-Caveat Lector-
Search for MORE News of the WEIRD.
LEAD STORIES
Students in the pornography course (COL 289 in the catalog) at Wesleyan
University, Middletown, Conn., submitted as final graded projects fiction,
photography, a video of a man's eyes as he masturbates, and in one case, a
bondage performance in which a female begs to be whipped with a rubber
cat-o'-nine-tails, according to a May report in the Hartford Courant. Said
one student, when asked by a reporter how his parents would react to a course
on porn: "(They'd) shrug and say, 'That's what kids do these days; they make
porn at school.'"
In February, North Korean Woo Yong Gak, 69, was released from prison in South
Korea, where he had been detained since 1958 and was the world's longest-held
political prisoner. Still 38 years short of that record, in a jail in
Bradenton, Fla., Palestinian researcher Mazen Al-Najjar just completed his
second year of confinement without being told of the evidence against him.
Al-Najjar, a U.S. resident for 15 years with three American-born children,
faces deportation for some sort of association with a terrorist group, the
nature of which the U.S. Justice Department has repeatedly refused to
disclose, citing national security.
In March, for the first time, not only was the Miss Thailand beauty contest
televised nationally, but so was the Miss Tiffany Universe contest, which is
the equivalent for Thailand's male-to-female transsexuals. An April
Associated Press report from Bangkok concluded, after polling many viewers,
that at least one of the Tiffany Universe finalists made Miss Thailand look
"positively mousy" and that the Tiffany Universe winner was "every bit as
feminine" as Miss Thailand.
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Latest Religious Messages
In February, Kahr Arms of Worcester, Mass., a gun manufacturer under the
umbrella of the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon (who insists he's
doing the work of Jesus), announced it had purchased AutoOrdinance Corp.,
manufacturer of the Thompson machine gun ("tommy gun"). Kahr (run by Rev.
Moon's son) was already prominent for its high-quality line of small, potent
handguns. "What's the message?" asked one critic, interviewed by The
Washington Post: "Turn the other cheek, or lock and load?"
In February in New Westminster, British Columbia, a court acquitted three of
the four Sikhs arrested in a 1997 brawl at a local temple that began when
newer members started sitting in chairs at tables in the dining hall while
traditional members insisted on the holiness of sitting on the floor. (In
September, in Broward County, Fla., a traditionalist, no-furniture Sikh
opened fire in a local temple, killing one man.)
Recent Apparitions: Yuba City, Calif., January: the image of Mary appeared in
a knothole in a tree; Wareham, Mass., February: the image of Jesus appeared
in the wood grain of a door in an Episcopalian Church; Union City, Calif.,
March: the image of Jesus appeared in an unfinished concrete wall at the
Buddhist Purple Lotus University.
In March, Walter Gene Grassie, 49, a former protestant minister whose
eight-year affair with a married Mormon woman had recently ended, was
convicted of vandalism at several Mormon churches in New Mexico, causing $2.5
million in damages, apparently because he thought the woman's religion was
the only thing preventing her from divorcing her husband and marrying
Grassie. Prosecutors said he also wrote graffiti calling the woman a
"(Mormon) whore." The two had fallen in love shortly after forming the
touring musical act, Pecos Valley Yodelers.
Ten days apart in April, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority and the
official newspaper of the Catholic archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, issued
rulings that miracle and prayer advertisements were deceptive and could no
longer be published under their auspices. The British organization spokesman
said a church advertising miracles would have to provide proof "just like a
company that makes washing powder," and the Cincinnati newspaper banned ads
thanking particular saints for answering their prayers.
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First Things First
In April, several fire trucks speeding down the Massachusetts Turnpike with
sirens blaring and lights flashing, en route to help battle a brushfire
around the town of Westfield, were delayed a few minutes when a tolltaker
insisted on charging each driver. A turnpike spokesman said the tolltaker had
been counseled. Similarly, in February, an ambulance rushing a severely
burned man from Gibraltar to Seville, Spain, could not escape the $4 toll.
Firefighters in Kawasaki, Japan, freed a 5-month-old girl from a
coin-operated, 13-by-13-by-24-inch locker in April after her parents had
deposited her there while they had dinner at a nearby restaurant. The parents
were reprimanded, but not arrested.
Edmonton, Alberta, pizza delivery driver Thomasz Leszczewski, 26, was
arrested in April and charged with a hit-and-run fatality. According to
police, Leszczewski hit a 43-year-old pedestrian while out on a delivery but
merely proceeded with his rounds, and police caught up to him dropping off a
pizza a few minutes later.
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The New PTA
Richmond, Calif., March: The father of a fourth-grader stabbed the teacher in
a disagreement over the girl's progress. Danville, Ky., February: The
grandmother of a middle-school student smashed the teacher in the head with
the name plate on his desk in a disagreement about the student's progress.
Boston, March: The father of a high school student who got a D-minus in
conduct, which the father was disputing, punched the teacher in the face,
breaking his jaw. (The father is also an associate minister of the Greater
Love Tabernacle.)
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Thinning the Herd
In Lubbock, Texas, in March, a bomb being made by Robert Keith Hill, 24,
intended for an abortion clinic, exploded in his lap, killing him. And in
Tampa, Fla., in April, a 28-year-old man in the passenger seat of a pickup
truck was killed after he decided to open the door and climb to the back of
the truck at 55 mph; he fell and was crushed under the rear wheel. And a
15-year-old boy at the prestigious Eton College in London (attended by
Princes William and Harry) was killed in February while playing the "fainting
game" between supper and prayer time; the object is for kids put a cord
around another kid's neck and tighten it slowly until he faints.
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Thinning-the-Herd Process Defeated
Following news of the March birth in Los Angeles of a baby who was conceived
with sperm that had been retrieved hours after his father's death, Pam Reno
of Cold Springs, Nev., told reporters that she hopes soon to find a surrogate
mother to have her grandchild, using frozen sperm that was retrieved from her
20-year-old son, who died in September. (The procedure is awaiting an ethics
panel decision by the Northern Nevada Fertility Center.) However, the genes
Reno will be perpetuating (her son's) will be those of a 20-year-old who died
playing Russian roulette with his friends.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla.
33738, or [EMAIL PROTECTED])
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