Fun_People Archive
25 Aug
Weirdness [539] - 5Jun98

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 98 21:24:33 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: Weirdness [539] - 5Jun98

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649
Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.539 (News of the Weird, June 5, 1998)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* While Joe Camel-type ads lose favor in cigarette promotions in the U.S.,
ads in other countries are stepping up their use of sensitive sales images,
according to an April San Francisco Examiner report.  A Marlboro ad in
Cambodia features girls around eights years of age; in Poland, the backdrop
of a Camel ad is a school; and in the Philippines, the tobacco industry
association used (along with packs of Winston and Camel) the Virgin Mary on
its 1998 promotional calendar.

* As the U.S.-Iraqi conflict heated up in February, two members of the Sons
of Freedom Doukhobors attempted to revive the pacifist sect's tradition of
protest in Burnaby, British Columbia.  They went on a 25-day hunger strike
in jail, where they are serving two-year sentences for setting fires to
their own homes, which they said Doukhobors frequently do to demonstrate
sacrifice against longstanding evils, including taxation and public
education.  The other hallmark of Doukhobor protests is frequent public
nudity, which it says shows a rejection of wealth and status.

* Last year, the six-member city council of Glendale, Colo., passed tough
restrictions on strip clubs that so angered many citizens that they joined
strip-club owner Debbie Matthews in forming the Glendale Tea Party, whose
candidates in the April 1998 council election won all three contested seats,
giving the Party a chance now to repeal or weaken the ordinance.  Said
Matthews, "I don't think [the old council] realized [how many] people like
the club."

* The latest British company to hire a poet-in-residence is the London Zoo.
According to director-general Richard Burge, the poet's jobs will include
writing guides in rhyme for visitors and "help[ing] to interpret the lives
of the animals."  News of the Weird reported earlier this year that the
large department store Marks & Spencer had hired a poet two days a week,
and since then, the British Broadcasting Corporation and a professional
soccer team have hired poets (although the soccer team is still in last
place in the Premier League).
[It's a start; when will they start hiring musicians-in-residence?  -psl]

* Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur
with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation:  (23) An
older female schoolteacher's creating a sexual relationship with a much
younger male student, for which Mary Kay LeTourneau of Seattle, Wash.,
received massive press coverage last year and for which Julie A. Feil, 31,
of Hastings, Minn., received very little in February 1998 when she was
arrested for seducing a 16-year-old boy (after allegedly failing with a 13-
year-old).

	Copyright 1998 by Universal Press Syndicate.

© 1998 Peter Langston