A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy
Archives
|
Sunday, April 06, 2003
IS Sunday Edition
Sunday, April 6, 2003
ITHACA WELCOMES UN
Mayor Alan Cohen announced today that Ithaca has been chosen over a dozen other cities to become the next home for the United Nations. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was at his side in City Hall when the mayor made his announcement.
Faced with, what President Bush termed the UN's 'growing irrelevance', Kofi Annan reported this week that the world body would be leaving NYC, citing also the high cost of maintaining security and the growing antipathy of New Yorkers to its recent position on the conflict in Iraq.
The UN Secretariat will locate its temporary headquarters in the former site of the Public Library on Cayuga and Court until a permanent home can be found. It has widely rumored in the media that NYC's Mayor Mike Blomberg last Wednesday gave Kofi Annan 48 hours to leave the Big Apple.
During the press conference announcing the decision, Kofi Annan read a prepared statement, describing Ithaca as a "creative and engaged community."
Area residents expressed mixed feelings about the news. The owners of Oasis Deli, when interviewed, commented, "Wow! This a great news! We're going through our international cookbooks right now for recipes." Joe Marinecorps from Freeville
expressed his opinion differently. "There goes the neighborhood!. More knee-jerk liberals and lily-livered bleeding hearts downtown!" he remarked.
BELL RINGERS GIVEN PENANCE
A spokesperson for Immaculate Conception announced today that the two anti-war demonstrators who disrupted Saturday services two weeks ago by staging a protest in the church's bell tower have been offered an opportunity to perform public penance. In return for a perfect act of contrition, parish authorities have promised to drop criminal charges against the two protesters.
Unofficial details of the offer indicate that the two men have been asked to make a pilgrimage on foot to Syracuse, wearing sackcloth and ashes . In addition, they will be required to recite 5.000 Hail Mary's, 400 Our Father's and to spend a year volunteering at IC's Bingo Wednesday night.
Sources confirm that area nuns had weighed the option of requiring that the two sit in a classroom corner for 3 weeks.
The two Ithaca residents could not be reached for comment.
6 MORE MONTHS OF WINTER?
Did the groundhog see more than his own shadow this year? Cornell scientists now believe, based on studying nearly 300 hours of videotape footage, that groundhogs around the Northeast last February may have seen what is believed to be apparitions of the Anti-Christ in the sky, causing the mammals to change their normal hibernation patterns.
Prof. Gropius O'Hagen at Cornell's Meteorological Research Lab, told reporters that,"This discovery may mean nothing at all or it may mean that winter could last another 6 months. The jury is still out."
Weather predictions based on groundhog sightings have long received short shrift in the scientific community. Only recently have sophisticated monitoring techniques been applied to determine if the common groundhog has a special ability to detect long range weather patterns. At Cornell, this type of research has been ongoing for several years now under the auspices of a grant from the U.S. National Weather Service.
In Cornell's studies, groundhog test subjects have been fitted with special sensors measuring brain wave patterns, heart rate and signals from the mammals' visual cortex. Video cameras record the groundhogs' behaviors around the clock. Last February 25, according to Prof. O'Hagen, researchers observed a series of unusual measurements, indicating that the test subjects may have experienced some form of traumatic sensory input.
"We started putting these measurements together with footage taken of cloud formations around the area that day." O'Hagen reported. "It's uncanny but we could actually make out the faces of Osama bin Ladin or Saddam Hussein in these cloud masses. It left a strong impression on our test subjects, that's for certain."
WORLD NEWS
Iraq Becomes 52nd State. Details on pg. 23
N. Korea Swaps Reactors for Promise of New Asian Disney World Details pg.24
Bush Has 99.9% Approval Rating for Handling of War.
CBS Merges with NBC, ABC, Fox and CNN. See IS Business Week for complete story.
OTHER LOCAL NEWS
Local Green Party to Merge with GOP. Page 5
Borders, B&N Pull Out. IS Business Week
Local Children Report Sighting the Virgin Mary at Buttermilk Falls. IS Religion Watch
Ithaca College Board of Trustees Considers Move to AlabamaIS Education Week
IS BUSINESS NEWS
NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PARK NICKNAMED 'SPAM VALLEY'
Researchers at Ithaca's latest high tech startup MinxUp are right now working on the next generation of SPAM.
Rob Arerated, CEO and founder, a 1994 Cornell graduate, is upbeat about the prospects for his two year old company. "We're doing things with junk mail that weren't even dreamed of five years ago. Folks are sitting at the computer trying to sell an old lamp on E-Bay and suddenly they get a box popping up on the screen, telling them to "Getsobig.' It's really awesome how far we've come."
MinxUp develops software applications for mass e-mailers that allows them to download millions of messages every minute to servers all over the world. "With a single key stroke , we can send a Viagra spot from Bombay to Milwaukee in a split nanosecond," Arerated boasts, proud of his firm's pre-eminence in the booming junk mail industry.
Arerated , a 35 year software engineer who started his company with a $10,000 loan from his grandmother, sees 'cookies' , what to many of us are those annoying little popup boxes , as the direction mass advertising will take in the future. "People are installing a lot of anti- junk mail software on their home computers now. If you want to get your message across, you have to sneak it into their PC's without their knowing it. We hope to be the Nabisco of computer cookies one day." Standing in his still unfurnished office on Rt. 13, staring out the window, Arerated looks far into the future and sees the ever more crowded information highway as another LA Freeway. "Where would this country ever have been without billboards?" he muses. "We're designing the billboards of tomorrow."
ITHACA SUCKS HEALTH WATCH
CELL PHONE USE LINKED TO AUTISM
If you have lingering doubts whether your cell phone is dangerous to your health, you may not be far off. The March issue of The Journal of American Medicine presented disturbing findings that showed that women who spend more than 2 hours a day talking on a cell phone are more likely to give birth to autistic offspring.
A study done at The Institute for Birth Defects in Madison, Wisconsin tested 100 women between the ages of 18-35 for a five year period. Subjects who talked extensively on their cell phones before pregnancy were found to have a .15 higher incidence of children who were later discovered to have some degree of autism than those who didn't. The frequency of autism-related births increased with cell phone usage.
Perhaps it's time to consider the health of your child before making the next call to a boyfriend or girlfriend from the coffee shop or supermarket.
ITHACA SUCKS LIFESTYLES
10 Summer Ideas for Graduate Students
1.Spend a week with Zapitista guerillas in Chiapas.
2.Follow the Hegel Trail in Germany. Trace the philosophers footsteps from Stuttgart to the University of Jena.
3.Be a political adviser to Kurdish rebels in N. Iraq.
4.Apply for an internship with the DEA in Columbia, South America.
5.Work on an installation art project in D.C. and duct tape the Pentagon.
6.Go around as a Foucault look-alike in Ithaca, NY
7.Work on a nuclear reactor in N. Korea.
8.Live in a redwood for a month in Oregon.
9.Plant organic broccoli for eco-millionaires at EcoVillage.
10.Write for ithacasucks.com.
IS CLASSIFIEDS
Saddam Hussein doubles needed! Call 1-800-465-2187.
Dog Psychiatrist looking for medical records clerk. Good with pets. Must have ability to work in a busy, confidential setting. Send resume to Box105, IS.
Vintage VW bus for sale - a Woodstock veteran! 300,000 miles and still going. Call Nikki, 277-5652 evenings.
Home Computer Sales Jobs - sell Lolita websites to Japanese businessmen. Must have good Web skills. Call 277-4878.
$10,000 in Ithaca Hours! Highest Bidder! Call Paul Glover -277-5814.
PERSONALS
S/W/M. 55 years old.. Are you nostalgic for the '60s? Still read Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, Rod McKuen, old issues of Rolling Stone and the Village Voice? Listen to the Beatles, Loving Spoonful', The Who? Board my Magic Bus for love and adventure! If you would enjoy living in a romantic rural '60s commune, planting canabis behind the barn, tripping on acid and making love, not war 24 hours a day, then you're the person (18-35 W/F) I've looking for all these years. Send a pic, the exact playlist for the Mamas and Papas' first album and self-addressed envelope to Box 210, IS Personals. Be cool!
ITHACA SUCKS COMMUNITY CALENDAR
April 15, 7-9pm Annabel Tayor Hall - The Ithaca Chapter of Serena Luminosa (Shining Path) will hold its monthly meeting. Please bring your Little Red Books!
April 27-31 Juna's Cafe will host a fund drive to bring Tim, the homeless beggar, back to Ithaca for the summer from his winter home in Boca Raton. Buy a blueberry muffin and large house coffee and Juna's will donate 10% to the cost of Tim's bus ticket. Tim misses us! Help bring him back to I-town where he belongs!
April 25 1-3pm Freeville Fire Dept. The Freeville Chapter of Veterans of the Burma Campaign will hold its annual dinner. The night will include cocktails, dinner, dancing and special footage of General Stillwell accepting the Legion of Honor award from Generallismo Chiankishek. Bring your kids!
April 30 - 7:30 pm Immaculate Conception - The Little Friends of Fatima Soldality will gather for coffee to discuss the recent appearances of the BVM at Buttermilk Falls. Rosary to follow discussion.
ITHACA SUCKS PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE: THE LAST DAY TO PUT YOUR POOR DEAD CHRISTMAS TREE THAT GAVE ITS LIFE TO MAKE YOU HAPPY ON THE CURB FOR COLLECTION IS JULY 15.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 10:42 AM
|