Lifec.1

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 11:35:49 -0700
From: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate)
Message-Id: [199409291835.LAA00274@netcom13.netcom.com]
To: JWry.dl@netcom.com
Subject: Life  C.1
Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com
Status: R

--------------- 
Date: 25 Jan 94 15:48:55 PST (Tuesday)
Subject: Life  C.1






The following are selections that I've pulled from a collection
Mike Sierra has been building over the years
[sierra@ora.com]                 

--------------------------

This bunch includes material from the Harper's "Readings" section,
the American Spectator's "Current Wisdom" section, Esquire's
"Dubious Achievements" awards for 1993, and pearls from the Media
Research Center's Sixth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst
Journalism. There's also an unaccountably large number of items
concerning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Enjoy!

Mike Sierra
sierra@ora.com

----------------------------------------------------

Denied a diploma because she flunked a course in clinical nursing,
Eve Tenser sued her school and professor.

In the lawsuit, which was put before the Pennsylvania Board of
Claims, Tenser said she put "time, effort, dedication and money"
into her studies at Edinboro University in Edinboro, Pa., in
exchange for a degree from the college. But the school "rescinded
and repudiated said agreement... by issuing... a grade of 'F' in
clinical nursing without justification, cause or merit."

Tenser is unemployable in her field without the degree, said her
attorney, Rebecca DeSimone. So the plaintiff sought up to $20,000
or "reevaluation" of her clinical abilities and a nursing degree.

Bill Reed, a spokesman for Edinboro University, says Tenser was
offered a chance to take the course again. But DeSimone says that
because Tenser is a single mother of two children, that is not
feasible.

--------------------------

A Canadian man, asked why he has devoted the last four years to
riding a horse across the United States and Canada, replied, "I'm
completely nuts."

--------------------------

Fewer than 18 percent of 1993 taxpayers earmarked a dollar for the
presidential campaign fund. Congress has reacted to this situation
by tripling (to $3.00) the amount people may check off.

--------------------------

Rich Savwoir, owner of the US 1 Auto Parts Store in Bethpage, New
Jersey, faces a one-year prison term and a $10,000 fine because he
didn't post a sign stating that his store accepts waste motor oil
for recycling. The sign was down that day because a window washer
was working on the store.

--------------------------

Shakespearean lecturer Jane Wirgman made an effort to clean up the
language of prisoners at England's Norwich Prison by familiarizing
inmates with 400-year-old insults popular in Shakespeare's time.
Prisoners there reportedly began calling each other "thou crusty
botch of nature" and "thou odiferous stench."

--------------------------

The Chicago office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
has sued the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers because it required
its switchboard operators to greet callers with a cheerful "happy
holidays" from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day. Operator Ninette
Smith claimed this constituted a breach of her religious freedom,
and the EEOC agreed.

"'Happy holidays' is generally considered a generic term in our
business," said Ellen Butler, spokeswoman for the hotel. "We use it
because it doesn't mention any holidays specifically by name."

Nonplussed by Smith's complaint, the hotel management nevertheless
tried to accommodate her. "We told her she could just say,
'Greetings,'" says Butler. When asked how this impinged on Smith's
religious freedom, EEOC regional attorney John Hendrickson told the
Chicago Tribune, "They only wanted her to say it during the
Christmas season, so it is a violation."

--------------------------

The Office of Contracting Services of the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation awarded a $315 contract to mow the lawn of a house the
FDIC had foreclosed, considerably more than the approximately $15
it would have cost to get a neighborhood teenager to do it.

--------------------------

The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office has opened a gift shop in
which patrons can buy death-related products, including a toe tag
like those used to identify dead bodies, a tote bag with a skeleton
logo, and a beach towel with an image of a chalk body outline, similar
to those investigators use to mark the position of a dead body.

--------------------------

University of California Davis Law Review, Winter 1993:

The U.C. Davis Law Review follows the convention of using female
pronouns. This article follows that convention except when
referring to a criminal defendant, where male pronouns are used.
Federal criminal defendants are overwhelmingly male.

--------------------------

The Wall Street Journal, August 13, 1993:

When the city of Miami hired a team of consultants to determine
whether it discriminated against minority-owned businesses in
contracting work, the researchers reported what arguably would be
good news: They didn't find a clear pattern of discrimination to
justify the city's decade-old policy of directing a percentage of
its work to minorities.

But angry city commissioners refused to accept that conclusion.

An incredulous Vice Mayor Miller Dawkins, the group's only black
member, railed at the stunned consultants: "The whole purpose of
this study was for you to prove that there was a disparity in
minority hiring."

--------------------------

A Miami woman who was assaulted by a black man while making a
delivery for her company sued her employer for worker's
compensation on the grounds that she now suffered from stress
while working around large, black men. Although the employer
argued that setting up a stress-free workplace for the woman would
violate civil rights laws, the courts awarded the woman $500,000
in permanent disability benefits -- $450,000 of which went to her
attorney.

--------------------------

Residents of Riverside, California, one of the areas scorched by
devastating wildfires, are angry because they had been prevented
from creating firebreaks around their homes. The brush is the
habitat of the Stephen's kangaroo rat, which is protected by the
Endangered Species Act.

Environmentalists dismiss the criticism. "These fires weren't
started by the kangaroo rat, and it shouldn't be made a scapegoat
for something that happened naturally," said Anne Dennis of the San
Gorgonio chapter of the Sierra Club.

California officials studying the cause of those fires also cite
opposition to a proposal by city officials to create a three-
million gallon reservoir that would have been helpful in
extinguishing the fires.

--------------------------

Donald Kennedy, who resigned as president of Stanford University
amid allegations that he and the university had misdirected federal
research money, including $2,000 a month for floral arrangements at
his home and more than $180,000 on a yacht, is now teaching the
course "Professional Responsibility and Academic Duty." Kennedy
teaches doctoral candidates about the kind of ethical problems they
might encounter as professors and administrators.

--------------------------

On election day in New York City, Democrats transported several
carloads of mental defectives from the Bedford-Stuyvesant Community
Health Center to vote for incumbent Mayor David Dinkins. According
to the New York Post, many of those brought from the center were
"disoriented." While being led to a voting booth, one repeatedly
explained: "Bowling, goin' bowling." When asked by a poll-watcher
who he was going to vote for, another responded, "Mommy."

--------------------------

Alec Baldwin said at an Inaugural party that his wife Kim Basinger
had educated him on animal rights and that they watched tapes of
animal torture together. "Kim says a nation is only as strong as it
treats its animals," he said. "She's quoting Gandhi, I think."

Later at the party, asked if he was wearing leather shoes, Baldwin
looked down and said, "Yeah."

--------------------------

A magician's wife in Ryde, England, annoyed by his frequent
absences, killed his rabbit and served it for dinner.

--------------------------

Report cards have been "updated" in 57 Houston schools to eliminate
the "arbitrary" nature of the traditional A-F grading scale. The
new system is supposed to "assess student performance more
meaningfully and give parents a better idea of how their children
are developing," reported the Chicago Tribune. Created by teachers
in the Houston Independent School District, the system pegs
students to one of eight stages: discovery, exploration,
developing, expanding, connecting, independent, application, and
synthesis.

--------------------------

In the late 1980s the Shorelands Company, a developer in the San
Francisco Bay area, planned to turn a former salt-harvesting
facility -- sited on barren, salt-laden clays that are unable to
support vegetation -- into a race track and industrial park. But
Fish and Wildlife Service jeopardy opinions stated that the
development would endanger the California clapper rail (a hen-
shaped marsh bird), the California least tern (a water bird), and
the salt marsh harvest mouse. This finding was remarkable given
that none of these species inhabited the property, and there was
was no suitable habitat at the site nor any prospect that suitable
habitats could naturally develop.

The Fish and Wildlife Service presented an unusual rationale for
prohibiting development. The agency argued that global warming
would eventually result in 13-foot rises in the oceans; therefore,
San Francisco Bay -- along with the existing habitat for these
endangered species -- would be inundated. When this cataclysmic
event occurred, wiping out major urban areas of the United States,
the Fish and Wildlife Service would apparently busy itself by
creating new habitats for these species bird and rodent on the
site.

Beginning in October of 1987, the agency held up development on the
property for three years -- just long enough to cost the Shorelands
Company $12 million and send the firm into bankruptcy.

--------------------------

The Lawrence, Massachusetts, Sunday Eagle-Tribune reports that the
Western Massachusetts Legal Services Corporation, a legal aid
group, has produced a brochure that explains how welfare recipients
can spend money in such a way as to remain eligible to continue to
receive benefits. Normally, welfare recipients are not eligible for
aid when they have more than $1,000 on hand. But, as the brochure
instructs, they can be back on the dole within a month if they
"spend the money as quickly as possible." It supplies an example:
"Martha gets her [Aid to Families with Dependent Children] checks
on the 1st and 15th of each month. She knows she will be getting a
settlement about the 20th of October. Since she wants to do some
special things with the money, she goes to her local welfare office
on Sept. 30 and signs their form requesting that she will be taken
off AFDC Oct. 1. When the settlement money arrives, she spends it
according to her plans and and has spent all but $1,000 of it by
Oct. 31. She then goes back to her local welfare office on Nov. 1
and reapplies to AFDC."

--------------------------

The residents of Longmont, Colorado have decided to abolish all
"Dead End" signs in favor of signs that read: "No Outlet," because
they found the "Dead End" signs too unpleasant.

--------------------------

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began a $370,000
study to test the effects of alcohol on pedestrians.

--------------------------

A three-year study of 58,000 students on 80 different campuses
conducted by the Department of Education has determined that 85
percent of all college student drink.

--------------------------

The city of San Diego received a letter from the Environmental
Protection Agency ordering it to stop cleaning up the raw sewage
that had been pouring into the Tijuana River Valley, because the
cleanup would cause irreparable harm to the "sewage-based ecology"
of the tidal estuary.

--------------------------

Just in time for Christmas, the U.S. Treasury Department has issued
a commemorative gold token honoring the 80th anniversary of the
income tax.

--------------------------

The National Organization for Women protested the Naval Academy in
Annapolis after it was learned that upperclassmen had chained a
female first-year student named Gwen Dreyer to a urinal. NOW called
for strict disciplinary measures against the male participants,
saying that they should "be forced to go through sensitivity
training and their graduation should be deferred until they
understand what they have done." The group did not, however, seek
action against any of the female upperclassmen who participated in
the hazing ritual.

One academy woman strongly objected that the incident was "not a
matter of gender, it's part of life here." She told the Baltimore
Sun that she had participated in the hazing of females and that
before the 1989 Army-Navy football game, she had "helped to strip,
tar and feather a West Point cadet." Other midshipmen also told the
Washington Post that the incident was not unusual, saying that
upperclassmen are often tied to chairs and put outside or have
their heads put in toilets as retaliation by plebes they command.
They also doubted that Dreyer was targeted because she was a woman,
but instead think the episode grew out of Dreyer's involvement in a
spirited snowball fight.

--------------------------

The Colorado-based Biodiversity Legal Foundation has petitioned the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to place the Alexander Archipelago
wolf of southeastern Alaska on its list of threatened species, even
though this subspecies of the gray wolf is nowhere close to
extinction, and its numbers are not declining.

"We want to set a precedent here," says Jasper Carlton, director of
the foundation. Carlton is basing his petition on the notion that
proposed logging of the Tongass National Forest would harm the wolf
by depleting the stock of sitka black-tailed deer, its main food
source. "Let's not wait until a species is near extinction before
we act," he says.

--------------------------

A student at an English course at the University of Michigan had
her grade reduced for writing "Congressman" rather than the
preferred "Congressperson."

--------------------------

An activist minister in San Francisco announced that his church
would no longer accept donations of second-hand clothing for the
indigent and the homeless. He insisted that they be given brand new
clothing.

--------------------------

A man who swallowed a cough drop on a Los Angeles trolley was given
a $250 ticket for "illegally eating" on a city commuter train.

--------------------------

Utah entrepreneur Brandt Child planned to build a campground and
golf course on his property in Three Lakes. Neighbors in southern
Utah had long used the area for recreation, and the spot seemed
ideal for the planned improvements. The project, however, was
brought to a halt when the Fish and Wildlife Service declared Mr.
Child's pond to be a prime habitat for the endangered Kanab
ambersnail. The area was fenced off, people were no longer allowed
on the pond's banks, and Mr. Child was forbidden to work in the
area. He dutifully contacted the Fish and Wildlife Service to
report that a flock of domestic geese had taken up residence at his
pond. If the geese ate any snails, the owner of the geese could
face a $50,000 fine for each snail.

The Fish and Wildlife Service asked the Utah Department of Wildlife
and Resources to send someone to shoot the geese, remove their
stomachs and bring the contents to Salt Lake City so they could
determine how many snails had been eaten. But when a state wildlife
agent and a highway patrolman arrived and saw newsmen and
photographers, they opted not to shoot the geese, claiming they did
not have the jurisdiction. Later, the Fish and Wildlife Service
induced vomiting in the animals, which was analyzed but contained
no snails. Today, the geese are living happily elsewhere and the
snail population is soaring in the pond -- but Mr. Child has never
been compensated for his estimated $2.5 million loss.

--------------------------

In the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, a thief was robbing a shop
when he noticed a tank of industrial glue. He took a break to sniff
the glue and passed out, knocking over the tank. The next morning
the shopkeeper found the man glued to the floor of his store. He
called the police, who cut him free and then carted him off to
jail.
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