EVIL IMAGINATION
Now as Jan-nes and Jam-bres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
—II Tim. 3:8
1422 Fun With Air Hoses
Certain workers in a defense plant found out that air hoses could be lots of fun. So one jokester crept up to another man who was taking a nap near his locker at lunch hour.
The prankster tied the man’s sleeves and cuffs tight, then “goosed” him with tremendous pressures in the hose. The pressure collapsed the victim’s insides and killed him.
1423 Removing Traffic Sign
Pranksters in Shawnee, Oklahoma, took a stop sign away from a highway intersection and left it half a mile up the road. Chuckling as they drove off, they soon heard the results of their practical joke on the radio.
The Reverend Clifford L. Head, still in his thirties was driving his station wagon, filled with the four other members of his family, past the intersection, when another car zoomed out of the warningless side road, directly into the front of the station wagon. Pastor Head was killed instantly. His wife had both arms and legs broken. She and the children and the other driver all had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency aid.
1424 Another Sign Removed
A car loaded with teenagers was traveling north on a lonely country road. It was not exceeding the speed limit. These young people were on their way home from the Sunday morning service at their little church. Another car, driven by a mother with her two small children, was traveling west. At the intersection, the two cars met and crashed. Two teenage girls were killed instantly, and the mother was also killed. The body of one small child was later found many feet away in a cornfield. One young boy was crippled.
The criminal in this case was not at the scene of the accident. Pranksters had stolen the stop sign the previous night. Consequently, there was no stop sign at the intersection. Those pranksters are still the object of a search throughout the country, for they are, in truth, guilty of mass murder!
—Patricia Colas Oviatt
1425 Banking The Bomb
Some years ago a man by the name of Reinhold Faust was sent to prison for fourteen months. In a safety deposit box of a Chicago bank he had hidden four bombs, to be used in future robberies. In order to remove all evidence, he threw away the key when he was sent to prison. But he still had a problem. He had to pay the rent on the safe deposit box regularly, or the bank would open the box and discover the bombs. For twenty-one years he paid that rent. His secret was revealed when the company decided to move, opened the box, and discovered the bombs.
—Authur Tonne
1426 Smoking And Secret Spies
A retired British spy once revealed the construction of a pipe of his own design that, although it smoked constantly, had a secret space between its inside and outside walls in which he carried his tissue paper notes. If the man should be accosted, he would have simply given an innocent twist to the overlapping rim which would have made the hidden chamber a part of the bowl and caused the incriminating papers to be destroyed by the burning tobacco.
1427 A Kamikaze Lover
From London, a lovelorn pilot who threatened a kamikaze suicide dive onto the home of his girlfriend after a quarrel with her, forced authorities of the seaside town of Bognor Regis in southern England to evacuate all the people living near the house.
For 90 minutes the unidentified 35 year-old pilot carried out a series of low-level dives over the house in a Piper Cherokee light aircraft.
All traffic in the neighborhood was halted and people were ordered to leave their homes. The pilot later landed in a nearby field and was arrested without a struggle after a helicopter hovered over his aircraft to prevent him from leaving.
1428 Equal Minds In Congress?
Rep. Harold Knutson paid Clare Boothe Luce, then Representative from Connecticut, a compliment on the House floor. “She has the best mind of any woman in the House,” he said with a courtly bow. Representative Luce was not having any of that kind of flattery. She said solemnly, “The mind knows no sex.”
Rep. Luther Patrick stood up. “If the lady believes that,” he said, “she doesn’t know the mind of man.”
—New York Times
1429 Dying Over A Dare
Johnny Urso of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was only nine years old, but his playmates dared him to touch a 23,000 volt transmission wire near his home. Young as he was he knew it was risky and even dangerous. He refused. Again and again they dared him, calling him coward and “chicken.” He stood the taunts as long as he could, and then rashly decided to take the dare. As he climbed up the steel pole he was cheered by his companions until he actually began to think that he was really brave. When he got to the top, he looked down at his gang and then quickly touched the powerful wire. The shock threw him several feet higher than the pole and he landed on the network of wires. The rescuers worked an hour before they managed to remove him. Johnny died the next day from third-degree burns.
1430 Uproar Over Speech Forgery
Washington (REUTER)—A ghost writer, sneaking around the House of Representatives forging speeches has touched off a minor congressional uproar and a government investigation.
The culprit, it seems, has been writing speeches, attributing them to members, and getting them inserted in the daily congressional record, which reports the proceeding from the previous day.
Speaker Carl Albert brought the matter to light during a short speech denouncing the unknown writer and ordering all congressmen to sign the remarks they want placed in the record.
1431 Tired Of Releasing Brakes
One night police in Hazelton, Pa., received an anonymous call: “I’m tired of releasing brakes on parked vehicles. Now I’m going to bed.” Soon police received complaints that 18 cars and one truck—all parked on a steep hill—had been broken into and set rolling. A number of vehicles crashed into buildings, and damage was estimated at $16,000.
1432 Damaged By Plagiarism Suit
The most damaging plagiarism suit brought in this country was that against Richard Walton Tully in 1912 by a woman who claimed his play, The Bird of Paradise, had been stolen from one she had written. Not having any play to show the court, she disappeared until 1924 when she returned, reopened the case, produced a manuscript and was awarded $781,990. In 1930, the decision was reversed by the N. Y. State Court of Appeals which found no resemblance between the two plays. The battle to clear his name cost Tully his fortune and left him unable to write during the remaining 15 years of his life.
—Freling Foster
1433 Some Sleeping, Some Awake
Summing up his troubles as Secretary of State, Dean Rusk told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, with a sigh: “The world is round. Only one-third of the people of the world are asleep at any given moment. The other two-thirds are awake and probably stirring up mischief somewhere.”
1434 Epigram On Evil Imagination
• “Men of imagination,” said Napoleon, “rule the world.”
• Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor, to console him for what he is.
—Wall Street Journal
• Employer: “Look here, what did you mean by telling me you had five year’s experience when you’ve never even had a job before?”
>Young man: “Well, you advertised for a man with imagination.”
See also: Fierce ; Quarrelsome ; Violent Times ; Isa. 47:10; 59:7; Jer 4:22