IF THEY MEAN TO HAVE A WAR, LET IT BEGIN HERE: The city of Lexington, Mass., is planning a big celebration around the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, the first military clash of the U.S. Revolutionary War. However, the state’s new gun control law may make the planned re-enactment of the battle less than authentic. Antique weapons such as muskets are not exempt from the law, which requires bright orange trigger locks and special licenses in order to bring them out in public. (AP) …Requiring the Minutemen to point their fingers and yell “Bang bang, you’re dead!” will certainly impress visitors with their historical rejection of governmental tyranny.
WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S: When Ian Clifton, 35, passed out at a party in Sheffield, England, his friends shaved his head and took pictures of him posed with a blow-up doll. It wasn’t until two hours later that one of the other partygoers thought to check for a pulse. There was none. “If he had been given medical treatment, his chances of survival would have been greater,” said a pathologist at the inquest, which ruled Clifton died from accidental alcohol poisoning after drinking beer and spiked punch all evening. “It is quite disturbing to think people were celebrating a birthday party in the presence of a corpse,” noted Sheffield Coroner Chris Dorries. (London Telegraph) …Everyone else said he was the life of the party.
BORN LOSER: Michael McGilbra, 40, attempted to kill himself in his Las Vegas, Nev., apartment, a court was told, by opening a gas valve and inhaling the fumes. It didn’t work: the bored McGilbra promptly fell asleep. When he awoke, he decided to have a cigarette. The resulting explosion didn’t kill him either, bit it did destroy several apartments and blew the building’s roof off, causing $500,000 in damage. McGilbra has been charged with endangering property by explosives and malicious injury to private property, both felonies. (AP) …”It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” –Emil Cioran (1911-1995), Rumanian-born French philosopher.
PRECIOUS PIG: JoAnn Altsman says her 150-lb. Household pig, Lulu, is a hero. Altsman was having a heart attack, she says, and Lulu ran out in front of her Lake Erie, Penn., house and stopped a passing motorist who found her and called for help. “She truly saved my life,” Altsman said, referring to the pig, not the unidentified motorist. (Reuters) …Potbellied porker points passerby to pained proprietor, paramedics phoned and person perseveres, but appreciation misplaced.
WALK WITH ME: To help enhance the experience of tourists who want to retrace Jesus’ steps through the Holy Land, Israel’s National Parks Authority has approved plans for a slightly submerged bridge in the Sea of Galilee at Capernaum so that visitors can “walk on water” at the site Jesus supposedly did 2000 years ago. The bridge will not have rails, but lifeguards and rescue boats will be stationed nearby in case of accident. Parks planning chief Zeev Margalit concluded the attraction “would not be too kitschy,” even though “in beginning we thought it was a joke.” (AP) …It will be, if tourists act like Jesus for a day, rather than a lifetime.
QED: Residents of South Africa were warned not to rely on condoms distributed by the government’s health office enclosed in pamphlets with advice on how to avoid AIDS. The problem? The condoms were stapled to the pamphlets, the resulting holes ruining them. A government spokeswoman blamed “a packaging company inexperienced in condom- handling” for the problem. (AFP) …And whose job was it to teach them how to handle condoms?
REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM: John Bothe says his employer is ignoring his disability by trying to get him to predict the winners of horse races for its customers. “I’m a compulsive gambler. A sick one,” Bothe says, so handicapping races might tempt him to gamble again, interrupting his efforts to pay back more than $100,000 in old gambling debts. His employer is threatening to cut his salary if he doesn’t fulfill all of his duties, so he is suing them under state disability laws. His employer is New Jersey’s Meadowlands Racetrack; Bothe, known as “The Voice of the Meadowlands”, is the caller for the races and has worked at the track for nearly 20 years. (AP) …If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
MARKED FOR LIFE: Lee Williams, 23, a student at Michigan’s Wayne State University, proudly sported a tattoo on his forearm that read “Villain”. At least he used to be proud, until a friend pointed at it and started to laugh: the word was misspelled “Villian”. Williams is now suing Eternal Tattoos for $25,000 in damages, including $1,900 in plastic surgery to have the tattoo removed. (AP) …”I really feel like an dumbie,” Williams said afterward in a letter to his mother.
SOME STORIES YOU JUST DON’T WANT TO READ: “Butts Slams Beer Ads Featuring Animal Sex” — UPI headline
WARPED LIKE ME: A nice letter this week from Nigel, an information scientist in the U.K.: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the weekly flash of light that ‘This is True’ brings to my life. I find the stories usually funny and ALWAYS perceptively chosen. This is obviously the work of someone with the same kind of warped, human- loving, celebrate-not-denigrate sense of humour as I like to think of having myself. It is almost worth having the world so screwed up — because else there would be no call for ‘This is True’.” Thanks, Nigel, you– oh wait, there’s more: “I particularly look forward to the honorary unsubscribe (oh god! How morbid!) The content is frequently touching, and shows a sensitivity for the decency and achievement in a person’s life. Even more so; it is amazing how often it makes me sit and actually THINK about the legacy of the people described. Perhaps yours is the best kind of obituary a person could ever wish for.”
Indeed, that’s what I’m trying to do: thanks for noticing!
THIS WEEK’S HONORARY UNSUBSCRIBE goes to Glenn T. Seaborg. A former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Seaborg discovered or co-discovered 10 “transuranium” elements: plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and seaborgium, the last being the first element ever named after a living person. His work earned him a shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1951, and the National Medal of Science in 1991. His discoveries also led to medical uses of radioactivity, such as the iodine-131 used to treat his mother’s cancer in the 1950s. Seaborg died at home in Lafayette, Calif., on February 26 at age 86, of complications from a stroke.
Joke of the Week :
Subject: Possible titles for Monica’s new book
I Suck At My Job
What Really Goes Down In The White House
How I Blew It In Washington
You Have to Work Hard to Find the Softer Side of the President Clear and Present Boner
Testing the Limits of the Gag Rule
Going Back for Gore
Podium Girl
Secret Services to the President
Harass is Not Two Words: The Story of Bill Clinton Deep Inside The Oral Office
The Congressional Study on White House Intern Positions She’s Chief of MY Staff!
Al Gore Is In Command For The Next 30 Minutes
How To Beat Off the Government
Going Down and Moving Up
Members of the Presidential Cabinet
How To Get A head in Business
Me and My Big Mouth
I Wore What You Did Last Summer
Classic Court Transcripts
Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July fifteenth.
Q: What year?
A: Every year.
Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.