Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 10:52:30 -0400
Subject: WhiteBoard News for April 21, 1995 (fwd)

Forwarded message from joeha@microsoft.com:
======================================================================
WhiteBoard News for April 21, 1995

Ventura, California:

A man furious over a failed land deal took it out on
the property owner by having 90,000 magazines sent to
her address.

"I got every known magazine on the face of the Earth,"
lawyer Theresa McConville said after Reynaldo Fong was
sentenced Tuesday.  Fong got a year in jail for forging
her name on subscription forms.

"He could have won the Nobel prize if he would have put
as much energy into his job as he did with me," said
McConville, of Camarillo, who got the unsolicited
magazines over the past 13 years.

Fong, 45, of Santa Paula, is an anesthesiologist from
the Philippines who had been in the United State
illegally since his visa expired in 1980.

According to a probation report, Fong said he had a
vendetta against McConville because she rejected his
bid for land she was selling.
===========

Perkern, Pakistan:

Black plumes of smoke rose from the sweltering desert
Tuesday as officials burned 40 tons of hashish, some of
it carefully packed in McDonald's hamburger wrappers.

The drugs were seized from a caravan of 150 smugglers
and 200 camels, spotted by army helicopters Friday in
the remote desert of southern Pakistan.

The smugglers fired on the helicopters with automatic
rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, hitting one of
the aircraft with bullets before escaping in the
winding mountain passes.

The authorities captured the hashish and about 50
camels.  It was one of the biggest drug hauls ever in
Pakistan.

On Tuesday, officials from Pakistan, the United States,
Britain and the United Nations watched as the hashish
was set on fire at the same site where it was seized.
==========

Northampton, Massachusetts:

A thief who was forgiven and presented with a New
England Patriots cap by the employer he ripped off has
been ordered by a judge to wear the hat for two years
as a reminder of a friendship betrayed.

"If I take it off, I go to jail.  It's a constant
reminder of what I have done and the addiction I have
to fight," Mark Gagnon said Wednesday.  He was found
guilty of stealing $4,382 worth of lottery tickets in
an attempt to satisfy his gambling habits.

Judge W. Michael Ryan imposed the sentence last Friday
after watching Gagnon turn red with shame in court when
his former boss, James Brazeau, tried to give him the
hat he had been promised back in November of last year.


Brazeau walked over to where Gagnon was seated while he
waited to be sentenced.

"He said, 'I want this to be a learning experience for
you,'" Gagnon said.  Then Brazeau handed him a paper
bag containing the cap.  Gagnon broke down and told
Brazeau he couldn't accept the gift.

That's when the judge, watching from the bench, made
the cap part of Gagnon's sentence, ordering Gagnon to
wear the hat every time he goes out in public for two
years.

Ryan also placed Gagnon on probation for two years and
ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service.
==========

Ancona, Italy:

An Italian woman ended nine months of complete
isolation in an underground laboratory Thursday and
said she thought she had been there for just three
months.

Cristina Lanzoni, 29, entered the chamber, known as
Underlab, in the Frasassi caves in central Italy on
July 26 of last year for a scientific experiment to
monitor the physical and psychological effects of total
isolation.

Her lonesome 269 days ended when project controllers
sent her a message on a computer link telling her the
date and the time.

A statement said Lanzoni thought the date was October
31, 1994, and replied on the computer, "Oh my God!"

"I feel like Underlab has kept me in its womb, and it's
like being born for the second time," Lanzoni was
quoted as saying.  She returns to the surface Friday.
==========

New Matamoras, Ohio:

Sometimes honesty is its own reward.  And sometimes a
grown-up steps in to sweeten the pot.

For 14-year-old Brian Slonaker of New Matamoras, the
pot-sweetener was a free trip to the nation's capital,
including an insider's view of the White House.

Brian found a wallet so fat with 20- and 50-dollar
bills that it couldn't be folded.

He turned it in, much to his friends' disapproval.
They told him, "I would have kept it and you're dumb,"
Brian recalled Thursday.  "They're jealous now."

The man who lost the wallet -- containing $2,500 --
gave Brian a $20 reward.

Brian said his father told a local banker what
happened, and the banker told the local congressman and
the congressman upped the ante.

Representative Frank Cremeans, R-Ohio, flew Brian to
Washington and gave him a guided tour of the Capitol.
==========

St. Michaels, Maryland:

Step in to Flamingo Flats, and you can buy a bottle of
Bat's Brew or sample some Scorned Woman.  Or go for the
burn right there: Pick from the bowl of slightly stale
tortilla chips on a counter and scoop a mouthful of
Sting and Linger.

The shop is guided by this credo: "Life is too short to
eat boring food."

For about five years, Flamingo Flats in tiny St.
Michaels, on the Chesapeake Bay, has been searing
tastebuds with sauces like Hell in a Jar and its best
seller, Religious Experience, which comes in Original,
Hot and Wrath.

For the daring, store manager Izzi Sevco recommends
Dave's Insanity Sauce, whose pepper extract makes it
"one of the hottest sauces in the universe."  Loyal
customer Dave Feith, who owns an inn on nearby Tilghman
Island, uses Flamingo Flat sauces in the inn's dishes,

but passes on Dave's Insanity Sauce.  Once, Feith says,
he dabbed the fiery stuff on the rim of an unsuspecting
friend's beer, and "he turned red and started sweating
profusely."

But why would anyone volunteer for this kind of
torture?  "It's a safe thrill," explains Paul Bosland,
a breeder of chilies and professor of horticulture and
agronomics at New Mexico State University in Las
Cruces.  Those craving "a blow-your-head-off" rush are
a small fringe group, he adds.  Nationwide, a hot
pepper trend has spawned more than 50 stores like
Flamingo Flats, according to the Chile Pepper Magazine,
a trade publication.

And the Flats feeds other aspects of chiliheads'
obsession.  Rows of bottles and jars mingle with pepper
jewelry and other pungent novelties, plus recipe books
like "Hot Licks."  There's even an occasional
newsletter for customers called -- what else? -- Heat.

Bob Deppe, the shop's somewhat elusive owner, has
collected nearly 2,000 concoctions in his international
search for sauces and spices -- a hankering he acquired
on military duty in Vietnam.  But getting details
directly is difficult: he has no phone or fixed
schedule.  Sevco says he stays busy, "researching hot
sauce, that sort of thing."

The store rings up about $100,000 in sales annually,
says Sevco, from the curious and "people who like good
food and adventurous smells."  Professor Bosland seems
to understand.  Discovering the perfect pepper sauce is
"like finding a really good bottle of wine," he says.
==========

Chow
SuperChef
WhiteBoard News Service Bureau Chef

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