An anthrax scare was caused at Random House and Del Rey (where Kathleen works) today when a package was discovered brimming with white powder.
Turns out the package was postmarked April 1, and preliminary testing on the substance comes back negative. Apparently it was someone’s idea of an April Fool’s Joke.
Hilarious.
PAD
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That sucks. I wonder what goes through people’s minds.
Although I’m not sure the person responsible had much of a mind…
In retrospect, considering how much hatred of Americ the assualt on the Sovereign nation of Iraq has supposedly elicted, be lucky that it was just an April Fools Joke.
It’s only going to get uglier…of that I have no doubt…
You know, when I was in high school, and I told lame jokes, he said that the jokes were about as funny as the Holocaust, which was not funny. And now I can find something definitely as funny as the Holocaust. I hope the prankster got his thrill, because I didn’t when I read this. Maybe he thought he’d got on the national news, but hey there’s a war on, so I guess the “joke” is on him.
Again, not funny.
Jeez, whatever happened to the days where April Fool’s jokes were where Terri Austin would get upset because Chris Claremont married that Joe Duffy guy 🙂
Why can’t people be like you, Peter, where you use your twisted mind to help mankind. 😉
Reminds me of what happened to me at the company where I used to work processing forms returned by mail. One day, in late Autumn of 2001, a member of my staff opened one of our standard return envelopes (of which we handled thousands every day) to find, not the expected form, but a full page of newspaper folded-up into one of those silly hats. Except this wasn’t very silly (or funny), because the newspaper was printed in Arabic, and was coated in a suspicious white powder.
The office was evacuated and police were called.The “evidence” was confiscated, and that was that.
The scariest thing is, we never heard back from the authorities regarding the incident. I assume that, since no one called us, and no one has died since, that the “funny paper hat” was just that.
Well, not actually “funny,” maybe. Definitely a paper hat, though… in Arabic.
Tell Kathleen I empathize. And that I’m glad she (and her co-workers) are okay.
I just want to add that the “funny as the Holocaust” remark is not intended to be Anti-Semitic. I’m not Anti-Semitic, and I don’t think my friend was either. So, I don’t wish to cause offense to Peter or any other Jewish person.
I’m not *that* stupid for a Shiksa.
Charles,
FYI, a Schiska is a non-Jewish FEMALE. So, unless “Charles” is short of “Charlene” or something…
Mr. Waldo wrote:
“Why can’t people be like you, Peter, where you use your twisted mind to help mankind;)”
Amen. The world could use many more Peter Davids!
And vis-a-vis the Del Rey incident—the Tom Green wannabe’s pseudo-joke—he should leave the humor to the professionals.
C’mon, even Soup-bowl-Coiffed-goatee-face wouldn’t’ve pulled that!
And it’s pretty sad when anyone’s gag makes Green look tasteful by comparison.
FYI, a Schiska is a non-Jewish FEMALE. So, unless “Charles” is short of “Charlene” or something…
Well, I always wanted to get in touch with my feminine side.
🙂
Seriously, I did not know Shiksa applied to women. I thought the term was gender neutral.
OK, I’m not *that* stupid for a Christian
Geez, I dug myself deeper. I need to get out of this apartment once in awhile.
Again, no offense, especially with the Shiksa statement. I’m soooo embarassed. Must be thos guy hormones I have.
Charles:
The gender-neutral term your looking for is “goy”.
Actually, I seem to remember that “shaggetz” (or something similar) was the male equivalent of shiksa.
Or just call yourself a Gentile.
For Charles (and others, like myself, who might be unfamiliar with some of the Yiddish terms used around here sometimes):
http://www.pass.to/glossary
A halfway-decent Yiddish glossary, perfect for us goyem.
That’s my public service for the day…
What some people will do…
I was up visiting the DC web site, they they state they are not looking at any new writers, artists, etc… Kinda makes it hard to send in a submission if they won’t even LOOK at it. With all that Marvel is doing wrong, they at least have the brains to want to give new writers a try / chance.
…just shocked and worried…I’m sorry that you and yours had to go through summat like that….carolyn (my wife) and I had to go through the same thing in boca ratton – and we are from england in the wrong place at the wrong time…..just accept our love to you all :^X
The expression used amongst my friends is: “That’s about as funny as a dead puppy.”
The expression used amongst my friends is: “That’s about as funny as a dead puppy.”
And as we all know, dead puppies aren’t much fun, no, no, no
David
The things people do for April Fools day only forces them to live up to the name of the day.
Like the hilarious person who called up the family of a military person and regretfully announced the person had been killed in combat… Grrrr… I’m almost half-surprised that NYPD didn’t get a call about a jet headed for the Empire State Building.
Never underestimate the number of idiots out there.
This calls to mind the commercials I keep seeing for Sci-Fi’s new “comedy” show, “Scare Tactics.”
Is it just me or does this sadistic horror show look like the worst idea since the candy cigarettes I used to get while trick or treating as a kid..?
The expression used amongst my friends is: “That’s about as funny as a dead puppy.”
And as we all know, dead puppies aren’t much fun, no, no, no
Ok, its in bad taste (the puppy thing, not the powder thing, that’s reprehensible), but at least a dead puppy won’t hump your leg…
Isn’t this sort of “prank” illegal, like phoning in a false bomb scare? Anyway, I’m glad that Kathleen and the other publishing people are okay.
As for dead puppies, there *is* a hysterical song by Odgen Edsl (sic) called “Dead Puppies.” But since it’s a funny song that actually says “dead puppies aren’t much fun,” it’s very hard to say where he stands on the debate.
Anthrax hoax? God, that’s sooo last year. Shouldn’t your prankster be into fake sarin gas by now? He’ll be sending whoopee cushions next. Moron.
Since we are at least partially on the subject of April Fool’s jokes here, below is a link to what the site calls the top 100 April Fool’s pranks ever pulled:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html
In my opinion, they range from the fun and harmless, to the tasteless and irresponsible (like this Anthrax one, I hope they catch whoever did it).
Raphy
This is exactly why the professionals stay away from doing anything on 4-1. It brings out all the bad amatures.
StS
It was a hoax. The tests came back as negative. Everyone here is breathing a deep sigh of relief. Now we have to track down the mail and FedEx packages that didn’t make it to our floor that we REALLY NEEDED yesterday. SIGH
Kathleen
I work for the national bioterrorism program. These “jokes” are considered to be terroristic threats and are punishable in most areas by jail time. Hopefully this guy was stupid enough to leave some identifying information. (Assuming the police even have the manpower to pursue it.)
As for the person who never heard back on the scare from 2001, the laboratories were so overwhelmed that, unless something came back on initial tests as positive, they didn’t process them any further. And calling back results? It was definitely a “no news is good news” scenario. Not comforting to those on the other end, but the reality of life at that time.
Too bad they don’t have the resources to see what it really is. Vanilla pudding mix has been pretty popular in the hoaxes we’ve had, lately.
Sorry, but I draw the line at an anthrax scare. Telling people that John Byrne died on April 1st is funny, but not anthrax.