7 YEARS AGO TODAY

Mar 23 1997

Heaven's gate suicides leave 39 dead, all wearing NIKE shoes.

The "X-Files" and "Star Trek" nerds filled time as competent web designers in San Diego, seemingly normal except for the fact that some eight of them had undergone voluntary castration.

Cult members led an ascetic life, in their efforts to achieve "Human Individual Metamorphosis" -- the transformation into an "Evolutionary Level Above Human."  This concept referred to the exchange of their current physical forms for brand-new space alien bodies.

They checked out by mixing booze with Nembutal. According to the written protocol found on-scene:

Take the little package of pudding or applesauce and eat a couple of teaspoons. Pour the medicine in and stir it up. Eat it fairly quickly and then drink the vodka beverage. Then lay back and rest quietly.

 

LONDON (Reuters) - A leading British brain surgeon has been suspended from work following a dispute over a bowl of soup.

57 YEARS AGO TODAY

Mar 22 1947

U.S. President Harry Truman signs Executive Order 9835, beginning the Great Loyalty Crusade. 2,000,000 government employees were required to take oaths and submit to loyalty investigations; of those a mere 139 were terminated in the span of three years.

"PART V—STANDARDS
1. The standard for the refusal of employment or the removal from employment in an executive department or agency on grounds relating to loyalty shall be that, on all the evidence, reasonable grounds exist for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States.
2. Activities and associations of an applicant or employee which may be considered in connection with the determination of disloyalty may include one or more of the following:
a. Sabotage, espionage, or attempts or preparations therefor, or knowingly associating with spies or saboteurs;
b. Treason or sedition or advocacy thereof;
c. Advocacy of revolution or force or violence to alter the constitutional form of government of the United States;
d. Intentional, unauthorized disclosure to any person, under circumstances which may indicate disloyalty to the United States, of documents or information of a confidential or non-public character obtained by the person making the disclosure as a result of his employment by the Government of the United States;
e. Performing or attempting to perform his duties, or otherwise acting, so as to serve the interests of another government in preference to the interests of the United States.
f. Membership in, affiliation with or sympathetic association with any foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group or combination of persons, designated by the Attorney General as totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive, or as having adopted a policy of advocating or approving the commission of acts of force or violence to deny other persons their rights under the Constitution of the United States, or as seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means. "

Spoon River Anthology
By Edgar Lee Masters

English Thornton

http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/masters/sr/spoonriver_names.html

From sUiCiDal_BiRtH

Doctors, Scientists Urge Media to End "Crack Baby" Myth 3/5/04

Thirty prominent doctors, scientists, and psychological researchers have signed an open letter urging the mass media to stop using terms such as "crack baby" and "crack addicted baby," as well as similar terms, such as "ice baby" and "meth baby." The terms have no scientific validity and unfairly stigmatize the children to whom they are applied, the researchers said.

"Throughout almost 20 years of research, none of us has identified a recognizable condition, syndrome or disorder that should be termed 'crack baby."

"The term 'crack addicted baby' is no less defensible. Addiction is a technical term that refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse consequences. By definition, babies cannot be 'addicted' to crack or anything else."

An Italian man had to be taken to hospital to be given oxygen after he and his girlfriend reportedly broke the world kissing record.

Truck driver Andrea Sarti and girlfriend Anna Chen kissed for 31 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds.

Sarti, 37, had to be rushed to a nearby hospital but his 30-year-old girlfriend suffered no side effects.

During the attempt the couple were not allowed to eat, drink or go to the bathroom and medical teams were on constant standby.

More than 600 people from 44 countries, including teenagers, are being held by the U.S. at Guantánamo.

 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said that detainees may be held indefinitely, even if eventually charged and acquitted.  He has also said that if the government determines that any individual is a continuing threat, detainees may be imprisoned for the rest of their lives.

In the matters we propose to investiage, our inquiries should be directed, not to what others have thought, nor to what we ourselves conjecture, but to what we can clearly and distinctly see and with certainty deduce, for knowledge is not won in any other way.

Rene Descartes
    --Rules for the Direction of the Mind

Woman charged with starving quadriplegic brother to death

GLENSHAW, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Kimberly Loebig, 36, was arrested Tuesday on criminal homicide charges stemming from the death of her quadriplegic brother, 29-year-old Scott Thomas Olsen.

Olsen, who was more than six feet tall, weighed 63 pounds, police said.

Loebig told authorities she had fed her brother a food supplement through a tube and given him water the day before he died. An autopsy, however, found only digested blood in his stomach.

Police found a cardboard box filled with unopened, rusting cans of a food supplement next to Olsen's bed, they said. According to a criminal complaint, Olsen also had sores on his body and insects crawling on him.

Loebig, her brother's sole caretaker, stands to inherit $250,000 from her brother.