Odds & Ends
By Devin D. O'Leary
NOVEMBER 17, 1997:
Dateline: Iran--Unable to pay their hospital bill, the
parents of a newborn baby girl found themselves the victims of
an unusual blackmail scheme. According to a French newspaper,
a hospital in Tehran actually "kept" the baby for six
months until her parents could pay the entire balance on their
bill. The father, a poor laborer, tried to pay the two million
rial bill (approximately 450 American dollars) two months after
the birth, only to be told that his tab had "nearly doubled"
in the interim. You gotta wonder what these Iranian docs do if
you can't pay for your heart transplant.
Dateline: West Virginia--A pickup truck hauling some 200
gallons of moonshine in plastic milk jugs ran off Interstate 81
in West Virginia's eastern panhandle and crashed into a tree,
exploding in flames and killing the driver. The illegal alcohol
fueled the explosion and burned the surrounding grass. "It
still smells like alcohol," said South Berkeley Fire Chief
Bruce Chrisman, who lives about 1,000 feet from the crash site.
Dateline: Tennessee--Speaking of hicks, Nashville's famed
Opryland musical theme park has announced plans to close in January.
Attendance has been dropping lately. The site will be converted
into a giant retail mall called Opry Mills.
Dateline: New York--A particularly adamant hater of Howard
Stern has registered a complaint with the American Medical Association,
claiming that Stern has been illegally practicing medicine without
a license. Apparently, the shock jock administered on-air breast
"exams" to several volunteer women as a joke during
October's National Breast Cancer Awareness Week. No word on whether
or not officials are taking the charges seriously.
Dateline: Illinois--The Saybrook Lions Club has officially
apologized for issuing first prize in a Halloween costume contest
to a young girl dressed in KKK robes covered in swastikas and
slogans like "White Power" and "Kill Them All!"
The 14-year-old contestant claims that the outfit was a statement
against racism.
Dateline: Ohio--A visitor to Yoko Ono's recent art exhibit
at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center took the songstress-turned-painter's
advice a bit too literally last week. A plaque in the Arts Center
told visitors, "No one can tell you not to touch the art."
Jake Platt, 22, of Seattle took out a red marker and drew lines
across several of Oko's stark black-and-white paintings valued
at $10,000 apiece. A friend of Platt's says the man's actions
were a "statement" consistent with his belief in the
Flexus art movement, which encourages viewer participation. Museum
officials, apparently unimpressed with Platt's artistic knowledge,
are pressing charges.
Dateline: Virginia--A nurse and her husband shopping in
a home center in Fredricksburg Va., were shocked when an employee,
who had just severed his arm on a lumber saw, stumbled out of
the back of the store and collapsed in front of them. The couple
quickly applied a makeshift tourniquet, retrieved the severed
arm and packed it in ice--all before the ambulance arrived. Thanks
to the husband-and-wife team's quick thinking, surgeons were successfully
able to reattach the employee's arm.
Dateline: Latvia--And while we're on the subject, a team
of Latvian doctors are reportedly approaching The Guinness
Book of World Records after successfully sewing back four
severed hands in just five days. Three of the patients' limbs
were cut off by saws while cutting down trees. The fourth, a woman,
had her hand severed in a dough machine.
--Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary
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