Lead Stories
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In August in Naples, Florida, city councilman Fred Tarrant demanded that local artist Ted Lay’s painting Famous Tongue Mona Al Monica (side-by-side images of the Mona Lisa, Albert Einstein, and Monica Lewinsky sticking out their tongues) be removed from a Naples municipal art center because he thinks Lewinsky’s tongue looks like a penis. Tarrant is blind, but says his trusted advisers find the painting offensive.
Unclear on the Concept
Mary Lee Sowder filed suit against a Petsmart store in Roanoke, Virginia, in June, asking $100,000 for knee injuries she suffered when she slipped and fell on “dog slobber,” allegedly the product of the manager’s own dog (of a large but unspecified breed).
A 26-year-old SWAT police officer in Dallas was accidentally shot to death by a colleague in June as the two were demonstrating for trainees how to react to a gunman in a public place….Two 14-year-olds died in November on Take Our Kids to Work Day, when the all-terrain vehicle they were riding in at their fathers’ John Deere plant smashed into a tractor-trailer….Because those attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings usually do so anonymously, the AA chapter in Milwaukee is still unable to identify a man who collapsed and died during a meeting on May 23.
Send your weird news to Chuck Shepherd, Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611 or to weird@compuserve.com.
