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21 May ' 18:05
LEAD STORY -- Jesus Java
Britain's ITV1 television network announced plans in April to accept "prop placements" to blend into production of its new reality talent show in which actors compete for the lead role in the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar." The network said, for example, that it was seeking coffee machines, which piqued the interest of the De'Longhi brand manager, who offered its top-of-the-line Magnifica ESAM4200 and, according to its public relations firm, suggested perhaps interrupting the play's climactic song "The Crucifixion" while Jesus savors a cup brewed from the Magnifica. An April report in London's The Independent noted that the opera's composer, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, was on board with the idea, but that the original lyricist, Sir Tim Rice, called it "tasteless" and "tacky." [The Independent, 4-10-2012]What Goes AroundNOTE: From time to time, News of the Weird reminds readers that bizarre human adventures repeat themselves again and again. Here are some choice selections of previous themes recently coming around again (plus a couple of updates on earlier stories):
-- Each spring in Dongyang, China, the aroma of urine is in the air -- specifically, the town's specialty of eggs boiled in the discharge of young boys (under age 10, typically gathered "fresh" from toilets at local schools). Townspeople have believed for centuries that the eggs, properly cooked, bring health and prosperity. "By eating these eggs," one shopper told a Reuters reporter in March, "we will not have any pain in our waists, legs and joints. Also, you will have more energy when you work." In fact, Dongyang officials have proudly proclaimed "virgin boy eggs" as an "intangible cultural heritage." [Reuters, 3-29-2012]
-- And once again this spring, the Chinese marked the Qingming holiday with celebrations honoring the dead by making offerings to their deceased relatives. At the "tomb-sweeping" festival, people present paper replicas of items their ancestors are believed to need in the afterlife. Uncreative relatives give play money, but the offerings can be elaborate, such as shoes, cars and TV sets, or this year's hot item -- paper iPads, which were selling in Hong Kong for the equivalent of about $3. [The Register (London), 3-29-2012]
-- Sound Familiar? McDonald's still proudly serves its coffee hot, notwithstanding the notorious 1992 lawsuit for burns suffered by Stella Liebeck. In March 2012, Mona Abdelal filed a lawsuit in Cook County, Ill., over severe burns that her granddaughter, 4, suffered when fetching Abdelal's coffee order from a McDonald's server. According to the lawsuit, the server violated company policy that requires tightly closed lids on coffee cups and prohibits handing the cups to young children even if they are tightly sealed. [Chicago Tribune, 3-23-2012]
-- With Afghanistan's moralistic Taliban in retreat, one social scourge grows stronger than ever (according to an April Washington Post dispatch from Dehrazi): "bacha bazi," which are Afghan men's "dancing boys." Underage, often poor or fatherless kids become willing "companions" of wealthy men, often for sex. Since young girls are sheltered and chaperoned, only boys are available. Said one man, "You cannot (even) take a wife with you to a party, but a boy you can take anywhere." The usefulness of a bacha bazi typically ends when he starts growing facial hair, and the boys often drift into becoming pimps or prostitutes. [Washington Post, 4-4-2012]
-- The most recent government employee to defraud his agency's worker compensation program (according to prosecutors in Los Angeles) is firefighter Rafael Davis, 35, who received disability payments for about 30 months during 2008-2011 while at the same time engaging in mixed martial arts matches as "The Noodle." Davis' record (according to LA Weekly) was 12-2, with seven of those matches coming during his disability period, including six victories. "MMA" (as noted by the newspaper) requires similar "stamina, muscle and coordination" as is required for firefighting. [LA Weekly, 4-10-2012]
-- More and more newspapers are assigning reporters to pore through local birth records to sample the diversity of names parents are giving their kids these days. An Edmonton Journal reporter noted in March that the nearly 51,000 babies born in the province of Alberta in 2011 included a boy named Moo, two girls named Unique, an Einstein, a Messiah, a J-Cub, a Smiley, a Tuff, a Tuba, a Jazz, a Camry, an Andromeda and an Xxavier (sic), and a boy named R and a girl named J. [Edmonton Journal, 3-6-2012]
-- An increasingly mainstream treatment for the gastrointestinal bacterial infection C. difficile involves transplanting the contents of a healthy colon into the unhealthy one, on the belief that the best way to kill the destructive germs and flora is to attack them with the beneficial bacteria and flora that already reside in a healthy colon. In March an unidentified man in Sydney, New Brunswick, who had been turned down for a transplant by doctors at Cape Breton Regional Hospital, performed a risky transplant of an unreported substance, by himself, in his own bathroom. He apparently suffered no ill effects, but doctors told the Chronicle Herald of Halifax, Nova Scotia, that since the "product" must get into the large bowel, merely giving yourself an enema does not assure success. [Chronicle Herald, 4-3-2012]
-- Through the years, unusual highway tractor-trailer spills have fascinated News of the Weird readers -- such as the time a truck carrying pork collided with a truck carrying eggs, creating a highway dish of ham and eggs. In March on Highway 11 in northeastern Ontario, a Brinks tractor-trailer carrying nothing but $1 and $2 Canadian coins hit a boulder in the roadway, scattering a "debris field" of millions of dollars, forcing the closing of the road. Among the cleanup equipment required: a "magnetic" crane and a front-end loader that scooped up most of the soil in the field so that the coins could later be sifted out. [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 3-28-2012]
-- Least Competent Criminals: (1) In Twin Falls, Idaho, in April, Dylan Contreras, 19, became the most recent person arrested while trying to avoid police by giving a fake name ("Velesco") even though his real name (the one on outstanding warrants) was tattooed in plain sight on his forearm. (2) In April, a teller at Chicago's Northwest Side bank became the most recent to thwart a robbery simply by telling the perp (who had presented a holdup note) that the bank is now closed and suggesting that the robber come back the next day. (The perp walked out and did not return.) [Twin Falls Times-News, 4-4-2012] [Chicago Tribune, 4-4-2012]
Updates-- Fine Points of the Law: A woman who was injured while traveling on business in November 2007 in New South Wales, Australia, was denied worker's compensation by the workplace safety tribunal on the grounds that the injury occurred in her motel room while she was having sex with a friend. (A wall light fixture came loose as a result of the pair's vigorous antics.) However, in April 2012, Australia's Federal Court overturned the decision and granted the compensation, ruling that since the woman was on assignment at the time, the overnight stay, and even the sex, were "ordinary incidents" of the situation her employer placed her in. [Sydney Morning Herald, 4-19-2012]
-- A New York City system-gaming public school teacher, Alan Rosenfeld, 66, continues to show up for make-work (such as photocopying "duty"), at a salary of $100,000 a year, rather than retire. Rosenfeld was accused in 2001 of making lewd comments to female students in his typing class and removed from classroom duty, but he protested and continues to exercise his union "due process" rights. In a January status report, the New York Post noted that Rosenfeld could have retired four years ago, but that by remaining on the "job," the value of his pension increases, and the light duty enables him to conduct his real estate business while at "work." [New York Post, 1-29-2012]
-- Fun for Everyone: The Ahlgrim Family Funeral Services in Palatine, Ill. (first reported in News of the Weird in 1991), continues to serve its community with the unique game room in the basement that it rents out for parties (except during actual funeral events). Even though the arcade games, shuffleboard and billiards are popular, the main basement attraction is still the nine-hole miniature golf course with its own "hazard" rules (e.g., two-stroke penalty for disturbing a "grave" on the course). [Time Out Chicago, 3-27-2012]
Thanks This Week to John Ellwood and Jim Schneider, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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14 May ' 05:02
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13 May ' 16:20
LEAD STORY -- Gentlemen, Start Your Engines ... and Your Stereos
Sophisticated automobile technology makes high-performance engines purr in relative silence, but automakers fear that their most demanding drivers are emotionally attached to the engines' roar. Consequently, as Car and Driver reported in April, the 2012 BMW M5, with 560 horsepower tempered with sound deadeners, has installed pre-recorded engine noise, channeled into the car's cabin via the stereo system. A computer program matches the amplitude of the engine's growl to the driver's accelerator-revving. In other automobile tech news, Peugeot technicians announced in March that they were preparing "mood paint" for the body of the company's iconic RCZ model. The paint's molecular structure would be alterable by heat sensors in the steering wheel and elsewhere that measure a driver's stress levels. A calm driver might see his car turn green, for instance -- but watch out for road-rage red! [Car and Driver, April 2012 (not online)] [DieselCarOnline (Leamington Spa, England), 3-31-2012] The Continuing Crisis-- With only 30,000 hotel rooms in Rio de Janeiro, and 50,000 visitors expected for the June United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, officials persuaded owners of many of the city's short-time "love hotels" (typically renting for four hours at a time) to change business plans for a few days to accommodate the delegates. A BBC News stringer reported that the hotels will remove some special fixtures and furniture, such as "erotic chairs" and velvet wall coverings, but that the large, round beds would stay. Fortunately, the conference does not begin until June 13. The night of June 12 ("Lovers Day") is a big income-producer for short-stay hotels. [BBC News, 4-11-2012]
-- The Marine Wounded Warriors Battalion at Camp Lejeune, N.C., generally enjoys excellent support from the community, but in an April report of the Government Accountability Office, Marines complained of a "petting zoo" environment in which civilian charities and advertisers use the battalion to seek out "poster" faces and bodies that "looked the part" of wounded veterans, such as those severely burned or missing limbs. Warriors who suffer post-traumatic stress or brain injuries often appear outwardly "normal" and are likely to be ignored by the support organizations, thus setting a "bad tone" among the wounded. [Washington Post, 4-5-2012]
-- Not Your Classic Perps: (1) In October, Dr. Kimberly Lindsey, 44, a deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control's Laboratory Science, Policy, and Practice Program Office, was charged with two counts of child molestation and bestiality involving a 6-year-old boy. (2) In April, Yaron Segal, 30, a post-doctoral researcher at a physics lab at MIT, was arrested upon arriving in Grand Junction, Colo., after arranging with a woman online to have sex with the woman's underage daughter (an adventure that was the product of a law enforcement sting). (Two weeks later, Segal was found dead in his jail cell of an apparent suicide.) [WSB-TV (Atlanta), 10-11-2011] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 4-17-2012]
-- Oh, Dear!: (1) At a March Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance, the music continued uninterrupted as two patrons engaged in a fistfight over box seating. Conductor Riccardo Muti "never stopped conducting," said a patron. "He very gracefully, without missing a beat -- literally -- he brought (the second movement) to a very quiet and subdued close." (2) It costs $8,500 (plus $3,000 annual dues) to join the ultra-prestigious New York Athletic Club, which counts Olympic champions among its upper-crust members. However, an April brawl in a back room, said to have begun over a woman, saw (according to witnesses) fighting "wolf packs" in a "lion's pit" that resulted in several bloody injuries, with two people sent to the hospital and three arrested. [Chicago Sun-Times, 3-10-2012] [New York Times, 4-24-2012]
Names in the News(1) Arrested for felony battery in Bloomington, Ind., in April: Ms. Fellony Silas, 30. (2) Announced as eligible for parole in June by the Kansas Prison Review Board: Mr. Wilford Molester Galloway. (3) Arrested for hit-and-run in April in Roseville, Calif.: Mr. Obiwan Kenobi, 37. (4) Arrested on drug and weapons charges in Clarkstown, N.Y., in April, Mr. Genghis Khan. (5) Among the silly town names uncovered in an April report on SmarterTravel.com: Why, Ariz., Whynot, Miss., Hell, Mich., Pig, Ky., Elephant Butte, N.M., Monkeys Eyebrow, Ky., and Embarrass, Minn. The report also found towns in Wales and New Zealand that are 58 and 57 letters long, respectively. [The Smoking Gun, 4-16-2012] [Lawrence Journal-World, 4-9-2012] [KXTV (Sacramento, 4-26-2012] [The Smoking Gun, 5-1-2012] [SmarterTravel.com, 4-5-2012]
Bright Ideas-- Following her recent holiday in the United States, in which she passed through Boring, Ore. (pop. 12,000), Scotswoman Elizabeth Leighton returned home to suggest that officials in her hometown of Dull, Scotland, arrange for the two towns to become "sister cities," even though they did not qualify under normal protocols because of Boring's larger size. (The Oregon town was named for a Civil War soldier, William H. Boring.) [BBC News, 4-24-2012]
-- Some villagers in China's Shandong Province who are too poor or isolated to hook up to home heating fuel service have an alternative, according to a March report by China News Center. They take giant, heavy-duty balloons that resemble 15-foot-long condoms and walk to filling stations to inflate them with natural gas every four or five days. The danger of explosion is high, but the balloons remain many villagers' best option. [China News Center (ChinaMedia.com), 3-1-2012]
-- A Better Reason to De-Fund Planned Parenthood: The organization has survived a controversial de-funding campaign over its limited abortion program, but its Washington state chapter, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, began a quixotic safe-sex campaign in February in which thousands of condoms were distributed with scannable barcodes. The plan was that users would automatically register information about their locations during sex, and, if the users chose, other information about the particular sexual experience they just had. Among the choices: "Ah-maz-ing," "Rainbows exploded and mountains trembled," "Things can only improve from here." [New York Daily News, 2-29-2012]
Oops!-- At the 10th Arab Shooting Championships in Kuwait in March, as medals were presented and winners' national anthems were played, officials were apparently ill-prepared for medalist Maria Dmitrienko of Kazakhstan. Consequently, her "national anthem" was, inadvertently, the humorous ditty from the movie "Borat." (Instead of such lyrics as "sky of golden sun" and "legend of courage," the audience heard "Greatest country in the world / All other countries are run by little girls" and "Filtration system a marvel to behold / It removes 80 percent of human solid waste.") Dmitrienko reportedly kept a mostly straight face throughout, although Kazakhstan later demanded, and received, an official apology. [Daily Mail (London), 3-23-2012]
-- Clumsy: (1) In March, Germany's celebrity rabbit -- the genetically "earless" bunny Tiny Til -- was accidentally crushed to death in a zoo in Limbach-Oberfrohna when a cameraman accidentally stepped on it while setting up for a news conference. (2) In 2011, a photographer snapping pictures for an art magazine moved a 2,630-year-old African sculpture to get a better shot, and accidentally smashed it ("to smithereens," according to the owner, Corice Arman, who filed a $300,000 lawsuit in April 2012 against the photographer and his magazine). [Spiegel Online via New York Daily News, 3-16-2012] [New York Post, 4-26-2012]
People Different From UsLawrence Cobbold, 38, has a house in Plympton, England, but has to make living arrangements at his parents' home or elsewhere because his place is totally taken over by his 21,000-item collection of bird ornaments and doodads. Before heading off to sleep elsewhere, he spends an average of four hours a day tidying up the collection. His dad (who described his other son as "completely normal") said, "I just hope I die before (Lawrence). I don't want to (have to) clear all this out." [Plymouth Herald, 4-5-2012]
Questionable Strategy: Robert Strank, 39, was arrested in Beavercreek, Ohio, in April and charged with trying to rob the Huntington Bank. According to police, he had approached the bank's counter but become ill and asked a teller to call 911 to summon medics. There were conflicting news reports about when medics arrived to treat Strank, but there was agreement that Strank recovered and subsequently presented the same teller his pre-written holdup note demanding cash. He was arrested in short order. [WDTN-TV (Dayton), 4-20-2012; WHIO-TV (Dayton), 4-23-2012]
Thanks This Week to Douglas Wilson, Reta Burnett, and Gerald Sacks, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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09 May ' 02:31
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08 May ' 07:43
On Feb. 1st, the New Jersey Honor Legion -- a civic association with more than 6,000 members in law enforcement -- nominated Frank DiMattina as "Citizen of the Month" for offering his catering hall in Woodbridge, N.J., numerous times for gatherings of police and firefighters. The nomination came three weeks after DiMattina (also known as "Frankie D") was convicted of shaking down a rival bidder for a school-lunch contract in New York City. Federal prosecutors told the New York Daily News that DiMattina is mobbed up--an associate of the Genovese family's John "Johnny Sausage" Barbato. [New York Daily News, 3-26-2012]
-- In January, Ms. Navey Skinner, 34, was charged with robbing the Chase Bank in Arlington, Wash., after passing a teller a note that read, "Put the money in the bag now or [d]ie." According to investigators, Skinner subsequently told them she had been thinking about robbing a bank and then, while inside the Chase Bank, "accidentally robbed" it. [Daily Herald (Everett, Wash.), 1-30-2012]
-- In April, Arizona (recently the home of cutting-edge legislation) almost set itself up for the impossible task of trying to prohibit any "annoy[ing]" or "offen[sive]" or "profane" language on the Internet. The state House passed the bill, which was endorsed 30-0 by the state Senate, ostensibly to make an anti-stalking telephone regulation applicable to "digital" communications. (Just as the bill was about to go to the governor for signature, sponsors suddenly realized the futility of the bill's directives, and on April 4th, withdrew it.) [Phoenix New Times, 4-4-2012]
-- Gay Rights in Limbo: (1) The Missouri House of Representatives, after several times rejecting "sexual orientation" as one of the legally prohibited categories of discrimination, managed to find another category in March (to join "race," "religion" and so forth) that is deserving of special protection: licensed concealed-weapons carriers. (2) The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in April that Joshua Coman, convicted of having sex with a dog, does not have to register as a sex offender. Activists had urged that the sodomy law on which Coman was convicted be declared unconstitutional, since it appears to equate human-animal sex with man-man and woman-woman sex. However, the Court declined, instead noting that Coman had been convicted of a misdemeanor and that only felons are required to register. [St. Louis Public Radio, 3-11-2012]
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07 May ' 09:49
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06 May ' 00:47
LEAD STORY -- The Ultimate Gated Community
Condo developer Larry Hall is already one-quarter sold out of the upscale doomsday units he is building in an abandoned underground Cold War-era Atlas-F missile silo near Salina, Kan. He told an Agence France-Presse reporter in April that his 14-story structure would house seven floors of apartments ($1 million to $2 million each, cash up front), with the rest devoted to dry food storage, filtered-water tanks and an indoor farm, which would raise fish and vegetables to sustain residents for five years. The 9-foot-thick concrete walls (built to protect rockets from a Soviet nuclear attack) would be buttressed by entrance security to ward off the savages who were not wise enough to prepare against famine, meteors, nuclear war and the like. Hall said he expects to be sold out this year and begin work on another of the three silos he has options to buy. [Agence France-Presse via Google News, 4-9-2012]Can't Possibly Be True-- Dan O'Leary, the city manager of Keller, Tex. (pop. 27,000), faced with severe budget problems, was unable to avoid the sad job of handing out pink slips. For instance, he determined that one of Keller's three city managers had to go, and in April, he laid himself off. According to a March Fort Worth Star-Telegram report, O'Leary neither intended to retire nor had other offers pending, and he had aroused no negative suspicions as to motive. He simply realized the city could be managed more cost-effectively by the two lower-paid officials. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 3-21-2012]
-- Herman Wallace, 70, and Albert Woodfox, 65, have been held in solitary confinement (only one hour a day outside) since 1972 in the Louisiana State Prison at Angola, after being convicted (via flimsy evidence and a convenient prison snitch) of killing a guard. A third convict for the murder, Robert King, who was in solitary for 29 years but then released, explained to BBC News in an April dispatch what it's like to live inside 54 square feet for 23 hours a day, for over 14,000 straight days. The lawyer working to free Wallace and Woodfox said the soul-deadened men were "potted plants." [BBC News, 4-4-2012]
That Sacred Institution(1) A federal court magistrate in Melbourne, Australia, decided to split a divorcing couple's assets in half in February after listening to tedious details of their 20-year marriage. The "couple" lived apart except for vacations and kept their finances separate, constantly "invoic[ing] each other," according to the Daily Telegraph, for amounts as trifling as a $1.60 lightbulb. (2) Though many Americans act as though they are in love with themselves, only Nadine Schweigert became an honest woman. She married herself in March in front of 45 family members and friends in Fargo, N.D., vowing "to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self." And then she was off on a solo honeymoon. [Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2-27-2012] [Fargo Forum, 3-15-2012]
On Feb. 1st, the New Jersey Honor Legion -- a civic association with more than 6,000 members in law enforcement -- nominated Frank DiMattina as "Citizen of the Month" for offering his catering hall in Woodbridge, N.J., numerous times for gatherings of police and firefighters. The nomination came three weeks after DiMattina (also known as "Frankie D") was convicted of shaking down a rival bidder for a school-lunch contract in New York City. Federal prosecutors told the New York Daily News that DiMattina is mobbed up -- an associate of the Genovese family's John "Johnny Sausage" Barbato. [New York Daily News, 3-26-2012]
Unclear on the Concept-- In January, Ms. Navey Skinner, 34, was charged with robbing the Chase Bank in Arlington, Wash., after passing a teller a note that read, "Put the money in the bag now or (d)ie." According to investigators, Skinner subsequently told them she had been thinking about robbing a bank and then, while inside the Chase Bank, "accidentally robbed" it. [Daily Herald (Everett, Wash.), 1-30-2012]
-- Emanuel Kuvakos, 56, was arrested in April and charged with sending two Chicago sports team executives emails that threatened them with violence for having stolen his "ideas" for winning "championships." One of the victims was a former general manager of the Chicago Cubs, a team that famously has not won a National League championship in 66 years, nor a World Series in 103. [Chicago Tribune, 4-18-2012] -- In April, Arizona (recently the home of cutting-edge legislation) almost set itself up for the impossible task of trying to prohibit any "annoy(ing)" or "offen(sive)" or "profane" language on the Internet. The state House passed the bill, which was endorsed 30-0 by the state Senate, ostensibly to make an anti-stalking telephone regulation applicable to "digital" communications. (Just as the bill was about to go to the governor for signature, sponsors suddenly realized the futility of the bill's directives, and on April 4th, withdrew it.) [Phoenix New Times, 4-4-2012]
Fine Points of the Law-- Finally, a nationally prominent judge has taken on prison "nutriloaf" as a constitutional issue. In March, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner reinstated a dismissed lawsuit by a Milwaukee County Jail inmate who claimed that the mystery meat gave him an "anal fissure." Posner wrote that the lower courts needed to rule on whether the food of indeterminate content is "cruel and unusual punishment," since (citing a Wikipedia entry) an anal fissure seems "no fun at all." [American Bar Association Journal, 3-28-2012]
-- Gay Rights in Limbo: (1) The Missouri House of Representatives, after several times rejecting "sexual orientation" as one of the legally prohibited categories of discrimination, managed to find another category in March (to join "race," "religion" and so forth) that is deserving of special protection: licensed concealed-weapons carriers. (2) The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in April that Joshua Coman, convicted of having sex with a dog, does not have to register as a sex offender. Activists had urged that the sodomy law on which Coman was convicted be declared unconstitutional, since it appears to equate human-animal sex with man-man and woman-woman sex. However, the Court declined, instead noting that Coman had been convicted of a misdemeanor and that only felons are required to register. [St. Louis Public Radio, 3-11- 2012]
People With IssuesIn March, West Des Moines, Iowa, police opened an investigation, with video surveillance, of a 59-year-old employee of the state's Farm Bureau on suspicion of criminal mischief. According to police documents cited by the Des Moines Register, the man would look through the employee database for photos of attractive female colleagues and then visit their work space after hours and urinate on their chairs. Not only does the man allegedly have a problem, but the Farm Bureau figured it is out $4,500 in damaged chairs. [Des Moines Register, 3-27-2012]
Amateur Hour: (1) CVS supervisor Fenton Graham, 35, of Silver Spring, Md., was arrested as the inside man (with two accomplices) in two drugstore robberies in April. Surveillance video showed that in the second heist, the nervous perp evidently failed to take the money with him, and Graham (the "victim") was seen taking it out to his forgetful partner. (2) Kyle Voss, 24, was charged with four burglaries in Great Falls, Mont., in April after coming upon a private residence containing buckets of coins. According to police, Voss first took the quarters and half-dollars ($3,000), then days later he returned for $700 in dimes and nickels. By the third break-in, the resident had installed surveillance video, and Voss was caught as he came back for a bucket of pennies. [Washington Post, 4-13-2012] [Associated Press via Fox News, 4-17-2012]
Least Competent BankFederal court documents revealed in March that AWOL Army Pvt. Brandon Price, 28, had convinced Citibank in January that he spoke for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (one of the world's richest men) and convinced the bank to issue Allen (i.e., Price) a new debit card and to change Allen's address from Seattle to Price's address in Pittsburgh. Price/Allen shopped decidedly downscale, running up charges only at Gamestop and Family Dollar, totaling less than $1,000. [Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 3-27-2012]
Thanks This Week to Cindy Hildebrand, Sandy Pearlman and Hal Dunham, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors. -
30 Apr ' 05:07
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28 Apr ' 22:48
LEAD STORY -- You Snooze (Even for a Split-Second), You Lose
In April, a research ship will begin surveying the Atlantic Ocean floor off of Nova Scotia as the first step to building, by 2013, a $300 million private fiber-optic line connecting New York and London financial markets so as to speed up current transmission times -- by about five milliseconds. Those five milliseconds, though (according to an April report in Bloomberg Business Week), will enable the small group of firms that are underwriting the project (and who will have exclusive use of it) to earn millions of dollars per transaction by having their trade sales arrive five milliseconds before their competitors' sales would have arrived. [Bloomberg Business Week, 4-2-2012]Cultural Diversity-- Brazil's Safety Net for the Poor: Dr. Ivo Pitanguy, the most celebrated plastic surgeon in the country, apparently earned enough money from well-off clients that he can now "give back," by funding and inspiring more than 200 clinics to provide low-income women with enhancement procedures (face lifts, tummy tucks, butt lifts) at a reduced, and sometimes no, charge. A local anthropology professor told ABC News, for a March dispatch, that "(i)n Brazil, plastic surgery is now seen as something of the norm" (or, as the reporter put it, "(B)eauty is (considered) a right, and the poor deserve to be ravishing, too"). [ABC News, 3-23-2012]
-- In a March interview on Bolivian television, Judge Gualberto Cusi, who was recently elected to Bolivia's Constitutional Tribunal from the indigenous Aymara community, acknowledged that occasionally, when deciding tough cases, he relied on the Aymaran tradition of "reading" coca leaves. "In moments when decisions must be taken, we turn to coca to guide us and show us the way." [BBC News, 3-15-2012]
-- In February, the Life-End Clinic in the Netherlands announced that six mobile euthanasia teams were placed in service countrywide to make assisted-suicide house calls -- provided the client qualified under the nation's strict laws. (Euthanasia, legal in the Netherlands since 2002, is available to people who suffer "unbearable, interminable" pain and for which at least two doctors certify there is "no cure." Panels of doctors, lawyers and ethicists rule on the applications.) [Agence France-Presse via Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3-1-2012]
Latest Religious Messages-- Two lawsuits filed in Los Angeles recently against the founding family of the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network allege that televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch have spent well over $50 million of worshippers' donations on "personal" expenses, including 13 "mansions," his-and-hers private jets, and a $100,000 mobile home for Mrs. Crouch's dogs. The jets are necessary, the Crouches' lawyer told the Los Angeles Times, because the Crouches receive more death threats than even the president of the United States. Allegedly, the Crouches keep millions of dollars in cash on hand, but according to their lawyer, that is merely out of obedience to the biblical principle of "ow(ing) no man anything." [Los Angeles Times, 3-23-2012; Daily Mail (London), 3-23-2012]
-- High-ranking Vatican administrator Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, 68, fired back at critics in April after an Italian website reported his extensive collection of guns and love of shooting. He told reporters that he owns only 13 weapons and that, "above all," he enjoys "repairing" them rather than shooting them (although, he admitted, "I used to go to shooting ranges"). [Agence France-Presse via Ottawa Citizen, 4-12-2012]
Fine Points of Florida Law(1) In April, the Tampa Police Department issued preliminary security guidelines to control areas around August's Republican National Convention in the city. Although the Secret Service will control the actual convention arena, Tampa Police are establishing a zone around the arena in which weapons will be confiscated (including sticks, rocks, bottles and slingshots). Police would like to have banned firearms, too, but state law prevents cities from restricting the rights of licensed gun-carriers. (2) South Florida station WPLG-TV reported in March that vendors were openly selling, for about $30, verbatim driver's license test questions and answers, on the street in front of DMV offices. However, when told about it, a DMV official shrugged, pointing out that test-takers still had to memorize them to pass the closed-book exam. [Tampa Bay Times, 4-3-2012] [WPLG-TV, 3-30-2012]
Questionable Judgments-- Perp's Remorse: (1) Jason Adkins was charged in March in Cynthiana, Ky., with stealing electronic equipment from the home of a friend. According to police, Adkins admitted the break-in but said he felt guilty the next day and returned the items. However, he then admitted breaking back into the home two days after that and re-stealing them. (2) Ivan Barker was sentenced in March in England's Stoke-on-Trent Magistrates Court for stealing a laptop computer and cigarettes from the home of a wheelchair-bound man of his acquaintance. Barker subsequently visited the man and apologized for the theft, but then, during that visit, Barker stole the man's new replacement laptop computer and more cigarettes. [Cynthiana Democrat, 3-23-2012] [ThisIsStaffordshire.com, 3-22- 2012]
-- At a March town meeting in Embden, Maine, residents turned down proposals to rename its most notorious street "Katie Road." Thus, the name will remain, as it has for decades, "Katie Crotch Road." Some residents, in addition to being embarrassed by the name, also noted the cost of constantly replacing the street signs stolen by giggling visitors. (A Kennebec Journal report noted uncertainty about the name's origin. It might refer to how the road splits in two, forming a "Y" shape. On the low side, the name might refer to an early settler who would sit on her front porch without underwear.) [Kennebec Journal, 3-10-2012]
-- Lumpkin County, Ga., judge David Barrett, apparently frustrated by an alleged rape victim's reluctant testimony at a trial in February, blurted out in court that she was "killing her case (against the accused rapist)," and to dramatize the point, pulled out his own handgun and offered it to her, explaining that she might as well shoot her lawyer because the chances for conviction were dropping rapidly. (Five days later, following news reports, Barrett resigned.) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2-25-2012; Gainesville Times (Gainesville, Ga.), 3-1-2012]
No Spectators Allowed-- For the first time in years, there was no Easter bunny at Central City Park in Macon, Ga., this year because the county commissioner who runs the sponsoring organization said he was tired of violent parents hogging the Easter egg hunt by "helping" their kids. (Two years ago, Olney High School in Philadelphia barred players' parents from its boys' junior varsity basketball games unless they registered and vowed to obey a code of conduct. In February 2012, the president of the Egyptian Football Association similarly announced that the season would continue but without spectators, because of the probability of violence. Of course, Egypt, unlike Macon, Ga., and Olney High School, has just been through a bloody civil war.) [Macon Telegraph, 4-5-2012] [WTXF-TV, 1-12-2010] [Ahram Online (Cairo), 2-15-2012]
Relentless: (1) In the early hours of Jan. 31, police in Gaston, N.C., were alerted to five burglaries in a two-block area that left shattered glass, broken doors and other damage, but no missing property. There was also a blood trail leading from one store, likely from a break-in boo-boo. (2) In March, England's Canterbury Crown Court heard the evidence against a gang of five who in August and September 2010 attempted to break into seven ATMs, using fancy power tools, but came away empty-handed each time. Brick walls were smashed around three machines, and twice explosives were used, resulting in fires. In each case, alarms were triggered, sending the men away prematurely, including once from an ATM that contained the equivalent of $223,000. [Gaston Gazette, 1-31-2012] [Daily Mail, 3-28-2012]
The Japanese delicacy "fugu" (blowfish) must be properly filleted by trained chefs because of the highly concentrated poison in its tissue, and indeed, a few deaths are reported every year in Japan from people who prepare fugu at home, since a single drop can be fatal. (The additional training, and chef-licensing, partly explains why Tokyo restaurants charge the equivalent of $120 or more for the dish.) However, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which is apparently newly concerned about restaurant competition, announced recently that it would soon no longer require formal training of fugu chefs, leaving it to individual restaurants to set their own standards. Said one 30-year veteran chef, "We licensed chefs feel this way of thinking is a bit strange." [Reuters, 4-2-2012]
Thanks This Week to Joshua Guthrie and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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23 Apr ' 01:53
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