-
06 Feb ' 02:32
-
05 Feb ' 00:41
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 5, 2012
Your Government Knows Best: A 2007 federal energy- independence law required companies that supply motor fuel in the U.S. to blend in a certain cellulose-based ingredient starting in 2011 -- even though (as the Environmental Protection Agency well knows) the ingredient simply does not now exist. A New York Times reporter checked with the EPA in January and found that the companies will still have to pay the monetary penalties for noncompliance (and almost certainly the even-stiffer penalties for 2012, since the ingredient is still two or three years from development). "It belies logic," said a petrochemicals trade association executive. [New York Times, 1-9-2012]Cultural DiversityTwo dozen religious leaders in India's Karnataka state are, as usual, protesting the annual, centuries-old Hindu ritual in which lower-caste people roll around in food leftovers of upper-caste people. "Hundreds" performed the exercise at temples, according to a January Times of India report, believing that contact with sophisticates' food will alleviate pernicious skin conditions. [The Times of India, 1-8-2012]
Far away from Karnataka, in the urban center of Calcutta, India, engineers are trying to save the historic Howrah Bridge from collapsing due to corrosion from spit. A half-million pedestrians (aside from the frenzied vehicle traffic) use the bridge every day and frequently spit their guthka and paan (half-chewed betel leaf and areca nut and slaked lime) onto the steel hangers that hold up the bridge -- thus reducing the hanger bases by 50 percent in just the last three years. (Engineers' immediate remedies: cover the bases in washable fiberglass and conduct an education campaign in which "gods" implore pedestrians to hold their saliva until they've crossed the bridge.) [BBC News, 11-22-2011]
On Nov. 5, the 220 inhabitants of Coll, an island off the coast of Scotland, endured the first "crime" that any of the residents could remember. Someone vandalized the public lavatories at a visitors' facility, doing the equivalent of about $300 damage. A constable was summoned from a nearby island to investigate, but seas were rough, and he had to wait for two days for the ferry to run. One Coll resident vaguely recalled an incident at a pub once in which a man threatened to throw a punch (but didn't), and another remembered that someone took whale bones left on a beach by researchers (but later gave them back). According to a Daily Telegraph report, the culprit is "still at large." [Daily Telegraph, 11-20-2011]
Latest Religious MessagesThe U.S. Air Force Academy last year installed an $80,000 rock garden/fire pit on its campus for use by several "Earth-based" religions (pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and various Native American faiths). For the current year, only three of the 4,300 cadets have identified themselves in that group, but the academy is sensitive to the issue after a 2005 lawsuit accused administrators and cadets of allowing too-aggressive proselytizing on behalf of Christian religions. For the record, the academy currently has 11 Muslim cadets, 16 Buddhists, 10 Hindus and 43 self-described atheists. [Los Angeles Times, 11-26-2011]
In separate incidents during one week in December in Polk County, Fla., four church pastors were arrested and charged with sex-related crimes involving children, including Arnold Mathis, 40, at the time working for the Saint City Power and Praise Ministry in Winter Haven, but who has moved on to the Higher Praise Ministries in Lake Wales and who was allowed to work for the church despite a sex-crime rap sheet. [CF News (Bright House Cable News, Orlando), 12-18-2011]
Just two weeks before the January worldwide Internet protest against proposed copyright-protection legislation, the Missionary Church of Kopimism in Sweden announced that it had been granted official government status as a religion (one of 22 so recognized), even though its entire reason for being is to celebrate the right to share files of information -- in any form, but especially on the Internet. Swedish law makes such religious recognition easy, requiring only "a belief system with rituals." The Kopimism website demonizes "copyright believers" who "derive their power by limiting people's lives and freedom." [TorrentFreak blog via NPR, 1-4-2012]
Milestones in Government RegulationAccording to recent consumer-protection rulings by the European Food Safety Authority, sellers of prunes are prohibited from marketing them as laxatives, and sellers of bottled water are forbidden to offer it as preventing dehydration. In both cases, the commissioners referred to the underlying science of the body to defend their decisions, but the rulings were still widely derided as anti-common-sense. Members of the European Parliament complained, especially given the current precarious state of the European Union itself. One parliamentarian challenged an EFSA policymaker to a prune-eating contest: If it's not a laxative, he said, let's see how many you can eat and not have your "bowel function" "assisted." [Daily Telegraph, 11-18-2011, 12-14-2011]
Oops!In December in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan, a group of luxury car enthusiasts gathered and began a caravan to nearby Hiroshima, but one of the drivers, changing lanes, hit a median barrier and spun across the highway, resulting in a chain-reaction pileup involving 14 cars, including eight red Ferraris, a Lamborghini and two Mercedes-Benz. Drivers suffered only cuts and bruises, but "some" of the vehicles were reported "beyond repair." [Yahoo News-AP, 12-5-2011]
David Dopp of Santaquin, Utah, won a fundraising raffle sponsored by the non-profit organization "teamgive" in November -- a Lamborghini Murcielago, valued at about $380,000. He picked up his prize on Dec. 17, but six hours later, he spun out of control, knocked over several fence posts, and disabled the Murcielago's front end. [KSL-TV (Salt Lake City), 12-20-2011]
Chutzpah!Logan Alexander, 63, a school security guard in Trenton, N.J., who was fired after pleading guilty in 2007 to twice inappropriately touching students, was later sued by a third girl for similar behavior but settled that lawsuit in 2010 by agreeing to pay the girl $12,500. Recently, according to a December report in the Trenton Times, Alexander filed a lawsuit against the Trenton Board of Education, demanding that the board pay the $12,500 to the girl because, after all, Alexander was "on duty" when he committed the inappropriate touching. [Trenton Times, 12-12-2011]
In Bennington, Vt., in December, Adam Hall, 34, was accused of vandalizing his ex-girlfriend's car, including scratching the word "slut" into the hood (except that the word was spelled s-u-l-t). Hall initially denied any involvement until an officer handed him a sheet of paper and asked him to write the sentence, "You are a slut." Sure enough, Hall spelled slut "sult" and was promptly charged with malicious mischief. [ABC News, 12-15-2011]
The District of CalamityIn November, the Washington Times reported that the Washington, D.C.-area Metro transportation agency had hired, as a financial consultant, a woman with multiple convictions for bank fraud and who had been implicated in one of Washington's largest heroin rings. Furthermore, even when the agency learned of her record, it neither disciplined her nor removed her from her finance responsibilities. According to the Times, Metro has other lax management issues. A Maryland state attorney recently revealed that a Metro employee had been "storing" 70 unaccounted-for pieces of Metro property (including computers and televisions) at his home for years, and following that news, according to the Times, other employees began sheepishly returning similar property. [Washington Times, 11-3-2011]
Update: Hon. Marion Barry, 75, former four-term mayor (and one-time famous cocaine user), is now in his second post-prison term as a Washington, D.C., Council member and announced in January that he will run for another four years. In December, the Internal Revenue Service filed a new lien on a home Barry owns in Washington, based on unpaid income taxes from 2010. Barry is currently making payments out of his council paycheck for D.C. and federal taxes back to 1999 after pleading guilty in 2005 to failure to file tax returns at all for the previous six years. The very next year, 2006, he failed to file for 2005, and after getting caught then, he subsequently failed to file for 2007. On the D.C. Council, Barry is a member of the finance and revenue committee. [Washington Post, 12-14-2011]
Thanks This Week to Bruce Strickland, Peter Smagorinsky, and Bruce Leiserowitz, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
-
30 Jan ' 02:50
-
28 Jan ' 23:51
WEEK OF JANUARY 29, 2012
Traditional bridge replacement on as prominent a highway as Interstate 15 in Mesquite, Nev., has generally required rerouting traffic for as long as a year, but the new "accelerated" technology in January necessitated detours for less than a week. Excited engineers traveled in from around the country to watch the old bridge be demolished and the new one (which had been built on a platform off to the side) be slid into place using hydraulic jacks and Teflon-coated metal beams -- lubricated with Dawn dishwashing detergent to glide them smoothly into the old frame. The Nevada Department of Transportation estimated that the accelerated process saved commuters about $12 million in time and fuel costs. [Las Vegas Sun, 1-11-2012]The Entrepreneurial Spirit!"(Our critics) are absolutely right. We are professional liars," said Everett Davis, founder of the Internet-based Reference Store, which supplies pumped-up, but false, resumes for job-seekers having trouble landing work. Davis and associates are, he told Houston's KRIV-TV in November, ex-investigators schooled in deception and therefore good at fooling human resources personnel who follow up on the bogus work claims. Davis admitted he would even disguise a customer's past criminal record -- but not if the job is in public safety, health care or schools. [KRIV-TV, 11-16-2011]
Veterinary technician and food blogger Lauren Hicks recently inaugurated service on what is surely one of the few food trucks in the country catering exclusively to dogs. She parks her "Sit 'n Stay Pet Cafe" -- a retrofitted mail truck -- in downtown Winter Park, Fla., on Thursday nights (according to an October Orlando Sentinel report), serving gourmet organic snacks like the Poochi Sushi (jerky), "Ruff-in" muffins, and "Mutt-balls" and "Grrr-avy," among other specialties. [Orlando Sentinel, 10-19-2011]
Western nations and foundations have tried for decades to build sewage treatment plants in sub-Saharan Africa, with little success (since many countries lack stable governments to assess operating fees), and to this day, raw sewage is still merely collected and dumped, either in rivers or directly onto beaches, such as the notorious (and formerly beautiful) Lavender Hill in Ghana. U.S. entrepreneurs recently established Waste Enterprises in Ghana to build the first-ever fecal-sludge-to-biodiesel plant (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Feces undiluted by water, and then heated, is highly concentrated and more resembles coal than the goo that Americans associate with sewage. [Good Magazine (Los Angeles), 12-1-2011]
Cutting-Edge ScienceMedical Marvels:
The British Medical Journal reported in December that a 76-year-old woman had been unbothered until recently by the felt-tip pen she accidentally swallowed 25 years earlier. It was removed without complication, and, though the plastic was flaky, the pen still had an ink supply and was "usable." [MSNBC, 12-19-2011]
Twice during 2011, babies with two heads were born in Brazil. Though the first, in Paraiba state, died hours after birth, the 9.9-pound "Emanoel" and "Jesus," born in Para state in December, are apparently otherwise healthy. (The baby has two heads and two spines but shares one heart, liver, pelvis and pair of lungs.) [Daily Mail (London), 12-22-2011]
Medical Marvels (Canine Edition): The Dogs Trust in Kenilworth, England, was soliciting potential homes in December for "Bentley," a Border Collie whose monophobia might make it what the Daily Mail calls the "most cowardly" dog in the country. While frisky around people, Bentley immediately goes into a frightened sulk when left alone, cowering from cats, holing up behind a couch, and constantly biting his nails, even at the sound of a cat on television. (Bentley was recently outfitted with special lace-up booties to preserve the nails.) [Daily Mail, 12-6-2011]
Ratnagiri, India, businessman Murad Mulla, 48, filed a complaint recently with the Maharashtra Medical Council after his surgeon used an outdated procedure to cure his urine-retention disorder. Previously, skin from the scrotum was routinely used for urethral repair, but current science recommends using skin from the mouth to avoid the worst-case risk, which Mulla apparently experienced. Specifically, the scrotum contains both hair-bearing tissue and non-hair-bearing tissue, and only the latter is usable. Evidently, Mullas' surgeon used hair-bearing tissue, and as a result, Mulla's urethra itches constantly, and he expels specks of pubic hair with his urine. [The Times of India, 12-8-2011]
Leading Economic IndicatorsBernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme cost 16,500 investors a total of as much as $18 billion, according to the court-appointed trustee, but at least Madoff is not on death row. In Hangzhou, China, in November, Ji Wenhua and his brother and their father (who were managers of the Yintai Real Estate and Investment Group) were sentenced to death after their convictions for cheating 15,000 investors out of the equivalent of $1.1 billion. Prosecutors said the men had continued to collect money by claiming profits while losses mounted. [China Money Report, 11-10-2011]
News of the Privileged: Among the high-end items catching consumers' fancy last holiday season was premium firewood, for those who need to burn trees for reasons beyond merely warming the house. "Pretty white birch logs" were a best-selling item for Paul's Fireplace Wood, of Little Falls, Minn., and the owner of J.N. Firewood (Fort Ripley, Minn.) touted its "really cool blue flame and crackling noises," according to a December Wall Street Journal report. (The wood, itself, goes for well over $1 a pound, even before adding the substantial shipping cost.) [MSNBC, 12-13-2011]
Poor Anger ManagementJanet Knowles, 62, was arrested in January in Jupiter, Fla., for aggravated assault after allegedly bludgeoning her housemate, 65, with a hammer as they watched television. The victim said only that Knowles was "upset with Judge Judy." [Palm Beach Post, 1-10-2012]
Michael Monsour, the former CEO of Monsour Medical Center in Jeannette, Pa., was charged with assaulting his brother, Dr. William Monsour, in their father's home on New Year's Eve. In an argument, Michael allegedly bit William's nose so hard that he required cosmetic surgery. (Michael's temper remained untempered. The next day, according to police, Michael sent William an e-mail threatening to beat him "into blood pudding.") [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 1-11-2012]
Least Competent CriminalsNeed Time in the Gym:
According to police in Bellingham, Wash., William Lane, 22, had yelled slurs at a lesbian couple in the early morning of Dec. 11 and smashed the car window of one of the women, but she immediately chased him down, tackled him, and held him until help arrived. [Bellingham Herald, 12-13-2011]
Anthony Miranda, 24, was arrested and charged with armed robbery in December in Chicago after unknowingly choosing as his victim an "ultimate fighting" champion. The "victim" gave Miranda two black eyes and a heavily lacerated face, and, as Miranda drew his gun, overpowered him in such a way that Miranda wound up shooting himself in the ankle. [WLS Radio, 12-5-2011]
Not Ready for Prime Time:
Keith Savinelli, 21, was arrested in Gallatin County, Mont., in December and charged with attempted burglary involving a woman's underwear. When the resident caught Savinelli in the act, he attempted to talk her out of reporting him by apologizing and handing her his voter registration card, but she called police, anyway. [Bellingham Herald, 12-13-2011]
A 25-year-old man was rescued by fire crews in Tranent, Scotland, in December and taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. According to police, four men were attempting to steal an eight-ton steamroller when the 25-year-old got his leg trapped underneath. The other three fled. [STV (Glasgow), 12-19-2011]
UpdateProminent novelist Michael Peterson was convicted in 2003 of beating his wife to death with a fireplace poker, but he, assisted by a former neighbor, has maintained since then that she was killed by a rogue owl. In 2008, for the first time, North Carolina state investigators acknowledged that a microscopic feather was indeed found in her hair, and in December 2011, Durham County Judge Orlando Hudson granted Peterson a new trial. Although several owl experts have declared that the wife's head trauma was consistent with an owl attack, the judge's decision was based instead on a finding last year that the state crime lab had mishandled evidence in 34 cases and specifically that an investigator in the Peterson case had exaggerated his credentials to the jury. (A 2007 fictionalized movie and a 2006 NBC "Dateline" also gave durability to the owl theory.) [MSNBC, 12-14-2011]
Thanks This Week to Wil Howitt, Tom Headley, Bill Van Dyke, Tommy Clouser, and Gary Goodemote, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
-
23 Jan ' 03:52
-
22 Jan ' 02:24
WEEK OF JANUARY 22, 2012
Anti-Theft ID Breakthrough: For people who become stressed when asked to prove their identities by biometric scans of fingerprints, hand prints or eyeballs, Japan's Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology has developed a chair frame that authenticates merely by sitting down: a butt-scanner. Professor Shigeomi Koshimizu's device produces a map of the user's unique derriere shape, featuring 256 degrees of pressure at 360 different points and could be used not only to protect vehicles from theft but also, when connected to a computer, to prevent log-ons by those with unauthorized posteriors. [TechCrunch blog via PhysOrg.com, 12-26-2011]Compelling ExplanationsImminent Gay Takeovers:
Mayor Jose Benitez of Huarmey, Peru (population 16,000), speaking at the opening of a water works in November, warned residents about strontium in the water, which he said suppresses male hormones. He reminded residents that nearby Tabalosos, which is lately popular with gays and lesbians, shares the water supply and that Huarmey could turn gay, too. [Daily Mail (London), 11-24-2011]
A November report by Muslim scholars at Saudi Arabia's highest religious council (Majlis al-Ifta' al-A'ala), presented to the Saudi legislature, warned that ending the ban on females' driving would cause a surge in prostitution, pornography, divorce and, of course, homosexuality (and the scholars added that, within 10 years, the country would have "no more virgins"). [Daily Mail (London), 12-1-2011]
California state legislator Mary Hayashi of Hayward pleaded guilty in January to misdemeanor shoplifting. Police said she had walked out of a Neiman Marcus store in October with over $2,400 worth of unpaid-for merchandise, caused, said her lawyer, by a benign brain tumor that might have affected her decision-making. (Miraculously, and just in time for the legislative session, the tumor, said the lawyer, is "no longer affecting her concentration or her judgment.") [KPIX-TV (San Francisco), 1-6-2012]
IroniesBecause this past Christmas fell on a Sunday, nearly one Protestant church in 10 in the U.S. reported having canceled Sunday services that day out of fear of low attendance, as parishioners remained at home with family. (The poll, by Lifeway Research, noted also that other churches, while not canceling, had left services to their second-string clergy.) [Washington Post, 12-23-2011]
Retired sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. was arrested in November in a suburb of Denver and charged with distributing methamphetamine to men in exchange for sex. Sullivan, who had a distinguished career as Arapahoe County sheriff, was booked into the Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. Detention Center, named for him after he retired in 2002. [Denver Post, 11-30-2011]
Eldon Alexander, 36, and Ms. Korin Vanhouten, 47, had two different encounters with Ogden, Utah, police on Dec. 15. First, they were issued misdemeanor citations after being accused of shoplifting at a WinCo Foods store. They were released and walked out to their car in the parking lot, but summoned the police when they discovered that while they were busy shoplifting, someone had broken into their car and stolen a stereo. (The shoplifted items were worth about $25, the stereo about $60.) [Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 12-16-2011]
Sheriff's deputies arrested novelist Nancy Mancuso Gelber, 53, in December in Bryan, Texas, after she had allegedly arranged a hit on her husband. (The "hit man," of course, was an undercover officer.) Gelber said she had walked in on the husband romancing with one of her friends, and the couple were in the process of divorcing (complicated by his having removed her from his health insurance just as she was scheduled for expensive surgery). Gelber is the author of the 2010 "crime thriller," "Temporary Amnesia," and told the "hit man" that she was quite familiar with investigative procedures (though obviously poor at spotting undercover officers). [Huffington Post, 12-16-2011]
The Litigious SocietyJesse Dimmick filed a lawsuit in Topeka, Kan., in October against Jared and Lindsay Rowley -- whom he has been convicted of kidnapping in a notorious 2009 episode that resulted in his being shot by police. Dimmick broke into the home and held the couple hostage at knifepoint, but now says that, during the siege, the couple made him an "oral contract," "legally binding," that they would help him hide if he would sometime later pay them an unspecified amount of money. According to the lawsuit, since Dimmick was subsequently shot (accidentally, said the Topeka police), his injuries were the result of the Rowleys breaching the contract to hide him safely. (Police, who had surrounded the home, arrested Dimmick when he fell asleep.) [Topeka Capital-Journal, 11-28-2011]
The two men who heroically pulled a woman out of a burning car wreck in 2009, and surely (according to a highway patrol officer on the scene) saved her life, have sued the woman for the emotional and physical disabilities that resulted from the episode (brought to light in an August 2011 Associated Press report). David Kelley and Mark Kincaid not only stopped voluntarily to help, but were the only ones on the scene capable of pulling the woman to safety. (The fire was so hot that it melted Kelley's cellphone.) Kelley said he has suffered serious breathing problems and cannot avoid horrific dreams reliving the episode. The woman, Theresa Tanner, subsequently admitted that she deliberately crashed the car that day in a suicide attempt. [Associated Press, 8-1-2011]
Former 11-year-veteran police officer Louise McGarva, 35, filed a lawsuit recently, asking the equivalent of about $760,000, against the Lothian and Borders Police in Edinburgh, Scotland, for causing her post-traumatic stress disorder. Officer McGarva was attending a supposedly routine riot training session that got out of hand. She said she discovered that she had developed a debilitating fear of sirens and police cars. [Edinburgh Evening News, 11-21-2011]
Tri-athlete Sabine von Sengbusch, 46, filed a lawsuit recently against Meghan Rohan, 28, over a June bicycle-pedestrian collision in New York City's Central Park. Von Sengbusch claims that Rohan had the audacity to step in front of her as she was bicycling, causing her to fall and suffer "painful and permanent" injuries. (Although von Sengbusch said she was inside the "bike lane" at the time, park officials said signs make clear that pedestrians have the right of way at all times.) Von Sengbusch's "permanent" injuries did not prevent her from competing in a triathlon on Oct. 1, in which she finished second. According to a New York Post report on the lawsuit, Central Park pedestrians are growing more vociferous in denouncing bicyclists, and vice versa. [New York Post, 11-27-2011]
People Different From UsA recent article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine reported the painful results obtained by three Hispanic men incarcerated in the southwestern United States who had, for some reason, inserted specially designed chips, carved from dominoes, under the skin of their penises, apparently based on a folkloric belief that "sexual performance and virility" would be enhanced. Infections resulted, requiring "major" surgery that was unspecified in the article. [io9.com blog, 11-26-2011]
Recurring ThemesNo "Individual Mandate": To meet its municipal budget, the town of South Fulton, Tenn., assessed each residence $75 a year for firefighting service, but in the name of "liberty" gave people the chance to opt out of coverage. Vicky Bell chose not to pay, and when her home caught fire in December, firefighters rushed to the scene -- but only to be on hand in case the fire spread to her neighbors, who had paid their fees. Bell's home burned to the ground as firefighters watched. (Mayor David Crocker said "a majority" of residents had paid the fee.) [Associated Press via Times-News (Kingsport, Tenn.), 12-6-2011]
Thanks This Week to John Ellwood, Seth Chernoff, R.L. Rittmaster, Kathy Kelly, Perry Levin, Charles Landau, Douglas Boyle, Cheryl Meyers, Solomon Humphries, Craig Cryer, Nicole Johnson, Scott Huber, and David Larsen, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisers (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisers (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).
-
16 Jan ' 09:30
-
15 Jan ' 06:28
WEEK OF JANUARY 15, 2012
Obsessions:Don Aslett, 76, recently opened the Museum of Clean in Pocatello, Idaho, as the culmination of a lifelong devotion to tidying up. Highlights are several hundred pre-electric vacuum cleaners plus interactive exhibits to encourage kids to clean their rooms. Aslett told London's Daily Mail in December that people who don't understand his dedication must never have experienced the satisfaction of making a toilet bowl sparkle. [Daily Mail, 12-28-2011]
Also starting early in life, Dustin Kruse, 4, is so knowledgeable about toilet models and plumbing mechanics that the Kohler Co. presented him with an advanced-model "dual flush" commode for Christmas. Dustin, a fan of the Kohler showroom, has been known to explain toilet technology to other showroom visitors. [Kohler Co. press release, 12-22-2011]
Government in Action!Predator drones are an important weapon against terrorists in Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries, but in June, an unarmed predator was employed stateside to help catch cattle rustlers. The Department of Homeland Security owns eight predators for surveillance and occasionally assists local law enforcement. The cattle rustlers had been arrested, then jumped bail and holed up on their vast ranch near Lakota, N.D., but the predator spotted their exact location on the property, leading to a raid that ended without bloodshed. [Fargo Forum, 12-11-2011]
Government Inaction: India's legendarily plodding government bureaucracy had long stymied a snake charmer named Hakkul (a villager in Uttar Pradesh state), who had sought a snake-conservation permit, which had been authorized at one level but delayed locally. In November, finally exasperated, Hakkul walked into the land revenue office in the town of Harraiya with several sacks of snakes (including cobras) and turned them loose, sending clerks and visitors climbing furniture or fleeing. Recent news accounts report that "almost all" of the snakes had been rounded up. [BBC News, 11-30-2011]
A December news release from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control warned of the dangers of Campylobacter jejuni bacteria infections on a sheep ranch, but apparently only among workers who used an old-style (19th century) method of castrating the animals. CDC strongly urged that workers stop biting off the sheep's genitals and instead use modern tools. [Wall Street Journal, 12-8-2011]
From U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's periodic list of the most "unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects" that the federal government currently funds (announced in December): $75,000 to promote awareness of the role Michigan plays in producing Christmas trees and poinsettias; $48,700 for promoting the Hawaii Chocolate Festival; $113,227 for a video game preservation center in New York; and $764,825 to study something surely already done adequately by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs -- how college students use mobile devices for social networking. Also on Sen. Coburn's list: $15.3 million in continuing expenses for the famous Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" that was widely ridiculed in 2005 but apparently refuses to die. [Office of Sen. Tom Coburn, 12-20-2011]
Chutzpah!Convicted serial rapist Steven Phillips was exonerated in 2008, one of a continuing string of wrongly convicted Dallas-area "criminals" proved innocent by DNA testing, and under a formula by state law, he was awarded about $4 million, tax-free, for his 25 years behind bars. Recently, Phillips' ex-wife filed a petition in court demanding a portion -- even though the couple had been divorced for the last 17 years of his incarceration, and the ex-wife had remarried and had a child. (The ex-wife claims it was Phillips who originated the divorce and that she had given up on him only because he had revealed a "disgusting" history as a "peeping tom" and flasher.) [Dallas Observer, 12-12-2011]
Felicitous DiscoveriesDan D'Amato, 45, partying in an Orlando, Fla., motel room in December, was accidentally shot by a stranger who was having a dispute with another partygoer. Later, as his wounded hip was being treated at a hospital, doctors discovered and removed two "huge" tumors in D'Amato's abdomen that had so far gone unnoticed. The tumors were not cancerous but had they not been found, they would soon have disabled him. [Orlando Sentinel, 12-21-2011]
At a home in Taylorsville, Utah, in December, one housemate who was pursuing a mouse in the kitchen accidentally shot another housemate. As police investigated, they discovered a 13-year-old girl hiding in a closet. A third housemate, Paul Kunzler, 28, was then arrested and charged with carrying on a months-long sexual relationship with her. [KSL-TV (Salt Lake City), 12-21-2011]
Police ReportJohn Whittle, 52, was charged in December with robbing a Wells Fargo Bank in Port Richey, Fla. According to police, Whittle ordered a beer at the Hayloft Bar shortly after 1 p.m., then excused himself, and a few minutes later, returned to finish his beer. In the interim, police said later, Whittle had walked down the street to the bank and robbed it. [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 12-23-2011]
In December, Russell Mace, 55, was caught soon after robbing a Union Savings Bank branch in New Milford, Conn. A bank employee had spotted Mace acting "suspicious" in the parking lot, and indeed, he said, Mace entered, robbed the bank of about $3,000, and fled to a waiting car. Police, however, identified the car, which they had noted from Mace's recent arrest for shoplifting. (The "suspicious" behavior the bank employee had noticed, he told police, was Mace, pants down, defecating, in plain view among parked cars.) [News Times (Danbury, Conn.), 12-19-2011]
Cliches Come to LifeA 28-year-old man in New York City quietly excused himself the morning after his wedding in November (at a hotel following an elaborate reception), took a taxi to a Harlem River overlook, and jumped to his death. According to a relative, the man's suicide note mentioned that he "couldn't take it anymore." [New York Post, 11-27-2011]
Luna Oraivej, 37, was ordered in 2010 by a court in Seattle to take an anger- management course to settle a charge of domestic violence, but in December 2011, she sued the creator of the course because a fellow attendee had stabbed her in the arm during a classroom dispute. (The instructor was playing a video of "Dr. Phil," and Oraivej had urged the classmate to listen to Dr. Phil's message, but the classmate apparently could not bear it.) [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12-11-2011]
Rookie Mistake: Tyechia Rembert, 33, was arrested and charged with robbing a Burger King drive-thru cashier in York, Pa., in December but only after making police officers' job easier. After her clean getaway, she called the restaurant to reassure herself that none of the witnesses had noted her car's license plate number. None had, but using cellphone records, police traced that call to Rembert. [York Dispatch, 12-1-2011]
UpdateNot all states have anti-bestiality laws, and Peter Bower's ongoing case in Ohio exemplifies prosecutors' frustration. There was evidence that Bower had had sex with a dog ("Maggie") and had written her "love" letters, and police arrested him in June. Prosecutors were willing to settle the case in November for minimal punishment because the only law Bower could have been charged under is "animal cruelty," and they explained that they might have had trouble showing harm to the apparently adored dog. (At the time of Bower's arrest, a search had uncovered human-animal pornography and a life-sized inflatable sheep.) [WBNS-TV (Columbus), 11-28-2011]
Undignified DeathsA 77-year-old man was killed by a sheriff's deputy in December while standing beside his own engraved tombstone in a Gardnerville, Nev., cemetery. (The victim was holding a shotgun and was distraught over the death of his wife.) [WNBC-TV (New York City)-AP, 12-9-2011]
A 20-year-old man died of an apparent cocaine overdose in North Charleston, S.C., in December as a result of trying to help his older brother. The pair had been arrested and placed in a police cruiser when the older brother convinced the younger one to swallow the ounce of cocaine the older man was carrying. (According to a police report, the cocaine had been stored in the older man's "backside.") [Charleston Post & Courier, 12-21-2011]
Thanks This Week to Hal Dunham, Sharon Corbett, Larry Seltzer, Richard Bungiro, Jenna LeStarge, Alan Esworthy, Jim Dukes, David Oppenheimer, Brendan O'Naughton, and John Votel, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
-
09 Jan ' 00:29
-
07 Jan ' 22:56
WEEK OF JANUARY 8, 2012
Intelligent Design: If the male nursery web spider were a human, he would be sternly denounced as a vulgar cad. Researcher Maria Jose Albo of Denmark's Aarhus University told Live Science in November that the spiders typically obtain sex by making valuable "gifts" to females (usually, high-nutrition insects wrapped in silk), but if lacking resources, a male cleverly packages a fake gift (usually a piece of flower) also in silk but confoundingly wound so as to distract her as she unwraps it -- and then mounts her before she discovers the hoax. Albo also found that the male is not above playing dead to coax the female into relaxing her guard as she approaches the "carcass" -- only to be jumped from behind for sex. [Yahoo News-Live Science, 11-14-2011]The Continuing CrisisSon Theodore Zimmick and two other relatives filed a lawsuit in November against the St. Stanislaus cemetery in Pittsburgh for the unprofessional burial of Theodore's mother, Agnes, in 2009. Agnes had purchased an 11-by-8-foot plot in 1945, but when she finally passed away, the graveyard had become so crowded that, according to the lawsuit, workers were forced to dig such a small hole that they had to jump up and down on the casket and whack it with poles to fit it into the space. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11-29-2011]
Managers of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., decided recently to relocate the statue of Abraham Lincoln that since 1895 had occupied a seldom-visited site and whose advocates over the years had insisted be given more prominence. It turned out that the most viable option was to swap locations with a conspicuous 1906 statue of Dr. Alexander Skene. Lincoln is certainly universally revered, but Dr. Skene has advocates, too, and some (according to a December Wall Street Journal report) are resisting the relocation because Dr. Skene (unlike Lincoln) was a Brooklynite, and Dr. Skene (unlike Lincoln) had a body part named after him ("Skene's glands," thought to be "vital" in understanding the "G spot"). [Wall Street Journal, 12-10-2011]
The two hosts of the Dutch TV show "Guinea Pigs" apparently followed through on their plans in December to eat pieces of each other (fried in sunflower oil) in order to describe the taste. Dennis Storm and Valerio Zeno underwent surgery to have small chunks removed for cooking, with Zeno perhaps faring worse (a piece of Storm's "bottom") compared to Storm (who got part of Zeno's abdomen). [Daily Telegraph, 12-20-2011]
A December New England Journal of Medicine report described a woman's "losing" her breast implant during a Pilates movement called the Valsalva (which involves breath-holding while "bearing down"). The woman said she felt no pain or shortness of breath but suddenly noticed that her implant was gone. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore discovered that, because of the woman's recent heart surgery, the muscles between the ribs had loosened, and the implant had merely passed through a rib opening. (They returned it to its proper place.) [MSNBC, 12-14-2011]
Convoluted PlansA balaclava-wearing man "kidnapped" Julian Buchwald and his girlfriend in 2008 in Australia's Alpine National Park as they were picnicking. The man separated the couple, tore their clothes off and buried them, but Buchwald escaped and rescued the girlfriend, and they wandered around naked for days before being rescued. The balaclava-clad man, it turns out, was Buchwald, whose plan was to convince the woman by his heroism that she should marry him (and more immediately, to have sex even though they had both pledged to remain virgins until marriage). Buchwald was convicted in Victoria County Court and sentenced in December to more than seven years in prison. [The Age (Melbourne), 12-20-2011]
Laurie Martinez, 36, was charged in December with filing a false police report in Sacramento, Calif., alleging that she was raped, beaten bloody and robbed in her home. It turns out that she had become frustrated trying to get her husband to move them to a better neighborhood and that faking a rape was supposed to finally persuade him. Instead, he filed for divorce. Martinez is employed by the state as a psychologist. [Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer-AP, 12-9-2011]
After 12 almost intolerable months, Ms. Seemona Sumasar finally received justice in November from a New York City jury, which convicted Jerry Ramrattan of orchestrating a complex and ingenious scheme to convince police that Sumasar was a serial armed robber. Ramrattan, a private detective and "CSI" fan, had used his knowledge of police evidence-gathering to pin various open cases on Sumasar as revenge for her having dumped him (and to negate her claim that Ramrattan had raped her in retaliation). Ramrattan was so creative in linking evidence to Sumasar that her bail had been set at $1 million, causing her to spend seven months in jail. (Said one juror, "If I had seen this on TV, my reaction would be, 'How could this really happen?'") [New York Times, 11-24-2011]
People With IssuesProminent Birmingham, Ala., politician Bill Johnson describes his wife as "the most beautiful woman in the world," but he revealed in December that, while on temporary duty recently as an earthquake relief specialist in New Zealand, he had clandestinely donated sperm to nine women (and that three were already pregnant). Becoming a biological father is "a need that I have," he told a New Zealand Herald reporter, and his wife had been unable to accommodate him. Asked if his wife knew of the nine women, Johnson said, "She does now." Indeed, Alabama newspapers quickly picked up the story, and Mrs. Johnson told the Mobile Press-Register that there is "healing to do." [New Zealand Herald, 12-11-2011; Mobile Press-Register, 12-11-2011]
Least Competent CriminalsNot Ready for Prime Time: The unidentified eyeglass-wearing robber of an HSBC Bank in Long Island City, N.Y., in December fled empty-handed and was being sought. Armed with a pistol and impatient with a slow teller, the man fired a shot into the ceiling to emphasize his seriousness. However, according to a police report, the gunshot seemed to panic him as much as it did the others in the bank, and he immediately ran out the door and jumped into a waiting vehicle. [New York Daily News, 12-9-2011]
Recurring ThemesJames Ward's second annual festival of tedium (the "Boring conference"), in November at York Hall in east London, once again sold out, demonstrating the intrinsic excitement created by yawn-inducing subject matter. Last year's conference featured a man's discourse on the color and materials of his neckwear collection and another's structured milk-tasting, patterned after a wine-tasting. This second edition showcased a history of the electric hand-dryer and a seminar on the square root of 2. [The Independent, 11-19-2011]
Last month, News of the Weird informed readers of the woman who wanted to "be at one" with her recently deceased horse and thus stripped naked and climbed inside the bloody carcass (posing for a notorious Internet photo spread). Afghan slaughterhouse employees surely never consider being "at one" with water buffaloes, but a November Washington Post dispatch from Kabul mentions a similarity. U.S. slaughterhouse authority Chris Hart found, as he was helping to upgrade an antiquated abattoir near Kabul, that the facility employed a dwarf, "responsible" (wrote the Post) "for climbing inside water buffalo carcasses to cut out their colons." (Nonetheless, the slaughterhouse is halal, adhering to Islamic principles.) [Washington Post, 11-22-2011]
No Longer Weird? One would think that classical musicians who carry precious violins, worth small fortunes, on public transportation would be especially vigilant to safeguard them. However, from time to time (for example, in 2008, 2009, 2010 and May 2011), absentmindedness prevailed. Most recently, in December, student MuChen Hsieh, 19, accompanying a 176-year-old violin (on loan from a foundation in Taiwan and worth about $170,000) on a bus ride from Boston to Philadelphia, forgot to check the overhead rack when departing and left without it. Fortunately, a bus company cleaner turned it in. (Most famously, in 1999, the master cellist Yo Yo Ma left his instrument in the trunk of a New York City taxicab.) [Philadelphia Inquirer, 12-24-2011]
Thanks This Week to Ross Woodfield, Steve Dunn, Russell Bell, James Barlow, Gerald Sacks, and Stan Flouride, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CHUCK SHEPHERD
Search the Site
