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WITandWISDOM(tm) - March 5, 2002 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: The past should be a springboard not a hammock. Source: God's Little Instruction Book for Women, By Honor Books Publishing Staff (editor), Published by Honor Books, Copyright (c) 1995, ISBN: 156292222X, http://isbn.nu/156292222X/price Submitted by Nancy Simpson Subjects: Past ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. "Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks. "Yes," I say, "it will. It is because the nerve was cut." She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. "I like it," he says, "It is kind of cute." All at once I know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works. From: Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, By Selzer, Richard Published by Harcourt Inc (Apr 1, 1996), ISBN: 0156004003 pp. 45-6, http://isbn.nu/0156004003 Source: My Daily Dose of Inspiration, http://www.quietstones.com/mydailydose Subjects: Surgery, Attitude, Kiss, Appearance ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: DRIVE AROUND, PLEASE One night J. D. Roberts, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency, was involved in a raid on a drug house that was doing a brisk business in marijuana sales. He and the other agents were dressed in black "battle" fatigues with "Narcotics Agent" stenciled on them. Local uniformed officers in marked police cruisers also took part in the raid. Roberts and his team easily entered the house and apprehended the suspect. Several hundred pounds of marijuana were confiscated without incident. Within minutes the officers were collecting evidence and finishing up at the scene. As Roberts started out the front door, he noticed a pickup truck parked behind one of the marked police cruisers in front of the house. Two long-haired individuals got out of the pickup and strolled past the police cruisers parked in the driveway, then walked up to Roberts and his partner. "Hey man, he still selling pot?" Roberts looked at his partner, then back at the guy. "Yeah, he is. Just go around and knock on the back door." "Cool." The two men nodded and walked on. Roberts watched in amazement as the two individuals sauntered around to the rear of the house. Roberts radioed the officers still inside the house that they had customers at the back door. The uniformed officers inside quickly hid while one plainclothes detective answered the door. The new customers asked where the old owner was, and the officer explained that the owner had stepped out but that he could help them. They requested a fifty-dollar bag of marijuana. The officer went to the next room, grabbed a handful from the four hundred pounds of pot they had just confiscated and stuffed it into a plastic bag. The two customers were ecstatic. They thanked the officer for his generosity. Roberts and his partner were still in the drive way, still wearing the black battle fatigues with "Narcotics Agent" stenciled on their chests, when the two customers headed back to their pickup, oblivious to the uniformed officers and the two marked police cruisers in the driveway. Finally, Roberts walked up to the two satisfied customers and arrested them. The agents reconfiscated the dope and impounded the pickup - just as another prospective customer pulled up. Roberts decided this was too easy to ignore. "We moved the two cruisers and started putting the impounded vehicles in the back. We make about fourteen more sales and arrests that night. By the time we were through, the backyard was filled with cars. It was the darnedest impromptu sting I've ever seen." Source: America's Dumbest Criminals Submitted by Rod Keen Subjects: Drugs, Police, Arrested ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: My actor brother, Michael, had a small part as a mailman in a movie being filmed on a New York City street. Since the area had not been roped off, passers-by were free to roam through until the cameras started rolling. While Michael was waiting, a woman stopped to ask him directions to a certain street. He told her that he was not familiar with the area. As she walked away, he could hear her mutter, "No wonder we never get our mail." Source: Kitty's Daily Mews, Copyright (c) 1997-2002 All rights reserved worldwide, http://www.katscratch.com/ Subjects: Mail, Directions ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: BROWN BAT Rumford, Maine (AP): A 4-inch-long brown bat found hibernating in a western Maine cave turns out to be 30 years old, and that's an old-timer if you're talking bat years. Thirty years for a bat is the equivalent of 100 human years, according to Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas. The oldest known bat caught in the wild was 34 years old at the time of recapture. Two state wildlife biologists discovered the old bat hanging around with about 400 other hibernating bats last month in two abandoned mines in northern Oxford County. Biologist Karen Morris consulted national experts who keep records on bat bandings and was told the Maine mammal was 30 years old. "The bat was less than a year old when it was banded in August of 1971," said Morris, who conducted her mine search with Heather Givens, another biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Then Morris got a second surprise. It turned out her discovery was a bat from Maryland, not Farmington, Maine, where she suspected the ban had been attached. That presented something of a mystery because the banded bat is not among the species found in Maine that migrate south. Little brown bats usually don't go more than a few hundred miles to hibernate. Maine's two most common bats are brown myotis and northern long-eared myotis, which have a wingspan of about 4 inches. During their recent cave search, the biologists did not find examples of Maine's biggest bat, the 5-inch hoary bat, which has a wingspan of 12 to 14 inches and can fit through a quarter-inch crack, according to Morris. Big brown bats may find suitable conditions for hibernation in some buildings, but myotis rely on caves or old mines or stone structures, which provide more constant temperatures. Bats spend the winter in a state of torpor which allows them to conserve energy which is stored as fat. Source: WhiteBoard News for Monday, January 14, 2002, http://www.joeha.com/whiteboard Subjects: Bats, Maine |