BS: I Read it in the Newspaper

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 03:16 PM

The San Francisco Chronicle has covered it.

Ah! Details!

Woodward's disclosure could aid Libby
Reporter's testimony on Monday adds new wrinkle to CIA leak investigation

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Washington -- The revelation that the Washington Post's Bob Woodward may have been the first reporter to learn about CIA operative Valerie Wilson could provide a boost to the only person indicted in the leak case: Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Legal experts said Woodward had provided two pieces of new information that cast at least a shadow of doubt on the public case against Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who has been indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Woodward testified Monday that contrary to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's public statements, a senior government official -- not Libby -- had been the first Bush administration official to tell a reporter about Wilson and her role at the CIA. Woodward also said that Libby had never mentioned Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, in conversations they had on June 23 and June 27, 2003, about the Iraq war, a time when the indictment alleges Libby was eagerly passing information about Wilson to reporters and colleagues.

While neither statement appears to factually change Fitzgerald's contention that Libby lied and impeded the leak investigation, the Libby legal team plans to use Woodward's testimony to try to show that Libby was not obsessed with unmasking Wilson and to raise questions about the prosecutor's full understanding of events. Until now, few outside of Libby's legal team have challenged the facts and chronology of Fitzgerald's case.

"I think it's a considerable boost to the defendant's case," said John Moustakas, a former federal prosecutor who has no role in the case. "It casts doubt about whether Fitzgerald knew everything as he charged someone with very serious offenses."

According to the statement Woodward released Tuesday, he did not appear to provide any testimony that goes specifically to the question of whether Libby is guilty of two counts of perjury, two counts of providing false statements and obstructing justice. The indictment outlines what many legal experts describe as a very strong case against Libby, because it shows the former Cheney aide learned about Wilson from at least four government sources, including the vice president -- and not a reporter, as he testified before the grand jury.

Randall Eliason, former head of the public corruption unit for the U.S. attorney's office in Washington D.C., said he doubted the Woodward account would have much effect on Libby's case and dismissed such theories as "defense spin."

"Libby was not charged with being the first to talk to a reporter, and that is not part of the indictment," he said. "Whether or not some other officials were talking to Woodward doesn't really tell us anything about the central issue in Libby's case: What was his state of mind and intent when he was talking to the FBI and testifying in the grand jury?"

Eliason added: "What this does suggest, though, is that the investigation is still very active. Hard to see how that is good news for (White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl) Rove or for anyone else in the prosecutor's crosshairs."

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove's legal team, said Rove was not the official who had talked to Woodward. Rove was referred to, but not by name, in Libby's indictment as having discussed Wilson's identity with reporters.

Since December 2003, Fitzgerald has been probing whether senior Bush administration officials illegally leaked classified information -- Wilson's identity as a CIA operative -- to reporters to discredit allegations made by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Robert Novak revealed Valerie Wilson's identity in a July 14, 2003, column, eight days after her husband publicly accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war. Rove is still under investigation.

Libby's attorneys have asked whether Fitzgerald will correct his statement that Libby was the first administration official to leak information about Wilson to a reporter. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment. At a news conference Oct. 28, Fitzgerald specifically said that Libby was the "first official known" at that time to have provided such information to a reporter.

The White House declined to comment.

In October 2003, President Bush pledged cooperation with the investigation, and investigators requested and subpoenaed all records of contacts with reporters.

Chronicle news services contributed to this report.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 03:15 PM

Damn! A few weeks back I heard a word that was defined as "suddenly feeling guilty because of your schadenfreude," but I can't remember it now!

Anybody heard it?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 03:09 PM

Me again. . .

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 03:09 PM

Ah! A new word!

Schadenfreude

November 17, 2005

Woodward Feels Heat – Times Runs Amok?

It's clear today that Bob Woodward's involvement in the CIA leak case – and his decision not to reveal that involvement for more than two years – is now, officially, the latest Big Journalism Scandal. Woodward's behavior is reminding some of another such scandal, the one involving former New York Times reporter Judith Miller: "There are a number of ingredients in this unsavory stew that weirdly echo the Judith Miller imbroglio," wrote Rem Rieder in The American Journalism Review.

When we came into work this morning, we couldn't help but wonder: How would the Times cover the story? Would there be hints of Schadenfreude in their coverage? (FYI: scha•den•freu•de: Noun. German. "Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.") Would the Times revel in the fact that the wrath of media critics is suddenly shifting elsewhere? Would the paper try to cast Woodward in the worst possible light – and in the process help people forget a little more quickly about their dear departed "Ms. Run Amok?"

long story, and one that I'll have to go read some more sources to see what it's all about. But interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 12:53 PM

Cheap Laptops Are Planned for Kids
Cheap Laptop With Wireless Network Access and Hand-Crank to Provide Electricity Are Planned for Children
link

TUNIS, Tunisia - A cheap laptop boasting wireless network access and a hand-crank to provide electricity is expected to start shipping in February or March to help extend technology to school-aged children worldwide. The machines are to sell for $100, slightly less than its cost. The aim is to have governments or donors buy them and give full ownership to the children.

"These robust, versatile machines will enable children to become more active in their own learning," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters. Annan and more than 23,000 people from 176 countries were attending the three-day U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, in its second day Thursday.

Although discussions about persisting U.S. control over the Internet's addressing system have consumed much of summit, its original aim was to find ways to extend communications technologies to the world's poorest through projects like the $100 laptop. MIT Media Lab chairman Nicholas Negroponte, who unveiled the textbook-sized laptop on Wednesday, said he expects to sell 1 million of them to Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria.

Negroponte did not say who would build the machine, which will cost $110 to make, but at least five companies are considering bids to do so. He said a commercial version may be available at a higher price to subsidize machines provided to children. The laptop will run on an open-source operating system, such as Linux, which is generally cheaper than proprietary systems such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, said Negroponte.

The devices will be lime green in color, with a yellow hand crank, to make them appealing to children and to fend off potential thieves people would know by the color that the laptop is meant for a kid. Also at the summit, Microsoft unveiled a new network of learning centers in Tunisia to train people to be teachers in technology. Jean-Phillippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, said the company would replicate the centers elsewhere as part of its outreach efforts.

Addressing delegates on Thursday, Pakistani diplomat Masood Khan said increasing access to communications can help improve relations between regions and religions. "Information is not just an economic tool," Kahn told delegates in the main hall. "We need its infinite power to combat the rising tide of prejudice and hatred."

Senegal's president, Abdoulaye Wade, said more time and effort was needed to help address the digital divide, but stressed that Africa in particular should do more for itself by providing education and jobs. "The computer specialists we train in Senegal, the English and the French come in and take them back to France and America," he told reporters. "We need to keep them with us."

The summit was engrossed in some controversy after Reporters Without Borders said its secretary-general, Robert Menard, was denied entry into the country after his flight landed at the airport in the capital. The Paris-based group, among the chief critics of Tunisia's stance on speech and human rights, said Tunisian police officers and other officials boarded the Air France flight that Menard was on and said he could not enter the country to attend the summit. Francine Lambert, a spokeswoman for the summit, said Menard was issued credentials but was held back because of outstanding criminal complaint against him by Tunisia.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 11:44 AM

Texas Town Adopts Corporate Name
Various links to stories about this.

November 17, 2005

DISH, Texas - Back in the 1950s, Hot Springs, N.M., was renamed Truth or Consequences, N.M., after a popular quiz show. During the dot-com boom of 2000, Halfway, Ore., agreed to become Half.com for a year. This week, Clark, Texas, morphed into DISH in exchange for a decade of free satellite television from the DISH Network for the town's 55 homes. Residents in Santa, Idaho, meanwhile, are weighing the pros and cons of changing to Secretsanta.com, Idaho. Across the nation, small communities are being courted by large corporations who say renaming a town provides a marketing buzz that can't be bought in television ads. Though some worry about corporate America's increasing influence in local government, many towns seem eager to accept.

In a deal unanimously approved Tuesday by the two-member town council, Clark agreed to become DISH permanently, effective immediately. It's part of an advertising campaign for Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar Communications Corp., which operates the DISH Network satellite TV system. The company pegged the deal at about $4,500 per home in the rural patch of ranch land, which is about a half hour's drive north of Dallas-Fort Worth.

Beyond the lure of free TV service for the 125 residents, the renaming is a way for the town to attract businesses and residents, said Mayor Bill Merritt, who courted EchoStar to pick the town. "We really look at this as kind of a rebirth for our community," Merritt said. "We want everybody to come here."

The town was founded in June 2000 by L.E. Clark, who sharply criticized the renaming. "I don't especially like it," said Clark, who lost to Merritt in May's mayoral election. "I worked my butt off a little over a year getting it incorporated."

It was 1950 when Hot Springs, N.M., voted 1,294-295 to change its name to Truth or Consequences. Host Ralph Edwards, who died Wednesday at age 92, had promised to broadcast the popular radio show from the town that agreed to the change. In 2000, Halfway, Ore., become Half.com for a year in an agreement that put $100,000 in the town coffer and a new computer lab in the school. Though the name is back to Halfway, the town still has signs that read "Welcome to Half.com, the World's First Dot-com City." "It was a good experience," said Mayor Marvin Burgraff, who served as mayor after the decision had already been approved. "It was kind of fun. You look back on it and it's good thoughts."

In an age of pervasive advertising that many people try to ignore, such stunts are a good way to grab the public's attention, said Mark Hughes, chief executive of Buzzmarketing and the former Half.com executive who devised the Oregon deal. "Word of mouth is the most powerful form of communication and marketing out there," Hughes said in a telephone interview from Santa, Idaho, where he's leading the effort to rename that town Secretsanta.com, after a gift-exchange Web site. "No one's going to talk about the 3,000th Web site that launched this week," Hughes said. "What this does is give people a reason to talk."

Still, some offers of corporate interest have backfired. In 2003, residents of Biggs, Calif., overwhelmingly rejected a California Milk Processor Board proposal to rename the city of 1,800 Got Milk? in exchange for a milk museum and money for the school. "People's take on it was, 'This is just an advertising ploy by the milk board.' There was a certain segment of population that wanted to tar and feather the mayor for even suggesting it," city clerk Marlee Mattos said.

Gary Ruskin, of the nonprofit Commercial Alert, said towns should provide services such as trash collection and education, not "hawk television at its residents," he said. "The names of our civic places reflect our values and our aspirations," Ruskin said. "It's wrong to sever the link between civic names and civic virtue."

But Merritt, mayor of the town now called DISH, said work had already begun to change the town's dozen street signs. He doesn't see the new name ever going out of favor. "I can't see right now that people would want to change it," he said. "Clark will always be a part of our history, but this is our new identity."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 12:45 AM

Man sentenced to 6 years for chipping Inca ruins during filming

LIMA, Peru - A camera crane operator shooting a commercial at the Machu Picchu Inca ruins whose equipment tipped and chipped a stone sundial there has been sentenced to six years in prison, officials said Friday. The local court in Urubamba, 338 miles southeast of the capital, Lima, said it had found Walter Leonidas Espinoza guilty on Nov. 3 of destruction and alteration of cultural goods. The charge carries a maximum penalty of eight years behind bars.

Antonio Terrazas, a lawyer acting as spokesman for Peru's Institute of Culture, said offenders are seldom charged and when they are prosecuted and found guilty, it normally results only in a fine or a few months in jail. Espinoza has appealed his sentence, authorities said.

The production company Espinoza worked for knocked a corner edge off the Intihuatana, or "hitching post for the sun," in 2000 while shooting the commercial for the Backus beer company.

The Intihuatana was used by Inca astronomers to predict solstices and was of great importance in Inca mythology and agriculture. It is considered to be the most important shrine in Machu Picchu, Peru's biggest tourist attraction, high in the jungle-covered Andes, about 310 miles southeast of the capital, Lima.

Officials with Backus, which faces a civil lawsuit along with the advertising firm that hired the production company, declined to comment Friday.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 11:13 AM

Boater Rescued From Sharks Off Fla. Coast
November 12, 2005

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland - A man whose boat capsized in rough seas off the Florida coast treaded water for six hours, watching his friend die, while two boaters refused to pick him up apparently thinking he was an illegal immigrant from Haiti. Rogers Washington was eventually saved by two other boaters on Thursday who spotted him frantically waving his arms and shouting "I'm an American! I'm an American!"

"It would have been very easy not to have seen him," said David Pensky, 61, who saved Washington. "At first, I wasn't sure if he was a diver trying to make sure I didn't hit him." he told The (Annapolis) Capital, a Maryland newspaper. Pensky and Richard Holden, 63, noticed the fisherman, orange whistle to his lips, floating with the aid of a cooler lid and a small life vest shoved under his arm.

"They are the best men in the world," Washington said on Friday. "They are God's children." Washington said he capsized while on a fishing trip with Robert Lewis Moore, 62, also from Florida, after two large waves hit his 22-foot (7-meter) boat. The boat went down quickly, leaving the men clutching life vests.

Moore probably had a heart attack and died when a shark began circling them, Washington said. He tried resuscitating Moore, but it didn't work. He held onto his friend for about 45 minutes. "I had to let him go so I could try to survive," he said.

Washington floated alone in the choppy seas for about five more hours, the coastline visible in the distance. A hammerhead shark came within 5 feet (1.5 meters) of him. Two boats, a charter and a sailboat, passed within a couple hundred feet (60 meters). No one on those boats offered to help.

"They waved at me. I know they saw me," said Washington, who is black and believes the other boaters thought he was an illegal immigrant from Haiti. Moore's body was found Thursday by a fisherman.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 01:16 PM

Hmmm. I seem to be noticing these more, or are there just more robberies being reported?

Woman Robs Banks While on Her Cell Phone
November 11, 2005

WASHINGTON - These days it seems that some people just can't go anywhere or do anything without a cell phone in their ear. In northern Virginia the police say they're looking for a woman who's been holding up banks while chatting on her phone.

"This is the first time that I can recall where we've had a crime committed while the person was using a cell phone," Loudoun County sheriff's spokesman Kraig Troxell told The Washington Post in a story published Friday. "The question would be whether anyone is on the other end of the line or not."

Investigators believe the woman has hit four Wachovia bank branches in recent weeks in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties. In three of those bank jobs, she was talking on a cell phone, while showing the teller a box with a holdup note attached to it. In the most recent holdup, on Nov. 4, in Ashburn, the robber showed the teller a gun.

The woman is described as well-spoken, with a slight Hispanic accent. Investigators say they're not sure if she's actually talking to someone on the phone or just pretending. They also won't speculate on why she's chosen only Wachovia branches.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 03:25 PM

Drive-through robber leaves empty-handed

FORT WORTH - The convenience of bank drive-throughs is appealing to more than just customers nowadays. Robbers like them, too. Police say a man drove into Summit Bank's drive-through at 3000 Altamesa Blvd. about 11:30 a.m. Friday and tried unsuccessfully to make a big withdrawal using a robbery note. It was the second such episode in Fort Worth in a little more than a week.

"Maybe it's a lazier breed of bank robber," quipped Fort Worth police robbery Detective J.E. Livesay. In Friday's robbery attempt, the driver of a Chevy Astro van passed the note, tucked inside a small black bag that looked like a shaving kit, through the teller's drawer.

Fill up the bag, the note demanded. Large bills only. Don't sound the alarm. Put the note back in the bag.

The teller who read the note had been on duty during a similar robbery attempt at the bank this year, Livesay said. "She saw the note and read it, and she immediately dropped to the floor and told all the employees they were being robbed again," he said.

Employees took cover and sounded the holdup alarm. The robber, growing impatient, honked his horn after about two minutes and spoke briefly with the bank's manager over the intercom. "She yelled at him, 'What do you want?'," Livesay said. "He said 'I want my deposit back' and she said, 'You don't have a deposit. You're not a customer. You're trying to rob us. Get out of here.'" The robber pulled forward, then stopped and backed up, narrowly missing another vehicle behind him, Livesay said. The robber then fled before officers arrived.

He is described as an unshaven white man in his 40s driving a light blue Chevy Astro minivan with Texas paper tags dated Nov. 21. He has short dark hair and was wearing a brown cap and sunglasses. Livesay said police are investigating whether the robbery attempt is related to an Oct. 27 holdup of the Bank of America at 116 E. Seminary Drive. In that robbery, a man driving a silver or gray 1990s-model pickup passed a note demanding cash, then fled with an undisclosed amount.

In August, Fort Worth police arrested a 39-year-old man suspected of robbing two banks and trying to rob three others using drive-through windows, including one at the Summit Bank. In those robberies, a man whom authorities nicknamed the "drive-through bandit" passed threatening notes to tellers. The robber did not display a weapon and drove different cars, police have said.

Cleo C. Moore, a convicted bank robber who had recently been released from a Fort Worth halfway house, is awaiting trial on federal bank robbery charges in those cases.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 10:59 PM

Good fer Jennifer.

She's moving her finger right toward the ole button -- the debasement of genuine purpose and the elevation of bread-and-circus mediocrity.The notion of elevating noptoriety and celebrity (the condition of being well-known for being well-known) to importance is a media trick that has eroded our mental and spiritual life for a fistful of advertising dollars. Smart of her to connect the dots like that.

As for old Nikolai Copernicus, that's a pretty good resting spot for a guy who blew the terra-centric cosmology right out the ole stained glass window. He shoulda given some tips to Galileo or had him move to Poland.

A

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 07:55 PM

op-ed in Washington Post Nov.3

( link


Why Jesus Is Welcome In the Public Square
Religiosity Isn't Just the Right's Territory

By Jennifer Moses

Thursday, November 3, 2005; Page A21

BATON ROUGE, La. -- It's not news that the Christian right often appears to want nothing other than to impose its values, religious and otherwise, on the rest of the nation. But liberals would be mistaken to assume that it's only people on the far right who rely on the word of God for everything from Sunday sermon topics to public policymaking. In towns like Baton Rouge, religion is so much a part of public life that most folks can't begin to fathom that there might be something less than healthy in the blend. Of course, the religion in question is always a fairly distinct brand of down-home Protestantism, but what the hell. If you don't like Jesus, that's your business.

Actually, for a Jewish girl, I'm on pretty good terms with him. Despite my initial discomfiture with living in a place where people routinely ask "Where do y'all go to church?" I don't mind, and even welcome, being on the receiving end of blessings, Christian or otherwise. Being told "Jesus loves you, baby," by my favorite postal clerk doesn't offend me. Nor do I mind the billboards dotting the interstate ("Looking for a Sign from God? Here it is!") or the inclination of most of my neighbors to talk about their personal quests in terms of divine will.

Given the human habit of unleashing violence in the name of God, perhaps I'm naive, but I tend to believe that the Christian religiosity that's the common currency of great swaths of our country generally does more good than harm, giving people a sense of purpose and community where they might not otherwise have either. But I'm talking mainly about what I call the "good" Jesus -- the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, the one who, through his people, clothes the naked and feeds the hungry. In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it's that Jesus who's been making the rounds, so much so that Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, came to Baton Rouge to praise the efforts of local churches. (Well he should, too, since the federal government has all but abandoned us to our own resources.) The local newspaper covered the visit in detail. What it failed to do was mention that there might be something suspect in having a White House office of faith-based anything.

Welcome to the Bible Belt, y'all -- or at least to my small and not particularly dogmatic corner of it. (If you want the real thing, you have to go farther north, to Shreveport or Monroe.) South Louisiana is famously laid-back, and while there are those who believe, for example, that Catholics are going to burn in hell because they worship the pope, most folks just want to get along. That said, part of getting along means accommodating local norms, maybe even trampling on the Constitution now and then, because, after all, what's the big deal if the fellows pray before the high school football game? It's not like anyone's making them, and, anyway, most of the kids, maybe even all of them, are Christian.

So prevalent is this last sentiment that even the Louisiana State University law school follows it, hanging an enormous Christmas wreath over its imposing neoclassical entrance every December -- to the annual protests of faculty who point out that while such a display may be constitutionally kosher, it's also, at the very least, obnoxious. But the religious sentiments don't come only from the right. In March, the Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, endorsed publicly sponsored prayer at Tangipahoa Parish School Board meetings. The black community, which is generally liberal, uniformly voted in favor of a state amendment banning anything that so much as hinted at the legalization of same-sex unions. It's not unusual for a preacher to start things off at political rallies, either. I attended one rally last year, where, on the steps of the state Capitol, people carrying signs that read "Leave No Millionaire Behind" and "When Clinton Lied, No One Died" bowed their heads in the name of Jesus. Not to mention that Christian ministry is a major part of what passes for rehabilitation in the state prisons.

If one common mistake liberals make is assuming that the great majority of Bible-thumping (or tapping) comes from the right, a second -- and to my mind, more important -- mistake is equating this style of religiosity with something as simple as narrow-minded ignorance. Rather, bringing God and his word as expressed in the Bible into the debate points to a profound lack of meaning and vision in our public discourse, and a searing pessimism that anyone, or any institution, in public life might put things right. It points, also, to disgust: disgust not only with our elected leaders but also with the cheapening of life around us, whether by blatant sexuality on television, soaring drug abuse, the acceptance of out-of-wedlock birth or the loss of the communal ties that once grounded us.

As far as I can tell, progressives and liberals of all stripes don't even begin to fathom the despair and confusion most ordinary Americans feel when they hear the latest violent rap song or see a billboard plastered with an image of a 16-year-old clad only in Calvin Klein underwear. The right wing of the Republican Party, on the other hand, has long understood that most Americans yearn for something nobler in our national life, but it doesn't care unless it can use frustration and despair to harvest rage, and rage to harvest votes.

What's the answer? I don't know, but it might help if our political leaders stopped spinning and, like the prophets of old, spoke the truth.

Jennifer Moses is a writer who grew up in McLean and has lived in Baton Rouge for 10 years.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 06:05 PM

Copernicus' Grave Found in Polish Church
Polish Archeologists Believe They've Found Grave of 16th-Century Astronomer Copernicus in a Church

WARSAW, Poland Nov 3, 2005 — Polish archeologists believe they have located the grave of 16th-century astronomer and solar-system proponent Nicolaus Copernicus in a Polish church, one of the scientists announced Thursday.

Copernicus, who died in 1543 at 70 after challenging the ancient belief that the sun revolved around the earth, was buried at the Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Frombork, 180 miles north of the capital, Warsaw.

Jerzy Gassowski, head of an archaeology and anthropology institute in Pultusk, central Poland, said his four-member team found what appears to be the skull of the Polish astronomer and clergyman in August, after a one-year search of tombs under the church floor.

"We can be almost 100 percent sure this is Copernicus," Gassowski told The Associated Press by phone after making the announcement during a meeting of scientists.

Gassowski said police forensic experts used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features including a broken nose and scar above the left eye on a Copernicus self-portrait. The experts also determined the skull belonged to a man who died at about age 70.

The grave was in bad condition and not all remains were found, Gassowski said, adding that his team will try to find relatives of Copernicus to do more accurate DNA identification.

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 03:59 PM

Mayor: Sever Thumbs of Graffiti Artists
November 03, 2005

RENO, Nev. - Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has suggested that those who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television. Goodman, appearing Wednesday on the "Nevada Newsmakers" television show, said, "In the old days in France, they had beheading of people who commit heinous crimes.

"You know, we have a beautiful highway landscaping redevelopment in our downtown. We have desert tortoises and beautiful paintings of flora and fauna. These punks come along and deface it.

"I'm saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb," the mayor added. "That may be the right thing to do." Goodman also suggested that whippings or canings should be brought back for children who get into trouble. "I also believe in a little bit of corporal punishment going back to the days of yore, where examples have to be shown," Goodman said.

"I'm dead serious," said Goodman, adding, "Some of these (children) don't learn. You have got to teach them a lesson, and this is coming from a criminal defense lawyer."

"They would get a trial first," he added.

Another panelist on the show, Howard Rosenberg, a state university system regent, responded by saying that cutting off the thumbs of taggers won't solve the problem and Goodman should "use his head for something other than a hat rack."

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 10:17 AM

I heard something on the radio about the scheduling of this event. This must be a quick recovery gimmick after the theft of the Ruby Slippers. They went missing some weeks prior to this event.

Here's a bit from an article you'll find via Google News

No sign of ruby slippers stolen from museum
MEMORABILIA: The theft of the famous shoes from "The Wizard of Oz" draws attention to Judy Garland's birthplace.

BY JIM RAGSDALE, ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS - Shane Troumbley, who tests paper products by day and acts in "The Wizard of Oz" by night, was supposed to tell the Emerald City gatekeeper that Dorothy's ruby slippers were proof that she should be admitted to see the great and powerful wizard.

But during a rehearsal last week, Troumbley couldn't resist ad-libbing.

"She's wearing the ruby slippers we stole from the museum!" he said.

Art imitated life this week in Grand Rapids, a paper-making, hunting and fishing community along the upper Mississippi where the poplars and maples are in full color and Glen's Army Navy Outdoors store was busy with men with grouse or deer in their sights.

Troumbley's quip on the stage of the Reif Center, a showplace where a community production of Oz is being mounted, was a reminder of Grand Rapids' claim to artistic fame.

And infamy.

He referred to the bold, shocking and inexplicable theft of one of the few known pairs of the sequined ruby slippers used in 1939's "The Wizard of Oz" film. The famed pumps, on loan to the Judy Garland Museum, insured for $1 million and possibly worth far more in an open auction, disappeared from their plexiglass display case six weeks ago during an overnight break-in.

Grand Rapids is the birthplace of Frances Ethel Gumm, a musical prodigy who became a film and musical phenomenon under her stage name of Judy Garland. Gumm-Garland will forever be Dorothy, the role she played in the Wizard of Oz film, long after she and her family had left Grand Rapids for Hollywood.

She lived in Grand Rapids less than five years and returned exactly once, on a snowy March day in 1938 that some locals still remember. That didn't keep modern-day Garland fans from moving and restoring her birthplace, filling two museums with memorabilia and hosting an annual festival that draws serious Garland and Oz worshippers from places like California, England and Australia.

[snip]

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 05:59 AM

[QUOTE]

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2005• THE WICHITA EAGLE 3B

WICKED WITCH'S DEATH CONFIRMED

BY KAREN SHIDELER
The Wichita Eagle

Ding, dong.
The witch is dead.
Or is she?

We all know that the Munchkin coroner declared the Wicked Witch of the East dead - not only merely dead but really most sincerely dead - in "The Wizard of Oz."

But the 1939 death had not been recorded as a Kansas fatality, as state law requires, until Friday.

The Shawnee County Commission appointed 90-year-old Meinhardt Raabe, the Munchkin coroner in the movie, as a spedal deputy coroner so he could sign the certificate and record it with the state. The certificate was accepted Friday in Topeka by State Registrar Lorne Phillips.

The certificate notes that death was by tornado trauma. And because the tornado picked up the house in Kansas, the death certificate gets signed here.

The reason for all this is so that the death certificate can be given to organizers of Wamego's first Oztoberfest celebration, this weekend. Phillips said his office wouldn't officially record the certificate.

Which leads to a question:

If the death certificate isn't officially recorded, can that wicked witch really be

Positively,

absolutely,

Undeniably

and reliably

DEAD?

[END QUOTE]



Comment: Probably the first sensible thing any member of Kansas State government has done in the past couple of years ... and they don't intend to finish the paperwork on it??????

John

Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:44 PM

Woman Charged in Pregnant Neighbor Attack
October 13, 2005

PITTSBURGH - A woman clubbed her pregnant neighbor over the head with a baseball bat, drove her to the woods and cut her belly with a knife in an attempt to steal her baby, police say.

Police said Wednesday's attack on Valerie Oskin was stopped before her baby was taken after a teenager on an all-terrain vehicle came across the women. Oskin, 30, later underwent an emergency Caesarean section at a hospital. State police Thursday said she was in critical condition and her baby in stable condition. She was believed to have been in her third trimester of pregnancy, authorities said.

Peggy Jo Conner, 38, of Ford City, was arraigned Thursday on charges of attempted homicide and aggravated assault and was jailed without bail. Conner had told her live-in partner before the attack that she was pregnant, and investigators found baby-related items in her trailer, Armstrong County District Attorney Scott Andreassi said. "Clearly, she was expecting a child coming in shortly," Andreassi said. "There's nothing to indicate she was pregnant."

The assault began Wednesday morning, when Conner hit Oskin several times with a bat, Andreassi said. Conner then put Oskin and Oskin's 7-year-old son in her car, dropped the boy off at a family member's house and drove the pregnant woman about 15 miles to a secluded area about 50 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Andreassi said.

There, Conner cut Oskin across her abdomen with a razor knife, authorities said. "She was sliced over an old (Caesarean) scar and severely bleeding," Trooper Jonathan Bayer said.

A 17-year-old boy on an ATV spotted Conner kneeling next to the pregnant woman on the ground, Bayer said. The boy rode home and told his father, who called authorities, who arrested Conner at the scene.

The pregnant woman "probably would have bled to death if this young boy had not discovered her when he did," Bayer said. A call to Conner's home went unanswered Thursday afternoon. State police said they did not know if she had a lawyer.

Last December, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, was strangled at her Missouri home, and her baby was cut from her womb. Prosecutors said Lisa Montgomery showed the baby off as her own before her arrest. She is awaiting trial.