Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Steve S. Kim, a postal worker from Des Plaines, Illinois, became the first person to go postal and go global at the same time when he fired seven shots in front of the United Nations to protest human rights abuses in North Korea. FBI agents escorted him to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where they promised not to go medieval. The hog industry asked the government to buy 94 million pounds of frozen pork -- three times the amount the Department of Agriculture bought last year for the school lunch program. Attention Jewish third graders: next year could be HELL. Advertisement An arsonist torched the Cedar Bridge in Winterset, Iowa, pictured on the cover of James Waller's "The Bridges of Madison County." The chief suspects are deconstructionist English professors. The Pentagon narrowed its list of military options for Iraq. A surprise attack is now out. Advertisement A record 3.6 million British viewers tuned in for the Channel 5 documentary "Michael Jackson's Face," which chronicled the singer's changing appearance over the past 30 years, complete with interviews with psychologists calling him "bizarre" and "unnatural." In the closing segment, psychologist Eileen Bradbury speculates about where Jackson will be in 10 years. "It looks fairly bleak, really," she says. "With somebody on his trajectory, there is always the fear that in the end there's nowhere to go, apart from complete self-destruction." Not true -- there's always that starring role in "Phantom of the Opera." Uri Even will become the first openly gay member of Israel's Knesset after being named by the Meretz Party to replace a retiring member. Nissim Zeev, a member of the orthodox Shas Party, said that Even is "making sodomite vermin kosher," which sounds like something Lucy Ricardo would sell door-to-door in the Catskills. For the second time in four months, reporters at The Washington Post withheld their bylines from articles in a protest over their union contract. Predictably, there were riots all over the District of Columbia as readers were deprived of their morning ritual of studying the names of people they've never heard of. Advertisement The Museum of Sex opened at Fifth Avenue and 27th Street, and like all New York institutions, it already has a hip nickname: MoSex. Curators promise everything you want to know about prostitution, burlesque, birth control, obscenity, sex scandals and, of course, midget-flogging. A saffron-robed Buddhist monk took 30 people hostage with an AK-47 in the Thailand Parliament building, berating officials on his cell phone and firing into the air, before being tackled by cops posing as reporters. He was having a bad karma day. Oprah Winfrey bought seven beachfront properties on the island of Maui, including one parcel containing the bones of the volcano goddess Pele. Pele has no idea. Sony Music introduced its most elaborate CD copy-protection technology, and within a week newsgroups had discovered that by scribbling on the rim of a Sony CD with a felt-tip marker, it can be copied just fine. Sony's next plan is to buy up all the felt-tip markers. The Capital Christian School in Sacramento expelled a five-year-old girl after finding out her mother, Christina Silvas, works as a stripper. Yes, Jesus loved hookers, but the Bible doesn't say ANYTHING about exotic dancers. Faced with declining market share, Victoria's Secret will start carrying more boring "everyday" bras, instead of the lacy push-up varieties. No word yet on how easy they'll be to unfasten at close quarters. Advertisement Mitzi Pumphrey of Sandusky, Ohio, claims that a Wendy's chicken sandwich exploded on her face and hands, causing severe burns. Her lawyer explained that the design of the hot chicken sandwich is faulty, and that Wendy's fails to put warning labels on it, making future explosions not only possible but, post 9/11, highly likely. Women who have frequent unprotected sex are less likely to be depressed than women who do not, according to New York University research psychologists. The secret: semen contains hormones and other chemicals that function as antidepressants. The longer a woman goes without contacting the semen, the more depressed she gets. Women having unprotected sex attempt suicide at a rate of only 4.5 percent, compared to 13.2 percent when the partner uses a condom. The research confirms the scientific principle established two decades ago by Monty Python on behalf of the Catholic church, expressed in the production number in "The Meaning of Life." The new Center for the Development of Peace and Well-Being at the University of California/Berkeley -- where else? -- will scientifically explore "inner peace" through the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, biology, African-American studies and Latino studies. (What, no Divinity School?) Sign up now for courses like "Tradition and Healing in the Canadian Inuit" and "Self-Esteem Across the Life Course," because sometime this fall, as an experiment, we intend to set off a cherry bomb in the lobby to see how much inner peace they have. Advertisement Scenes from our secure republic: Cincinnati International Airport was evacuated and closed for three hours after a screener found a cigar cutter in a man's boot. The terminal was searched with bomb-sniffing dogs and the man was arrested on "drug-related" charges. There are many reasons for keeping a cutter in your boot, and most of them have more to do with Dionne Warwick than Osama Bin Laden. (Joe Bob Briggs writes several columns for UPI. Contact him at [email protected] or through his Web site, joebobbriggs.com.)
