Fun_People Archive
1 Dec
News From All Over

Date: Thu,  1 Dec 94 15:19:55 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: News From All Over

From: WhiteBoard News for November 30, 1994 <joeha@microsoft.com>

This item comes by way of Bruce Cronquist:

Seattle, Washington:

Location, location, location.

The Rubber Rainbow Condom Company has opened its doors
at the entrance of the Sanitary Public Market Building
at the Pike Place Market.

The company started in Victoria, British Columbia in
1992.  This is the company's first U.S. location.

The company offers 200 kinds of condoms in an open,
friendly atmosphere and also tries to act as a liaison
to the community on safe sex.
==========

Assen, Netherlands:

The town of Assen in the Netherlands has banned Santa
Claus and many other familiar Christmas symbols in an
attempt to preserve an ancient Dutch tradition.

Shops have hung "No entry for reindeer" signs in their
windows.  No carols may be sung, and the local police
have been asked to arrest visiting Santas.

Residents say that until the Dutch version of Santa,
Sinterklaas, has visited on the night of December 5, no
signs of his Anglo-Saxon cousin may be displayed.
	[Now there's a custom that we ought to adopt!  -psl]

"After that, Santa is welcome, but until then we don't
want him," said Lodewijk Osse of the Assen Sinterklaas
Committee, which has led the campaign to save what it
sees as a more authentic custom than the American
"import."

The Dutch have celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas, a
medieval Bishop of Myra in Turkey, for at least 500
years.  It was Dutch settlers who first took
Sinterklaas, later pronounced Santa Claus, to America.

Dutch children put out their shoes on the night of
December 5 and wait to see if they will be rewarded
with gifts for being good.  They are told they will be
carried off to Spain in Sinterklaas' sack if they have
been naughty.

However, in recent years television and commercial
pressures have helped increase the popularity of
Christmas as the main winter festival.

Most Dutch families now get two rounds of presents, and
December 25, which is a public holiday, has begun to
eclipse December 5, which is not.
==========

Oslo, Norway:

Pivotal undecided voters in Norway's European Union
referendum got a little nudge Monday from Norby's
Bakery, which removed "Don't Know" cakes from its
shelves and left only "Yes" and "No" sweets.

"Today we didn't make 'Don't Know' cakes because today
people have [to] decide," said Birgitta Norby at the
downtown Oslo bakery, which has sold about 1,000 of the
political pastries.

Opinion polls released Monday said up to 10 percent of
Norwegians -- enough to swing the vote in the
nonbinding referendum -- still didn't know as polls
opened for the conclusion of the two-day vote.
==========

Torrington, Connecticut:

A frantic search for a missing toddler ended when
police found the 2-year-old asleep in the cushions of
the family's overstuffed couch.

© 1994 Peter Langston