E-Mail
Mike Pingree

Site design by
Mike Hanlon 

May 28, 2000

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKIN' AT, BUB? Ohio lawmakers have made it a crime to engage in "upskirting" and "downblousing."The legislation was passed in response to the current practice of videotapers who surreptitiously zoom in on the undies (or lack of them) of ladies at public events, and sell the images on the internet. 
Opponents attacked the bill's wording.

THE REVENGE OF THE WIDOWED SWAN: A very large swan whose mate was shot dead has been terrorizing boaters in Michigan's Pottawattomie Bayou for the past three years, attacking with ferocity at speeds of up to 60 mph. Vern Garvelink, a frequent boater who knows all too well the swan's wrath, finally complained to the Department of Natural Resources. 
Men have been sent out to capture the unhappy bird.

THE EVIDENCE IS MOUNTING: Maurine Cody was driving across Florida's Pinellas Bayway drawbridge when it started to go up, forcing her to hit the gas and fly across the relentlessly expanding gap to the other side. The bridge tender, who was raising the drawbridge to allow a large paddle-wheel ship to pass underneath, was immediately fired. Police are looking for a mechanical reason for the incident, but said that the man who raised the bridge was suspected for drinking on the job. Officials said his speech was slurred, and he was "not making sense." 
A half bottle of vodka was found in his tower.

HELLO! YOU MAY NOT REMEMBER ME, BUT ... Calls from people seeking for travel information about Utah have been routed to inmates at the state prison as part of a program by the Utah Travel Council. Alas, it allowed the convicts - some of them sex offenders - to get people's personal information. Some of the cons have called back women or sent suggestive letters. 
Officials are re-evaluating the program.

A VERY LONG-DISTANCE CALL: Claude Tetu, a Frenchman of low degree, convinced Annette Gervais that he could arrange a phone conversation with her son, who had died five years earlier, for a mere $65,000. He even set up a meeting with her and two other men, one posing as a monk and another as a dead man who had come back to life. 
Tetu and his two pals were convicted of fraud.

Mike Pingree writes another Looking Glass column in the Boston Sunday Herald. You can read it by clicking here:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists.html

Top  |  Home  |  Past Columns (The Archives)