Religion:
1. More than 130
people have come forward claiming the former Rev. John Geoghan fondled
or raped them between 1962 and 1995, and Geoghan has been convicted
in one criminal case. Cardinal Bernard Law has apologized and has given
Massachusetts prosecutors the names of more than 80 active and former
priests accused of sexual abuse.
Last September,
the Boston Archdiocese paid $10 million to settle a suit by 86 plaintiffs
who said Geoghan sexually assaulted them.
This was written
in 2001 and of course the situation has developed into a full blown
crisis.
It's
2003 and Geoghan has been strangled to death in prison by a reputedly
homophobic inmate with a life sentence.
Joseph Druce, accused
of strangling Father Geoghan, currently serving a life sentence for
murder.
2. Underlying the
crematory situation will be an age-old question: Is there an afterlife
and, if so, is a body needed for it?
3. Underlying the
Yates murder trial will be the question: does a woman have to have "as
many babies as God wants her to have" in order get to heaven?
4. The Muslim religion
becomes of great interest to Americans in the fall of 2001.
Sag,
the Archer, aims true
Large
Animals:
1. Two large flesh
eating lizards feast on the body of their former owner. Cause of death
not immediately known.
2. A man is suffocated
to death by his pet boa constructor while showing it off to a friend.
3. A woman is ripped
to death by two killer dogs (Hera and Bane) at her apartment door. The
dogs are owned by her neighbors, two lawyers, a husband and wife, who
have recently adopted a prison inmate.
4. A girl is mauled
and killed by dogs in a friend's home in Denver.
Since this was written
in 2001, exotic pets have become an issue in America. Among other things,
prairie dogs in the Midwest began a plague scare. (People kept them
as pets.)
Race:
1. Blacks in Winter
Olympics an issue; black girl from Alabama wins bobsled, a first
2. Strom Thurmond's
death again raised speculation that he is the father of an Afro-American
woman living in California. Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson presented
persuasive evidence in their 1998 biography, Ol' Strom, that
Thurmond sired a daughter in 1925 with a black house servant named Essie
"Tunch" Butler, with whom he reputedly had an extended relationship.
Ethics:
1. First time judge
disqualified in Winter Olympics
2. Teacher quits
after principal refuses to support her for punishing students who cheated
off the Internet
3. The Enron scandal
brings the demise of Arthur Anderson and serious problems in the nation's
top accounting firms are discovered
5. Death rights
and ethics
6. What will happen
to Martha Stewart? Please click to read her
full chart.
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