xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
A September General Accounting Office report described (based on undercover work in seven states) the customer-friendliness that motor vehicle offices display when people try to obtain driver’s licenses fraudulently; clerks routinely give “applicants” back their bogus papers (instead of confiscating them) and cheerfully instruct them exactly how to “correct” the applications to assure that they’ll get that license on the next attempt.
A July Wall Street Journal report revealed that some women’s clothing stores in Tehran, Iran, do a brisk backroom business in tight, colorful, sheer, form-fitting robes that are severely frowned upon by the conservative Islamic government, which prescribes the formless hijab robe. One clerk showed one that was actually a “paper-thin beige tunic made of stretchy material with two slits on each side,” “with a matching tank top.” Other popular robes make strategic use of zippers for women who have to convert their flashy clothing into something conservative in a hurry.
In September, religious fundamentalists brawled in Brooklyn, N.Y., when the locally dominant Satmar sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews moved aggressively against slightly less-ultra-Orthodox Jews who were using a loophole to be able to push baby strollers and wheelchairs around during the Sabbath, when such activity is prohibited in public. “The (Satmars) were like animals,” said a security guard who witnessed the incident. (The “eruv” loophole allows such labor inside a symbolic wall, which the more liberal ultras had constructed with sticks and string.)
State and local law-enforcement officials met in Salt Lake City in August to discuss the growing and seemingly intractable problem of the radical, Mormon-based polygamist community that reaches from Hildale, Utah, to Colorado City, Ariz., and which has been denounced by mainstream Mormons. Issues included not just religious freedom and forced marriage for young girls, but the $5 million annually in federal benefits that go to polygamist wives who say they are “single” mothers on their welfare applications.
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
