Tie Ming! Just collected a few…
In June in Camden, New Jersey, 2-year-old Matthew Mikel slipped while reaching for a cat on a balcony. He and the cat fell three stories; doctors said Matthew survived because his landing was cushioned by the cat, which did not survive.
At a book-signing appearance in Tampa, Florida, in July 1994, astronaut Alan Shepard refused the request of John Williams, 55, to sign a photograph, telling the man he would sign only purchased copies of his new book on the space program. The photograph Shepard refused to sign was a 1961 shot of Williams, then a helicopter crewman, pulling Shepard out of the Atlantic Ocean after his Mercury capsule splashed down on America`s first manned space mission.
In Burbank, California, in February, a 55-year-old man who placed an ad in a local bondage and discipline magazine arranged a liaison in his home with another man. When the man answered the door, the date forced him to crawl through his house to his bondage room, where the man was tied, nude, to a “proctologist table.” According to police, the date and his accomplice, waiting outside, then stole the man’s sofa, leather chair, TV set and other items. (4/11/96)
Chinese inventor Pu Danming recently claimed he had sold 50,000 of the “healthy cigarettes” that he introduced in Beijing in November. The product is a cigarillo-sized tube containing Chinese herbs plus a small battery and microchip and a dozen other components, but no tobacco. The cigarette is not lighted; rather, when the “smoker” takes a puff, a light flashes on the end to imitate a burning ash. Also, the cigarette plays a patriotic song when puffed on, and, said Pu, “The mixture (of herbs) is also good against cancer.” (5/2/96)
According to a report in the Portland Oregonian, Republican U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley now says that biographical information he submitted in the 1994 official state voters’ pamphlet might not have been exactly right. The line “Army Special Forces, Korea” does not exactly mean that he served a tour of duty in Korea, but that the Korean conflict was going on at the same time he was in the Army. Cooley had previously said, via a staff member, that since Special Forces performed secret missions, he was not at liberty to comment. Furthermore, military historians mentioned by The Oregonian doubted that Special Forces units were operating during the Korean conflict, and Cooley said his Army records were destroyed in a 1973 fire. Also, in the 1992 pamphlet, he listed himself as “Phi Beta Kappa,” but now says he was confused about the difference between the honor and being a member of his community college’s honor society. (5/2/96)
In Virginia, Robert Lee Brock, who is serving 23 years at the Indian Creek Correctional Center in Chesapeake for breaking and entering and grand larceny, admitted it was his own fault that he got drunk and committed a series of crimes, so he sued himself for $5 million for violating his own religious beliefs against drinking. Since he can’t work and is a ward of the state, he said the state should pay the $5 million. Conceding Brock had “presented an innovative approach to civil rights litigation,” Judge Rebecca Beach Smith nonetheless dismissed his claim as “ludicrous.” (5/15/96)
A district court in southern Sweden fined Elizabeth Hallin $680 for naming her 5-year-old son “Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116.” She said the name is pronounced “Albin.” The Hallins said they would appeal the fine, arguing that the name is “a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation.” (5/15/96)
Two weeks after embittered Montana Freeman Ralph E. Clark ordered a follower to nail to his fence the manifesto that began, “Freemen are NOT a part to the de facto corporate prostitute aka the United States,” the New York Times reported that Clark and his ranch partners received $676,082 in federal assistance over the past 10 years. (5/8/96)
A Nashville, Tennessee, jury convicted Raymond Mitchell III, 45, of tricking women into blindfolding themselves and having sex with him by claiming to be their boyfriend. Prosecutors said most of the hundreds of women that Mitchell called hung up, but of the 30 women who reported the encounters to police, eight said they had sex with the caller. One woman admitted having sex with the man twice a week over two months until she discovered he wasn’t her boyfriend during one encounter when her blindfold slipped off. (4/24/96)