Lead Stories
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A May San Jose Mercury News story reported on a craze among Japanese youth for rap, hip-hop, and an African-American lifestyle. The kids curl their hair into Afro-like hairdos, darken their skin, and drink a brand of beer called Dunk, which is apparently popular because it’s dark and associated with basketball. And in June Japanese students studying at a workshop in New York City performed gospel music at Harlem’s Memorial Baptist Church to enthusiastic applause. Said the former Tokyo jazz club owner who started the workshops, “The black culture is very important in Japan.”
The eternal flame under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, a sacred memorial to the nation’s war dead, was briefly extinguished on June 30 when two inebriated tourists from Mexico urinated on it. French officials and Mexico’s ambassador to France relit it in a joint ceremony the next day. The perpetrators were detained briefly and then released.
Rumbles in the Reading Room
Life imitates a bad sitcom: In June three retired police chiefs from the Syracuse, New York, area started a business to supplement their pensions–a doughnut shop, in nearby Lakeland. Said one, “We took our…police experience and put it toward what we know best.”
Least Competent Criminals
New York divorce and palimony lawyer Raoul Felder praised the nation’s economy in the Washington Post in May: “I can tell you how the economy is doing by how many mistresses come into my office looking for justice. I don’t need no Greenspan.”
