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Thick-Skinned Citizens

From an article in the Casper Star-Tribune on a speech Governor Jim Geringer gave at a Wyoming Taxpayers Association meeting. Geringer declared he didn't want to raise taxes on the wealthy because lower income people use more public services:" `Why not have some sense of personal accountability?' he asked. `That's where I think an income tax in Wyoming would miss the mark.... The highest consumers for services ought to have some skin in the game. They have very little right now,' Geringer said."

No Need to Read

From an article in the December 1999 issue of American Libraries magazine on a new book discussion group at a Denver Public Library branch: "Instead of reading, participants listen to sound bites from audio books. Librarian Kate Lawrence plays twenty-minute excerpts from short stories, essays, and sketches. Then the group discusses them for the remainder of the hour. `There's no preparation required,' said Lawrence. `It's for people who are too busy to read.'"

Just Bronze It!

From an ad in the Los Angeles Weekly for Artistic Forms Studio: "Beauty for eternity. We professionally cast your breasts or buttocks in bronze. We form a mold by applying a flowing layer of rubber to the area which becomes a firm, pliable mold in twenty minutes[ When removed, we have an exact impression of your form, which is then cast in bronze, detailed, and mounted on a beautiful marble base--ready to be presented to your loved one or displayed as a work of art to the world."

Forget the Bake Sale

From an Associated Press article in The Boston Globe datelined Raleigh, North Carolina, on a successful gun raffle held at the Hobgood Academy: "The rural Halifax private school expects to clear $23,000 instead of the hoped-for $4,000, as 2,500 tickets were sold for $10 each. The proceeds will help pay for a Future Farmers of America building at the school.... Doug Abernathy, the owner of Doug's Guns in Williamston, supplied the five guns at their $1,800 cost. `This being a strong sporting community, any time you give anybody a chance to win a firearm, then obviously Bubba's willing-to shell out five or ten dollars,' said Abernathy."

Life's Most Precious Thing

From an Associated Press article from the Twin Falls, Idaho, Times-News, on National Mining Association President and CEO Richard L. Lawson and his take on developing the economies of Third World countries: "Lawson said the creation of capital and wealth through mining is the...