TUESDAY, May 4, 2010

TURIN, ITALY (BBC) - Pope Benedict XVI visited the “Shroud of Turin,“ which, despite contrary evidence, many Catholics believe contains the image of Jesus, on display for the first time in 10 years.  The ancient relic was protected by a bullet-proof, hermetically-sealed display case kept at a safe distance, well away from over-zealous pilgrims.   Of course, the Shroud was heavily protected, too.

DELHI (BBC) - An Indian holy man who claims to have survived for 70 years without food or water is being kept under 24-hour surveillance at the Sterling Defense Institute Hospital while Army doctors authenticate his claim.  If confirmed, he will dethrone the previous record-holder who survived twenty round trips on Delta without food or water.  

CAIRO (AP) - Anthropologists now claim to have compelling evidence that King Tut suffered from a congenital bone condition that required him to wear orthopedic sandals.   Asked to describe the malady in layman’s terms, the chief researcher said, “He probably had a gait similar to Dustin Hoffman’s in ‘Midnight Cowboy’.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A 16-year old teenager taking his driver’s license test, stepped on the gas instead of the brake sending his vehicle through the cinder block wall of the DMV and the examiner who was sitting beside him to the ER.  On a brighter note for the teen, he received a passing grade on “Deployment of Front Seat Air Bag.”


TAMPA BAY, FL (AP) - Buccaneer catcher Dioner Navarro was suspended for two games after Bob Watson, baseball’s vice president of discipline, ruled that he had made contact with umpire Dan Bellino at home plate in a game against Oakland.   An additional charge of “assaulting a seeing-eye dog” was dropped.
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From THE LAUGH MAKERS (page 161)

We taped the show’s opening segment which featured Hope singing “We’re Off on the Road to China” – à la “The Road to Morocco” —  along the walkway atop the Great Wall. There weren’t many visiting tourists, and the few there were agreed to remain out of sight while we filmed.  As Hope proceeded to strut down the ancient cobblestones, he lip-synced to a music track from speakers set up behind him. Only occasionally did he glance at cue cards with Jim Lipton’s lyrics that Barney McNulty had taped beneath the guard rails just out of the camera’s view.  With the Great Wall spiraling into the distant sky, it was the most auspicious and visually impressive opening Hope ever performed on television.  We had no doubt that it was worth the time, expense, and full day of shooting it had taken to get it on tape.  Anxious to see as much of the wall as we were allowed to, and while Hope was off taping a commercial for Coca-Cola, several of us headed north — away from those sections with which the outside world is now so familiar.  About a half mile past the steepest inclines — where it’s one step at a time, slowly — the rebuilt portion ends. Beyond stretches a band of rubble that extends as far as the eye can see. At this remote location, what strikes the first-time visitor is the silence. It’s been that way for at least a century, we were told, the result of starving peasants denuding the landscape
of insects, birds, small and large mammals — the entire kingdom of indigenous wildlife that once thrived there.  With no ambient sounds save for the breeze gently rustling through the undergrowth — which looks like that in northern California — the atmosphere is eerie and unearthly. It’s the sound you’d imagine on the surface of the moon. It’s a grim reminder of the fragility of the earth’s ecology and the irreversible carnage mankind can inflict on it. Rush Limbaugh should see it. Just once.

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