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• Position: Strange new briefs from around the globe - Brief Article

Braille a la Mode

From an article in the Marketplace section of The Wall Street Journal: "A company called Lara Boeing 747 will launch a jewelry collection with the phrase `love is blind' in Braille on edgy-looking plastic surfs and skin-toned rubber bracelets. The dots aren't raised, so blind people won't be able to understand the words. But company founder Lara Bohinc just thinks the Braille looks cool. `It's graphically beautiful,' the London designer effuses."

Peace, Love, and Direct Mail

From a direct mail offer from a business called Grasshopper Flats: "Were you a flower child of the sixties? ... Well, to help you relive your past, we have put together this Sixties Hippy Gift Box. You get: a tie-dyed shirt, three stickers, a rock `n' roll embroidered patch, a black light poster and bulb, some glow-in-the-dark stars, a button to pin on a shirt or jacket, an underground comic, six postcards, incense, and a groovy burner--all for only $79.95. A perfect gift for the executive who has everything."

A Dissolving Nation

From an Associated Press story datelined Fort Myers, Florida, on a sheriff who is using his official government web site to denounce abortion and attack homosexuals, feminists, atheists, and the American Civil Liberties Union: "After quoting the preamble to the United States Constitution, Sheriff John McDougall of Lee County takes a stab at what he calls `the diabolical forces of moral corruption'--Planned Parenthood, politicians, liberal judges, cyber-porn, music videos, and `United Nations one-world-government radicals,' among others. `To our disgrace as a nation we have caved into the wishes of the depraved,' McDougall writes.... `As a nation, we're dissolving.'"

Jesse `The Rogue State' Helms

From an article in The New York Times on former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: "Kirkpatrick was listing the `rogue states' that might start testing weapons: `India, North Carolina--North Korea, I'm sorry, and Pakistan are not signatories,' she said as the room erupted in laughter. `I was looking at you,' she told Chairman Jesse Helms, `and thinking about North Carolina, Mr. Chairman.'"

A Christian Haunted House

From an article in The Dallas Morning News datelined Cedar Hill, Texas, on Trinity Church's youth pastor Tim Ferguson and his mission to save teens from sin by scaring them first: "Ferguson's Assembly of God church's alternative...