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| 5/25 |
| 2005/6/3-4 [Uncategorized] UID:37967 Activity:nil |
6/3 On the lighter side of things...I hate it when this happens:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/mlkday.htm
\_ Why have a lighter side when you have the post above yours!
Also, you should all watch "Crash".
\_ Does this have any relationship to the spectacularly awful film
of the same name by David Cronenberg? -dans
\_ Here, go piss in someone else's pool:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010907.html |
| www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/mlkday.htm Click here Claim: A plaque made for a 2002 Martin Luther King Day celebration in F lorida thanked James Earl Ray, King's assassin. Origins: Most of the public mistakes we make in life can be dismissed w ith wry chuckles, and our faux pas generally cause nothing more than bri ef moments of red-faced embarrassment, but every once in a while someone commits a gaffe so hideous that it sends everyone involved scurrying fo r rocks to crawl under. Wanting to provide their guest with a special gift, members of the citys Martin Luther King task force turned to loca l promotions company AdPro Specialties, who in turn contracted with Meri t Industries of Georgetown, Texas, to produce a plaque with an inscripti on thanking Jones set amidst a display of several USPS "Black Heritage" postage stamps depicting prominent African-Americans, headed by one of K ing himself. Merit faxed AdPro a list of 15 African-American stamps to c hoose from and a rough sketch of what the finished product would look li ke; all AdPro had to do was choose which stamps they wanted displayed on the plaque. James Earl Ray, the man who pleaded guilty to assassinating the ren owned civil rights leader at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. "It' s a real outrage," said Commissioner Margaret Bates, who also chaired th e citys Martin Luther King task force. "To confuse James Earl Jones with James Earl Ray -- just think of the significance." I almost fell off my chair when I saw it," said Norbert Willia ms, 68, a former middle school principal who is an AdPro account executi ve. Even with his doubts, Wilcox said he was willing to call it an error but wanted Merit executives to tell him what happened. He said the first pho ne conversation broke down when a Merit employee became uncooperative an d cut the call short. On a second try, Gerald Wilcox talked to the owner , Herbert Miller. He said I was making a mou ntain out of a mole hill," Wilcox said. Miller, apparently lacking any diplomatic skills whatsoever, assuaged nob ody's feelings by blaming the error on some of his poorly-educated emplo yees and terming the mix-up an innocent mistake that had been "blown out of proportion": He said some of the company's workers are barely in their 20s, possess po or English language skills and have limited grasp of history. do n't know who James Earl Ray is from James Earl Jones from the man in the moon,'' he said. Miller said the worker responsible for engraving this plaque was handling another one about the same time bearing the name "Ra y Johnson." He said the "Ray" from that plaque ended up on the Lauderhil l plaque, supplanting the word "Jones." He said the mistake slipped through quality control because it was a rush job. While charges (and denials) of cultural insensitivity and accusations tha t the "mistake" had been a deliberate one flew back and forth, AdPro opt ed to have the plaque repaired locally in time for Lauderhill's Martin L uther King Day celebration. As for the unfortunate mangling of his name, James Earl Jones said through his agent: "I think we have much bigger t hings to worry about." htm Urban Legends Reference Pages 1995-2003 by Barbara and David P Mikkelson This material may not be reproduced without permission References: Sources: Andron, Scott. "James Earl Gaffe Has a Plaque Maker for Lauderhill in Retreat." "Mix-Up Has Plaque Honoring Accused MLK Killer In stead of Black Actor." |
| www.straightdope.com/columns/010907.html I recently heard a talk by a visi ting scholar who was researching the candir. The speaker was collaborat ing with a South American medical doctor who completed a candir removal operation in 1997. The fish had entered the (male) patient's urethra, h ad been stopped by the urethral sphincter (if that's the right term), an d had turned at a right angle and burrowed into the scrotum. The fish ha d died, and the subsequent relaxation of its spines facilitated removal. A photograph of the removed fish and part of the affected area was presented. According to the speaker, the patient claimed the fish had sw um out of the water up his urine stream. In my original column I expressed s kepticism about Willy-in-the-willy, noting an absence of firsthand or ev en secondhand accounts. And now here comes a guy who's got eight-by-ten glossy photographs. I've been in contact with Paulo Petry, the scientist you heard, who related the following astonishing tale. Petry is an expert in neotropical ichthyology and vice president of Bio-A mazonia Conservation International, a not-for-profit conservation group. While working in the Amazon city of Manaus, Brazil, he noticed a hubbub in the press about Anoar Samad, a urogenital surgeon who had performed the world's first confirmed removal of a candir from a human penis. Wha t's more, Samad had a live patient and a dead fish to prove it. Herewith an except from an ar ticle the two are coauthoring with fish physiologist Stephen Spotte: On 28 October 1997, one of us (Samad) attended a 23-year-old man from th e town of Itacoatiara on the Amazon River who sought medical attention with obstruction of the urethra, having been attacked by a candir. Pri or to being attended, the patient remained untreated for three days and was only administered medication for pain. The patient was ane sthetized with 5% lidocain and the procedure was performed. The fish wa s grasped using an alligator-clip attachment on the endoscope and remov ed in one piece. Fortunately the fish was dead, and decay was beginning to soften its tissues. Tension on the spines had relaxed in death, and they no longer gripped. Had the candir been alive, its removal would have been more difficult and resulted in greater trauma to the patient. He reported tr ying to grab hold of the fish, but it was very slippery, and it forced its way inside with alarming speed. The candir's forward progress was blocked by the sphincter separating the penile urethra from the bulbar urethra. With the passage blocked, the fish had made a lateral turn and bitten through the tissue into the corpus spongiosum, creating an open ing into the scrotum. of the urethra with sterile distilled water prior to endoscopy induced further immediate and pronou nced scrotal edema, making it evident that the opening had allowed the perfusate to enter the scrotum. Some coagulated mate rial was removed, revealing a wound on the bulbar urethra of 1 cm in di ameter and associated with a small amount of local bleeding. Although t he patient suffered immediate trauma, no long term effects of the attac k were noticed 1 year after the incident. photos, a videotape of the procedure, medical reports, and of course th e fish, which was donated to an Amazon research institute. "According to him, he was standing in the water thigh deep, urinating with his penis out of the water yet close to it. He repeated the same version more than once when asked to describe the incident to Dr. Research by Petry and Spotte found no indication that the fish is particu larly attracted to urine. Petry adds, "The only way that the fish could enter the urethra is while it is expanded during urination, otherwise I don't think it could move in." And here you thought the worst thing you could do was pee on the third rail. Chicago Reader Online Rate Sheet Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Chicago Reader, Inc. No material contained in this site may be republished or reposted without express written permission. |