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Show DAILY Sunday, September 7, 2003 HE 01 RAID Mm Mm WARNING: SOME MATERIAL NOT SUITABLE FOR SERIOUS PEOPLE Petal pushers give weddings a touch of awww I not saying it's easy to be father of the bride. I'm saying it cant be any, more stressful than being the father of the flower girL I found this out when my daughter, Sophie, age 3, was asked to be a with her cousin Julianna at a formal wedding, by which I mean "a wedding involving as much planning as a hydroelectric dam, but costing more." The job of a flower girl at a formal wedding is to walk down the aisle looking cute as the dickens, so everyone goes "awww." She also carries a little basket of rose petals, which she strews in the path of the bride to symbolize the fact that it's a very special day , which will culminate, by tradition, in a huge bill from the florist. So being a flower girl is a big responsibility, which requires a special dress, special shoes, special tights and a special hair thingie, and these items must, by tradition, take at least 17 hours to pick out at the department store. This was no problem in our case because there were two mothers AND a grandmother involved. The dads - my brother-in- law Steve and I played the traditional male role in the process, which was to stand around asking what the hell I'm , : Dave Barry body ! Don't make me get out spair and run from the building, Mr. Cattle Prod again!") never to be seen again. So what with the responsibiliAnyway, our flower girls had families were to be in many , many pictures, v ty, we flower-gir- l and if you think it's easy to already stressed when we got sit still, smile make to the hotel on the big day. Unand not mess up their dresses fortunately matters only got worse when in an unbelievfor long periods, then you are either a crack addict or a wedable stroke of bad luck we experienced the most stressful ding photographer. But finally it was time for the thing that can happen at a wedactual ceremony. I gave Julianding: wedding photographers. na and Sophie a last minute There seemed to be dozens of them, and they had all attended briefing on their duties. r "Walk nice and slow," I said, that special school where they learn "and drop your petals." "But that's littering," said Juhow to take a dozen people and organize them 14 million permu- lianna. tations: Wedding scientists should figwho "... OK now I want the bride ure out why was taking so long. After the with the bridesmaids. OK now I strew everything everywhere, Women had spent 45 minutes want the groom with the suddenly balk at strewing when looking at hair thingies which, for the record, were all groomsmen. OK now I want the you WANT them to strew. identical to the naked eye, in the bride with the groomsmen. OK .Maybe we should tell flower we got now I want the mother of the sense of being white girls to keep the petals IN the basket; then they'd spill them all groom with the bride and the disgusted and went to the for sure. bridesmaids whose names conmenswear department. We looked at all the menswear in ' tain two or more vowels. OK Anyway, they did fine. They now I want the father of the were a bit shocked when they the store, including shoes, and ' saw the crowd, but then they bride with the groom and the when we got back the women were STILL debating which groomsmen whose blood type is heartened when they heard the "awww." (Get it? Shock and identical hair thingie to get. Some wedding photographers awww! Ha ha! Never rnind.) You cannot fault them. Many a wedding has ended in tragedy become so crazed with power They even did some random when the bride, halfway down that they form gangs and roam strewing, and they made it the aisle, suddenly discovered the suburbs, breaking into unassisted to the end of the that the flower girls are wearhomes and terrorizing the resiaisle, where Steve and I had dents by making them pose for sprinted around to meet them. ing the wrong identical hair "You did GREAT!" I told thingies, causing the bride to day s ("... OK this time I want to see a BIG SMILE from every throw down her bouquet in de -- wedding-photographe- . e, People With Issues A Philadelphia government employee's surgery is just a radical example of how obsessed some women are to wear excruciatingly painful, but fashionable, shoes, according to an August Wall Street Journal report. For about $ 10,000, the woman had one toe shortened and another straightened so that now she can wear today's open-toe- d pumps. Among podiatrists' other remedies: .narrowing of the nails; collagen injections to pad the soles of the feet; and a $225 "foot facial" scrub. But when a Moline, 111., woman told her more traditional podiatrist that she needed corrective toe surgery, the doctor said, "No, you need different shoes." ever-pointie- More Things to Worry About The New York Times report- ed that activists working to encourage organ donations de-plored the recent shortage of superior young organs for transplant, in large part because murder and traffic fatality rates have come down (August). And Texas public schools raided the budget to buy state flags for every classroom in order to comply with this month's inauguration of required student pledges of allegiance to Texas (August). And one of the apparently most pressing needs in Varallo, Italy, was addressed when the city council began subsidizing half the cost of Viagra tablets for its residents (August). ; Oops! I Broward County, which was one of the "ground zeros" during Florida's 2000 presidential problems, mistakenly failed 6,559 public middle-schostudents in June due to what it later called a computer error. A school official called the total count of students affected "a small number." t Single-engin- e pilot Michael Grumbine flew at barely tree-to- p level over La Serna High School in Whittier, Calif., in May, to drop leaflets to students (containing a hip reference to the then-ho- t movie "The Matrix: Reloaded"), he accidentally but in stuck his hand into the propeller blades, severing two fingers and sending the plane into a fall where it crash-landeinjuring vote-counti- ol n mid-flig- ht Grumbine. Thinking Outside the Box I Authorities in Phoenix decided to hold the city's loudest July 4 fireworks show this year adjacent to the complex that houses a Veterans Administration medical center and the state's military retirement home, even though some residents of the facilities still suffer battlefield-acquire- d stress disorders. (However, the facilities reported no ad 'SOT(C r by Chuck Shepherd flG $0)1 JTBBti. verse incidents.) I Sewage-treatme- I view i TO' I Dav Tur? APT a. ed.) 4 limits QmmtMBiflMort : (MmithnghlFREE) Ad-vent- Least Competent Criminals An inmate tried to escape in August from the parking garage of the jail in St. Charles County, Mo., by dash- - MAUwiAV- ing through a fire exit door, he seemed unaware that immediately beyond the door was a brick wall, and after the colli- sion, he was taken to a hospital with head injuries. And in Tampa, Fla., in August, one man was arrested and several others bursought in a glary of a Sports Authority store; police estimate that the crew spent a week digging an elaborate tunnel underneath the store, and once they finally surfaced inside, they apparently got only about $3,500 in athletic shoes and Tampa Bay Bucs jerseys before g an employee called police. labor-intensi- early-arrivin- Our Civilization in Decline I The federal government settled with two prestigious Chicago hospitals in July (Northwest-eUniversity's, University of Chicago's) and filed a claim against another (University of Illinois'), on charges that the. three improperly moved their own patients up the national priority list; one UI official allegedly told a doctor that favoring its own patients was "the Chicago way." And in August, the conviction 'of a Dallas bookstore manager became final for selling obscenity in the form of adult science- fiction comic books; the sales were to adults in an adults-onl- y section, but the prosecutor's main argument about the books' alleged "danger" was m Fram$415perpersaV4xi)le organ- Seniors Maneuvering Death Machines 2-T- on In July, a Los Angeles Times reporter, citing "scientists and others who study the problem," wrote that as many as 10,000 auto collisions since 1985 have been caused by "unintended acceleration" (e.g., hitting the gas pedal instead of the brake, accelerating in a mistaken gear). Recent news stories suggest this problem is particularly acute with (and perhaps even largely confined to) senior citi-zens. In July and August alone, at least nine seniors (aged 71 to 90) caused unintended-acceleratio- n collisions in Florida, Geor-- . gia, California, Massachusetts, Illinois and Tennessee, in addition to the July Santa Monica, ' Calif ..farmer's market incident man in which an killed 10 people because he was unable to move his foot to the brake while traveling nearby three blocks. w And in the Last Month of a ! inmate on that the reason hg; had alcohol on his breath was that he had eaten a homemade--burri- to whose ingredients hacC been dipped in beer. And Jere ! my Barnber, convicted years ago of killing five family mem bers, filed a lawsuit against four surviving relatives for conspir-- v ing to deprive him of "his shar?" of the family estate (Wix, Es-- v sex, England). And the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board turned down the petition for asylum by a Venezuelan woman, who claimed she need--' ed to stay in Canada because back home, she would be pers& cuted for being too fat. work-releas- e I Tony Martin (introduced in News of the Weird in 1999) is one of Britain's most prominent criminals, sentenced to six years in prison for defending his property by shooting one burglar to death and wounding another. He was turned down for early parole in 2002, and also for a trial home visit in Sendyour Weird News to Chucfe Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or goto www.NewsoitheWeird.com.- bcSrSn Lrtari ' HOPPERS TICKETS B,llwlMliJl!lMrt.laimlt.tiaW li WmwliMnaMH(1mWllllnl-iiiMmiiliiiii)irtiiiimirirmfr 1-J- n inn BiHuntr ... ... .. 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WeirdNewsearthlink.net or', )nnr CtasticHawaiierti car thoracis Irani parkai ocswview to ocssrvcw coom orkornocoon mswIo uoon mow prim room 3 Days PARK ma s; A judge in North Platte, Neb,?, willingly accepted the defense Update lcdai(f,FCuptoS86JBsnn 4 mite DiifxyfarxA Wof PLUS 2 DAYS FREE m m&taiE July, on the official ground that he continued to pose a threat ta ' burglars. However, he was granted parole by statute in August and now must prepare to defend a civil suit by the surviving, limping burglar, Brendon Fearon, who claims the gunshot permanently disabled him; Jn August, London's Sun newspa- -' per surreptitiously videotaped Fearon walking without a limp . and effortlessly bicycling and climbing stairs. merely that comic books are an art form of general appeal to children. -transplant 0 FUEE frtote we;wPT.iuH - Rakn ptt person, doubts occupsncy, ursess rioted, snd may os Hsslclsil to spedlc ftohb, dsssi, dsys of tMl, hoW snd room csl-gonss. Cn1ssssnousofVandndurjpp test, bmbi snj pSBSsnosr sMkraL Xpksv FREE Fran J615 per peraortdouWe Too SAD. tovttk ..! VJ I In March, the double life of wealthy Tampa construction magnate Douglas Cone, 74, began to surface when, following the death of his socialite wife, Jean Ann (with whom he lhred Thursdays through Sundays and had three kids), he quickly married his socialite paramour Hillary Carlson (with whom he lived in a second mansion 20 miles away as Donald Carlson, Mondays through Wednesdays, and had two kids). Cone's money (donated in both his names, though "Mr. Carlson" never appeared in public) and the women's tireless community service made the "four" of them prominent figures in Tampa. (The consensus among families' members is that Hillary knew; Jean Ann might not have; and v friends and associates did not.) I Wilbur Daniels, 67, faces sentencing in September in Washington, D.C, on his 2002 conviction for defrauding the Dupont Park Seventh-da- y Church of $L3 million, which, as church treasurer, he might have taken in a sincere attempt to invest the church's money in what turned out to be a Nigerian Internet scam. Prosecutors said Daniels' earnestness was demonstrated by the fact that he also lost his own life savings in the deaL SIOOtoadindbMiagecmt pvphihihii a humor state-of-the-a- 7niblbuiPr1neiHaM Padwffe 1 oihTu 1 0Biet eueppffi Par Resort Barry is 'Ji columnist for the Miami Heral Write to him do The, I Miami Herald, One Herald I Plaza, Miami FL 33132. KCT..TMAT LoHG.lOHb . 1431 S State St Dbnvybml " ding, and you're looking for vXi pair of flower girls who are l cute and experienced, AND have dresses, get your own. II Brja iPtvtivf, gog. MWef You VT" PETS' in Pittsburgh, wanting to lure crowds to a June showing of their new facilities, thought the best way to attract people was to offer them a picnic of free hamburgers and hot dogs to accompany the demonstration of rt raw sewage disposal (About 300 people attend- Orem 225-760- a7 rrTut' s fyo WW. vttM officials nt iri "I want to do it again," she said. And they did. After the bride and groom (Congratulations, Lisa and Josh!) got married and everybody left, Julianna and Sophie went back down the aisle and strewed more petals. They really have the hang of it now. So if you're planning a wed . News of the weird Tensions are brewing in the family of Zell Kravinsky, 48, and his psychiatrist-wifEmily, over what she believes is his excessive altruism, according to an August profile in The New York Times. Kravinsky is not just a passionate philanthropist (from his fortune in commercial real estate), but such a strict utilitarian that he says he would sacrifice his one good kidney (he's already donated the other one) if it were needed by someone doing more social good than he. "No one should have two kidneys," he says, "until everyone has one." He said he cannot value his own kids more than anyone else's, a point that has angered his parents and caused Emily to threaten divorce and two friends to abandon him. ktijg Mvipmiwv GOGO Subjedbavabt I week CaJfcrdetals! I amiaffport Pari 'n JETli - |