Fun_People Archive
27 Jan
Weirdness #362

Date: Fri, 27 Jan 95 12:29:25 PST
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness #362

From: WEIRDNUZ.362 (News of the Weird, January 13, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd

* An August Associated Press report on the Pitkin County jail in Aspen,
Colo., contained only praise from former "inmates."  The jail, which has a
library, gym, videocassettes for rent, and luxurious views of Red Mountain,
was applauded by Dewi Sukarno, widow of the former Indonesian dictator, who
once did 24 days for assault.  "I will treasure [memories of the jail] the
rest of my life." [[Fort Collins Coloradoan-AP, 8-25-94]]

* Just after a Church of England diocese fired Rev. Anthony Freeman of West
Sussex in July because he had admitted in a recent book that he does not
believe in God, 65 of Freeman's colleagues signed a letter protesting their
superiors' "intolerance."  But in October, Oakland, Calif., Catholic Bishop
John Cummins, facing a shortage of clergy, reappointed the Rev.  John
Gilmore as a parish priest despite knowing that Gilmore secretly fathered
two children in the 1980s.  (Gilmore has since taken a vow of celibacy.)
[St.  Petersburg Times-DPA, 7-30-94] [San Francisco Chronicle, 10-28-94]
[John!  We didn't know...  -psl]

* Edward Curley, a senior test developer at Educational Testing Service,
admitted to Cox News Service in July that coached test takers could answer
reading comprehension questions very well on the Scholastic Aptitude Test
without ever reading the appropriate passages.  Curley said that wasn't so
bad because the test was still measuring reading comprehension: "When they
read the questions, and [read] the wrong answer choices, and [read] the
right answer choice, the students are reading hundreds of words." [Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette-Cox, Jul94]

* Professor Constance Penley of the University of California, Santa Barbara,
interviewed by the Chicago Tribune in August on the significance of "Beavis
and Butthead," said it is about "the arrogance of white male privilege."
"[T]he only people who get to be that stupid and live are white guys."
[Chicago Tribune magazine, 8-14-94]

Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
Released for the personal entertainment of readers.  No commercial
use may be made of the material, or of the name News of the Weird.

© 1995 Peter Langston