Jockstrip: The world as we know it

THINGS WE DON'T UNDERSTAND

A Singapore woman who thought her husband was cheating on her could find her revenge was short, sweet and expensive.

The Straits Times reports Wah Lay Chin went on a rampage with a sledgehammer and knocked out windows from 18 vehicles -- including four Mercedes Benzs and three BMWs -- at her husband's used car dealership.

Fourteen of the vehicles are owned by car financing company Kenso Leasing and it's demanding the woman pay thousands of dollars for the repairs.

Kenso also is considering billing Wah for loss of the vehicles while under repair and depreciation of their value because of the damage.

NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS

There is strong evidence showing Henry Livingston, not Clement Clarke Moore, wrote "The Night Before Christmas."

First published anonymously two days before Christmas 1823 in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel, the poem -- whose original title was "A Visit from St. Nicholas" -- was not claimed by Moore, a professor at General Theological Seminary in New York City, until 21 years later. That was after he was told by the paper all involved with the poem were dead.

It was then, in 1844, that Moore -- describing the poem as "a poor trifle" -- published it in a volume of his own collected poems.

Livingston's children, who wrote accounts of having heard the poem from their father's lips at breakfast on Christmas 1808, 15 years before it was published, objected. Livingston's descendants in 1999 applied to famed literary detective, Professor Donald Foster of Vassar College, for help.

Matching and comparing words and phrases linked to both Moore and Livingston, Foster established Livingston as the author.

TODAY'S SIGN THE WORLD IS ENDING

'Tis the season to be jolly -- just be careful because it could get you sued.

Employment attorney Richard DeAgazio, of Short Hills, N.J., says there is an increasing number of lawsuits alleging incidents of sexual harassment at holiday parties.

He notes in a news release employees who are victims of unwanted advances or other harassing behavior at a company's holiday party can sue for sexual harassment because holiday parties are considered by law to be an extension of the workplace.

He offers examples. A drunken supervisor untied an employee's sweater, and kissed her and another female employee. A man approached a co-worker and, while grabbing his own crotch, said: "Here is your Christmas present!"

A male employee who was intoxicated told a female co-worker he admired her breasts and wanted to perform oral sex on her. A female manager drafted rules for a holiday party that said participants could earn points for giving oral sex -- and she initiated kissing games at the party.

AND FINALLY, TODAY'S UPLIFTING STORY

Hawa Sacko is 125 years old -- Mali's oldest person and possibly the world's. The British Broadcasting Corp. interviewed Sacko, who said she has no special secrets to long life other than her faith in God.

Her life spans three centuries but she quips to the BBC: "I can't possibly be older than my mother." The only thing keeping her out of the Guinness Book of Records, which claims the oldest living person is 10 years her junior, is the lack of a birth certificate.

Her vivid memories and firsthand accounts from the late 1800s of the West African resistance fighter Almamy Samory Toure and the arrival of French colonists allow social workers to put her age at 125, going on 126.

Sacko says she has been to a hospital only once -- when someone cast a bad spell on her -- not for any physical illness.