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Braille a la Mode

From an article in the Marketplace section of The Wall Street Journal: "A company called Lara Boeing 747 will launch a jewelry collection with the phrase `love is blind' in Braille on edgy-looking plastic surfs and skin-toned rubber bracelets. The dots aren't raised, so blind people won't be able to understand the words. But company founder Lara Bohinc just thinks the Braille looks cool. `It's graphically beautiful,' the London designer effuses."

Peace, Love, and Direct Mail

From a direct mail offer from a business called Grasshopper Flats: "Were you a flower child of the sixties? ... Well, to help you relive your past, we have put together this Sixties Hippy Gift Box. You get: a tie-dyed shirt, three stickers, a rock `n' roll embroidered patch, a black light poster and bulb, some glow-in-the-dark stars, a button to pin on a shirt or jacket, an underground comic, six postcards, incense, and a groovy burner--all for only $79.95. A perfect gift for the executive who has everything."

A Dissolving Nation

From an Associated Press story datelined Fort Myers, Florida, on a sheriff who is using his official government web site to denounce abortion and attack homosexuals, feminists, atheists, and the American Civil Liberties Union: "After quoting the preamble to the United States Constitution, Sheriff John McDougall of Lee County takes a stab at what he calls `the diabolical forces of moral corruption'--Planned Parenthood, politicians, liberal judges, cyber-porn, music videos, and `United Nations one-world-government radicals,' among others. `To our disgrace as a nation we have caved into the wishes of the depraved,' McDougall writes.... `As a nation, we're dissolving.'"

Jesse `The Rogue State' Helms

From an article in The New York Times on former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: "Kirkpatrick was listing the `rogue states' that might start testing weapons: `India, North Carolina--North Korea, I'm sorry, and Pakistan are not signatories,' she said as the room erupted in laughter. `I was looking at you,' she told Chairman Jesse Helms, `and thinking about North Carolina, Mr. Chairman.'"

A Christian Haunted House

From an article in The Dallas Morning News datelined Cedar Hill, Texas, on Trinity Church's youth pastor Tim Ferguson and his mission to save teens from sin by scaring them first: "Ferguson's Assembly of God church's alternative haunted house, Hell House 911, shows teens the road to hell with more than a dozen scenes about rape, suicide, and other grim topics--including a reenactment of the Littleton, Colorado, high school shooting in April. `Maybe I can make one person think not to do it,' Ferguson said."

Big Sister Takes Over

From a description in the Edward Hamilton Bookseller catalogue on the title Big Sister Is Watching You: Hillary Clinton and the White House Feminists Who Now Control America--and Tell the President What to Do, published by Living Truth Publishers: "Author Texe Marrs puts forth the theory that a coven of powerful women are determined to undermine the present government and American sovereignty and bring about global Marxism."

Hair-Raising Climate

From an article in The Boston Globe datelined Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Paraguay's former calvary general and coup leader, Lino Oviedo, who was banished to the southern reaches of Argentina: "The trip is Oviedo's punishment for breaking the rules of his asylum by making political statements to the local press. The former general's lawyers objected, saying the harsh climate could harm a recent hair transplant."

Pray to Lose Weight

From an Associated Press story datelined Milwaukee, Wisconsin: "The Weigh Down Workshop, which boasts 30,000 disciples worldwide, teaches that dieters can lose weight by concentrating on their relationships with God. `If I'm accountable to a counselor at Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers, I can blow them off,' said Joy Jankowski, who coordinates the program at Redeemer Evangelical Free Church in Greenfield. `But if I'm accountable to God, that's an entirely different story.' Religion can clearly work as a method of weight loss, said LiLi Ji, a professor of nutritional science and exercise physiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. `You don't see very many fat monks,' Ji said."

Pizza Hut Blasts Off

From an article in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald datelined Dallas, Texas: "Pizza Hut wanted a billboard on the moon. It settled for a Russian rocket bound for space. The company announced it would pay the cash-starved Russian space agency about half the prise of a thirty-second TV ad during the Super Bowl--currently up to $2.5 million--for the right to paint its logo on a Russian Proton rocket.... The segment carrying the Pizza Hut logo will be cast off and burn up in the atmosphere before it reaches orbit. But Pizza Hut marketers are counting on the minutes leading up to liftoff and the sight of the engines firing under the company's red-roof logo to give them enough film footage to fuel years of future advertising campaigns.

Pizza Hut marketers first considered burning a billboard into the moon with lasers, chief executive officer Mike Rawlings said. But astronomers and physicists advised that the image would have to be the size of Texas to be seen by earthlings more than 280,000 miles away."

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