xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

While Congress and the sports world are busy condemning the use of steroids as “cheating,” golfer Tiger Woods and other athletes have already artificially enhanced their natural abilities with impunity through Lasik eye surgery (improving vision to 20/15 or 20/10). More ominously, according to a Wired magazine story in March, the time will soon come when perfectly healthy baseball pitchers and other athletes choose so-called “Tommy John surgery” (until now performed only to repair ruptured arm ligaments), which can make an elbow even stronger than it naturally was, allowing pitchers to achieve higher velocity than ever. Other predicted enhancements include the removal, re-engineering, and re-insertion of leg, arm and shoulder muscle cells to add strength.

The North Dakota legislature voted in April to ease licensing for carrying concealed weapons by removing the shooting test (to hit a miniature human silhouette at 21 feet), but that was over the objection of licensee Carey McWilliams, 31, who told an Associated Press reporter in March, “You’ve got to have standards.” McWilliams, who hit the target 10 out of 10 in his most recent test, is legally blind, able to distinguish only shades of light (thus apparently giving new meaning to “concealed weapon” when he looks for his).
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD