12/28/92
And in this fiercely competitive profession, there's some bad-mouthing of rival houses—suggestions that mistresses elsewhere offer sex. Serious dominatrixes maintain that prostitution does not exist in the better houses."It would be a big insult to the mistress for a slave [customer] to even ask for sex," says Leslie. The request might make her so mad she'd stop beating him.
The
Seattle Arts Commission
paid $10,000 for a portable toilet. Unlike a Port-a-Potty, Sani-Can,
Johnny-on-the-Spot, or any toilet seat the
Pentagon
ever came up with, this one had its insides removed and replaced with
a hole in the ground, changing its identity to an objet d'art.
The artist, Buster Simpson, "wanted to address social and ecological concerns through a functional piece of art," explained Doug Lauen, spokesman for the Commission. The artist intends that after the privy's patrons, preferably homeless, have filled the hole, it will be moved from its outdoor location and replaced with a tree, which is said to benefit from the fertilizer. "The finished piece is not nearly so important as the consciousness-raising which comes from challenging people's assumptions about art, their own bodies, and the environment," said Lauen.
Considering that a portable toilet can be purchased for less than $500 and a tree can be planted for $10, the cost for the heightened consciousness comes to $9,490. In fact, had the Arts Commission not agreed to sponsor the project, Simpson says he was prepared to set the privy up as "guerilla art." In other words, at no cost to taxpayers.
12/21/92
At the ensuing rape trial, several of Sarah's personalities—each of whom were sworn in separately—testified against Peterson, including Emily, who demanded a teddy bear before she would agree to answer prosecutors' questions. Peterson was convicted of second degree assault and sentenced to up to ten years in prison. Sarah, the London Daily Telegraph reported, was so traumatized by the events that she subsequently developed twenty-eight new personalities.
"I'd say the biggest hope that we have right now is the AIDS epidemic," offers [novelist] William Vollmann, sipping from a glass of dark rum in his living room in a quiet section of Sacramento, California. "Maybe the best thing that could happen would be if it were to wipe out half or two-thirds of the people in the world... In time maybe the world would recover ecologically, too."
"It's my duty as a human being to use every means possible... to stop evil, which is child abuse," [Sinead] O'Connor said in the Vox interview. "The Jews in Germany would not have been exterminated if Hitler had not been abused as a child. Adolf Hitler wasn't a bad person; he was a very [screwed-up] person."
Beth Weinstein of the AIDS division of the state's Department of Health Services commented, "well, this is a way of getting attention, to give people something to talk about."
Bernice Hill, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst. Bernice regularly incorporates in the rich symbolic work of Jungian analysis the core breathing and evocative music of holotrophic breathwork developed by Stan and Christina Grof. Her main interest is working with those who are intent on discovering their own "path of the heart," the process of individuation. Member, International Association for Analytical Psychology. Insurance facilitated.
Laura Reine, Spiroenergetics. Inner dimensional experiential methods utilizing the arts to facilitate internal self-direction and expanded awareness. Practical processes for the everyday world. Harness aspects of your polarities into personality alignment for increased creative potential and purposeful productivity. Establish and maintain your own "Circle of Power," and smile your way to meaningful success. Center Star Communications. Private sessions, groups, seminars. $75/hour, sliding scale, group rates.
Steve Rosen, Reiki Master, Herbal Therapy, Toning. Steve offers a unique combination of Reiki, herbs, touch, and chanting to aid in healing emotional and physical challenges. Above all, Steve is an interested, caring listener, willing to dialogue your issues with you. Sliding scale fees range from $50 to $75 per 1.5-hours session.
Karen Smalley, Co-Creative Gardener with Nature Intelligences. Karen has 12 years of experience landscaping and gardening in the Boulder area. Her partnership with Devas and Nature Spirits enables her to take a new practical approach to homes and gardens. Karen specializes in specific energy processes for the land and homes using the Perelandra techniques, and offers consultation in overall land planning, garden design, and all landscape gardening services. She also teaches kinesiology as a tool for communication with Nature, and Flower Essence Therapy.
In Waterbury, Connecticut, Dominic Monte was awarded $594,000 in
damages for an accident that occurred when Monte crashed his
motorcycle into a parked car while police were pursuing him for
speeding. Under Connecticut's policy of "comparative negligence," a
plaintiff whose negligence doesn't exceed 50 percent can receive
damages. The jury decided that Monte, who was ticketed and admitted to
speeding at about 80 m.p.h., was only 50 percent at fault. The jury
also decided that the police officer and his "pursuit tactics"
earned a 30 percent share, and that his superior officer earned 10
percent for failing to provide his officers with adequate high-speed
pursuit training. The remaining 10 percent went to Enrique Navarez,
into whose parked car Monte crashed, and who now may be on the hook
for $118,800.
12/16/92
[Ed.: Potential exhibits may receive comments from any of the following groups: the Smithsonian African American Association, the Accessibility Network, the American Indian Council, the Asian Pacific American Heritage Committee, the Gender Issues Action Group, the Women's Council, and the Smithsonian Institution Lesbian and Gay Issues Committee.]
12/14/92
In December, 1992, The National Labor Relations Board convicted
Electromation, an Elkhart, Indiana, electronics manufacturer, of
unfair labor practices for meeting with committees of employees in
1989 to discuss employee grievances. The NLRB ruled that
Electromation's Action Committees were illegal in large part
because the employees were paid for the time they spent meeting
with management representatives, without a union being involved.
The NLRB's decision sent shock waves through the Fortune 500, since most large companies now have joint employer-employee "work-quality circles" that attempt to raise efficiency and productivity. But because the circles are usually run by management instead of by a joint management-union committee, the decision implied that such circles are illegal. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires manufacturing companies to have joint committees of management and employees to deal with safety issues. But the NLRB warned in an April 15, 1993, memo that such committees, dealing directly with employees, may be illegal under federal labor law.
balls and a salad." The editor even specified to the artist what kind
of lettuce should be in the salad: "Make sure it's not iceberg: it
should be something nice like endive." There also had to be a picture
of a senior citizen—jogging.
Edward Espinosa of Fresno, California, burned himself when mashed
potatoes fell in his lap as he was playing in a school lunchroom, an
injury that required plastic surgery after the burn became infected.
The boy's father, William Espinosa, filed a lawsuit against the Fresno
Unified School District, claiming that the food the cafeteria served
should not have been so hot and that the attendant should have
restrained the boy, then in the first grade.
An appellate court has reinstated the case, which was dismissed in a lower court. Robert Rosati, the attorney representing the school district, maintains that the case should be dismissed again. He says that before the incident, the attendant told the boy several times to sit down and eat his lunch. "What was she supposed to do?" he asks. "Do you tie the kid up and spoon-feed him?"
As for the temperature of the food, the state of California requires its schools' hot food to be at least 140 degrees, and the Food and Drug Administration requires that food cooked off the premises and then reheated, as is done in the Fresno schools, be 165 degrees. Accordingly, Rosati feels that there is little the school could have done differently. "Their argument is it is a breach of duty to serve food that is too hot," he says. "The bottom line is ... hot food is supposed to be hot."
Without running the risk of being considered "touchy-feely," Clinton is known as a hugger of men and women. Simple handshakes aren't enough for this man whose theme song could easily have been borrowed from the cotton industry's "the touch, the feel, the fabric of our lives"... What one does with hands, lips, arms, trunks, and legs carries far more weight that a barrage of insults, eloquent speeches, or sweet poetry whispered in the ear. The problem is that many of us, unlike Clinton, have lost touch with touch.
William Ellen, lifelong conservationist, environmental consultant, and
former wetlands regulator for the state of Virginia, will serve a
six-month prison term for violating federal wetlands statutes. He was
hired by a private landowner to create wetlands—ten duck ponds on
Maryland's eastern shore—as the part-time project manager of a
proposed hunting preserve and wildlife sanctuary. Ellen consulted
frequently with local, state and federal officials, obtaining 38
separate permits for the project. During construction of a management
complex on a piece of land previously designated as uplands, an
expansion of the technical interpretation of the term "wetlands"
caused confusion whether it was legal to have moved two loads of soil
onto the land, which was so dry that federal safety regulations
required them to hose down the dust while they worked.
John Pozsgai, a refugee of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and self-employed truck mechanic in Pennsylvania, was fined $202,000 and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and five years' probation for hauling some 7,000 used tires and rusting car parts out of a ditch on some property he had purchased, then filling it over without a federal permit. According to Pozsgai's lawyer, it's "the longest unsuspended jail term in the history of the United States for any environmental crime, including the dumping of extremely hazardous waste and [cases] were people were even injured and killed."
12/8/92
12/7/92
After Sol Wachtler, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of
Appeals, was arrested for extortion and threatening to kidnap the
fourteen-year-old daughter of his ex-lover, Professor John Money, a
prominent sexologist and medical psychologist at
Johns Hopkins University,
railed against Wachtler's treatment as a criminal. According to
Professor Money, Wachtler suffered from "Cherambault-Kandinsky
syndrome" at the time of his crimes, an "erotomaniac type delusional
disorder" causing its victims to suffer helplessly under "the
spell" of lovesickness. Money criticized the
FBI's
handling of Judge Wachtler, calling their "law-and-order treatment
of people with CKS ... the equivalent of making it a crime to have
epileptic spells."
While the Congressional Record
was first published in 1873 as a daily, written account of the floor
debates in the House and Senate, congressmen can now place almost
anything in the Record. Furthermore, at the end of each day
legislators can "revise and extend" their remarks. The 1991 edition
thus ran to 36,500 pages and cost upwards of $25 million to publish
and distribute.
As of October, 1992, freshman Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has inserted more than 400 items into the Record at a cost of $405,000 to taxpayers. On February 3, 1992, Ros-Lehtinen accounted for 10 of the 24 "extensions" printed. These included a tribute to a 17-year-old constituent on his becoming the third Eagle Scout in his family, a commemoration of the recently deceased mayor of North Bay Village, Florida, notice that the annual Girl Scout cookie sale had begun in her district, congratulations to Miami's Southwest High School on its addition of sign language to the curriculum, recognition of the new manager at South Florida's Spanish-language Channel 51, a tribute to the Silverado Skies art gallery for their owner's "passion for the Southwest," and a tribute to South Florida's Blockbuster Entertainment Corporation for aspiring to expand their market.
On the same day, her colleagues congratulated Odessa Permian High School in Texas for a state football championship, honored a constituent's 50 years of service at a sand and gravel company in California, and paid tribute to "the guiding force behind WPSX-TV," a public television station in Pennsylvania. Legislators typically send honored constituents a copy of the page on which they were mentioned.
11/30/92
Since Swann had minimal insurance and assets, Ramos's lawyer Wayne
Kikena relied upon Hawaii's Joint and Several Liability Law, under
which a secondary party found to be even 1 percent liable for damages
can be forced to pay 100 percent of a judgement.
Going after that 1 percent, Kikena has brought a suit against Winchester Originals, Inc. and Everett Manufacturing Co., manufacturers of the bicycle cart and seat, alleging that they were defective products and that the companies had failed to warn the public of the danger. According to Kikena, the tan-colored seat and the tan and pale yellow cart "blended" into the surroundings, and it was therefore the fault of the manufacturers that Swann failed to see the cart. Kikena argues that the colors should have been bright instead of "earth tones."
Inconveniently for Kikena's case, Swann had earlier testified that she fell asleep at the wheel. Kikena, however, says he believes that more brightly colored bicycle equipment might have kept her awake.
Ostensibly launched as a scientific project to create a complex,
self-sustaining ecosystem under a sealed dome in the Arizona desert,
Biosphere 2 has received much derision from scientists since it was
revealed that supplies were secretly imported and air pumped in after
the Biosphereans were "sealed" inside. Commenting on the plummeting
levels of oxygen inside the structure, which have caused some
Biosphereans to reach for pure oxygen at night, Scott McMullen of
Space Biosphere Ventures deflected charges that the experiment failed
conceptually and instead reached more sweeping conclusions. McMullen
cited a scientist who says that the Earth is losing 13 parts of oxygen
per million a year: "It may be that Biosphere 2 is experiencing the
same problem as the planet is."
11/24/92
Campbell: To see through the fragments of time to the full power of original being—that is the function of art.[Ed.: During a periodic fundraiser in the spring of 1997, one Boston-area PBS station featured an infomercial-style lecture by Dr. Deepak Chopra on the subject of your "Inner Wizard" (i.e., Merlyn). Chopra's lecture was supplemented by dramatic readings of his texts by the actors Martin Sheen and Robert ("Benson") Guillaume, and was attended by a rapt studio audience. At the same time, the other PBS station featured a documentary on Dr. Andrew Weil, an "herbal practitioner." As a result, my own television viewing that day vacillated between "Baywatch" and "American Kickboxer." Typical fundraisers also feature special musical performances by John Tesh, The Moody Blues, Yanni, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.]Moyers: Beauty is an expression of that rapture of being alive.
Campbell: Every moment should be such an experience.
Moyers: And what we are going to become tomorrow is not important as compared to this experience.
Campbell: This is a great moment, Bill.
They knew the rings of Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter, the spiral structure of the Milky Way, where our star system lies. They claimed that billions of stars spiral in space like the circulation of blood in the human body.... Perhaps the most remarkable facet of their knowledge is their knowing intricate details of the Sirius star system, which presently can only be detected with powerful telescopes. The Dogon knew of the white dwarf companion star of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. They knew its approximate mass ("it is composed of 'sagala,' an extremely heavy, dense metal such that all the earthly beings combined cannot lift it") its orbital period (50 years) and its axial rotation period (one year). Furthermore, they knew of a third star that orbits Sirius and its planet [sic]. The X-ray telescope aboard the Einstein Orbiting Observatory recently confirmed the existence of the third star. The Dogon with no apparent instrument at their disposal appear to have known these facts for at least 500 years.Adams offers no evidence for this claim. It should also be noted that Sirius B is rather dim, and cannot be seen with the naked eye. It is easy to miss even with the aid of a telescope.
In the same essay, Adams dwells on misunderstandings that surround Ancient Egyptians' mastery of " 'magic' (psi), precognition, psychokinesics, remote viewing and other undeveloped human capabilities":
[W]e must first know the extremely significant distinction between (non-science) "magic" and (science) psychoenergetics.... Psychoenergetics (also known in the scientific community as parapsychology and psychotronics) is the multidisciplinary study of the interface and interaction of human consciousness with energy and matter.... Psi, as a true scientific discipline, is being seriously investigated at prestigious universities all over the world (e.g., Princeton and Duke). We are concerned here only with psi in Egypt, not "magic" ... its efficacy depended on a precise sequence of actions, performed at specific times and under controlled environmental conditions, facilitated by the "hekau" (the Egyptian term for professional psi engineers).... Today in a similar manner, psi is researched and demonstrated in controlled laboratory and field experiments.
According to the essay, Egyptians diagnosed and treated
"transmaterial disturbances" of the primordial life-energy known as
"za" with a "therapeutic touch" procedure that is considered
controversial and readily dismissed by Western scientists. For this
material, Adams cites one of his own lectures.
Adams also notes that Egyptians developed a theory of species evolution at least 2000 years before Charles Darwin, and offers as evidence a quote from "The Book of Knowing and Evolutions (the becomings) of Ra (the creator sun god)":
The words of Neb-er-ter who speaks concerning his coming into existence: "I am he who evolved himself under the form of the god Khepra (scarab beetle), that was evolved at the "first time." I the evolver of evolutions, evolved myself from the primordial matter which I had made ... which has evolved multitudes of evolutions at their "first time."The essay also claims that ancient Egyptians anticipated many of the philosophical aspects of quantum theory, that they understood the wave/particle nature of light, that they could electroplate gold, that they were able to predict pregnancy by urinating on barley seeds, and that "enclosed with the Great Pyramid are the value of pi, the principle of the golden section, the number of days in the tropical year, the relative diameters of the earth at the equator and the poles, and ratiometric distances of the planets from the sun, the approximate mean length of the earth's orbit around the sun, the 26,000-year cycle of the equinoxes, and the acceleration of gravity." A section on aeronautics claims that Egyptians produced a model of a perfectly aerodynamic glider that was then sequestered for thousands of years in a tomb near Saquara. True enough, since the "model" was a statue of a bird.
[Ed.: Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of prohibition on teaching religion as science in public schools?]
Disagreement over California's policy of trapping and killing foxes
in the Ballona Wetlands has been heated. Local environmental groups
claim that the swiftly reproducing foxes, which were accidentally
introduced into the area by man, are decimating endangered species
of birds. Animal-rights activists strongly object to the killing of
the foxes, and have been leaving death threats on the answering
machines of local environmentalists who support the program.
11/23/92
Jeantz Martin, Specialist Assistant/Americans with Disabilities Act
Coordinator at the
University of Wisconsin
(Milwaukee), criticizes the
following terms when referring to people with disabilities: "Afflicted
With—connotes pain and suffering. Most people with disabilities are
not in pain, nor do they suffer. Confined to a Wheelchair—A
wheelchair doesn't confine; it frees someone. Deaf and Dumb—People
who are deaf have healthy vocal cords. If they do not speak, it is
because they have never heard the pronunciation of words. Invalid—This
word means literally 'not valid.' Everybody is valid."
Explaining California's new snack tax, State Board of Equalization
chairman Brad Sherman noted: "Our staff has reflected Solomonic
wisdom in determining that regular matzo, your full-size bread of
affliction as mentioned in the Torah, is not a cracker, which is
taxable. However, matzo miniatures have been determined to be crackers
since there's no evidence when the people of Israel left the land of
Egypt that they were popping bite-size matzos into their mouths."
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 criminalizes the sale of
"Indian" art by non-Indians (Native Americans, that is). Under
the law, European-inspired art created by an Indian is considered
Indian art, and an impeccably woven Navajo blanket by a non-Indian
is not. The law is overseen by the Interior Department's
Indian Arts and Crafts Board, and it imposes a fine of $250,000 and
five years in prison for first offenders. As a result, art festivals
have dropped the word "Indian" from their titles, and Indians whose
ancestors were not eager at the turn of the century to register with
the Dawes Commission, which signed up Indians as a first step towards
land allocation, have had to go to tribal councils seeking
certification as "Indians" before selling their wares. Bert
Seabourn, a famous painter of Cherokee descent whose work hangs in the
Vatican,
has been unable to obtain certification from the Cherokee tribe.
The night of May 13, 1984, David Freeman, a Duxbury firefighter, crept into the room where his wife was sleeping and beat her so severely with a club that her injuries are lifelong. Concern over Freemen's mental stability prompted the Board of Selectmen to remove him from the job.
Last month, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination—noting Freeman was found innocent of assault by reason of temporary insanity—cited the town for "handicap discrimination." The MCAD restored the 52-year-old Freeman to his job and awarded him $200,000 for back pay and emotional distress plus 12 percent interest.
Freeman was awarded a prize of $50,000 for his winning entry, an amount some critics within the disability rights movement said would have been better spent assisting people with differing abilities.
If we couldn't use our escape route or any other of our security measures, we should at least have our weapons ready—the weapons of the people: machetes, stones, hot water, chile, salt. We found a use for all these things. We knew how to throw stones, we knew how to throw salt in someone's face—how to do it effectively... We've often used lime. Lime is very fine and you have to aim it in a certain way for it to go in someone's eyes. We learned to do it through practice; we practiced taking aim and watching where the enemy is. You can blind a policeman by throwing lime in his face. And with stones, for instance, you have to throw it at the enemy's head, at his face. If you throw it at his back, it will be effective but not as much as at other parts of the body.
[Ed.: Note that Menchu did not win the literature prize.
In 1998 anthropologist Clifford Stoll found that while there had been
much brutal violence in Guatemala, many of Menchu's autobiographical
accounts were fabricated to suit the ideology of the revolutionary
leftist group she later joined. Her brother Nicolas, whom she
described as having died of malnutrition, was actually still alive and
running a moderately prosperous homestead in a Guatemalan village. She
also fabricated her account of how a second brother was burned alive
by army troops as her parents were forced to watch. Scenes of her
impoverished family being forced off their land by ruthless oligarchs
turned out to have their basis in a simple land dispute that pitted
Rigoberta's father against his in-laws. Though described as poor and
oppressed, her father actually held title to 6,800 acres of land. And
though she describes herself as having been illiterate and monolingual
as a child because her father refused to send her to school, she
attended two elite Catholic boarding schools, whose nuns say she knew
Spanish as well as Mayan.
The Nobel committee said that it would not rescind the prize even though her only credential for winning was her life story, as narrated in her autobiography. Many academics insisted they would continue to include the popular multicultural book in their courses. Marjorie Agosin, head of the Spanish department at Wellesley College, said, "Whether her book is true or not, I don't care." Joanne Rappaport, president of the Society of Latin American Anthropology, told a reporter that questions over the book's authenticity were "an attempt to discredit one of the only spokespersons of Guatemala's indigenous movement." John Peeler, political science professor at Bucknell University, says that "the Latin American tradition of the testimonial has never been bound by the strict rules of veracity that we have taken for granted in autobiography."]
11/2/92
- Feminism, Marxism, and Cultural Activism in the University
- Rethinking Pedagogy in Light of Postmodernism
- Desire in the Classroom: A Pedagogical Rubric
- Coming Out Professionally: The Responsibility of Gay and Straight Faculty
- Gender and Trauma in the Classroom
- Teaching Writing and the Lesbian Subject
- Writing, Power, and Homophobia in the Computer-Mediated Classroom
- Learning Composition and Literature from Women of Color
- Teaching Reading and Writing as a History of Competition Between Social Discourses
- The Cultural Trope of Literacy and the Rhetoric of Grammar
- The Shifting Subject(s) of Literary Study; or, How Do You Spell 'Hegemony'?
After a law was passed in Florida that required some community
colleges to provide free schooling for the homeless, there was an
influx of mentally ill enrollees, perhaps attracted by money—up to
$4,000 in Pell grants, guaranteed student loans and other financial
aid. In one incident, two mentally disturbed students were forced off
school grounds by police after they caused a disruption at the student
financial aid office. One of them, according to campus security, had a
criminal record and lived underneath Interstate 595, while the other
had been known to occasionally disrupt his classes with loud, off-key
singing. Another man was expelled for exposing himself in the library.
The pieces that I am working on now, after having gone though nuclear power and other things like toxic waste, the animal question, the human brain, are more and more concerned with "the big picture." You have to begin to get a sense of time that goes beyond human time. So I'm working now on a piece that deals with plate tectonics. To me, it's a sexy subject. The piece is called "Pangaean Dreams," Pangaea being the supercontinent that existed 250 million years ago and out of which the continents drifted to form the geography we have today. I performed the first version in Tucson, Arizona, and I was surprised and deeply hurt that a critic who gave me a good review said something like, "Well, it may not seem like a real exciting subject, but the way Rachel plays it, it was." What can be more exciting than plate tectonics?
10/30/92
10/26/92
From "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference," a paper
delivered at Amherst College and anthologized in Paula Rothenberg's
Racism and Sexism: An Integrated Study. The author is
Audre Lorde, a self-described "forty-nine-year-old Black lesbian
feminist socialist mother of two, including one boy, and a member of
an interracial couple":
Unacknowledged class differences rob women of each others' energy and creative insight. Recently a women's magazine collective made the decision for one issue to print only prose, saying poetry was a less "rigorous" or "serious" art form. Yet even the form our creativity takes is often a class issue. Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper. Over the last few years, writing a novel on tight finances, I came to appreciate the enormous differences in the material demands between poetry and prose. As we reclaim our literature, poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class, and Colored [sic] women. A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time. The actual requirements to produce the visual arts also help determine, along class lines, whose art is whose. In this day of inflated prices for material, who are our sculptors, our painters, our photographers? When we speak of a broadly based women's culture, we need to be aware of the effect of class and economic differences on the supplies available for producing art.
If socialism is dead, can liberalism survive? The piece is called Hush because the question requires a pause for thought and prolonged, quiet discussion. The theater has not approached such a new frontier for a very long time.Otherwise, the play is set in more conventional Royal Court terms. A 15-year-old girl is being (playfully) buried on a beach. The girl subsequently demands, and gets, sex, from a character called Dogboy. He then practically turns canine and, having killed his dog, kills himself. Another girl, temporarily employed as the house cleaner, wants to go off to Tibet to meet the monks, there not being enough sex on the beach at home.
Do not be put off by such old hat...
10/19/92
"Our Early Childhood team will be implementing the planning phase of the Early Childhood Unit grant and will continue to focus on developmentally appropriate practice. Our intermediate team is committed to broadening the concept of developmentally appropriate practice to include programming for these grades."
According to Rutgers University
labor studies professor Dorothy Sue Cobble in
Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century,
"[i]n the theater of eating out, the waitress plays multiple parts,
each reflecting a female role. To fulfill the emotional and fantasy
needs of the male customer, she quickly learns all the all-too-common
scripts: scolding wife, doting mother, sexy mistress, or sweet,
admiring daughter.... Other customers, typically female, demand
obsequious and excessive service—to compensate, perhaps, for the
status denied them in other encounters. For once, they are not the
servers but the ones being served." Customers enter restaurants with
the hope of satisfying more than just their appetites, says Cobble.
"More than food is being consumed at the restaurant site. And those
who serve it are responding to hungers of many kinds. Eating stirs
sexual and emotional associations of the most primitive order."
Cobble says she formed her views while working as a waitress. She
refused to play the role of the obsequious maiden and says she was
fired for failing to smile at customers.
10/16/92
An Albuquerque, New Mexico man sued the city police for not preventing
him from driving drunk. The man, who was paralyzed in the accident,
broke down in tears while on the witness stand as he described how the
doctors broke the news to him that he would never walk again.
The former construction worker said that the police ordered him not to drive, but allowed him and a friend to walk away. By not preventing the man from driving away, the defendant insisted that the police deprived him of the rights guaranteed to him under a state law that allowed police to drive intoxicated people to their homes, a detox facility, or jail.
10/15/92
Abortion equals a woman's deepest psychic, sacrificial and rebellious act against an ever-evolving, male-dominated environment resulting in a cessation of creation.
Since man began turning his envy of matriarchy toward himself, women, in a subconscious retaliatory act, began using abortion as a weapon in the war of survival against this arrogant behavior. In essence, what women have really been trying to communicate to this overindulgent patriarchical society is: Either get your act together, now, and listen to our message or we will use abortion to eliminate men from the face of the earth, entirely. Abortion is not an issue, it is a most powerful weapon—a last resort; an urgent and humiliating plea for global equality, respect and understanding. No woman intentionally seeks out or enjoys the idea of abortion. Just ask any woman who has had one. It is an eternal agonizing sacrifice!
In fiscal year 1991, government agencies classified as secret a total of 7,107,017 documents. This marks the first time that the total number of reported classification decisions in a year is a palindrome.
10/13/92
RECIPE FOR LIFE
Ingredients:
- 1 U.S. military budget (liquefied)
- 1 pound dreams
- 1/3 cup chutzpah
- 3 cups love
- 2 cups political action
- 1 pound fun
Directions:
- Mix together chutzpah, love, dreams, political action and fun.
- Transfer into saucepan and add military budget. Reduce by half over high heat, stirring constantly.
- Yields health, education and playgrounds for all the world's kids.
—Ben & Jerry
10/12/92
[Ed.: Note that attempts to monopolize resources other than labor are considered bad.]
Levamisole, a drug that has been used in the past to combat
intestinal parasites in farm animals has been approved for human
use in combatting colon cancer. Still, to keep a sheep free from
worms for a year costs $14.95, but a year's supply for human
patients runs about $1,500.
Frank Glickman, who wanted the drug to aid his own recovery, has filed a class-action suit against Johnson & Johnson, the drug's maker. Johnson & Johnson says that the increased price was due to the research and development required to find an effective human use for the drug. However, Dr. Charles Moertel, who directed the effort to win FDA approval for the drug under the assurance from Johnson & Johnson that the drug would be reasonably priced, says the company didn't contribute any funds, and that the $10.6 million was covered by the National Cancer Institute, out of taxpayer's pockets. Furthermore, the veterinary and human versions of Levamisole are "exactly, absolutely identical." Glickman's attorney adds that a price breakdown for the drug by Johnson & Johnson shows that the major element in the price increase was promotion costs. "This for a drug that has no need to be promoted," he says. "It is the standard treatment for colon cancer, and it would be sheer lunacy for someone with the disease not to use it."
The University of Minnesota
held a mock trial of Christopher Columbus,
with the 12-member jury finding him guilty of slavery, torture,
murder, forced labor, kidnapping, violence, and robbery. Jurors,
however, could not agree on charges of genocide, rape, and
international terrorism. The explorer was sentenced to 350 years of
community service; the death penalty was ruled out because "his
victims were not a violent people and do not condone death."
10/9/92
Bob Damron's
Address Book,
published for 28 years, is a North American travel guide for gay men
that is available in major bookstore chains such as Barnes &
Noble's Bookstar outlets. It lists gay accommodations and sights of
erotic interest in all 50 states, Canada, the Virgin Islands, Costa
Rica and Mexico, including not only sex establishments and businesses,
but freelance possibilities for sex with strangers. For example, in
Decatur, Alabama, "cruisy areas" include:
- Amtrak & Greyhound Depots (AYOR)
- Beltline Mall
- Delano Park nr. Picnic Tables
- Point Mallard Park—Swimming Hole (Summers)
- "The Pumps" (AYOR)
(AYOR = At Your Own Risk)
In introducing the section on Mexico, editor Dan Delbex shared this tip: "Much of Mexico is very poor. Consequently, many boys may be available for the price of a cocktail." The 1992 edition of the book is dedicated to the memory of Delbex, who died of AIDS on October 5, 1991, at the age of 35.
Commenting on Desiree Washington, who Tyson was convicted of raping, O'Connor said: "that woman who is suing him is a bitch. I don't care if he raped her; she used him. She's a disgrace to women as far as I'm concerned."
10/6/92
10/5/92
I would like to know whether cartoonist Garry Trudeau is alive or not. His comic strip, "Doonesbury," was in the middle of a series about Clarence Thomas when Trudeau recently left without warning for an eight-week sabbatical. He had also just finished a damaging series about Dan Quayle's political prisoner.
As the old CIA types in the Bush/Quayle campaign warm up their cloaks and daggers, I find myself concerned with the whereabouts of Trudeau, and this letter is the least I can do to repay his vigilance regarding our all-too-often corrupt government.
—David Snyder, Roseville
A New York Times editorial advised warring parties in
Yugoslavia to take a lesson from "black Africa ... on the wisdom of
respecting the territorial integrity of all states, whatever the mix
of peoples.... When it comes to curbing the barbarous excesses of
tribalism, black Africa has shown more maturity than otherwise
condescending Europeans." Take for example Nigeria in the late 1960s,
the editorial says. The African policy of "defending the integrity of
existing states ... was tested in 1967-70, when Ibo peoples fought
unsuccessfully to form their own state, Biafra."
As a matter of fact, the civil war over Biafra was precipitated by the massacre—by members of the Hausa tribe—of tens of thousands of Ibo; the war itself and ensuing starvation claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
It amazed me to discover that Cuba was only minutes from Miami. It amazed me to find no poverty. Education through university is free for all. Medical care is excellent, free and readily accessible to all. In the countryside, there are more health clinics than gas stations per square mile. The infant-mortality rate is lower than ours. The literacy rate is higher.There are shortages due to the U.S. embargo and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In this "special period," staples are rationed. But everyone has enough to eat, and intensive volunteer production has proved very successful.
There is some unemployment, due to the lack of petroleum, but employees who are laid off are paid 80 percent of their wages. Those who volunteer to work in food production can receive 100 percent of their wages.
Gasoline is rationed, but bicycles have replaced thousands of automobiles. The right-hand lane is reserved for bicyclists, and this form of transportation is clean and safe. It certainly contributes to better air quality in Havana than in most U.S. cities.
9/30/92
I was shocked and appalled that you would give front page coverage (May 11) to the gun-toters of I.M.S. Co., who set themselves up as arbiters of the lives of others. Sure, having one's business burned is horrifying—but executing people on the street is hardly a civilized response.
What did Messrs. Hartman and Barrett plan to do if confronted with the angry mob? Proceed to commit murder? In the name of property rights?
If I.M.S. is so concerned with its (replaceable) inventory, then a more appropriate response would be to install metal storm plates over windows and doors, and put in a sprinkler system. That plus a clay-tile roof would withstand any firebomb attack. They can follow that up with fire insurance.
I would say that executing minority people who vent their frustrations in a riot is part of a fascist mind-set and deeply offensive to the many minority people who work in our industry. We have deep social problems in our country—for I.M.S. to set themselves up as neighborhood executioners is grotesque and only further hurts the work we must do to improve as a nation.
—Jack Van Eck
Repro Plastics, East Haven, Conn.
