UPI NewsTrack Quirks in the News

Elephant in a bar not a good idea

ST. PAUL, Minn., Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Owners of a downtown St. Paul, Minn., bar are having trouble getting permission to have an elephant during next week's Republican National Convention.

Even if they can't swing an elephant, the owners of Shamrock's Bar & Grill to plan to offer a politics-inspired menu item during the Republican convention, "The Politician Burger," a thick baloney sandwich, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Tuesday.

Shamrock owners Ted Casper and Mike Runyon's plans for a pachyderm -- they have access to three -- didn't carry a lot of weight with city officials.

"Nothing good can come from an elephant in a bar," said Bob Kessler, chief of St. Paul's Department of Licensing and Inspections.

Runyon said he hoped an elephant would draw delegates to his place, already a watering hole for local and state politicos.

Building on the baloney theme, Runyon said Shamrock's plans to host a baloney-eating contest Tuesday -- adding that he knows landing an elephant is a long shot.

People really wanting to see an elephant can go to the St. Paul Hotel and check out a topiary.

Woman takes ride on airport baggage belt

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Officials with a Stockholm, Sweden, airport said a woman took a ride on a baggage conveyor belt after mishearing instructions from personnel.

Arlanda Airport officials said the 78-year-old woman, who was en route to Germany, misheard instructions from airport workers to take her bags to an unmanned conveyor belt after she checked in and instead climbed aboard the conveyor herself, the Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra reported Wednesday.

The conveyor took her to the baggage handling area, where personnel were able to help her down off the belt and direct her toward the passenger area of the airport.

The woman wasn't injured and was taken to the proper place in time to catch her flight, the airport told TT.

Pope sides with frog-art critic

BOLANZO, Italy, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- An Italian politician whose pet peeve is a statue of a crucified frog says he now has the pope himself on his side.

Franz Pahl told Italy's ANSA news service Wednesday that Pope Benedict XVI had sent him a letter sharing his views that the art piece on display at a museum in Bolanzo is an insult.

ANSA said the pontiff wrote earlier this month that the sculpture ''has injured the religious feeling of many people."

The meter-high work by German artist Martin Kippenberger, who died in 1997, is not particularly dignified, the report said. It features a hapless frog nailed to a cross with an egg, or perhaps a potato, in one hand and a beer stein in the other.

Pahl went on a hunger strike this summer to protest the statue.

Officials at the Museion museum moved the frog to an out-of-the-way corner, but won't get rid of it altogether. They call it a self-portrait of the artist and not a religious commentary.

Internal Notes

'No Religion' billboard inspires some

SEATTLE, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- A Seattle billboard that proposes "Imagine No Religion" has paid off with a modest membership boom for the group that sponsored it, The Seattle Times said.

The newspaper said Wednesday that the Freedom From Religion Foundation picked up five new members and about 20 prospective members after the sign went up in Seattle's Capitol Hill district.

Dan O'Connell said he signed up the day after he saw the billboard. He told the Times the sign was "extremely brave, given our current climate."

Leaders of the foundation have posted the billboards in seven cities. They told the Times it is a measure to make the views of non-religious Americans heard.

Gary Randall, president of the conservative Christian Faith and Freedom Network, told the Times that the billboard was an example of the "relentless challenge to anything Christian on the part of the minority who are atheistic and agnostic."