Sorry about the snowflakes + swami dust.(Was RE: Assault Donuts)

Xeni Jardin xeni at xeni.net
Sat Oct 20 23:58:32 PDT 2001


> My Norcal culture-informant has forwarded
> a picture of a sign from a <SF-area>
> bathroom which reads in red serif:
>
> "Due to recent world events,
> please clean up all body powder
> before leaving the locker room"

Other than the fact that a number of the scares are very real, the whole thing
keeps feeling more and more like a bad Monty Python episode. Friday's British
Medical Journal, cited in another AP anthrax roundup story below, describes the
free-floating bioterror anxiety as "mass sociogenic illness." As Ken Alibek
testified before the House this week, the primary desired effect is
psychological disruption, not body count...

<<...An Australian lawmaker's office was sealed off amid confusion over ashes
from a Hindu temple, and American Express apologized for sending plastic
snowflakes to Swedish customers as anthrax scares multiplied worldwide on
Friday....

Parliament security officers in Australia's New South Wales state sealed off the
office of a lawmaker after a worker found a package full of ashes postmarked
from the ``Wandering Swamy of Arunchala Hills.''

The package, the lawmaker later explained, was holy ash from a swami he met
during a recent trip to India.

American Express Co. said Friday it will send letters of apology to some 40,000
Swedish card holders who received a promotional Christmas mailing containing an
envelope with plastic snowflakes marked ``spread these out.'' The mailing
prompted angry phone calls.

``We understand that people are upset,'' said spokeswoman Gunnel Engberg. ``They
complained that the timing was inadequate, not that it was dangerous in any
way.'' >>

<http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011019/wl/anthrax_overseas_17.html>





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list