Archive for July 2nd, 2003
Strom Thurmond’s Black Daughter
I’ve heard South Carolinians say this in private for years: a long time ago, Strom Thurmond fathered a daughter with a black woman. And he’d always been very supportive of both mother and child. Not many people talk about it, and the media has never run with the story.
Well, Jack W. sends along this compelling article. Looks like the rumors were true.
The Border Between Ecuador and Peru
Ecuadorians and Peruvians may be be playing nice along their border these days, but lemme tell you this: both camps will rip you off if you give ‘em the chance.
In March, I made the crossing from Huaquillas (in Ecuador) to Tumbes (in Peru). I dumbly changed money along the border and was given fake bills. And then a Peruvian border guard, upon learning I was heading down to Tumbes, offered to hook me up with a working woman that night. (I declined.) Finally, a couple cab drivers tried to scam me, but I escaped their clutches.
A friend of mine who made the same journey a few days later was also given fake Peruvian currency by a group of men he met just after stepping off the bus. Then he took a cab driven by another couple of the guys from the group; when he tried to pay with the bogus bills, the Peruvian drivers wouldn’t accept them.
“But I got this money from your friends,” he said. “Oh, no,” they replied. “Those weren’t our friends. Those guys were Ecuadorians.”