Fun_People Archive
6 May
Nothing Is Surprising Anymore...

Date: Fri,  6 May 94 14:10:34 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Nothing Is Surprising Anymore...

Forwarded-by: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
From: WEIRDNUZ.324 (News of the Weird, April 22, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd

* The Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News reported in March that an ear-piercing
establishment at the local mall had pierced the ears of an 11-month-old
girl who was brought in by her 16-year-old mother, but had refused to
do the mother's.  The proprietor explained that the daughter had her
mother's permission, but that he couldn't do the mother's ears because
she was under 18 and thus needed *her* mother's permission.
[Lebanon Daily News, 3-4-94]

* The Washington Post reported in September that at the third annual
Fairfax County (Va.) Slugfest, "Slippery" beat out 49 other slugs in
the Tour de Slug race.  Also featured at the festival:  slug
face-painting, the slime toss, and the official drink--green "slimeade."
A 12-year-old boy demonstrated his skill at flicking his tongue in and
out of his mouth with his slug, Mickey, attached.  He said that despite
washing Mickey several times with soap beforehand, "the slime [still]
sticks between your teeth.  I've still got some slime from yesterday."
[Washington Post, 9-12-93]

* Recently, Univ. of Massachusetts Professor Robert Malloy announced a
plan to save the endangered African black rhinoceros from hunters who
kill them for their horns.  At a cost of about $2,000 per animal,
officials would tranquilize the rhino, remove the horn, and attach an
artificial one, using a technique similar to that used to affix dental
crowns.  The horn would be painted orange to discourage poachers.
Namibia has rejected the proposal, preferring its own program to remove
but not replace the horns, but Malloy maintains that an artificial horn
is necessary for rhinos' social standing within the group. [[Columbus
Dispatch-AP, Jan94]]

* In June at the Biennale art show in Venice, Italy, an animal activist
filed abuse charges against Japanese artist Yukinori Yanagi, who had
used more than 200 ants in a labyrinth of colored sand dunes and tunnels
shaped like nations' flags that he called "Can Art Change the World?"
Following the show, Yanagi freed the ants.  [Wilmington Morning Star-AP,
6-19-93]

* According to the prosecutor at his gang-related murder trial in
September in Milwaukee, Antonio Mendez, 18, told police at the time of
his arrest:  "You know, this is going to wreck my whole summer.  I'm
not going to be able to go to Summerfest.  It's not like [the 15-
year-old victim] was the president or anything.  She's just a girl."
[Milwaukee Sentinel, 9-29-93]

Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
Released for the personal use of readers. 
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.

© 1994 Peter Langston