News You May Have Missed in 2005
At a new theme park in El Alberto,
Mexico (near Mexico City), wannabe migrants to the United States can
test their survival skills at an obstacle course that replicates the
rigors migrants must endure while sneaking across the border. Admission
price: about $13.50.
–Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Feb. 20
Yamaha Corp. introduced the MyRoom, a customizable, soundproof,
shed-like structure with 27 square feet of floor space, to install
inside notoriously crowded Japanese homes, for privacy (or to be exiled
to). The company expects a sales surge in 2006, when Japan’s first wave
of baby-boom salarymen retire and begin annoying their spouses at home.
–Times (London), May 27
Thirty-five Greenpeace activists rushed onto the floor of the
International Petroleum Exchange in London intending to paralyze oil
trading on the day the Kyoto environmental initiative took effect, but
several traders turned on them, punching and kicking the protesters
until they ran for their lives. (One activist was hospitalized with a
suspected broken jaw, another with a concussion.) Said one understated
Greenpeacer, “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our
point of view.”
–Associated Press, Feb. 16; Times (London), Feb. 17