NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE: FUN WITH THIRD WORLD TOURISM

I like to call this first section fun with the Dominican Republic's tourism industry. These are actual tourism industry news headlines for the island nation.

"Clamping down on child prostitution," well there goes the pervert crowd and we'll never get Woody Allen to do a film here.

"Stopping prostitution at the root," and in a related story Waking up neutered, next on the Dominican's favorite talk show "Donahue."

"Tourism sector wants to attract more than the all-inclusive tourists," yeah we want pick pockets, thugs and why not more hookers too.

"Brothels closed in Sosua," and in a related story Men no longer wish to visit Sosua.

"Carnival bases ship in Santo Domingo," and Cathy Lee's advance team has hired an all underage crew.

And headlines that will cause a panic anywhere: "French tourism forecasted," and "Polish airline wants to fly here."

One simple comment from Missouri before we move on to more fruitful passages, in this country you can call the president a womanizing, draft dodging, liberal freak, but if things go terribly wrong in the state legislature (and I mean by that the passage of the anti-farm basher bill) you won't be able to say "Hey, farmer Jones your cabbage sucks."

Well, off to Miami...

It has been thrown around in various circles that the dumbest people in society are destined to lead and now there's proof. Thanks to Miami's mayor, the long held belief that elected officials might not be carrying a full load upstairs has now been substantiated somewhat.

Miami's mayor, Xavier Suarez, recently left a voice mail message at the Miami Herald, the leading newspaper in South Florida, stating that if the paper didn't start treating him and his people nicer he was going to pull the city's advertising in the paper. The paper responded by placing the recorded message on the Internet and placing the story on the front page.

Let's file that one under, mayor's PR staff out sick today.

The Scotland Daily Record and Sunday Mail reported travelers at Heathrow Airport were misunderstanding a Scottish Insurance Company's advertisement. The ad for Scottish Widows features a sexy model in a black robe with a phone number where you call for life insurance.

Some foreign travelers thought the ad meant it was an escort service and were calling with extracurricular activities in mind for the insurance company's operators. Let's file this one under the often misunderstood airport term "lay over."

Well, traveling a few miles south to the Electronic Telegraph for the story about the two fugitive pigs that broke away more than a week ago from the butcher. One pig is still at large and the other, though captured, is destined to live out a peaceful life and not become pork tenderloin.

The remaining pig, which is five months old, is surrounded in a thicket of woods and underbrush and is being unsuccessfully wooed by a full grown sow. It seems there are perverts in the pig world as well.

The pigs busted away from the butcher shop and swam across a river and roamed the countryside until they were spotted in a farmer's garden and the police were notified. Be on the lookout for Babe II the pig that thinks its a fish.

Well, enough about that it's off to the L.A. Times, R.J. Reynolds tobacco is in trouble again this time when proof that they were seeking to addict minors to their cigarettes was leaked.

The quote that got me was from a 1974 presentation by vice president C.A. Tucker: "this young adult market, the 14-24 age group...represent tomorrow's cigarette business. As this 14-24 age group matures they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume--for at least the next 25 years."

For at least the next 25 years.

Yeah, and then they'll be dead and we'll have to move on to the next group.