Teens Try to Sell Negroes
Annapolis — In yet another example of the adverse effects of television on young people, Maryland law enforcement agents arrested seven youths in connection with a slave ring. According to agents, the youths, males aged fifteen to eighteen, flew to Gambia, took ninety-eight blacks hostage and brought them to Annapolis on a commercial liner. Once in Annapolis, the youths distributed handbills offering the blacks for sale.
« We saw Roots on TV » one of the youths told reporters. « We thought we could make good money selling slaves. »
The youths planned to use the money they made from the slave sale to buy stereo equipment.
Pendant ce temps en Chine :
Fear 8,000,000 Spared in Chinese Quakes
Peking — Chinese officials expressed concern that as many as 8,000,000 people may have survived a series of earthquakes that rocked northern Chinese provinces this month.
Leaders had seen the quakes, which all measured better than 7.5 on the Richter scale, as a way to meet clothing, food and housing quotas for the new year. The Chinese are hoping that floods brought on by the crumbling of earth dams will give them at least a portion of the fatalities they so desperately need. UN offers of aid for the striken areas were called « insensitive, cruel, and a deliberate attempt to tamper with the internal instability of China an its peoples. »
National Lampoon, août 1977.
