Lifed O

From: cate3@netcom.com
Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 08:20:14 -0700
Message-Id: [199505091520.IAA11276@netcom20.netcom.com]
Subject: Life  D.O
To: jwry.dli@netcom.com
Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com
Status: R


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Date: 23 May 94 17:15:19 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Life  D.O





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

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

Since he was judged insane when he killed four people with a rifle
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Michael Charles Hayes has been
collecting more than $500 a month in federal disability payments.
He has spent his Social Security checks on TVs and VCRs for his
room at the state mental hospital in Raleigh, two leather jackets
worth more than $300 apiece, some 40 knit shirts and a secondhand
motorcycle that he used for cruising the hospital grounds.

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

Spyros Stanley, who owned a bar in Charleston, West Virginia,
purchased $23,000 worth of food stamps for a fraction of their
value from welfare recipients and crack cocaine dealers. Stanley
was buying the stamps to purchase food for himself and his bar.

In Hampton, Virginia, Lazaro Sotolongo sold crack for food stamps
at 50 cents on the dollar. He converted the food stamps to cash by
selling them to unscrupulous authorized retailers. Over three years
he took in more than $1 million.

An art aficionado in Albuquerque owned a general store authorized
by the Department of Agriculture to accept food stamps. But instead
of milk or eggs, he gave customers cash at 30 to 50 cents on the
dollar for their stamps. Then he redeemed them at the bank for
their face value. With his profits, he bought $35,000 worth of
stolen art.

In Detroit, the department of social services sent $26,000 in food
stamps to Mae Duncan, but she didn't exist. The name was one of 26
invented by Patricia Allen, a 39-year-old social worker. Over a
nine-year period, she collected more than $221,000 worth of food
stamps.

After Dennie Lyons of New Orleans was caught counterfeiting more
than $127,000 worth of stamps to sell around the country, he was
sentenced to four years in prison, and his wife was given five
years' probation for aiding him. Soon after her indictment, she was
admitted to the food stamp program.

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

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers
approved a new landfill in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the condition
that the city take steps to collect the American Burying beetle.
Landfill officials must set baited traps throughout the 400-acre
construction site and then move the captured beetles to safer
ground. Although about 180 traps were set, only seven beetles were
caught in three months, at a cost to local taxpayers of $78,176.

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

Washington Post, October 23, 1993:

When the GAO asked for evidence that White House employees had
actually worked the days for which they were being paid, the [White
House] legal counsel's response was that the law did not require
presidential employees to actually work.

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

According to a Florida Supreme Court ruling, a police officer who
asked a suspected drunk driver to recite the alphabet from C to W
was violating the state's guarantees against self-incrimination. By
asking for only part of the alphabet rather than the whole 26
letters, the usual test, the court concluded that the officer was
trying to trip up the driver -- in essence compelling him to be a
witness against himself. A request to recite the entire alphabet
would have been legal, the court noted, because it seeks
information only.

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

The Economist:

In response to an embarrassing series of break-ins, an Edinburgh
police station has hired a private security firm.

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

After an episode of the "G.I. Joe" Saturday morning cartoon show
that had G.I. Joe battling evil forces trying to destroy the
Earth's ozone layer by siphoning chloroflourocarbons from giant
aerosol tanks of shaving cream, the Consumer Aerosol Products
Council launched an education campaign at young people to make them
aware that aerosols no longer contain CFCs since they were outlawed
for that purpose in 1978.

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

After CBS aired a "60 Minutes" story in 1986, numerous members of
the newly formed "Audi Victims Network" brought lawsuits against
Audi, claiming "sudden acceleration syndrome" in the Audi 5000. Any
of a number of mysterious flaws inherent in the car's design were
said to have caused the car to rocket out of control when the
driver stepped on the brake. A three-year study by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration reinforced what Audi and many
transportation authorities had also concluded: that in each case
the driver had pressed the accelerator rather than the brake. "If a
driver unknowingly steps on the accelerator pedal and continues to
push on the same pedal because he or she believes it is the brake
pedal," the car will accelerate and the brakes will seem to have
failed. Shying away from the term "driver error," the NHTSA
preferred to characterize the accidents as resulting from "pedal
misapplication." The NHTSA then initiated another study to
determine the effects of pedal placement on auto safety.

In March 1988, after an accident in which Harold Horowitz's '79
Audi plowed into the home of Germaine Gibbs, and in which Horowitz
admitted that he had put his foot at least partly on the wrong
pedal, a jury awarded $14,000 in damages and $100,000 in punitive
damages to Gibbs, based on the alternate theory that the Audi was
defectively designed because the accelerator and brake were too
close together, making it more likely for plaintiffs to press the
wrong pedal. Audi, like most European automobile manufacturers,
place the pedals closer together to decrease response time when
braking, contributing to the car's superior safety record.

On March 3, 1987, Chicago lawyer Robert Lisco filed a class action
lawsuit on behalf of 350,000 Audi owners, named and unnamed,
stating that the Audi's resale value had been destroyed by the bad
publicity over sudden acceleration, and that the bad publicity was
Audi's fault.

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

Before sending troops to Somalia, the United States announced that
it was trying to stop rampant theft of food shipments by sending
the Somalis food they don't like. Andrew Natsios, assistant
administrator of the Agency for International Development,
explained that corn and sorghum being sent are ideal for free food
distribution because they are nutritious enough to alleviate hunger
but not popular enough to command high black market prices.

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

In Arlington, Massachusetts, you need a license to become a
storefront psychic, because the city intends to protect the public
from fraudulent operators.

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

The Department of Labor has determined that Job Corps trainees are
"employed" if they have had a job interview and counts trainees as
"permanently employed" if they have spent one day on the job.

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

When their apartment in Bnei Brak, Israel, started burning, tenants
asked a rabbi whether the fire constituted an emergency so they
could break the Sabbath and use the telephone to call the fire
department. The rabbi considered the matter for 30 minutes, during
which the blaze spread to two neighboring apartments. The rabbi
decided the tenants could call firefighters, but by the time they
arrived all three buildings were gutted.

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

The U.S. Postal Service was sued in 1990 by a job applicant whose
driver's license had been suspended four times, and who claimed
that the agency's policy of not hiring individuals as mail carriers
whose licenses had been suspended unfairly discriminated against
blacks -- even though carriers must drive government vehicles to
deliver the mail.

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

The Internal Revenue Service was sued for discrimination after it
fired a black secretary who refused to answer the telephone.

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

The City of Houston was sued for racial discrimination by a white
employee who, as a federal judge noted, was "repeatedly out of the
office for long stretches of time without explanation, slept
frequently at his desk, and shirked direct requests from his
supervisors."

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

As has come to be custom for most legislation, the $11 billion
California earthquake relief bill only earmarks $8.6 billion in
disaster relief. The rest goes to such projects as $1.4 million for
Maine potato farmers, $203 million for highway "demonstration
projects," $1 million for senators to hire lawyers to defend
themselves against civil rights suits, and $10 million to renovate
New York's Penn Station.

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

Asked why he had entered the California governor's race, state
senator Tom Hayden said, "It was really the psychic impact of the
earthquake" that made him do it. "There is an urgency about the
times in which we live."

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

In New York City's School District 7, where most of the students
live in poverty and share outdated textbooks or use workbook
photocopies for their schoolwork, school district officials rang up
$323,000 in expenses for conferences in Hawaii and St. Thomas.

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

In the last five years of the Federal Release Program of Essex
County, New Jersey, 3,885 defendants have had their bail paid by
the government because they were too poor to pay the price
themselves. Of that number, according to the Newark Start-Ledger,
an estimated 67 percent "became fugitives or committed new crimes,
including assaults, rapes, kidnappings, robberies and arson." 11
committing murders after their their release, crimes that included
the shooting of a teenager and the beating of a woman who was
dragged from her bed.

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

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that the host of a party is liable
for injuries suffered at the hands of someone crashing the party.

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

Washington, D.C., Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, who presides over a
$300-million budget gap, has been found to have had her makeup done
at taxpayer expense at $65 per hour.

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

When Andy Hansen brought home a report card indicating that he got
a grade of C in math, his parents were angry indeed -- they sued
his teacher. After a year and $4,000 in legal fees ($8,500 for the
Contra Costa County, California, school district), the Hansens got
a verdict: the C stands. The father says he'll appeal. "We went in
and tried to make a deal: They wanted a C, we wanted an A, so why
not compromise on a B. But they dug in their heels, and here we
are."

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

After a San Diego police officer was sentenced to fifty-six years
for raping women on local beaches, his wife sued the police
department for lost income, claiming that the department should
have known not to hire him in the first place.

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

The Environmental Protection Agency decided that pepper spray was a
pesticide when used to ward off very large pests -- bears -- and
attempted to ban its sale for that use even though it was still
perfectly legal to sell it for use against human attackers.
--------------------------

An internationally-known political figure has come out against
members of the American press who allege that Arkansas state
troopers helped set up adulterous affairs for then-Governor Bill
Clinton, saying, "It's an interference in his personal life," and
"a violation of [Clinton's] human rights." The man making these
statements was none other than Fidel Castro, well known for his
human rights record.

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

Northern Express:

The House Appropriations Committee's report accompanying the 1994
defense appropriations bill directed the Defense Department "to
increase its purchases of Jumbo, Colossal, [and] Super Colossal
ripe olives in future solicitations of olive purchases."

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

The London Observer:

The European Community has ruled that stale bread is "waste," and
that it therefore cannot be fed to swans without a $3,000 license.

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

Oliver Stone has a new movie in the works called "Noriega," with Al
Pacino in the title role. The view of the Panamanian dictator will
be "somewhat sympathetic." Screenwriter Lawrence Wright says, "This
is a film about Noriega's spiritual journey."

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

The Lutheran:

Glen Proechel's two-week Klingon Language Camp includes a worship
service at St. John Lutheran Church. Proechel translated the Lord's
Prayer, the Apostle's Creed, and "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"
into Klingon for the service.

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

USA Today:

After he was cleared of obscenity charges, video store owner David
Wingate billed police about $8,000 in late fees for two tapes they
seized in 1991.

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

In Miami, a group of students was barred from competing in a "brain
bowl" -- an academic contest -- because its racial makeup didn't
match that of its home school. North Dade Middle School's team had
five members of Asian descent, seven Hispanics, seven whites and 17
blacks. Nonetheless, the group failed to meet new district
guidelines mandating that each team mirror *exactly* the ethnic
breakdown of its school. Because North Dade's student body is 70
percent black, the team was ruled ineligible.

Lois Lindahl, district director for middle-senior instructional
support and the woman who enforced the rule, told the Miami Herald
that the guidelines exist to protect black students. "Eventually
you have to take a position," she said. "Most of all, it's not fair
to the children in the school who did not have the opportunity [to
make the team]."

A reconfigured team with six extra black students was allowed to
compete after three non-black participants resigned from the team
in protest.

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

Detroit Free Press:

A Houston high school hopes to keep weapons out of the schools by
allowing students to carry only see-through backpacks and purses.

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

After the late homeless activist Mitch Snyder estimated the number
of homeless Americans at three million, a number which he later
admitted he made up while being interviewed on ABC's Nightline
show, that number stood as the most commonly quoted figure in the
media.

But now a Clinton Administration plan for dealing with the homeless
says that during the late 1980s as many as seven million Americans
were homeless. Paul Schmelzer, of the National Coalition for the
Homeless, commented that the seven million figure was derived from
New York City and Philadelphia housing records which were then
*extrapolated* nationally over a five-year period.

On the other hand, when the Census Bureau measured the number of
homeless on a single day as part of its 1990 Census, it came up
with a figure of fewer than 230,000. Studies by the National
Academy of Sciences and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development arrived at similar numbers.

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

The Milwaukee Journal:

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals brought
charges of pet abandonment against David Sharod, who left two fish
alone in their tank for three days while he was away. He was
acquitted after citing the society's own literature, which
indicated that the fish could live comfortably on algae in the tank
for up to two weeks.

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

The New York law that mandates individuals to buckle up while in
automobiles, moving or not, has now been applied against lovers
who were, to say the least, *not* wearing their seat belts while
their car was parked.

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

Frederick Newhall Woods and two other men are serving life
sentences for kidnapping a busload of California schoolchildren in
1976. But Woods said ABC aired "They've Taken Our Children: The
Chowchilla Kidnapping Story," a made-for-television movie, without
his consent. Not only that, but "the portrayal of the plaintiff in
the teleplay was false and misleading and exposed the plaintiff to
hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy."

Woods's lawyer, Herbert Yanowitz, says the movie wrongly
appropriated Woods's name for commercial purposes and inaccurately
pictured Woods as the kidnapping's engineer. The episode was not
exactly a joyride for the children but, Yanowitz says, conditions
were less harsh than the movie depicts.

Can you defame a kidnapper -- unfairly portray him as "callous,
vicious, hardened, wild-eyed, diabolical [and] uncaring"? Yes, says
Yanowitz. "If you make that person appear significantly worse than
he was."

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

Eric Engberg, CBS Evening News "Eye on America" segment, April 1,
1994:

The haunting depictions of the bloodshed in Sarajevo found in the
diary of the young Bosnian refugee Zlata Filopovic could just as
easily match the description of many war zones in America's inner
cities. Unfortunately, the shame of our cities and the war against
our children remain unrevealed. As a result of twelve years of
ruthless cuts in funding for education, our youngsters cannot match
the ease of intellect and eloquent prose that allowed Zlata to
expose the parallel tragedy of war-torn Sarajevo.

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

Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin Group, April 1, 1994:

Hillary and Bill Clinton cheating on their taxes was a protest
against Reagan era tax breaks for the wealthy. Many educated and
enlightened people purposely paid less than mid-1980s tax rates
required. They knew that in five or ten years the IRS would catch
up with them and tack on penalties which would adjust the payment
back up to where it should have been. If more people had been as
far-sighted and altruistic as the Clintons, we could retroactively
erase the deficit.

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


--
Henry Cate III     [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work.  -  Thomas Edison
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