Daily Dose - 020420 - ELDERLY COMPANION, Rotten News, what the calf was worth, interview, DDL, Hey Martha

ELDERLY COMPANION

An elderly woman was looking for a pet to be a good companion and not much trouble. The pet store owner suggested a parrot, showed it to her and guaranteed her it would be a wonderful companion. The woman asked if it would behave if she took it to church with her on Sundays. The owner said it shouldn't be a problem and that she could put him on her shoulder and he would stay there.

She bought the parrot and for the next week spent time getting to know him. Assured that he spoke properly and was well behaved, she put him on her shoulder and went off to church.

Just as everyone quieted down and the sermon began, the parrot looked around, squawked and said, "It's goddamned cold in here!" Everyone turned to look at her and she ran out of the church in total embarrassment!

All the next week, she talked to the parrot explaining the necessity to remain quiet during church. The parrot understood so she put him on her shoulder and went to church the following Sunday. Once again, just as everything got quiet and the sermon began, the parrot squawked, looked around and loudly proclaimed, "It's goddamned cold in here!!" And again the woman ran from the church.

The next day she returned to the pet store and explained the embarrassing situation to the owner. Since she didn't want to get rid of the parrot, the owner offered the following solution: "If the parrot does that again, grab him by the legs and swing him around 5 or 6 times and return him to your shoulder."

"That'll work?" asked the woman.

"Guaranteed!" exclaimed the owner.

So, the next Sunday she took the parrot to church and, sure enough, just as the sermon started, the parrot squawked, "It's goddamned cold in here!!" Without any hesitation, the woman grabbed his legs, swung him around 5 or 6 times and placed him back on her shoulder.

The parrot shook his head, ruffled his feathers and said, "Pretty fuckin'windy, too!"

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Rotten News... (true)

Saturday, 03/30/02

High school student pushes county to post Five Pillars of Islam

Associated Press

CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Bradley County, one of several Tennessee counties to vote recently to post the Ten Commandments, has been asked to extend its endorsement of religious documents in public places to include the Five Pillars of Islam.

The commission has been asked several times by Rachel Cate, a student at Cleveland High School, to post the Islamic document alongside the Old Testament one.

''This is not only a Christian nation, but a nation for everyone,'' Cate told the commission at its most recent meeting last week. ''I think it is discriminatory not to decide on the Five Pillars of Islam ... just as you decided on the Ten Commandments.''

The commission has declined to grant Cate's request.

''At this point, we have our agendas full, and there's no point in the immediate future to address that,'' Commission Chairman Mike Smith told Cate.

Smith said he respects Cate's beliefs but believes that, particularly since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that have been blamed on extreme factions of Islam, it would be inappropriate to post the Five Pillars.

Cate has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union in Tennessee. The ACLU's executive director, Hedy Weinberg, said she appreciates Cate's efforts, although the organization would oppose actually posting the Five Pillars of Islam for the same reasons it opposes posting the Ten Commandments.

''Rachel Cate asked them to post another religious document in the hope of having them understand that county governments cannot and should not promote one religious doctrine over another,'' Weinberg said.

''Any county commission needs to recognize their responsibility is to uphold religious freedom for all people in their community.''

Weinberg said the state chapter resorts to lawsuits only as a last resort. It has sued Hamilton County, which is next to Bradley County, over its decision to post the Ten Commandments in a public building.

''Our goal is to help the Bradley County Commission understand they are in fact eroding religious freedom rather than promoting it when they post the Ten Commandments,'' Weinberg said.

''The commission's refusal to even consider her proposal makes it clear the commission is using its power to promote one religious doctrine over others.''

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Afghan Man Roams Desert, Eats Stones

Fri Mar 29, 1:48 AM ET

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Outside the gates of the U.S. military base at Kandahar airport, Jalat Khan selected a stone from the gravel on the shoulder of the road and swallowed it.

Then Khan, a jobless wanderer in a turban and robe, did it again. And again. Pretty soon, a crowd had gathered, oblivious to the U.S. Army Humvees rolling out of the base on routine patrols.

Even the clatter and roar of American helicopters and transport planes — part of the daily base traffic that usually turns heads — couldn't compete with Khan on Thursday, who invited spectators to hear the rattle of stones in his belly as he prodded his swollen paunch.

"When I started stone-eating, people couldn't believe it. They told me that this was magic," said Khan, who developed the habit three years ago because — in his words — he was hungry. "This is the one quality I have. Wherever I go, people watch me and gather around."

Part of Khan's mystery is that he's not out to make money from his talent, though he'll take digestible food if it's offered. He's happy to sit cross-legged on the ground and talk.

And because he occasionally pops a stone into his mouth, people listen — even though he admits to being out of touch.

"I don't know what's happening," Khan said of the successful American bombing campaign that helped oust the Taliban, and the hunt for al-Qaida holdouts in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s remote mountains. "The Russians came and left after fighting, and then the Arabs came and they left. Now the Americans are here, and I don't know when they are leaving," Khan said.

Khan, 30, who sought safety on the border with Pakistan during the U.S. bombing campaign that began in October, said he swallows up to one pound of stones daily. He sticks to smooth, round ones about the length of a little finger joint, and passes them every three days.

"I had a very healthy and strong body when I started eating stones," said Khan, who compared his taste for pebbles to an addict who craves tobacco or drugs. "Then I became weak and thin."

Before the Taliban came to power, Khan rented a plot of land in his home province of Helmand, west of Kandahar, and cultivated opium-bearing poppies. But the Taliban banned the practice in 2000, and Khan's father spent all the money earned from opium, so nowadays Khan travels the desert.

He said he had just walked 67 miles from the Pakistan border to Kandahar, the biggest city in the southern half of Afghanistan.

Pausing for a break outside the U.S. military base, he said he dreamed of marrying a U.S. female pilot, who could fly him to Dubai, or maybe the United States. At the same time, he described the Taliban, known for unrelenting, often brutal edicts carried out in the name of Islam, as "good people," without elaborating.

The Taliban's traditional support base was among majority ethnic Pashtuns like Khan in southern Afghanistan, where many people are more forgiving toward a movement that, for all its pitiless excesses, had imposed peace over most of a lawless land.

"This land is bloody. This soil is not sincere with anybody, even with Afghans. Mine is the only body that has benefited from this land," he said.

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A motorist driving by a Texas ranch hit and killed a calf that was crossing the road. The driver went to the owner of the calf and explained what had happened. He then asked what the animal was worth.

"Oh, about $200 today," said the rancher. "But in six years it would have been worth $900. So $900 is what I'm out."

The motorist sat down and wrote out a check and handed it to the farmer.

"Here," he said, "is the check for $900. It's post-dated six years from now."

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Jill had applied for a job and when she returned home, her mother asked how the interview went.

"Pretty good I think", replied Jill, "but if I go to work there I won't get a vacation unless I'm married.

Her mother of course, had never heard of such a thing and asked "Is that what they told you?

"No", replied Jill, "they didn't tell me that, but on the application it said "vacation time may not be taken until you've had your 'First Anniversary'"

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DDL

Amidst the confusion of a crowd,
Dirty Joe fondled young Miss Dowd.
She was shocked and afrighted,
And yet so excited,
That she moaned for help ... but not too loud!

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"I've been described as a lighthouse in the middle of a bog: Brilliant but useless."
-Connor Cruise O'Brien.

***

"I can speak Esperanto like a native."
-Spike Milligan.

***

"What's on your mind, if you'll forgive the overstatement?"
-Fred Allen.

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Hey Martha (true)

Corpse leads police to incestuous family

Oliver Burkeman

Friday March 1, 2002

The Guardian

Police investigating a rumour that a family were keeping a child's corpse at their remote Florida farm found a 53-year-old man and his sister living as a couple with their 13 children and grandchildren.

Investigators believe that Samuel Patrick and Debra Patrick, who lived quietly among citrus groves near Lake Okeechobee, in Glades county, exhumed the body of their infant child 12 years ago, keeping the remains in a pine coffin in their living-room.

Samuel Patrick was arrested and charged with incest, but no action could be taken against the two for digging up their son Joshua, who died at eight months, because the statute of limitations had expired. Debra Patrick has so far not been charged with a crime.

Deputies from the Glades county sheriff's office removed nine children and four grandchildren, the youngest of whom was described as a toddler, and the oldest aged 20. Those under 18 were taken into local authority care, and Mr Patrick was held in custody on a bond of $150,000 (£106,000).

Police say a 24-year-old daughter of the couple, also found living at the property, was the mother of the grandchildren, but did not reveal the identity of their father.

Edwin Dana, a deputy from the sheriff's office in neighbouring Okeechobee county, said police examining Joshua's grave found that the coffin had been replaced by a water-cooler.

"[Samuel Patrick] probably dug up the casket a couple of days after the burial," Mr Dana said. "The ground would still have been soft, so when he put the water cooler in there, the dirt wouldn't sink down."

Kenneth Holley, chief deputy for the Glades county sheriff's office, said: "Some of our norms are defined by law. Some people don't agree with the norms, and they live outside the law. Our main concern was for the welfare of the children - it is going to be tragic for the children. They have lived there and don't know what has allegedly happened is wrong."