Tuesdays Wall Street Journal has an article about the Dutch takeover of
JFK airports International Arrivals building. The Dutch have some
interesting ideas on how to clean it up:

In Amsterdam, the tile under Schiphols urinals would pass inspection in an
operating room. But nobody notices. What everybody does notice is that
each urinal has a fly in it. Look harder, and the fly turns into the black
outline of a fly, etched into the porcelain.

It improves the aim, says Aad Kieboom. If a man sees a fly, he aims at
it. Mr. Kieboom, an economist, directs Schiphols own building expansion.
His staff conducted fly-in-urinal trials and found that etchings reduce
spillage by 80%.

We will put flies in the urinals — yes, Jan Jansen says in a back office
at the Arrivals Building. He is the new Dutch general manager, the boss as
of noon today. It gives a guy something to think about. Thats the
perfect example of process control.

His New York public relations attendant titters. Fine, laugh at me, Mr.
Jansen says. It works.

A man successfully broke into a bank after hours and
stole — are you ready for this? — the banks video camera. While it was
recording. Remotely. (That is, the videotape recorder was located elsewhere
in the bank, so he didnt get the videotape of himself stealing the camera.)

Tonya Harding supposedly saved an 81-year-old womans life at the Lost
and Found Bar in Portland by performing CPR on her (the medics said the
woman had merely fainted). Says Jay Leno: And I guess out of force of
habit she performed mouth-to-mouth on three bikers at the pool table,
too.

This wonderful bit of followup on the news courtesy of Durham Herald-Sun
columnist Carl Daniels-Kinney:

Im sure many of you are aware that about two weeks ago, the US Supreme
Court ruled that the state of Missouri cannot discriminate against the Ku
Klux Klan when it comes to groups that want to participate in the
adopt-a-highway program. Of course, while the name of the Klan is
aesthetically disgusting, wed all agree that this decision is a victory
for free speech and equal protection under the law, right?

Well, the DOT in Missouri has gotten their revenge, and boy is it sweet.
Sure, they cant remove the KKKs adopt-the-highway sign, but few would
dispute the states ability to name the highway itself.

The KKK is now cleaning up a stretch of the newly-christened Rosa Parks
Freeway.

My classmate, Susan, and I are in the middle of our thesis rewrites for
Johns Hopkins University. We only have two weeks left and we are both
quite razzled at the prospect of doing more research in the remaining
time.

Today Susan called me to say that she desperately needed more history
about a small tribe of Native Americans that lives in the Grand Canyon
but theres only one telephone on the reservation and no one ever answers
it.

As a matter of fact, the three times she visited the tribes Visitor
Center while she was on vacation, she said no one ever opened up the
building.

Being a computer geek, I said, Have you checked the Internet?

She said, No, what a great idea! Thanks.

I did a quick check using Excite while she used Yahoo and she was
astounded at the information available about this little-known tribe.
She thanked me profusely for the tip and hung up.

Two hours later, she called me back sounding absolutely miserable.

Susan, I said, Whats the matter?

Well, she said, Youre not going to believe it but they have their own
Web page with all the information I could ever want about the tribe.

Thats great, I said. What more could you ask for?

You dont understand, she said. My article is about how isolated the
tribe is and how their only path to the outside world is a little dirt
trail up the side of the canyon! On their Web page, they even have a
scanned photo of the helicopter that brought the donated PC into the
canyon.

Moral of the story: Sometimes ignorance is bliss — especially when
youre trying to finish a thesis on time.

Indiana: A man walked up to a cashier at a grocery store and demanded all the
money in the register. When the cashier handed him the loot, he fled —
leaving his wallet on the counter.

Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in Selbyville, Del.,
as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded
with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

Chicago –30-year-old Emad Haddad was shot and killed Friday afternoon
after chasing two men whod robbed his store-Sunburst Food and Liquors-on
Chi-Towns bright and glamorous 79th Street.

According to cops, two gents toting semi-auto pistols robbed the stores
registers. Witnesses say Emad The Genius (as he will be remembered) ran
after the men with a two-shot derringer and took a shot at em.
They returned the favor with a hail of bullets.
Haddad was struck in the head and died on the spot.

Nearly everyone knows that Judith Martin, better known as Miss
Manners, the syndicated columnist, is exceedingly correct. Last
week, she saw an advertisement in the newspaper that a Maryland
jewelry store was having a sale in her silver pattern. Upon arriving
at the store, she told the jeweler she was looking for additional
dessert spoons in her pattern and had been making do with the larger
soup spoons.

Thats not much of a hardship, the employee said. It is
for me, Martin responded. Caught up in the moment, the saleswoman
joked, Who do you think you are, Miss Manners? The easily
recognizable Miss Manners looked at the woman, unable to respond. And
then it registered. Oh my God! the saleswoman said.

from the Jan 26 San Jose Mercury News

I dont usually pass on unhappy news like this, and I know you are busy,
but sometimes we have to pause and remember the things that have deeply
affected our lives. The entertainment world experienced a great loss
today. The composer of the song Hokey Pokey died. What really made his
passing so distressing is that they had trouble keeping the body in the
casket.

Theyd put his left leg in, hed put his left leg out… and…well, you
know the rest…