xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Wheelchair-confined Richard Paey committed almost exactly the same violations of Florida prescription drug laws that radio personality Rush Limbaugh did, with a different result: Limbaugh’s sentence, in May, was addiction treatment, and Paey’s, in 2004, was 25 years in prison. Both illegally possessed large quantities of painkillers for personal use, which Paey defiantly argued was (and will be) necessary to relieve nearly constant pain from unsuccessful spinal surgeries after an auto accident, but which Limbaugh admitted was simply the result of addiction. (In fact, if Limbaugh complies with his plea bargain, his conviction will be erased.) Paey’s sentence now rests with a state Court of Appeal.
China, sensitive about the impression it will make on visitors to the 2008 Olympics, has undertaken a major campaign against open spitting, monitored by volunteer scolders who wear shirts that spell out “mucus” in Chinese and who hand out bags to spit in.
India’s Rural Development Minister vowed in March that the country will eliminate open defecation by 2012, despite reports of toilet use in some states as low as 15 percent. The government gives homeowners toilet-installation grants.
For 30 years now, many residents of Frostburg, Md., have been puzzled, and annoyed, at the three-story-high, 400-foot-long metal- and-concrete frame that Pastor Richard Greene calls his modern Noah’s Ark, at which he works off and on, awaiting Judgment Day. According to an April Pittsburgh Post-Gazette dispatch, Greene said the Arc came to him in visions during disturbing dreams in 1976. Some neighbors are patient, but others call the Ark an eyesore that depresses property values and wastes religious charity (since contributions to Greene have totaled $1 million).
(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