Fun_People Archive
22 Dec
Wild & Wacky WhiteBoard News

Date: Thu, 22 Dec 94 00:55:33 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Wild & Wacky WhiteBoard News

Forwarded-by: <joeha@microsoft.com>

From: WhiteBoard News for December 21, 1994

==========
Seattle, Washington:

Microsoft Corporation wasn't very amused last week by
the fake story about it supposedly acquiring the
Catholic Church, but the phony news account didn't
bother the Archdiocese of Seattle, which issued a
tongue-in-cheek response Monday.

"We could have had a material as well as a spiritual
Christmas," joked John A. McCoy, public affairs director
for the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle.  "We could have
had a software bonanza in the collection basket."

Church officials pretended to be disappointed by
Microsoft's formal denial Friday of a fake story
floating around the Internet that said it would buy the
Roman Catholic Church.  The archdiocesan public affairs
office faxed a press release to the local media with
the headline "Church Hopes Dashed as Microsoft Denies
Acquisition Bid."

The release listed several reasons why a church-
Microsoft deal might have been beneficial.  The church,
for example, might have helped Microsoft develop better
icons for its software programs.

"We've had 2,000 years of working with icons.  Microsoft
Windows has only done it for three.  We could have
helped," the release read.

"We're trying to show that the Catholic church has a
sense of humor," McCoy explained.

Archbishop Thomas Murphy was not quoted in the release,
but he approved it before it was faxed to the media,
McCoy said.

==========

This item comes by way of Robert Purser:

New York, New York:

He not only knows when you've been bad or good -- he
knows CPR, for goodness' sake.

Ten sidewalk Santas rallied around a bicyclist who
collided with a van Tuesday, tending to his injuries
and directing traffic around the scene.

"He asked me, 'Am I in the North Pole?'" recalled
pseudo-Santa Lawrence Reichard, an emergency medical
technician who was part of a Claus cluster handing out
promotional fliers for a store.

Reichard, in full white beard and bright red suit, took
the vital signs of 63-year-old Philip Anderson while
another jolly old elf held the man's neck straight and
the rest summoned help or directed cars on Third
Avenue.

"When the police arrived, there's 10 Santas standing
around this guy," said Bill Zanca, who hired the Santa
salesmen to promote his Great American Backrub shop.
"Only in New York, right?"

Anderson was in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital.
Hospital spokeswoman Vicki Caimpa said he probably
would be released later in the day.
==========

Hayward, California:

Mall Santas are looking more and more like America this
Christmas: In Hayward, Santa Claus Patrick Landeza
totes a ukulele to his throne and thrills Philippine
children by wishing them Merry Christmas in the
Tagalong language.  Another Santa, Willie Edward Brown
Jr., has a gift for rap.  In Columbus, Ohio, Marvin
Stitt dresses up like St. Nick and signs to deaf
children.

"It just makes sense.  Santa is a child's imagination,
and if 25% of your customers are Hispanic and 25% are
African-American, you want to find a Santa that fits,"
said Elizabeth Pedersen-Knapp of Southland Mall in
Hayward.
==========

Hollywood, California:

"I had to wear a blue polyester pantsuit that was hot,
horrible and, I believe, one of the most unattractive
pieces of clothing ever worn.  And it was amazing to
even look at the Carol Brady wig.  It had a life of its
own."

Actress Shelly Long, soon to be seen as the mom in "The
Brady Bunch Movie," on suffering for her art.
==========

Hollywood, California:

"This Orange County bankruptcy has affected everybody.
I stopped at an intersection near Disneyland and five
of the seven dwarfs came out and tried to clean my
windshield."

Jay Leno.
==========

Jerusalem, Israel:

Rabbis have ruled that a couple's 1982 marriage is
illegal because of a sin committed by the wife's family
2,500 years ago, news reports said Monday.

Shoshana Hadad and Masoud Cohen could face criminal
charges of misleading the rabbi who married them, the
Religious Affairs Ministry said.

The ruling is based on a historic rumor.  Rabbis believe
a distant ancestor of Hadad, a Tunisian immigrant,
illegally married a divorcee in about 580 B.C., the
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said.

That transgression marked the entire family.  Rabbis
decreed that the family's daughters for generations --
including Shoshana Hadad -- could never marry a Cohen.
Cohens are descendants of the original Jewish temple
priests and are expected to follow certain laws in
family matters.

When rabbis in Tiberias in northern Israel refused to
marry them in 1982, Cohen and Hadad had a religious
wedding in Meron, another Galilee town, Hadad said on
Israel radio.  She said that she believed that made it
official despite the doubts about her family's past.

The newspaper indicated that the couple only learned
the wedding wasn't recognized when recently they tried
to register their 4-year-old son at the Interior
Ministry.  Hadad was told she was still listed as
single.

The Religious Affairs Ministry claimed the couple were
told from the start they couldn't marry, but Hadad
disputed that on Israel Television, saying they never
knew about the problem.

"This is scandalous," Hadad told the newspaper.  "It's
intolerable."

"What are we to blame for what some grandfather did?"
she said on television.  "If some great-grandfather did
something during the days of the first temple, do we
have to suffer for it to this very day?"

Moshe Friedman, spokesman for the Religious Affairs
Ministry, accused the couple of marrying by "deception
and in criminal ways," and said the rabbi involved
would complain to police.

The couple can appeal the ruling, which carries legal
weight because Orthodox rabbis set the guidelines for
weddings in Israel.
==========

© 1994 Peter Langston