[eggplant43]

Why am I NOT surprised that you would respond to this post?

[plschwartz]

As Valentine's Day approaches and card stores fill with sentimental valentines, Hamilton College Classics Professor Barbara Gold can't help but notice the difference between modern and ancient expressions of love.

"Today's valentines focus on sharing, caring, love and friendship. The beloved is portrayed as gentle, sensitive, tender and compassionate," says Gold. The ancient Romans had quite a different take on love.

"Love for them was interesting, both to live and to write about, because it was painful, like a disease," Gold says. Roman lovers described themselves as "'wounded, wretched, enslaved by their lovers, having their bone marrow on fire and suffering from double vision.' They melded coarse obscenities with deepest expressions of sexual, erotic longing," she says. "Above all there was no sharing or caring and no idea at all of a friendship of equals."

For example the love poet Catullus writes to his lady love, "I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do that? I don't know but I feel it happening and I am tormented." (Catullus 85) Gold notes, "The dream couples of ancient love poetry are hardly the stuff of today's romantic. They inhabit a world of playful and elegant poetry far removed from the sincerity of contemporary Hallmark romance."

Hamilton College Professor of Classics Barbara Gold is available for comment and interviews. She can be reached in her office at (315) 859-4286 or via e-mail at bgold@hamilton.edu.

[n2gun]

Hamlet the Pig to Predict the Weather
The Associated Press
COTTAGE GROVE, Wis.

Instead of a groundhog, the local Lions Club will use a potbellied pig to forecast the weather this weekend.

The club is also switching the date of its celebration from Feb. 2 to Feb. 1 because it can't muster enough volunteers to sell tickets at the door any other day.

Besides, the hall where the event is held has already been rented by a local church.

The Lions argue that Hamlet the Potbellied Pig proved his powers of prediction last year when he agreed with Jimmy the Groundhog: A sunny dawn meant spring would wait awhile.

Some traditionalists say the Lions Club is making a farce of the holiday.

"They're making a fallacy of it. They're demeaning Jimmy," joked Sun Prairie mayor Jo Ann Orfan.

Lee Phillips, food committee chairman, said last year's groundhog breakfast fed 462 people and raised money for scout clubs, scholarships and vision tests for kids.

The club also contributed $2,000 for Taylor Prairie School playground equipment and helped a local man who was seriously injured in a hunting accident, Phillips said.

Even the traditionalists agree the celebration has its advantages.

"They can have their fun, certainly," Orfan said. "I think they're not terribly conversant with history."
Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003

[eggplant43]

Does this mean that when they remake the movie "Groundhog Day" it will become "Pig Day"?

[n2gun]

Eggie
Maybe they are taking Ground"HOG" literally

[SyscoKid]

Originally posted by n2gun:
last year's groundhog breakfast fed 462 people

That's a lot of groundhogs! Did they serve 'em with eggs or grits??

[n2gun]

Originally posted by SyscoKid:
That's a lot of groundhogs! Did they serve 'em with eggs or grits??

Seeing it is up north in snow country, probably eggs and home fries.

[n2gun]

Swedish Paternity Settled After 55 Years
By KARL RITTER
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden

Making a baby doesn't take long. Proving you didn't can take half a century.

The Supreme Court of Sweden last week said 79-year-old Ragnar Johansson is not the father of a 55-year-old woman, overturning a lower court decision from 1949.

The decision ended a long-standing paternity dispute, but was unlikely to lead to reimbursement for the child support Johansson paid as the child grew up.

Johansson disputed his fatherhood after the girl was born in 1948, but a court ruled against him and ordered him to pay child support to the girl's mother.

The 1949 decision, well ahead of the advent of DNA technology, was based on blood tests and circumstantial evidence, Johansson's lawyer Claes Aurell said.

Johansson appealed to the Supreme Court in 1950, but the court declined to hear the case. It granted a retrial 53 years later, after Johansson provided DNA tests proving he was not the father.

The Supreme Court absolved Johansson from fatherhood but denied his request for reimbursement for legal costs.

Johansson wouldn't see the money he paid in child support either, because requests for reimbursements must be made within 10 years of the last payment, Aurell said.

The daughter, who asked not to be identified, told The Associated Press she never met Johansson and wondered why he waited so long before requesting a retrial.
Friday, Jan. 31, 2003

**************************************************

I think he should be reimbursed with interest on the money paid, court costs and dna costs.

[eggplant43]

Teacher accused of raping student

By Deanna Boyd
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH - A substitute teacher was arrested Thursday on a warrant accusing him of raping a 14-year-old girl in a Horizons Alternative School classroom while other students watched.

Police began investigating David Lawson Franklin, 21, on Wednesday after a woman told the school's principal what her son said he had witnessed last week. Franklin was arrested at his home in Fort Worth and taken to the Mansfield Jail. Bail was set at $75,000.

"Quite honestly, initially the details were such we were a little skeptical until we talked to all the parties involved," said Fort Worth police Sgt. Dave Stamp, supervisor of the Crimes Against Children Unit. "Then skepticism turned into shock."

When officers first questioned the girl, she denied that an assault took place but later said it had occurred, Stamp said.

"She was initially embarrassed to talk to anybody about it," he said.

Stamp said statements by other students in the classroom match the girl's account.

"They're all very consistent, the terminology as well as the details of the offense," he said.

Franklin was assigned on Jan. 23 to be a substitute at the alternative school for students with discipline problems. Stamp said Franklin walked into the classroom and found two boys playing with the girl in a sexual manner in a space between a bookshelf and a wall.

According to the students, Stamp said, Franklin asked the boys whether they were trying to have sex with the girl, then told them that he would show them how it's done.

The students who were in the classroom told police that Franklin told the girl to bend over, pulled down her pants and his own, and raped her.

"Because she is a student and he is a teacher in a position of authority, she may have been intimidated by the fact," Stamp said.

About seven students witnessed the incident but did nothing to stop it or report it, Stamp said. The substitute teacher told students in the classroom not to tell anyone about it, Stamp said.

"It's just hard to believe there were so many people present, and nobody took action to stop the assault or notify school staff, and we had to learn about it through a third person," he said.

Fort Worth school district officials declined to comment on the specifics, saying they are cooperating with police on an open investigation.

Cecilia Speers, the district's director of student affairs, said the substitute teacher "no longer is employed with the district."

Police said they believe that Franklin began teaching in the district in August, but school personnel officials could not immediately confirm how long he had been employed.

Staff Writer Gustavo Reveles Acosta Contributed to This Report.

[n2gun]

Couple Sue McDonald's Over Tough Bagel
The Associated Press
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla.

A couple is suing the franchisee of a McDonald's restaurant, claiming an improperly prepared bagel damaged the husband's teeth and their marriage.

John and Cecelia O'Hare sued Friday for unspecified damages more than $15,000. They alleged the McDonald's, owned by Johnstone Foods Inc., was negligent and violated an "implied warranty that the food sold was reasonably fit for human consumption."

They contend in the suit that John O'Hare broke teeth and bridgework on Feb. 1, 2002 when he bit into the bagel. The suit did not say what exactly was wrong with the bagel.

The suit alleges the wife "lost the care, comfort, consortium and society of her husband." The couple's attorney, Tim Warner, did not return telephone messages left at his office.

Tracey Johnstone, owner of Johnstone Foods, said she never before had a bagel complaint and had no idea how it could have been prepared in a way that would damage teeth.

"It's a bagel," she said.
Sunday, Feb. 2, 2003

[eggplant43]

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com

He takes fatal OD
as Internet pals watch

By HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Saturday, February 1st, 2003

"I told u I was hardcore."

Those were the last coherent words Brandon Vedas, 21, typed into the computer in his Phoenix bedroom as he showed off for Internet pals watching on a Web cam by swallowing more and more prescription drugs.


Vedas died online as a crowd of virtual onlookers egged him to "eat more!" A chilling record of the Jan. 12 chat reads like an Internet version of the notorious 1964 Kew Gardens, Queens, stabbing of Kitty Genovese as her neighbors watched from their windows.

In Vedas' case, some did try to help — begging him to stop, to call 911, to get his mother from the next room. After he passed out, some tried frantically to figure out his location while others argued against getting involved.

But the technology that brought as many as a dozen chatters into the intimacy of Vedas' bedroom was unable to tell them where he was. Internet Relay Chat is anonymous, and no one in the drug users' chat group knew the last name of the young man who called himself Ripper.

Vedas was a casualty of a new epidemic: a surge in the recreational use of pharmaceuticals, even as the rate of illegal drug use holds steady or declines. The most recent survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration says 11.1 million people used prescription drugs for fun in 2000, nearly half of whom were under 25.

In New York City, the number of people showing up in emergency rooms after taking too many legal narcotics jumped 47.6% from 2000 to 2001, the most recent year for which numbers are available.

"In 2001, for the first time, we had more emergency room mentions of prescription narcotic analgesics nationally than for heroin," said Dr. Westley Clark, director of the administration's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment.

In Internet discussion groups, users trade tips on how to fake symptoms to con a doctor into prescribing pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants and sedatives.

By his own account, bragging in the hour before he died, Vedas ingested large doses of Klonopin, Methadone, Restoril and Inderal, along with marijuana and 151-proof rum. All but the pot and the rum apparently were legally prescribed for him by a doctor and a psychiatric nurse, according to his angry and mystified family.

"It's the ideal situation — it's legal and it's free," said Vedas' brother Rich. "And most people assume that if a doctor is giving you something, it must be fine."

Vedas, who worked in computer support at the University of Phoenix, knew a lot about the dangers of mixing drugs. But he also bragged delusionally about his "high tolerance." His mother knew he had been prescribed pills for depression — but no one in the family knew he was mixing his medicine for fun, his brother said.

On the night of Jan. 12, Vedas urged chat pals to log onto his Web site and watch him go through his stash. "Bottoms up, fellas!" he crowed.

"Don't OD on us, Ripper," said one of the onlookers watching Vedas swallow pill after pill.

"That's not much," said a teenager from rural Oklahoma who calls himself Smoke2K. "Eat more. I wanna see if you survive or if you just black out."

In the macho atmosphere of the druggie chat room, Vedas seemed to have something to prove. "This is usual weekend behavior. U all said I was lying," he said.

He said it was safe and noted, "My mom is in the next room doing crozzwordz."

As he took more and more, Vedas' typing became disjointed. His chat pals cheered him on.

"Ripper — you should try to pass out in front of the cam," suggested one gleeful voyeur.

Vedas even tried to protect himself against disaster.

"In fase anything goe wrong," he said, typing his cell phone number. "Call if I look dead."

Soon, he did.

Soon, he was.

"I am online with 911. Is this the right choice?" asked one chatter. "NO NO NO NO NO," said another. "I talked my way out of it," came the reply. "I didn't give them any info."

In the end, there was nothing they could do.

Vedas' cell phone was off or not loud enough to rouse anyone else in the house. They looked up his Web site registry, but he had listed his home number as 555-1234.

And the online chatters didn't know his real name or location.

His mother found him at 1 p.m. the next day sprawled on his bed. The tech whiz's computer had shut down and locked itself automatically, so it wasn't until more than a week later that the family found out his death had had witnesses.

"It seems like the group mentality really contributed to it," said his brother, calling the transcript "disgusting."

"These people treat it like somehow it's not the real world," he said. "They forget it's not just words on a screen."

[eggplant43]

$85 MILLION RICHER?

Benicia woman says she can't find winning ticket
Jason B. Johnson, Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writers

Saturday, February 1, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...1/MN114583.DTL



Carole Warner said Friday that she won $85 million in the California Lottery but isn't sure if she will claim the money.

That's if she can find the ticket.

The Benicia resident said she doesn't want the cash -- and a trailing pack of instant friends, long-lost relatives and hangers-on to disturb her family's "simple" life.

Warner said she had last seen the ticket shortly after the Wednesday night drawing of the SuperLotto Plus numbers.

Lottery officials say that no one has stepped forward claiming to have the winning ticket, which was purchased at a Quik Stop Market in Vallejo. The losers list now may include Warner.

"I can't find my ticket," the 44-year-old Costco employee said Friday night outside the apartment she shares with her husband, Steve, and their 10-year- old son. "We've been looking all over for it."

Not surprisingly, Steve Warner isn't happy.

"He's extremely ticked off right now at the fact that I misplaced the ticket," Carole Warner said.

Even if she finds the lucky ducat, Warner said, she doesn't know if she'll keep it. Money changes things. And she doesn't want to be changed.

"I'm very simple," Warner said. "I like quiet and calmness and doing the things we do as a family."

While everybody talks about what they would do if they won the lottery, Warner said, "It's a lot different story when it actually goes down. It's overwhelming."

Already people have been acting weirdly around her, and she hasn't won anything yet. She told just one of her fellow employees at the Vallejo Costco outlet, "and it spread through every Costco in the county." Soon, people were coming up to her just to touch her -- which she found weird.

If she eventually finds the ticket, Warner said, she might give it to charity.

"I have six months to think about it, and I'm going to," Warner said. "I'm overwhelmed right now. I guess I'm not used to the 15 minutes of fame."

Refusing a jackpot would be a first in California.

Fifteen jackpots have gone unclaimed in the 17-year history of the California Lottery, "but we always assume it's because somebody lost their ticket," said Cathy Doyle Johnston, a lottery spokesperson. "But even if she didn't want it, she could give it to charity."

According to lottery rules, California's public schools may be the big winners if the prize isn't claimed. Johnston said the state's general education fund could get $31 million after taxes if Warner -- or whoever -- bypasses the jackpot.

The Quik Stop where the winner was purchased will get its $425,000 share regardless.

[n2gun]

Cows Fatten Up on Potato Chips, Pretzels
By JASON STRAZIUSO
Associated Press Writer
NOTTINGHAM, Pa.

If the black cattle at the Herr family farm seem eager at the trough, they have good reason. No mundane meal of corn and hay here. This feed is spiced with a snack food-lover's smorgasbord: potato chips, cheese curls and pretzels.

Blessed bovine elsewhere in Pennsylvania get even sweeter treats: chocolate balls and Frosted Mini-Wheats.

While cattle have been eating human food byproducts for years, more farmers this winter are filling the trough with snack food goodies, a money-saving solution to high corn prices caused by last summer's drought.

Industry experts say that because feeding livestock discarded human food saves money and helps the environment, Bessie will be munching on potato chips more often in the future.

"It's a win-win situation," said Harold Harpster, a professor of animal science at Penn State University. "It takes this food product out of the landfills and puts it into use feeding these livestock."

In Hawaii some cattle get the leftovers from a pineapple processing plant. Kansas cattle feast on sunflower seed hulls. In Nebraska and California they eat sugar beet pulp.

In Pennsylvania, cattle food is sometimes even more like people food. The Hershey's plant provides chocolate, a Kellogg's plant provides cereal and the Herr's snack food plant provides the chips.

The discarded foods are fine nutritionally, farmers are quick to point out. Potatoes are the main ingredient for chips, wheat for pretzels. The reasons they're discarded vary: the chips are overcooked or the cereal too old. Often the cattle snacks are swept off the factory floor.

Jim Herr bought his cattle farm 18 years ago primarily to have a place to discard snack food plant leftovers from his family's business. The thousands of gallons of water used to wash potatoes now hydrate the hay crop, for instance.

The daily diet for his 650 cattle is heavily supplemented by the nearby snack food plant. The cattle eat 15 pounds of potato peelings, 15 pounds of corn, eight pounds of hay and four pounds of "steer party mix" _ chips, popcorn, pretzels and cheese curls. It's all mixed together in a blender the size of a large van.

That mixture is nutritionally analyzed by a lab several times a year. Farm manager Dennis Byrne says he can tell how much his steer like it by how fast they get to the trough.

"There's a lot of science to how the cattle are going to be fed, but there's also an art. You have to create a blend the cattle will go after," Byrne said. "They eat better than we do because we control their diet. They eat what they should eat."

Most farm animals eat human food at some point in their lives, farmers say, although the practice is most common with cattle because of their tough digestive systems.

Harpster and the farmers say the quality of the beef or milk isn't affected. Byrne notes the Herr cattle grade out in the top 8 percent of all beef as Certified Angus Beef.

Livestock eating human food is most common in the east, where more food processing plants are located, Harpster said. He expects the practice to widen as food processors face increasing environmental pressures and farmers face increasing economic ones.

Shelia Stannard, a spokeswoman for the American Angus Association, agrees.

"I'd say it's going to continue the upward trend," Stannard said. "The cattle might as well eat something that we're not going to eat."

Dwight Hess, a farmer near Marietta, feeds his cattle cereals from a local Kellogg's plant, and even chocolate and peanut butter _ sources of needed fats and protein.

"It's senseless, putting a very high quality human grade food product into a landfill," he said. "We're producing a premium product and I'm proud of what we do."

The Herr cattle get the steer party mix no matter what the corn prices are, but Byrne said during a year of high prices _ corn now costs about twice as much as in other years _ his farm enjoys a marketplace advantage.

His competitors know it. Bryne said he's gotten a lot of calls this winter from other farmers wanting to buy excess party mix. They're calling at the right time _ his stocks are up from increased Super Bowl production. The party mix now sits in a pile 6 feet high and 30 feet deep in his barn.

Stannard notes that farmers have always been good recyclers. She says using human food for livestock is just another way to conserve.

"This year's been especially tough on cattle farmers, so anything they can do to find a cheaper feed source, they're going to do," she said.

Monday, Feb. 3, 2003

[n2gun]

Mayor in Calif. Shown Punching Councilman
The Associated Press
SOUTH GATE, Calif.

Ending her stormy tenure as mayor, Xochilt Ruvalcaba punched a fellow City Council member after failing to push through millions of dollars in loans for the city, according to a videotape of a Council meeting.

Ruvalcaba, one of three council members booted from office by voters last week after being accused of depleting city coffers of nearly $8 million, had called one last meeting to vote on several costly measures.

Before a packed audience Monday night, the outgoing members failed in their bid to approve the loans. Earlier in the day, a judge had issued an order blocking the attempt.

At the end of the meeting, an amateur videotape captured Ruvalcaba in a shoving match with Councilman Henry Gonzalez. The tape shows the confrontation ending with the mayor hitting Gonzalez across the side of his head with a purse and then punching him in the head.

Police cited Ruvalcaba for misdemeanor battery. She accused the 67-year-old Gonzalez of trying to grope her breast while reaching for a document. Gonzalez called the charge ridiculous.

Gonzalez and another councilman were the only two members who were not recalled last week.

Also recalled in last week's vote were Vice Mayor Raul Moriel, Councilwoman Maria Benavides and Treasurer Albert Robles.

Robles said the audience had tried to disrupt the Monday night meeting.

"Nothing less than a contentious, raucous exit was planned by the opposition," he said. "Instead of being magnanimous, they were rubbing people's noses in it."

The recall effort was led by the South Gate Police Association which cited council members' decisions to increase their own salaries, strip the city clerk of most of her duties and spend nearly $8 million in city reserves.

Recall opponents said the police union was trying to block an effort to rein in rogue officers.

Ruvalcaba, Moriel and Robles are running for City Council again in a March 4 election.
Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003

[n2gun]

Mayor in Calif. Shown Punching Councilman
The Associated Press
SOUTH GATE, Calif.

Ending her stormy tenure as mayor, Xochilt Ruvalcaba punched a fellow City Council member after failing to push through millions of dollars in loans for the city, according to a videotape of a Council meeting.

Ruvalcaba, one of three council members booted from office by voters last week after being accused of depleting city coffers of nearly $8 million, had called one last meeting to vote on several costly measures.

Before a packed audience Monday night, the outgoing members failed in their bid to approve the loans. Earlier in the day, a judge had issued an order blocking the attempt.

At the end of the meeting, an amateur videotape captured Ruvalcaba in a shoving match with Councilman Henry Gonzalez. The tape shows the confrontation ending with the mayor hitting Gonzalez across the side of his head with a purse and then punching him in the head.

Police cited Ruvalcaba for misdemeanor battery. She accused the 67-year-old Gonzalez of trying to grope her breast while reaching for a document. Gonzalez called the charge ridiculous.

Gonzalez and another councilman were the only two members who were not recalled last week.

Also recalled in last week's vote were Vice Mayor Raul Moriel, Councilwoman Maria Benavides and Treasurer Albert Robles.

Robles said the audience had tried to disrupt the Monday night meeting.

"Nothing less than a contentious, raucous exit was planned by the opposition," he said. "Instead of being magnanimous, they were rubbing people's noses in it."

The recall effort was led by the South Gate Police Association which cited council members' decisions to increase their own salaries, strip the city clerk of most of her duties and spend nearly $8 million in city reserves.

Recall opponents said the police union was trying to block an effort to rein in rogue officers.

Ruvalcaba, Moriel and Robles are running for City Council again in a March 4 election.
Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003

****************************************************

Someone needs a lawyer. Calling Mulder!!