Fun_People Archive
28 May
Weirdness [430] - 3May96

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue, 28 May 96 12:13:26 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [430] - 3May96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.430 (News of the Weird, May 3, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* According to a Reuters News Service report in February, sales are booming
for such businesses as the Baltimore, Md., firm Stocks & Bonds Ltd., which
makes special furniture for people who engage in erotic restraint,
discipline, sadism, and masochism.  A primary reason for the upsurge is the
influx of mainstream couples, some of whom even shop while pushing their
kids in strollers.  Said another erotic furniture maker, "Some people get
excited about the fact that they might serve coffee to their parents on a
table they used to tie each other to the night before." [Reuter wirecopy,
2-14-96; Paper-San Francisco Chronicle, 4-10-96]

* Relatives of victims filed a $60 million lawsuit in December against
Quaker Oats Co., which was allegedly a sponsor of 1940s and 1950s
experiments to feed oats with radioactive tracers to some mentally
handicapped schoolchildren.  The children were told that eating the cereal
was part of a science club experiment, when in reality it helped Quaker in
its competition with rival Cream of Wheat.  The radioactive bits, according
to the lawsuit, allowed researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
to trace the absorption of the oats' calcium and iron into the body.
[Edmonton Journal-AP, 12-7-95]

* In December, New York City welfare authorities took custody of three small
children who were discovered, filthy and starving, when the father called
police to report that his girlfriend (the kids' mother) was missing.  Asked
by police why he hadn't fed or cleaned the children himself, father Ahmed
Aldaeesheh said, "I don't do that." [Des Moines Register-AP, 1-1-96]

* In February, John Howard opened a Ku Klux Klan museum and apparel store,
called The Redneck Shop, in Laurens, S. Car.  Asked by a reporter what the
reaction was by townspeople, Howard said, "The only people I've had a
problem with, who took it as an insult and a racial situation, have been
blacks.  I didn't know blacks here were so prejudiced."  [Louisville
Courier-Journal-AP, 3-7-96]

* In March, Judge Philip Mangones in Keene, N. H., declared unconstitutional
a drug-producing search of the dormitory rooms of two Keene State College
students.  The students consented to the search, and more than six ounces
of marijuana was found, but the judge said that the men were too stoned to
know what they were doing when they consented. [Exeter News-Letter, 3-5-96]

Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name
News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston