Watercooler Stories

Hendrix adorns San Fran school plan

SAN FRANCISCO, March 31 (UPI) -- Administrators with the San Francisco school district have chosen an unlikely mascot for a new education guide -- rock legend Jimi Hendrix.

Images of the 1960s musician appear on each of the new education guide's 51 pages and the cover of the document proclaims: "Our plan is as transformational now as his music was then," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The guide outlines Superintendent Carlos Garcia's plan to transform the educational "experiences for every child in each of our schools."

However, some have raised concerns about making an educational icon out of a rock star who died from an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol.

One district employee who described himself as a "liberal hippie educator who experienced the Summer of Love in San Francisco" said he found the use of Hendrix, and his image on posters that accompany the document, disturbing.

"I find the choice of Hendrix as an inspiration to be used in an educational setting rather strange and out of touch," the employee said.

Garcia said the use of Hendrix highlights the plan to "revolutionize" the educational system in the city.

The superintendent shrugged off comments about the rock star's drug use.

"Hey," said Garcia. "We're in San Francisco."

Teen finds stepfather's pot plants

LORAIN, Ohio, March 31 (UPI) -- An Ohio teen alerted police after finding a marijuana plant in her closet, and her stepfather allegedly confessed that it and others on the property were his.

Lorain police said the 13-year-old girl summoned them to the home Friday without telling her parents, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported. She took them inside and showed them a 4-foot pot plant in her bedroom closet.

The stepfather, William C. Cramer Jr., allegedly told police the illegal weed and eight others growing in the attached garage were his, the TV station said. He said his wife was unaware of his horticultural activities.

Police said Cramer told them he didn't smoke the marijuana, but grew it for his parents, "who loved to smoke up." He later allegedly admitted selling it "because times were tough."

Cramer faces a variety of charges.

Teacher talked bondage with 11-year-olds

NOVARA, Italy, March 31 (UPI) -- Parents are pushing an Italian primary school to fire a teacher after she discussed genital piercing with 11-year-olds during a sex education lecture.

Vincenzo Guarino, headmaster of the school in the northern Italian city of Novara, said the teacher displayed "serious naivety" when she failed to realize that "certain subjects and language can be used in a class of 15-year-olds but not 11-year-olds," ANSA, the Italian news service, reported.

"It's true that she was only answering questions but there are ways of discussing these things," Guarino told ANSA.

Parents said the teacher discussed subjects with the students including bondage, sadomasochism and genital piercing after a discussion about masturbation was taken off-subject.

The teacher, whose name wasn't given, said she was following guidelines for talking to students about sex, which she said require her to speak frankly "to clear things up."

However, some parents are calling for the teacher to be kept from students for the rest of the year, ANSA said.

"The damage is done and we don't want our kids to have anything else to do with her for the remainder of the year," the father of an 11-year-old girl told school administrators.

Grandma sued after alleged thief acquitted

NEW YORK, March 31 (UPI) -- A wheelchair-bound New York grandmother said she is being sued by a man she shot in the elbow when he allegedly tried to steal from her.

Margaret Johnson, 59, said she was sitting in her motorized wheelchair at her Lenox Terrace apartment complex in September 2006 when Deron Johnson, 48, tried to steal her purse and gold chain, the New York Post reported.

Johnson said she shot the man in the left elbow with her licensed .357 Magnum and he was arrested soon after by police. However, he was acquitted of the crime in court after his lawyer claimed that he had not been trying to mug Johnson, who has a dislocated hip and a ruptured disc.

She said Deron Johnson is now suing her and the apartment complex for $5 million.

"I'm a peaceful person. I wish that I had killed him," Johnson said. "I didn't think you had to pay to get mugged in New York City."

Craig Davidowitz, a lawyer for Deron Johnson, said his client has permanent nerve damage from being shot.

"What's grandma doing walking the streets with a loaded gun?" Davidowitz said.

He said Lenox Terrace is also named as a defendant because the landlord had failed to protect his client.

"They should have known they had a tenant walking around with a loaded weapon," he said.