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Show DSL be The SaltLake Tribune NATION/WORLD Sunday, May 28, 1995 Did Half-Bad Forecast Cost Weatherperson His Job? In April, radio station KMJ ia Madera, Calif, fired weather forecaster Sean Boyd. Thestation said it had a cumulative dissatisfaction with him, but Boyd said the precipitating incident was his refusal to forecast good enough weather for the station’s annual public picnic in honor of Rush Limbaugh. Boyd, an 18-year veteran, had forecast ‘partly cloudy,” which KMJ executives NEWSOF THE WEIRD e s E CHUCK SHEPHERD wanted changed to “partly sun- ny”’ so as not to discourage attendance. oO INEXPLICABLE In October, the U.S. Department of Justice received a check for $5.6 million from the late Stanley Newberg, who died without blood relatives and who had ordered that his estate go to the government as thanks for having taken his family as immigrants from Austria in 1906. Based on the 1994 budget, the bequestwill coverabout two minutes’ federal spending. @iIn March, President Clinton invited sidewalk protester Todd Ouellette, 27, into the Oval Office for a five-minute meeting. Ouellette had requested the meeting on Feb. 19, 1993, after returning from a seven-month walk across the United States, picking upsignatures demanding action on Vietnam War POWs and MIAs. After the brief chat, Ouellette announcedhewassatisfied, that he was ending his 25-monthprotest, and that he was movingonto other issues, such as the war with China, which ‘will be coming up around the year 2000.” (In a previous interview, Ouellette said he did not know whyhe was so obsessed with the POW-MIA issue, in that he hadno friendsorrelatives who served there.) Syracuse, N.Y., Fire Chief James Cummings announced in Marchthat his firefighters were injured moreoftenin fire station accidents (28 times) last year than in putting out fires (25 times). In March, in an all-white neighborhood in Columbia, Pa., vandals damaged severalcars and wrote “KKK” andvariousracial epithets on the houses of three families. in February, Odalys Toledo, 30, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for attempted bank robbery. Last August, she had telephoned the FBI in Newark, N.J., and told them that a woman,fitting her own description and wearing what she was wearing, would soontry to rob the City National Bank downtown. She was arrested whenshe later entered the bank. Asked Toledo’s motive, her public-defender lawyersaid, “T have no good answer.” UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT At a news conferencein Beijing called in March to announce activities surrounding China’s participation in the United Nations World Conference on Women, 11 of the 14 winners in the song and poster contests were male, and eight of the nine head-table conveners of the news conference were men. In December, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in Wilmington, N.C., made an announcement that a valuable piece of technology had beenstolen. The head of the office asked 20 shots at the machine,resulting in some dents and chippedpaint. @ James Musgrow, 31, filed a lawsuit in August against the Davenport, Iowa, police department charging that he was unconstitutionally arrested earlier in the year. Musgrow had come to the police station to get help in finding his mother’s car but was wearing a black T-shirt with about 30 drawings of marijuana leaves on it. Accordingto the lawsuit, police Sgt. Dave Holden took offense at the shirt and ordered Musgrowto leave. When Musgrowinsisted on inquiring aboutthe car, he was ar- the public’s help for its return, and offered a reward, but refused to identify the object exceptto say that it was palm-sized. Said the supervisor, “For security reasons, I can’t say whatit looked like.” @ Joseph Bertolino, 37, said he has been in severe pain since 1993, when his arm was pulled into a woodworking machine while he was employedat a Sierra Pacific Industries mill in Red Bluff, Calif. In April 1995, Bertolino, distraught with pain, rushed into the mill with a gun andfired rested and charged with trespassing, but the charge was dismissed two monthslater. Oo 2ND AMENDMENTBLUES In Salem, Ohio, in January, Robert Pugh, 24, accidentally shot himself in the leg while crawling on the floor of his girlfriend’s home tracking down a mousehehadseen. § In New Orleansin May, tourist Freddie Harrison reached into a bag for his video camera while walking through the French Quarter and accidentally caused his gun to discharge, killing ‘his 31-year-old daughter. Bin Youngstown, Ohioy in March, Andre Adkins, 23, aecidentally shot himself in the groin when,after firing off a few shots at a target, he put the gun intohis waistband with his finger still on the trigger. And Al Rodrigues; 24, who had planned to return ‘the gunhe had just bought because he and his wife had decided it was dangerous to have around, accidentally shot himself in the penis as he stoodat theside of a road in Hawthorne,Calif., in March after supposedly unloading the gun. o COMPELLING EXPLANATION Warwick, N.Y., Judge Daniel Coleman imposeda light sentence on a man in December for a speeding ticket because the man had broughthis soiled underpants to court to lend credence to his claim that he had needed to rush homein orderto deal with his diarrhea. However, Coleman said he feared there was a danger if people learned about the successful defense: “Everybody,” said the judge, “will start walking into court with soiled drawers.” Government Is Close to The People Some banks would have you By Calvin Woodward THEASSOCIATED PRESS CHANTILLY, Va. — The faucet opens and out comes water smelling vaguely of the public z00. The odoris from a special disinfectant the county uses to cleanse the water every spring Take your medicine, government seemsto be saying. It’s morningin this free society, among the freest anywhere. Yet from sunrise to sunset, government never seems far away. It nags, instructs, constricts, supports and taxes its way through this Citizen’s day. Governmentis right there. The weatherforecast is delivered by a jolly man on TV who sometimes dresses funny, but he getshis information from governmentsatellites, computers and expertise. The TV is switched to cartoons, their content controlled by government, the ads monitored for truthfulness. Or to Barney, his network subsidized by government. Citizen tears himself from the tube, to get the kids out of bed and go to work. believe that Quickly, some toast, made from flour that the Food and Drug Administration says can contain up to 75 insect fragments and onerodent hair per 50 grams. Plus cereal, nutritional content printed on the box courtesy of FDAedict Kids walk on public sidewalks to public school Thenit’s off to make the first tax deposit of the day, at the gas station, where $3.63 of the $12.49 spent for 10 gallons goes to the equity is the best government. Of that tax, 68 cents goesto reduce the federal deficit and 3 cents is for federal and Virginia trust funds for leaking underground storage tanks. you can do. Govern- mentofficials enjoy calling them LUSTfunds. Citizen's car is a 1984 Renault Alliance, designed underthe dictates of hundredsof pagesoffederal safety regulations. If government had really beenonitstoes, it would have advised him to buy something else. No waywill it pass the annual government airpollution inspection. Government would prefer that Citizen took public transit, the clean, safe Metro train that runs frequently during the day. But since Metro seemsto dropoff the face of the Earth at night, Citizen drives the 20 miles to Washington on government-built roads. Two hours and 46 minutes into the workday, Citizen reaches a milestone. According to the National Taxpayers Union, that's howlong it takes him to pay off the day's pro-rated taxes and begin filling his own wallet. By lunchtime, he has earned enoughto sprinkle more tax money around. On a $3.49 sandwich, a District of Columbia tax of 35 cents. On the $8.93 parking fee, $1.07. Eight cents on each 80-cent cup of coffee Theday's tax take on gas, food, parking and goods; $5.84 on spending of $40.72. The District of Columbia gets enough for one four-pack of Charmin, Heading home, it’s past rush hour andCitizencan use I-66,free now of carpoolrestrictions. Traffic cameras atop poles watch the procession Dinner is USDA-inspected meat, piled with canned mushrooms, which are allowed to have up to 75 mites or 20 maggots per 100 grams, drained. Thenit’s bedtime. Finally, dreams. Poorer, perhaps,for the lack of a national endowment, But one area that government, as far as Citizen knows, can neither underwrite nor circumseribe , . 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