WhiteBoard News for Tuesday, December 2, 2003
London, England (Reuters):
A 59-year-old retired builder from Yorkshire, northern England, was shocked to discover he is in fact a tribal chief with a claim to thousands of acres of land in Canada, British newspapers reported on Friday.
Mick Henry, the son of an English mother and a Canadian soldier over in Britain during World War II, was recently tracked down via the Internet by his long-lost Native Canadian relatives from the Ojibway tribe in the province of Manitoba.
"I never thought something like this could happen to anyone, certainly not someone like me," Henry told the Daily Mail newspaper.
"They are still looking for a proper ceremonial name for me. I thought they still lived in tents and went hunting for their food. In fact they all have lovely houses and enjoy a wonderful lifestyle," he said.
Henry's father was an Ojibway who returned to Canada soon after his son was born. He never maintained contact and died in 1998.
The Daily Mail published recent pictures of Henry reunited in Canada with some of the 70 members of his tribe, all dressed in ceremonial clothing and headdresses.
Henry is also apparently hoping to cash-in on his new-found heritage and sudden celebrity status.
When contacted by telephone by Reuters, a Henry family spokeswoman said: "He is not speaking to the media about his story any more without a fee."
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Angra dos Reis, Brazil (Ananova):
A remote tribe in the Brazilian jungle are now online after a charity gave them five battery-powered computers.
The Guarani tribe who live deep in the Atlantic jungle, near Angra dos Reis, have even come up with their own word for the internet.
The word they created, in their Tupi language, translates as "where you can put words, documents and knowledge".
The natives learnt how to use the computers in a week long course run by the charity which gave them the computers.
Volunteer Lucas Benite told Jornal Hoje: "Through the internet they can connect with other tribes and learn about the world. That is very important to them."
Tribe chief Veramirim, 92, commented: "I have always told my people to learn how to write but I also want to see them value our culture."
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New York, New York (Reuters):
Forget puttin' on the Ritz. Try puttin' on the Mandarin Oriental.
New York's new Mandarin Oriental 250-room hotel offers a suite with a $12,595 nightly pricetag, beating out the Ritz-Carlton by almost $100 as the costliest overnight lodging in the Big Apple.
The Mandarin's Presidential Suite, set to open to the public in January, includes a full kitchen, formal dining room, living room with high-definition flat-screen LCD televisions, baby grand piano, panoramic views of Central Park and the Hudson River and Asian-themed art worth almost $1 million.
The wood-panelled suite includes high-tech surround sound, an entertainment system, wet bar, office/media room and French-marbled foyer floors. The master bath has a two-person steam shower and a deep-soaking tub overlooking the park.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg attended a Feng Shui-inspired ribbon-cutting ceremony at the hotel on Monday.
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London, England (Reuters):
No embarrassment will be spared on Wednesday when rock star Sting presents one of Britain's least-desired literary awards -- the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
Now in its 11th year, the dubious honor is awarded by the Literary Review magazine for the most inept description of sexual intercourse in a novel.
Nominated authors for this year's prize include John Updike, Paul Theroux, Paulo Coelho and Alan Parker.
Among the climactic passages in the contest is one from former BBC radio executive Rod Liddle's "Too Beautiful for You."
"She came with the exhilarating whoops and pant-hoots of a troop of Rhesus monkeys, which was flattering, if alarming."
Motoring themes are to the fore. In Tama Janowitz's "Peyton Amberg" a lover's intimate probing of the heroine is "as if he was searching for lost car keys," while in Aniruddha Bahal's "Bunker 13" a female partner "picks up a Bugatti's momentum."
Musical metaphors are also well represented.
The multi-orgasmic female narrator of Paolo Coelho's "Eleven Minutes" reaches Heaven -- "I was the earth, the mountains, the tigers, the rivers that flowed into the lakes, the lake that became the sea."
Sting, who once boasted that yoga had improved his sexual endurance, will present the prize Wednesday evening after each of the competing passages have been read to a 500-strong audience.
Previous winners include AA Gill, Sebastian Faulks and Melvyn Bragg.
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