his desires for her. She wrote that she began sending Letterman "thoughts of love" after his show began in 1993, and that he responded in code words and gestures, asking her to come East. Nestler said Letterman asked her to be his wife during a televised "teaser" for his show by saying, "Marry me, Oprah." Her letter said Oprah was the first of many code names for her and that the coded vocabulary increased and changed with time.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 12:30 PM

Makes sense to me. I can't figure out why the judge wouldn't make permanent the restraining order. What's the world coming to?

Charley Noble, safe in Maine

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 12:39 PM

Easy for you to say, Charlie. Wait until some female talk-show host starts sending YOU code-words and eye-gestures. See how much sleep YOU get!!


A

And there's no doubt about it
It was a myth of fingerprints
I've seen them all, and man,
They're all the same....

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 12:50 PM

In other news, the overly zealous are now decreeing that young women should be denied a preventative for cervical cancer, which targets the HPV virus, because the virus is sexually transmitted and they deserve what they get for not obeying the arbitrary moralistic meddling muddy-minded mandates of the not-very-bright.

Full story here.

I spit.

A

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 01:30 PM

Makes you wonder if any of them manage to keep their children alive until adulthood.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Dec 05 - 08:35 AM

"Nestler's application for a restraining order was accompanied by a six-page typed letter in which she said Letterman used code words, gestures and "eye expressions" to convey his desires for..."

There's some vacancies on School boards coming up I hear.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jan 06 - 08:11 AM

Too bad these jeans are only in a "punk" style!
link
Young, trendy Swedes think devilish jeans are heaven-sent
By Karl Ritter

January 1, 2006

STOCKHOLM -- A punk-rock style, trendy tight fit and affordable price have made Cheap Monday jeans a hot commodity among young Swedes, but what has people talking is the brand's ungodly logo: a skull with a cross turned upside down on its forehead. The jeans' makers say it's more of a joke, but the logo's designer said there's a deeper message. "It is an active statement against Christianity," Bjorn Atldax said. "I'm not a Satanist myself but I have a great dislike for organized religion."

Atldax insists he has a purpose beyond selling denim: to make young people question Christianity, which he called a "force of evil" that had sparked wars throughout history. Such a remark might incite outrage or prompt retailers to drop the brand in more religious countries. But not in Sweden, a secular nation that cherishes its free speech and where churchgoing has been declining for decades.

Cheap Mondays are flying off the shelves at $50 a pair. The jeans have also been shipped throughout Europe and to Australia, and there are plans to introduce them to the United States and elsewhere. The jeans' makers say about 200,000 pairs have been sold since March 2004 -- and note they have received few complaints about the grinning skull and upside-down cross, a symbol often associated with satanic worship.

Even the country's largest church, the Lutheran Church of Sweden, reacts with a shrug. "I don't think it's much to be horrified about," said Bo Larsson, director of the church's Department of Education, Research and Culture. "It is abundantly clear that this designer wants to create public opinion against the Christian faith . . . but I believe that the way to deal with this is to start a discussion about what religion means."

Other Christians, however, are calling for a tougher stance against the jeans. "One cannot just keep quiet about this," said Rev. Karl-Erik Nylund, vicar of St. Mary Magdalene Church in Stockholm. "This is a deliberate provocation [against Christians], and I object to that." Nylund said Swedish companies don't treat Christianity with the same respect that they afford other religions. "No one wants to provoke Jews or Muslims, but it's totally OK to provoke Christians," he said.

Some buyers have ripped off the logo from the back of the pants or even returned the jeans once they realized what the symbol means. But such cases are very few, according to the brand's creator, Orjan Andersson, who said he doesn't take the logo too seriously. "I'm not interested in religion," he said. "I'm more interested in that the logo looks good."

Henrik Petersson, 26, said he picked up his first pair of Cheap Mondays a few months after they were launched because he liked their punk-rocker style and the logo caught his eye. "I think it's a cool thing. It stands out from the rest," he said. "I haven't really reflected over whether there is an underlying message."

Martin Sundberg, a 32-year-old co-owner of a clothing store in Stockholm's trendy SoFo district, said people shouldn't get upset over the jeans. "It's just supposed to be a bit of fun, some kind of anti-culture," he said.

The jeans are selling in Norway, Denmark, Britain, the Netherlands and France. Andersson, the brand's owner, hopes to tap the lucrative U.S. market soon and said he isn't worried the logo will hurt sales. "Surely, most people understand that we are not evil people," he said. "My mom doesn't think so, at least."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 09:09 AM

This story caught my eye for a couple of reasons. I was contemplating moving to ABQ about the time the crash in this story happened, and I remember reading about the impassioned trial. But the clincher in this one comes down near the bottom of the story, with a bit of irony.

N.M. Man Loses Home in Holiday Tragedy
January 03, 2006

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Paul Cravens tries to remain positive after suffering tragic personal loss during the holidays not once in his life, but twice. A fire just three days after Christmas destroyed his home - 13 years after his wife and her three daughters were killed in a Christmas Eve car crash involving a drunk driver. "I concentrate on all the good times we had together and know that God has something better in store for us," Cravens said. Flames on Wednesday gutted his home in Tijeras, just east of Albuquerque.

On Christmas Eve 1992, Cravens and his family were traveling on Interstate 40 when a man who admitted drinking more than seven beers that day drove a pickup truck the wrong way and collided head-on with the family's vehicle. Cravens' wife, Melanie Cravens, and her daughters - Kandyce, 9, Erin, 8 and Kacee Woodard, 5 - were killed. Gordon House of Thoreau was convicted in 1995 of four counts of vehicular homicide and other charges and is serving a 22-year prison sentence.

Paul Cravens survived the crash but was injured and did not learn about his family's deaths until New Year's Day 1993, which would have been Melanie's 33rd birthday. The couple would have celebrated their third wedding anniversary three days later. "After the fourth, we almost take another breath and begin to live again," said Melanie's mother, Nadine Milford, who has become a leading crusader against drunken driving in New Mexico since the crash.

An electrical short in the ceiling sparked a blaze Wednesday at Cravens' home. He was outside working at about 9:30 p.m. when he saw smoke in the house. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and a ladder, but it was too late. "Pretty much everything is going to be a loss," he said. He was able to save the photos of his wife and the girls, along with notes for his master's thesis in electrical engineering, a laptop computer and a few other things.

Cravens said that while he was recovering from injuries he suffered in the car crash years earlier, thieves broke into the family's Albuquerque home and stole Christmas presents and clothes. He fears the same thing will happen this time, so he plans to stay in a trailer until he rebuilds on the same property.

Cravens said there are nights when he misses his wife and the girls, but the support of his family keeps him going. He was depressed for many years after the accident and said the holidays are particularly difficult. "You can spend a lot of time thinking and being depressed, but there's nothing you can do to change what happened," he said. "You just have to anticipate that something better is coming down the road."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:31 PM

From the Boston _Globe_, 29 August 1995 (I still don't know whether to believe it):

Alligator became a hunter of hunt dogs

Baying of hounds rang dinner bell

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Rufus Godwin learned the fate of his missing hunting dog Flojo when a 500-pound alligator coughed up the animal's electronic tracking collar.

In the animal, trappers found tags and collars of six more hounds.

For the past 20 years, hunting dogs have been disappearing in the Blackwater River State Forest.[...]

Godwin had set loose Flojo, a $5,000 Walker fox-hunting hound, in the forest about 45 miles northeast of Pensacola. The last he heard of her was her baying on the chase.

He was searching for her with her electronic collar tracking device when he caught a faint signal. Jamie Sauls, with Godwin, also got signals from the collar of a dog he had lost weeks earlier.

"When we walked up to this hole, just all of a sudden the boxes went to beeping out of sight. They just went wide open," Godwin said[...].

The 10-foot, 11-inch reptile was captured Aug. 15 by state-contracted alligator hunters.

Four men harpooned the beast, taped its mouth shut and wrestled it until they had the animal hogtied. During the struggle the alligator spit up Flojo's $125 tracking collar.

In the alligator's stomach, the trappers found a collection of dog collars. One was from a dog belonging to Aden Fleming that disappeared 14 years ago.

The alligator was estimated to be 50 years old.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: "God wills it" gives the wrong kind of comfort to count as an explanation. :||

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:50 PM

I remember reading this some time ago. A search of Urban Legends at Snopes and About.com doesn't turn up even a mention.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 01:15 PM

This is a continuation of a story that I read about over a year ago. I don't think I posted any of it here, but there is a troubling element in this investigation that few will have difficulty recognising.

Deadly I-5 crash results in a fine
A Bellevue woman receives a ticket, but is not criminally charged in a 2004 wreck near Marysville.

link

MARYSVILLE - More than a year after Juliann Odom crossed the median on I-5 near Marysville and slammed into a Chevrolet Suburban, killing a Bothell woman, police have cited her for second-degree negligent driving. Odom, 23, was issued a traffic ticket Dec. 8 in Cascade District Court in Arlington. The Bellevue woman paid the $538 fine a couple of weeks later.

No criminal charges have been filed against Odom in connection with the Dec. 15, 2004, crash that killed Megan Holschen, 18, and severely injured her mother and younger sister. Washington State Patrol investigators spent months piecing together the events of the fiery crash, compiling hundreds of pages of documents, pictures and diagrams. But detectives haven't been able to pinpoint why Odom lost control of her Ford Explorer. "Our opinion is operator error caused the crash. Why she lost control? That's a question I can't answer," said Sgt. Jerry Cooper with the State Patrol's major accident investigation team.

Odom has refused to speak with investigators.

Detectives believe Odom was southbound in the right lane when she drove onto the shoulder, veered left, crossed three lanes of traffic and plowed through the cable barrier. Odom's vehicle vaulted out of the median, taking two cable strands with it into the northbound lanes, according to court records. Her Ford Explorer landed on the Holschens' Suburban. Megan Holschen, who was riding in the passenger seat, was killed instantly.

Investigators have ruled out mechanical problems with Odom's vehicle, and also any road conditions that would have caused her to lose control. Detectives didn't find any evidence that Odom was intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, Cooper said. Investigators also concluded that Odom wasn't speeding excessively.

Detectives explored additional theories about why Odom veered into oncoming traffic, and have sought her medical records to try to make a determination. Odom has declined to provide those records because "they are private," her attorney, Nick Scarpelli, said Thursday.

Snohomish County prosecutors initiated a special closed-door hearing to ask a judge to release the medical documents. A judge agreed that some of the records could be made public, but Odom's attorney appealed the decision. The state Supreme Court is expected to review the appeal sometime this month. Investigators don't know what, if anything, they'll find in those records, but wanted them as another attempt to look at why Odom lost control, Cooper said.

"We want to close all doors. Questions were brought to us, and we needed to follow up on those," he said. Investigators will review the medical records if Odom is eventually forced to provide them. Criminal charges against her have not been ruled out.

"The issuance of a civil infraction doesn't preclude us from later filing criminal charges if we receive a referral and there is adequate evidence to support criminal charges," said Joan Cavagnaro, the county's chief criminal deputy prosecutor.

John Holschen said he and his family hope the state will continue pursuing the facts. "If there is more to it than meets the eye, and if this young lady needs help and the public needs protection from this behavior in the future," it's important to get answers, he said.

His wife and daughter, Jolie, continue to recover from their injuries and expect to undergo additional surgeries in the coming months. "It's proven to be a very long road," Holschen said.

Odom is remorseful about the crash, Scarpelli said. He declined to comment about her recovery, saying only that she was seriously injured in the accident.

The Seattle attorney said he doesn't know why Odom lost control of her vehicle, but pointed to the cable barriers. "Instead of being stopped by the cable barriers, she was allowed to go through," he said. "We contend that the cable barriers were defectively installed."

A Herald analysis last summer found that the barriers failed to stop cars in the median 20 percent of the time on the stretch of I-5 where the accident happened. A state report on the cable barriers is expected within a few weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 02:44 PM

Seems to me the privacy of thos emedical records, which is usually of little public relevance, has suddenly become a barrier to genuine justice. If she was driving while, for example, having a known history of petit mal seizures, or blackouts, her negligence was homicidal in the actual event.

A

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 09:36 PM

It is clear she has something to hide.

I remember reading about this dramatic accident. The van was filled with all but two members of this large family. It was a heroic effort to save the rest of the lives because of a vehicle fire nearby. Passersby were able to hook up the van and pull it way from a burning vehicle or other children would have perished as well.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 04:57 PM

Now here is something that Dubya could have the troops do that would actually be helpful--solve some of the piracy problems in the Indian Ocean. Leave soverign nations alone.

U.S. Navy Seizes Pirate Ship Off Somalia
January 22, 2006

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The U.S. Navy boarded an apparent pirate ship in the Indian Ocean and detained 26 men for questioning, the Navy said Sunday. The 16 Indians and 10 Somali men were aboard a traditional dhow that was chased and seized Saturday by the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, said Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain. The dhow stopped fleeing after the Churchill twice fired warning shots during the chase, which ended 54 miles off the coast of Somalia, the Navy said. U.S. sailors boarded the dhow and seized a cache of small arms.

The dhow's crew and passengers were being questioned Sunday aboard the Churchill to determine which were pirates and which were legitimate crew members, Hull-Ryde said. Sailors aboard the dhow told Navy investigators that pirates hijacked the vessel six days ago near Mogadishu and thereafter used it to stage pirate attacks on merchant ships.

The Churchill is part of a multinational task force patrolling the western Indian Ocean and Horn of Africa region to thwart terrorist activity and other lawlessness during the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The Navy said it captured the dhow in response to a report from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur on Friday that said pirates had fired on the MV Delta Ranger, a Bahamian-flagged bulk carrier that was passing some 200 miles off the central eastern coast of Somalia.

Hull-Ryde said the Navy was still investigating the incident and would discuss with international authorities what to do with the detained men. "The disposition of people and vessels involved in acts of piracy on the high seas are based on a variety of factors, including the offense, the flags of the vessels, the nationalities of the crew, and others," Hull-Ryde said in an e-mail.

Piracy is rampant off the coast of Somalia, which is torn by renewed clashes between militias fighting over control of the troubled African country. Many shipping companies resort to paying ransoms, saying they have few alternatives. Last month, Somali militiamen finally relinquished a merchant ship hijacked in October. In November, Somali pirates freed a Ukrainian ore carrier and its 22 member crew after holding it for 40 days. It was unclear whether a US$700,000 ransom demanded by the pirates had been paid.

One of the boldest recent attacks was on Nov. 5, when two boats full of pirates approached a cruise ship carrying Western tourists, about 100 miles off Somalia and fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles. The crew used a weapon that directs earsplitting noise at attackers, then sped away.

Somalia has had no effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other, carving the nation of 8.2 million into a patchwork of fiefdoms.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 05:22 PM

You know, real pirates aren't nearly as much fun as the Disney versions.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 10:57 AM

Don't tell Bush that and maybe he'd do something useful in spite of himself.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 12:43 PM

I doubt he could pronounce Arrrgh.


A

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 11:47 AM

This is a very long, very well-researched article. It's one of those accounts that is so annoying, because there has been a steady trickle of people saying "something isn't right here" and they have been largely ignored by the mainstream publishing world. The fact that most of those ignored voices were Indians and scholars (Indian and otherwise) and that the story only makes news when told by a mainstream white (?) writer is a classic problem in American Indian literature scholarship.

Here is a link to this very long piece. I'm running just the beginning of it here.

Navahoax
Did a struggling white writer of gay erotica become one of multicultural literature's most celebrated memoirists — by passing himself off as Native American?

By MATTHEW FLEISCHER
Wednesday, January 25, 2006

"So achingly honest it takes your breath away."
—Miami Herald on The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping

In June of 1999 a writer calling himself Nasdijj emerged from obscurity to publish an ode to his adopted son in Esquire. "My son is dead," he began. "I didn't say my adopted son is dead. He was my son. My son was a Navajo. He lived six years. They were the best six years of my life."

The boy's name was Tommy Nothing Fancy and Nasdijj wrote that he and his wife adopted Tommy as an infant and raised him in their home on the Navajo reservation. At first, Tommy seemed like a healthy baby, albeit one who consistently cried throughout the night. "The doctor at the Indian Health Service said it was nothing. Probably gas."

But it wasn't gas. Tommy suffered from a severe case of fetal alcohol syndrome, or FAS. Though Tommy looked normal, his crying continued and as he grew older he began to suffer massive seizures. "I thought I could see him getting duller with every seizure. He knew he was slowly dying."

Nasdijj knew too, and he tried to give his son as full a life as time would allow. Fishing was Tommy's favorite thing to do and they went often — sometimes at the expense of his medical care. "For my son hospitals were analogous to torture. Tommy Nothing Fancy wanted to die with his dad and his dog while fishing."

Nasdijj's wife wanted Tommy in the hospital receiving modern medical treatment. "She was a modern Indian... She begged. She pleaded. She screamed. She pounded the walls. But the hospitals and doctors never made it better."

Though the conflict tore his marriage apart, Nasdijj continued to take his son fishing and, true to his last wish, Tommy died of a seizure while on an expedition.

"I was catching brown trout," Nasdijj wrote. "I was thinking about cooking them for dinner over our campfire when Tommy Nothing Fancy fell. All that shaking. It was as if a bolt of lighting surged uncontrolled through the damaged brain of my son. It wasn't fair. He was just a little boy who liked to fish... I was holding him when he died... The fish escaped."

The Esquire piece, as successful as it was heartbreaking, was a finalist for a National Magazine Award and helped establish Nasdijj as a prominent new voice in the world of nonfiction. "Esquire's Cinderella story," as Salon's Sean Elder called it, "arrived over the transom, addressed to no one in particular. 'The cover letter was this screed about how Esquire had never published the work of an American-Indian writer and never would because it's such a racist publication,' recalls editor in chief David Granger. 'And under it was... one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I'd ever read.' By the time the piece was published in the June issue, the writer (who lives on an Indian reservation) had a book contract."

The contract was for a full-length memoir, The Blood Runs Like A River Through My Dreams, published by Houghton Mifflin in 2000 to great acclaim. It was followed by two more memoirs, The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping (Ballantine, 2003), and Geronimo's Bones: A Memoir of My Brother and Me (Ballantine, 2004). As if losing a son was not enough, the memoirs portray a lifetime of suffering.

Nasdijj was born on the Navajo reservation in a hogan in 1950, he claims, the son of an abusive white cowboy "who broke, bred, and bootlegged horses" and a Navajo mother. "My mother," he writes, "was a hopeless drunk. I would use the word 'alcoholic' but it's too polite. It's a white people word... There is nothing polite about cleaning up your mother in her vomit and dragging her unconscious carcass back to the migrant housing trailer you lived in."

Nasdijj says his father would sometimes pimp his mother to other migrant workers for "five bucks" and that she died of alcoholism when he was 7. Though their time together was short and turbulent, Nasdijj says his mother instilled in him the Navajo traditions that now inform his work.

His father, he says, was a sexual predator who raped him the night his mother died. Because his father was white, Nasdijj says he was treated like an "outcast bastard" on the reservation. Like Tommy Nothing Fancy, Nasdijj claims to have fetal alcohol syndrome and to have been raised, with his brother, in migrant camps all over the country.

Nasdijj knows how to pull heartstrings. Both The Blood and The Boy revolve around the lives and deaths of his adopted Navajo sons. "Death, to the Navajo, is like the cold wind that blows across the mesa from the north," Nasdijj writes in The Blood. "We do not speak of it." But Nasdijj does speak of it. In fact, he speaks of it almost exclusively. Death and suffering are his staples.

"My son comes back to me when I least expect to see his ghostly vision," he writes. "He lives in my bones and scars."

But Nasdijj hasn't built his career purely through the tragic and sensational nature of his stories. His style is an artful blending of poetry and prose, and his work has met with nearly universal critical praise. The Blood "reminds us that brave and engaging writers lurk in the most forgotten corners of society," wrote Ted Conover in The New York Times Book Review. Rick Bass called it "mesmerizing, apocalyptic, achingly beautiful and redemptive... a powerful American classic," while Howard Frank Mosher said it was "the best memoir I have read about family love, particularly a father's love for his son, since A River Runs Through It."The Blood was a New York Times Notable Book, a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and winner of the Salon Book Award.

The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping was published to more glowing reviews — "vivid and immediate, crackling with anger, humor, and love" (The Washington Post) and "riveting... lyrical... a ragged wail of a song, an ancient song, where we learn what it is to truly be a parent and love a child" (USA Today).

Shortly after The Blood came out, Nasdijj writes, he moved back to the Navajo reservation, where word of his book and his compassion spread. One day while fishing, a Navajo man and his 10-year-old son approached him. The man took Nasdijj aside and explained that he, his wife and their son, Awee, had AIDS. "They were not terrific parents," Nasdijj wrote "but they wanted this child to have a chance at life." Nasdijj was that chance. For the next two years Nasdijj cared for Awee until his death from AIDS-related illness.

The Boy won a 2004 PEN/Beyond Margins Award and helped solidify Nasdijj's place as one of the most celebrated multicultural writers in American literature. But as his successes and literary credentials grew in number so did his skeptics — particularly from within the Native American community. Sherman Alexie first heard of Nasdijj in 1999 after his former editor sent him a galley proof of The Blood for comment. At the time, Alexie, who is Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, was one of the hottest authors in America and was widely considered the most prominent voice in Native American literature. His novel Indian Killer was a New York Times notable book, and his cinematic feature Smoke Signals was the previous year's Sundance darling, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and winner of the Audience Award. Alexie's seal of approval would have provided The Blood with a virtual rubber stamp of native authenticity. But it took Alexie only a few pages before he realized he couldn't vouch for the work. It wasn't just that similar writing style and cadence that bothered Alexie.

"The whole time I was reading I was thinking, this doesn't just sound like me, this is me," he says.

Alexie was born hydrocephalic, a life-threatening condition characterized by water on the brain. At the age of 6 months he underwent brain surgery that saved his life but left him, much like Tommy Nothing Fancy, prone to chronic seizures throughout his childhood. Instead of identifying with Nasdijj's story, however, Alexie became suspicious.

"At first I was flattered but as I kept reading I noticed he was borrowing from other Native writers too. I thought, this can't be real."

Indeed, Nasdijj's stories also bear uncanny resemblance to the works of N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Silko and especially Michael Dorris, whose memoir The Broken Cord depicts his struggle to care for his adopted FAS-stricken Native Alaskan children. Although there was never more than a similar phrase here and there, Alexie was convinced that the work was fabricated. He wasn't alone.

Shortly after his review of The Blood came out in The New York Times Book Review, Ted Conover received an Internet greeting card from Nasdijj chastising him for his piece. Conover, an award-winning journalist whose 2003 book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was taken aback. Not only is it highly unusual for an author to attack a reviewer, but it is especially unusual when the review in question was overwhelmingly positive — Conover's flattering words would grace the paperback cover.

Conover's main critique was that Nasdijj was "stingy with self-revelation." He questioned certain inconsistencies in the author's background, noting that Nasdijj sometimes said his mother was "with the Navajo," sometimes she was "Navajo, or so she claimed," and other times she was just "Navajo." Conover never accused Nasdijj of lying, he merely suggested that the writer be more forthcoming. Nasdijj, however, rejected this suggestion and sent the angry letter, which Conover characterizes as a sprawling diatribe.

"The whole thing was just really bizarre," Conover says.

Conover sent a copy of the card to Anton Mueller, Nasdijj's editor at Houghton Mifflin and an acquaintance. "I wondered if he might shed a little light on this," he says. Mueller, however, never responded and the incident left Conover wondering whether he should have been more thorough in investigating Nasdijj before writing his review. It didn't take him long to find an answer. Several weeks later, Conover was contacted by an expert in fetal alcohol syndrome who had read his review. She informed him that while she sympathized with the plight of Nasdijj and his son, the symptoms described in The Blood are not actually those of FAS.

Says Conover, "I immediately thought, 'Oh no, I've been duped.'"

[This story is quite long and the rest is at the link above]

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 12:27 PM

Turns out sex is good for you in more ways than you knew....

BBC report

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 12:31 PM

It has been so difficult to get any threads to load that I'll post this, then go back and try your link, Bunn.

I read an obituary this morning that was astonishing from an actuarial sense. "Go forth and muliply" is something this man and his wife took seriously. Here is the entire obit and here is the part that is amazing. This guy was born in 1910, was a mormon, and had a big family. A REALLY big family:

He is survived by his ten children, Betty Wammack, of Arlington, Washington, Donavee (Nelson) Joyner, of Florida, Carol (Gerald) Porter, of Utah, Georgia (Frank) Baird, of California, Avilda (Wallace) Baird, of Nevada, Joseph (Gisela) Dickson, of Arlington, Phillip (Sue) Dickson, of Utah, Kerry (Kathy) Dickson, of Arlington, Anna Stewart, of Yakima, Washington, Myra (Dean) Dudgeon, of Marysville, Washington; 69 grandchildren; 166 great-grandchildren; five great-great-grandchildren; and also his brothers, Jared Dickson, and John Dickson, of Arlington.

Whew!

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 01:08 PM

It has been so difficult to get any threads to load that I'll post this, then go back and try your link, Bunn.

I read an obituary this morning that was astonishing from an actuarial sense. "Go forth and muliply" is something this man and his wife took seriously. Here is the entire obit and here is the part that is amazing. This guy was born in 1910, was a mormon, and had a big family. A REALLY big family:

He is survived by his ten children, Betty Wammack, of Arlington, Washington, Donavee (Nelson) Joyner, of Florida, Carol (Gerald) Porter, of Utah, Georgia (Frank) Baird, of California, Avilda (Wallace) Baird, of Nevada, Joseph (Gisela) Dickson, of Arlington, Phillip (Sue) Dickson, of Utah, Kerry (Kathy) Dickson, of Arlington, Anna Stewart, of Yakima, Washington, Myra (Dean) Dudgeon, of Marysville, Washington; 69 grandchildren; 166 great-grandchildren; five great-great-grandchildren; and also his brothers, Jared Dickson, and John Dickson, of Arlington.

Whew!

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Skivee
Date: 28 Jan 06 - 01:35 AM

Seems to me that Brother Dickson really liked kids...or somethin'.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jan 06 - 11:06 AM

I told a friend at work about this obit--she said she was from a large family and grew up with a great grandmother who never remembered her name, but she did know who Karen "belong to" (which of her children and grandchildren). Recognizing family lines was all the woman could manage in her old age.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jan 06 - 11:10 PM

Ah. . . my namesake is acting up. Beautiful river. Lots of family stories from this area.

article

Crews battle to save homes along the Stilly
River washes away land as it flows past slide

OSO - Standing near the edge of his crumbling front yard Monday afternoon, Lon Slauson eyeballed the advance of the North Fork Stillaguamish River on his home. Behind him, the warning beeps of graders and dump trucks echoed. Crews hastily cut an emergency road through his back field, hoping to bring boulders to the river's edge in an attempt to save his home. Slauson gauged how fast the crews worked. He watched how swiftly his land vanished as the current gnawed away at the soil at a rate of 25 feet per hour. "Looks like the river's ahead of them," he said.

The race against the Stilly started Wednesday when a landslide plugged the river with an estimated 1 million cubic feet of debris. The debris dam forced the river to swing south. It plowed a new course through a tangle of alder and cottonwood trees - straight toward Slauson's home. On Monday, Slauson's back field was the frontline of the fight. If the river claimed his home, officials feared that a half dozen more would be lost in the neighborhood about 15 miles east of Arlington.

A key moment came about 4 p.m. Monday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished its emergency road. Crews still needed permission from Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon to build a bulwark with boulders, said Doug Weber, manager of the Corps' emergency program. Reinforcing a river bank with rocks, known as rip rap, is not normally allowed under environmental rules designed to protect fish. "There needs to be a decision made quickly," Weber said as the clock ticked. "Definitely today. We're ready to start as soon as we get permission. We would work through the night."

Just before dusk, Reardon and other county officials decided the rocks were the best way to control the river's fury. "We wanted to save one house and potentially save five or six others," Reardon said after visiting the site. Steve Thomsen, acting county public works director, said the river's new course may actually help fish by creating new habitat under tree cover.

By about 6 p.m., an excavator was dropping four washing machine-sized boulders into the water every minute. Floodlights lit the area like a high school football game. "We want to stand and fight right here," Noel Gilbrough, a Corps flood engineer, said as he stood on Slauson's porch. By 6:30 p.m., the water level was dropping, and the home appeared to be in the clear -until the next storm.

Crews had worked throughout the weekend keeping the river's new path clear of trees and other debris. They feared that the river could dam up and spill through the neighborhood. Then heavy rain Sunday night and early Monday sent the water rising. By first light Monday, Slauson's front yard started to dissolve like sugar in the surging brown water. His well pump house, firewood shed and a neighbor's trailer drifted away. Meanwhile, the air trembled as huge alder trees crashed into the water as the bank washed away. "Nobody around here got any sleep last night," Slauson said.

"The scary thing is, this is not even a very big (flood) event," said John Engel of the county's public works department. "This is a really minor event, and it's up to the bank-full here. There isn't any overflow (space). The overflow now is going to be through the neighborhood." Larry Forsman on Monday still clung to the hope that his retirement home could be saved. "We're too old to pick a new spot," Forsman said. "If we have to, we have to. But our intention is staying."

The National Weather Service is forecasting more rain throughout this week. However, officials don't anticipate the same volume of rain that pelted the region starting Sunday, said Johnny Burg, a weather service meteorologist. Everett was nailed with 1 1/2 inches of rain from 4 a.m. Sunday to 4 a.m. Monday. So far this year 6.31 inches of rain have fallen in Everett, nearly two inches more than normal.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Feb 06 - 06:02 PM

Here's another obit from a large family, and as it happens, I went to school with his oldest daughter. Didn't realize she came from such a huge family. Not so many as the mormon family--evidently my generation put the brakes on the huge families. There are a few tall stories included in this obit. I'm including only the first couple of paragraphs.

Patrick Henry Caudle, age 87, died peacefully at home on January 27, 2006. He had just put on his hat and boots, after telling family members he was ready to go home.
He was husband to the one love of his life, Clara; father to ten children; grandfather to 26; great-grandfather to 44; and great-great-grandfather to four more. He is loved by every one of them. Most would show up for numerous celebrations of holidays, anniversaries, and birthday parties at his home. A favorite holiday was St. Patrick's Day when Pat would grow a beard and dye it green. He was born in Davenport, Washington, to Manlove Graham and Mary Alice Caudle on March 17, 1918. He weighed only two and one half pounds, slept in a shoe box, and was fed coffee and whiskey to keep his little body going. When he was 12, his mom and dad packed up Pat and his seven older siblings, Sid, Claude, Graham, John, Willard, Frances, and Effie, and moved to Cashmere, Washington, for a year and then settled in Everett. As a child he picked apples, milked the cow, and taught himself the harmonica. He often played at the Grange dances he loved to attend and he continued to play the Harmonica masterfully his entire life. From amateur radio shows, to impromptu concerts, to last Christmas's family gathering, his music entertained everyone.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 11:32 AM

This is not an obit. But close...

"Human chain pulls hunter from crocodileAssociated PressHARARE, Zimbabwe - A human chain of villagers pulled a hunter from the jaws of a man-eating crocodile in northeastern Zimbabwe, state media reported Monday.
Letikuku Sidumbu, 32, was attacked by the crocodile while trying to cross the swollen Mubvinzi river in the Goromonzi district, about 25 miles east of Harare, during an early morning hunting expedition with his uncle.
As the crocodile clenched it jaws on his right arm, a human chain of villagers tugged him from its grip in a struggle that also left him with a broken leg and chest and stomach injuries, Sidumbu told the state Herald newspaper from his hospital bed in Harare.
Crocodiles are the most dangerous animal to man in Zimbabwe. In recorded cases last year, they dragged away and ate 13 people - including children - according to the Communal Areas Management Program, a conservation group.
"I called out to my uncle to hit the crocodile with an ax," The Herald quoted Sidumbu saying.
But, he said, commotion by the two men's hunting dogs enraged the crocodile. He heard the voices of fellow vilalgers arriving from nearby Chitana Mafengu to help.
Before rescuers dragged him free, "one thing was clear that they wanted to salvage at least a piece of my flesh for burial should the crocodile get the better of them," Sidumbu said.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 10:57 PM

I have one I saved from a while back, that I found during a Mudcat crash:

Thai Floods Leave Behind Gold Rush
January 14, 2006

THAM THA MAUK, Thailand - Severe floods that washed away homes, bridges and lives apparently have compensated hapless villagers in southern Thailand with a treasure - gold.

Hundreds of fortune-seekers armed with shovels and pans are flocking to the stream of Tham Tha Mauk village in search of the precious metal, which surfaced from stream banks after the deluge.

"The spirit of Tha Mauk (Grandfather Mauk) has given us worshippers a treasure to compensate for what we lost in the flooding," said 60-year-old Sangad Chankhaew as he flashed a broad smile after a buyer gave him $30 in cash for a gold nugget the size of a rice grain. Sangad found the nugget 30 minutes after starting his day of panning for gold.

He was among about 50 gold diggers on the banks of the Tha Mauk stream, scooping sand and mud into wooden pans and hopefully swishing them around in the water one recent morning.

November's flooding - the worst the area has seen in 40 years - caused landslides and the collapse of the stream's banks, exposing an area for gold digging.

"The gold is more plentiful than in the past years," said Sanguan, Sangad's older brother who goes by only one name. He said his family has made about $2,000 since they began panning after the water receded.

Sanguan's house was lightly damaged by the floods, and a part of his pineapple plantation was washed away.

The flooding swept away houses, roads and bridges in Prachuab Khiri Khan province's Bangsaphan district, 180 miles south of Bangkok, where the stream is located. Six people were killed in flash floods in Bangsaphan in November.

Gold diggers have offered flowers, incense and sweets to Tha Mauk's small spirit house, which was erected near the stream. Local folklore says that the spirit of Tha Mauk owns the gold-rich forest of the area and that he occasionally gives to worshippers from his stores.

Some gold buyers see their purchases here as his sacred gifts.

"This gold is a present from the holy spirit, so I bought it to keep for prosperity in my life," said Pradit Sawangjit, 42, a pineapple plantation owner who bought the nugget from Sangad.

Many gold diggers had left jobs at pineapple and coconut plantations to look for gold.

Ruangsri Polkrut, 52, traveled more than 60 miles from Chumpon province to sit on a rock by the stream for more than six hours a day to search.

"I've earned about 5,000 baht ($120) from three days panning for gold. It's not big money but enough for the school fee of my daughter for next term," Ruangsri said.

Tham Tha Mauk used to be a gold mining village, but gold digging ended some 30 years ago when vast swathes of forest were converted into private pineapple plantations.

"This area used to be a national forest, but the rich people turned this land into their private pineapple plantations," Sanguan said. "But after the water washed way part of the plantation and the banks of stream, we had every right to look for gold again."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 05:04 PM

This is just so odd.

Suicidal man had destructive past

By Kirk Mitchell
DenverPost.com

A 56-year-old Miami man who apparently committed suicide on a United Airlines flight that was diverted to Denver Wednesday night had torched a North Miami car delearship over the weekend causing more than $1 million in damage. Gerald Georgettis was a passenger on a flight from Washington Dulles airport to Los Angeles when his body was discovered strangled by a rope in the lavatory, according to the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner. "It is apparent this was a suicide," said Virginia Quiñones, Denver police spokesperson.

On Saturday afternoon, Georgettis plowed his brand new SUV into the showroom window of North Dade Metro Ford, doused his car and others with gasoline and lit them up, according to a Miami Herald report. Police arrested him and charged him with first-degree arson, and felony criminal mischief. He posted a $1,500 bond on Sunday.

United flight #209 was diverted to Denver International Airport for an emergency landing at 4:20 p.m. after Georgettis' body was discovered. His body was taken to Fitzimmons Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:12 p.m., according to a Denver police report. Georgettis, an Australian, had for the past seven years managed the municipal theater for North Miami Beach. He scheduled concerts, graduations, seminars and plays in the 900-seat theater, said Harriet Orr, director of North Miami Parks and Recreation. He rented out the theater to producers and supervised technicians.

Georgettis formally was the concert manager for the rock group Pink Floyd, Orr said. "He was a terrific guy," she said. "He did a great job for us." Not once had Georgettis ever given an indication he had a hot tempter, Orr said. "We don't understand it," she said. "It's devastating to us."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Feb 06 - 05:24 PM

Someone will no doubt start a whole thread to do with this.

Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter
From Associated Press
February 12, 2006

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday. Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed him with shotgun pellets on Saturday while the two were hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.

Armstrong said Whittington was mostly injured on his right side, with the pellets hitting his cheek, neck and chest, and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Whittington was in stable condition Sunday, said Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System.

Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon. Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shot at a covey of quail late afternoon on Saturday.

Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and found a second covey. Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong told the Associated Press in an interview. "The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

She said Whittington was bleeding but not very seriously injured, and Cheney was very apologetic. "It broke the skin," she said. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."

She said emergency personnel traveling with Cheney tended to Whittington, holding his face and cleaning up the blood. "Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."

Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year. She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together. "This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 10:35 AM

Arson was for kicks, agents told
In court papers, one suspect says they set the Edmonds condo fire to show they could.
link

EDMONDS - They wanted to start a fire and watch a big building burn just because they could. That was the reason two men gave federal agents for allegedly igniting a fire that destroyed a downtown Edmonds condominium building in December, according to court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Random S. Haug, 21, and Daniel W. Shreve, 18, both of Everett, were charged in federal court Monday. Two teenagers, a girl and boy, also face arson charges in connection with the Dec. 17 blaze that caused $4.5 million in damage. If charged, the two teens would be prosecuted in Snohomish County Juvenile Court.

On the night of the fire, the four had been at a birthday party in Edmonds. Afterward, they filled half a small juice bottle with gasoline, according to court documents. Shreve told investigators the group targeted The Gregory, a 90,000-square-foot condominium and retail building, because some friends were working on the project, and they knew it would be unoccupied, according to documents.

They allegedly lit the bottle, threw it into the building and then drove up the hill and watched it burn for 20 minutes. They returned a second time after filling up a larger juice bottle with gas at a nearby station to create a bigger fire. This time they allegedly threw the gas on a stairway and hall and lit it, according to court records. They returned a third time and threw additional combustibles on the fire, charging documents say. About two hours later, the group returned to watch as the building was engulfed in flames. Shreve told investigators it was a "nice fire," and Haug described it as a "cool fire," according to court papers.

Haug told investigators that he felt bad that someone lost money and residents were evacuated, but said it was only property that was damaged, according to documents. The fire was set to make a statement that "we could do this," Haug told investigators, documents say. Both men told officers they didn't expect the entire building to burn down. "They did want only two to three rooms to burn," according to documents. Shreve also allegedly admitted that they had previously improvised gas bombs, throwing one at a billboard.

Haug and Shreve turned themselves in Thursday night at the Everett Police Department after law enforcement officers began speaking with people they knew, and one was given a lie-detector test, documents say.

Federal agents started focusing on the two men's friends after someone called a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tip line identifying Haug and Shreve as possible suspects. One acquaintance who was interviewed worked for the construction company that was building the Gregory, documents say.

Haug and Shreve are expected to appear today in federal court. The arson charge could net each of them between five and 20 years in prison.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 12:51 PM

Nice story from today's Star-Telegram:

Overcoming obstacles is nothing new for this Arlington Heights freshman
link

FORT WORTH -- For two glorious minutes, Trevor Davis raced up and down the court in the Arlington Heights High School gym as the crowd stood and chanted: "Trevor!" "Trevor!" "Trevor!"

With one minute left in the final quarter, Trevor caught the ball to the left of the basket behind the three-point line. He aimed and fired. Swish! The crowd erupted. Trevor, 15, a freshman at Arlington Heights, is the manager of the varsity, junior varsity and freshman boys basketball teams.

Trevor also was born with spina bifida, a congenital spinal-cord defect that occurs when the spine fails to close properly in utero. The defect is known to cause paralysis and in some extreme cases, brain damage. But Trevor's brain is normal, and he has full use of most of his body. The only noticeable effects are in his legs and feet. He wears braces on both legs and has no muscle mass from the knees down. He's 4 feet 8 inches tall.

But Trevor has been infatuated with basketball since he was 5, he said.

Last year, he was team manager and played in several games at Monnig Middle School. This season, Trevor has practiced with all three basketball teams. That hard work paid off in the final minute of Monday's evening's freshman game against Western Hills High School, which Heights won, 77-43.

Coach J. W. Briscoe let Trevor play for two minutes because of his commitment to the team. "He's really an inspiration to all of us," said Seth Dahle, a starting guard on the Heights freshman basketball team.

In the front row was Trevor's 80-year-old grandmother, Dona Horsley. "When Trevor was born, they told my daughter that he would never walk," Horsley said. "There's been a lot of surgeries throughout his life. He didn't learn to walk until he was 3, but he's suited up today." Trevor has lived with Horsley since his mother was killed in a wreck three years ago. His father left the home soon after Trevor was born.

Harris Hughey, Arlington Heights' varsity coach, said Trevor is a dedicated manager. "He encourages all of us," Hughey said. "He's sharp as a tack and has drawn up plays that he gives to all of the coaches."

When Trevor enrolled at Heights, his goals included making good grades and earning a letter jacket. Hughey said he expects that Trevor will earn his letter after the basketball season of his sophomore year.

But Trevor has one more wish for this season: He'd like to attend a Dallas Mavericks game, something he's never done. "I do pretty much what every regular kid does," Trevor said. "I just live life."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 01:40 PM

You just gotta love it when the media focuses on somepositive story like that. They invest so much effort in the discovery of the shocking, dismaying, heartbreaking and disgusting ones, this is a pleasant change.


A

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Feb 06 - 03:52 PM

Amen, brothers and sisters!

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 01:32 PM

Cupid connects, thanks to doctor
An Everett urologist helps his patient pop the question after kidney stone surgery.
link

It was a first for Everett urologist Dr. Gary Stack, playing cupid in the recovery room.

The patient, Delancey Woods, had asked for a little help surprising his girlfriend.

Stack walked into a room early Tuesday morning at Providence Everett Medical Center's Pacific Campus to brief Woods on having his kidney stones removed. Woods asked, "Can you do something for me?"

He pulled out a ring box and asked if Stack would help surprise his girlfriend. He had planned to propose on Valentine's Day before the kidney stone procedure was scheduled.

His girlfriend, Linda Hinen, wouldn't suspect his plan if he popped the question in the recovery room, Woods said.

Stack agreed, taking the ring box and putting it in his locker.

Later, when Woods was in the recovery room, Stack walked in shaking a small plastic specimen container with an orange screw top.

"Do you want to see your (kidney) stone?" Stack asked.

Woods, 40, turned to his girlfriend and asked if she wanted to see it.

Hidden inside was a rock, all right - a white-gold engagement ring.

"Linda Marie, will you marry me?" Woods asked.

Gazing at Woods, still dressed in his hospital gown and hooked to monitoring equipment, Hinen quipped, "I don't know. You're not down on your knee."

Recovery room nurses, tipped to the surprise, burst into applause when they heard Hinen, 48, say "yes" to the proposal.

"Every nurse in the hospital recovery room knew, but not me," Hinen said.

Woods had secretly phoned Hinen's family Monday evening to tell them of the plan.

The couple, who have been together almost four years and live near Bothell, were all smiles as they walked out of the hospital Tuesday afternoon. Caught up in the excitement of the moment, they said it was too early to talk about their wedding plans.

"Who would have thought?" Hinen wondered aloud.

"Me!" Woods retorted.

"I always tell him you gotta be pretty quick to pull one over on me," Hinen said. "Well, he got me."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 10:05 AM

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. - A man who pleaded no contest to a sodomy charge involving a sheep says he should not have to register as a sex offender.

Jeffrey S. Haynes said the state registry is intended to keep track of people who have committed crimes against humans.

But Calhoun County Circuit Court Judge Conrad Sindt told Haynes at his sentencing hearing that once he is released from prison, he must register with the Michigan State Police Public Sex Offender Registry.
Haynes, 42, of Battle Creek, was sentenced Monday to 2 1/2 years to 20 years in prison. He entered the plea in January. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.
...
Police said Haynes had sex with a sheep at a Bedford Township farm on Jan. 26, 2005. The animal's owner caught him on the property and the sheep was found injured.

Haynes was arrested in June after a DNA sample taken from the animal matched Haynes' genetic material.

Haynes has prior convictions for burglary, home invasion and uttering and publishing, and was on parole for burglary at the time of the sex crime.

---

I didn't know you could be convicted for uttering and publishing. And how come raping a sheep isn't a parole violation? And if it isn't, then why should he have to register?

A

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 10:31 AM

Sounds like the vernacular the reporter used left out some of the phrase. It probably has to do with uttering and publishing threats or something more concrete.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 12:42 PM

Not as heinous as uttering and pubolishing, but close:

Man obsessed with doorknobs faces prison

Associated Press
PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. - A man who claims he is obsessed with doorknobs faces three years in prison for a burglary spree in which dozens of them were taken from construction sites, along with tools and other materials.

A criminal complaint said Thor Jeffrey Steven Laufer told police he took a variety of items from the construction sites in the Milwaukee suburb of Mequon to disguise his obsession, "so that it would look like a typical burglary rather than someone just stealing doorknobs."

Laufer, 43, of Racine, was sentenced this week by Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Joseph McCormack to the three-year prison term, plus five years of extended supervision, and ordered to pay restitution. He had pleaded no contest to felony counts of burglary.

The thefts occurred in December 2004. Laufer also faces charges in Milwaukee County for similar incidents in suburban Franklin.
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Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 01:18 AM

Customers Cook Up Trouble With Fake Penis
AP (link)
Saturday, February 25, 2006

Pittsburgh (AP) -- A woman who claimed she was trying to cheat on a drug test was behind a bizarre incident in which a frightened convenience store clerk thought she had microwaved a severed penis, police said.

The clerk at the store outside Pittsburgh actually microwaved a prosthetic device used to cheat on drug tests, police said Friday. The incident unfolded late Thursday afternoon when a man and a woman entered the store and the man asked the clerk, "Can you microwave something for me? It's a life-or-death situation," according to an account the woman later gave police.

The man asked for paper towels, wrapped an object in them, and had the clerk microwave the item for 20 seconds, said McKeesport police Chief Joseph Pero. When it was finished, the clerk handed the item back to the man and saw what she thought was a severed penis, Pero said.

After news reports Friday, a woman called police to say she was with the man in the store and gave her account of what happened, Pero said. The woman told police she was applying for a job and was required to take a drug test. She said the man had filled the device with his urine, which she planned to submit for the test, Pero said.

According to the woman, the couple stopped to warm the device in the microwave so the urine would "pass the body temperature test," Pero said — that is, be warm enough to not arouse the suspicion of those administering the test. Pero said police weren't sure why the woman was storing the urine in a device mimicking male genitalia.

The woman wasn't applying for a job at the convenience store, but Pero said he didn't know anything else about the job.

The chief said the woman planned to come to the police station for an interview. Police Friday night said they had no new information and said the chief would have to answer any further questions on Monday. Pero wouldn't release the names of the man or woman. Charges, including harassment and disorderly conduct, were possible, he said.

The clerk at the Giant Eagle Get Go! is "still visibly shaking," Pero said. Giant Eagle, which owns the convenience store, said the microwave will be discarded.