National University in Bogota, Colombia, prided itself on its reputation for academic excellence. Like many institutions of higher learning, it also attracted its share of student radicals from across the political spectrum.
On October 28, 1993, University President Antanas Mockus was delivering a speech at the opening of a university art show and enduring frequent interruptions with catcalls from rowdies in the audience. Finally, Mockus stopped mid-sentence, turned around, bent over, dropped his drawers and mooned the audience into a stunned silence. Score one for the prez.
Unfortunately, an enterprising student caught the whole thing on videotape. Naturally, the videotape found its way to the media. The incident was shown over and over on national TV, and stills from the tape made it into print. Radio talk shows were abuzz with calls for his censure, his ouster, his head. He had damaged the image of higher education and of the country itself, according to some.
But there were others such as the columnist who wrote: “That he showed his pale buttocks to some disrespectful, bus-burning anarchists is a thing I understand.”
Mockus made a tearful mea culpa appearance on TV, placing his fate with the Colombian president. And he survived. Two years later he was elected Mayor of Bogota. But maybe mooning was in his blood. In 2018, now age 65 and a Congressman, Mockus mooned his fellow legislators who were interrupting the outgoing president’s farewell speech.
You May Not Kiss the Bride
Elsa Lanchester, born in London on October 28, 1902, enjoyed a long show business career first in England then with her husband Charles Laughton in the United States. Her most famous role was probably that of the title character in the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein ( a good choice for a Halloween movie). She starred with Laughton in a dozen films before his death in 1962. She died in 1986.
Wretched Richard's Almanac 