Fw: The Idler, Tuesday, April 2, 2012

 

----- Original Message -----

From: linscott

To: registration23.windhoek@blogger.com

Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 7:08 PM

Subject: The Idler, Tuesday, April 2, 2012

The gang of blondes

THE SHOPPING malls of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, have been terrorised over four years by a group known as the "Gang of blondes". They have abducted 54 female shoppers then used their credit cards to buy luxury items.

Why blondes in particular should have such proclivities is not clear. Nor why they should have remained at large for so long. In a country like Brazil, with its Latin/African demographics, their coloration would surely have made them stand out rather.

The gang is said to be made up of blonde, bilingual and well-educated women who rob female shoppers and hold them in captivity while the credit cards are being used. Then the victims are released.

Anyway, the Brazilian police seem to be about to crack the case. A blonde and her blond husband – said to be the ringleaders – have been arrested; also the husband of another blonde, who is still at large.

A curious case. Hopefully it's not a foretaste of the Rampaging Redheads and the Bullygirl Brunettes.

Cosmas Desmond

THOSE of us who knew him are saddened by the death of Cosmas Desmond at the age of 76. A light of conscience and intellect has disappeared from our midst – a light that at the same time shed entertainment and merriment.

The sadness actually began a year ago and more when Cos's strident voice was stilled by the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Until then he had been the source of corruscating wit and wisdom across a range of issues – politics, international affairs, sport, science … His interests seemed endless and he loved sharing thoughts with those he met. He was convivial, a wonderful conversationalist, the discussions often well lubricated with Irish whiskey.

Cos came to South Africa from England as a young Catholic priest and was appalled by the cruelty of the apartheid government's Soviet-style population resettlement in the rural districts. His vocal opposition led to his being banned for several years.

He eventually left the priesthood and married, though he remained very much a practising Catholic, committed to social upliftment and to children's rights.

Cos was a socialist of the very best sort. His political beliefs were actually very simple. He hated apartheid for its cruelty and injustice and the misery it caused. He believed in a fair sharing of South Africa's natural bounty. I'm sure he was appalled by the champagne socialism of today – the BMWs and the Breitling watches.

He will be missed – in fact he had been missed ever since he went silent. Cos was one of the most entertaining and stimulating men I have ever known. An exuberant spirit is now at rest.

 

Ice cream research

AVALANCHE experts have been drawn into the manufacture of ice cream. According to this news report, technology from the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research at Davos, Switzerland, is being used to study how ice cream's crystal structure changes when it is stored in a household freezer.

It's as well. We need to guard at all times against ice cream purchasers being buried in an avalanche of chocolate mint.

Alphabet response

MANY readers responded to the recent spoof phonetic alphabet published. It seems one of the two letters I could not work out was due to a wrong formulation – "G for police chief". It should have been simply "G for police" (Chief of police).

"H for wisdom" meant age for wisdom.

Several alternatives were also given: "P for relief", for instance, rather than "P for penny"; "O for the wings of a dove" instead of "O for the wall".

My thanks to all of you.

Mein fuss

AN UNEMPLOYED Austrian man cut off his foot with a mechanical saw so he could not be declared fit enough to go to work, according to reports from a place called Millerlabill.

Austria has a history of unemployed nutters. One wrote a book called Mein Kampf, then went on to cause no end of trouble.

Recommended Stories

 

Tailpiece

PHILOSOPHICAL proposition from Tennessee: If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pick-up trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary works in Braille.

 

 

Last word

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Orson Welles

 

Fw: The Idler, Monday, April 2, 2012

 

----- Original Message -----

From: linscott

To: registration23.windhoek@blogger.com

Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 7:06 PM

Subject: The Idler, Monday, April 2, 2012

Names with meaning

EPONYMITY wins again! Last week's Mercury quoted an American expert on the ageing of dogs, a Dr Emily Pointer. What the report didn't mention was that among her colleagues at the Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital, in New York, are a Dr Lucas Labrador, a Dr Terence Terrier, a Dr Stephen Setter and a Dr Martin Mastiff. Not to forget the chief kennel man, Charlie Chihuahua.

Okay, only kidding. But eponymity can be uncanny. And sometimes it works in reverse. At the Royal Show many years ago there was an occasion when a Mrs Peacock, the show secretary, presented the Crowe trophy to a Mr Fowle for breeding the best chinchilla rabbit.

Yes, Thomas Crapper developed and gave his name to an item of bathroom furniture. Hans Geiger developed and gave his name to the counter of radio-activity. Henry Ford developed and gave his name to the Model-T. These are eponymous products.

Yet seldom do you find a vet with the same name as a gun dog. Except, of course, old Dr Selwyn Spaniel and Dr Roddy R Triever (No, kidding again)..

It recalls a cartoon in the Spectator. Two delegates are being introduced at a convention.

"Jack Daniels, I'd like you to meet Johnny Walker."

Above them is the convention banner: "Alcoholics Eponymous".

What a dog!

THE POINTER is a wonderful breed. Its liver and white colouring; its smooth coat; the way it points to a hidden game bird with its nose, one forepaw raised, tail outstretched and quivering; the soft mouth with which it retrieves a downed bird, never dreaming of crunching it. It's the culmination of centuries of training and breeding.

The best pointer I ever knew was called Chalky. He belonged to a friend. We once took Chalky for a run on the Woodburn rugby grounds in Maritzburg, then went into the adjacent Collegians Club.

It was Sunday lunchtime and the bowlers were sitting at a long row of tables set along the wall, blazers draped over the chairs behind them. Presiding was a prominent local attorney. Chalky took one look at this lot. Centuries of breeding moved into action.

Chalky ran down that line of blazers like a three-legged fire engine, one leg in the air as he widdled over the bowlers and their blazers. He was like a whirlwind irrigation sprinkler.

It caused consternation, uproar. In the confusion, Chalky snatched a few steaks and swallowed them. The club was divided between outrage on the part of the affected bowlers and the rest of the membership who thought it the funniest thing ever.

"As the attorney said afterwards in pained tones: "It spoils the day. You've had a nice morning playing bowls, you're having a nice lunch with your friends then next thing a dog swazzes on you and takes your lunch. It spoils the whole day."

In due course my friend got a note from the club committee, disinviting Chalky from future attendance. Such a pity, he was a dog with real talent.

Discrimination

WHICH recalls another case of club discrimination against dogs. A different friend was incensed when Yellowwood Park Club barred the dog of a regular.

Himself a breeder of beagles, he then enrolled his own dog as a member. Under "membership of other clubs". Bruce Beagle listed Durban and District Kennel Union and Natal Sporting Hounds Club. He signed the application form with a paw print. A cheque was attached and Bruce Beagle duly received a membership card.

However our sister newspaper, the Sunday Tribune, got wind of this. Next thing they had a front page picture of Bruce Beagle sitting on a bar stool, contemplating a pint of beer. At which his membership was rescinded.

But he had the last laugh. His name was on the club noticeboard the very next week. He'd won the meat draw.

 

Tailpiece

A WOMAN is driving at 140km/h down the highway. She sees a motorcycle policeman chasing. She speeds up.

She looks back and two motorcycles are chasing. She's now doing 160km/h. Then three cops are chasing.

She spots a service station. Screeching to a stop, she runs into the ladies' room.

Ten minutes later, she walks out. The three cops are standing waiting.

Without batting an eyelid: "I'll bet none of you thought I would make it."

 

 

 

Last word

The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.

Jean Kerr

 

Fw: Captain Cook, Friday, March 30, 2012

 

----- Original Message -----

From: linscott

To: registration23.windhoek@blogger.com

Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 7:04 PM

Subject: Captain Cook, Friday, March 30, 2012

THE DESPERADOES among us were threatening to stay on at the Street Shelter for the Over-40s – where they were holding a Shunters Arms "reunion" last Friday night – right through until kick-off at 6.30. The more sensible and sedate among us left the Shelter about midnight to visit the Thunder Bar and talk rugby with the Ukrainian lovelies.

What a match! We improve with every outing. This time the line-outs were magnificent. So was the mauling. So was the threequarter play. Has Bismarck du Plessis ever had a better game? This was the business!

Yet we lost – narrowly, after holding the lead for so much of the match. You can probably put it down to jetlag in the closing quarter. It's in so many ways a repeat of our close games against the Bulls and the Stormers. Anything could have happened. But we can be upbeat because, playing like this, our luck is going to turn. We showed we have it in us to win at least two matches on this down-under jaunt and take a bonus point in the others. Then win our home matches. Super rugby is like a Tolstoy novel, not like Hollywood. Plumtree is our Bagration.

And the Brumbies tomorrow (Known as Australian Capital Territory in the days before nomenclature was Yankeefied at the insistence of the marketing Ponytails. Am I alone in needing a geographic fix for any rugby side? Who are these Highlanders, Hurricanes, Wombats and Armadilloes? Where do they come from?). Yes, the Brumbies took the Highlanders (actually Otago) last weekend but I saw little cause for panic. I say we have the measure of them. We'll have settled. Our pack is about to come into its own. Hier kom 'n ding!

Meanwhile, I expect every union in South Africa has been flying the flags at half-mast this week at the news that the International Rugby Board have dropped Bryce Lawrence from their top panel of referees. Lawrence it was who made such a hash of our quarterfinal against Australia in the World Cup last year.

Yes, there are rumblings of discontent at the quality of reffing. Also at the way the rules are being tweaked. A fellow who quaffs ale with me, and who had 15 years in first division club rugby as a front-ranker, says he detects insidious attempts to phase out the scrum as we know it.

The scrum has already been castrated, he says. We are close to a point where props have to push dead straight with no movement allowed up or down, left or right; and a bind that neutralises their arms. This might make for a faster game, quicker restarts and great TV viewing – but it's not the unique game we grew up with.

It's a worrying thought. Should TV and marketing be allowed to call the shots in this way? Like with the names?

But it's a Tolstoy novel Many a twist and turn lies ahead. One match at a time. The Brumbies tomorrow. Knicker elastic time!

Fw: The Idler, Friday, March 30, 2012

 

----- Original Message -----

From: linscott

To: registration23.windhoek@blogger.com

Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 7:02 PM

Subject: The Idler, Friday, March 30, 2012

Now it's gangster dolphins

MALE bottlenose dolphins organise themselves into gangs, according to researchers in Western Australia. The gangs guard females against other groups, though occasionally their loyalties change and they switch sides.

This is according to a team that has been studying dolphins at a place called Shark Bay. The dolphins roam hundreds of square kilometres, often encountering other dolphin groups.

These highly intelligent marine mammals live in an "open society". Rather than males guarding a specific territory, groups have a mosaic of overlapping ranges

 When they encounter strangers, they form alliances and work together to defend their females. Dolphins and humans are the only mammals known to behave this way. It's very like gang culture.

That's all very well. Just so long as those dolphins don't start wearing baseball caps back-to-front.

Grrrrrrr!

MORE on the American electoral process. According to satirist Andy Borowitz , a rabid doberman pinscher jumped on stage at a Tea Party rally in Missouri and barked at the crowd for nearly 20 minutes before people realised he was not a candidate.

The dog held the crowd spellbound as he barked, growled, and frothed at the mouth, eventually receiving a standing ovation.

It became apparent that the figure on stage was a dog, only when he lunged at a man in the front row, snatching a hamburger and biting off two of his fingers.

The American electoral process is indeed complex. We are fortunate to have the analytical services of a man such as Borowitz.

Rash wagers

THE PAIN of defeat - an Englishman has had a Wales tattoo etched on his back after losing a bet that England would win the Six Nations rugby tournament.

John Adam had the Prince of Wales's feathers inscribed. Had England won, his Welsh friend James Griffiths would have had the rose of England tattooed on his back.

These seem drastic measures. Tattooes are forever. I'm confident that the Sharks will prevail in the Super-15 – but no, I'm not wagering anything in the line of tattooes. Besides, a Blue Bull,or anything of that sort,would clash with the tastefully erotic artwork that is already there.

Tiny pup

A PUPPY named Beyonce is believed to be the smallest dog in the world. She fits on a tablespoon and weights only a few ounces. She was born in an animal shelter in San Beradino, California, her mother having been taken in off the streets.

Beyonce was the last-born of a litter of five and had no heartbeat. But vets managed to get her heart started up.

Her details have been submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records and the shelter people hope she will be well enough in a few weeks to be found a good home.

But caution is advised. You adopt a tiny puppy that fits on a tablespoon. Before you know it she's grown into a gigantic Irish wolfhound.

 

Kiwi crisis

A NUTRITION crisis in New Zealand – they've run out of Marmite. The factory closed after last year's earthquake in Christchurch and warehouse stocks have now run out.

The manufacturers say they'll be back any day, but meanwhile the Kiwis – including the prime minister – are spreading it thin.

Does this have relevance to us? It might indeed in a week or so. A New Zealand scrum deprived of Marmite could be an absolute pushover.

Getting on

The nice thing about being senile is you can hide your own Easter eggs.

Tailpiece

FOUR surviving ex-presidents of the US are caught in a tornado and whirled into the air. They find themselves at the Emerald City and in the presence of the great Wizard of Oz.

"What brings you before the great Wizard of Oz?"

Jimmy Carter steps forward timidly: "I've come for some courage."

"No problem! That's done! Who's next?"

George W Bush steps forward: "Well … I think I need a brain."

"Done! Who comes next before the great and powerful Oz?"

"Up steps George Bush snr: "I'm told by the American people that I need a heart."

"Consider it done" says the Wizard.

There's a silence in the hall. Bill Clinton is standing there looking around but doesn't say a word.

The Wizard: "Well, what do you want?"

Clinton: "Is Dorothy here?"

 

Last word

The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.

Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

 

Fw: The Idler, hbursday, March 29, 2012

 

----- Original Message -----

From: linscott

To: registration23.windhoek@blogger.com

Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 7:00 PM

Subject: The Idler, hbursday, March 29, 2012

A game that's in the blood

WHY DO MEN play rugby? I've always believed it satisfies some primordial urge for battle. It's a war substitute – with the emphasis on substitute. It's controlled violence.

Izak van Heerden, the great Natal coach who changed the pattern of the game forever in South Africa, certainly believed that. He saw in rugby the hand to hand combat of the trenches, the glory of the cavalry charge.

Now reader Eric Hodgson – who travelled to New Zealand last year for the World Cup – contributes some lines that truly capture the ethos of rugby.

When the battle scars have faded
And the truth becomes a lie
And the weekend smell of liniment
Could almost make you cry.

When the last ruck's well behind you
And the man that ran now walks,
It doesn't matter who you are,
The mirror sometimes talks.

Have a good hard look old son!
The melon's not that great.
The snoz that takes a sharp turn sideways
Used to be dead straight.

You're an advert for arthritis,
You're a thoroughbred gone lame,
Then you ask yourself the question:
Why the hell you played the game?

Was there logic in the head knocks?
In the corks and in the cuts?
Did common sense get pushed aside
By manliness and guts?

Do you sometimes sit and wonder
Why your time would often pass
In a tangled mess of bodies
With your head up someone's ***e?

With a thumb hooked up your nostril,
Scratching gently on your brain
And an overgrown Neanderthal
Rejoicing in your pain!

Mate - you must recall the jersey
That was shredded into rags,
Then the soothing sting of Dettol
On a back engraved with tags!

It's almost worth admitting,
Though with some degree of shame,
That your wife was right in asking
Why the hell you played the game?

Why you'd always rock home legless
Like a cow on roller skates
After drinking at the clubhouse
With your low-down drunken mates.

Then you'd wake up - check your wallet,
Not a solitary coin,
Drink Berocca by the bucket,
Throw an ice pack on your groin.

Copping Sunday morning sermons
About boozers being losers
While you limped like Quasimodo
With a half a thousand bruises!

Yes - an urge to hug the porcelain
And curse Sambuca's name
Would always pose the question
Why the hell you played the game?

And yet with every wound re-opened
As you grimly reminisce it
Comes the most compelling feeling yet,
How you bloody miss it!

From the first time that you laced a boot
And tightened every stud,
That virus known as rugby
Has been living in your blood.

When you dreamt it, when you played it,
All the rest took second fiddle;
Now you're standing on the sideline
But your heart's still in the middle.

And no matter where you travel
You can take it as expected
There will always be a breed of people
Hopelessly infected.

If there's a team-mate, then you'll find him
Like a gravitating force,
With a common understanding
And a beer or three, of course.

And as you stand there telling lies
Like it was yesterday, old friend,
You'll know that if you had the chance
You'd do it all again.

You see - that's the thing with rugby,
It will always be the same.
And that, I guarantee,
Is why the hell you played the game!

 

Ghost ship

THERE'S something most eerie about that ghost ship that's been spotted off the west coast of Canada. It's not Hendrick Vanderdecken, the Flying Dutchman, on a somewhat different course, it's a Japanese trawler that has been adrift since the tsunami that struck more than a year ago - as reported in our news pages.

The vessel is part of a huge debris belt, weighing about 25 million tons, that started drifting eastward from Japan across the Pacific after the earthquake and resulting tsunami. It was unmanned at the time. Being bulky and exposed to the wind, it's being driven ahead of the rest of the debris.

But given the calamity that set it adrift, it's as spooky in its way as the Flying Dutchman legend.

Tailpiece

He: "If I could see you naked, I'd die happy."
She: "If I could see you naked, I'd probably die laughing."

Last word

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Oscar Wilde

 

Fw: The Idler, Wednesday March 28, 2012

 

----- Original Message -----

From: linscott

To: registration23.windhoek@blogger.com

Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 6:58 PM

Subject: The Idler, Wednesday March 28, 2012

Now it's corruption fatigue ARE YOU HAVING difficulty coping with the deluge of information about corruption, kickbacks, supply chain regulations, treasury regulations, rigged tenders and multi-billion rand leases? Much of this coupled with stories of Ferraris, Gucci suits, Johnny Walker Blue Label and the occasional consumption of sushi from the navel region of scantily-clad lovelies? Much of it coupled with dynastic information – blood relationships, marriages, "partnerships" – among the new plutocracy/political aristocracy, such as to make Who's Who and Burke's Peerage look commonplace? You find it all increasingly difficult to digest? Well, it seems you're not alone. A psychologist acquaintance tells me much of society is suffering Corruption Fatigue, or what is known in the trade as Pickpocket Victim Syndrome. "It's a serious condition, comparable with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or what was known in World War I as "shell shock". It's caused by exposure to continuous bombardment, with no end in sight, of information about billions upon billions of public money being stolen. "It can have bizarre manifestations. I've a patient who wakes in the night screaming that the Youth League are stealing his slippers. Another raves that The Arms Deal Offsets will be found in the same hidey-hole as the Kruger Millions. "It is most worrying. Society is becoming seriously unbalanced. Those paying the taxes are becoming overstressed and disorientated. Those who should be receiving the benefits of the taxes – the underclass – are developing symptoms of irrational frenzy …" Worrying indeed. It's enough to make you need a Blue Label this early in the day. Cheers! Waiting list FORMER American Vice-President Dick Cheney has had a heart transplant. But, according to satirist Andy Borowitz, former President George W Bush remains on the hospital waiting list for a brain. Snookered AN AUSTRALIAN climbed onto a billiard table to get away from giant saltwater crocodiles that had been stalking him for three days. It happened on Dinah Island, in north Queensland, where Terry Donovan, 65, was in a fishing hut that became cut off by floodwaters. He saw four-metre saltwater crocs lurking in the waters. One lunged at a wallaby sheltering on the hut's back deck. "The first time I saw it and it saw me, it was just outside. It sank below the surface and I saw it swim under the house.I was determined I wasn't going outside again, come hell or high water.'' He was afraid that if the water rose much higher, one of them could swim in and attack him. Donovan positioned himself on the billiard table, which he packed with supplies. The water level kept rising until it was an inch or so above the nets on the billiard table pockets. Eventually he was rescued by a helicopter which came to check on him after he failed to answer his satellite phone. An unnerving experience. What if those crocs had swum in? Those saltwater critters are mean hustlers at both snooker and billiards. Recommended Stories Boom, bang! PEOPLE living in the Wisconsin town of Clintonville, in the US, have been spooked by a series of mysterious booms and bangs. Police received more than 600 calls within three days. But seismologists have now traced the mystery sound effects to a series of tiny earthquakes, so small they weren't detected at first. Wisconsin's ancient consolidated rock amplified the effect. I suppose that's a relief. Otherwise it could have been somebody like Mike Tyson or Arnie Schwarzenegger, in town with an upset tummy.

 First service

 

A TENNIS ball is in a bar.

 

Barman: "Have you been served?''

 

 

Tailpiece

SADIE'S husband Jake has been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet his faithful wife stays by his bedside day and night.

One night Jake comes to and motions for her to come closer. He says: "My Sadie, you've been with me through all the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house, you gave me support. When my health started failing, you were still by my side. You know what, Sadie?"

"What Dear?"

"I think you're bad luck."

Last word

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

Randall Jarrell

 

 

Fw: The Idler, Tuesday, March 27, 2012

 

----- Original Message -----

From: linscott

To: registration23.windhoek@blogger.com

Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 6:56 PM

Subject: The Idler, Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Glass-free pubs

THE PUBS in Newport city centre, Wales, are to be glass-free on Friday and Saturday nights. Plastic cups will be used instead of glasses.

This is to stop people fighting with broken glass – a practice I had always thought was confined to Glasgow. But apparently it happens in Wales as well.

It's odd. In the Duikers' Club at King's Park the other night I bought a small bottle of wine for a lady. She had to drink it from a large plastic mug designed to hold a pint of beer. As the barman explained, if you pour in just a few dollops at a time, it's the same as drinking out of a wine glass.

But I don't think there's been an outbreak of "glassing" – as they call it in Newport and Glasgow – in the Duikers' Club. It's just the Duikers' natural sense of daintiness.

 

Mini-bar scores

INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener notes in his latest grumpy newsletter that the debate over tolls versus fuel levies to pay for Gauteng's roads has unearthed an interesting fact.

"Seemingly there is no regulatory means to earmark specific revenue for allocation to specific expenditure. All government money gets dumped into the kitty from where a separate exercise allocates and spends it.

"This therefore exposes as false those political threats and promises to impose taxes on the pleasures and enjoyments of the rich in order to compensate for the woes and hardships of the poor. So the increased duty on Johnny Walker Blue whisky cannot be used to repair a broken water pump in a rural slum. More likely the money will be used to restock the mini-bar in the presidential jet."

 

 

Getting it back

 

READER Brian Kennedy remarks on the planned recycling of sewage water to drinking water.

"This is the ultimate way of getting your own back."

 

 

I decide

A YOUNG lady who calls herself Missy is reminded by last week's account of Bing Crosby coming third in a "Who sounds most like Bing Crosby" competition of an incident involving psychologist Dr Wayne Dyer

Dyer, at that stage already a prolific writer, was studying for his Master's degree. The lecturer chose one of Dyer's own books for an assignment. The students were asked to write on what the author's intent was.

Dyer was the only student to fail. Amused by this, he confronted the lecturer who looked him squarely in the face and said: "I'm the lecturer and I decide what is meant."

Quite right. Dyer had no business trying to buck the system.

Tourism stunts

AN OPPOSSUM has become a star on the internet for his snowboarding skills. Named Ratatouille, he has become a celebrity in the Liberty Mountain ski resort in Pennsylvania, in the US, making slick turns steered by his tail.

He wears a colourful woolly jumper and carries his own ski pass.

That's the way to promote tourism. When are our folk going to get cracking with cane rats and aardvarks on surfboards?

Read all about it!

MORE American newspaper headlines:

·        Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

·        Something went wrong in jet crash, expert says

·         

·        Police begin campaign to run down jaywalkers

·        Panda mating fails; veterinarian takes over

·        Miners refuse to work after death

 

·        Juvenile court to try shooting defendant

 

·        War dims hope for peace

 

·        If strike isn't settled quickly, it may last awhile

·        Cold wave linked to temperatures-

 

·        Enfield (London) couple slain; police suspect homicide

 

·        Red tape holds up new bridges

 

·        Man struck by lightning: faces battery charge

 

·        New study of obesity looks for larger test group

 

·        Astronaut takes blame for gas in spacecraft

·        Local high school dropouts cut in half

·        Hospitals are sued by 7 foot doctors

Typhoon rips through cemetery; hundreds dead

Bumper sticker

"Is it me - or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?"

Tailpiece

He: "I'm a photographer. I've been looking for a face like yours."
She: "I'm a plastic surgeon. I've been looking for a face like yours."

 

Last word

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

Gustave Flaubert