Lead Story
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Researchers at Syracuse University reported in December that different species of bats tend to exhibit an inverse relationship between brain size and testicle size. In November two bureaucrats with the U.S. Veterans Affairs department in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, were charged with accepting kickbacks on governmental purchase of red tape. (The tape is used to deter tampering with prescription medications.) Also in November, the Washington Post profiled an employee at the U.S. Patent Office in Alexandria, Virginia, who specializes in reviewing patent applications relating to wheels. (On average he looks at 124 of them annually.)
Government in Action
In September, after seeing the C.D. Hylton High School marching band play “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” at a football game in Woodbridge, Virginia, a man wrote a letter to a local paper (in an attempt to be provocative, he insisted later) wondering whether a public high school band’s performing a song about Satan constituted a breach of the separation of church and state. Though this was the only complaint about the performance, band director Dennis Brown quickly pulled the number from the band’s repertoire, predictably igniting the major controversy he’d hoped to avoid.
Recurring Themes
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.
