Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
~:: Why Men Are Never Depressed ::~
Men Are Just Happier People--
What do you expect from such simple
creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another
snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can
wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to
a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth. The world is
your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station
restroom because this one is just too sicky. You don't have
to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work,
more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time!
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.. A five-day vacation requires only
one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra
credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone
forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes
are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in
public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original color. The same
hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to
shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life. One wallet and one
pair of shoes -- one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts
no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a
pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on
December 24 in 25 minutes!
No wonder men are happier.
creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another
snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can
wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to
a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth. The world is
your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station
restroom because this one is just too sicky. You don't have
to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work,
more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time!
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.. A five-day vacation requires only
one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra
credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone
forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes
are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in
public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original color. The same
hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to
shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life. One wallet and one
pair of shoes -- one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts
no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a
pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on
December 24 in 25 minutes!
No wonder men are happier.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Present For Husband
Present For Husband
A woman goes to Italy to attend a 2-week, company training session.Her husband drives her to the airport and wishes her to have a good trip.The wife answers : "Thank you honey, what would you like me to bring for you?"The husband laughs and says: "An Italian girl !!!" The woman kept quiet and left.Two weeks later he picks her up in the airport and asks: "So, honey, how was the trip?""Very good, thank you." "And, what happened to my present?""Which present?" She asked."The one I asked for - an Italian girl!!""Oh, that" she said "Well, I did what I could, now we have to wait for nine months to see if it is a girl !!!"
Monday, June 1, 2009
WEEK OF MAY 31, 2009
LEAD STORY
In a nondescript building next to a mosque in downtown Karachi, Pakistan, the Qadeer brothers discreetly make and market a million dollars' worth of fetish and bondage products a year for Americans and Europeans (through sales to stores and on eBay). In fact, if the radical Islamic office down the street knew about the Qadeers' work, they might be in trouble, according to an April New York Times dispatch, but fortunately, the gag balls, corsets and whips such as the "Mistress Flogger" are so odd for Pakistan that even the veiled women who sew them for the Qadeers do not understand that Americans use them for sex play. Customs officials, for example, were puzzled about how to categorize the items for tax purposes. "If our mom knew (the nature of our business)," said brother Adnan, "she would disown us." [New York Times, 4-28-09]
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
Physician Geoffrey Hart, working with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, recently developed the Pedi-Sedate headgear to trick waiting-room kids into inhaling nitrous oxide while playing video games, thus knocking themselves out and, according to Hart's company, "dramatically improv(ing) the hospital or dental experience for the child, parents and healthcare providers." The helmet contains sophisticated sensors to monitor the dosages and effects on the child. [CNET News, 4-21-09]
Manliness: The Redneck Yacht Club opened in February near Naples, Fla., consisting of an 800-acre carefully designed mud pit that drivers pay $30 to frolic in with their own customized off-road vehicles. One mechanic told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in April that he had spent $15,000 fixing up his rig, with 6-foot-high tires and a skull ornament. His review: "This place is kick-butt." [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 4-2-09]
For Germany's fathers' day in May, the Panzer Fun Driving School in Germany's Brandenburg state suggested sending men off to drive one of its 13 Soviet armored vehicles (following a short class on the controls), and for an extra fee, patrons can ram their tanks over an old car. [Spiegel Online, 5-14-09]
Britons Sam Bompas and Harry Parr are revered chef-artists whose medium is the gelatin mold, with which they have created jelly models of, for example, London's St. Paul's Cathedral and a Madrid airport terminal, and who, for a New York customer, recently created orange-juice jelly inside some Compari jelly to produce a Compari-and-soda jelly. In April, the pair also opened a London bar, Alcoholic Architecture, in which vaporized gin and tonic saturate the air in equivalent strength of one gin-and-tonic drink for every 40 minutes of exposure. [New York Times, 4-16-09, 4-1-09]
Confusing Business Model: Patrick Ellison and Frank Mack, along with Edie Wells, were arrested in Dalton, Ga., in April after what police said was a joint venture in which alleged prostitute Wells knocked on a man's door and offered him sex, and when the man declined, Ellison and Mack arrived and forced the man to accept Wells' services. Following the sex, the three departed with the man's money and credit cards. [Dalton Daily Citizen, 4-29-09]
Weird Science
Good to Know: A case report in a recent issue of the journal Emergency Medicine Australasia described the successful removal of a leech from an eyeball. A 66-year-old woman, gardening in her back yard in Sydney, had accidentally flicked some soil into her eye. By the time a surgeon could extract the leech, it had roughly tripled its body size by feeding on the eyeball's blood vessels. (The key, by the way: a few drops of saline solution). [News.com.au-Australian Associated Press, 4-20-09]
In a recent journal article, researchers from the University of Whitwatersrand (South Africa) and the University of Sydney (Australia) reported that young male Augrabies lizards avoid older predatory males by, basically, cross-dressing (pretending to be female by suppressing their extravagant male coloration until they are fully developed and able to defend themselves). Thus, they avoid being attacked and, at the same time, increase their own freedom to hit on females. (They must still be careful, say the researchers, because the older males might whiff their male scent, which cannot be suppressed.) [Agence France-Presse, 3-3-09]
Leading Economic Indicators
In April, a manager at a Dean Health System clinic in Madison, Wis., received corporate instructions to "immediately" lay off 50 listed employees, and the manager (a 30-year nursing veteran) decided that that included pulling one RN out of a room in which she was assisting with surgery, leaving just a physician and lower-level staff members present. A clinic executive later called the manager's timing an error, but said there were no adverse consequences to the patient. [Wisconsin State Journal, 4-13-09]
Things People Believe
Ms. Indra Ningsih, a 26-year-old maid, was detained by a court in Hong Kong in April after her employer accused her of spiking her vegetable soup with menstrual blood. According to a report of the case in Hong Kong's The Standard, the maid was employing a belief in some Southeast Asian cultures that menstrual blood has special powers and would improve an otherwise-contentious relationship between the maid and the employer. [Agence France-Presse, 4-15-09]
Least Competent Criminals
First-time bank robber (according to police) Jason Durant, 32, reported to the hospital in New Milford, Conn., shortly after knocking off the National Iron Bank in April. As he fled the crime scene, he accidentally tumbled down a steep hill behind the bank, losing control of his stash, and his gun, during the fall. He broke his leg in several places (saying later that he heard snapping sounds). At the bottom of the hill, he crashed into a plow blade, slashing himself before dragging his bleeding, broken body to his getaway car (with only $2 left from the robbery). Suspicious hospital staff members notified police. [Republican-American (Waterbury, Conn.), 4-30-09]
Recurring Themes
Russia's long-running Moscow Cat Circus/Theater, reported in News of the Weird in 1998, is still in service, astonishing all who ever tried to train a cat. In the United States, Samantha Martin runs her own similar show (at such venues as Chicago's Gorilla Tango Theatre in March) featuring the Rock Cats trio on guitar, piano and drums, as well as a tightrope-walker, barrel-roller and skateboarder, among other daring performers. Martin admitted to a Chicago Tribune reporter that the cats' music "sucks," in that "when they're playing, they're not even playing the same thing," and anyway she has two backup drummers because her regular is prone to "walking off in a huff," sort of "like diva actresses." "This is why you don't see trained cat acts. Because ... the managers can't take the humiliation." [Chicago Tribune, 3-18-09]
Undignified Deaths
Difficult Times for Funeral Eulogists:
A 54-year-old man was found dead of a heart attack in a pornography video booth at the Beate Uhse sex shop in Cologne, Germany, in December. [The Local (Berlin), 12-5-08]
A 42-year-old comedian (and owner of a comedy club in Blackburn, England) was accidentally asphyxiated in April inhaling laughing gas while viewing computer pornography. [The Sun, 4-17-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (August 2001)
In an October 2001 incident that started out resembling a comedy movie scene, Alan Martin, 49, decided to petulantly protest police officers' decision to confiscate his RV after a minor accident, and deliberately lay down in the middle of a busy street in Daly City, Calif., refusing to budge. As officers tried for a while to talk him out of his obstinacy, they shielded his body by blocking a lane of traffic with their cruiser. A few minutes later, one of those notorious California hot-pursuit police chases just happened to head down the same street, and the car driven by fleeing suspect Kevin Domino, 37, accidentally rammed the stopped cruiser, then drove over Martin, and then while trying to straighten out his car, Domino ran over Martin again. (Police caught Domino a few blocks later when his car stalled out, and Martin was hospitalized in fair condition.) [San Francisco Chronicle, 10-3-01]
Thanks This Week to Richard Heiden, Bobby Stout, Phil Carhart, and Joe Church, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C. ©2009 Chuck Shepherd
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
Physician Geoffrey Hart, working with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, recently developed the Pedi-Sedate headgear to trick waiting-room kids into inhaling nitrous oxide while playing video games, thus knocking themselves out and, according to Hart's company, "dramatically improv(ing) the hospital or dental experience for the child, parents and healthcare providers." The helmet contains sophisticated sensors to monitor the dosages and effects on the child. [CNET News, 4-21-09]
Manliness: The Redneck Yacht Club opened in February near Naples, Fla., consisting of an 800-acre carefully designed mud pit that drivers pay $30 to frolic in with their own customized off-road vehicles. One mechanic told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in April that he had spent $15,000 fixing up his rig, with 6-foot-high tires and a skull ornament. His review: "This place is kick-butt." [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 4-2-09]
For Germany's fathers' day in May, the Panzer Fun Driving School in Germany's Brandenburg state suggested sending men off to drive one of its 13 Soviet armored vehicles (following a short class on the controls), and for an extra fee, patrons can ram their tanks over an old car. [Spiegel Online, 5-14-09]
Britons Sam Bompas and Harry Parr are revered chef-artists whose medium is the gelatin mold, with which they have created jelly models of, for example, London's St. Paul's Cathedral and a Madrid airport terminal, and who, for a New York customer, recently created orange-juice jelly inside some Compari jelly to produce a Compari-and-soda jelly. In April, the pair also opened a London bar, Alcoholic Architecture, in which vaporized gin and tonic saturate the air in equivalent strength of one gin-and-tonic drink for every 40 minutes of exposure. [New York Times, 4-16-09, 4-1-09]
Confusing Business Model: Patrick Ellison and Frank Mack, along with Edie Wells, were arrested in Dalton, Ga., in April after what police said was a joint venture in which alleged prostitute Wells knocked on a man's door and offered him sex, and when the man declined, Ellison and Mack arrived and forced the man to accept Wells' services. Following the sex, the three departed with the man's money and credit cards. [Dalton Daily Citizen, 4-29-09]
Weird Science
Good to Know: A case report in a recent issue of the journal Emergency Medicine Australasia described the successful removal of a leech from an eyeball. A 66-year-old woman, gardening in her back yard in Sydney, had accidentally flicked some soil into her eye. By the time a surgeon could extract the leech, it had roughly tripled its body size by feeding on the eyeball's blood vessels. (The key, by the way: a few drops of saline solution). [News.com.au-Australian Associated Press, 4-20-09]
In a recent journal article, researchers from the University of Whitwatersrand (South Africa) and the University of Sydney (Australia) reported that young male Augrabies lizards avoid older predatory males by, basically, cross-dressing (pretending to be female by suppressing their extravagant male coloration until they are fully developed and able to defend themselves). Thus, they avoid being attacked and, at the same time, increase their own freedom to hit on females. (They must still be careful, say the researchers, because the older males might whiff their male scent, which cannot be suppressed.) [Agence France-Presse, 3-3-09]
Leading Economic Indicators
In April, a manager at a Dean Health System clinic in Madison, Wis., received corporate instructions to "immediately" lay off 50 listed employees, and the manager (a 30-year nursing veteran) decided that that included pulling one RN out of a room in which she was assisting with surgery, leaving just a physician and lower-level staff members present. A clinic executive later called the manager's timing an error, but said there were no adverse consequences to the patient. [Wisconsin State Journal, 4-13-09]
Things People Believe
Ms. Indra Ningsih, a 26-year-old maid, was detained by a court in Hong Kong in April after her employer accused her of spiking her vegetable soup with menstrual blood. According to a report of the case in Hong Kong's The Standard, the maid was employing a belief in some Southeast Asian cultures that menstrual blood has special powers and would improve an otherwise-contentious relationship between the maid and the employer. [Agence France-Presse, 4-15-09]
Least Competent Criminals
First-time bank robber (according to police) Jason Durant, 32, reported to the hospital in New Milford, Conn., shortly after knocking off the National Iron Bank in April. As he fled the crime scene, he accidentally tumbled down a steep hill behind the bank, losing control of his stash, and his gun, during the fall. He broke his leg in several places (saying later that he heard snapping sounds). At the bottom of the hill, he crashed into a plow blade, slashing himself before dragging his bleeding, broken body to his getaway car (with only $2 left from the robbery). Suspicious hospital staff members notified police. [Republican-American (Waterbury, Conn.), 4-30-09]
Recurring Themes
Russia's long-running Moscow Cat Circus/Theater, reported in News of the Weird in 1998, is still in service, astonishing all who ever tried to train a cat. In the United States, Samantha Martin runs her own similar show (at such venues as Chicago's Gorilla Tango Theatre in March) featuring the Rock Cats trio on guitar, piano and drums, as well as a tightrope-walker, barrel-roller and skateboarder, among other daring performers. Martin admitted to a Chicago Tribune reporter that the cats' music "sucks," in that "when they're playing, they're not even playing the same thing," and anyway she has two backup drummers because her regular is prone to "walking off in a huff," sort of "like diva actresses." "This is why you don't see trained cat acts. Because ... the managers can't take the humiliation." [Chicago Tribune, 3-18-09]
Undignified Deaths
Difficult Times for Funeral Eulogists:
A 54-year-old man was found dead of a heart attack in a pornography video booth at the Beate Uhse sex shop in Cologne, Germany, in December. [The Local (Berlin), 12-5-08]
A 42-year-old comedian (and owner of a comedy club in Blackburn, England) was accidentally asphyxiated in April inhaling laughing gas while viewing computer pornography. [The Sun, 4-17-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (August 2001)
In an October 2001 incident that started out resembling a comedy movie scene, Alan Martin, 49, decided to petulantly protest police officers' decision to confiscate his RV after a minor accident, and deliberately lay down in the middle of a busy street in Daly City, Calif., refusing to budge. As officers tried for a while to talk him out of his obstinacy, they shielded his body by blocking a lane of traffic with their cruiser. A few minutes later, one of those notorious California hot-pursuit police chases just happened to head down the same street, and the car driven by fleeing suspect Kevin Domino, 37, accidentally rammed the stopped cruiser, then drove over Martin, and then while trying to straighten out his car, Domino ran over Martin again. (Police caught Domino a few blocks later when his car stalled out, and Martin was hospitalized in fair condition.) [San Francisco Chronicle, 10-3-01]
Thanks This Week to Richard Heiden, Bobby Stout, Phil Carhart, and Joe Church, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C. ©2009 Chuck Shepherd
Sunday, May 24, 2009
WEEK OF MAY 24, 2009
LEAD STORY
The New Waterboarding: In April, the district attorney in Vilas County, Wis., announced that he was seeking volunteers for a forensic test to help his case against Douglas Plude, 42, who is scheduled to stand trial soon for the second time in the death of his wife. The volunteers must be female, about 5-feet-8 and 140 pounds, and will have to stick their heads into a toilet bowl and flush. Plude is charged with drowning his wife in a commode, but his version (which the prosecutor will try to show is improbable) is that his wife committed suicide by flushing herself. [USA Today- AP, 4-12-09]
Compelling Explanations
Neal Horsley, running for governor of Georgia in the 2010 election on a platform encouraging the quaint Peach State legal theory of "nullification" (i.e., that the state can override the U.S. Constitution in certain instances), is principally known as a staunch foe of abortion who once posted a "hit list" of doctors. However, Horsley is also celebrated for a 2005 television interview with Fox News' Alan Colmes, in which Horsley described his childhood: "When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule." To a skeptical Colmes, Horsley added, "(Y)ou (city) people are so far removed from reality. ... Welcome to domestic life on the farm." [Examiner.com (Miami), 4-28-09; Creative Loafing Atlanta, 5-1-09]
A month after her client was accused of a March attempted murder, attorney Frances Hartman spoke up for him to a reporter. "(My client) is an exemplary young man," said Hartman, describing fourth-year Camden, N.J., medical student Brett Picciotti, 26, who was charged with shoving his girlfriend off a second-story balcony, but who denied that he pushed her. "This is an aberrational charge," Hartman said. "I think there's an explanation. I'm just not prepared to give it to you right now." [Philadelphia Daily News, 4-8-09]
Rammed for a Good Reason: Lorena Alvarez was charged with aggravated battery in April in Lake Worth, Fla., after allegedly, angrily crashing her car into her boyfriend's pickup truck, thus endangering her two kids, ages 7 and 1, who were with her. She explained to police that her boyfriend was about to drive off drunk and hitting him was the best way to prevent danger to other motorists. [Palm Beach Post, 4-30-09]
John Angeline was charged with fatally running over gas station attendant Haeng Soon Yang in Mossy Rock, Wash., in April after she tried to stop him from leaving without paying for $34 in fuel. Angeline, captured nearby, explained to police that he had run over the woman because she looked like she was about to "cast a spell" on him. [KOMO-TV (Seattle), 4-7-09]
Ironies
On April 8, the New Hampshire House of Representatives debated a controversial bill to outlaw discrimination against "transgenders" (those born of one sex but who identify as the other), and the legislation passed by one vote. Coincidentally, April 8 was the state's Tartan Day, and by tradition, male lawmakers of Scottish ancestry wore kilts to work. Thus, some opponents of giving greater protection to "men" who wear skirts were men who were that day wearing "skirts." (In any event, the state Senate subsequently rejected the bill.) [Concord Monitor, 4-9-09]
Environmental activists Raoul Surcouf and Richard Spink set sail from Bristol, England, in May on a 40-foot boat outfitted with solar panels and a wind turbine to attempt the first carbon-neutral crossing of Greenland's polar ice cap (a journey being monitored eagerly online in Bristol by 25,000 schoolchildren). However, 400 miles off the coast of Ireland, hurricane-force winds destroyed the boat, and the crew was lucky to be rescued by a nearby ship, which was a tanker carrying 680,000 barrels of crude oil. [The Guardian (London), 5-6-09]
Almost No Longer Weird: In Los Angeles on March 29, hit-and-run drivers killed two pedestrians: an 18-year-old female college student and, hours later, a 55-year-old Guatemalan-American construction worker. As is not unusual, according to the Los Angeles Times, the LAPD went into massive "overdrive" to find the woman's killer but handed the other homicide off to "a lone detective with little more to go on than hope." [Los Angeles Times, 5-4-09]
On April 25, in Washington, D.C., the murder of a black teenager was reported in two sentences of that day's Washington Post while nearly 10 times the space was devoted to the colonoscopy of a panda at the city's National Zoo. [Washington Post, 5-9-09]
Why Government Workers Get a Reputation
In April, accounting clerk James Kauchis made a formal complaint to the personnel office of the county Department of Social Services in Binghamton, N.Y., demanding that he be compensated for a recent interrupted lunch hour. Kauchis had missed lunch when DSS offices were locked down as police secured the neighborhood surrounding the site of the April 3 massacre in which a gunman killed 13 people and then himself. Although DSS had pizza and beverages brought in during the siege, Kauchis felt that wasn't as good as a regular lunch hour. [Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, 4-14-09]
Fetishes on Parade
Perverts Giving 110 Percent Effort: Allan Mailloux, 45, was arrested for flashing motorists as he walked among rush-hour traffic in Madison, Wis., in January, on a day when the high temperature was minus-2 (F). [Wisconsin State Journal, 1-15-09]
Police in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, investigated reports in February from "several" people that a man was driving up alongside motorists on Highway 78, and if the motorist was a lone female, he would speed on ahead, pull over to the shoulder, get out, and flash the motorist as she drove by. [The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa), 2-17-09]
Least Competent Criminals
Questionable Judgments: In April in Arnold, Mo., police arrested a suspected shoplifter trying to leave a Schnucks store with unpaid-for merchandise. She aroused suspicion from security personnel only because she was attempting to exit through an automatic "enter" door and was slow to figure out the problem and loud in expressing her frustration. [KSDK-TV (St. Louis), 4-1-09]
Nathaniel Johnson, 19, was arrested in March in Tampa on burglary charges when police produced solid evidence of his presence in a neighborhood that had reported several break-ins. Johnson was revealed to be at each crime scene because he was traced by the ankle monitor he was wearing from a previous court appearance. [WFTS-TV (Tampa), 3-13-09]
Recurring Themes
Public urination continues to be dangerous, as News of the Weird has reported periodically. In April, a 23-year-old man tumbled off a bridge over the Minnesota River in Bloomington, Minn., just before 5 a.m. while attempting to urinate. He fell 30 feet but survived. And in March, tugboat captain Kevin McGonigle fell off his boat into the Campbell River near Victoria, British Columbia, while attempting to urinate. He was rescued after 70 minutes, clad only in T-shirt and pajama bottoms, and could not have survived much longer in the frigid waters. [St. Paul Pioneer-Press-AP, 4-19-09] [Vancouver Sun, 3-4-09]
The Classic Middle Name (All-New!)
Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Codey Wayne Miller, Johnson City, Tenn. (May). Darcy Wayne Banaszek, Skamania County, Wash. (May). Dale Wayne Baylis, Denver (May). Benjamin Wayne Shorter, Catonsville, Md. (April). Timothy Wayne Fletcher, Welaka, Fla. (April). Paul Wayne Stark, Pueblo, Colo. (March). Abrey Wayne Fortner, Blountsville, Tenn. (January). On trial for murder at press time: Geoffrey Wayne Freeman, Brisbane, Australia. Arrested in Nevada, at press time fighting extradition to Roseberg, Ore., to face a murder charge: Dale Wayne Hill (April). Committed suicide after (according to police) murdering his wife: Terry Wayne Scott, Dade City, Fla. (May). Miller: [Knoxville News-Sentinel-AP, 5-12-09] Banaszek: [The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.), 5-11-09] Baylis: [Denver Post, 5-7-09] Shorter: [Arbutus (Md.) Times, 3-30-09] Fletcher: [Ocala Star-Banner, 4-19-09] Stark: [KMGH-TV (Denver), 3-31-09] Fortner: [Bristol (Tenn.) News, 4-25-09] Freeman: [Brisbane Times, 5-6-09] Hill: [KGW-TV (Portland), 4-22-09] Scott: [St. Petersburg Times, 5-4-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 1998)
On the day before Good Friday in 1998, reported the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Ernesto A. Moshe Montgomery consecrated the Shrine of the Weeping Shirley MacLaine at the Beta Israel Temple in Los Angeles. Inspired by an image he said he had while riding in the actress's private jet, Montgomery said a subsequent, large photograph of him with MacLaine was "observed shedding tears," which had inspired congregants' prayers and testimony of miraculous healings. [Los Angeles Times, 4-10-98]
Thanks This Week to Michelle Jensen, Sandy Pearlman, Bob Seidman, Michael Lawlor, Grant Barton, Carmel Sileo, Carol Callaghan, Curtis Johnson, Melanie Cumbee, John Rye, John Votel, and Jerry Williamson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C. ©2009 Chuck Shepherd
Compelling Explanations
Neal Horsley, running for governor of Georgia in the 2010 election on a platform encouraging the quaint Peach State legal theory of "nullification" (i.e., that the state can override the U.S. Constitution in certain instances), is principally known as a staunch foe of abortion who once posted a "hit list" of doctors. However, Horsley is also celebrated for a 2005 television interview with Fox News' Alan Colmes, in which Horsley described his childhood: "When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule." To a skeptical Colmes, Horsley added, "(Y)ou (city) people are so far removed from reality. ... Welcome to domestic life on the farm." [Examiner.com (Miami), 4-28-09; Creative Loafing Atlanta, 5-1-09]
A month after her client was accused of a March attempted murder, attorney Frances Hartman spoke up for him to a reporter. "(My client) is an exemplary young man," said Hartman, describing fourth-year Camden, N.J., medical student Brett Picciotti, 26, who was charged with shoving his girlfriend off a second-story balcony, but who denied that he pushed her. "This is an aberrational charge," Hartman said. "I think there's an explanation. I'm just not prepared to give it to you right now." [Philadelphia Daily News, 4-8-09]
Rammed for a Good Reason: Lorena Alvarez was charged with aggravated battery in April in Lake Worth, Fla., after allegedly, angrily crashing her car into her boyfriend's pickup truck, thus endangering her two kids, ages 7 and 1, who were with her. She explained to police that her boyfriend was about to drive off drunk and hitting him was the best way to prevent danger to other motorists. [Palm Beach Post, 4-30-09]
John Angeline was charged with fatally running over gas station attendant Haeng Soon Yang in Mossy Rock, Wash., in April after she tried to stop him from leaving without paying for $34 in fuel. Angeline, captured nearby, explained to police that he had run over the woman because she looked like she was about to "cast a spell" on him. [KOMO-TV (Seattle), 4-7-09]
Ironies
On April 8, the New Hampshire House of Representatives debated a controversial bill to outlaw discrimination against "transgenders" (those born of one sex but who identify as the other), and the legislation passed by one vote. Coincidentally, April 8 was the state's Tartan Day, and by tradition, male lawmakers of Scottish ancestry wore kilts to work. Thus, some opponents of giving greater protection to "men" who wear skirts were men who were that day wearing "skirts." (In any event, the state Senate subsequently rejected the bill.) [Concord Monitor, 4-9-09]
Environmental activists Raoul Surcouf and Richard Spink set sail from Bristol, England, in May on a 40-foot boat outfitted with solar panels and a wind turbine to attempt the first carbon-neutral crossing of Greenland's polar ice cap (a journey being monitored eagerly online in Bristol by 25,000 schoolchildren). However, 400 miles off the coast of Ireland, hurricane-force winds destroyed the boat, and the crew was lucky to be rescued by a nearby ship, which was a tanker carrying 680,000 barrels of crude oil. [The Guardian (London), 5-6-09]
Almost No Longer Weird: In Los Angeles on March 29, hit-and-run drivers killed two pedestrians: an 18-year-old female college student and, hours later, a 55-year-old Guatemalan-American construction worker. As is not unusual, according to the Los Angeles Times, the LAPD went into massive "overdrive" to find the woman's killer but handed the other homicide off to "a lone detective with little more to go on than hope." [Los Angeles Times, 5-4-09]
On April 25, in Washington, D.C., the murder of a black teenager was reported in two sentences of that day's Washington Post while nearly 10 times the space was devoted to the colonoscopy of a panda at the city's National Zoo. [Washington Post, 5-9-09]
Why Government Workers Get a Reputation
In April, accounting clerk James Kauchis made a formal complaint to the personnel office of the county Department of Social Services in Binghamton, N.Y., demanding that he be compensated for a recent interrupted lunch hour. Kauchis had missed lunch when DSS offices were locked down as police secured the neighborhood surrounding the site of the April 3 massacre in which a gunman killed 13 people and then himself. Although DSS had pizza and beverages brought in during the siege, Kauchis felt that wasn't as good as a regular lunch hour. [Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, 4-14-09]
Fetishes on Parade
Perverts Giving 110 Percent Effort: Allan Mailloux, 45, was arrested for flashing motorists as he walked among rush-hour traffic in Madison, Wis., in January, on a day when the high temperature was minus-2 (F). [Wisconsin State Journal, 1-15-09]
Police in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, investigated reports in February from "several" people that a man was driving up alongside motorists on Highway 78, and if the motorist was a lone female, he would speed on ahead, pull over to the shoulder, get out, and flash the motorist as she drove by. [The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa), 2-17-09]
Least Competent Criminals
Questionable Judgments: In April in Arnold, Mo., police arrested a suspected shoplifter trying to leave a Schnucks store with unpaid-for merchandise. She aroused suspicion from security personnel only because she was attempting to exit through an automatic "enter" door and was slow to figure out the problem and loud in expressing her frustration. [KSDK-TV (St. Louis), 4-1-09]
Nathaniel Johnson, 19, was arrested in March in Tampa on burglary charges when police produced solid evidence of his presence in a neighborhood that had reported several break-ins. Johnson was revealed to be at each crime scene because he was traced by the ankle monitor he was wearing from a previous court appearance. [WFTS-TV (Tampa), 3-13-09]
Recurring Themes
Public urination continues to be dangerous, as News of the Weird has reported periodically. In April, a 23-year-old man tumbled off a bridge over the Minnesota River in Bloomington, Minn., just before 5 a.m. while attempting to urinate. He fell 30 feet but survived. And in March, tugboat captain Kevin McGonigle fell off his boat into the Campbell River near Victoria, British Columbia, while attempting to urinate. He was rescued after 70 minutes, clad only in T-shirt and pajama bottoms, and could not have survived much longer in the frigid waters. [St. Paul Pioneer-Press-AP, 4-19-09] [Vancouver Sun, 3-4-09]
The Classic Middle Name (All-New!)
Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Codey Wayne Miller, Johnson City, Tenn. (May). Darcy Wayne Banaszek, Skamania County, Wash. (May). Dale Wayne Baylis, Denver (May). Benjamin Wayne Shorter, Catonsville, Md. (April). Timothy Wayne Fletcher, Welaka, Fla. (April). Paul Wayne Stark, Pueblo, Colo. (March). Abrey Wayne Fortner, Blountsville, Tenn. (January). On trial for murder at press time: Geoffrey Wayne Freeman, Brisbane, Australia. Arrested in Nevada, at press time fighting extradition to Roseberg, Ore., to face a murder charge: Dale Wayne Hill (April). Committed suicide after (according to police) murdering his wife: Terry Wayne Scott, Dade City, Fla. (May). Miller: [Knoxville News-Sentinel-AP, 5-12-09] Banaszek: [The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.), 5-11-09] Baylis: [Denver Post, 5-7-09] Shorter: [Arbutus (Md.) Times, 3-30-09] Fletcher: [Ocala Star-Banner, 4-19-09] Stark: [KMGH-TV (Denver), 3-31-09] Fortner: [Bristol (Tenn.) News, 4-25-09] Freeman: [Brisbane Times, 5-6-09] Hill: [KGW-TV (Portland), 4-22-09] Scott: [St. Petersburg Times, 5-4-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 1998)
On the day before Good Friday in 1998, reported the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Ernesto A. Moshe Montgomery consecrated the Shrine of the Weeping Shirley MacLaine at the Beta Israel Temple in Los Angeles. Inspired by an image he said he had while riding in the actress's private jet, Montgomery said a subsequent, large photograph of him with MacLaine was "observed shedding tears," which had inspired congregants' prayers and testimony of miraculous healings. [Los Angeles Times, 4-10-98]
Thanks This Week to Michelle Jensen, Sandy Pearlman, Bob Seidman, Michael Lawlor, Grant Barton, Carmel Sileo, Carol Callaghan, Curtis Johnson, Melanie Cumbee, John Rye, John Votel, and Jerry Williamson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C. ©2009 Chuck Shepherd
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Answer Man
Originally Published on Saturday May 23, 2009
Our National Pastime's Inventor?
1. What Union Army general do people still occasionally claim created the sport of baseball, even though more often, he is not listed as its inventor?
2. What event that took place in 1777 is celebrated each year June 14?
3. How many U.S. military academies are there? For Bragging Rights, name them.
4. When the Declaration of Independence was approved, 12 of the colonies voted in favor of it. Name the colony that temporarily abstained from approving the document.
5. Name the author of the noted novel "Moby Dick."
6. In the 1992 presidential election, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush each finished third in one state. Can you name the two states?
7. What man opened the first five-and-ten-cent store, in Lancaster, Pa., in 1879?
8. What motor vehicle was invented by the German inventor Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler in 1885?
9. What city is the capital of the Kingdom of Morocco?
10. Which of the 50 states is nicknamed the Treasure State?
Answers
1. Abner Doubleday usually is not considered to be baseball's inventor.
2. June 14 marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the U.S. flag. Thus, it's Flag Day.
3. The five military academies are the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
4. New York held back temporarily from approving the Declaration of Independence but did later join in.
5. Herman Melville (1819-91) wrote the famed novel.
6. Clinton finished third in Utah, behind Bush and Ross Perot. Bush finished third in Maine, about 300 votes behind Perot. Thanks to Lilburn, Ga., Answer Man-er Marshall Miller, who sent us this question.
7. The famed five-and-dimes were begun by F.W. (Frank Winfield) Woolworth.
8. With skills in inventing internal-combustion engines, Daimler invented the motorcycle.
9. Rabat is the capital of Morocco.
10. Montana is known as the Treasure State.
Our National Pastime's Inventor?
1. What Union Army general do people still occasionally claim created the sport of baseball, even though more often, he is not listed as its inventor?
2. What event that took place in 1777 is celebrated each year June 14?
3. How many U.S. military academies are there? For Bragging Rights, name them.
4. When the Declaration of Independence was approved, 12 of the colonies voted in favor of it. Name the colony that temporarily abstained from approving the document.
5. Name the author of the noted novel "Moby Dick."
6. In the 1992 presidential election, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush each finished third in one state. Can you name the two states?
7. What man opened the first five-and-ten-cent store, in Lancaster, Pa., in 1879?
8. What motor vehicle was invented by the German inventor Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler in 1885?
9. What city is the capital of the Kingdom of Morocco?
10. Which of the 50 states is nicknamed the Treasure State?
Answers
1. Abner Doubleday usually is not considered to be baseball's inventor.
2. June 14 marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the U.S. flag. Thus, it's Flag Day.
3. The five military academies are the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
4. New York held back temporarily from approving the Declaration of Independence but did later join in.
5. Herman Melville (1819-91) wrote the famed novel.
6. Clinton finished third in Utah, behind Bush and Ross Perot. Bush finished third in Maine, about 300 votes behind Perot. Thanks to Lilburn, Ga., Answer Man-er Marshall Miller, who sent us this question.
7. The famed five-and-dimes were begun by F.W. (Frank Winfield) Woolworth.
8. With skills in inventing internal-combustion engines, Daimler invented the motorcycle.
9. Rabat is the capital of Morocco.
10. Montana is known as the Treasure State.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
WEEK OF MAY 10, 2009
LEAD STORY
"Consensual Living" parenting, which was developed in 2006 and now has many hundreds of followers, supposes that every family member's needs are equally valid and respectworthy. Even pre-adolescents are assumed able to understand their own needs and respect those of others. When little Kiernen, 3, of Langley, British Columbia, hits another child, his mom told Toronto's Globe & Mail in March, she does not invoke authority but instead asks about his feelings and whether he'd like to express himself differently. If Kahlan, 18 months old, of Nanaimo, British Columbia, is grumpy at a time when her mother has made plans, Mom says she is obligated to consider other plans. And when Savannah, 6, insisted on wearing her Halloween cat costume every single day for several months, her mom in Burlington, Ontario, just shrugged, since she recalled how contentious the morning dressing rituals were, pre-Consensual Living. [Globe & Mail, 3-31-09]
Building a Risk-Free Society
Safety First in Britain: Recently, 118 local government councils conducted formal tests on their cemeteries' gravestones to see how susceptible they are to toppling over and hurting people, according to an April Daily Telegraph report. [Daily Telegraph, 4-19-09]
In April, a circus clown performing in Liverpool was ordered not to wear his classic oversized shoes because he could trip and injure someone. [Daily Telegraph, 4-23-09]
BBC producers, wielding a "telephone-book-size" set of safety precautions while making a recent adventure documentary, ordered Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (the first person to sail single-handedly and nonstop around the world) not to light a portable stove unless a "safety advisor" supervised. [Daily Mail, 4-18-09]
Oops!
For 15 years, police in southern Germany have been futilely tracking a female "serial killer" whose DNA (but little other matching physical evidence) was found at 40 crime scenes, including six murders. Only in 2007 did they begin to consider alternative theories, and in March 2009, a state justice minister announced that the case had been solved: The DNA matched up in the tests because the cotton swabs used to collect it had been contaminated at the factory (but authorities still have not determined which female factory worker inadvertently supplied the DNA). [BBC News, 3-26-09]
The Continuing Crisis
Be Wary of Discount Funeral Services: A 2004 burial in Allendale, S.C., is just now being investigated after relatives learned that the deceased, a 6-foot-7 man, was somehow laid to rest in a 6-foot-long coffin that was part of his prepaid plan. [Charlotte Observer-AP, 3-31-09]
Authorities in Houston are investigating a funeral home that handles burial of paupers on contract from the county after, somehow, a 91-year-old male (who was supposed to be preserved for viewing) was cremated instead of the female who was scheduled. [Houston Chronicle, 4-8-09]
Lobbying Pays: University of Kansas researchers, reporting in April, disclosed that a single tax provision in a 2004 law (allowing U.S. multinational corporations to avoid federal tax on foreign profits) gained a typical company $220 for every $1 the company had spent lobbying Congress to enact that provision. Among the big winners was the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company, which disclosed spending $8.5 million to lobby for the law and gaining a tax break of more than $2 billion. (The lobbying emphasized that the lower tax would enable the companies to create more jobs, but the Congressional Research Service found that most of the tax savings went to pay dividends or buy back company stock.) [Washington Post, 4-12-09]
In a study of the last six years' admissions at hospital emergency rooms in the Austin, Texas, area (reported in April), 900 people were identified as using ERs six or more times in the previous three months, and nine specific patients had made a total of 2,678 visits in the six-year period. [Austin American-Statesman, 4-1-09]
Mixed Signs From the Middle East: In March, at a soccer match in Hilla, Iraq, between two local teams, as a player with the ball approached the goal to attempt a tying kick late in the game, an overenthusiastic spectator drew his gun and shot him dead. [Reuters, 3-16-09]
In more hopeful news, authorities in Ramallah said that the March 24 bank robbery by armed gunmen who snatched the equivalent of $30,000 was pulled off by five Palestinians and an Israeli Jew, working together. [Agence France-Presse, 3-30-09]
The Miracle Drug That Changes Everything
A 44-year-old intoxicated man was arrested in Ann Arbor, Mich., in March, blocking traffic by approaching an officer and requesting a big hug (and then cursing the officer when he declined). [Ann Arbor News, 3-6-09]
A 22-year-old tipsy soccer fan celebrating on a chartered bus after a match in West Bromwich, England, in January, was run over by a motorist after he fell out the back door of the bus, believing it led to the restroom. [United Press International, 2-3-09]
Family Values
Not "Consensual Living": An Oregon, Wis., man was arrested in February after his 9-year-old son wrote a school essay about the time his dad shot him in the buttocks with a BB gun because he was blocking his view of the TV set. [Wisconsin State Journal, 2-13-09]
A 58-year-old man was arrested in Baltimore in February for allegedly stabbing his 19-year-old son after an argument over the son's refusal to remove his hat during church service. [Fox News-AP, 2-24-09]
Least Competent Criminals
Timothy Grim, 39, was arrested in Shreveport, La., in April after swiping several garments from the rehearsal room of the Shreveport Opera and dashing off. The conductor and three performers took chase and cornered Grim several blocks away, still in possession of one part of a diva's outfit, which he immediately offered to sell back to the opera, and by the time police arrived, Grim had cut his asking price to $1. [KTBS-TV (Shreveport), 2-24-09]
Not Ready for Prime Time: A 16-year-old boy was arrested in Centerville, Utah, in April as he roamed a neighborhood at night trying to break into several cars. The last one he tried was the private vehicle of a sheriff's deputy, who was still in it, in uniform and finishing a phone call after coming off his shift. After arresting the kid, the deputy reported that the boy had been so stunned when he saw the deputy inside the car that he immediately soiled his pants. Said the deputy, "You could smell him." [Deseret News, 4-21-09]
Recurring Themes
In April, the City Council of Vero Beach, Fla., grappling with the question of how much skin can legally be exposed in public, adopted the definitions that at least two other Florida jurisdictions use (and which were reported in News of the Weird). "Buttocks," for example, is "the area of the rear of the body which lies between two imaginary lines running parallel to the ground when a person is standing, the first or top such line drawn at the top of the nates (i.e., the prominence of the muscles running from the back of the hip to the back of the leg) and the second or bottom line drawn at the lowest visible (sic) of this cleavage or the lowest point of the curvature of the fleshy protuberance, whichever is lower." [Treasure Coast Newspapers, 4-6-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (March 2004)
The New York Times reported in February 2004 on a Washington, D.C., man whose love of music led him, in the 1960s, to meticulously hand-make and hand-paint facsimile record album covers of his fantasized music, complete with imagined lyric sheets and liner notes (with some "albums" even shrink-wrapped in plastic), and, even more incredibly, to hand-make cardboard facsimiles of actual grooved discs to put inside them. "Mingering Mike," whom a reporter and two hobbyists tracked down (but who declined to be identified in print) also made real music, on tapes, using his and friends' voices to simulate instruments. His 38 imagined "albums" were discovered at a flea market after Mike defaulted on storage-locker fees. [New York Times, 2-2-04]
Thanks This Week to Stephen Taylor, Peter Hine, Kathryn Wood, Warren Brown, Pete Randall, Karl Luhrs, Tom Barker, Tom Burnett, James Wicht, and Rich Pevey, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C. ©2009 Chuck Shepherd
Building a Risk-Free Society
Safety First in Britain: Recently, 118 local government councils conducted formal tests on their cemeteries' gravestones to see how susceptible they are to toppling over and hurting people, according to an April Daily Telegraph report. [Daily Telegraph, 4-19-09]
In April, a circus clown performing in Liverpool was ordered not to wear his classic oversized shoes because he could trip and injure someone. [Daily Telegraph, 4-23-09]
BBC producers, wielding a "telephone-book-size" set of safety precautions while making a recent adventure documentary, ordered Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (the first person to sail single-handedly and nonstop around the world) not to light a portable stove unless a "safety advisor" supervised. [Daily Mail, 4-18-09]
Oops!
For 15 years, police in southern Germany have been futilely tracking a female "serial killer" whose DNA (but little other matching physical evidence) was found at 40 crime scenes, including six murders. Only in 2007 did they begin to consider alternative theories, and in March 2009, a state justice minister announced that the case had been solved: The DNA matched up in the tests because the cotton swabs used to collect it had been contaminated at the factory (but authorities still have not determined which female factory worker inadvertently supplied the DNA). [BBC News, 3-26-09]
The Continuing Crisis
Be Wary of Discount Funeral Services: A 2004 burial in Allendale, S.C., is just now being investigated after relatives learned that the deceased, a 6-foot-7 man, was somehow laid to rest in a 6-foot-long coffin that was part of his prepaid plan. [Charlotte Observer-AP, 3-31-09]
Authorities in Houston are investigating a funeral home that handles burial of paupers on contract from the county after, somehow, a 91-year-old male (who was supposed to be preserved for viewing) was cremated instead of the female who was scheduled. [Houston Chronicle, 4-8-09]
Lobbying Pays: University of Kansas researchers, reporting in April, disclosed that a single tax provision in a 2004 law (allowing U.S. multinational corporations to avoid federal tax on foreign profits) gained a typical company $220 for every $1 the company had spent lobbying Congress to enact that provision. Among the big winners was the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company, which disclosed spending $8.5 million to lobby for the law and gaining a tax break of more than $2 billion. (The lobbying emphasized that the lower tax would enable the companies to create more jobs, but the Congressional Research Service found that most of the tax savings went to pay dividends or buy back company stock.) [Washington Post, 4-12-09]
In a study of the last six years' admissions at hospital emergency rooms in the Austin, Texas, area (reported in April), 900 people were identified as using ERs six or more times in the previous three months, and nine specific patients had made a total of 2,678 visits in the six-year period. [Austin American-Statesman, 4-1-09]
Mixed Signs From the Middle East: In March, at a soccer match in Hilla, Iraq, between two local teams, as a player with the ball approached the goal to attempt a tying kick late in the game, an overenthusiastic spectator drew his gun and shot him dead. [Reuters, 3-16-09]
In more hopeful news, authorities in Ramallah said that the March 24 bank robbery by armed gunmen who snatched the equivalent of $30,000 was pulled off by five Palestinians and an Israeli Jew, working together. [Agence France-Presse, 3-30-09]
The Miracle Drug That Changes Everything
A 44-year-old intoxicated man was arrested in Ann Arbor, Mich., in March, blocking traffic by approaching an officer and requesting a big hug (and then cursing the officer when he declined). [Ann Arbor News, 3-6-09]
A 22-year-old tipsy soccer fan celebrating on a chartered bus after a match in West Bromwich, England, in January, was run over by a motorist after he fell out the back door of the bus, believing it led to the restroom. [United Press International, 2-3-09]
Family Values
Not "Consensual Living": An Oregon, Wis., man was arrested in February after his 9-year-old son wrote a school essay about the time his dad shot him in the buttocks with a BB gun because he was blocking his view of the TV set. [Wisconsin State Journal, 2-13-09]
A 58-year-old man was arrested in Baltimore in February for allegedly stabbing his 19-year-old son after an argument over the son's refusal to remove his hat during church service. [Fox News-AP, 2-24-09]
Least Competent Criminals
Timothy Grim, 39, was arrested in Shreveport, La., in April after swiping several garments from the rehearsal room of the Shreveport Opera and dashing off. The conductor and three performers took chase and cornered Grim several blocks away, still in possession of one part of a diva's outfit, which he immediately offered to sell back to the opera, and by the time police arrived, Grim had cut his asking price to $1. [KTBS-TV (Shreveport), 2-24-09]
Not Ready for Prime Time: A 16-year-old boy was arrested in Centerville, Utah, in April as he roamed a neighborhood at night trying to break into several cars. The last one he tried was the private vehicle of a sheriff's deputy, who was still in it, in uniform and finishing a phone call after coming off his shift. After arresting the kid, the deputy reported that the boy had been so stunned when he saw the deputy inside the car that he immediately soiled his pants. Said the deputy, "You could smell him." [Deseret News, 4-21-09]
Recurring Themes
In April, the City Council of Vero Beach, Fla., grappling with the question of how much skin can legally be exposed in public, adopted the definitions that at least two other Florida jurisdictions use (and which were reported in News of the Weird). "Buttocks," for example, is "the area of the rear of the body which lies between two imaginary lines running parallel to the ground when a person is standing, the first or top such line drawn at the top of the nates (i.e., the prominence of the muscles running from the back of the hip to the back of the leg) and the second or bottom line drawn at the lowest visible (sic) of this cleavage or the lowest point of the curvature of the fleshy protuberance, whichever is lower." [Treasure Coast Newspapers, 4-6-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (March 2004)
The New York Times reported in February 2004 on a Washington, D.C., man whose love of music led him, in the 1960s, to meticulously hand-make and hand-paint facsimile record album covers of his fantasized music, complete with imagined lyric sheets and liner notes (with some "albums" even shrink-wrapped in plastic), and, even more incredibly, to hand-make cardboard facsimiles of actual grooved discs to put inside them. "Mingering Mike," whom a reporter and two hobbyists tracked down (but who declined to be identified in print) also made real music, on tapes, using his and friends' voices to simulate instruments. His 38 imagined "albums" were discovered at a flea market after Mike defaulted on storage-locker fees. [New York Times, 2-2-04]
Thanks This Week to Stephen Taylor, Peter Hine, Kathryn Wood, Warren Brown, Pete Randall, Karl Luhrs, Tom Barker, Tom Burnett, James Wicht, and Rich Pevey, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C. ©2009 Chuck Shepherd
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Trivia Bits
Originally Published
on Monday May 04, 2009
WEEK OF MAY 4Mussolini's Trains: Whatever you say about fascists like Benito Mussolini, at least they can make the trains run on time, right? Well, no. The only train he ever made run on time was the one that took him from Milan to Rome when he became prime minister. Now, to be fair, the trains did get better, but that's because they were in terrible shape. Most of the actual improvement happened before Mussolini took power.AOL: Remember AOL? When a Pizza Hut exec named Steve Case took over Quantum Computer Services, one of its key products was AppleLink, which you could use to connect your Mac to that newfangled Internet thing. But Apple changed its mind about the partnership and AppleLink became America Online in 1989. The company also sold PCLink and CommodoreLink. Yikes. Forget AOL nostalgia. Do you remember Commodore 64?Stealing Finland's Anthem: When Nigeria's Igbo people tried to split off and become Biafra, they adopted as their anthem "Land of the Rising Sun," set to the music of "Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius. That particular tune had been practically the anthem of the struggle of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was battling to break loose of domination by the Russian anthem. Even so, Finland's de facto anthem is called "Maamme." And that piece of music is also used for Estonia's anthem.Big Week in Japan: This is Children's Day in Japan, formerly called Boys' Day. (There used to be a separate Girls' Day on March 3.) The day also marks the start of summer, and the Japanese celebrate with carp-shaped flags. In fact, the national holiday also marks the end of Golden Week, which includes Greenery Day (formerly the Emperor's Birthday) and Constitution Memorial Day.Swedish Music, Part 1: Fonzie would feel right at home, even today, in Sweden, where some kids still dress like James Dean. The raggare subculture is dedicated to rockabilly music, hot dog bars, V-8 engines and, for some reason, Confederate flags. They also used to battle punkers. Japan's bosozoku subculture is similar, except that it is based on motorcycles.Swedish Music, Part 2: Abba formed informally in 1970 when two couples on holiday in Cyprus goofed off singing on a beach. The band was originally called Bjorn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid, which had obvious marketing problems. But Abba is not only an acronym of their first names; it's also the name of a Swedish fish cannery. Their big break, oddly, came when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with their song "Waterloo."Celebrity Twits: Yes, we're all a bit tired of hearing about Twitter by now, but credit is due to the celebs who blazed the trail. The best known one is Ashton Kutcher, who tweets @aplusk. He beat CNN in a race to be the first with 1 million Twitter followers. His wife, Demi Moore, is @mrskutcher. Other notable trailblazers include John Cleese, Shaquille O'Neal and "Heroes" star Greg Grunberg.Oh, Cosmo: Cosmopolitan magazine used to be known as a place to read top-drawer, high-fallutin' fiction. It published Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London and Edith Wharton. But circulation kept falling after WWII until Helen Gurley Brown took over in 1965. She introduced greater sexual frankness and a more direct appeal to women. And as it happens, the original 19th-century version of the magazine was intended for families generally, and women in particular.Adopting Africa: Madonna's efforts to adopt a second child from Malawi recently came aground. The first adoption, of David Banda Mwale, proved hotly controversial, and there were accusations that she either jumped the line or somehow conned the boy's father. She had come across David while helping to build an orphanage in Malawi.Adopting Africa (and Everywhere Else): Madonna, though, is a piker compared to Angelina Jolie, who has adopted three children, all from different countries. In 2002, she adopted a Cambodian baby named Rath Vibol, whom she renamed Maddox Chivan. In 2005, an Ethiopian baby named Tena Adam became Zahara Marley, and in 2007, a 3-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pham Quang Sang became Pax Thien.Happy Vesak: Many of the world's Buddhists, particularly those in Thailand, are celebrating Vesak today. Vesak is sort of like a Buddhist Christmas, except that the Buddha's entire life is celebrated. Unlike Christmas, however, Vesak traditions are almost all of a religious nature, and involve works of charity, temple decoration and acts of extra piety.Happy Europe Day: This is also Europe Day, dedicated to celebrating the European Union. It is the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, by which France and Germany agreed to pool their coal and steel resources as a first step toward European unity. By a happy coincidence, this is also the anniversary of Victory Day, the date that the Nazis succumbed to the Allies, at least according to the clocks in Moscow.TRIVIA 1) The European Food Safety Authority ended up in which city, for which a safe Italian cheese is named?A) BrieB) FetaC) GoudaD) Parma2) Known locally as kottbullar, it is mixed with onions and breadcrumbs soaked in milk. By what name is it known in English?A) German meatballsB) Polish meatballsC) Russian meatballsD) Swedish meatballs3) Thanks to "Take On Me," what orthographically challenged 1980s band became the first Norwegians to hit No. 1 in North America?A) a-haB) o-boyC) uh-ohD) ay-caramba4) In 2004, Lewis Lapham wrote a column describing the Republican National Convention, which hadn't happened yet, for what magazine?A) AtlanticB) Harper'sC) The NationD) The New Republic5) What kind of rock is the Rock of Gibraltar actually made from?A) GraniteB) LimestoneC) MarbleD) Quartz6) Who wrote books named for a carpenter called Adam Bede and for a weaver called Silas Marner?A) Charles DickensB) George EliotC) Henry JamesD) Mark TwainANSWERS1) The European Food Safety Authority is in Parma, Italy.2) Kottbullar is better known as Swedish meatballs.3) A-ha was the first Norwegian act to hit No. 1 in North America.4) Lewis Lapham wrote for Harper's.5) Gibraltar is made of limestone.6) Previous answer: George Eliot wrote about Silas Marner and Adam Bede.
WEEK OF MAY 4Mussolini's Trains: Whatever you say about fascists like Benito Mussolini, at least they can make the trains run on time, right? Well, no. The only train he ever made run on time was the one that took him from Milan to Rome when he became prime minister. Now, to be fair, the trains did get better, but that's because they were in terrible shape. Most of the actual improvement happened before Mussolini took power.AOL: Remember AOL? When a Pizza Hut exec named Steve Case took over Quantum Computer Services, one of its key products was AppleLink, which you could use to connect your Mac to that newfangled Internet thing. But Apple changed its mind about the partnership and AppleLink became America Online in 1989. The company also sold PCLink and CommodoreLink. Yikes. Forget AOL nostalgia. Do you remember Commodore 64?Stealing Finland's Anthem: When Nigeria's Igbo people tried to split off and become Biafra, they adopted as their anthem "Land of the Rising Sun," set to the music of "Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius. That particular tune had been practically the anthem of the struggle of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was battling to break loose of domination by the Russian anthem. Even so, Finland's de facto anthem is called "Maamme." And that piece of music is also used for Estonia's anthem.Big Week in Japan: This is Children's Day in Japan, formerly called Boys' Day. (There used to be a separate Girls' Day on March 3.) The day also marks the start of summer, and the Japanese celebrate with carp-shaped flags. In fact, the national holiday also marks the end of Golden Week, which includes Greenery Day (formerly the Emperor's Birthday) and Constitution Memorial Day.Swedish Music, Part 1: Fonzie would feel right at home, even today, in Sweden, where some kids still dress like James Dean. The raggare subculture is dedicated to rockabilly music, hot dog bars, V-8 engines and, for some reason, Confederate flags. They also used to battle punkers. Japan's bosozoku subculture is similar, except that it is based on motorcycles.Swedish Music, Part 2: Abba formed informally in 1970 when two couples on holiday in Cyprus goofed off singing on a beach. The band was originally called Bjorn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid, which had obvious marketing problems. But Abba is not only an acronym of their first names; it's also the name of a Swedish fish cannery. Their big break, oddly, came when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with their song "Waterloo."Celebrity Twits: Yes, we're all a bit tired of hearing about Twitter by now, but credit is due to the celebs who blazed the trail. The best known one is Ashton Kutcher, who tweets @aplusk. He beat CNN in a race to be the first with 1 million Twitter followers. His wife, Demi Moore, is @mrskutcher. Other notable trailblazers include John Cleese, Shaquille O'Neal and "Heroes" star Greg Grunberg.Oh, Cosmo: Cosmopolitan magazine used to be known as a place to read top-drawer, high-fallutin' fiction. It published Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London and Edith Wharton. But circulation kept falling after WWII until Helen Gurley Brown took over in 1965. She introduced greater sexual frankness and a more direct appeal to women. And as it happens, the original 19th-century version of the magazine was intended for families generally, and women in particular.Adopting Africa: Madonna's efforts to adopt a second child from Malawi recently came aground. The first adoption, of David Banda Mwale, proved hotly controversial, and there were accusations that she either jumped the line or somehow conned the boy's father. She had come across David while helping to build an orphanage in Malawi.Adopting Africa (and Everywhere Else): Madonna, though, is a piker compared to Angelina Jolie, who has adopted three children, all from different countries. In 2002, she adopted a Cambodian baby named Rath Vibol, whom she renamed Maddox Chivan. In 2005, an Ethiopian baby named Tena Adam became Zahara Marley, and in 2007, a 3-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pham Quang Sang became Pax Thien.Happy Vesak: Many of the world's Buddhists, particularly those in Thailand, are celebrating Vesak today. Vesak is sort of like a Buddhist Christmas, except that the Buddha's entire life is celebrated. Unlike Christmas, however, Vesak traditions are almost all of a religious nature, and involve works of charity, temple decoration and acts of extra piety.Happy Europe Day: This is also Europe Day, dedicated to celebrating the European Union. It is the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, by which France and Germany agreed to pool their coal and steel resources as a first step toward European unity. By a happy coincidence, this is also the anniversary of Victory Day, the date that the Nazis succumbed to the Allies, at least according to the clocks in Moscow.TRIVIA 1) The European Food Safety Authority ended up in which city, for which a safe Italian cheese is named?A) BrieB) FetaC) GoudaD) Parma2) Known locally as kottbullar, it is mixed with onions and breadcrumbs soaked in milk. By what name is it known in English?A) German meatballsB) Polish meatballsC) Russian meatballsD) Swedish meatballs3) Thanks to "Take On Me," what orthographically challenged 1980s band became the first Norwegians to hit No. 1 in North America?A) a-haB) o-boyC) uh-ohD) ay-caramba4) In 2004, Lewis Lapham wrote a column describing the Republican National Convention, which hadn't happened yet, for what magazine?A) AtlanticB) Harper'sC) The NationD) The New Republic5) What kind of rock is the Rock of Gibraltar actually made from?A) GraniteB) LimestoneC) MarbleD) Quartz6) Who wrote books named for a carpenter called Adam Bede and for a weaver called Silas Marner?A) Charles DickensB) George EliotC) Henry JamesD) Mark TwainANSWERS1) The European Food Safety Authority is in Parma, Italy.2) Kottbullar is better known as Swedish meatballs.3) A-ha was the first Norwegian act to hit No. 1 in North America.4) Lewis Lapham wrote for Harper's.5) Gibraltar is made of limestone.6) Previous answer: George Eliot wrote about Silas Marner and Adam Bede.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Math Of Life
What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?
Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:
If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.
Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%
and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%
But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%
And,
B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%
AND,
look how far ass kissing will take you.
A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%
So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that, while Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
WEEK OF APRIL 26, 2009
LEAD STORY
When Alcoa Inc. prepared to build an aluminum smelting plant in Iceland in 2004, the government forced it to hire an expert to assure that none of the country's legendary "hidden people" lived underneath the property. The elf-like goblins provoke genuine apprehensiveness in many of the country's 300,000 natives (who are all, reputedly, related by blood). An Alcoa spokesman told Vanity Fair writer Michael Lewis (for an April 2009 report) that the inspection (which delayed construction for six months) was costly but necessary: "(W)e couldn't be in the position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people." (Lewis offered several explanations for the country's spectacular financial implosion in 2008, including Icelanders' incomprehensible superiority complex that convinced many lifelong fishermen that they were gifted investment bankers.) [Vanity Fair, April 2009]
Cultural Diversity
Among the lingering sex-based customs in Saudi Arabia is the restriction on women's working outside the home, which forces lingerie shops to be staffed only with males, who must awkwardly make recommendations on women's bra styles and sizes. The campaign for change, led by a Jeddah college lecturer, has enlisted even some clerks, who are just as embarrassed about the confrontation as the customers, according to a February BBC News dispatch. [BBC News, 2-25-09]
Only in Japan/Only in Sweden: Sega Toys Co. reported in January that, in just three months, it had sold 50,000 units of the Pekoppa, a "plant" consisting of leaves and branches that flutter when "spoken to," the success of which the company attributes to the epic loneliness of many Japanese. [Agence France-Presse, 1-15-09]
Advocates for children complained in April that Sweden's national library, acting on a standing order to archive copies of all domestic publications, has been gathering books and magazines of child pornography from the years 1971-1980, when it was legal, and, as libraries do, lending them out. [The Local (Stockholm), 4-6-09]
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace commenced campaigns in February critical of the peculiar preference of Americans for ultra-soft or quilted toilet paper. In less-picky Europe and Latin America, 40 percent of toilet paper is produced by recycling, but Americans' demand for multi-ply tissue requires virgin wood for 98 percent of the product. The activists claim that U.S. toilet paper imposes more costs on the planet than do gas-guzzling cars. [The Guardian (London), 2-26-09]
Latest Religious Messages
Buddhist monks continue to add to their 20-structure compound near the Cambodian border using empty beer bottles, according to a February feature in London's Daily Telegraph. Their building program, begun in 1984, already uses 1.5 million bottles, mostly green Heinekens and brown, locally brewed Chang, both of which are praised for letting in light and permitting easy cleaning. [Daily Telegraph (London), 2-18-09]
A group of an estimated 10,000 believers is attempting to reverse American Christianity's declining birthrate by shunning all contraception, in obedience to Psalm 127, which likens the advantage of big families to having a "quiver" full of "arrows" (and which calls itself the QuiverFull movement). "God opens and closes the womb," explained one advocate, to National Public Radio in March, noting that in her own church in Shelby, Mich., the mothers average 8.5 children. "The womb is such a powerful weapon ... against the enemy," she said. "The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God." [National Public Radio, 3-29-09]
Questionable Judgments
Australian Marcus Einfeld (a lawyer, former federal judge and prominent Jewish community leader) was once decorated as a national "living treasure," but he suffered a total downfall in 2006 by choosing to fight a (Aus.)$77 speeding ticket. By March 2009, he had been sentenced to two years in prison for perjury and obstructing justice because he had created four detailed schemes to "prove" that he was not driving that day. His original defense (that he had loaned the car to a friend who had since conveniently passed away) was accepted by the judge, but dogged reporting by Sydney's Daily Telegraph revealed that lie, plus subsequent elaborate lies to cover each successive explanation. Encouraged by those revelations, the press later uncovered Einfeld's bogus college degrees and awards and an incident of double-billing the government. [The Australian, 3-20-09]
A high school student in Oakton, Va., was suspended for two weeks in March when she inadvertently brought to school her birth-control pill (her prescription for which was approved by her mother). It was only then (with two weeks off to research it) that the girl discovered that, in comparison, county rules required only one week's suspension for bringing heroin to school. Officials told the Washington Post that birth-control pills are particularly objectionable because they countermand the school system's "abstinence-only" sex education classes. [Washington Post, 4-5-09]
Bad Decisions: Chrysler Corp. may be on its last legs as a stand-alone company, but that did not stop its representatives from disrupting a funeral proceeding in Cranbury, N.J., in March to subpoena the corpse (which the company said is relevant to a pending lawsuit over mesothelioma). [WCBS-TV (New York City), 3-9-09]
Joseph Milano, owner of Goomba's Pizza in Palm Coast, Fla., was in the federal witness protection program for squealing on Bonanno crime family members in New York but lost his anonymity in January when he was arrested for allegedly pistol-whipping a customer who had dared to criticize his calzone. [New York Daily News, 2-7-09]
Feral Americans
Recent Human Biting: Sheila Bolar, 49, was arrested after biting a transit driver because she wanted to ride only a "hybrid" bus (New York City, January). [New York Daily News, 1-23-09]
Aleyda Uceta, 30, was arrested for biting her son's principal during a parent-principal conference (Providence, R.I., March). [WHJJ Radio (Providence)-AP, 3-18-09]
Curtis Cross was arrested for allegedly biting off another motorist's ear in a road rage incident (New Castle, Ind., April). [WISH-TV (Indianapolis), 4-2-09]
Lyndel Toppin, 50, bit down on his fiancee's arm, resulting in nerve damage, because she had arranged the cheese incorrectly on his meatball sandwich (Philadelphia, April). [Philadelphia Daily News, 4-3-09]
Blaine Milam, 19, and Jessica Carson, 18, were arrested for performing an exorcism on their baby daughter that resulted in 20 bite marks (Rusk County, Texas, December). [KVUE-TV (Austin)-AP, 12-4-08]
Least Competent People
Our Elected Leaders: During an April Texas House committee hearing (according to a Houston Chronicle report), state Rep. Betty Brown suggested a solution to the voter-registration confusion caused by Chinese-Americans' Anglicizing their names (which yields nonstandard spellings): "Do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens," she asked a Chinese-American activist, "to adopt (names) that we (lawmakers) could deal with more readily here?" [Houston Chronicle, 4-8-09]
During a March Florida Senate debate on whether to exempt "animal husbandry" from the law against bestiality, Sen. Larcenia Bullard asked (seriously, according to a Miami Herald reporter), "People are taking these animals as husbands?" [Miami Herald, 3-11-09]
Recurring Themes
News of the Weird has noted two previous instances of "Weekend at Bernie's"-like attempts by a relative or friend of a newly deceased person to dress up the corpse and bring it to a bank to convince officials that the dead man is merely frail and to request funds from his account. Both of those attempts failed, but in Witbank, South Africa, in March, the Afrikaans-language daily Beeld reported success: A post office supervisor released a government check to two women who had brought in a dead pensioner but only after the women promised that the money would only be used for the man's burial expenses. [South African Press Association, 3-18-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (January 1994)
Homeless couple Darryl Washington and Maria Ramos were injured in 1992 when a train rammed them as they were having sex on a mattress on the tracks at a New York City subway station. The injuries were not severe, thanks to a quick-acting motorman. Nevertheless, the couple went on to file a lawsuit against the Transit Authority for "carelessness, recklessness and negligence." (The outcome of the lawsuit was not reported, but the couple's lawyer was, at the time, quite aggressive in justifying the filing: "Homeless people are allowed to have sex, too," he said.) [New York Daily News, 12-21-93]
Thanks This Week to Bruce Leiserowitz, Stephen Taylor, Jacki Lippman, and David Stratford, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
Cultural Diversity
Among the lingering sex-based customs in Saudi Arabia is the restriction on women's working outside the home, which forces lingerie shops to be staffed only with males, who must awkwardly make recommendations on women's bra styles and sizes. The campaign for change, led by a Jeddah college lecturer, has enlisted even some clerks, who are just as embarrassed about the confrontation as the customers, according to a February BBC News dispatch. [BBC News, 2-25-09]
Only in Japan/Only in Sweden: Sega Toys Co. reported in January that, in just three months, it had sold 50,000 units of the Pekoppa, a "plant" consisting of leaves and branches that flutter when "spoken to," the success of which the company attributes to the epic loneliness of many Japanese. [Agence France-Presse, 1-15-09]
Advocates for children complained in April that Sweden's national library, acting on a standing order to archive copies of all domestic publications, has been gathering books and magazines of child pornography from the years 1971-1980, when it was legal, and, as libraries do, lending them out. [The Local (Stockholm), 4-6-09]
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace commenced campaigns in February critical of the peculiar preference of Americans for ultra-soft or quilted toilet paper. In less-picky Europe and Latin America, 40 percent of toilet paper is produced by recycling, but Americans' demand for multi-ply tissue requires virgin wood for 98 percent of the product. The activists claim that U.S. toilet paper imposes more costs on the planet than do gas-guzzling cars. [The Guardian (London), 2-26-09]
Latest Religious Messages
Buddhist monks continue to add to their 20-structure compound near the Cambodian border using empty beer bottles, according to a February feature in London's Daily Telegraph. Their building program, begun in 1984, already uses 1.5 million bottles, mostly green Heinekens and brown, locally brewed Chang, both of which are praised for letting in light and permitting easy cleaning. [Daily Telegraph (London), 2-18-09]
A group of an estimated 10,000 believers is attempting to reverse American Christianity's declining birthrate by shunning all contraception, in obedience to Psalm 127, which likens the advantage of big families to having a "quiver" full of "arrows" (and which calls itself the QuiverFull movement). "God opens and closes the womb," explained one advocate, to National Public Radio in March, noting that in her own church in Shelby, Mich., the mothers average 8.5 children. "The womb is such a powerful weapon ... against the enemy," she said. "The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God." [National Public Radio, 3-29-09]
Questionable Judgments
Australian Marcus Einfeld (a lawyer, former federal judge and prominent Jewish community leader) was once decorated as a national "living treasure," but he suffered a total downfall in 2006 by choosing to fight a (Aus.)$77 speeding ticket. By March 2009, he had been sentenced to two years in prison for perjury and obstructing justice because he had created four detailed schemes to "prove" that he was not driving that day. His original defense (that he had loaned the car to a friend who had since conveniently passed away) was accepted by the judge, but dogged reporting by Sydney's Daily Telegraph revealed that lie, plus subsequent elaborate lies to cover each successive explanation. Encouraged by those revelations, the press later uncovered Einfeld's bogus college degrees and awards and an incident of double-billing the government. [The Australian, 3-20-09]
A high school student in Oakton, Va., was suspended for two weeks in March when she inadvertently brought to school her birth-control pill (her prescription for which was approved by her mother). It was only then (with two weeks off to research it) that the girl discovered that, in comparison, county rules required only one week's suspension for bringing heroin to school. Officials told the Washington Post that birth-control pills are particularly objectionable because they countermand the school system's "abstinence-only" sex education classes. [Washington Post, 4-5-09]
Bad Decisions: Chrysler Corp. may be on its last legs as a stand-alone company, but that did not stop its representatives from disrupting a funeral proceeding in Cranbury, N.J., in March to subpoena the corpse (which the company said is relevant to a pending lawsuit over mesothelioma). [WCBS-TV (New York City), 3-9-09]
Joseph Milano, owner of Goomba's Pizza in Palm Coast, Fla., was in the federal witness protection program for squealing on Bonanno crime family members in New York but lost his anonymity in January when he was arrested for allegedly pistol-whipping a customer who had dared to criticize his calzone. [New York Daily News, 2-7-09]
Feral Americans
Recent Human Biting: Sheila Bolar, 49, was arrested after biting a transit driver because she wanted to ride only a "hybrid" bus (New York City, January). [New York Daily News, 1-23-09]
Aleyda Uceta, 30, was arrested for biting her son's principal during a parent-principal conference (Providence, R.I., March). [WHJJ Radio (Providence)-AP, 3-18-09]
Curtis Cross was arrested for allegedly biting off another motorist's ear in a road rage incident (New Castle, Ind., April). [WISH-TV (Indianapolis), 4-2-09]
Lyndel Toppin, 50, bit down on his fiancee's arm, resulting in nerve damage, because she had arranged the cheese incorrectly on his meatball sandwich (Philadelphia, April). [Philadelphia Daily News, 4-3-09]
Blaine Milam, 19, and Jessica Carson, 18, were arrested for performing an exorcism on their baby daughter that resulted in 20 bite marks (Rusk County, Texas, December). [KVUE-TV (Austin)-AP, 12-4-08]
Least Competent People
Our Elected Leaders: During an April Texas House committee hearing (according to a Houston Chronicle report), state Rep. Betty Brown suggested a solution to the voter-registration confusion caused by Chinese-Americans' Anglicizing their names (which yields nonstandard spellings): "Do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens," she asked a Chinese-American activist, "to adopt (names) that we (lawmakers) could deal with more readily here?" [Houston Chronicle, 4-8-09]
During a March Florida Senate debate on whether to exempt "animal husbandry" from the law against bestiality, Sen. Larcenia Bullard asked (seriously, according to a Miami Herald reporter), "People are taking these animals as husbands?" [Miami Herald, 3-11-09]
Recurring Themes
News of the Weird has noted two previous instances of "Weekend at Bernie's"-like attempts by a relative or friend of a newly deceased person to dress up the corpse and bring it to a bank to convince officials that the dead man is merely frail and to request funds from his account. Both of those attempts failed, but in Witbank, South Africa, in March, the Afrikaans-language daily Beeld reported success: A post office supervisor released a government check to two women who had brought in a dead pensioner but only after the women promised that the money would only be used for the man's burial expenses. [South African Press Association, 3-18-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (January 1994)
Homeless couple Darryl Washington and Maria Ramos were injured in 1992 when a train rammed them as they were having sex on a mattress on the tracks at a New York City subway station. The injuries were not severe, thanks to a quick-acting motorman. Nevertheless, the couple went on to file a lawsuit against the Transit Authority for "carelessness, recklessness and negligence." (The outcome of the lawsuit was not reported, but the couple's lawyer was, at the time, quite aggressive in justifying the filing: "Homeless people are allowed to have sex, too," he said.) [New York Daily News, 12-21-93]
Thanks This Week to Bruce Leiserowitz, Stephen Taylor, Jacki Lippman, and David Stratford, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
Sunday, April 19, 2009
WEEK OF APRIL 19, 2009
LEAD STORYThe U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration recently postponed its crucial program to rejuvenate quarter-century-old Trident missile warheads because no one can remember how to make a key component of the weapons (codenamed "Fogbank"), according to a March 2 report of the Government Accountability Office. The GAO found that, despite concern over the bombs' safety and reliability, NNSA could not replicate the manufacturing process because all knowledgeable personnel have left the agency and no written records were kept. Said one commentator, "This is like James Bond destroying his instructions as soon as he's read them." [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 3-7-09]
The GAO report came two months after the German Interior Ministry reported to Parliament that over a 10-year period, it had lost 332 secret files that were in fact so secret that no one in the Ministry could recall what was in them. [The Local (Berlin), 12-13-08]
The Frontiers of Science
Researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute recently published findings of a cross-cultural study of people's spit. "(W)e can get more insights into human populations (from saliva) than we would get from just studying human DNA," the team's leader told Reuters in February. The study's main conclusion was that spit content does not vary much around the world, even given regional differences in diet. [Reuters, 2-26-09]
Spanish researchers at Autonomous University of Madrid reported in February that wolves (and almost surely dogs), when relieving themselves, deliberately seek out the most conspicuous places they can find (both as to sight and smell), to assure maximum territorial signaling. Male wolves prefer tall trees (and dogs, prominently located fire hydrants) and try to leave urine as high up as they can to increase its wind-carry, according to a Discovery Channel summary. [Discovery News, 2-26-09]
Biologist Michelle Solensky, of Ohio's College of Wooster, reported late last year in the journal Animal Behavior that male monarch butterflies are such calculating inseminators that they even decide the optimal level of sperm necessary for reproductive advantage. While injecting fluid, the male can "selectively" determine how much of it will be fertility cells, depending on how much residual sperm the female holds from previous suitors (and thus to always inject more than the other guys did). Solensky told New Scientist magazine that the penis acts as a kind of "dip stick" to check the quantity already present. [New Scientist, 1-7-09]
Leading Economic Indicators
Tight Money: As Italy's banks (like so many others) curtailed lending during the global financial crisis, the country's 180,000 small businesses had nowhere to turn for liquidity except to the Mafia, whose lending continued (at ridiculous interest rates, of course), unrestricted by the recession, according to a March Washington Post dispatch from Rome. Organized crime in Italy collects an estimate of the equivalent of $315 million a week. [Washington Post, 3-1-09]
In March, because of budget cuts, the Municipal Court in Mount Gilead, Ohio, ordered its clerk to accept no new filings of any kind (including criminal cases) unless the filer brings his own paper for printing the legally required copies to be distributed. [Columbus Dispatch, 3-14-09]
London's Daily Mail reported in March that among the recession-themed business start-up grants awarded by the Welsh Department of Work and Pensions was the equivalent of about $6,600 to the Accolade Academy of Psychic and Mediumistic Studies. One of the Academy's owners defended the award, noting that parents who have lost a child need to know that the child is safe. [Daily Mail, 3-26-09]
The Continuing Crisis
For the past two years, Britain's Jean Driscoll, 72, has been studied by two doctors and three hospitals' staffs, but so far no one knows why she belches constantly every day. "I don't go out anymore," she said. "People laugh and stare at me. One man said, 'Can't you control that?'" [Daily Mail (London), 3-4-09]
The Democratic Process: In March, George Snyder Jr., 39, was removed from the May election ballot in Westmoreland County, Pa., when a judge ruled that Snyder lived outside the county and not really in the garage storage room that he claimed was his main residence. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-AP, 3-24-09]
In December, John Kaye, a member of Australia's New South Wales Parliament, proposed a remedy for the recent displays of immature partying by some of his colleagues: "Honestly," he told Sydney's Daily Telegraph, "if you are going to have breathalyzers for people driving cranes, you should have breathalyzers for people (who pass) laws." [Agence France-Presse, 12-4-08]
People With Issues
Vinyl Lust: A 23-year-old man was arrested in February and charged with a series of break-ins at sex shops in downtown Cairns, Australia, in which the intruder inflated plastic dolls, had sex with them and left messes. (In the break-ins at Laneway Adult Shop, the perp appeared to be sweet on "Jungle Jane.") [Cairns Post, 1-7-09]
George Bartusek Jr., 51, was arrested in February in Cape Coral, Fla., in his car in the parking lot of a Publix supermarket. He had parked next to the front door, apparently to obtain the optimal audience, and was having sex with two blow-up dolls in the front seat. He told police he had come to the shopping center to buy clothes for his gals. [Fort Myers News-Press, 2-5-09]
Least Competent Criminals
Not Ready for Prime Time: In March, two men were seen on a backyard surveillance camera in St. Petersburg, Fla., attempting a home break-in during the day when no one was home. According to the police report, one of the men assumed a football stance, then ran the length of the yard and rammed the back door. However, the latch held, and the impact sent the man backward, leaving him on the ground, writhing in pain. The collision also triggered an alarm, and the men escaped before police arrived. [WFTS-TV (Tampa), 4-1-09]
Two adults and three teenagers were arrested in Waterville, Maine, in March and charged with arson, with all the evidence needed consisting of a video the five made, describing their crime, crafted with theme music and cast-and-crew credits. [Morning Sentinel (Waterville), 4-1-09]
Update
Several Florida jurisdictions have restrictions on where convicted sex offenders can live, even those who long ago finished their sentences. As noted in News of the Weird in 2007, Miami-Dade, Florida's most populous county, has only one spot far enough away from places where children roam: the approach to the Interstate 195 bridge to Miami Beach (the Julia Tuttle Causeway). Judges routinely give released sex offenders the choice of either leaving town or camping under the bridge. One man has been there so long that he now has a Florida driver's license with his address as "Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge." In March, the encampment of about 50 men welcomed its first female sex-offender, 43-year-old Voncel Johnson, who told the Miami Herald that she had so far been treated respectfully. [Miami Herald, 3-23-09]
The Jesus and Virgin Mary World Tour
Recent Public Appearances: Dade City, Fla., February (Jesus in a stain on the door of a car-dealer sales manager's office). Huntsville, Ala., February (Jesus on a rock on the side of Keel Mountain Road). Near Helena, Mont., January (Mary on a translucent agate rock along the Yellowstone River). Sydney, Australia, January (Mary and Jesus in a lava lamp). Hamilton, New Zealand, December (Jesus on a pita bread). Melton, England, November (Jesus on a chocolate cookie). Fort Pierce, Fla., December (Mary in the MRI brain scan of a cancer patient). Dade City: [St. Petersburg Times, 2-8-09] Huntsville: [WHNT-TV (Huntsville), 2-17-09] Helena: [Billings Gazette, 1-20-09] Sydney: [News.com.au (Sydney), 1-16-09] Hamilton: [Fairfax Media (Wellington), 1-2-09] Melton: [Melton Times, 11-27-08] Fort Pierce: [Fort Pierce Tribune, 12-5-08]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 2001)
Inexplicable: Police in West Vancouver, British Columbia, assured residents in April 2001 that they had stopped a three-year petty-crime spree in an upscale neighborhood when they arrested multimillionaire Eugene Mah, 64, and his son, Avery, 32. Police said the two were responsible for stealing hundreds of their neighbors' downscale knick-knacks, such as garbage cans, lawn decorations and even municipal recycling boxes, and hiding them at their own luxury home. Mah's Vancouver real estate holdings are reported at about US$13 million, but among the recovered goods were such tacky items as one neighbor's doormat and, subsequently, each of the 14 doormats the neighbor purchased as replacements. [Canadian Press, 4-26-01]
Thanks This Week to Michelle Jensen, Peter Wardley, and Kathleen McKay, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
Thursday, April 16, 2009
15,000 Erotic Items To Go On Display In Man's Garden...Garden?
15,000 Erotic Items To Go On Display In Man's Garden...Garden?
ENSLAVE , Sweden -- Some strange things will be popping up in the garden of a man in Enslave, Sweden, Voyeurwebbers. How strange? Well, how does erotic books, erotic sculptures and sex toys sound?Jorma Toivonen, 52, said displaying the items at his garden May 2-3 is a temporary measure as he works to generate funding for a museum that would house what he calls "Scandinavia's largest collection of erotic items," according to local news reports. Toivonen said his collection contains more than 15,000 erotic items. "After some recent media interest there has been some contact from local municipalities. Some think it (a museum) is a good idea but no one wants to stump up the cash. In the meantime my garden will have to do," said Toivonen. "I think that our society has maybe become more anti-sex; with a very lopsided view of sexuality. I hope my exhibition will show sex as something more interesting and fun."
-- YOWZA, Voyeurwebbers! Mr. Toivonen couldn't have been more right when he said sex should be viewed as something interesting and fun. And one of the municipalities in his area should jump on the idea of finding a suitable museum so Mr. Toivonen's amazing erotica collection of 15,000 items can be properly displayed. Cum to think of it, this reminds me of Voyeurweb's sexplicit Red Clouds and Home Clips sextions, where all the lovely ladies display themselves both properly and improperly -- that would be partly nekkid and totally nekkid, hehehe! Either way, they still look great. -- Igor
EYE ON: Bras by K.
There's an amazing story from northeastern Brazil about a woman and her bra, Voyeurwebbers. Make that her life-saving bra. Salvador city police spokesman Vicente de Paula said that Ivonete Pereira de Oliveira, 58, was a passenger on the bus that two gunmen held up last weekend.Police said a wad of cash stuffed in Ms. de Oliveira's bra saved her life during a shootout during the holdup.An armed off-duty policeman on the bus opened fire, said the spokesman. In the ensuing gun battle a bullet struck the left side of Ms. Oliveira's chest.De Paula said that the 150 reals (about $75) worth of bills that Oliveira hid inside her bra slowed the bullet enough to prevent it from entering her heart and killing her instantly.Ms. Oliveira underwent surgery to remove the bullet from her left breast and was released from the hospital on Monday.Eye only has a couple of comments about this incident, Voyeuwebbers. First, Ms. Oliveira is a very lucky woman. Second, remember: What you stuff in your bra (well, for those who wear bras) may save your life. Or at the very least get you more admiring stares from men ... just be sure to avoid the men who stare AND drool simultaneously! K.
Eye hastens to point out that any opinions expressed in this column are entirely his own and are neither those of Voyeurweb nor its management. K.
2 Quickies1. Two GuysTwo guys were discussing popular family trends on sex, marriage and family values.Stu said, "I didn't sleep with my wife before we got married; did you?"Ralph replied, "I'm not sure, what was her maiden name?"2. In Court"Mr. Smith, I have reviewed this case very carefully," said the Divorce Court Judge, "and I've decided to give your wife $775 a week.""That's very fair, your honor," said the husband. "And every now and then I'll try to send her a few buck myself."
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
WEEK OF APRIL 5, 2009
WEEK OF APRIL 5, 2009
LEAD STORY
Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence said recently that he would install a prosthetic eye with a camera and wireless transmitter (of the size now used for colonoscopies) into the socket from which one of his eyes had been removed as the result of a childhood accident. He hopes to control the prosthetic eye in the same way that his muscles control his good eye, to record what his eyes see, and his first project will be a documentary on people's attitudes about privacy in an "Orwellian society." "(T)he best way to make a connection (with an interviewee) is through eye contact," he said. "When you bring in a camera, people change." [Canadian Broadcasting Corp., 3-12-09]
Government in Action
Artist Beth Grossman created her wall exhibit, "Seats of Power," to encourage citizens to greater activism in local affairs around Brisbane, Calif. (just south of San Francisco Bay). The "Seats" are upholstered cushions individually tailored with the buttprints of each of the 10 city council members, who allowed Grossman to photograph them from behind, clothed, through a sheet of Plexiglas pressed against their posteriors to simulate being seated. All 10 co-operated, including Mayor Sepi Richardson, who said she had been considering her "legacy" lately, "but I never thought it would be my butt." [Los Angeles Times, 3-20-09]
Small-Town Politics: Resident Tony Randall of Ashland, N.H. (pop., 2,000), a surveyor by trade who was elected chief of the town's 12-member police force in March, promised he would know more about his job by September, when he will finish police academy training. [Boston Herald-AP, 3-11-09]
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that a March meeting of the Medina, Ohio, City Council required a recess when all members engaged in serial giggling over one person's flatulence. [WEWS-TV (Cleveland), 3-11-09]
Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer of Snellville, Ga., involved in a recent feud with an aggressive city council member, called on police chief Roy Whitehead to escort him to the men's room at City Hall for his safety. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2-11-09]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with the impossible task of "regulating" 18,000 makers of drug devices (and thousands of other companies and enforcing 123 new federal laws since 1988), has had virtually no increase in staff in 15 years. It's little wonder, then, that the AM2PAT company of Angier, N.C., was not caught before bacteria in its pre-filled syringes were linked to five deaths and hundreds of illnesses in December 2007. Subsequently inspected, AM2PAT's saline and heparin syringes were found to contain "debris" and "sediment" and to be "muddy" and "dingy brown" in color. Furthermore, according to a February report in the Raleigh News & Observer, the required "clean (air) room" was found to be just a room with a fan, and the company's "chief microbiologist" was revealed to be a teenager who had dropped out of high school. The company's owner has fled to his native India to avoid prosecution. [News & Observer, 2-25-09]
The Homeland Is Secure
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration ruled in January that a post-9-11 federal maritime law, which requires comprehensive background credentials for mariners holding U.S. Coast Guard authorization on U.S. waters, applies even to the two "mule skinners" who work, in tourist season, dressed in colonial costumes at the Hugh Moore Historical Park in Easton, Pa. The park's lone mule-pulled boat is operated in a 2-mile-long canal that is near nothing of strategic significance, said the park director. [CNN, 2-25-09]
In addition to addressing the usual state homeland-security concerns, Kentucky's statute requires anyone licensed as a first responder to disasters to take an oath against dueling ("I, being a citizen of this state, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons ... nor have I sent or accepted a challenge (to duel), nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge (to duel), so help me God"). Another provision requires the state Homeland Security Office's executive director to "publicize" a legislative finding that "reliance upon Almighty God" is necessary to homeland security. [Kentucky Statutes Section 39G.010(2)(a), as reported in the lawyers' blog LoweringTheBar.net, 2-23-09]
Police Blotter
Police were called to the Aliso (Calif.) Town Center on March 15 after a woman telephoned 911 to report being attacked near the center's fountain by another woman, who had flung her dog's feces at her and her infant. The flinger was said to be upset about complaints from passersby about the enema she was giving her dog in public. [Orange County Register, 3-17-09]
Names in the News: Charged in Albuquerque in February with giving her daughter marijuana: Ms. Jodi Weed. The victim of a January beating by her middle school classmates in Tampa (for the obvious reason): Miss Special Harris. Charged with arson and destruction of property in Charleston, W.Va., in March: Mr. J. Edgar Hoover. Charged with prostitution in Tampa in February: Ms. Ho Suk Kim. [KOAT-TV (Albuquerque), 2-1-09] [St. Petersburg Times, 1-31-09] [WSAZ-TV (Huntington, W.Va.), 3-5-09] [Tampa Tribune, 2-11-09]
Fine Points of the Law
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal agreed in February to hear the charge brought by Roxanne Stevenson that she was turned down illegally for a clerk's job by the city of Kelowna because she smokes. "Smoking," itself, is not covered by the law, and a city official said Stevenson frequently used sick leave at a previous job and that, during her interview, she "reeked" of smoke and coughed constantly. Lawyers interviewed by the Vancouver Sun said, however, that employers cannot discriminate on account of health status or addiction without offering to accommodate the worker's condition. [Vancouver Sun, 2-6-09]
The Miracle Drug
Alcohol Was Involved: A 19-year-old University of Colorado student required emergency assistance in March after spending all evening badgering fellow partygoers to hit him in the face. Finally, at 2 a.m., someone complied, resulting in a broken nose and massive bleeding. [Colorado Daily (Boulder), 3-18-09]
A National City Bank in downtown Pittsburgh was broken into on March 7, inadvertently, when an intoxicated man accidentally tripped and crashed through the front window (narrowly avoiding decapitation). [WPXI-TV (Pittsburgh), 3-7-09]
According to sheriff's reports, a man reported to Huntsville (Ala.) Hospital on Feb. 18 after having passed out drunk with an ex-girlfriend and waking up with a sewing needle in his urethra. [The News Courier (Athens, Ala.), 2-21-09]
Recurring Themes
That Sacred Institution (as practiced in villages in India): To prevent mysterious illnesses in the village, two 7-year-old girls were married, separately, to frogs (Pallipudupet, Tamil Nadu state; January). [The Times of India, 1-17-09]
To bring prosperity to the village, an elder married off two trees to each other (Subhasnagar, West Bengal state; February). [The Times of India, 2-9-09]
To overcome the effect of a baby's odd-looking tooth, which is said to portend death by a tiger unless remedied, the 18-month-old boy was married off to a female dog (Jaipur District, Orissa state; February). [Agence France-Presse, 2-18-09]
Undignified Deaths
A motorist survived a crash on Feb. 4 near Los Banos, Calif., though his car fell down a 200-foot cliff. After he climbed back to the highway and sought help, he was accidentally hit and killed by another driver. [Modesto Bee, 2-4-09]
A 60-year-old man, celebrating his retirement from a transportation company in Ritto, Japan, in December, was killed when three co-workers tossed him playfully into the air and then apparently miscommunicated as to who would catch him. [Mainichi Daily News, 12-16-08]
A News of the Weird Classic (August 1997)
News of the Weird reported that hard-luck Oklahoma rapist Darron Bennalford Anderson had received a 2,200-year sentence in a Tulsa court in 1994 but had won a new trial. Unfortunately for him, he was re-convicted in 1996 and re-sentenced, to more than 90 additional centuries behind bars (a total of 11,250 years, including 40 centuries each for rape and sodomy, 17 centuries for kidnapping, 10 centuries for burglary and robbery, and five centuries for grand larceny). In July 1997, the state Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the grand larceny charge, as double jeopardy on the robbery conviction, speeding Anderson's release date up 500 years to 12,744 A.D. [Dallas Morning News, 7-24-97]
Thanks This Week to Philip Urban, Graham Rankin, Sam Gaines, Sandy Pearlman, and Don Schullian, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD
© 2009 UCLICK, L.L.C. ©2009 Chuck Shepherd
Russian Man Survives Leap From 5th-Floor Balcony ... TWICE!
Russian Man Survives Leap From 5th-Floor Balcony ... TWICE!
MOSCOW, Russia -- Incredible as it sounds, Voyeurwebbers, a Russian man drank three bottles of vodka and leaped from his fifth-floor balcony ... and survived!? Then, even more incredibly, he did it again. 0Alexei Roskov says he jumped the second time because he couldn't take his wife's nagging about the his jumping the first time.Wife Yekaterina had watched in horror as her drunken husband opened the kitchen window of their Moscow apartment, and hurled himself out.Astonishingly, Roskov, 22, survived and managed to stagger back upstairs with barely a scratch after the 50-foot fall.Then, while his wife called for an ambulance and began to scold him, he jumped again.Amazed medics treated Roskov for minor cuts and bruises before releasing him.Roskov says he is now a teetotaler after giving up drinking, and added: "Now I can say just one thing - I was very lucky."I have no idea why I jumped the first time but when I came back up and I heard my wife screaming angrily at me I thought it was best if I left the room again - out of the window."
-- WHOA! I was impressed that Mr. Roskov could drink three bottles of vodka and still move, Voyeurwebbers, let alone leap off a fifth-floor balcony and live to tell about it ... twice! As you probably know, Voyeurwebbers, vodka is made from potatoes, and drunk by Russians to give them strength -- to plant more potatoes, hehehe! However, since everyone clearly is not as lucky as Mr. Roskov, instead of drinking three bottles of vodka and leaping off a balcony, I recommend two vodka martinis (shaken, not stirred) and leaping out of your clothes and over to VW's sexplicit Red Clouds sextion, where all of the ladies are lovely and not one of them nags ... because they are all having too much fun enjoying hot, passionate sex! Hehehe! -- Igor
EYE ON: The Big Apple by K.
A unique, to say the least, shooting incident occurred in New York City, Voyeurwebbers. What does Eye mean by "unique"? Well, two men had words and both ended up being shot ...and only one of them was shooting, how's that for unique? Police said a man shot himself in the ankle while firing his .45-caliber pistol at his girlfriend's ex-beau.According to news reports, investigators said the victim, Derick Jordan, 25, stopped at the home of his ex-girlfriend, Jasmine Ortiz, 22, at 11:50 a.m. Tuesday to drop off some clothes for their 4-year-old daughter.Jordan began arguing with Ortiz's new boyfriend, Lance Williams, Jr., 30, and Williams eventually pulled out his gun and shot Jordan in the left leg, said police. Williams continued firing, but managed only to shoot himself in the ankle, said investigators."He's obviously not a very good shot," a law-enforcement source said with what Eye takes to be typical Big Apple understatement.Jordan identified Williams as the shooter while they were both being wheeled into Lincoln Hospital on gurneys and police handcuffed Williams. Do you have any idea how hard it is, Voyeurwebbers, to be the only one with a gun and the only one shooting and you shoot the other guy, but keep shooting without hitting anything else but your own ankle? It boggles the mind. K.
Eye hastens to point out that any opinions expressed in this column are entirely his own and are neither those of Voyeurweb nor its management. K.
Hunting Flies
A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking around with a fly swatter."What are you doing?" she asked. "Hunting flies," responded her husband."Oh. Killing any?" she asked."Yep, three males and two females," he replied.Intrigued, she asked, "How can you tell?""Three were on a beer can, and two were on the phone," he replied.
Economy Affecting Romance?
Economy Affecting Romance?
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. -- When you receive something from a guy, it's the thought that counts ...right, ladies?Wrong! Well, wrong according to reports from the Big Apple's diamond district which say the economy is having a negative effect on romance, and it is the prospective brides that are getting the short end of the economic stick.According to diamond retailers, more grooms are buying cubic zirconia rings instead of real diamond rings for their engagement rings thus making brides in New York victims of the recession."There are people who will buy a setting and put a CZ in it for now, hoping to replace it later," said one private jeweler.A luxury jeweler said some of those grooms not purchasing cubic zirconia settings are instead turning to one-carat diamond rings instead of the more traditional and expensive two-carat rings."The budget used to be $65,000. Now it's closer to $10,000," said the jeweler.As you might have expected, not all brides seem happy with the cost-cutting measures of their potential spouses."The women are little hostile about it," said a jeweler. "They have been waiting a long time for a ring!"
-- You know, Voyeurwebbers, there's a reason that song says that "diamonds are a girl's best friend" and doesn't say "zircons are a girl's best friend", hehehe! Let's face it, almost everyone is curbing their spending these days, yet that is precisely why Voyeurweb is so popular throughout the World Wide Web. The cost of a one-year membership to our sexplicit sextions such as Red Clouds, Home Clips, or our massive archive, Funbags, among others, is about as much or less than most other adult sites charge for a one-month membership. Why do we do this? Because we really do care about our global -- and growing -- Voyeurweb family, and we figure you need at least one place on the Internet where you can still enjoy adult entertainment to help relieve the stress of today's world without adding to that stress. Besides, there's nothing like viewing all the lovely ladies at each of VW's many sections, whether free or requiring membership, to take your mind off your problems, and give you a good reason to smile, hehehe! -- Igor
EYE ON: Web-Cam Strippers by K.
If you're one of the 300 to 500 Swedish citizens who use a Web cam to provide adult entertainment on the World Wide Web, Voyeurwebbers, Eye, regrettably, has some distressing news for you. The Swedish Tax Authority announced it is targeting Web cam strippers who fail to report their Internet income when filing their taxes. Tax authority officials said an estimated 300 to 500 people in Sweden earn money online by stripping and/or performing sex acts that are posted to the Internet. All but one of the 200 individuals identified by officials have not declared their income."Young people are usually seen as poorly informed about how to file their taxes. That might be one explanation, but another reason is that their clients don't want to be identified," said Dag Hardyson, project manager for the tax authority's investigation of Internet businesses.Stripping is completely legal in Sweden, but those who earn money doing it are required to register for a corporate taxation certificate and to keep records of income and expenses. As Eye sees it, Voyeurwebbers, Sweden's Tax Authority is not only wrong to go after Web-cam strippers, they will also be wasting Swedes' tax dollars by doing so. By its own admission, the tax authority has only been able to identify 200 Web-Cam adult performers online who are Swedish citizens (Eye has found 20 of them so far), yet estimates there could be as many as 500 Swedish citizens who earn a little extra money by providing adult entertainment online. Given that small a number of potential taxpayers, it would most likely cost the Swedish government more to administrate the Web-cam stripper tax program that the country would receive in tax revenues. And why tax just the Web-cam adult entertainers? Isn't that discriminatory in Sweden? K.
Eye hastens to point out that any opinions expressed in this column are entirely his own and are neither those of Voyeurweb nor its management. K.
The Movie Biz
Barry was hired to play trumpet on a movie score and was thrilled when he got to take two long solos. After the sessions, he couldn't wait to see the finished product. He waited a month and then asked the producer when and where it was going to play. The embarrassed producer explained that the music was for an adult movie and it was out now. Barry put on a hat and sunglasses, pulled up his collar, and sneaked into the adult movie theater. He sat far in the back, near an elderly couple who were also hiding. The movie was the filthiest, most perverse flick he'd ever seen... halfway through a dog even got in on the action.Embarrassed, Barry whispered to the old couple, "I'm only here for the music." The woman looked back and whispered, "It's okay. We're just here to see our dog!"
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Todays Giggle ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Johnny's Mother looked out the window and noticed Him "playing church" with their cat. He had the cat sitting quietly and he was preaching to it. She smiled and went about her work. A while later she heard loud meowing and hissing and ran back To the open window to see Johnny baptizing the cat in a tub of water. She called out, "Johnny, stop that! the cat is afraid of water!" Johnny looked up at her and said, "He should have thought about that before he joined my church."
Sunday, April 12, 2009
WEEK OF APRIL 12, 2009
LEAD STORYThrough the years, News of the Weird has reported on restaurants around the world with singularly quirky themes and signature dishes, such as the one in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, that seats all diners on toilets and the Beijing restaurant whose cuisine features animal penises. Last year, a group of doctors in Riga, Latvia, opened Hospitalis, a medical-themed restaurant whose dining room resembles an OR, with "nurse" waitresses bringing food on gurneys, accessorized with syringes and forceps in addition to knives and forks and with drinks served in beakers and test tubes. Hospitalis' signature dish is a cake with edible toppings that resemble fingers, noses and tongues. [The Baltic Times, 9-10-08; News.com.au (Sydney), 3-16-09]
Bright Ideas
It was thought to be the backwoods version of an "urban legend," but the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department reported in March its first documented case of a deer hunter's attempting to avoid detection after shooting a doe (instead of the permissible buck) by gluing antlers onto its head. Marcel Fournier, 19, used epoxy and lag bolts, said a game warden, but the finished product looked awkward because of the angle of placement and the size mismatch of the antlers. (Fournier was jailed for 10 days and fined, and had his license revoked.) [Burlington Free Press, 3-14-09]
"It was initially just an experiment," said the 26-year-old, Sebastopol, Calif., midwife apprentice who last year talked her boyfriend into photographing her cervix for 33 straight days so that she could chart its physical changes while monitoring her own mood, libido and body temperature. It was not easy, she told the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat in February. "It's so dark in there (that) even with (a lamp shining on it), the camera wouldn't focus." However, the boyfriend made it work. "He's a very talented guy." Eventually, the photos made it to the Internet, with her cooperation. [Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, 2-2-09]
Compelling Explanations
Christos Kokkalis, 19, allegedly doing 65 mph in a 30 mph zone, was charged with assault in Framingham, Mass., in March, for reacting badly to a pedestrian's hand gesture suggesting he slow down. According to a police report, Kokkalis swerved across a street into the man's path, drove by, turned around and did it again. The report said Kokkalis denied fault, claiming that his car "turns on its own" because of an "alignment" problem. [Metrowest Daily News (Framingham), 3-2-09]
Herman Rosenblat, whose best-selling "memoir" of his Holocaust love affair with his wife was yanked off the market by the publisher when parts were proven false, insisted to ABC News in February that he never lied. Of his heartbreaking, well-worn story that his non-imprisoned future wife lovingly tossed apples to him over a fence at his concentration camp (which physically could not possibly have happened, according to historians), Rosenblat said: "It wasn't a lie. (E)ven now, I believe it, that she was there and she threw the apple to me. In my imagination, it was true." [ABC News, 2-18-09]
In March, Dominique Fisher, a "tattooist," received a probation-type sentence by Britain's Burnley Crown Court despite having carved her name and other marks with a box cutter on her new lover's body while he was passed out. She and Wayne Robinson had been on a four-day drinking binge, and he panicked when he sobered up. However, Fisher said that Robinson knew all along that she did tattoos and told him, "I thought you'd like it." [Lancashire Telegraph, 1-29-09; BBC News, 3-20-09]
Ironies
Angel Galvan-Hernandez, 26, facing a long prison term after being convicted in a Seattle court, begged the judge in February to execute him, that he'd rather die "a thousand times" than be jailed. The reason, he said, was his fear of being raped in prison because of his petite frame and his history of being attacked as a youth. He admitted that he was a coward, "but I just don't want to be raped." His crime: He had pleaded guilty to raping two women. (He got 20 years.) [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2-27-09]
What We Say, What We Do: About 200 members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) launched a protest campaign in March, accusing their employer of improper layoffs, unlawful bans on union activities, and reclassifying of workers in order to disempower the union. The employer of the workers is the national SEIU office, where they are staff members. [Washington Post, 3-18-09]
A federal arbitrator ruled in March that an employer had, for years, "willfully" violated the Fair Labor Standards Act in exploiting workers by failing to pay overtime. The guilty employer: the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. [Washington Post, 3-31-09]
Fine Points of the Law
New Zealand's Employment Relations Authority ruled in February that a worker who, in a fury, tells his boss to "stick his job up his arse," has not officially resigned unless he follows up the incident with a formal notice. [The Press (Christchurch), 2-5-09]
Two competitors vying to sell the same type iPhone application (arrays of sounds of breaking wind) are embroiled in a trademark dispute, according to a March Denver Post report. The developers of Air-O-Matic's "Pull My Finger" claim that InfoMedia's "iFart" application improperly uses "pull my finger" in its own marketing. InfoMedia said that the phrase is generic and not trademarkable. [Denver Post, 3-27-09]
From an advertisement in the News Reporter of Whiteville, N.C., placed by attorney C. Greg Williamson on Jan. 5, 2009, to give legally required pre-adoption notice to the unknown father of a girl (about whom the mother apparently recalled very little): The father "was about 5 feet 7 inches tall, with a light brown complexion and 'funny' shaped eyes," and the "date and place of conception" were during December 2002 "at a house in Bolton, N.C., thought to be the second house on the left after turning left on the street just past Bubba's Club as you head east from Lake Waccamaw." Under state law, that man had 40 days from the placement of the ad to challenge the adoption of the child, now age 5. [Whiteville.com, 1-5-09]
Recurring Themes
Criminals Not Keeping Low Profiles: Motorist Christopher Cadenhead, 39, was stopped in Osceola County, Fla., in January for having an expired tag. Inside his car, police found 200 pounds of marijuana. [WOFL-TV (Orlando), 1-22-09]
Jose Melendez, 54, and his wife and daughter were stopped by Douglas County, Neb., deputies in January after their RV was driving on the shoulder of Interstate 80. Cover-story discrepancies among the three occupants as to where they were headed and which "relatives" they were "visiting" aroused a deputy's suspicion, and a search of the vehicle revealed $2.5 million worth of cocaine under a floorboard. [Omaha World-Herald, 1-24-09]
Undignified Deaths
Karma: A 25-year-old man who was a passenger in a car driven by a drunk friend was killed in Houston in February when he was thrown from the car in a crash. That incident came seven months after the victim had, himself, been charged with DUI in a crash that killed two people. [Houston Chronicle, 2-13-09]
Two brothers driving a stolen car and being chased by police on Interstate 70 near St. Louis in November were killed when they accidentally crashed into another car. That car, also, had been stolen. [KSDK-TV (St., Louis), 11-30-08]
A News of the Weird Classic (September 2003)
In March 2003, the double life of wealthy Tampa construction magnate Douglas Cone, 74, surfaced when, following the death of his socialite wife, Jean Ann (with whom he lived Thursdays through Sundays and had three kids), he quickly married his socialite paramour Hillary Carlson (with whom he had lived for years in a second mansion 20 miles away as "Donald Carlson," Mondays through Wednesdays, and had two kids). Cone's philanthropic contributions (donated in both his names, though "Mr. Carlson" never appeared at events), and both women's dedicated community service, made the "four" of them prominent figures in Tampa. (The consensus among the families' members, according to a St. Petersburg Times report, is that Hillary knew; Jean Ann might not have; and others did not.) [St. Petersburg Times, 6-4-03] [People, 7-21-03]
Thanks This Week to Matt McCaffrey, Kenneth Saxe, Don Schullian, Terry Summers, Carolyn Porterfield, Ray Reigadas, Stephen Taylor, Mindy Cohen, and Steve Northrup, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
(And for the accomplished and joyous cynic, try News of the Weird Daily/Pro Edition, at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2009 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE---->
Thursday, April 9, 2009
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Todays Giggle ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
:: Summary of Life ::~GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats..2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk..9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts. GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:1) Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.2) Wrinkles don't hurt..3) Families are like fudge..mostly sweet, with a few nuts.�4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside..6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy. GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rockingchair that you once got from a roller coaster.5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothersto ask you the questions.6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician..7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone. THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:1) You believe in Santa Claus.2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.3) You are Santa Claus.4) You look like Santa Claus. SUCCESS:At age 4 success is . . . not piddling in your pants.At age 12 success is . . . having friends.At age 17 success is . having a drivers license.At age 35 success is . .. having money.At age 50 success is . . having money.At age 70 success is . . .. having a drivers license.At age 75 success is . having friends..At age 80 success is . .. not piddling in your pants.
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