THIS is TRUE by Randy Cassingham
A weekly column of oddities from around the world

BUT IT KEEPS SLIPPING OUT OF THE BUN: Prof. Elliot Ryser of Michigan State University’s National Food Safety and Toxicology Center wants food to be safer. One idea: an edible film to coat common foods. “The idea with the film is to try to make something like a Teflon suit,” he says. “So if bacteria lands on a hot dog, it’s inactivated.” (AP) …Forget hot dogs: coat the fat in ice cream so it doesn’t stick to people’s thighs.

DON’T RELISH THE THOUGHT: San Francisco performance artist Zhang Huan said he wanted to “explore the physical and psychological effects of human violence in modern society” in his display at the at the city’s Asian Art Museum. To accomplish that goal, he stripped naked, lay face- down on a tree branch, and had an assistant pour pureed hot dogs on him. But that wasn’t the performance — eight dogs were then brought in for a sniff. One of the dogs promptly “took a bite out of his butt.” (AP) …It’s a dog eat dog world.

RAT RACE: “I said, ‘Oh! What’s that!’ I didn’t know he was in there,” said Betty Rook, 79, of Petersburg, Va. Rook had just sat down on the toilet in her home when a rat, which came up through the sewer, bit her behind. “It scared the heck out of me. He clung right to me and wouldn’t let go,” she said. “I pulled him off and threw him back down that commode.” The rat was captured and found not to be rabid. Rook says despite her fright, she’s not afraid to use her toilet “because I look now before I sit.” (Richmond Times-Dispatch) …Good advice always.

ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHICALLY CHALLENGED: Three prison inmates in South Dakota concocted a plan to call attention to their organization, “The Group of Justice Reform”. Prosecutors say Christopher Fonseca, 26, Charles Mann, 19, and Edward Maguire, 22, decided to hang themselves so that they would be taken to a hospital. Once there, they would escape and kill three federal judges that they “sentenced to death” in order to “show you just who we are.” But the scheme was thwarted after the three sent letters to the targeted judges and the Secret Service detailing their plan. They now face up to 45 additional years in prison. (AP) …Which just might be enough time for them to figure out where they went wrong.

MEASURING CUP: Market researchers for Britain’s Tesco supermarket chain have determined why the stores’ larger melons were not selling well: women shoppers “subconsciously compared them to the size of their breasts” and picked smaller melons that matched them, they found. “We were very surprised by the results of the market research,” a Tesco spokesman said, but “since we introduced smaller melons two months ago we have sold more than a million.” (Reuters) …”Next, we’ll try to figure out why most watermelons are bought by men,” he added.

NUN TOO SOON: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which is quick to fine radio and TV stations which broadcast indecent material, apologized after e-mailing a “raunchy” joke titled “Nuns in Heaven” to a distribution list of 6,000 reporters and government officials. The distribution list is normally used to send FCC news updates. An agency spokeswoman called the joke “highly offensive” and promised disciplinary action would be taken against the sender. (AP) …Nothing new: people are used to highly offensive jokes coming out of Washington.

FLASHER: Jill Furlough of Lakenheath, Suffolk, England, was shocked when she checked on her baby in the middle of the night. “I just saw these little flashes of green light around his bottom,” she said. “I had no idea what was happening and thought he was going to burn himself, or even burst into flames.” Kimberly-Clark, which manufactures the Huggies diapers the baby boy was wearing, says the flashes were triboluminescence, a natural, and completely harmless, conversion of friction to light. “More than three billion disposable nappies are sold in this country every year and they are perfectly safe,” a Kimberly- Clark spokesman said. (Daily Telegraph, London) …Not counting the used ones.

BABY YOU CAN LIGHT MY FIRE: When combing through the rubble after a house fire, firefighter John Bartlett found just one thing had survived uncharred: a diaper. He realized that the super-absorbent material in the disposable swath was responsible, and worked for five years to refine it into a gel that can be used to make things virtually fireproof. Bartlett, who is still a Palm Beach County, Fla., firefighter, says his invention can hold back flames for up to 30 hours. (AP) …That really is an improvement: most diapers can only hold back flames for 30 minutes.

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S FIRE: A study concludes that hemp would not make a good fuel to generate electricity. “Hemp would have to be considerably cheaper to produce and burn in order to compete” with wind power, says Bernard Rice of the Irish government’s Teagasc agricultural research agency. While researchers found hemp “burns very efficiently,” they downplayed the possibility that smoke from the plant, which is related to marijuana, would cause anyone to get high. “You would have to smoke a joint the size of a telegraph pole to experience any effects,” one researcher said. (Reuters) …Don’t give them any ideas.

TAKE TWO AND CALL THE DOCTOR IN THE MORNING: “Weekly Sex May Prevent Colds and Flu ­-Study” — Reuters headline

THIS WEEK’S HONORARY UNSUBSCRIBE goes to Daniel N. Cooke. You probably don’t know his name, but odds are you’ve seen his badge: Los Angeles Police Dept. Badge 714, as seen during the credits of the old “Dragnet” TV series. Cooke, LAPD’s official spokesman, not only briefed the news media on spectacular crimes (the Charles Manson murders, Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, the police shootout with the Symbionese Liberation Army after Patty Hearst’s kidnaping), but also served as a technical advisor to many police shows, including Dragnet and Adam-12. He joined LAPD as a foot patrolman in 1953, became a media relations officer in 1964, and retired in 1988. Badge 714 will now reside at the Jack Webb Museum at the department’s Police Academy. Lt. Dan Cooke died April 30 of bladder cancer at home in Rancho Bernardo, Calif. He was 72.

Joke of the Week
A woman is in bed with her lover who also happens to be her husband’s best friend. They make love for hours, and afterwards, while they’re just laying there, the phone rings. Since it is the woman’s house, she picks up the receiver. Her lover looks over at her and listens, only hearing her side of the conversation… (She is speaking in a cheery voice) “Hello? Oh, hi. I’m so glad that you called. Really? That’s wonderful. I am so happy for you. That sounds terrific. Great! Thanks. Okay. Bye bye.” She hangs up the telephone and her lover asks, “Who was that?” “Oh” she replies, “that was my husband telling me all about the wonderful time he’s having on his fishing trip with you.”

Fan Letter Of The Week
Dear Kiko,
Well your webpage and pictures certainly got to me, so much so that I’m inspired to describe to you a future we might have together. I am a LOT older than you (46) so let’s get that out of the way. But I look younger, act younger, think younger, and have the older man’s advantage of a LOT more income. Like you, I work in television. I make documentary films for PBS in this country and Channel 4 in the UK. I also have an Internet video company and I work as a writer. I travel about 200,000 miles per year and in 1999 I will earn approximately $500,000. Here’s the dream I have for you and me. We meet, fall in love, and marry. You help me in my work or I help you in yours. Either way we are together. In every country, state or city we visit I’ll fuck you, preferably in some public place. I can fuck for hours. I’ll take you across balcony rails and on the hoods of other peoples’ Mercedes. I’ll have you give me blowjobs on subway platforms and fuck you in the ass in your mother’s bed. I’ll find other men for you to suck and fuck — strangers whom I, not you, will select. I’ll fuck other women, but only in front of you, then I’ll let you lick my come from their cunts. In all of this I’ll be your protector. You’ll be always on the edge, yet perfectly safe. I’ll protect you, pierce you, overpower you, and give you more orgasms than you ever thought possible. Do you want to meet me? Bob