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Odds & Ends
By Devin D. O'Leary
APRIL 5, 1999:
Dateline: Cambodia--Three Cambodians were busy getting
bombed at a local restaurant when one of them decided to up the
ante with a land mine. A militiaman, a tax collector and another
civilian were drinking at a restaurant in the southeastern province
of Svay Rieng last weekend when the militiaman pulled out a 25-year-old
landmine and placed it under the table. According to surviving
witnesses, the tippling trio began kicking the landmine back and
forth. Minutes later, the landmine exploded, killing all three
men instantly. After decades of armed conflict, Cambodia remains
littered with abandoned tank mines and unexploded ordnance. Despite
government warnings against tampering with the deadly devices,
such accidents are apparently common.
Dateline: Indiana--What better way to honor the patron
saint of Ireland than by getting drunk and blowing away a public
toilet? An inebriated Raymond A. Cruise, 49, was arrested last
week on St. Patrick's Day after he pulled out his .40 caliber
semi-automatic Baretta and shot a toilet bowl to kingdom come
in a Schererville, Ind., restaurant. Cruise told police that the
toilet didn't flush fast enough for him, so he "fired it
up." The besotted toilet killer was charged with criminal
recklessness with a handgun and resisting law enforcement.
Dateline: Israel--Holy Landers take note: Engaging in intercourse
while operating a motor vehicle is both unsafe sex and unsafe
driving. Police in Israel were forced to issue a reckless driving
ticket to a driver last week for fornicating with a hitchhiking
woman while behind the wheel of his vehicle. "I saw a naked
girl sitting on the driver, and they were having sex," a
prison guard, who was driving along Israel's coastal highway,
told Jerusalem's Maariv newspaper. The concerned guard
signaled the passengers in the Love Bug to pull over beside the
road and called traffic police. Police arrived several minutes
later to find the couple still naked. According to the police,
the embarrassed driver admitted, "While driving I became
attracted to her. She was a pretty girl, and I forgot myself."
Dateline: California--Under a new plan awaiting approval
by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Bay Area panhandlers could
soon accept donations by credit card. Karen Gatter, who proposed
the idea, envisions beggars equipped with an ATM-style machine
that would accept VISA, American Express and other forms of bank
plastic. Gatter has dubbed her idea "the Benevolending Box
Program." Paul Boden of the Coalition on Homelessness told
the San Francisco Examiner, "I think there's a couple
of levels where it's just bizarre."
Dateline: Texas--People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA) has asked an Amarillo advertising agency to remove their
controversial billboard claiming "Jesus was a vegetarian"
from a major Texas highway. It seems that Texans, who take both
Jesus and a T-bone quite seriously, were not amused by the anti-meat
campaign. The Amarillo Globe-News reported that it has
been deluged by angry calls and letters about what one of the
newspaper's columnists called "PETA's efforts to convert
all us West Texas chicken fried steak-lovin' carnivores into carrot-crunchin'
melon thumpers."
Dateline: Florida--The Bonaventure Towers Health Club in
Weston, Fla., recently banned the use of soap in its facilities.
Club members are forbidden to lather up with bar soap, body wash,
shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream or any other cleansing agent.
Seems that the club has been sued so many times by people who
have slipped and fallen on their own Zest that the owners were
forced to enact the no soap policy several weeks ago. Owners of
the Bonaventure Towers, located in a upscale community near Fort
Lauderdale, refuse to say how many times they have been sued or
how much money they have paid out since opening in 1984, but do
admit that there have been "quite a few" lawsuits.
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