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Mike Pingree

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August 13, 2000

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT, STUPID: A 19-year-old man smashed open a jewelry case in a Worcester, Mass., store with his bare hand, and stole gold chains, watches and bracelets before fleeing in his girlfriend's car as dozens of people wrote down the license plate number. Police went to the address listed on the registration, saw the blood on the steering wheel and dashboard and followed the blood trail up the stairs to the suspect. He wisely refused to tell the cops anything. But then his girlfriend showed up and demanded that he tell her why he was being arrested. He then admitted to her what he had done, despite the fact that the police were standing right there. 
Said Police Sgt. Donald Cummings, "It's too good to be true ... I think he was more afraid of her than he was of us.''

YOU CALL YOURSELF A MAN? Ed Mathews was changing the address on his driver's license at the Iowa Department of Transportation when a clerk noticed the letter "F'' for female in the box denoting his sex. A supervisor told him that they could not change the "F'' to an "M'' without Matthews' birth certificate, even though he is quite obviously a man. 
He complained bitterly, and officials later relented and corrected the error. 

OK, GIVE ME EVERYTHING IN MY SIZE: A gunman entered a ladies' lingerie store in Brandenburg, Germany, and demanded money, but the owner told him that there was no cash on the premises because everyone had paid by credit card that day. 
So the bandit instead made off with $188 worth of ladies' underwear.

JUST USING WHAT THEY LEARNED: A group of students at Haralson County High School in Tallapoosa, Ga., found a practical application of what they learned in their drafting class: making phony money. They were charged with first-degree forgery for counterfeiting about 200 bills - $1s, $5s, $10s and $20s. Police suspect that their teacher was in on it, because when a custodian saw the kids making the money and reported it to the teacher, "he only smiled.''
He was arrested too.

SURE YOU'LL BE SAFE HERE: Residents of an upscale 28-story apartment tower in Sao Paulo, Brazil pay hefty security fees for bullet-proof doors and around-the-clock surveillance, but they weren't getting their money's worth. 
Fifteen machinegun-toting masked men managed to evade 10 security cameras, six on duty-guards and an electric fence, got into the apartments and robbed the residents blind.

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

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