A festive humbug
BYRON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Jason Lee insists he's not declaring war on Christmas, despite what the colorful lights on his lawn spell out.
His display of holiday decorations includes the phrase "Bah-hum-bug."
"I like the holidays, and I've always decorated for Christmas," Lee told The Grand Rapids Press. "Can't have too many lights."
Lee, 28, a sheet-metal worker, said he was just having fun with the display when he included the sour sentiment made famous by Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."
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"They're a real nice family," said neighbor Sandy Yocum. "I don't think they're Scrooges at all."
Fake snow a big hit
MADRID, Spain - The last time it snowed in the sun-baked town of Lepe in southern Spain was in 1954. Now the stuff is falling every day - promptly at 8 p.m., for exactly 15 minutes - thanks to a mayor keen on concocting a white Christmas.
A pair of cannons blasting frozen precipitate over the town square have proven such a hit in Lepe - a town of 22,000 better known for its beaches and lush crops of strawberries - that human and traffic gridlock ensue every evening at snow time.
"More than anything we are doing it for the younger people, who have never seen snow," Mayor Manuel Andres Gonzalez said last week, as quoted by El Pais newspaper.
The fake weather is scheduled to last until Jan. 6.
OK, fine. You're alive
BELLEVUE, Neb. - Margaret C. Morris and her insurance company now agree: She's alive.
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Several months ago, her insurance company, Medicare or both dropped her coverage because they presumed the 95-year-old woman was dead.
"It's disgusting and it's irritating and it's frustrating, and if you can think of any other words, go ahead and use them," Morris said. "And I'm not dead."
Morris' daughter, Margaret Spring, said the problem started when she fired her mother's hospice nurse. Spring thinks a hospice official checked the wrong box or typed in the wrong code when the agency was dismissed, making Medicare - and, later, her insurer - believe Morris was dead.
"I just want her back among the living," Spring said of her mother's situation. "It's not funny."
United American Insurance Co., which handled Morris' Medicare prescription coverage, checked with the regional Medicare office and verified last week that Morris was indeed among the living.
Today's best bet
Fargo Theatre noon organ concert
Area organists perform holiday classics
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Fargo Theatre
Free; audience members are encouraged to bring nonperishable food donations for the food pantry
(701) 239-8385
If there's something you want to see in The Rail, e-mail Features Editor John Lamb at jlamb@forumcomm.com
