The Odd Truth, Sept. 13, 2002
The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Brian Bernbaum. A new collection of stories is published each weekday. On weekends, you can read a week's worth of The Odd Truth.
Cadbury Eat Your Heart Out
BOMBAY - Hindu devotees struggled to prevent a six-foot chocolate idol of an elephant-headed god, Ganesh, from melting in the scorching heat.
Thousands of people lined up for a glimpse of the unusual idol on display in an air-conditioned tin shed in the city where temperatures soar as high as 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Our biggest worry is to make sure the idol doesn't melt," Prafullachandra Bilaye, who constructed the model, told Reuters. "So far it has not lost its shape."
The idol, made with a core of plaster of Paris coated with 130 pounds of chocolate cubes and adorned with flower garlands and ornaments, has been made for an annual 10-day Hindu festival.
Its chocolate neck, hands and feet are painted in shocking pink and aquamarine blue.
During festivities devotees, seeking good luck and prosperity, worship brightly painted clay idols and immerse them in the sea.
Like the others, the chocolate idol will eventually be immersed in the sea with great pomp and pageantry, to the sound of beating drums and clashing cymbals.
The ancient ritual has been celebrated for more than 150 years in India's western state of Maharashtra. (Reuters)
Howitzer Surprise
KIEV - A Ukrainian scrap metal worker destroyed two roofs and singed his face when he cut into a 1940s howitzer and accidentally fired off a shell no one had noticed was lodged inside.
Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported the worker had heated the metal by cutting the gun and had triggered the shell, which flew about 800 yards. It said there were no other casualties in the central Ukrainian city of Berdychiv.
The news agency also said the company had paid for repairs to the roofs but work at the scrap yard had been stopped after local prosecutors launched a criminal investigation.
Ukraine, situated between Russia and an expanding European Union, has a huge arsenal of rusting weapons, which often end up in the country's dozens of scrap yards. (Reuters)
Levis Launches 'Anti-Radiation' Jeans
BRUSSELS - U.S. jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. denied it was playing on consumer fears by launching a line of trousers fitted with "anti-radiation" pockets for mobile phones.
The trousers, with a lining which the makers say shields against radiation, are designed by Dockers, a brand name of Levi Strauss -- famous for its classic "501" jeans.
Retailers were currently viewing the new line, called Icon S-Fit, with an eye to sales from next spring, a Levi's spokesman said.
"We're not implying in any way that mobile phones are dangerous," Levi's European communications manager Cedric Jungpeter told Reuters.
"Our intention is not to cash in on consumer fears but provide the consumers with what they want," he said from Levi's European headquarters in Brussels.
The finished design was the fruit of extensive market research showing that the fashion conscious were also health conscious, Jungpeter said.
"The debate is open. Although no study has proved mobile phones are harmful, no study has proved the contrary either," he added. (Reuters)
Talk Show Host Gets The Point, Candidate May Get Boot
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Some political campaigns get ugly.
This one got wet.
Now, California's Libertarian Party is considering dropping its candidate for governor because he spat on a radio talk show host.
The party's 12-member executive committee is set to meet Saturday to vote on whether to rescind support for Gary Copeland, who admitted to The Orange County Register he spat on the host.
"We were mortified when we first heard of this. It takes 10 votes of the executive committee, and we have the votes," said party chairman Aaron Starr. "The party has to take a stand on this."
Copeland said he spat on KABC radio host Mark Whitman after Whitman switched off Copeland's microphone during an interview Sunday at the station's Los Angeles studio, the newspaper reported Thursday.
The host turned off the mike when Copeland was recounting past abuses of immigrants and suggested that Whitman supported such treatment. Copeland got up to leave, heard several on-air comments from Whitman, then turned and spat on him.
"Since I could not say what I believed, I thought I would show what I believed," Copeland said.
The party has about 98,000 registered members in California. (AP)
Russian UFO Seeks Funding
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - Former Soviet fighter pilot Yuri Bezrukov dreams about a UFO. In this case it's an unfunded flying object. Bezrukov has a Russian patent on what he calls a flying disk powered by unconventional means. He's seeking $15 million in investment capital to put his saucer into production. Bezrukov says his five-seat saucer will be able to fly at more than 400 miles an hour. He contends it's the perfect flying machine to rise above rush-hour traffic or for a quick hop to the beach. He claims to have built a flying model of the saucer. He says it's powered by a radical system of air ducts, which makes the saucer pop into the air like a champagne cork. (AP)
Starbucks Closes In On Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa - Sick of Starbucks? Then cross Iowa off your list. Iowa had been one of seven states without a Starbucks coffee shop. But that ends today with opening of a Starbucks in downtown Des Moines. There are plans for another in a suburban shopping center. Starbucks regional marketing manager Suzanne DeChant says coffee-loving Iowans were feeling left out. While it seems that many American cities boast a Starbucks on nearly every corner, there are still six states without one. You won't find a free-standing Starbucks in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas and West Virginia. Starbucks has more than 56-hundred outlets in more 29 countries -- and now in Iowa, too. (AP)
Fat People March Against Discrimination
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - About 30 people -- mostly women dressed in oversized orange T-shirts -- have turned out for what they call a "fat parade."
The parade took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, near the site where the European Union has been holding a conference on obesity.
Marchers say they want to call attention to the discrimination faced by overweight people.
In particular, a march organizer says, participants are focusing on how overweight people are treated by the health care system and society in general.
Meanwhile, EU health and medical officials are discussing ways to deal with the rising number of overweight people in the 15-nation organization. (AP)