From: glen mccready
To: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 18:37:27 -0500
if you get bored near the top, read the last one.. -glen
Forwarded-by: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: Joseph Harper <joeha@microsoft.com>
New York, New York:
New York has a new tourist attraction for people who like to trash the
city.
The Fresh Kills landfill, the world's biggest garbage heap, is being
touted in a $50,000 project to improve its image.
Sanitation workers, retrained as tour guides, have a 30-page script and
will be handing out color maps of the Staten Island dump. But summer,
says deputy landfill director William Cloke, "we'll get a tour here almost
every day."
"Kills" is Dutch for stream or creek, reflecting New York's Dutch
heritage.
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Tokyo, Japan:
One Saturday in late January, 18 Japanese business men and women met in
a dressing room in Tokyo's Imperial Hotel to plan an illegal activity.
They anted up $100 each to fund the plan. A leader was chosen; duties
were assigned.
Then they did the deed. They formed an investment club like the 19,000
clubs in the United States that pool money to buy stocks -- like the
Beardstown Ladies, the famous group of 16 older Illinois women who meet
in living rooms to pick stocks and trade recipes.
The Japanese can read recent translations of "The Beardstown Ladies'
Common-Sense Investment Guide," but they can't legally follow the ladies'
example. It is unlawful in Japan to pool funds for stock-buying without
a mutual-fund license. Such a license costs about $10 million.
So investment clubs have operated clandestinely -- until now. The 18
Imperial Hotel plotters have formed the first out-of-the-closet club,
openly defying Japan's powerful Ministry of Finance. The club says its
goal is to turn a profit while fighting the ministry on behalf of smaller
investors.
And no ordinary investors are these. The members are mainly wealthy
business owners and noted economists.
The name of this little investment group? Nihon Toushi Kurabu Kira Kira,
or the Japan Twinkle Twinkle Investment Club.
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Miami, Florida:
When Kmart Corporation failed to pay up immediately on a $2 million court
order, United States Marshals, along with local police, declared their
own blue light special at two stores.
About six agents dressed in raid jackets emptied the cash registers of
$45,000 Monday night at stores in Hollywood and Davie, Florida. A court
clerk gave the go-ahead for attorneys to collect after Kmart failed to
post the required bond in an age-discrimination lawsuit.
"Jesse James held up a train and counts his money in the woods. These
guys count it on the counter in front of everybody," said Louis Eso, a
shopper in Hollywood.
Company officials were outraged.
"I would have to think our federal marshals would have other activities
they could be attending to," said Kmart spokeswoman Shawn Kahle.
In August, a federal jury awarded three former Kmart pharmacists $2.17
million in back pay and damages. U.S. District Judge C. Clyde Atkins
lowered the verdict to $932,000 plus fees and agreed to defer payment
while the case is under appeal. But Atkins also stipulated that Kmart
post a $2 million bond in case it loses, and that bond wasn't posted by
Monday.
A third raid at a Miami store was called off Tuesday after Kmart posted
the $2 million bond.
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Albuquerque, New Mexico:
Rex and Teresa LeGalley know what to expect from love and marriage -- it's
all there in the fine print.
Their 16-page prenuptial agreement spells out the rules of their life
together in excruciating detail, including how often they will have sex
(three to five times a week), which gasoline to buy (Chevron supreme
unleaded) and who does the laundry (Teresa).
"When you look at why people get divorced, the biggest reasons are money,
sex, children and some pet peeve the other one just can't stand," Rex
said. "We went into this knowing it's a leap of faith when you get
married. This gives us a list we can live with."
The LeGalleys say their past marriages -- and their love of details --
made their prenuptial agreement a natural. Rex, 39, a communications
specialist at Sandia National Laboratories, is on his third marriage.
Teresa, 31, a civilian computer engineer for the Air Force, is on her
second.
A few months after she and Rex met while dancing at a bar two years ago,
they started making lists, and realized just how compatible they were.
"We were on a trip and we were hitting a lull in the conversation," Rex
said. "So, I said, 'Let's try to create an ideal budget.' We came up
with this incredible, livable budget that we both agreed on."
As they grew closer, they took the lists beyond mere finances.
Eventually, they put together their prenuptial agreement, with the final
4 1/2 pages of single-spaced type covering just about everything.
--- "We will engage in healthy sex three to five times a week."
(No trouble complying with that one, they say.)
--- "Nothing will be left on the floor overnight --
unless packing for a trip."
--- "Lights out by 11:30 PM Wake up 6:30 AM, Monday
through Friday."
--- "We will buy supreme unleaded fuel (Chevron) and
won't let the fuel gauge get lower than half a tank."