xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
No state has had more serious budget anxiety attacks recently than Oregon, which saw some public schools close early this year after running out of money. However, another crisis surfaced in April when death-row inmate Horacio Reyes-Camarena told prison officials he would reluctantly accept the kidney transplant that would save Oregon taxpayers most of the $120,000 a year they now pay for his dialysis (and must, by law, pay until his execution, which may be as long as 10 years away, because of appeals). Some law-abiding Oregon kidney patients are being turned down for transplants because post-transplant drugs are too expensive.
Just as Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham’s daily, quirky, minutely detailed, written diaries are in the news (e.g.,”6:50-7:00 – Apply scalp medication”), the Pentagon was seeking bidders for contracts to create electronic “diaries” (the LifeLog program) that could record virtually all facets of a person’s daily existence (via sensors, microphones and wearable cameras), to be dumped into gigantic databases, searchable to detect behavior patterns that might be useful to the military. A Pentagon spokesman said not to be alarmed, that only consenting subjects would be used, but one privacy advocate told Wired magazine that LifeLog could be “TIA cubed,” referring to the previously revealed Total Information Awareness program, which would track everyone’s purchase transactions and computer usage.
A February BBC report noted the fascination among tribes in Meghalaya, India, to appear mischievously worldly by giving their children prominent Western names (such as those of candidates in the Feb. 26 local elections, Adolf Lu Hitler R Marak, Tony Curtis, Rockefeller Momin and Hilarious Dhkar). Also popular are Roosevelt, Churchill, Bush, Blair, Clinton and Saddam.
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