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05 Jul 2009 00:36
WEEK OF JULY 5, 2009
A 48-year-old immigrant from Malta regularly hangs out in various New York City bars, but always on the floor, so that he can enjoy his particular passion of being stepped on. "Georgio T." told The New York Times in June that he has delighted in being stepped on since he was a kid. While one playmate "wanted to be the doctor, (another) wanted to be the carpenter ... I would want to be the carpet." Nowadays, he carries a custom-made rug he can affix to his back (and a sign, Step on Carpet) and may lie face-down for several hours if the bar is busy. He is also a regular at "high foot-traffic" fetish parties, where dozens of stompers (especially women in stilettos) can satisfy their own urges while gratifying Georgio. [New York Times, 6-14-09] Compelling ExplanationsSteven Gilmore Jr., 21, was arrested in Gainesville, Fla., after an aborted convenience store robbery in which he shot a clerk with a BB gun. Police said Gilmore confessed to the crime, explaining that he is an aspiring rap singer and felt he needed to commit a violent crime to gain "street cred" as a thug. [Gainesville Sun, 5-11-09]
Marcella Rivera said the last she heard was that her soldier-husband, William Rivera, would try to reconcile with her and their five children when he got back from Iraq, but then her mother saw a TV program on returning soldiers that showed William being married to another woman. Marcella pressed a bigamy charge in Independence, Mo., but prosecutors dropped it in May after William convinced them that "post-traumatic stress disorder" suffered in Iraq had made him forget that he was married. [KCTV (Kansas City), 5-20-09]
IroniesEvils of Renewable Energy: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick calls the Evergreen Solar Panel manufacturing plant in the town of Devens "the leading edge of our clean energy economy," but neighbors continue to complain vociferously about the dizzying, 24-hour-a-day noise. According to a June Boston Herald story, farmers report that their horses are developing ulcers and that other animals are behaving strangely. [Boston Herald, 6-5-09]
Four hundred goats have mysteriously died since the installation of eight noisy, 24-hour-a-day wind turbines in the Penghu region in Taiwan, according to a Council of Agriculture official cited in a May Reuters report. [Reuters, 5-21-09]
Sexual Confusion: Researchers from the University of British Columbia nursing school reported in December that lesbian and bisexual high school girls are seven times more likely to get pregnant than other girls. A leading hypothesis is that those girls may try to disguise their sexual identity by uninhibited heterosexual behavior. [Vancouver Sun, 12-16-08]
Addressing a conference in Hobart, Australia, in May, professor Julie Quinlivan, dean of the University of Notre Dame Australia's medical school, said that for disadvantaged teenage girls, becoming pregnant is a good thing, teaching a sense of responsibility that may otherwise not develop. Such teen mothers were more likely to stop smoking, stay in school and find jobs. [The Mercury (Hobart), 5-14-09]
Even though life and health insurance companies now routinely penalize smokers with higher premiums (or by refusing their business), the companies themselves own tobacco company stock worth at least $4.4 billion, according to a recent New England Journal of Medicine report. Centers for Disease Control estimates that more than 400,000 Americans die prematurely each year due in part to smoking (burdening life insurance companies but perhaps sparing health insurers from having to pay out over longer lifetimes). [Agence France-Presse, 6-4-09]
What About My Rights?Chutzpah: In 2006, a jury in Tampa convicted William Deparvine, 57, of murdering a husband and wife in order to steal their restored, vintage 1971 Chevy truck that they had offered to sell Deparvine. Judge and jury agreed on the death penalty, and thus began the inevitable delay until execution. With time on his hands, Deparvine filed a lawsuit in 2007 against the dead couple's estate, insisting (in line with his failed trial defense) that the truck is now his, that the couple had signed over a bill of sale before they died. The couple's family, having hoped to move on from the tragedy, is instead busy filing court papers. [St. Petersburg Times, 6-15-09]
In June, lawyer Alfred Rava announced a $500,000 settlement of his lawsuit against the Oakland A's baseball team for "discriminating" illegally against men when it gave away 7,500 floppy hats to the first women through the turnstiles on a 2004 Mother's Day breast-cancer-awareness promotion. Rava may get about half ("attorney's fees"), and any man who swears he was among the first 7,500 fans through the gates that day, and who wanted a hat, will get $50 cash plus other premiums. [American Bar Association Journal, 6-18-09]
That Sacred Institution of MarriageWhen Ian Platt, 51, married Lisa, 42, in Leeds, England, in May, he dressed in traditional morning suit in a ceremony heavily attended by his family. However, after the family members departed, Ian slipped away, donned a wedding dress, and reappeared before friends to take vows as his preferred identity, Susan. Both ceremonies were approved by Lisa. [Daily Telegraph (London), 5-18-09]
Asia News International reported in May that a man and woman, both 23, from Yichang in China's Hubei province, were planning to get married in 2011 and had made plans to switch genders before then (since the woman says she's always looked like a boy, and the man says his "calm demeanor" more resembles that of a woman). [China National News-Asia News International, 5-21-09]
The Weirdo-American CommunityDaniel Doster Jr., 42, was arrested in Yorktown, Ind., in March for masturbating while standing beside his mailbox (which he told police he was doing to show his neighbors "who was boss"). [Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), 3-11-09]
Dean Mark, 53, was arrested at Whittell High School in Zephyr Cove, Nev., in June, for trespassing. Three students had reported encountering Mark a short distance from the school, nude, tied to a large rock, and asked if he wanted to be untied. According to the police report, Mark declined but then a few minutes later appeared fully clothed on the school grounds. [Tahoe Daily Tribune, 6-11-09]
Not Ready for Prime Time: In April, police in Fayetteville, N.C., were seeking a pregnant woman who walked into a Carter Bank & Trust branch with a handgun and demanded cash. As a clerk was taking money out to give to her, she received a call on her cell phone, and the conversation became so intense that she ignored the money and walked out of the bank empty-handed, still talking. [Fox News-AP, 4-22-09]
Alfonso Rizzuto, 47, who was on the run from forgery charges in Scranton, Pa., was arrested in nearby Kingston when he wandered into a post office and an employee noticed that Rizzuto bore a great resemblance to the photo on the Wanted poster of "Alfonso Rizzuto" tacked to the wall. [Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre), 4-7-09]
Medical Marvel: Paul Gibbs, 26, hopes soon to have his left ear reattached after losing it in a barroom fight, but for now, the ear needs to be re-nourished to be strong enough to survive the surgery. Consequently, Gibbs has become the most recent person to have one organ surgically implanted elsewhere in his body while it absorbs nutrients. His lawyer reported in June at England's Leeds Crown Court (at a hearing for the two thugs convicted of beating Gibbs up) that the ear was successfully sewn into Gibbs' abdomen. [Daily Mail (London), 6-11-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (March 1993)In September 1992 in Chicago, Frank D. Zeffere III filed a lawsuit for $40,000 in lost dating expenses against a woman who had broken off their engagement. However, Zeffere, who is a lawyer, wrote her an offer of an out-of-court settlement, beginning with, "I am still willing to marry you on the conditions hereinbelow set forth," and ending, "Please feel free to call me if you have any questions or would like to discuss any of the matters addressed herein. Sincerely, Frank." [Los Angeles Daily News-AP, 9-30-92]
Thanks This Week to Dave Bonan, Monteen Soldani, Chris Chiu, and Bruce Leiserowitz, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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29 Jun 2009 02:57
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27 Jun 2009 23:56
WEEK OF JUNE 28, 2009
Using GPS and state-of-the-art sonar, Columbia University researchers recently made the first comprehensive map of the wonders submerged in New York City's harbors. Supplementing those findings with historical data, New York magazine reported the inventory's highlights in May: a 350-foot steamship (downed in 1920), a freight train (derailed in 1865), 1,600 bars of silver (unrecovered since 1903), a fleet of Good Humor ice cream trucks (which form a reef for aquatic life), and so many junked cars near the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges that divers use them as underwater navigation points. Of most concern lately, though, are the wildlife: 4-foot-long worms that eat wooden docks and tiny "gribbles" that eat concrete pilings. [New York, 5-18-09]Government in ActionMore California Money "Management": The Los Angeles Unified School District pays almost $10 million a year to about 160 teachers and staff who are forbidden to do any work -- those subject to discipline but whose cumbersome "due process" and appeals take years to carry out. One teacher, Matthew Kim, fired by the school board in 2002 for allegedly sexually harassing students and colleagues, still receives his $68,000 a year, including benefits, and (by union contract interpretation) cannot be called on to perform clerical or other non-"professional" duties during the appeals, according to a May Los Angeles Times report. [Los Angeles Times, 5-6-09]
Because of what an April Boston Globe report called "a decades-old interpretation of the state's militia laws," state government employees who are also members of the Massachusetts National Guard and who go on active duty are paid much more money if deployed at home than in Iraq or Afghanistan. State law requires those Guardsmen on domestic duty to be paid both for their state job and their military duty while Guardsmen in the war zones collect only the higher of the two salaries. [Boston Globe, 4-15-09]
Britain's Local Governments Are Afraid of Everything: The Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Service issued rules recently requiring the use of long poles to test high-up fire alarms because letting the firefighters use stepladders might lead to injuries. [Daily Mail, 4-5-09]
The South Kesteven District Council decided in May to no longer hoist the oversized Flag of St. George outside Bourne Town Hall on St. George's Day -- because of the "risk" involved in using an 8-foot ladder on a plinth above a spoked gate. [Evening Telegraph (Peterborough), 5-21-09]
Small-Town Government "People Skills": E-mails from Smithfield (Pa.) Township Supervisor Christine Griffin, published in May in the Pocono Record, confirmed the long-time complaints of critics about her lack of diplomacy. In one official e-mail, Griffin wrote: "Don't you dare waste my time with your (expletive), you lying cheating son of a (expletive), sneaky back door (expletive) nut (expletive) sucker." In another: "(N)o cement boots for me! Nice try though, a real drama rama! Reminder: I am the quintessential professional! (D)ecorum and common sense are my bylaws!" [Pocono Record, 5-7-09]
The Evolution of DemocracyKim Schroeder, running for vice president of the Milwaukee (Wis.) Teachers Education Association in May, promised a five-point program, with the first four being vows to make the union more aggressive toward the school board. His fifth point, he said, was "to make sure that there is ... beer and wine available for our monthly Leaders' Meetings." (He lost.) [Journal Sentinel, 5-11-09]
Josko Risa finished second in the election for mayor of Prozolac, Croatia (pop. 4,500), and was in a run-off on May 31 because of (or despite) his campaign pledge of (roughly translated) "All for Me, Nothing for You" (or, "It is definitely going to be better for me, but will be the same for you"). (Run-off results from Croatia were not widely reported.) [Croatian Times, 5-19-09]
More Post-Traumatic Stress: Peter Singer, the author of a new book on battlefield robotics, told LiveScience.com in May he had seen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan grow so attached to their bomb-disposal robots that, in one case, the soldier risked 160 feet of enemy machine gun fire to retrieve his little buddy, and in another, a soldier brought his robot in for repairs with tears in his eyes over the "injury" to his beloved "Scooby-Doo." Several units, he said, had given their robots promotions, Purple Hearts and even a military funeral. [LiveScience.com, 5-21-09]
Fine Points of the LawRichard Balsavage, 28, pleaded guilty in Berks County, Pa., in 2005 to taking pornographic photos of a toddler and was sentenced to nine to 23 months in jail, which he served, but while still on probation, he continued to possess child pornography and was re-sentenced by a different judge, to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison. Balsavage then asked that judge for a re-sentencing, pointing out that he had not been given a fair opportunity to express remorse in court, and the judge relented. Balsavage then made a sorrowful apology, but it went for naught because the judge had subsequently learned that during therapy sessions, Balsavage had confessed to a history of abuse of young children. If Balsavage had not demanded re-sentencing, he might have been out in 3 1/2 years, but his new term was set at 24 1/2 to 49 years. [Reading Eagle, 5-28-09]
In the Kings Creek area north of Lenoir, N.C., according to sheriff's deputies, two feuding families created a ruckus in May after a dog killed a neighbor's cat. When the cat's owner found out, he shot the dog dead. When the dog's owner found out, he shot the cat's owner and the man's young daughter. Deputies were called, and when they arrived, the dog's owner shot both of them, but one got off a return shot, fatally wounding the dog's owner (and completing the chain!). [Time Warner Newschannel 14, 5-28-09]
Brandon Hiser, 22, was arrested in Kansas City, Mo., in May for trying to break into a bank using only a screwdriver, which would be a daunting task any time but the bank Hiser was trying to enter was the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Kansas City Star, 5-26-09] [
Ezedrick Jones, 18, was arrested in Memphis, Tenn., for the attempted robbery of the very same KFC from which he had recently been fired. Though masked, Jones was quickly recognized by his former manager via the mask's oversized eye holes, and throughout the robbery the manager kept addressing Ezedrick by name. Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 5-25-09]
The most recent man to decide to smash a bullet with a hammer, George Fath, of Pleasant Lake, Ind., said he wanted to destroy it so it wouldn't harm his kids. Fath told WANE-TV in April that he was shot in the stomach "and knocked ... on my butt." [WANE-TV (Fort Wayne), 4-24-09]
Yet another man tried to explain away testing positive for cocaine by swearing he could only have ingested the drug when he performed oral sex on his cocaine-using girlfriend. Ex-NYPD helicopter pilot Jon Goldin had been fired three years ago for failing the drug test and had his challenge of the test rejected in April. [New York Daily News, 4-8-09]
Undignified DeathsTheir Last Words: "A million dollars is a lot of money to pay for a whore" were the last words of multimillionaire French banker Edouard Stern, according to his girlfriend, Cecile Brossard, who took offense (and was convicted of killing him in June in Geneva, Switzerland). [BBC News, 6-10- 09]
"Shoot me, shoot me," you "ain't got the --" were the last words (according to a police report) of Scott Riley, 25, who was arguing with the gun-wielding Joseph Jimenez, 24, about their game of Beer Pong in Bridgeport, Pa., in May. [WCAU-TV (Philadelphia), 5-4-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (March 1994)In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in February 1994, accused murderer Donald Leroy Evans, 38, filed a pre-trial motion asking permission to wear a Ku Klux Klan robe in the courtroom and to be referred to in legal documents by "the honorable and respected name of Hi Hitler." According to courthouse employees interviewed by the Associated Press, Evans thought Adolf Hitler's followers were saying "Hi Hitler" rather than "Heil, Hitler." [Houston Post-AP, 2-13-94]
Thanks This Week to John Holsinger, Brendan O'Naughton, Stephen Taylor, Rick Matz, Tim McCall, Jessica McRorie, and Tom Barker, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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21 Jun 2009 23:20
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21 Jun 2009 06:21
WEEK OF JUNE 21, 2009
Competitive Facial Hair: At the biennial World Beard and Moustache Championships in May in Anchorage, Alaska, four local heroes "defeated" the usually dominant German contingent in the 18-category pageant, including overall champ David Traver of Girdwood, Alaska, whose woven chin hair suggests a long potholder. Said Traver, of the Germans, "They were humble, and you have to respect that." One defending champ, Jack Passion of Los Angeles, fell short with his navel-length red hair, despite having authored "The Facial Hair Handbook" after his 2007 victory. Traver acknowledged that no money was at stake (only trophies and "bragging rights"), but added that there are "a lot of ladies" who fawn over men's facial hair. "Seriously, they exist." [Anchorage Daily News, 5-24-09] [Washington Post, 5-28-09]Yikes!Men Who Get Around: Thomas Frazier, 42, was jailed in Flint, Mich., in April after his unpaid child-support tab reached $530,000 (14 children with 13 women). He told the judge that he was only trying "to find someone who would love me for me." [Flint Journal, 4-11-09]
The total tab of Desmond Hatchell, 29, of Knoxville, Tenn., was not reported at his May court appearance, but the judge questioned him sharply about payments from his minimum-wage job. Hatchell has 21 kids by 11 women, but told WLVT-TV, "I didn't intend to have this many." [WLVT-TV (Knoxville), 5-22-09]
Bad Sci-Fi Movies Come to Life: A portion of downtown Rotterdam, Netherlands, was blanketed in gluey white "silk" in May, from a six-week-long invasion of caterpillars that strip trees and cover them with gooey larvae. [Dutch Daily News, 5-27-09]
Nicola Bruce and her two toddlers, who live in government-assisted housing in Stoke-on-Trent, England, have awakened nearly every morning for two years to a fresh invasion of about 50 slugs, despite 30 attempts by contractors to find their source (in addition to the remodeling of the kitchen and bath and the bleaching of floors). [The Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent), 1-14-09]
The head of Florida's Department of Corrections admitted in May that at least 43 children (including a 5-year-old), who observed their parents' prison jobs as part of "Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day" in April, were playfully zapped by 50,000-volt stun guns. DOC Secretary Walt McNeil said the demonstrations (in three of the state's 55 prisons) even included one warden's kid, but that only 14 children were individually shot (with the rest part of hand-holding circles feeling a passing current). Twenty-one employees were disciplined. [St. Petersburg Times, 5-16-09]
They Actually Pay People to Do This ResearchTwo scientists from Britain's University of Oxford, on a three-year study costing the equivalent of nearly $500,000, found that ducks may be even more comfortable standing under a sprinkler than paddling around in a pond. Lead researcher Marian Stamp Dawkins concluded that ducks basically just like water. [The Guardian, 5-20-09]
According to research announced in May by pediatrics professor Jennie Noll of the University of Cincinnati, the more often that teenage girls tart themselves up in online presentations, the greater the sexual interest they provoke. [Forbes-HealthDayNews, 5-26-09]
The Continuing CrisisNot What They Were Looking For: Rescuers searching for a missing tourist on China's Taishan Mountain in April failed to find him but inadvertently discovered the corpses of seven other people. [Reuters, 5-8-09]
Los Angeles Police detectives, frustrated that a 1980s-era South Los Angeles serial rapist-killer is still at large, set out recently to painstakingly trawl for DNA from all unregistered sex offenders who have come through the system since then. They came up with nothing on him, but in late March, they inadvertently matched DNA to a different cold-case serial killer, the "Westside Rapist" from the 1970s and arrested John Floyd Thomas Jr., now 72. [Los Angeles Times, 5-30-09]
Leading Economic Indicators: Bloomberg News reported in April that among the assets for sell-off by Lehman Brothers Holdings (liquidating following its September 2008 collapse) is a "matured commodities contract" for enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb. Administrators are awaiting a rebound in its market price. [Bloomberg News, 4-14-09]
Among the assets for sell-off listed in the May bankruptcy filing of Innovative Spinal Technologies of Mansfield, Mass., were nine human cadavers (eight of which had already been used for research). [WBZ-TV (Boston), 6-3-09]
More Fallout From the Recession: In May, Mitsubishi Motors of New Zealand, to spark sales of its Triton compact pickup trucks as "hardy, versatile units," began offering farmers a companion "hardy, versatile" premium with each truck: a goat. [Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 5-28-09]
In May, Ichiro Saito, a professor of dentistry at Tsurumi University, publicly warned that as many as 30 million Japanese workers overstressed by the economy are suffering from such severe dry mouth that the country might be experiencing epic halitosis. [Daily Telegraph (London), 5-27-09]
People Different From UsWhen Christina Vanderclip dropped by the house of her former boyfriend, Travis Schneller, in Greeley, Colo., in June, they soon began to argue. According to police, Travis hit her and pulled her hair, then Travis' mother jumped on Christina's back and pulled her hair, then Travis' younger brother Michael and father, Robert, jumped on Christina, too, hitting and choking her. Christina managed to escape, and police, after a 10-hour standoff, entered the home and arrested the entire Schneller family. [Denver Post, 6-9-09]
Jose Villarreal, charged in Georgetown, Texas, with assaulting his girlfriend, decided to take his chances at trial and rejected the prosecutor's offer of five years in prison. In May, the jury deliberated one minute before finding him guilty, and he got 16 years. [Austin American-Statesman, 5-13-09]
Charles Dumas, 37, insisting on his innocence, was convicted of raping a young girl in 1998 and sentenced to 10-years-to-life, but began begging for a DNA test. Finally, earlier this year, prosecutors relented, and a solemn Dumas told a Columbus Dispatch reporter: "This test means my life. It's my last chance to prove to my children that I didn't do this." In May, the results came back: Guilty. [Columbus Dispatch, 5-20-09]
Recurring ThemesDrivers Who Were Run Over by Their Own Cars: A 21-year-old man in Santa Fe, N.M., inebriated, shifted into reverse, thinking it was "park," and fell out the driver's door (November). [MSNBC-AP, 11-25-08]
A 52-year-old man in Tobyhanna, Pa., ran over himself after falling out of his truck trying to reach the controls of the access fence at his gated community (May). [Pocono Record, 5-26-09]
A 56-year-old woman in Santa Monica, Calif., was killed when she left her stalled car in "drive" while she crawled underneath to determine why it wouldn't start. She accidentally triggered the starter with a screwdriver, and the car drove over her (May). [Santa Monica Daily Press, 5-29-09]
It's Good to Be a British Prisoner (continued)According to a recent report in Britain's Police Review Journal, the government's "Intensive Alternatives to Custody" pilot program has recently assigned young offenders, in lieu of incarceration, to attend skill-building classes in gardening, fishing and learning how to apply for government benefits. [Daily Mail, 4-24-09] [Washington Post, 5-2-09]
The U.S. Department of Justice, with British government cooperation, has been trying for 10 years now to extradite three al-Qaida operatives in British custody to stand trial in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, but Britain's legal system has permitted the suspects to stall with nearly endless bureaucratic tactics. Since the jihadists claim indigent status, all of the challenges are paid for by British taxpayers, with the current tab (according to a May Washington Post report) amounting to the equivalent of nearly $900,000.
A News of the Weird Classic (September 2005)On a hot July 2005 day in Stamford, Conn., firefighters not only had to break a car window but overcome the car's owner, who couldn't bear to see her Audi A4 damaged. The 23-month-old son of Susan Guita Silverstein, 42, had been accidentally locked inside, along with the key, for at least 20 minutes on a sweltering, 88-degree day. Silverstein (who was later charged with reckless endangerment) begged firefighters to wait so she could go home and retrieve her spare key, to save her window. [Stamford Advocate, 7-26-05]
Thanks This Week to Bob McCabe, Kurt Vey, Stephen Taylor and John Holsinger, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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15 Jun 2009 08:54
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14 Jun 2009 14:48
WEEK OF JUNE 14, 2009
Terrorism Gets Pizzazz: A physical fitness video, purportedly made in April by a U.S.-based al-Qaida operative, gives workout tips to jihadists, urging that they "train as hard as possible" to inflict maximum damage on "the enemies of Allah," according to an ABC News report. Exercises such as crawling long distances on hands and knees are demonstrated by people in flowing robes. The narrator discourages using gyms and fitness centers because of the "un-Islamic" music and "semi-naked" women. And a video released in May, purportedly from al-Qaida in Somalia, features an English-speaking rap singer making a recruitment pitch to U.S. and European youth, including such verses as: "Mortar by mortar / Shell by shell / Only going to stop / When I send them to hell." [ABC News, 4-21-09] [CNN, 5-4-09]Can't Possibly Be TrueWhen a son, angry that his father had ordered him to clean up his room, screamed at Dad and threw a plate of food across the dinner table, Dad called 911. The son is 28-year-old Andrew Mizsak, who lives rent-free with his parents in the Cleveland suburb of Bedford, Ohio, and is a member of the Bedford School Board (and whose mom is a city councilwoman). After police arrived, the habitually untidy son apologized and, according to their report, "was sent to his room to clean it. He was crying uncontrollably." Subsequently, the school board punished Andrew by removing two of his duties. [Plain Dealer (Cleveland), 5-17-09]
When courts in Nashville, Tenn., get too backed up, a local tradition allows judges to appoint well-known local attorneys to act as "special judges" to help clear dockets. According to a months-long investigation by WTVF-TV, broadcast in April, it appears that at least some of the "special judges" used their power largely to dismiss speeding tickets, including at least one instance of a lawyer's dismissing his own client's ticket. The station found that of almost 1,800 speeding tickets dismissed by courts during the time investigated, 1,300 were by the "special judges." [WTVF-TV, 4-29-09]
The U.S. Air Force has spent an estimated $25 million training combat pilot Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach but is about to discharge him involuntarily because he is gay. Born of military-officer parents, Fehrenbach has earned 30 awards and decorations, with tours flying F-15Es in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and was one of the elite fighters called on to patrol the air space over Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001. [Dayton Daily News, 5-28-09]
Also about to be discharged solely for being gay is Army infantry officer Daniel Choi, a West Point graduate and Arabic speaker, who would be (based on a 2005 Government Accounting Office report) at least the 56th gay Arabic linguist to be dismissed from the U.S. military since the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. [ABC News, 5-13-09; New York Times, 3-29-09]
In September 2003, Lisa Strong was hospitalized for a kidney stone, which was not treated properly, and by the time the resultant, massive, life-threatening infections had been dealt with, both her arms and both her legs had been amputated. She filed a lawsuit against the doctors in 2005, but in May 2009, a jury in Broward County, Fla., somehow could not find any fault at all by doctors. (An incredulous Judge Charles Greene reversed the verdict, dismissed the jury and ordered a new trial.) [WFOR-TV (Miami), 5-29-09]
Unclear on the ConceptLondon's celebrated high-end restaurant Nobu still serves a bluefin tuna entree for the equivalent of about $51 but is apparently ashamed that it has a fresh inventory ready to carve, according to a May report in the Daily Telegraph. Printed on the menu is this advisory: "Bluefin tuna is an environmentally threatened species -- please ask your server for an alternative." [Daily Telegraph, 5-29-09]
InexplicableThey're Studying What? Where? Doctors and specialists from the New York Psychiatric Institute are in the middle of a two-year investigation, on a $400,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), on why gay men have risky sex in Argentina. Researchers visit gay bars nightly in Buenos Aires and question men about their behavior and substance abuse. [Fox News, 5-8-09]
Wayne State University (Detroit) researchers, operating on a $2.6 million NIH grant, are now "training" prostitutes to drink alcohol responsibly, to reduce the women's willingness to engage in risky sex. However, the training is taking place in Guangxi province, China. [Fox News, 5-14-09]
Challenges of Geography: In March, China's Minister of Railways, Liu Zhijun, acknowledged that the government has plans for a rail line connecting Beijing and Taipei, Taiwan (which would involve traversing the Taiwan Strait, which is 108 miles across at its narrowest point). [Taipei Times, 3-13-09]
The Czech Republic newspaper Lidove Noviny reported in May that, as late as 1975, the communist government of Czechoslovakia was actively planning to dig a tunnel from that landlocked country underneath Austria and the part of Yugoslavia that is now Slovenia, to give it rail access to the Adriatic Sea, 250 miles away. It is not known what the Austrians and the Yugoslavs thought of the idea. [BBC News, 5-13-09]
Fine Points of the LawKerry Fenton's pub, The Cutting Edge, in Worsbrough, England, initially complied with the 2007 Smoking Act, which prohibits lighting up inside. However, since smoking research is generally carried on indoors, "research" was exempt from the law. Fenton ultimately renamed part of the bar the Smoking Research Centre and allows patrons to smoke provided they fill out questionnaires about their habit. So far, according to a May BBC News report, neither Britain's Home Office nor the local Barnsley council has intervened. [BBC News, 5-13-09; Daily Star (London), 5-13-09]
The Aristocrats!Timothy Martin, 44, was arrested in Federal Way, Wash., in May for felony indecent exposure after he was spotted standing partially nude with a string attached to his penis and, according to police, apparently "manipulating it with the string like a puppet." [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5-20-09]
Two workers at Yellowstone National Park were fired in May after being caught on surveillance video urinating into the Old Faithful geyser. [MSNBC-AP, 5-14-09]
Police in Indianapolis charged Fifth Third Bank manager Dwayne Roberts, 31, with arson and theft after the failure of his scheme to cover up embezzlement. Police said that Roberts elaborately staged a fire inside a locked vault so that an undeterminable amount of money would burn up, thus perhaps covering his cash shortage. However, after Roberts had set the fire and locked the vault, he realized he had left his keys inside and could not re-open the vault or lock the bank's doors or drive home. [Indianapolis Star, 5-12-09]
Donny Guy, 31, was arrested in Hickory, N.C., in May and charged with burglary of the Captain's Galley Seafood restaurant in a caper caught on surveillance video. Guy was immediately a suspect because he lives in an apartment about 50 yards from the restaurant, and there were two paper trails from the restaurant almost to his front door. The video revealed that, in carrying away the two cash registers in the dark, the burglar failed to notice that the spools of paper in each machine had snagged on something in the restaurant and were unraveling with each step he took. [Hickory Daily Record, 5-16-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 2002)Most Helpful Bureaucrat: When Hermilo Mendez, 28, found himself behind bars on a minor charge in early 2002 in Dilley, Texas, he realized that he finally had time to work on his long-desired divorce and wrote the county clerk in San Antonio to start the paperwork. First, though, he needed the clerk's help, in that he could not remember his wife's name. The couple had married in 1992 after a one-week courtship, and she cleared out shortly afterward. The clerk researched it and informed Mendez that he had been joined in holy matrimony with "Violeta Sanchez Juarez" and that she had apparently long ago returned to Mexico. [San Antonio Express-News, 3-10-02]
Thanks This Week to Dan Karchmer, Janene Hols, David Mushef, Caroline Lawler, Doug Miller, Alice Sullivan, Perry Levin, Reid Branson, Stan Adams, Chris McDivitt, and Mark Hazelrigg, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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08 Jun 2009 10:53
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07 Jun 2009 00:04
As Denver's newsweekly Westword asked in a May 2009 story, "Where would you take a $100,000 check that is also a suicide note, to the cops or to the bank?" In July 2008, John Francis Beech, a retired executive in Denver, sent a check for $100,000 to a local charity, postdated to Aug. 1, accompanied by a sealed envelope reading "wait until you hear from coroner" and "everything is OK." The charity's director, Annie Green, opened the envelope anyway on July 21, to find Beech's Last Will and Testament, leaving his entire estate to Green's organization for children with developmental disabilities. Green's choice: Put everything into the school's safe and await Aug. 1 (but she claimed to have left two voice-mail messages for Beech). On July 29, based on longstanding plans, Beech committed suicide. [Westword, 5-14-09] Cultural Diversity
Over a 10-week period this summer, nearly 200 young Saudi women are auditioning for a beauty pageant, but one called "Miss Beautiful Morals," in which physical attractiveness is irrelevant, replaced by judging of the ladies' observance of traditional Saudi values, especially the honoring of their mothers. Saudi Arabia does have pageants devoted to physical beauty, as reported in News of the Weird in 2007 and 2008, but those are contests for camels and goats, based on such criteria as (according to one camel breeder) "big eyes, long lashes and a long neck." [Indianapolis Star-AP, 5-7-09]
Kailash Singh, 63, who lives in a village near the holy city of Varanasi, India, told reporters in May that he had not bathed in the last 35 years, but for a good reason: remaining water-free would improve his chances of fathering a male instead of a female. (It hasn't worked, and he has moved on to a new cause, shunning baths until India's social problems are resolved.) Singh previously owned a shop, but became a farmer because customers increasingly declined to approach him. [Agence France-Presse, 5-12-09]
Recurring Theme: According to a March dispatch in London's Observer, activists in Mauritania have protested the new military government's support for an African tribal tradition of forcibly fattening up adolescent girls to make them appear "healthier" for early marriage (traditional in, among other countries, Nigeria, mentioned in News of the Weird in 1998). In the custom of "leblouh," the size of the female indicates "the size of her place in her man's heart." [The Guardian (London), 3-1-09]
Latest Religious MessagesMs. Nour Hadad, 26, was arrested in Orland Park, Ill., in April and charged with (and, according to police, confessed to) beating her 2-year-old niece to death while baby-sitting, and, as usual, police publicly released her booking photograph. However, Hadad's husband, Alaeddin, immediately complained that her photo, without her head scarf, was an "insult" to Islam. Said a Muslim activist, "They should respect the modesty of the accused." [Southtown Star (Chicago), 4-10-09]
Sci-Fi Movies Come to LifeEntomologists in San Antonio said in May that the "Raspberry ant" (whose colonies produce billions and cover everything in sight) had migrated north to within 75 miles of the city and would arrive by year's end, posing, said one, a "potential ecological disaster." [KENS-TV (San Antonio), 5-18-09]
A University of Florida researcher found, for a recent journal article, that mockingbirds, among all animals, are skilled at identifying particular humans who have displeased them and whom they wish to attack. [USA Today, 5-19-09]
World's Greatest LawyerDefense attorney John Garcia convinced a jury in Merced, Calif., in May that his client was not guilty of the "forcible rape with great bodily injury" of an 18-year-old woman in 2004, despite the fact that only his client's DNA-identified semen was present, mixed with the victim's blood, on the shorts she wore at the crime scene. Client Daniel Saldana's story was that he had previously had sex with his own girlfriend in the house where the rape occurred and that the girlfriend might have left her shorts on the floor and that the rape victim might have mistakenly put them on after the "other" man raped her. [Merced Sun-Star, 5-6-09]
People Different From UsNelson Blewett, 22, was treated for serious burns in Port Angeles, Wash., on May 18 after playing a game of TAG-tag with pals. They were spritzing each other with TAG body spray and then striking matches, creating mostly lower-risk flames. Then, perhaps inspired by too much beer, one friend added lighter fluid to the game. Blewett was afire for 30 to 45 seconds until he leaped from a second-story porch and rolled on the ground. (He survived but with "excruciating" second- and third-degree burns.) [Peninsula Daily News, 5-21-09]
The Aristocrats! Charles Williams, 37, and his wife, Gretchen, 33, were arrested in Greenville, S.C., in April after a domestic dispute, culminating in a gunfight in which they shot each other. [Greenville News, 4-1-09]
Two fathers (Enrique Gonzalez, 26, in Fresno, Calif., in April and Eugene Ashley, 24, in Floyd County, Ga., in May) were charged with forcibly tattooing their young sons. Gonzalez allegedly held down his 7-year-old while a tattooist inked a gang symbol, and Ashley allegedly inked "DB" (for Daddy's Boy) personally on his 3-year-old's shoulder. [Fresno Bee-AP, 4-22-09] [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5-26-09]
The Right to Remain Silent: Timothy Williams' lawyer had a good defense worked out in Williams' May murder trial in Pittsburgh: When Williams fatally shot the "other" man in the love triangle with Williams' girlfriend, it was a "crime of passion," said the lawyer, befitting manslaughter rather than first-degree murder. But Williams insisted on taking the stand, and by the time he was done, he had openly bragged that he was a "swinger" with many girlfriends, that this particular woman meant "nothing" to him, and that, though he killed the man, police had somehow "sabotaged" the surveillance video of the shooting. Verdict: first-degree murder. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5-2-09]
UpdateThe long-running battle between Alan Davis, 53, and officials in Altamonte Springs, Fla., began anew in May, upon Davis' release from prison after serving a year for his latest defiance of court orders to clear the "junk" out of his yard ("felony littering"). It was his third prison stretch in five years, and he said he is not done yet. Just before his latest stretch, he had placed a giant sculpted derriere in front of the Seminole County Courthouse. In May, he told reporters that he would rejoin the battle by ringing his yard with 42 smaller, similar sculptures. [Orlando Sentinel, 5-21-09]
Readers' ChoiceWhen retired NYPD officer John Comparetto was approached at gunpoint in a men's room of a Holiday Inn near Harrisburg, Pa., in March, he quietly handed over his wallet, but when the robber left, Comparetto pulled his own gun and gave chase. He also summoned some of the other 300 narcotics officers attending a convention in the hotel and quickly captured the man, who, said Comparetto, is "probably the dumbest criminal in Pennsylvania." [WUSA-TV, 3-10-09]
A 27-year-old woman in Lexington Park, Md., was injured in March during apparently consensual sex play. Her partner placed a "sex toy" over a saber saw blade, apparently to act as a souped-up vibrator, but the blade cut through the toy and caused serious lacerations, requiring her to be med-evac'ed to Prince George's Hospital Center. [WUSA-TV, 3-10-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (June 1997)In 1993 India Scott dated both Darryl Fletcher and Brandon Ventimeglia when she lived in Detroit and moved in with Fletcher in 1994 when she was about to give birth. Neither knew about the other, and she had told each man he was the father. For two difficult years, Scott somehow managed to juggle the men's visitations, but in March 1997 when she announced she was leaving the area, both Fletcher and Ventimeglia separately filed for custody of "his" son. Only then did Ventimeglia and Fletcher find out about each other. They took blood tests to determine which was the real father of the boy they had cared for for more than two years, and in May 1997 the blood test revealed that neither was. [St. Petersburg Times, 5-14-97]
Thanks This Week to Ben Hestir, Bruce Alter, and Richard Schneider, and to many, many finders of the Readers' Choice stories, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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01 Jun 2009 01:30
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