Daily Dose - 020417 - chronic headache, Rotten News, STRIP CLUB DRAMA, DDL, Hey Martha

A woman who had the worst chronic headache goes to a famous "new age" holistic doctor, as a last resort. "Doctor, I have tried everything, but my headache just won't go away."

The doctor replied, "You have come to the right place. This is what I want you to do - go home, stare at yourself in the mirror, point your index fingers at your temples, and repeat this mantra: "I really don't have a headache, I really don't have a headache". Do it as long as it takes, the headache is just going to vanish."

As she leaves the doctor's office, skeptical but curious at the same time, she tries the maneuver in front of the mirror in the elevator. Fingers pointed at her temples, she starts repeating "I really don't have a headache, I really don't have a headache...". She has barely said it four times, when she realizes her headache is gone. Shocked and elated, she runs back up to the doctor and says, "Doctor, you are a genius! Can I please send you my husband? He's been having problems in a certain department... how can I put it... "

"When was the last time you two had sex?" asks the doctor.

"About eight years ago." she replied.

The doctor says, "Yes, send him over."

A few days later, she is waiting with baited breath for her husband to come home from the doctor. He arrives, asks her to wait, and goes straight to the bathroom. When he comes out, he throws her on the couch and starts making wild passionate love to her, . When he's finished, he goes right back to the bathroom. A few minutes later he comes out, rouses her from her bliss and starts at it again, like an insatiable young man. After another hour of great sex he goes and locks himself in the bathroom again. At this point the wife has become unbearably curious. She tiptoes to the bathroom door, looks through the keyhole,and sees her husband, staring at himself in the mirror, fingers pointed at his temples, repeating:

"That woman is not my wife, that woman is not my wife....."

___________________________

Rotten News... (True)

These foolish things

Some April fool jokes in the Arab world have backfired spectacularly. Brian Whitaker reports

Monday April 1, 2002

1. Did you know that one of Colonel Gadafy's sons is studying nuclear engineering in Liverpool?

2. Did you know that conservative Muslims once called for the demolition of the Cairo Tower on the grounds that its shape might "excite" women?

3. Did you know that Saddam Hussein was vaccinated against anthrax last September?

"Hang on a minute", I hear someone say, "today is April 1 and you're pulling our legs."

Well, not entirely. Two of the statements above are true and one is false. See if you can guess which.*

Much of the Arab world officially uses the Islamic calendar, and today is the 18th of Muharram in the year 1423, but that doesn't stop people from joining in the April fun.

On April 1 last year, a Kuwaiti newspaper told its readers that the Kuwait Towers - concrete spires supporting giant spheres - were about to be moved from the spot where they have stood for 20 years opposite the Emir's palace and transported to a tribal area as part of a rural development plan.

Crowds of people turned up to watch the moving operation and others phoned the newspaper to complain about this assault on a national landmark. The idea was plainly ludicrous - the tallest of the three towers is 613ft (187m) high - but it might just be credible in Kuwait where outrageous expense is rarely an obstacle to anything.

Good April fool jokes rely on stories that are far-fetched but just plausible enough for people to be taken in by them.

They should also cause amusement once the truth is known - which is where Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, went wrong last year. A front-page story in his newspaper, Babel, announced huge increases in food rations for the Iraqi people. A note on the back page informed readers that it wasn't true.

Perhaps I've missed the joke, but I can't imagine many Iraqis would find that very funny.

The Syrian government daily, Tishrin, played a similar cruel trick last April when it announced salary increases for civil servants and a $60-a-month payment to several million unemployed people.

The paper then added what - for Syria - was a risque touch of satire. Citing "private sources that had taken part in a secret meeting", it said the Syrian authorities had "studied ways of repatriating some $50bn stolen from state coffers and placed in foreign bank accounts". "The government has decided to reopen files on people implicated in major corruption scandals with a view to putting them on trial," it continued.

In neighbouring Jordan, the official news agency, Petra, became so excited by this news that it relayed the story to a wider audience - only to issue a correction a few hours later when it realised it had been hoaxed.

For journalists, this is one of the delights of April Fools' Day, because it embarrasses those who regurgitate other people's work without rechecking the facts. An April fool story in the Guardian a few years ago, which contained several broad hints that it was entirely fictitious, turned up in a Spanish newspaper around April 6, rewritten as a serious news item. Occasionally such jokes are taken so seriously that they get totally out of hand, as happened in Lebanon last year. It apparently began with an ordinary April fool joke which succeeded in hoodwinking four science students at the Lebanese University.

A couple of weeks later, the victims of the joke decided to take their revenge and spread a story that a Syrian intelligence agent had kidnapped four students from the university campus.

Syrian involvement in Lebanon is always a delicate issue, and the affair led to the temporary closure of the university, the arrest of the student pranksters and a personal intervention from Lebanon's defence minister.

The Lebanese authorities were not the only ones who failed to see the funny side. On March 31 last year, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia issued a warning to Muslims not to participate in April foolery, which he described as "a practice of the unbelievers".

"It is prohibited because lying is prohibited at all times and under all conditions; except for three," he said.

(The three exceptions, according to the mufti, are in times of war, to bring reconciliation between people, or to protect the honour of a husband or wife.)

The Saudi religious authorities also take a stern view of Valentine's Day which - although named after a Christian saint - has become popular among young people in the kingdom.

This year on February 14, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Evil banned the sale of red roses, teddy bears and greeting cards associated with the occasion.

Banning Valentine's Day fits with the general policy of discouraging relationships between men and women outside marriage, but April Fools' Day is not a Christian festival and has no religious significance.

It did, however, originate in Christian countries. The usual explanation is that it began shortly after1562, when Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar and moved the start of the year from April 1 to January 1.

News travelled slowly in those days, and it took years for some people to realise, or accept, that the calendar had changed - with the result that they continued to hold new year festivities on April 1. Those who had adapted to the change more quickly regarded such people as stupid and started playing tricks on them.

Religious scholars may regard April foolery as un-Islamic frivolity, but if it teaches us to question what we're told, there ought to be more of it, not less. Especially in the Middle East, where governments fool people all year round with scant regard for the Grand Mufti's rules on lying.

As the American wit Mark Twain observed, April Fools' Day is "the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four".

* Answer: 1 and 2 are true; 3 is false.

*******

Sheriff, being sued over records, to get bigger shredder

03/28/02

Martin Stolz
Plain Dealer Reporter

Ravenna

- The Portage County sheriff, who is facing a lawsuit for allegedly destroying public records, wants to purchase a high-volume, heavy-duty shredder.

Sheriff Duane Kaley made a request for the $950 shredder last week in a letter to the Portage County commissioners, who approved the purchase.

"Due to the nature of classified information coming into and out of the Communications Center," he writes, "it is necessary for them to shred a lot of unneeded paper."

The center has replaced five or six smaller shredding machines since 1995, with the "high density of papers shredded," he writes. Kaley declined to comment yesterday.

Carolyn Ciganik, an employee of the Sheriff's Department, recently won a $125,000 settlement of a federal sex discrimination suit for being denied a promotion to sergeant. She has a separate lawsuit pending in Portage County Common Pleas Court for public records allegedly removed or destroyed.

Dennis Thompson, Ciganik's lawyer, sought the records for the discrimination lawsuit. A Sheriff's Department employee testified that the pile of missing documents was 18 inches high, which Thompson estimated to be at least 4,500 records.

Damages for destruction of a public record can be $1,000 per record under Ohio law, and court-ordered compensatory damages can be higher. If victorious, Ciganik could get more than $4.5 million, Thompson said.

But forfeiture actions for improper destruction, removal or transfer of public records are rare, and Ohio law does not clearly define a "record," said Mark Weaver, a former deputy attorney general and public-records specialist.

Many county departments use document shredders, said Commissioner Kathleen Chandler. The timing of the request for the shredder and the lawsuit were coincidental, she said.

Chandler declined to comment on Ciganik's recent lawsuit.

_________________________________

STRIP CLUB DRAMA

A man went to a strip club. When he got inside he noticed a seat conspicuously unoccupied in the front row. Seizing the opportunity he took the seat.

As soon as the first dancer walked out the guy directly behind him yelled, "Yeah baby! That's what I've been waiting for!"

The man in the front row turned around and gave him a dirty look. A few minutes into the show, the dancer did a move and snatched off her top revealing two pasties. The guy behind our friend goes off again. "Yeah baby! Shake those things."

Our friend turned around and said, "Hey buddy, calm down!"

After a few moments, the dancer did another move and snatched off her dress revealing a very thin G-string. Again, the man behind our friend yelled out, "Oh baby! You're almost there!"

Our friend again turned around and said, "Hey buddy, shut the fuck up, will ya!"

A few minutes later, the dancer stretched out on the floor and snatched off both the pasties and the G-string. The whole club went wild, except for the man behind our friend.

Curious, our friend turned around and asked, "Say buddy, where's your enthusiasm now?"

The guy responded, "It's on your back, dude."

_________________________________

DDL

Billy and Jim Bob and Bubba,
Are all fond of gals. Hubba! Hubba!
Their kinship is caring,
Their motto is: sharing,
And Tuesday's Jim's turn with the rubba.

_________________________________

"The Senate has proposed and passed the tax cut for marriage. Married people apparently had been paying more in taxes, and Republicans feel that marriage is penalty enough."
-Bill Maher

***

"The worst thing about television is that everybody you see on television is doing something better than what you're doing. You never see anybody on TV just sliding off the front of the sofa, with potato chip crumbs all over their shirt."
--Jerry Seinfeld

***

"He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, and a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead."
-Voltaire.

___________________________

Hey Martha (true)

Monday, March 11, 2002

'Fighting Whities' mock Indian mascot

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) -- Unable to persuade a school to change a mascot name it considers offensive, a group of American Indian students at the University of Northern Colorado named its intramural basketball team "The Fighting Whities."

The team chose a white man as its mascot to raise awareness of stereotypes that some cultures endure.

"The message is, let's do something that will let people see the other side of what it's like to be a mascot," said Solomon Little Owl, a member of the team and director of Native American Student Services at the university.

The team, made up of American Indians, Hispanics and Anglos, wears jerseys that say "Every thang's going to be all white."

The students are upset with Eaton High School for using an American Indian caricature on the team logo. The team is called the Reds.

"It's not meant to be vicious, it is meant to be humorous," said Ray White, a Mohawk American Indian on the team. "It puts people in our shoes."

Eaton School District superintendent John Nuspl said the school's logo is not derogatory and called the group's criticism insulting.

"There's no mockery of Native Americans with this," he said.