xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In April, when the Republicans on the New York City Board of Elections killed a plan to repair voting machines that had underrecorded votes in the 2000 election (with most of the unlucky voters being Democrats), Republican Commissioner Stephen Weiner denied that his party’s disinterest in properly functioning machines showed bias against Democrats: “There are some people who don’t want (their vote) register(ed), but who report to the polls for civic reasons.”
Maximizing the opportunity to avoid detection, some illegal immigrants from Mexico choose to enter the United States through a desolate mountain-desert area east of Yuma, Ariz., but in May 2001, 14 of them died of dehydration in a blistering sun. In April 2003, their families filed a $42 million lawsuit in Tucson against the U.S. Interior Department for having failed to install water stations in the area.
At a May court appearance in Melbourne, Australia, to answer charges of unsanitary food at his Rajah Sahib Tavern and Tandoori Grill, Larry Mendonca denied that the moldy items that inspectors found were part of his restaurant’s fare. Moldy relish and 8-year-old pickles? Mendonca said they were his personal foods, not the restaurant’s. A bowl of chilis topped with mold? His. A moldy jug of salad dressing? His. Besides, he said, “It was scum, not mold.”
Responding to a February incident in St. Clair Shores, Mich., in which a girl performed oral sex on a boy during a middle-school class (both were suspended), the superintendent and the principal wrote to parents: “Just like our country was shocked into awareness when never-before acts of terrorism occurred in New York City, our district was shocked into awareness when middle-school students engaged in indecent acts in the classroom.” (The boy’s parents filed a lawsuit over the suspension, pointing out that their son was a “victim” in that, when the girl started, he had no “legal duty” to resist.)
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Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD