A Long Island housing activist instructed some street people: "You are houseless but not homeless because home is wherever you are."
Ted Kennedy, Jr., wrote to the Boston Globe to complain about an article on "treatment techniques" for birthmarks, when actually, he pointed out, "our attitude is the problem, and that can never be corrected surgically."
After a 14-year-old Boy Scout became separated from his party and was lost in the New Mexican wilderness for two days, a search helicopter finally spotted him. The Forest Service was asked permission to land and rescue the youth. Permission was refused, on the grounds that "mechanized vehicles" are banned from wilderness areas, and that a life-and-death situation did not exist. The kid spent another night alone in the wilderness before the Forest Service changed its decision.
The Oxford University Press has published a new "inclusive" translation of the New Testament and Psalms, intended, the introduction says, to "provide direction and sustenance to those who long for justice." In the new text, the word "begat" is not used, since it favors fathers over mothers. Metaphors about darkness as evil and light as good are also removed as racist. References to the blind, deaf, and lame change to constructions such as "those who are blind." "Slaves" likewise changes to "enslaved people." References to the "right hand of God" now become His "mighty hand." Parents "guide" rather than "discipline" their children, who "heed" rather than "obey" their parents. References to God as "Lord" and "King" are changed to "Ruler" and "Sovereign." Likewise the "Kingdom of God" is now the "Dominion of God." Curiously, God the "Father" becomes the "Father-Mother," which any single parent would certainly appreciate (Satan, too, becomes gender-free). Jesus the "Master" now becomes simply "Teacher," and the former "Son of Man" is now "the Human One."
This one is just too unusual to categorize:
A Dutch group, perceiving a need to "pay the sea back for all that man has stolen from her," has built a 100-foot figure of a man and filled it with 20,000 loaves of bread. They plan to tow the statue out to the North Sea to "replenish" it as a "National Gift to the Sea."Organizer Kies Baker insisted detractors didn't understand his project -- "this is a positive act," an "offering to the sea" in return for all that man has "stolen" from it over the ages. "Holland feels guilty," according to Baker and other supporters, because a third of Holland's land was reclaimed from the sea.
The statue cost $545,000 and the 20,000 loaves of bread were baked by a dozen local bakers from grain grown on reclaimed land with water drained from an artificial sea. Supporters could sponsor a loaf of bread for only $7.
Maybe it is time to return to Heather Has Two Mommies
Ari Hoffman, 15, a high school sophomore in Mill Valley, Calif., who demonstrated the effect of radiation on fruit fly reproduction, was disqualified from the Bay Area Science Fair in San Francisco because some of his flies never woke up from anesthesia and others were euthanized because they became infected with mites, violating science fair rules against cruelty to animals.-Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 3/21/96
-- RASchultz --, March 22, 1997
I'm not sure if this story can be taken as a heart- felt politically correct compromise or an example of the irrational craziness infecting the country and it's schools. Recently the Chicago Sun-Times devoted many articles to the ongoing story of an 8 year old student who refused to not wear his earring to class. The child's parents supported this decision, saying that it was unfair that female students were allowed to wear earrings to school, but the male students were not. They also said the school was violating his right to express his individuality. The school board responded that the ban on earrings was an anti gang measure, and said that they didn't want to suspend the child, but would have no choice. Seven other boys at the school also had earrings, and they all removed them when asked. The child's parents refused to comply, and the child said he wasn't in a gang and just wanted to be like his idols Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan. Finally acompromise was reached and the boy was allowed to keep his earring if he covered it with a band aid. Is it just me, or are both sides a little crazy here?
-- Frank Malinowski, May 14, 1998