Monday, June 30, 2008

Another negative use of "weird"

Neil Sauter

I wrote about my problem with columns called "News of the Weird," and the NY Post has a column called "Weird but True." I'm not going to let it off the hook just because it is a sensational tabloid.

The NY Post put this news item in its "Weird but True" column:
A 24-year-old man who suffers from cerebral palsy has completed an 830-mile walk
- on stilts. It took Neil Sauter eight weeks to walk across Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas. He raised $16,000 for United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan.
If Sauter wants to walk across Michigan on stilts, more power to him. He's not weird because of it. In fact, he's gotten a lot of people talking about cerebal palsy through the news coverage of his walk and raised some money as well.