You thought he was a cop? - "Evil in porcine form...a grotesque and noxious appearing wild boar." That's from Hormel, the meat packers. They're suing the producers of the upcoming movie Muppet Treasure Island. They claim that the character, Spáam, the boar, "falsely disparages" their Spam.
Racist dog of the week - Marta Laureano, who is bilingual, speaks Spanish to her daughter, 5, so that she too can be bilingual.
In a custody case, Texas judge Samuel Kiser told her, "You're abusing this child and you're relegating her to the position of housemaid. Now get this straight. You start speaking English to this child...because it's not in her best interest to be ignorant. The child will only hear English."
Right - I felt like I was being denied my rights, one of which is to speak my native language." -Marta Laureano.
`You can't cheat an honest man' - Braxton Bumpers, a Virginia prison inmate, planted a rumor that he had inherited $1 million. With that, he enlisted the assistant warden and staffers to smuggle him in liquor, Chinese takeout, and even a cellular phone. Officials soon caught on, but he persuaded them to turn the scam into an anti- corruption sting and to keep circulating the rumor. The assistant warden has been suspended.
Sheer coincidence, no? - In Los Angeles, some 600,000 people live within half a mile of a hazardous waste site. Of these, a study found, 493,000 are Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American.
Clearly, well worth saving - "A bold battle plan for reclaiming society by inflicting Pain, Stigma, Shame, Disgrace, Ridicule and Public Punishment on its wayward members."-Blurb for its book, This Will Hurt in right-wing National Review magazine.
Give that guy a drink - "The hangover will be terrible, the temptation to take another drink overwhelming. But the alternative is dissolution.
"To recover, the patient needs a relentless driving will. And he must accept extreme measures, such as total abstinence...." - From new book calling for total moratorium on immigration. By Peter Brimelow, senior editor of Forbes magazine, self-styled "Capitalist Tool."
Maybe it feels like they're there - According to a recent Harris Poll, more than a third of U.S. adults worry "a lot" about not having enough money and health insurance. Less than 10 percent of those quired worry about going to hell.
Tough situation - Dove Books, which is turning out "insider" books about the O.J. Simpson trial, scrapped a deal for a book by ex-cop Mark Furhman. Apparently unnerved by public revulsion over Fuhrman's taped, firsthand account of cop brutality and racism, Dove offered a delicately balanced explanation: "There was a general sense, for both commercial and ethical reasons, that it was not appropriate...at this time."