Fun_People Archive
1 Sep
Bits o' Bull No. 531!

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed,  1 Sep 99 15:27:36 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: Bits o' Bull No. 531!

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649
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Forwarded-by: Charles Stough <copyboy@dma.org>
Excerpted-from: BONG Bull No. 531!
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
      THE BURNED-OUT NEWSPAPERCREATURES GUILD'S NEWSLETTER
                             BONG Bull
        Copyright (c) 1999 by BONG.   All rights reserved.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

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For Sept. 1, 1999. Nice going with the prayer pressure on Hurricane Dennis,
Rev. Pat Robertson, but your Nielsens must be dropping or he'd be a little
farther out to sea, observes the Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild, and
this is BONG Bull No. 531!

AND THE SCHOOL BOARD CREATED A CURRICULUM, AND THE SCHOOL BOARD WAS PLEASED.
Alternate creation doctrines are a worthy point of study, and the Kansas
Board of Education should be congratulated for its progressive stance in
favor of letting children decide what to believe.
   Here are seven creation doctrines, each believed by significant numbers
of people:
   -- Biblical creation: God created heaven and earth, and Adam and Eve,
who then begat the human race.
   -- Scientific creation: Chemicals in the primordial seas mysteriously
took on life, and formed the first species.
   -- African Efik-Ibibio: The Sun and his wife the Moon invited their
friend Water over for a visit, but Water overflowed the hosts' compound, so
they went to live in the sky.
   -- Chinese Huai-nan Tzu: In the Great Beginning of the universe, what
was clear and light became the heavens and what was heavy and turbid formed
the earth. Heaven and earth joined in the Great Oneness, from which all
living things issued.
   -- Gypsies: God baked the first men in an oven. The first batch were
overdone and became black people. The next bath were underdone and became
whites. The third batch was just right, and became Indians, the ancestors
of Gypsies.
   -- Hindu: Self (Atman), in the shape of a person and lonely, divided to
create Pat and Patni (husband and wife).
   -- Navajo: Living things of all kinds climbed reeds growing through
cracks in the sky into other worlds, picking up new species at each level.
At the Fifth World, which was a small island, they noticed that the water
was rising dangerously. First Man and First Woman discerned that Coyote had
kidnapped the Water Monster's children. They freed the kids in a boat and
the water safely dropped, leaving the earth mostly dry ever since.
   Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Norsemen had other creation beliefs but
almost no one believes them any more, perhaps because they weren't required
instruction in public schools.

WHY COLLECTORS SEEK AFTER THEM TODAY. Terry Maxon of the Dallas Morning News
<tmaxon@dallasnews.com> recalled, "About mixed-up cutlines, my favorite came
in the late Oklahoma Journal in 1973.  Somebody, some say a paste-up guy on
his last day of work, reversed the cutlines under a photo of the
legislature^s adjournment and a bombing in Italy.
   "So we had this screaming man, blood running down his face, with a body
lying in a pool of blood in the background. The cutline: 'Gov.  David Hall
thanks legislators for their cooperation while House Speaker Bill Whatever
looks on.'
   "And the picture of the governor, with speaker standing deferentially
behind him, carried a cutline along the lines of 'Man screams in horror as
victim in terrorist bombing lies dead behind him.' The newsroom secretary
was sent out with a bag of dimes to retrieve as many copies from the street
boxes as she could."
   Maxon's story is a sad reminder of a particularly dense photo editor at
the Dayton Daily News some 20 years ago. The desk just couldn't make him
understand what was funny about cutlines like "Sheriff's deputy (left) and
horse (right)."
___________________________________________________________________________
Not sitting by the phone till Spielberg calls, BONG Chief Copyboy Charley
Stough, Dayton Daily News, 45 S. Ludlow St., Dayton, Ohio 45401 passes the
batons to BONG swizzlers worldwide! Phone (937) 225- 2445 after 6 p.m.
eastern. Fax 225-2489. E-mail copyboy@dma.org.
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