Fun_People Archive
17 Feb
Weirdness [468] - 24Jan97

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 97 12:57:38 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [468] - 24Jan97

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.468 (News of the Weird, January 24, 1997)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* The Brooklyn, N. Y., organization Shalom Bayis ("Household Peace" in
Hebrew) closed down its 24-hour mistress hotline in January after an
unfavorable New York Daily News story.  A Shalom Bayis spokesman said the
hotline's purpose was to place its 40 volunteer mistresses with unsatisfied
husbands in order to stop the "plague of divorce" menacing Jewish couples.
Although Shalom Bayis claimed to take no fee for its services, it did admit
that after the Daily News story, most of the hotline callers were single
men and happily married men who just wanted sex.

* One Man, One Vote:  Because of an obscure state constitutional amendment
that few voters and politicians noticed, the terms of office of the four
incumbents on the Loretto, Ky., City Council automatically expired in
November without their having had an opportunity to campaign for
re-election.  Travis Greenwell, 23, voting by absentee ballot, was perhaps
the only person in town (population 800) who read the voting literature and
thus cast the only votes in the election.  For the four slots, he wrote in
the names of his mother, his uncle, a friend, and a local character who runs
a hardware store.  (All except the hardware store guy declined to serve.)

* Wrong Place, Wrong Time:  Phoenix, Ariz., cosmetic surgeon Steven
Locniker, on the lam for avoiding child-support charges, was arrested in
September after he called attention to himself as Cosmopolitan magazine's
"Bachelor of the Month."

* Dale L. Larson's $41,000 trial-court award was upheld by a Wisconsin
appeals court in October, which agreed with the trial court that the
Indianhead golf course in Wausau was 51 percent responsible for Larson's
needing nine root canals and 23 dental crowns.  Larson tripped on his golf
spikes and fell hard on his face on a brick path outside the clubhouse, and
he argued that he wouldn't have fallen if it had been a smooth concrete
sidewalk rather than a brick path.  The trial court had found that only 49
percent of the accident was due to Larson's having consumed 13 drinks that
evening, which left him with a blood-alcohol level of 0.28 90 minutes after
the fall.

* Andrew Daniels filed a $500,000 lawsuit against M&M/Mars Company and an
Cleveland, Ohio, retailer because one of the M&M Peanuts he bit down on had
no peanut in it, and as a result, his teeth bit through his lip, which
required his hospitalization and various surgery bills.  One claim against
the retailer is under the legal theory of "failure to inspect" the candy.

* In August, Julie Leach filed a lawsuit in Macomb County, Michigan, seeking
at least $10,000 from the owners of a beagle named Patch, which Leach said
was constantly enticing Leach's German shepherd Holly to chase him.  In
1995, during one of Patch's escapades, the pursuing Holly was run over by
a car and killed.  Leach says Patch's owners should pay for permitting their
dog to harass Holly.

* Jamie Brooks, 18, filed a $5 million claim against Kiowa County, Okla.,
in June, asserting that it is the county's fault that she became pregnant
six months earlier while housed in the jail awaiting her murder trial.  She
said the father is inmate-trusty Eddie Alonzo, who had access to the
hallways and who she said impregnated her through the bars of her cell.

  Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate.

© 1997 Peter Langston