O/T stories 08/27
PUSSSYKATT
By Gabriela Donoso
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A Chilean art exhibition featuring dead dogs picked off
the highway has stirred controversy in this conservative South American nation,
particularly over the use of government funds to promote the event.
The painter and sculptor behind the exhibit, Antonio Becerra, scoured the
streets of the capital collecting about a dozen corpses of dogs that had been
hit by cars.
He then embalmed the mutilated cadavers and painted on their bodies, inserting
pins and spikes into their preserved flesh.
Animal lovers and politicians are outraged by the "Oils on Dogs" exhibition,
made possible by a $7,800 government grant.
Becerra defended his work as a reflection on violence and cruelty in society.
"I don't want to represent the dog. What I do is a mix of butchery, sculpture
and nursing, because I have found dogs on the highway that are half-dead and I
have had to help them," Becerra told Reuters on Monday.
To prepare for the show, Becerra studied taxidermy, often used by museums to
preserve wildlife for display.
One dog in the exhibit bears an oil painting of Pope John Paul II and a cross
on its flank. Another is spotted with blue and orange butterflies on its white
fur. A small brown dog, its back arched like a cat, has a row of sharp metal
spikes inserted down the length of its spine.
The injuries and deformations caused to the dogs by being hit by a car are also
clearly visible.
The exhibit sparked anger from animal rights groups and politicians who
criticized the Chilean government for funding the project.
"Even if the animals are not rational beings, they deserve a minimum of
respect. Their dead bodies shouldn't be subject to any kind of intervention, no
matter how artistic it might be," said Gonzalo Villarino, director of the
environmental group Greenpeace in Chile.
Legislators in Latin America's most socially conservative nation -- where
abortion and divorce are illegal -- were concerned by the moral implications of
Becerra's work.
"The issue is what kind of art are we talking about and what are the limits to
the use of a live being. For that matter, we could also use a fetus as a
backdrop for paintings," said Fulvio Rossi, a politician from the ruling
center-left coalition.
The government promotes the arts through annual grants awarded to artists by a
fund called Fondart.
In 1997, Fondart came under criticism for financing an oil painting of Simon
Bolivar, a hero in Latin America for leading the fight for independence from
Spain in the 1800s, dressed in women's lingerie.
A year later, Fondart sponsored the construction of a transparent glass house
in the center of Santiago, in which a young woman lived and carried out her
daily routine -- including showering -- under the gaze of passersby.
* * *
DENNIS DAILY, United Press International
SOME RURAL SCHOOLS ON FOUR-DAY WEEK
--In Colorado the winters can be pretty rough. For school bus drivers and the
kids who ride in the yellow buses 10 times a week, the trips to and from school
can be cold and dangerous. Then when the students arrive, just keeping
buildings warm in the depth of December can be difficult ... and costly. Now,
according to the Denver Post, an increasing number of rural schools are opting
for four-day school weeks. The decrease means fewer trips for the buses and
fewer days during which school buildings must be fully heated and lighted.
Under a current plan as many as 4,000 rural Colorado students will be studying
on a four-day-a-week basis, keeping to a new timetable. In the past few years
more than 100 rural school districts around the country have gone to the
four-day week for financial and safety reasons in the winter. Colorado is
leading the nation in the trend. The conversion to new timetables, though, has
not come about peacefully in some small towns.
CLASSIC MANUSCRIPTS STOLEN
--Museum curators in London say that three extremely rare copies of "A
Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens are missing. And they do not feel there is
a very good chance of getting the precious tomes back. According to the
Washington Times, the books were taken from the museum in broad daylight. They
are the first editions of the Dickens classic. They were printed in 1843 and
the value of each is about $50,000. Although the staff of the Dickens House
Museum discovered the theft earlier this month, it decided not to alert the
press for fear of copycat incidents. It wanted to beef up security before
explaining the thefts. Additionally, a less valuable later edition of the
classic was taken. Each has the seal of the museum inside. One official quipped
that it's sad that some collector will likely end up with the books and that
the general public is being deprived of their viewing.
YOU REALLY WANT 'DO-SI-DO' ON YOUR PLATE?
--For a long time, lovers of square dancing have tried to convince the license
plate officials in Washington state that they deserve their own personalized
plates, honoring their favorite pastime. Now the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
says that even though square dancing is that state's official dance and there
is an officially sanctioned Square Dancing Week, there has still been no action
on personalized plates for the genre. There's even a federation in Washington
state to which thousands of do-si-do'ers belong, it's called the Square and
Folk Dance Federation of Washington. Originally some wanted the plates to say
"Square and Round Dancers." State officials preferred the term "Folk Dancing,"
since it was more encompassing. But some true square dancers don't want to be
lumped into the same group with folk dancers. If each dance style gets its own
plate, the newspaper notes that maybe disco will even be honored on state tags
someday.
ARTIFICIAL HEART RECIPIENT DIES
--ames Quinn had lived with a self-contained artificial heart for nearly 10
months. Now Philadelphia hospital officials tell the Philadelphia Inquirer that
the 51-year-old former baker has died, in the wake of a stroke. Quinn got his
heart last November. After four weeks or so of recuperation he had improved to
the point he was able to meet the media at a hospital news conference. Quinn
was given the new AbioCor heart in an operation after it was concluded that his
body could not handle a human heart transplant. The new hearts run on internal
batteries, a far cry from the days of Seattle dentist Barney Clark -- who got
his old-style Jarvik 7 heart in Salt Lake City and was permanently (until his
death) attached via hoses to a machine the size of a refrigerator -- and from
"Bionic" Bill Schroeder -- the Jasper, Ind., Little League coach who got his at
the Humana Hospital in Louisville in a much-publicized operation. But, in spite
of the new generation of hearts and the refinements that went into them,
strokes and blood clotting can continue to plague recipients. One 70-year-old
man is still surviving on an AbioCor heart. He received it nearly a year ago.
* * *
I WAS THEIR ‘SLAVE'
NY POST/By KATI CORNELL SMITH
---------------------------------
Two years ago, Elma Manlinguez said, she escaped slave-like work conditions in
a Queens home where her affluent employers locked her up while paying her what
amounted to 6 cents an hour.
The domestic worker from the Philippines, who has filed a civil-rights suit in
Brooklyn federal court against ex-bosses Martin and Somanti Joseph, still
bursts into tears over her alleged ordeal.
"My life was terrible. These are really bad people," Manlinguez said between
sobs.
"I'm a human being. He [Martin Joseph] treated me like an animal."
The 41-year-old woman says that in the fall of 1998, Martin Joseph - now
employed by Merrill Lynch's commercial lending department - and his wife
tricked her into accompanying them on a "vacation" to the United States from
Malaysia, where they had met her through an international employment service.
For the next two years, she said, she was forced to cook, clean and care for
the three children, working without a single day off and allowed to sleep only
three hours a night - all while earning the equivalent of 6 cents an hour.
There were bars on the windows, and doors could not be unlocked from the
inside, she said.
The Josephs, who lived in Hollis, allegedly humiliated the caregiver, feeding
her old food and refusing to provide winter clothing and toiletries - forcing
her to substitute an old pair of underwear for sanitary napkins.
"They treated her like a dog or a slave. She was forced to eat on the floor,"
said Amanda Vendor, director of the Filipino Workers Center.
Manlinguez seized an opportunity to flee the home when she stumbled across car
keys belonging to the Josephs' son. Now she's a home-care attendant for an
elderly pair.
She filed a lawsuit against the Josephs last year, with the help of the NYU Law
School's Immigrant Rights Clinic.
In a recent ruling, Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis rejected the
Josephs' attempts to have Manlinguez's suit tossed, finding that the 13th
Amendment of 1865, which bans slavery, applies to the case.
Advocates say that Manlinguez's situation is not unique.
"The circumstances were outrageous," said Michael Wishnie, a law professor
overseeing the case. "But there are tens of thousands of domestic workers, most
of them immigrants . . . who are mistreated economically, harassed and
bullied."
The Josephs paint a radically different picture of their relationship with
Manlinguez.
Their lawyer, Andrew Campanelli, said family photos that show Manlinguez
Christmas shopping and playing with the children prove the Filipina woman was
happy.
"She was treated like a member of the family," Campanelli said, adding that she
was paid $200 a week in addition to all of her needs being met.
The lawyer accused Manlinguez of being ungrateful, alleging that she stole
jewelry when she fled the home, and left the Josephs' 21/2-year-old daughter
unattended.
Lawyers for Manlinguez called these allegations "absurd" and claimed the
domestic worker was paid a total of $1,050, which was sent to her mother in the
Philippines.
They say the Josephs still have Manlinguez's passport.
* * *
WEIRD BUT TRUE
Bill Hoffmann, NY POST Wire Services
--The pilot of a passenger flight tried to land at an airport in a southern
Swedish town - but found no one at the control tower to give him clearance. It
turned out the controller had failed to return from vacation, and no one had
noticed that the tower was not staffed. The flight, which was carrying 30
passengers from Stockholm, had to circle the Krisianstad airport for 30 minutes
while central traffic authorities called in another controller.
--An 81-year-old Virginia man has been convicted of having sex with cows.
Prosecutors say S.A. Balderson of Fredericksburg was caught on a police
surveillance tape wearing only a T-shirt, tennis shoes and sunglasses, and
going from one cow to another. He’s getting a two-year suspended sentence.
Authorities said it was difficult to find a fitting sentence. "What do you do
with an 80-something-year- old man who would do something like this?" asked
prosecutor Peggy Garland.
--A Maryland mom says she’s thrilled her son is finally getting rid of his
huge porn collection. She’s 85 and he’s 57. Ralph Whittington has sold most
of it to the Museum of Sex in Manhattan, which will open Sept. 23 - and
features "The Ralph Whittington Collection" on its Web site. Among the gems he
gathered over 30 years: boxes of Times Square stag loops, a film called
"Tijuana Tushy," and a takeoff of "The Sopranos" called "The Sopornos."
--A Florida bedding company has fulfilled its biggest request in 71 years of
operation - building a bed that measures 8 by 10 feet. Clearwater Mattress
created the huge sleeper for former NBA center Matt Geiger, who, at 7 foot 1,
complained that his feet kept dangling over regular beds. "This is the biggest.
No two ways about it," said the company’s president, Bill Marginson.
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Big J
news:20020827100302...@mb-ba.aol.com:
> --An 81-year-old Virginia man has been convicted of having sex with
> cows. Prosecutors say S.A. Balderson of Fredericksburg was caught on a
> police surveillance tape wearing only a T-shirt, tennis shoes and
> sunglasses, and going from one cow to another. He’s getting a
> two-year suspended sentence. Authorities said it was difficult to find
> a fitting sentence. "What do you do with an 80-something-year- old man
> who would do something like this?" asked prosecutor Peggy Garland.
>
Charge him with "assault with a dead weapon" and "udder depravity"?
Big J
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