From: glen mccready
To: Dead Beef <0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 17:51:35 -0400
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 09:05:02 -0400
From: Keith Bostic <bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU>
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Subject: WEIRDNUZ.386 (News of the Weird, June 30, 1995)
Forwarded-by: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.386 (News of the Weird, June 30, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
* In a May column, film critic Roger Ebert reported on the popular
Japanese animated film, "Pompoko," which features a family of cute
badger-like animals, but said the film would not likely be successful in
America. The badgers' secret weapon is an ability to make their testicles
grow large so that they can crush opponents. Said a Japanese film fan,
"The Japanese are more open about bodily parts." He said kids in Japan
find the secret weapon "hilarious." [Chicago Sun-Times, 5-23-95]
THE LITIGIOUS SOCIETY
* Etta Stephens filed a lawsuit against Barnett Bank in Tampa, Fla., in
May, seeking damages for the heart attack she suffered. She was stricken
after opening her monthly statement to find, due to bank error, that her
$20,000 money market account was empty. [USA Today, 5-24-95]
* In May, trial began in Toronto, Ontario, in the lawsuit by
Toronto-Dominion Bank to recover $3.5 million from Edward Del Grande, who
had borrowed for his businesses. Del Grande is countersuing for $30
million, saying the problem was that the bank had loaned him too much
money. Del Grande charged that if the bank had been more prudent, his
companies could have survived the down market in real estate. [Globe &
Mail, 5-25-95]
* Recently, Chesapeake, Va., inmate Robert Lee Brock filed a $5 million
lawsuit against Robert Lee Brock--accusing himself of violating his
religious beliefs and his civil rights by getting himself drunk enough to
engage in various crimes. He wrote, "I want to pay myself five million
dollars [for this breach of rights] but ask the state to pay it in my
behalf since I can't work and am a ward of the state." In April, the
lawsuit was dismissed. [Austin American-Statesman-AP, 4-8-95]
* In June, the family of the late Bridgeport, Conn., radio station
executive Jefferson Ketcham filed a lawsuit in connection with his recent
death. The lawsuit charged Cobb's Mill Inn and its waiter Paul Kane with
negligence because, when Kane drove the intoxicated Ketcham home from the
bar as a favor, he merely let him out of the car and failed to accompany
him into his house. Ketcham tripped on the front steps, hit his head,
and died. [Greenwich Time, 6-10-95]
* Bob Glaser filed a $5.4 million lawsuit in March against the city of
San Diego, Calif., for the "emotional trauma" he suffered at an Elton
John-Billy Joel concert, held at a municipal stadium. Some women,
thwarted by long lines for their rest room, had entered the men's room,
and Glaser said he was "extremely upset" at the sight of a woman in front
of him using a urinal. [San Francisco Examiner, 3-31-95]
* Tucson, Ariz., lawyer Howard Baldwin filed a lawsuit in February against
the local electric company, charging that meter reader Chuck Leon
literally frightened his poodle, Jasmine, to death. According to Baldwin,
when Jasmine saw Leon in the back yard, she crashed into a glass door,
"involuntarily urinated," then escaped out the rear gate. She was found
dead the next day, allegedly of exhaustion. [Arizona Daily Star, 2-24-
95]
LITIGIOUS PRISONERS
* The attorneys general of New York and Minnesota recently announced their
states' "top 10" lists of frivolous lawsuits. New York prisoners have
filed lawsuits alleging a defective haircut by the prison barber, improper
"white" towels instead of "beige," and an ice cream dessert that was
largely melted. Minnesota inmates have filed lawsuits demanding damages
for being provided an improper variety of beans on the menu, a lack of
salsa, a surfeit of bologna, and underwear that was too tight ("cruel and
unusual punishment"). One Minnesota inmate said his primary purpose in
filing his lawsuit was "pure delight in spending taxpayers' money."[N. Y.
Post, 6-13-95] [St. Paul Pioneer Press, 3-25-95]
* In Indiana, a soon-to-take-effect law will allow prison officials to
deny good-time credit to prisoners who file frivolous lawsuits. Among
Indiana's most frivolous pending lawsuits is one asking damages because
meat and vegetables were served somewhat mixed together on a dinner plate.
[USA Today, 5-12-95]
* In Idaho in April, three inmates filed a $10.7 million lawsuit against
Cassia County because jail guards failed to give them late-night snacks.
[USA Today, 4-24-95]
* A public employees' union in Ontario, among whose members are prison
guards who staged a walkout in 1989, agreed in February to pay 11
hospitalized criminals $45,000 for their having been "inconvenienced"
during the labor dispute. The leader of the 11, psychotic murderer
Michael Krueger, got $2,250. [Edmonton Journal-Ottawa Citizen, 2-10-95]
CLICHES COME TO LIFE
* In Amarillo, Tex., in May, citizen Joe Brooks, spotting a man who was
fleeing police officers in a public park, galloped after him on horseback
and lassoed him. [Brownsville Herald-AP, 5-26-95]
* Protective fathers of teenage daughters in the news: In October,
according to police in Oshkosh, Wis., Thomas A. Hunt, 48, roughed up the
boyfriend of his 15-year-old stepdaughter, wrapped him head-to-toe in duct
tape, and abandoned him in a nearby town. And in Toronto, Ontario, in
January, Desmond Kelley was sentenced to 15 months in jail for a 1993
incident in which he forced his daughter's boyfriend to leap from a fifth-
floor balcony after catching the couple naked. [Milwaukee Sentinel,
11-9-94; Edmonton Journal-CP, 1-28-95]
* In December Jack Horkheimer, who is host of a public television
astronomy show and who ends each show urging viewers to "keep looking up"
at the stars, broke four toes in his left foot when he misstepped on a
deck one night while watching the star Canopus. [Orlando Sentinel,
1-11-95]
Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers. No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.