Daily Dose - 020615 - OUTHOUSE ACCIDENT, Rotten News, touring the plant, sermon, DDL, Hey Martha

OUTHOUSE ACCIDENT

Once there was a little boy who lived in the country. They had to use an outhouse, and the little boy hated it because it was hot in the summer, cold in the winter and stank all the time.

The outhouse was sitting on the bank of a creek and the boy determined that one day he would push that outhouse into the creek.

One day after a spring rain, the creek was swollen so the little boy decided today was the day to push the outhouse into the creek. So he got a large stick and started pushing. Finally, the outhouse toppled into the creek and floated away.

That night his dad told him they were going to the woodshed after supper. Knowing that meant a spanking, the little boy asked why.

The dad replied, "someone pushed the outhouse into the creek today. It was you, wasn't it, son?"

The boy answered yes. Then he thought a moment and said, "Dad, I read in school today that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and didn't get into trouble because he told the truth."

The dad replied, "well, son, George Washington's father wasn't in that cherry tree!"

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Rotten News.... (true)

Chinese woman breast-feeds rare monkey back to health

Monday, April 1, 2002 at 19:00 JST

BEIJING — A woman breast-fed a rare monkey back to health after its life was endangered when its real mother ignored it after giving birth, the China Daily newspaper reported Monday.

Workers at a rare animal refuge in Zhouzhi, a county 30 kilometers from the Shaanxi provincial capital of Xian, worried that the baby golden monkey could die after its mother refused to nurse it hours after giving birth on Friday morning, the report said.

Following the failure of efforts to rouse the compassion of the monkey mother, worker Chen Yongjiang told the sorry story to his wife, nursing their one-year-old baby at home.

Chen's wife then decided to breast-feed the monkey, named Didi, one of only a handful of China's remaining golden monkeys, which live mainly in Shaanxi Province's Qingling Mountains.

If the monkey had not suckled milk from the breast, it could have developed low immunity and become infected by life-threatening illnesses, center animal expert Wang Zhonglie was quoted as saying.

The report did not mention how long the woman intended to keep breast-feeding the monkey. (Kyodo News)

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Doughnut trail leads cops to thief

SLIDELL, Louisiana (Reuters) -- Two people left a 15-mile-long- trail of doughnuts after they took a Krispy Kreme truck from a parking lot and fled, police said Thursday.

The truck was parked at a convenience store with its rear doors open and engine running while a deliveryman carried doughnuts inside, said Slidell police spokesman Rob Callahan.

Two suspects hopped in the truck and sped off to the nearby town of Lacombe, with doughnuts spilling out along the way, he said.

They abandoned the truck when they were spotted by police responding to reports of a dangerous driver who was losing his doughnuts. Passenger Rose Houk, 31, was captured, but the driver, whose name was not released, ran away.

Houk told police they had been smoking crack cocaine for several hours before the incident, which occurred Wednesday, said Callahan.

Their motive for taking the Krispy Kreme truck was unclear.

"I don't know if it was a need for transportation or if they just had the munchies," he said.

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Pop-Up Toilets to Cut Street Urination

March 26, 2002 07:28 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Pop-up toilets that rise from the ground at night will be installed in central London in a bid to dissuade late-night male revelers from urinating against walls and doorways.

The self-cleaning telescopic urinals, which Westminister City Council hopes to have in place by autumn, will emerge from under the ground and be retracted in the day via remote control.

"By moving them underground it means they are not an obstacle in the day," a council spokeswoman said Monday.

The council has already deployed mobile urinals which have been placed on the streets Friday and Saturday nights to cut down street urination.

The telescopic toilet is currently only available in Europe, Westminster council said.

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My husband was once employed in the printing division of a large manufacturing firm. One morning, word came from the top that some visiting VIPs would be touring the plant in just a few minutes. All production was immediately shut down as employees scrambled to quickly tidy up the work place.

When the appointed lookout yelled, "Here they come!" fifty fingers that were poised over fifty machine start-up buttons pressed down in unison and blew every fuse in the building.

[Contributed to Reader's Digest]

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The pastor of our church began his sermon with this story:

"I was on a plane last week, from Chicago to California, when we ran into some very severe turbulence.

As it got worse, the passengers became more and more alarmed, and even the flight attendants began to look concerned. Finally, one of them noticed that I had 'Rev.' in front of my name on the passenger list, came over to me, and said, 'Sir, this is really frightening. Do you suppose you could, I don't know...do something religious?'"

"So I took up a collection."

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DDL

A picnic out in the moonlight,
Some secluded spot will be all right,
You won't need a nickel,
To taste of this pickle,
But promise me that you won't bite!

_________________________

"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
--Sam Levenson

***

"It's not me who can't keep a secret it's the people I tell that can't."
--Abraham Lincoln

***

"Although I can accept talking scarecrows, lions and great wizards in emerald cities, I find it hard to believe there is no paperwork involved when your house lands on a witch."
--Dave James

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Hey Martha (true)

Monday, May 6, 2002

Virginity prize worthy

An African kingdom plans to fight the spread HIV

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- An African kingdom has a plan to stop the spread of HIV. It's going to revive an old tradition by rewarding virginity.

Those who remain virgins into their early 20s will get a gift to start launch them into adulthood -- for men, perhaps a few head of cattle; for women, a refrigerator or stove.

In fact the Buganda Kingdom, the largest of Uganda's traditional monarchies, is putting a modern spin on old-time morality -- an approach kingdom officials say is needed in a country where the HIV-infection rate has hovered around 10 per cent since the mid-1990s.

The details, such as at what age young people will be asked to take virginity pledges and how long the pledges will apply, are still being worked out.

There's also the question of how to pay for the rewards -- a major obstacle for the kingdom, which is a cultural institution under Ugandan sovereignty and has no political or tax-raising powers.

However, some details -- such as how to make sure young people who sign on remain chaste -- have already been covered.

"We're going to test the girls," said Robert Ssebunnya, the kingdom's health minister. "In the case of boys, I guess we will have to trust them not to lie." The Buganda kingdom isn't the first African monarchy to use tradition as a tool to stop HIV. It's an idea with growing appeal in Africa, where dealing with the disease has become a facet of daily life for almost everyone.

"What we're seeing in parts of Africa is communities responding to the epidemic by saying, 'Let's see what's in our culture -- how can we deal with this with what we had in the past?"' said Suzanne Leclerc-Madlalas, a medical anthropologist at the University of Natal in South Africa.

"And what they had most of the time was a way of regulating sexuality," she said.

In the tiny southern African kingdom of Swaziland, a return to tradition has worked out as a five-year ban on sex for young women.

The ban was decreed in September by King Mswati, who ordered young women to wear tassels, a traditional Swazi badge of virginity, around their necks. Under Mswati's decree, men may not touch young women -- even handshakes are taboo -- and the women cannot wear jeans or trousers. Violators face stiff fines.

The Swazi plan has been criticized for its focus on young women and severe restrictions on contact between the sexes. The Buganda Kingdom is hoping to avoid similar criticism with a gender-neutral approach to virginity and a nod toward contemporary mores.

"We're not telling young people they can't go on dates, not to dance or hold hands," Ssebunnya said. "We're just saying maybe you shouldn't have sex. That way you won't get sick, you won't have children before you finish school."

The medical community has dismissed virginity testing as pseudo-science, and some say it violates women's rights, but Ssebunnya dismisses such criticisms. "We have our own way, a traditional way, of testing," he said, declining to elaborate.

To bolster the abstinence drive, the kingdom is writing a sex manual and expanding the traditional role of "sengas" -- aunts.

Sengas customarily counselled their nieces on wedding night etiquette and other wifely roles. Under the new plan, the kingdom will appoint sengas for whole communities, where they will teach young people -- boys and girls -- about sex and the virtues of avoiding it.

Buganda was an independent kingdom that was absorbed into Uganda when the country gained independence from Britain in 1962 and abolished when it tried to secede in 1966.

The kingdom was restored, along with two others, nine years ago on condition it stick to cultural affairs.

But, in a country where the influence of Western culture is growing and sexually charged American soap operas like "The Bold and the Beautiful" are among the most popular television shows, can an old African virginity tradition be revived with a cow and a stove?

"Faced with rapid social change of any kind it's pretty well documented that people look to the past for answers," said Leclerc-Madlalas. "But it means going back 200 years and recreating social structures that don't work anymore ... the traditions died for a reason."

Regardless, Buganda officials, led by King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi, are pressing ahead. They've begun promoting the virginity campaign and say it'll be running by the end of the year.

Officials say they're confident the campaign will catch on among the kingdom's subjects, who make up about 17 per cent of Uganda's 24 million people.

So far, however, the reaction among young people appears mixed.

"Staying a virgin means respecting our culture," said Rose Orishaba, a 16-year old student in Kampala, who plans to sign a virginity pledge. "It keeps us safe from disease."

A few classmates, mostly boys, loitering outside between classes giggled at the word "virgin."

"I'd wait until I was older; sex isn't good for us," said Cesar Katalega with a sarcastic smile.

"You just want the cow," shouted a friend, Timothy Sembatya. A few of the boys standing around laughed. "I'm not waiting to have sex ... this is for old people."