xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
The school board that governs Lombardy, Ontario, acceded to the request of an offended parent in February and removed the word “gun” from a primary school spelling-test list.
Also in February, the head teacher at the Park Road nursery school in West Yorkshire, England, issued instructions that “The Three Little Pigs” and other stories featuring pigs not be used, in order not to offend Muslims. (The Muslim Council of Britain immediately denounced the decision, and the instructions were rescinded.)
In December, a judge in Fort Myers, Fla., cleared immigration lawyer Maria Lara Peet, 40, to practice again, excusing her theft of $73,000 from a client the year before, as long as she paid it back. Peet was found to have been mentally ill at the time of the theft but competent to practice law again a year later. (Several years before that, she had been involuntarily hospitalized for a mental illness.)
The CIA convened an open panel of scientists in January to discuss potential terrorist uses of life-science research, and the panel concluded that, despite the risks, openness in scientific study was absolutely crucial; in April, the CIA suppressed the panel’s conclusions on openness as classified.
In March, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia accepted an award by the Cleveland City Club for his contributions to freedom of speech, which Scalia said he would be glad to accept at the club’s meeting provided no television or radio coverage was allowed.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD