Article 172919 of rec.humor: Newsgroups: rec.humor Path: nntp-server.caltech.edu!news.claremont.edu!paris.ics.uci.edu!news.service.uci.edu!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!cate3 From: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate) Subject: Life 9.F Message-ID: [cate3D5Fzq3.ED8@netcom.com] Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 18:08:27 GMT Lines: 310 Sender: cate3@netcom15.netcom.com Date: 8 Mar 93 13:48:14 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 9.F ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections that I've pulled from a collection Mike Sierra has been building over the years [sierra@ora.com] -------------------------- [[[[[[ Attached TEXT file follows ]]]]]] The following news items and quotations were taken from The American Spectator, The Boston Globe, Esquire, Harper's, Heterodoxy, Insight, The National Review, The New Republic, The New York Times, Penthouse, Reason, Spy, Time, TV Guide, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Monthly, and more "year in review" issues than I care to mention. -------------------------- In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court held 7-2 that the Newark Philharmonia must hire Jane Taubhorner, a hearing-impaired French Horn player. The Court further required that the symphony immediately implement the Employment Guidelines of the American League of Hearing-Impaired Musicians, of which Ms. Taubhorner is president. According to these guidelines, all orchestras that receive funding from the National Council on Art and Music must be comprised of no fewer than nine percent hearing-impaired players by 1997. Although nine percent is far in excess of the percentage of hearing-impaired Americans, this figure was set as a means of making reparation to past generations of hearing-impaired people who might have played in symphony orchestras had the opportunity been available to them. Ms. Taubhorner emphasized a unique attribute that makes hearing- impaired players highly suitable for employment in the modern symphony orchestra: they are unlikely to suffer from the emotional problems that plague many hearing players who are frequently required to perform contemporary music. -------------------------- Like most federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency maintains a fleet of cars for official use. And like most agencies, the EPA is partial to luxury cars -- Lincoln Town Cars and Crown Victorias, in particular. In fact, the EPA fleet averages only 6.3 miles per gallon, less than 25 percent of federal fuel-efficiency standards. -------------------------- Boston Herald, 10/11/92: The night of May 13, 1984, David Freeman, a Duxbury firefighter, crept into the room where his wife was sleeping and beat her so severely with a club that her injuries are lifelong. Concern over Freemen's mental stability prompted the Board of Selectmen to remove him from the job. Last month, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination -- noting Freeman was found innocent of assault by reason of temporary insanity -- cited the town for "handicap discrimination." The MCAD restored the 52-year-old Freeman to his job and awarded him $200,000 for back pay and emotional distress plus 12 percent interest. -------------------------- In Baltimore, Stephanie Washington-Bey is suing a fast food restaurant for $150,000, claiming that the tea it sold her was a "defective product" -- because it was hot. She charges Hardee's with failing to label her cup of tea with a warning that the beverage was scalding hot, and that as a result it burned her lips, causing her to spill it, leaving second-degree burns and permanent scars on her left leg. -------------------------- Daniel Pelletier, employee at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Merrimack, New Hampshire, injured his back while bowling in a company league in 1988. He missed about nine weeks of work and filed for workman's compensation on the theory that he was "on the job" when the injury occurred. After a successful appeal by Anheuser-Busch, Pelletier's lawyer, Lee Nyquist, argued before the state Supreme Court that because the company sponsored the bowling league by donating $2,000 to its operating costs, "the risk" that led to his client's injury was "created by Anheuser-Busch." -------------------------- A Hollywood couple has sued the management of their apartment building, charging discrimination based on their sexual orientation. They allege that the building's owner and manager want them to move out so that the building, now predominantly populated with gay men, would be exclusively homosexual. Furthermore, they were subjected to verbal harassment when one referred to the woman as a "bitch" and to the two of them as "breeders," a derogatory term for heterosexual couples. -------------------------- In October 1990, Miriam Swann was arrested and convicted for negligent homicide and leaving the scene of an accident after her car struck a bicycle cart driven by Mary Ramos, killing her three small children. Since Swann had minimal insurance and assets, Ramos's lawyer Wayne Kikena relied upon Hawaii's Joint and Several Liability Law, under which a secondary party found to be even 1 percent liable for damages can be forced to pay 100 percent of a judgement. Going after that 1 percent, Kikena has brought a suit against Winchester Originals, Inc. and Everett Manufacturing Co., manufacturers of the bicycle cart and seat, alleging that they were defective products and that the companies had failed to warn the public of the danger. According to Kikena, the tan-colored seat and the tan and pale yellow cart "blended" into the surroundings, and it was therefore the fault of the manufacturers that Swann failed to see the cart. Kikena argues that the colors should have been bright instead of "earth tones." Inconveniently for Kikena's case, Swann had earlier testified that she fell asleep at the wheel. Kikena, however, says he believes that more brightly colored bicycle equipment might have kept her awake. -------------------------- If you're traveling into Toronto, your flight may be delayed. A herd of deer has taken up residence near the airport, and they often mosey onto the runways, stopping traffic. Environmentalists are fighting efforts to move the herd. -------------------------- In Las Vegas, two men accosted the driver of a Vegas Chip delivery truck at knifepoint and forced him to drive to a remote area and "turn over the chips." But the two men became irate and pummeled the driver when they learned the chips were not gaming chips but potato chips. Dick Falk, vice president of Vegas Chips, notes that the truck was clearly identified as carrying potato chips. The company logo, which shows a bag with potato chips coming out of it, was even painted on the sides of the truck. -------------------------- The city of Santa Cruz, California, has made it illegal to discriminate against anyone in housing or employment on the basis of obesity, toothlessness, or any "physical characteristic." -------------------------- Various schools systems on Long Island, N.Y., have hired private investigators to identify students from New York City who have enrolled illegally in suburban high schools to escape the city's public school system. The investigators stake out houses from cars, specially outfitted vans, even from perches in trees. They patrol borders and hide under cars with videocameras. -------------------------- After receiving a small federal grant to build a library in Philomath, Oregon, townspeople contributed the rest of the necessary funds and volunteered to build the library themselves. But the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor ruled that the library project was in violation of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, which mandates that contractors must pay workers the established prevailing union wage ($20 to $25 an hour in this case) when engaging in any federally subsidized construction costing more than $2,000. -------------------------- In 1989 a South Carolina woman applied for a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the ground that Hurricane Hugo made her pregnant. A sample of pork barrel programs and other government waste, compiled by Martin Gross: $13 million to repair a privately owned dam in South Carolina. $3.1 million to convert a ferry boat into a crab restaurant in Baltimore. $43 million for Steamtrain, U.S.A., in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to recreate a railroad yard of old. $4.3 million for a privately owned museum in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. $11 million for a private pleasure boat harbor in Cleveland. $150,000 to study the Hatfield-McCoy feud. $1 million to study why people don't ride bikes to work. $3 million for private parking garages in Chicago. $1.8 million for topographic maps of two parishes in Louisiana. $144,000 to see if pigeons follow human economic laws. $219,000 to teach college students to watch television. $500,000 to build a replica of the Great Pyramid of Egypt in Indiana. $10 million for an access ramp to a privately owned stadium in Milwaukee. $2 million to construct an ancient Hawaiian canoe. $160,000 to study if you can hex an opponent if you draw an "X" on his chest. $100,000 to study how to avoid falling spacecraft. $100,000 to research soy-based inks. $1 million to preserve a Trenton, New Jersey, sewer as a historical monument. $33 million to pump sand onto the private beaches of Miami hotels. -------------------------- During its worst years of scandal, the Department of Housing and Urban Development was under oversight by 84 congressional committees. -------------------------- In 1984, the New York Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced that it would fill the windows of thousands of vacant, city-owned apartments with pictures of flower pots and curtains in order to make it appear that people were living in them. As Anthony Gliedman, former Commissioner of the Department, commented, "appearance is reality." -------------------------- In Ohio, it is illegal to advertise beer if you are wearing a Santa Claus suit, including if you are a dog. -------------------------- Journalist Andres Oppenheimer relates that during a stay at a Cuban hotel, he called room service at 7:30 AM for breakfast. A somewhat agitated young man brought up the food an hour later, not a surprising delay by Cuban service standards, and left before Oppenheimer noticed that the tray was missing tableware. Faced with another long wait, Oppenheimer decided to use his toothbrush to stir his coffee and spread butter and jam on his toast. The next day, the same thing happened, but this time Oppenheimer jumped up and chased after him when he realized the tableware was missing again, but again the man was gone, and again he had to use his toothbrush. On the third day, Oppenheimer had the man wait while he inspected the tray. Politely confronted with the fact that the tableware was again missing, the young man grudgingly and apologetically explained the problem. Due to the many shortages that plagued the Cuban economy, it was common for people to steal what they needed from their workplace, including eating utensils. As a result, the hotel management had cracked down and made each waiter responsible for a set of numbered utensils, which they would be required to keep in their lockers when not in use and which would be inspected each Friday. So why then wasn't there tableware available? Because the waiters had not yet arrived at work due to the delays in bus service. He was not a waiter, he explained, and could not bring Oppenheimer any tableware. Elsewhere, at a pizzeria, management dealt with the same problem by chaining the tableware to hooks bolted on the underside of the table. Unfortunately, due to the constant pulling of customers and the hooking and unhooking when the tableware needed to be washed, the fragile chains snapped, and many of them were soon reduced to half their original length, forcing patrons to eat with their heads hovering over their plates. Management replaced this unpopular policy with a less conspicuous one. After taking back the tableware after the meal, the waiter would give the customer a little piece of paper with a number on it -- an official certification that the utensils had been returned -- which the customer would then be required to surrender to a guard at the door before being allowed to leave. -------------------------- The biggest piece of federal legislation in 1986 was the tax reform bill. The biggest piece of legislation in 1987 was a bill correcting mistakes in the tax reform. The revised 1987 bill consisted of 1,489 pages, along with another 1,124 pages to explain how it worked. In addition, the Senate was required by its own rules to reprint the original bill as passed by the House of Representatives, with all the words they disagreed with crossed out. Since the Senate rewrote the bill from scratch, the result was that they printed 4,500 copies of a 452-page document in which every single word was crossed out. The document is available for $17, and it's called HR 3838 As Reported in the Senate, Part I. So far it has sold 1,800 copies. -------------------------- The city of New Orleans, presumably desperate for revenue, sent out a crew of workers and meter maids. The workers reversed one-way- street signs, and the meter maids then ticketed all the cars parked in the "wrong" direction. -------------------------- The justice system in Louisville, Kentucky, had a problem on its hands in trying, for drunk driving, a man who was in fact very drunk indeed, but who wasn't driving. His dog was at the wheel. -------------------------- The State Department, in the course of issuing $15 million in erroneous travel advances, paid for the travels of Ludwig von Beethoven, perhaps unaware that he died in 1827. -- Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com] The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet "The Greatest Management Principle in the World" by Michael LeBoeuf: The things that get rewarded, get done.
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