NO COMMENT.

Y2K Wake-up Call for Texas

From a story in the El Paso Times: "Two billboards in EL Paso that read COULD TEXAS BE OCCUPIED BY UNITED NATIONS TROOPS? CALL 1-800-516-8736 are part of a statewide campaign by Newswatch Magazine, a self-proclaimed government-watchdog group in Waxahachie, Texas.... David J. Smith, president of the company, says `The billboards are intended to wake people up to what's going on.' ... Smith claims the Clinton Administration plans to enact martial law `when Y2K hits' January 1. `This is their planned time to transform America permanently to socialism, with communist troops patrolling the streets under the guise of "urban pacification," he said.... Newswatch chose the Lone Star State as the first place for the billboard campaign because `Texans are committed to freedom and understand the 10th Amendment.'"

Biological Tendencies

From an Associated Press article datelined Kohler, Wisconsin: "The Kohler Company has agreed to pay $886,500 to more than 2,000 women who were turned down for jobs because they were too short. The plumbing fixture company agreed to settle a Labor Department lawsuit accusing Kohler of gender discrimination for a policy that required workers to be at least 5 feet 4 inches tall. The rule was intended to make sure employees could handle physical labor, the company said. `The height restriction was not gender-specific; it's just that women tend to be shorter,' Kohler spokesperson Ed Allmann said."

Surgical Pranksters

From a story in The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin: "A thirty-one-year-old man who awoke from hernia surgery to find blue markings and a tape measure around his genitals has been awarded $75,000 from a Georgia court jury. Wes Moore and his wife, Cindy, filed suit in 1997, claiming emotional distress and that Doctors Hospital in Columbus [Georgia] was negligent in hiring and retaining nurses Susan Floyd and Jackie Gut. The two nurses said it was a hospital prank other hospital workers had played before on patients they knew. Defense lawyers said Moore had been a maintenance worker at the hospital prior to his 1996 surgery and not only joked around with the nurses but also knew about past surgery capers involving markers."

A White Supremacist Nun

From a Reuters article datelined Joliet, Illinois: "Sister Dorothy Toman, sixty-six, told police she wanted to see how the Provena St. Joseph Hospital and Medical Center would react to graffiti such as `white supremacy' that she wrote on the walls of five bathrooms there. Toman, who was fired from her job ministering to patients after she admitted to the incident, pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage to property and was spared jail time. Will County Court Judge Vincent Cerri ordered Toman to undergo a psychological evaluation, pay a $150 fine, and perform thirty hours of community service."

Extra Credit

From an Associated Press article datelined Ponder, Texas, on a thirteen-year-old boy who was freed after spending five days in custody because the Halloween horror story he wrote as a school assignment described shooting a teacher and two classmates: "`I was supposed to write a horror story. I don't think I did anything wrong,' said seventh-grader Christopher Beamon. His English teacher, Amanda Henry, thought he did such a good job that she gave him an `A,' plus extra credit for reading it aloud in class. The story, written in first person and with misspellings, included a passage in which he becomes angry and `acssendently shot Mrs. Henry.'"

Frontiers of Free Enterprise I

From a Boston Globe Online story on the National Beverage Corporation's nationwide promotion of its herbal juice drink called VooDoo Rain: "One poster depicts an African male with a bone through his nose, yellow spirals for eyes, and a distended tongue. Another shows the same man, presumably a consumer of VooDoo Rain, with a spear, the bone, and an orange tongue. A third shows a large blond woman similar to a Viking opera character with the words `Big Bottles, Big Taste, Big Ass.' And a fourth shows a steer with a fiery brand on his hindquarters and the words `Big Ass Taste.' ... `We intend no disrespect to anyone,' [a company statement said]. `Our posters are part of a unique marketing campaign that has been successfully launched in many cities throughout the United States after comprehensive marketing studies were conducted.'"

Frontiers of Free Enterprise II

From an article in The Boston Globe datelined Miami Beach, Florida: "Siesta Telecom, Inc., a company that makes phone cards carrying images of the Virgin Mary, announced a deal with the Vatican to sell Pope John Paul II phone cards.... The Vatican will receive $1 for each of the cards. Each card carries a photograph of John Paul II and a copy of his signature, as well as a blessing."

Library Book Larceny

From a New York Times story on a forty-four-year-old former New York University student who was arrested after he refused to return more than 500 overdue books to the campus libraries, despite dozens of calls and letters: "The man, George Szamuely, owed $31,000 in fines, said John Beckman, a university spokesperson. The police arrested Szamuely at his gym in SoHo on charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, and found 570 university books, some of them out of print, in Szamuely's apartment. `The N.Y.U. library system does not call the police every time a book is overdue,' Beckman explained. `This is a pretty exceptional case.'"

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