Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe LONG MARCH FORWARD The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reports Chinese educational departments "are breaking the nation's thousands-year-long taboo concerning discussion of sex, and are to let children have more access to sex information." Advertisement According to the report, comprehensive sex courses that cover such issues as sexual ethics, procreation, AIDS prevention and behavior are being made available to middle-school students in more than 10 major cities -- including Shanghai, Wuhan, Harbin and Xi'an. Xinhua says about 20 million children reach puberty in China each year. (From UPI Capital Comment) THINGS WE DON'T UNDERSTAND A California political science professor remains suspended with pay for offending four Muslim students -- despite the emergence of a tape recording that indicates he did not say what he's accused of saying and the admission of one of the students that perhaps some of the allegations were "not right." Advertisement In his American Government class the evening of Sept. 18 at Orange Coast Community College in Costa Mesa, Calif., Kenneth W. Hearlson discussed the Sept. 11 terror attacks and argued that silence on terrorist attacks against Israel amounted to assent. The professor told UPI that his condemnation of a "hate-filled" flyer that had appeared on campus last year -- which he identified as "The Reality of Zionism," by the Party of Hizb-ul-Haq -- inflamed the four students. The aggrieved students maintain the professor held them personally accountable for violent acts, but Hearlson said he was not referring to individuals but to "Arab nations." The transcript of an audiotape that a student sympathetic to the teacher supplied to Hearlson's attorney -- a copy of which was obtained by UPI -- supports Hearlson's version of events. Asked if he had any reason to associate his students with this literature, Hearlson placed the blame on the Muslim student organization -- which, he said, had put the flyer out -- and the college, which had approved it. Meanwhile, one of the Muslim students, Mooath Saidi, told the New York Times that even if his memory of the class is "shady," Hearlson "has a history, and he obviously hasn't learned and he needs to be taught a lesson." Advertisement For his part, Hearlson accuses college administrators of denying him due process "because they didn't want to take flak from the Muslim organizations." NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS Astronomers have used the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope to probe the atmosphere of a planet outside of our solar system -- a technique that could be used to search distant worlds for the chemicals key to life. "This is the first time that we've been able to probe a planet beyond our solar system and determine anything about its chemical composition," said Ronald Gilliland of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. The astronomers focused Hubble on a star similar to our sun that lies about 150 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. The star's planet, detected in 1999, was studied as it passed in front of its mother star, which allowed astronomers to see light from the star filtered through the planet's atmosphere. The planet is roughly the size of Jupiter but as close to its star as Mercury is to our sun, meaning it'd be too hot to support life. TODAY'S SIGN THE WORLD IS ENDING A West Coast-based home security system says it is its "patriotic" duty" to "provide valuable products to guard families from a further, very possible terrorist act." Advertisement And so www.homefrontsecurity.info, a division of Global Data Supply (GDS), has introduced a complete line of "homefront" protection devices through Frys Electronics, a leading retailer with mega stores in major metropolitan areas in California, Texas, Arizona and Oregon. They include several models of NBC civilian masks (for adults and youth), NBC filter canisters, Respro protective hood for children, Inpro-infant protector, and communal shelters to protect occupants from all known NBC agents. The entire home protection products are imported from Israel. GDS says the masks have achieved official recognition and certification by both the Israeli Defense Authorities and the U.S. Army. AND FINALLY, TODAY'S UPLIFTING STORY A mild heart attack didn't keep comedian Rodney Dangerfield from cracking jokes as he was being admitted to a Los Angeles hospital last Thursday. Dangerfield suffered the attack on Thanksgiving -- his 80th birthday. Published reports indicate he joked with hospital staffers, asking: "Who gave me this present?" Doctors say the comedian likely will be released by the end of the week.
