HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 09:40:51 EDT
From: <WCE2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Shergold outbreak in Melbourne Australia
 <1992Sep1.073851.9537@fulcrum.oz.au>

Concerning foil liners of cigarette packs for heart/lung machines: I don't
know how popular they are now, but Gary Alan Fine reports that the rumor
supposedly goes back at least to 1936 in the US and was widespread in the
1950s.  Good historical info is in his "Redemption Rumors: Mercantile
Legends and Corporate Beneficence," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE 99
(1986):208-222.  Iona and Peter Opie report redemption schemes in the UK
dating back to the 19th century in THE LORE AND LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN
(Oxford: Oxford U Pr, 1959), including bus tickets, toffee wrappers, and
milk-bottle tops (pp.  306-309).  They also report that children would look
for empty cigarette packets, especially those with a cat or sailor on them,
and then threaten to come back and tear them up if they don't have good luck
or find money dropped on the pavement--maybe an earlier magical version of
the redemption rumor (p.  222-223).  I can report that my father got into
the paper when he was a very small child because he collected the foil off
cigarette papers and turned it in during a scrap metal drive during WWI
(1919)--my mother may still have the clipping somewhere.  Maybe all this is
is the perpetual expression of some kind of magpie instinct that we still
have for something shiny?

Bill Ellis
FOAFtale News
PSU-Hazleton
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,aus.general,aus.wanted
From: jonathan@psych.psy.uq.oz.au (Jonathan Dwyer)
Subject: Re: WANTED: Spaf's Shergold killer
Organization: Psychology Department
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 22:46:37 GMT

Chris Keane writes:
|> Yowsers! I've just seen a real live infestation of the Craig Shergold
|> legend at the Commonwealth Bank PC Group.

You can find a short article about this by ftp from ra.msstate.edu
in the file /pub/docs/words-l/Misc/shergold.truth

There is a huge amount of info (over 32k) available by anonymous ftp
from quartz.rutgers.edu in /pub/folklore/shergold.Z

This is so famous you can find out about these two files from archie.....

Jon.

--
    __  __ ____
   / / / // __ \ Jonathan Dwyer (FAX+6173654466) 
  / / / // / / / Department of Psychology
 / / / // / / /  The University of Queensland
/ /_/ // /_/ <   St. Lucia, 4072. AUSTRALIA 
\____/*\_____/*  jonathan@psych.psy.uq.oz.au  

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: WAUGH@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Race War in the Pacific (was Re: Russian dog-mines in WWII)
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:19:09 GMT
 <1992Aug27.221759.15533@rchland.ibm.com>
 <1992Aug28.115131.15185@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

In article <1992Aug28.115131.15185@husc3.harvard.edu>, joltes@husc10.harvard.edu
(Richard Joltes) says:
>(The)
>firebombing of Tokyo, however, produced sensational headlines, and there was
>one quote (can't recall who said it) that said, verbatim, "properly kindled,
>Japanese cities will burn like autumn leaves."

                                                                  It was
General Curtis LeMay, architect of "Rolling Thunder," the carpet-bombing
campaign carried out by B-52s in Viet Nam as well as the incendiary raids
on Japan.  Read _A Torch to My Enemy_ by Martin Caiden for more information
on the fire-bombing of Japan.

An excellent book covering the racsist aspects, in both camps, of the Pacific
Theater of Operations during World War II is _War Without Mercy_.  It explores
racsism on both sides of the Pacific Ocean during WWII.  One idea the author
(who's name escapes me) explores is that of the "good" enemy.  Whereas the
concept of the "Good German," a basically good individual caught up in the
political and military machinations of his/her government, existed in the
popular culture (films, books, magazine articles) of the time the concept of
the "Good Japanese" is entirely lacking in the same media.

There were perjorative appellations for Germans to be sure but they were not of
a purely racial nature.  "Kraut," the most common term used by GIs in the ETO,
doesn't convey the same force as "Jap" which was almost universally preceeded
by the adjective "Dirty."  The Germans were satirized as being overly officious
while the Japanese were usually depicted as sub-humans, the monkey being by far
and away the most popular characature.  This was much the same as the German
tendency, reviled by Americans at the time, to refer to Jews, Poles and Slavs
in general as "Untermenchen" or sub-humans.

It is true that the Japanese were perceived as a more ferocious, barbaric
enemy than the Germans due to early and well-publicized episodes like the
"Rape of Nanking" and the Bataan death march.  These distinctions tended to
fade as news of the "Final Solution" and Eastern front atrocities filtered back
during the middle of 1945.  It is perhaps due as much to the nature of the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as to the easily recognizable racial
differences between Caucasian and Oriental soldiers that the Pacific War, the
planet's first fully mechanized race war, was so easily divided along racial
lines.

Why the heck am I posting this to a.f.u?

Brian Waugh                       |    "What's for dinner?"
WAUGH@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU    |        George Bush
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: bogart@sabre.larc.nasa.gov (Ed Bogart)
Subject: Re: Arguing with Statistics
Reply-To: bogart@sabre.larc.nasa.gov (Ed Bogart)
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA USA
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 13:20:19 GMT

Oh ho Ha Ha. Gottcha  Gottcha  Gottcha  Gottcha  Gottcha

Didn't anyone notice that my statement of statistical probability was
in a classic UL form ("This guy said")???  

Ed "did you know that the word 'gullible' is not in the dictionary" Bogart



Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: thumper@engin.umich.edu (Bob Topping)
Subject: Re: Death by sneezing
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 92 03:10:02 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <mcirvin.715389607@husc8> mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:
>lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>
>>Obul: we all don't see colors just the same way at all, but since we can't
>>describe it we are all assuming that we see it the same way.  In fact this
>>is a "natural conspiracy" because unbeknownst to us, we all have quite
>>different color vision [...]
>>cjl (is my red your green?)
>
>This idea is something I came up with, so far as I know, independently
>when I was about nine, and from talking to many people it appears to
>me that the "is my red your green?" question is something many kids
>
>There's something abot color that seems more arbitrary.  Perhaps it's
>because we know about color-blind people, who can see but who have
>impaired perception of color.  It's odd, though, that one sort of
>perception would be particularly effective at making people ponder
>the difference between the world, our sensations, and our descriptions
>of our sensations.
>-- 
>Matt McIrvin, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 

  Being red/green color blind myself, I'm often asked what colors I
"see" when I look at reds and greens.  My best answer is paraphrased
from Star_Trek_IV:_The Voyage_Home, when McCoy asks Spock what it feels
like to be dead.  Spock in effect answers that the question itself is
unanswerable, because they have no common point of reference.  Unless
someone can try my eyes on, they can't have my point of view, and there-
fore, my frame of reference.

  If they still don't get it, I ask 'em what colors THEY see when they
look at red and green.  Usually leaves 'em with a confused look on their
face for a while.  :-{)



     Bob "I thought the stoplight was green, officer" Topping. 

-- 
@ "Our lives are better left to chance; +       PLEASE E-Mail to:           @
@  I could have missed the pain, but    +  bob.topping@um.cc.umich.edu      @
@  I'd have had to miss the dance."     +  phy_astrclub@emunix.emich.edu    @
@       -- Garth Brooks, The Dance.     +     ** RETURN OUR HURON! **       @
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: barth@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barth.richards)
Subject: Re: Counterfeiting
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 19:48:10 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.012336.26921@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>I'm under the understanding that nothing smaller than $20 bills gets
>counterfeited because it simply doesn't pay.

The Nova program on counterfeiting that was recently rerun made it quite
clear that all denominations get counterfeited.  Counterfeiters often try
their hand on smaller denominations first to develop their skills at lower
risk.  (It's less likely that someone is going to closely examine a smaller
note.)  I seem to remember reading that twenties are the most popular
denomination for counterfeiters.  They're common enough that people don't
give them a second glance when they get them, but are big enough to be
worth the effort.  However, counterfeit fives, tens, fifties, and
hundreds are commonly seen.
From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Just One Calorie...?
Date: 2 Sep 92 16:38:44 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.143933.20274@cco.caltech.edu>, ansok@cco.caltech.edu (Gary Ansok) writes:
> ObUL:  All Coke can be reduced to a 4-bit binary number.  8 = Cherry,
>        4 = Caffeine-Free, 2 = New (non-Classic), 1 = Diet.  Proof:
>        "New" Coke is even being renamed "Coke 2".  (Tab is, of course,
>        Coke 1 -- Diet Coke is 3.)

Actually, no...  Back in the days of saccharin, as opposed to aspartame,
there was a very noticeable taste difference between regular and diet
drinks.  (Some say there is today, or that there's a difference between
sugar-sweetened stuff and corn syrup-sweetened soda.  I rarely drink
any of the stuff, so I neither know nor care.)  Given that, there could
be no ``real'' Diet Coke -- it wouldn't and couldn't taste the same.
Showing marketing wisdom that apparently vanished from Coke in recent
years, they chose not to dilute their primary trademark with a bad
imitation.  Instead, they deliberately tinkered with the Coke formula to
make Tab, giving it a brand identity of its own.  When aspartame became
available, though, they couldn't just use it in Tab -- the saccharin
taste was too prominent a part of its identity.  So they created Diet
Coke as a taste-alike low-calorie drink, while retaining Tab for that
market segment that actually liked the stuff (shudder).  Not that that's
an unfavorable outcome for the Coca Cola company -- brand proliferation
is a major way to get more shelf space in supermarkets, and that's the
real battle.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil)
Subject: Re: Re: Pencil in Priorities
Organization: IUPUI
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 20:41:07 GMT

In article <2940050@hpcc01.corp.hp.com>
joanne@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Joanne Petersen) writes:
 
>Syrup of ipecac is still dispensed today and recommended as something to
>keep around when you have toddlers (who eat poisons unintentionally, of
>course)..... and you should also always call the poison control center
>BEFORE administering the syrup of ipecac, because some poisons (the caustic
>acidic type usually) should NOT be regurgitated.
>
 
1) Not everyone will vomit from syrup of ipecac.  I have several friends
   who are not vulnerable to it.
2) It's not just "acidic types" which will cause problems, but the other
   extreme of the pH scale as well (lyes).
3) The saying used to be "reduce and induce", meaning to give them something
   else to dilute what was in their stomach before inducing vomiting.
 
Also, putting a finger down the throat doesn't work as not all of us
have active gag reflexes...
 
"I was a teenage EMT werewolf" (many years ago)
From: salantel@dssv01.crd.ge.com (E. L. Salant)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Of Butterflys and Hurricanes
Date: 27 Aug 92 17:40:10 GMT
Reply-To: salantel@wsqtb9.crd.ge.com
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center

>     There is an interesting short story by Ray Bradbury in which a
>big game hunter goes back in time to hunt a dinosaur.  While there,
>he accidentally steps on and kills a butterfly, changing history
>irrevocably.  Look for it in a library near you, it's in one of his
>collections.

It's called (if my memory serves me correct) "Sound of Thunder".  Great story.
==============================================================================
Eliot L. Salant
GE Corporate Research and Development
==============================================================================
From: WCE2@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Wanted: Crag Suregold Chain Letters
Date: 26 Aug 92 18:33:34 GMT
Organization: Penn State University

Does anyone have any copies of the Craig Shergold (Sherold, Surold) appeals tha
t come with pages and pages of previous addressees like a chain letter?  For a
feature in FOAFtale News I want to print some of the successful chains to see i
f anything can be concluded about which mailings seem to be most successful in
generating follow-ups.  Based on the few that I've gotten so far, those endorse
d by presidents of corporations and of universities seem to create little avala
nches of follow-up mailings by subordinate VPs and heads of departments.  Does
anyone have any of these chain-letter monstrosities in his/her files that could
 be shared?  I'd be happy to repay photocopy and mailing expenses.

Bill Ellis
FOAFtale News
Penn State, Hazleton Campus
Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 USA
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: bogart@sabre.larc.nasa.gov (Ed Bogart)
Subject: Re: Spaghetti trees
Reply-To: bogart@sabre.larc.nasa.gov (Ed Bogart)
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA USA
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 12:35:14 GMT

Apropos the new "spaghette tree" thread;
 
>Apparently, back when TV was first becoming popular, some wise-acre ran
>a "documentary" on where spaghetti comes from.  It showed all these happy
>Italian farmers, using their pitchforks to harvest spaghetti from the
>spaghetti trees.  Anybody else ever see this gem?  

This must be _true_ because I saw this on TV!  

No, realy, this was a send up or put on done by Ernie Covacs on his show
in the early 50's.  He did a lot of this stuff and I supose that some 
people believed it.

Ed "If you don't know who Covacs is, don't talk to me" Bogart


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: hucke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Matt Hucke)
Subject: Re: What makes an urban legend work?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 23:42:20 GMT

In article <17go7cINNr85@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> carolo@cse.ucsc.edu (Carol Osterbrock) writes:

>just thought that it had slipped by the QC, but does that actually
>mean that there was some kind of contamination inside and it ate the
>beer?

Maybe a Twinkie (R) ate it.
-- 
And now, Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey:
    If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, go real limp, so people will think
    you're a dummy, and they'll try to catch you, because hey, free dummy!
hucke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu             _V_a_l_h_a_l_l_a BBS, 217-352-3682, WWIV4.21, 14.4k
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: me@csri.toronto.edu (Daniel R. Simon)
Subject: Re: You are humble and loveable.  CHOMP!
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Date: 31 Aug 92 18:38:43 GMT

In article <1992Aug29.083742.21613@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>I understand that the 18xx era nickels with the Roman numeral "V" on it were
>gold-plated and passed off in the old West to unsuspecting people as the
>government's new five-dollar gold piece.  (I think it doesn't say "cents" on
>it anywhere.)

....and the unsuspecting people who had never before heard of this
non-existent five-dollar coin nevertheless knew enough to chomp on it
to verify its authenticity, on the principle that this imaginary coin
would necessarily have been made of pure gold, and hence relatively
soft?

Disclaimer:  I am acting on the possibly unjustified assumption that this 
	     thread is still vaguely connected to its original topic.


"There *is* confusion worse than death"		Daniel R. Simon
			     -Tennyson		(me@theory.toronto.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: dhartung@chinet.chi.il.us (Dan Hartung)
Subject: Re: Spaghetti trees
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 03:34:41 GMT

jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>>Apparently, back when TV was first becoming popular, some wise-acre ran
>>a "documentary" on where spaghetti comes from.  It showed all these happy
>>Italian farmers, using their pitchforks to harvest spaghetti from the
>>spaghetti trees.  Anybody else ever see this gem?  
>
>I never saw that (and wouldn't have, given the date you mention), but
>it sounds very much like a pasta commercial of the present day.  I took
>the commercial to be a well-deserved parody of those ads for muesli 

Actually, it was a sly hommage to the original BBC parody piece.  I
have seen both.  I was disappointed the ad didn't run longer ....
-- 
HYPOCRISY HALL OF FAME:                  | Dan Hartung               |  Ask me
"I would think very hard and long about  | dhartung@chinet.chi.il.us |  about
voting for a presidential candidate who  | Birch Grove Software      | Rotaract!
has had an affair."  -- Gennifer Flowers!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.tv
From: tierney@nevada.edu (TIM TIERNEY)
Subject: Re: Kimberly Dunning, or "Whatcha talking about?"
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Services
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 23:42:09 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.220421.27918@unlv.edu> edcrwfrd@unlv.edu (Edward Crawford) writes:
>In article <1992Aug25.195848.12212@cci632.cci.com> adw@cci632.cci.com (Allen Williams (co-op)) writes:
>>
>> While at a party, cancled tv shows became a topic that was ernestly discussed.
>>Someone made the claim that the actress who played "Kimberly" in "Diff'rent
>>Strokes" was arrested for holding up a convenience store.
>>
>> What was this actresses name? What possesed her to hold up a convenience
>>store? Was she on drugs, or simply out of work after her resuidals ran
>>out? Was she convicted, and/or served time or was otherwised sentenced?
>>What was the name of the convenience store - 7-11 ? How old is she? Did
>>she have an accomplice or was this a solo effort?
>>
>I know this answer, but her name escapes me at the moment...
>
...stuff deleted...
>Hmm.. if you are intersted i can look this up in the newspaper
>here and double check the info (for some reason an Al Philips
>dry cleaning shop keeps popping in my mind)

Okay, here's the story.

Her name is Dana Plato.  She had a big time drug problem and partied a
lot, ridding herself of all that money that she had made from the show.

She had been living in Las Vegas and couldn't find *any* work in showbiz,
so she was working as a car-hop taking laundry from cars that pulled up
to an Al Phillips Dry Cleaners (a local chain) here in Vegas.

She was a regular customer at a video store and one day decided to rob
it.  The clerk didn't believe her at first but gave her the money and
then called police.  She was arrested, went to trial, and was convicted.
She agreed to get help in a rehab program and so, served not time other
than a few days immediately after she was arrested (an *interesting* note
here: even though he didn't know her personally, Wayne Newton paid her
bail to get her out of jail before trial because of his concerns for what
has happened recently to past "childhood stars".).

She went through the rehab program and came out clean.  Some weeks later
she was arrested again for trying to use a *forged* prescription for
drugs.  Again, the judge has let her enter a rehab program after a *very*
tearful episode on the stand.

Supposedly, she has stated that she will soon be starring in a review
type show at the Rio Hotel here in Vegas.

There ya go folks, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Tim


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com
Subject: Re: Gold coins (Was: Re: You are humble and loveable.  CHOMP!)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 03:18:13 GMT

In article <k1jnn_+@lynx.unm.edu>, jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth) writes...
>In article <1992Sep1.171040.12127@engage.pko.dec.com> moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com writes:

>>If we're going to discuss commemorative coins, the US still mints them as well.
>>The US Mint comes out with gold and silver commemorative coins to celebrate
>>such things as the Olympics, 500th anniversary of Columbus's landing, 200th
>>anniversary of the US Constitution, etc.  The gold coins have a gold content of
>>1oz, 1/2 oz or 1/10 oz, and the 1oz ones have a legal tender value of $20, but
>>sell for something like $500.  The 1oz silver ones have a face value of $1 I
>>think and sell for about $25-$30.  They are all proof coins.

>Well, as far as I remember, those coins that you claim were minted by the
>US Mint were actually minted by the Marshall Islands, a US Protectorate.  
>They are, technically, legal tender in the US, but they aren't produced
>by the Mint.

Never heard this.  They certainly are _sold_ by the US Mint (get on their
mailinglist, you won't get off...) and some of their sales literature described
how Public Law XXX authorized the minting of gold coins for the first time
since 19XX, etc.

Why would the Mint want to have the commemorative coins produced in a place
such as the Marshall Islands?

-Mike
From: datri@egsner.cirr.com (Anthony Datri)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Just One Calorie...?
Date: 3 Sep 92 03:32:34 GMT
Organization: Central Iowa (Model) Railroad, Dallas, Tx.

>Fresca recently reappeared (to my great surprize) and can now be found
>easily around here.  It's even cloudy, just like Real Fresca used to
>be way-back-when (unlike the clear Sprite-oid stuff they had for a while).


As a kid near Pittsburgh, I always made it a point to check the bottle to
see if it was one of the few that had one side printed in French.

I stopped drinking it when I saw [ethyl | propyl]ene glycol as one of the
ingredients.
From: os2user@dougp.austin.ibm.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: don't go back to rock-viiiiii-iile...
Date: 24 Aug 92 21:55:06 GMT
Organization: IBM, Austin

In  <1992Aug22.162406.17939@wam.umd.edu>  beowulf@wam.umd.edu (amealuh) writes:
> hey. i live near an area called Rockville, but there's towns and
> cities of "Rockville" all over the place.
>
> does anyone know for sure which "rockville" Michael Stipes is talking
> about in the song, Don't Go Back To Rockville?
>
> rumours around here claim it was a girl from Rockville, MD, but i
> would tend to think that EVERYONE in a town called Rockvill has heard
> something about "Oh, it was a girl from..."
>

I don't know much about different Rockville's, but I do know that Mike Mills
was responsible for most of the song.  So if anyone knows where Mike grew
up............

Doug Poirier
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban