Darwinian tubas. Kids in the marching band at a Missouri high school are wearing T-shirts that show brass instruments evolving from one to the next, with the inscription, “Brass Evolutions.” That is, they were wearing them until the powers that be banned said shirts after receiving complaints from some religious conservative parents.
An official at the school said, “If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections‚’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross we would have done the same thing,’’ said a school official.
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It all seems different somehow. Liquor sales were stopped for three days on the island of Samoa after the government of the Pacific island decided they would switch driving from the right side to the left. Hundreds of people lined the streets of Apia, the capital, to witness the event. The switch aims to encourage some 170,000 expatriate Samoans in Australia and New Zealand to ship used cars with right-hand steering wheels back home to relatives. This will make it cheaper for people in the nation of 180,000 to buy new and used cars built for driving on the left side.
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Chinese officials are doing all they can to keep citizens alive, as evidenced by a campaign to smear butter along a 1,000-foot-long steel bridge in Guangzhou to stop people from jumping off it. They had previously tried putting up fences, as well as signs that read, “Please don’t commit suicide here.” However in just a month, eight people ignored them and jumped to their death anyway. But there have been no jumpers since the steel girders have been smeared with butter, making them to0 slippery to climb.
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“They said what man?” In Denver, the Marijuana Policy Review Panel has suggested that the city lower the fine to a dollar for possessing marijuana. One panel member said that, “prosecuting potheads is simply not worth the city’s time or resources.”
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Good luck with that. That pants-wearing journalist in Sudan will not be given 40-lashes as punishment for her public indecency conviction. The judge instead fined her $200, probably to be rid of the whole, suddenly international incident. “Not so fast your honor,” said Lubna Hussein, the convicted dress-hater. “I will not pay a penny,” she stated outside the court, while wearing the same pants that started this whole thing.
Hussein has taken up the cause for all Sudanese women who long for levis, saying she is ready to receive 40,000 lashes if that’s what it takes to abolish the law. She should get a lot of column mileage out of this.
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Lowlife. In Detroit a man and a woman were out on a first date and having a romantic dinner. When the bill arrived the man told his date that he had left his wallet in her car. She gave him her keys to go fetch it but he never returned, nor did her Chevrolet Impala.
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Good life. A New York man who donated his 320th pint of blood became one of two people in the U.S. who has given 40 gallons. Al Fischer of Massapequa planned to reach the milestone Tuesday, 58 years after he started giving blood. According to a New York Blood Center official, only 83-year-old Maurice Wood has donated more blood than Fischer. Wood is a retired railroad inspector from St. Louis.
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I’m not signing for that. The owner of a pet store in Philadelphia was a bit shocked when instead of getting the tropical fish he had ordered, the deliveryman brought a body in a coffin. Mark Arabia said the mix up happened at the airport where both of the shipments originated. As for the fish, Arabia says they were left behind and have probably died.
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He’s baaaaack. When a Boise, Idaho man was recently released from jail after his DUI arrest, he called for a cab, which dropped him off at his pickup truck. 45-minutes later, Randy J. Reynolds was being pulled over again for the same offense, by the same arresting officer no less.
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I‘ve been married so long I’m on my third bottle of Tabasco sauce. – Susan Vass