From jotten@mrj.com Fri Oct 29 07:32:31 1993 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rgaff@caci.nalda.navy.mil, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: News of the Weird WEIRDNUZ.297 (News of the Weird, October 15, 1993) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * Alphonso Johnson Quinn, 36, was arrested near Bowie, Md., in September and accused by police of being the "crossbow rapist" who had terrorized several women in their homes. According to Police Chief David Mitchell, Quinn committed the crimes to improve his business; he sold "home security systems," and his sales literature referred to the need for protection from the crossbow rapist. [Washington Times, 9-15-93] The Halls of Justice * Reinero Torres, Jr., 53, twice this year successfully defended himself in court in Sebring, Fla., first on a worthless-check charge and then for assault. However, in August, on a third charge, for theft, for which he also acted as his own lawyer, he lost. A jury convicted him of having stolen, from the courthouse library, the books he had used in preparing his defenses to the first two charges. [Tampa Tribune, Aug93] * A judge in Riverside, Calif., ruled in September that David Reese, 39, must pay his ex-wife $982 a month in child support for their two children, aged 9 and 5, even though he learned recently during the heated divorce proceeding that the children were really fathered by a "family friend" and are not his. [Columbus Dispatch-Orange County Register, Sept93] * A jury in San Diego recommended in August that Cleophus "Little Pie" Prince Jr., 26, be put to death for the murder of six women. One of the prosecutor's tactics was to play for the jury a videotape showing one of the victims, an aspiring actress, at work and play, in order to emphasize the tragedy of her death. There was much crying in the courtroom during the playing of the tape, and among those sobbing was Prince's own lawyer, which provoked the judge to order a hasty recess. [L. A. Times, 8-18-93] * In April, Baltimore, Md., circuit judge Thomas J. Bollinger rejected a recommended 20-year prison sentence and instead sentenced a man only to probation on a rape conviction. Bollinger's rationale was that, since the woman and the man were friends, and she was raped only after she voluntarily lay down on his bed fully clothed to sleep off a drinking binge, it was not really rape. Analogizing the matter to a property crime, the judge said, if "I grab your purse," it's "robbery," but "if you . . . leave your pocketbook on the bench, and I take it," it is merely "larceny"-- which is less serious. And in Newport, Wales, two months earlier, a judge said he would sentence a 15- year-old boy only to probation for raping a girl of the same age, provided that he pay her about $700 so she could take a vacation and get over the incident. [Baltimore Sun, 4-24-93; St. Louis Post-Dispatch- Reuters, 2-7-93] * In July in Bristol, Conn., Kathleen Driscoll filed a formal complaint accusing ex-lover Richard LaMothe of being the person who made a series of harassing phone calls to her. In addition to telephone company records that tended to support her charge, Driscoll said that one call, in March, consisted only of silence punctuated by a very large belch, which Driscoll positively identified as LaMothe's. [National Law Journal, 8-16-93] Cries for Help * Leona Vanatta, 66, was charged with robbing the Trans World Bank, of which she is a regular customer, in San Fernando, Calif., in September. She arrived at the bank expecting that her monthly Social Security funds ($242) had been direct-deposited; when informed that the funds were not yet available, she pulled out a gun and said, "Now can I have my money?" She took the $242, hopped on her bicycle, and started to pedal home but was quickly apprehended. [San Jose Mercury News-L.A. Daily News, 9-6-93] * A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of Rodney Hamrick in June on mailbombing charges. Hamrick ultimately confessed to the crime, but the first piece of evidence that led investigators to him was that he had written his return address on the bomb package. [U. S. vs. Hamrick, 995 F.2d 1267 [4th Cir. 1993] * In September, Gwen Laymon said in New Orleans that her recently-arrested son, Eric, accused in a drive-by shooting of a 12-year-old girl, could not possibly have participated in the incident. She told reporters that, at the time of that shooting, Eric was at a nearby housing project participating in another shooting. [Times-Picayune, 9-2-93] * Vincent J. Branciforte, 39, was arrested for possession of child pornography in Clearwater, Fla., in September. Originally, police had intended to question him about taking photographs on a public beach of little girls showering nude--although possession of such photos is not illegal in Florida. However, according to police, when they visited his home to question him, Branciforte said, "I know why you are here," went outside, fished around in his garbage can, and handed police other photographs that are illegal to possess. "Had he not given us those pictures," said Capt. Frank Palombo, "we'd have nothing." [St. Petersburg Times, 9-29-93] * In a case report in a 1993 issue of the Journal of Forenisic Sciences, an Aberdeen, Wash., coroner described the death of a depressed, 28-year-old man who killed himself by tying a thick nylon rope from his neck to a tree stump, getting into his truck in a rural area, fastening his seat belt, and accelerating until he decapitated himself. [Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1993] The Weirdo-American Community * Lightbulb eater Jim Rose was forced to postpone his 33-city tour in September for one month, because he was still recuperating from his last show in The Netherlands. To satisfy TV and radio stations there, Rose had ingested five bulbs in one day (versus his usual limit of no more than one every 24 hours) and had to be treated for stomach cramps and bleeding bowels. [L. A. times, 9-15-93] I Don't Think So * Timothy Ray Anderson filed a lawsuit against a McDonald's restaurant in Milwaukee in May for injuries he suffered when a security guard shot him in the stomach as he attempted a robbery. Wrote Anderson's lawyer in the complaint, "The mere fact that you're holding up McDonald's with a gun doesn't mean you give up your right to be protected from somebody who wants to shoot you." [Milwaukee Journal, May93] Copyright 1993, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Mon Nov 8 09:47:19 1993 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rgaff@caci.nalda.navy.mil, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: News of the Weird WEIRDNUZ.298 (News of the Weird, October 22, 1993) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In July, JoAnn Suggs was convicted in Raleigh, N. C., of hiring Bill Bateman to kill her estranged husband, J. R. The plot failed because of Bateman's lack of temperament for the job. Testifying in the case, Bateman said he pulled a gun on Suggs one night at Suggs's condo, but put it away and eventually even helped Suggs unload the groceries from his car. Suggs offered Bateman a beer, and the two talked into the night. After being implored by JoAnn by telephone to get on with the job, Bateman tied Suggs up with stereo wire, but then resumed talking. Bateman then put his hands around Suggs's neck but, when Suggs objected, Bateman said he was only applying a pro wrestling "sleeper" hold. Then the two drove around and talked some more over beers. Bateman and JoAnn kept in telephone contact; she became increasingly exasperated that Suggs was still alive. Finally, JoAnn met the two men and implored Bateman to shoot Suggs, who had been placed in the trunk of the car. Bateman closed his eyes and fired several shots at the trunk, wounding Suggs in the hand. [Raleigh News & Observer, Jul93] People with Too Much Time on Their Hands * In August. Dorolou Swirsky, 83, told the San Francisco Chronicle she is planning to give the city of Sunnyvale, Calif., $500,000 from her estate to finance youth sports activities, which she views as the key antidote to delinquency. She particularly wants the money to go toward interscholastic lawn bowling, which she said "embraces everything that holds a family together." [San Francisco Chronicle, 8-20-93] * The Baltimore Sun reported in June that New York City artist Todd Alden recently asked 400 art collectors worldwide to send him samples of their feces so he can offer them for sale in personalized tins. Said Alden, "scatology is emerging as an increasingly significant part of artistic inquiry in the 1990s." The feces of Italian artist Piero Manzoni, canned in 1961, recently sold for $75,000. [Baltimore Evening Sun, 6-4-93] * Cox News Service reported in August that Mexican professional wrestler Gerardo Palomero, who works in a mask, colorful tights, and a cape under the name "Super Animal," has taken to charging into Mexico City slaughterhouses in costume to challenge workers to treat animals humanely. Said one worker, "We just wish he would come in a respectable suit." Another costumed wrestler, "Super Barrio," similarly defends tenants' rights and works in AIDS education. [Austin American-Statesman-Cox, 8-9-93] * In June, around 200 "angelologists" held the second American Conference on Angels in East Falmouth, Mass. The organizer, K. Martin-Kuri, said attendees believe that each person on earth has a guardian angel who improves that person's life in many ways. [Sikeston Standard Democrat-AP, 6-13-93] * Neil McKerracher, mayor of Calmar in Alberta, Canada, held the town's first Heterosexual Pride Day in June, to combat the Gay Pride Day in nearby Edmonton. McKerracher said there would be no parade or other festivities but urged the town's straight residents to celebrate with plenty of sex. [Edmonton Sun, 6-9-93] * The Albany (N. Y.) Times Union reported recently that Stella Downing, 81, had just sold her 167-piece collection of bedpans and urinals, to be housed in a museum in Missouri. The oldest, made of tin, is from the 18th century. [[Wilmington (N. C.) Morning Star- Albany Times Union, Aug93]] * In June, a show in High Falls, N. Y., featured the paintings of Kansas City, Mo., artist Reena Schultz, who says her works were inspired by her communing with famous dead artists (Van Gogh, Renoir, Pissarro, Chagall, Rembrandt, Holbein, and Da Vinci), whom she reached after suffering several out-of-body experiences following a car crash in 1989. She said she has no talent for art but depends entirely on the artists' guidance her as to colors, brushes, and design. [Kingston Daily Freeman, 6-11-93] * In July, after two years of haggling with a New York art dealer, the National Gallery of Canada announced that it had acquired, for $1.5 million, a painting entitled "No. 16" by American abstract impressionist Mark Rothko, which consists of two white rectangles on a red background. Its original price was over $4 million. [North Bay Nugget-CP, 7-16-93] * In May, biology professor George Hunt of the University of California-Irvine led a field trip to the Channel Islands near Oxnard, Calif., where he had originally spotted what he called "lesbian sea gulls" in the 1970s. Hunt had reported then that 14% of the 1,200 gull pairs he studied were lesbian. He admitted that he cannot tell males and females apart, but inferred because of the larger number of eggs in some nests that the hatching pair of gulls on those nests were both female. [Los Angeles Times, 6-20-93] Inexplicable * In Mebane, N. C., in August, a man reported that someone stole his dog from his backyard but left another one in its place. Also that month, in King, N. C., Steve Szabo reported that someone broke into his home, took his VCR and 15 tapes, and took 34 comic books from his collection and replaced them with 34 others. [Chapel Hill Herald, 8-12-93; King Times News,8-11-93] * The Wichita Falls (Tex.) Times Record News reported in July that David Garza of Henrietta, Tex., has collected 75 ball-point pens that he says have floated into his toilet from sewer lines over the past two years. Neither he nor sewer company authorities offered an explanation. [Houston Chronicle-AP, 7-4-93] I Don't Think So * Archie Calvin Whitehurst, 28, was arrested at the Mission Boulevard Convalescent Hospital in San Jose, Calif., in August, and charged with having sex with the body of a woman who had died eight hours earlier. According to police, Whitehurst at first appeared not to have known the woman was dead; when police asked him what he had done, he blurted out that he had not raped the woman but that she had consented to sex. [San Antonio Express-News-Knight-Ridder, 8-12-93] Copyright 1993, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From klassa@aurxcc.aur.alcatel.com Mon Dec 13 13:38:04 1993 Lead Story On Oct. 1, Mikey Sproul, age 3, made national news when he commandeered the family car, which had one flat tire, and cruised down U.S. 41 near Tampa, Fla., hitting two parked cars and narrowly missing several moving ones. Mikey's assessment: "I go zoom." On Nov. 11, using a cigarette lighter, Mikey burned down his family's house, sending his father to the hospital with second and third-degree burns. Mikey's assessment: "Now I have no more house." Inexplicable In Bay Minette, Ala., Raymond Giadrosich, 39, on trial in September for killing his wife and mother-in-law near the end of a stormy divorce proceeding, was convicted on one count. Although Giadrosich shot his wife and then, 10 seconds later, the mother, the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity for the first killing but sane and guilty for the second. Least Competent Criminals On Oct. 29, two men approached a teller at the Harbor Bank in Baltimore with a note reading "I have a gun. Gimme me [sic] your money or else." According to a witness, the teller looked at the note, which was written on the back of a deposit slip for another bank, and replied, "This is a Mayland National [Bank] transaction -- you have to go to Maryland National." The men looked at each other, panicked, and ran off. *** From jotten@mrj.com Tue Feb 15 13:32:30 1994 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rgaff@caci.nalda.navy.mil, sandor@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: News of the Weird WEIRDNUZ.307 (News of the Weird, December 24, 1993) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * Nude dancer Dora Oberling, 30, was recovering nicely from a gunshot wound inflicted by a 75-year-old man during an argument outside the Mons Venus Club in Tampa, Fla., in October. Tampa police Sgt. M. D. Smith said that paramedics treating Oberling told him that her breast implants "might have saved her life" by slightly deflecting the bullet aimed at her chest. [St. Petersburg Times, 10-15-93] The Continuing Crisis * Junius Wilson, who cannot speak or hear, was charged with attempted rape in 1925 at the age of 29 and sent to a psychiatric hospital in Wilmington, N. C., after he was declared incompetent to stand trial. He has lived there ever since, even though the rape charge was dropped. In 1992 the state ruled that Wilson, by then aged 96, could leave the hospital to live in an apartment provided by the state. But in November 1993, the state announced that Wilson would have to continue to live in the hospital because the apartment the state intended for him was found to contain lead-based paint, causing officials to fear for Wilson's health. [Charleston Post & Courier-AP, 12-2-93] * Russian officials reported that U. S. economist Michael Dasaro, 35, died of a routine heart attack in Moscow in November. However, the officials acknowledged that robbers had ransacked Dasaro's apartment either shortly before or shortly after his death. When the body arrived at the home of a family member in Peabody, Mass., later in the month, Dasaro's heart was missing. [Boston Herald, 11-30-93] * In December, Bill Holcomb, a disabled, $5-an-hour bell-ringer for the Salvation Army stationed in front of a K-Mart in St. Petersburg, Fla., was fired for failure to bring in enough money. The area Salvation Army commander said, "We tell those who come in that this [job] isn't for everyone." [St. Petersburg Times, 12-4-93] * Reuters news service reported in November that Iraq has become a major supplier to the world market for human kidneys and other organs. Officials say the increase in donors was caused by the 1990 United Nations economic sanctions, which have reduced the value of Iraqi money by 99%. [Edmonton Journal-Reuters, 11-27-93] * In November, the city of Bombay, India, on a cleanup campaign, announced it had 70 job openings for rat catchers; it received 40,000 applications--half from college graduates. [Globe & Mail, 11-23-93] * The Wall Street Journal reported in September that the government of Switzerland has purchased 65 million potassium iodide pills, enough for everyone in the country to take in case of a nuclear accident. The pills supposedly prevent radiation from accumulating in the thyroid gland and thus avert one type of cancer associated with a nuclear accident. [Wall Street Journal, Sept93] * In November, the Grand Canyon claimed its seventh death-by-fall victim of the year. At least two people toppled over backward as they tried to position themselves to accommodate family photographers. Said the director of a local outdoors group, "A lot of tourists approach the Grand Canyon like a ride at Disneyland . . . and think it's idiot-proof. The Grand Canyon wasn't build by attorneys and engineers." [USA Today, 12-1-93; St. Petersburg Times-AP, 12-2-93; Monroe (La.) News-Star, 11-11-93; High County News, 11- 15-93] * In a September lawsuit for wrongful firing, former Peace Corps volunteer Paul T. Correri, 64, said his country director in Cape Verde, Africa, dismissed him because Correri is homosexual, which the director thought would offend local citizens. Correri charged that, while employed, he was ordered to "conspicuously" say goodbye in his front yard to any local male visitors each afternoon so as to assure the neighbors that the visitors were not staying overnight. [AP wirecopy, 9-30-93] * This summer, the government of China proposed a program to raise money by launching the ashes of dead people into space--either on a 12-year voyage or forever. NASA criticized the program, pointing out that it would merely increase the debris in space. [Globe & Mail-Sunday Telegraph, 8-25-93] * In July, a 20-year-old University of Saskatchewan student, after climbing out of a ditch where he had survived a truck accident minutes before, was run over and killed by a tractor-trailer. In October, a 40- year-old Kansas City, Kan., man, who had just survived a truck accident on Interstate 635, died when he fell over the side of a bridge as he was getting out of the truck. And on that same October day, a 23-year-old man, who had just survived ramming his truck into a utility pole in Dekalb, N. Y., stepped on a severed power line as he walked toward the highway and was electrocuted. [Edmonton Journal, 7-8-93; Kansas City Star, 10-11-93; New Haven Register-AP, 10-11-93] * The Toronto Globe and Mail reported in October on the religious importance of Pepsi Cola in the town of San Juan Chamula, in southern Mexico. Practicing a blend of Christianity and worship of Mayan gods, many parishioners believe their leaders' doctrine that because Pepsi has more bubbles than Coca-Cola, it is closer to the sun and thus more powerful. Bottles of Pepsi appear among holy artifacts inside local churches, and some leaders believe the cola has healing powers. (Coca-Cola officials say the dominance is due purely to Pepsi's payment of kickbacks to the leaders.) [Globe & Mail, 10-30-93] Creme de la Weird * Imprisoned mass murderer Charles Manson struck two deals for himself in November. He will receive 10 cents' royalty for every shirt sold by a vendor who uses his likeness on "Charlie Don't Surf" T-shirts. And the new Guns N' Roses album contains an unpublicized song, "Look at Your Game, Girl," reportedly written by Manson before he was imprisoned. A source told the Associated Press that Manson's royalties could reach $60,000 if the album sells a million copies. [New York Times-AP, 11-25-93; USA Today, 11-26-93] I Don't Think So * Councilman Larry Townsend of Alvin, Tex., who said publicly in February that he thought only Christians should be allowed to hold public office in the U. S., was further criticized for using a racial slur. However, he said the only reason he used the slur was because he was role-playing during a "training exercise" and had been asked by the "public relations" people conducting the exercise to use language that would offend minorities. [Houston Post, 2-2-93] Copyright 1993, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. WEIRDNUZ.308 (News of the Weird, December 31, 1993) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In November, radio evangelist Rev. Joseph R. Chambers of Charlotte, N. C., issued a four-state warning that Barney, the TV dinosaur, is a tool of satan because he teaches kids to love others in spite of their differences. In September, Baptist Rev. Charles Mainous, Pastor Tom Coffman, and other Columbus, Ohio, area ministers, issued a similar warning about Rev. Billy Graham, who Coffman said is "helping the anti- Christ" by bringing various religions together. [Columbus Guardian, 9-29-93] Questionable Judgments * Milwaukee (Wis.) County House of Corrections inmate David Schlemm, in jail for battering Renae Hertlein, applied for a Thanksgiving Day pass under the jail's liberal holiday policy. Employees granted his request despite his having written, as his destination, Hertlein's name and address. Fifteen minutes after Schlemm left the jail, a hysterical Hertlein called the police because Schlemm was trying to break in. [St. Petersburg Times-AP, 12-6-93] * Blaise Pugh was arrested in Washington, D. C., in September after he made several boasts on a taped episode of the "Sally Jessy Rafael" TV show about having violated parole. Pugh told a surprised Raphael that he had no fear of being exposed on television. Federal marshals raided his home while the show was being aired in Washington and found Pugh watching himself on TV. [Washington Times-AP, 9-27-93] * In April, a French physician, addressing the American Burn Association annual meeting in Cincinnati, said that a prescription psoriasis drug is being misused in his country to accelerate suntanning. He reported on 12 recent cases, all female, in which an average of 85% of the body's surface had been burned. The exposure also radically increased the risk of skin cancer. [The Medical Post, 4-27-93] * In July, the Associated Press reported that the defect rate for condoms dispensed in Arkansas state health clinics and schools was more than 10 times higher than that tolerated by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration and that FDA considered getting a court order to seize the condoms. However, the Arkansas Health Department, then under the direction of U. S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, decided that keeping the defect rate secret would "serve a greater public health purpose" because the public would not lose confidence in condoms. [Baltimore Sun-AP, 7-22-93] * In November, Brazilian farm laborer Francisco Asis dos Santos was hospitalized near Sao Paulo after he shot himself in the eye. He told doctors that he had had a bad toothache and tried to shoot the tooth out, but missed. [Houston Post-Reuter, 11-26-93] * In August, the Maine Supreme Court finally rejected the appeal of Douglas Merrill, who had sought damages from the Central Maine Power Company after he was badly burned in a 1976 incident. He was trying to cook an eel using a live electrical line at a Maine Power substation. [USA Today, 8-3-93] * In Kennett, Mo., in August, Larry White pleaded guilty to burglary just before trial and was sentenced to six years in prison. He was caught because, in trying to eliminate the possibility of a shoe print when he kicked open a door, he removed his shoe. However, he left a clear, identifiable footprint, which is more useful to detectives, anyway. [Kennett Daily Dunlkin Democrat, 9-1-93] * In November, four girls representing the four classes at Silverton (Ore.) Union High School, as part of a pep rally contest, vied to see which one could sit on blocks of dry ice the longest. Although the stunt lasted only 15 minutes, the four were rushed to the hospital with second- and third-degree burns. Dry ice is much colder than ordinary ice. [Salem (Ore.) Statesman Journal, 11-11-93] * An unidentified man wound up in a Phoenix, Ariz., hospital in critical condition in December after allegedly robbing a Whataburger restaurant and fleeing. The man's car crashed into a bridge railing during the police chase, and he decided his chances were better in the river so he dove in head first. The river was dry, and the man landed on his head. [Arizona Republic, 12-1-93] * In December, a 32-year-old man drowned near Fort Worth, Tex., in a pond just off the 17th hole of the Lancaster municipal golf course, while diving to salvage golf balls. And three days later in West Haven, Conn., a 42-year-old man who had just dashed across six lanes of I-95 was killed by a car when he went back onto the highway to retrieve his hat. [Dallas Morning News, 12-4-93; New Haven Register, 12-7-93] * In November, a jury in Columbia, Mo., convicted Elmer Tatum, 35, of robbery, based in part on the disguise he used. A witness said the robber wore a large black garbage bag over his body with only one hole cut out, for his right arm. Elmer Tatum's left arm had long ago been amputated. [Columbia Missourian, 11-19-93] * According to police in Chelmsford, Mass., Michael Wright and Steven Bean, both age 18, confessed in November to robbing a gas station. The men were hospitalized at the time of their confession because they had shot each other in the shoulder. They had claimed another man had committed the robbery and shot them during his getaway. [Excelsior Springs Daily Standard-AP, 11-19-93] The Weirdo-American Community * Terry Mount, 48, was charged with criminal trespassing in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in September. According to police, Mount, who was the maintenance supervisor at a large apartment house, had entered at least 20 apartments and stuffed men's magazines, women's underpants, condoms, and other sexually oriented items behind heating vents. [Des Moines Register, 9-29-93] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. WEIRDNUZ.309 (News of the Weird, January 6, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In December, Dominique Gosbout, of Abitibi, Quebec, petitioned the legislature to restore one provision of the province's old Civil Code that was changed in the new 1992 Code. Article 441 now lists the only obligations of married persons as "respect, fidelity, care, and help." For the first time in 200 years, "love" is no longer required, and Gosbout wants it back. [Sault Star-CP, 12-3-93] The Litigious Society * In July, retired Air Force Maj. Bill Smith filed a lawsuit in Fort Worth, Tex., against the estate of Elvis Presley, charging that the estate has been "perpetrating a fraud" that Presley died in 1977. Smith says the estate's "claim" interferes with his attempts to sell his books on Elvis's current whereabouts. [Nashville Tennessean, Jul93] * Vicki Jo Daily, 36, filed a lawsuit in July in Jackson, Wy., against the widow of the man she collided with and killed in a February accident. The 56-year- old victim's snowmobile had suddenly cut in front of Daily's pickup truck, and he died at the scene. Police said Daily was free of blame, and she now wants money from the widow for the "grave and crippling psychological injuries" she suffered by watching the man die. [Jackson Hole News, 7-21-93] * In December, a New York appeals court rejected Edna Hobbs's lawsuit against the company that makes the device called The Clapper. Hobbs claimed she hurt her hands because she had to clap too hard in order to turn her appliances on: "I couldn't peel potatoes [when my hands hurt]. I never ate so many baked potatoes in my life. I was in pain." However, the judge said Hobbs had merely failed to adjust the sensitivity controls. [Troy Record-AP, Dec93] * In December, a judge in Martinez, Calif., dismissed the lawsuit filed by Mike and Jo Ann Hansen on behalf of their son, who complained that math teacher Eric Henze gave him a C for the course despite his having earned an A on the final exam. [San Jose Mercury News-AP, 12-12-93] * In September 1992, homeless couple Darryl Washington and Maria Ramos were injured when a train plowed into them as they were having sex on a mattress on the tracks at a New York City subway station. Injuries were not severe, thanks to a quick-acting motorman. Nonetheless, according to a December 1993 story in the New York Daily News, the couple has filed a lawsuit against the Transit Authority for "carelessness, recklessness, and negligence." Said the couple's attorney, "Homeless people are allowed to have sex, too." [New York Daily News, 12-21-93] * In November, a court in Vancouver, British Columbia, awarded David Mattatall $632 in medical costs and other expenses stemming from a car "accident" in 1991. Mattatall had sued his mother for closing her car door on the paw of Mattatall's cat Daisy, and the loss means that Mattatall's mother will lose her 40% safe-driving discount. Daisy will not benefit from the money, since she was subsequently run over by another car. [Sault Star-CP, 11-17-93] * In September John L. Demirjian filed a lawsuit against California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo, claiming that he was improperly dismissed as a student in the teaching certificate program. Demirjian claims the real reason for his ouster was "unsubstantiated rumors" that he ate cookies around the department in a sloppy manner and that he had a flatulence problem. According to the lawsuit, "There is no physical evidence that any gas was passed, or . . . any authentication as to [its] point of origin." [[San Jose Mercury News, 10-16-93]] * According to the December [italics] State Legislatures magazine, Kansas is poised to toughen its worker compensation laws because a former insurance commissioner was awarded $95,000 in benefits this year. The commissioner's physician also filed a claim, alleging that he suffered injuries from having to sit so often on a cramped witness stand, testifying in worker compensation cases. [State Legislatures, December 1993] * Ernesto Mota, 32, who suffered brain damage when he swallowed the contents of a bag of cocaine in a police station so that it could not be used against him as evidence, filed a $7 million lawsuit against the city of Oak Forest, Ill., recently. Mota claims the police should have stopped him, or failing that, should have called medics more quickly. [Chicago Tribune, 12-8-93] * Mansfield, Ohio, inmates Paul B. Goist, 27, and Craig A. Anthony, 28, filed a lawsuit in December against General Foods, alleging that the company failed to give notice to them that Maxwell House coffee is addictive. The seek $20,000 as compensation for the headaches and insomnia they are suffering while in prison. [Athens Messenger-AP, Dec93] The Weirdo-American Community * The county medical examiner in Syracuse, N. Y., resigned in November to avoid further investigation of charges the he had removed organs from corpses without the families' permission and that he had failed to manage the office properly. Included in the latter charge was an incident in which two men (both with child-sex convictions) entered the office, opened and stitched up a corpse, and photographed one of them with the corpse. [New York Times-AP, 11-20-93] Least Competent People * An official of the Louisiana Lottery told the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate in December that the most inept case of attempted lottery fraud he has seen involved a man, his daughter, and her boyfriend. Each had a "winning" Lotto ticket that had obviously been taped together using parts of other tickets. A lottery official tried to discourage the three from pressing their claim, informing them of the penalties for lottery fraud. The father and daughter immediately abandoned the scheme, but the boyfriend stuck to his story and was eventually convicted and imprisoned. [Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, 12-15-93] Copyright 1993, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. WEIRDNUZ.310 (News of the Weird, January 13, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * The Toronto Globe & Mail reported in December the imminent publication of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's first collection of short stories, to be titled "The Village . . . The Village, The Land is [NOTE: lower- case i] The Land and the Astronaut Commits Suicide." [Globe & Mail, 12-16-93] Oops! * In October, several rows of 25-foot-high shelves filled with tons of business records toppled over like dominos at ProFile Systems in St. Paul, Minn. ProFile stores records for 85 clients, including corporations and hospitals. "It's the greatest disaster in the history of the records business," said ProFile chairman Jack Barry, who said the company "can't handle" the $2 million cleanup cost. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 10-6- 93] * In October, a young couple had to be treated for hypothermia at a Gernsheim, Germany, clinic after the parked car in which they were having sex rolled down a boat ramp into the Rhine River. Another man, who owned the car, was cited by authorities for the water pollution caused by leaking gasoline. [Edmonton Journal, 10-23-93] * In November, a man whose name was withheld by reporters was rescued by firefighters after spending the night in the pit of an outhouse at a boat landing near Eugene, Ore. The man claimed that he had been high after sniffing glue, had heard someone calling for help from the pit, had fallen in while looking for him, and could not get back out. [Eugene Register-Guard, 11- 4-93] * In October, gun expert Stephen Barlow, testifying for the prosecution against a man charged with murder in Salt Lake City, held the murder weapon in his hand and told the jury that it could not possibly have discharged by accidental jarring, as the defendant had claimed. To demonstrate, he placed a pencil in the barrel, pointed it at the ceiling, and jarred the handle. The gun fired the pencil. In two subsequent demonstrations, the gun again fired pencils. "Oh, I'm sorry," Barlow told the prosecutor. The defendant was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter instead of murder. [Salt Lake Tribune, 10-7-93] * In August, a Walnut Creek, Calif., woman unidentified by reporters, caused a three-hour search involving police officers from two towns, a search and rescue team (using hastily-printed photo posters), Explorer Scouts, and several bloodhounds when she reported her 3-year-old daughter missing from the family car during a round of errands. Upon returning home, the woman found the girl and realized that she had not taken her on the errands. [[Oceanside Blade-Citizen-AP, Aug93]] * Dwain C. Johnson, 32, was arrested in Akron, Ohio, in December, and a warrant was issued for his colleague Steven T. Carter, 31, for trafficking in cocaine. The two men had given their car to attendants to be washed and vacuumed, and the vacuum cleaner sucked up a small bag on the front seat containing about 30 rocks of crack cocaine. Police caught Johnson after the men returned to the carwash to force the manager to open up the vacuum canister; Carter escaped. [Akron Beacon Journal, 12-3-93] * In December, Bowling Green, Ohio, firefighters, responding to a blaze on Wintergarden Road, discovered that they could not connect to the nearest hydrant because a 900-foot hose had fallen off their truck en route to the scene. Fortunately, firefighters from nearby Weston had arrived with the proper hose. Said Chief Joe Burns, "We're going to have to take a look at maybe a better way to keep it up there [on the truck]." [Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, Dec93] * In April, when Baltimore's old Vermont Federal bank building was being renovated for the new Harbor Bank, construction workers accidentally locked the safe, which had gathered dust for six years but which Harbor planned to use, and discovered that no one knew the combination. Rather than pay a locksmith an estimated $10,000, or ask an imprisoned safecracker to try his hand, the building owner placed a classified ad in the Baltimore Sun asking to hear from anyone "familiar with" the combination. A former Vermont Federal employee came by and opened the safe. [Baltimore Sun, 4-19-93] * In December, the chairman of a new state agency, the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission, admitted that the agency had forgotten to include a request in its 1994 budget for rent for its offices. To cover the $6 million expense, the chairman said some pollution prevention programs would have to be delayed. [San Antonio Express-News-AP, 12-10-93] * Thomas Dywayne Plachy, 30, was charged with DUI after being pinned under his own car in December in Bozeman, Mont., as he was trying to push it with the engine running. And Robert H. Betts, 73, was seriously injured in March in La Palma, Calif., after he was hit by his own truck four times. He had accidentally knocked the transmission into reverse as he was getting out of the truck; the door knocked him down, and he could not get up as the truck kept backing in circles. And a 40-year-old woman was hit by her own car and killed in Vernon Hills, Ill., in November when she jumped out of a tow truck that was towing the car on an expressway. [Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Dec93; Los Angeles Times, 4-2-93; Chicago Tribune, Nov93] The Weirdo-American Community * In November, campus police at California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo ejected David Potter Lawler, 40, from campus after seven episodes in which they say he stealthily approached women in the library, dropped to his hands and knees, and sniffed their behinds. Describing his confrontation with Lawler, a police investigator said, "The sweat was running off his head. He looked like a rain forest." [San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, 11-20-93] I Don't Think So * Brazilian legislator Joao Alves, who is the subject of a corruption investigation because he has amassed the equivalent of $51 million on only a legislator's salary, told a congressional panel in October that he accumulated his wealth by winning national bingo and local and national lotteries a total of 24,000 times since 1988. [Pensacola News Journal, 11-3-93] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Tue Feb 22 07:17:50 1994 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rumman@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: More News of the Weird WEIRDNUZ.312 (News of the Weird, January 28, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * Reuters News Service reported in December that a 72- year-old retired gardener in England was credited with self-diagnosis of a tear in his bladder. The man diagnosed his condition by urinating into a plant pot; eventually a tomato plant sprouted. Doctors said that that indicated a leakage--in this case, of microscopic tomato seeds--between his bowel and his bladder. Doctors said growing urine cultures is the ordinary way of detecting such a tear but that this was the first self-diagnosis they had heard of. [St. Louis Post- Dispatch-Reuter, 12-17-93] Cliches Come to Life * David Blake, 22, suffered a broken leg and hip and internal injuries in Toronto in September when he jumped from a fifth-floor balcony. Blake had been naked with his girlfriend in her room in her family's home when her father discovered them. Allegedly, he forced Blake at knife-point out onto the balcony and make him jump. [Houston Post-Reuter, 9-16-93] * USA Today reported in October that Florida Wildlife Park officials planned to set up mirrors around six Caribbean flamingoes because they believe they are more sexually excitable if in a group. [USA Today, 10-7-93] * In December in Moscow, Idaho, 15 Earth First! members were found guilty of several trespassing-type misdemeanors related to their protests of logging activities in the Nex Perce National Forest. Federal judge Edward Lodge suspended the prison sentences of the activists provided that they either get a job or go back to college. [Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Dec93] * In a report in the August Archives of Dermatology, a 39-year-old woman in Cleveland complaining of bad hair was reported to have the first adult case of "acquired uncombable hair," which produces permanently coarse, tangled hair. Her condition was attributed to a side- effect of a diuretic. [Science News, Sept93] * In September, inmates Willie James Wright and Albert Mathew escaped from the state prison in Rosharon, Tex., but were captured the next day. They had helped disguise their break by building papier-mache dummy heads, with real hair, and placing them on the pillows in their bunks. The ruse worked at the 10 p.m. bed check, but at 4:45 a.m., a guard realized that something did not look right. [Houston Chronicle, 9-8- 93, 9-9-93] * The Dallas Morning News reported in September that a tornado near Saginaw, Tex., picked up James Davis's 4- lb. Yorkshire terrier and carried it over two miles, setting it down along a road in view of a passerby. The dog, Sadie, suffered only minor injuries. [Dallas Morning News, Sept93] * The Associated Press reported in December that University of Wisconsin dairy geneticist Denny Funk told Midwest farmers that one reason their milk production has fallen behind that of California is that Midwest farmers have a fondness for keeping better- looking cows around, even if they produce less milk. [Sioux Falls Argus Leader-AP, 12-13-93] Family Values * Ronald Raymond Carr, 37, was given a suspended sentence in Norwalk, Calif., in October to the charge of furnishing drugs to a minor. He had admitted to giving his daughter methamphetamines as often as twice a day when she was age 11, 12, and 13 so that he would have company while he did drugs. [L. A. Times, 10-30-93] * In May in Lilburn, Ga., Charles "Chip" Mize, Jr., was arrested for the murder of his father after he allegedly pursued Charles, Sr., into a locked bathroom by chopping through the door with an ax. According to a family friend, "Chip really seemed to worship his dad," but relations had become strained when Chip was questioned about whether he had actually enrolled in college after telling his parents he had. [Shreveport Times-AP, 5-9-93] * David S. Clemons, 22, was charged with misdemeanor child abuse in Durham, N. C., in November after allegedly biting his 11-month-old baby on the cheek during a class in which a child-care professional was trying to teach parenting skills. [Greensboro News-Record, Nov93] * According to an official in an investigators' trade association, reported in Woman's Day magazine, parents' hiring private eyes to track their children's whereabouts is up 25 percent. The detectives tap phones, run background checks on their kids' friends, and perform around-the-clock surveillance. [Woman's Day, Dec93] * Michael Coddington, 34, was convicted in May in Detroit of raping a 6-year-old relative. His twin brother, Mitchell, was charged several months earlier with raping another 6-year-old relative in a separate incident. [Detroit News, Jun93] Creme de la Weird * In November, the St. Thomas Day Nursery in St. Thomas, Ontario, was burglarized for at least the fourth time in five months by someone stealing only dirty disposable diapers. The culprit broke a lock in an outside garbage bin and took only garbage bags containing the diapers. [Sault Star-CP-AP, 7-22-93] I Don't Think So * In November, LaVonda Burnette was elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro (N. C.) school board after portraying herself as a 23-year-old single mother who had worked her way through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After the election, she admitted that she had not attended UNC but denied she had "misled" anyone and said the public outrage about her case was "just a classic example of what happens [to a person who] isn't a part of the status quo." [Charlotte Observer, 12-11-93; Greensboro News Record, Dec93] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Tue Feb 22 07:18:12 1994 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rumman@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: News of the Weird WEIRDNUZ.311 (News of the Weird, January 20, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In November, officials of the Commonwealth Games (featuring athletes from 66 nations competing in Olympic-style events) announced that Ortho McNeil Co. condoms will be the official condoms of the 1994 Games in Victoria, British Columbia. [Clue Magazine (Calgary, Alberta), December 1993] Police Blotter * In July, New York City police arrested a 16-year-old boy named Eddie and charged him with sexual assault and attempted murder of his stepmother, but then released him two days later when an investigation revealed that it was his twin brother, Jesus, who should have been charged. The stepmother said she could not tell the boys apart and therefore was not sure which one assaulted her, and DNA testing of accused rapists was useless since both Eddie and Jesus have the same DNA. [New York Times, 7-22-93] * In March, in response to a citizen complaint, a San Diego police vice squad officer persuaded the owner of DeRay's, a sexy-costume shop, to remove some of the stuffing in the crotch of the male swimsuited mannequins in its window. [San Diego Reader, 4-1-93] * In July, the Cook Islands, which gained independence from New Zealand in 1965 and is home to 18,000 people, reported its very first armed robbery. A local man took about $24,000 from a hotel, but was quickly captured. [Louisville Courier-Journal, 7-25-93] * In separate incidents in March, police in Washington, D. C., and South San Francisco, Calif., arrested men they encountered running down the street and who aroused suspicion because they happened to be carrying cash registers. One was charged with robbing a convenience store and the other with burglarizing a bakery. [Washington Post, Mar93; Peninsula Times, 3-23-93] * In November, Andre Guay, 34, was arrested in Dickson, Tenn., and charged with various traffic violations. Guay has black wavy hair and was dressed in black, with black chrome-tipped boots, and a black jacket with the words "Elvis Lives" on it. Guay, who is from Quebec, told police he was distraught over marital problems and decided to visit Graceland, but that that made him even more depressed. [Nashville Tennessean, 12-1-93] * In November, a white woman in Shawnee, Kan., told police she was robbed at gunpoint in her home by a black man in his 20s. After rifling her purse and finding only about $20, he gave back the money, apologized, offered to shake the woman's hand, and said, "I don't want you to think all black people are bad." [The Journal Herald of Northwest Johnson County (Kan.), 11-24-93] * In July, thieves with a blow torch broke into an unmarked tractor-trailer parked at an Orlando, Fla., motel and stole bags containing 400,000 quarters while a guard slept in the truck's cab. Authorities said the loot was so heavy that it would be difficult even for two full-sized cars to carry it off. [Orlando Sentinel, 7-14-93] * Damon Washington, 25, was arrested in November in San Francisco and charged with shoplifting cassette tapes at a record store. After an investigation, police said that Washington had just escaped from a medical prison facility and that he needed some tapes to play in the car while riding to his home near Los Angeles. [San Francisco Chronicle, 11-2-93] * In August, Darby Johnson, 24, was arrested in Chippewa Falls, Wis., while sitting nude in a laundromat with a newspaper over his lap. He told police he owned only two sets of clothes and that to wash them separately would require two trips to the laundromat. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug93] * The Salt Lake Tribune reported in December that police officer N. S. Hall had recently arrested two men for engaging in sex in a car in Ogden, Utah, and had taken them to the police station. Due to a miscommunication at the station, the men were locked up in the same cell, and immediately began having sex again. [Salt Lake Tribune, 12-27-93] * On January 1, the government of Pakistan, under the direction of the prime minister, Ms. Benazir Bhutto, opened a police station in Islamabad run entirely by women, to deal only with crimes committed against females. [Wilmington, N. C., Morning Star, 12-21-93] * In July, a 17-year-old boy, sitting alone on some steps in Manchester, N. H., was approached by a police officer on patrol who wanted to stop to chat. According to the officer, the boy evaded several questions and then began coughing violently. As the officer rubbed his back to ease the coughing, the boy finally spit out about two hundred dollars' worth of cocaine that he had swallowed when he saw the officer approaching. [Valley News (Hanover, N. H.), Jul93] The Weirdo-American Community * In October, a Los Angeles jury convicted James Ambrose McGrath of 18 armed robbery and weapons violations for a string of nine area bank robberies totaling almost $1 million. McGrath said his primary motive was "to warn the United States that Japan is planning a sneak thermonuclear attack against us." In January, McGrath was sentenced to 30 years in prison. [Los Angeles Times, 1-4-94] Least Justifiable Homicide * In November, Carmen Friedewald-Hill, 26, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Frederick, Md., for shooting her boyfriend, Ryan Gesner, to death. She shot him in the stomach during an argument over who loved the other more. [Baltimore Sun, 11-11-93] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. News of the Weird is a syndicated column by George Washington University professor of business Chuck Shepherd, who for all I know could be on this list lurking. He has published a few books of nothing but improbable but actual news from all over the world. In the Balto/Wash area we get his column courtesy of City Paper, the local leftist alter- native hipper-than-thou rag. Herewith some excerpts from today's issue: UH-OH: According to trial testimony in January in Santa Ana, Ca, George Edgar Lizarralde, 31, was legally blind in 1985 when the Department of Motor Vehicles granted him a driver's license. He had failed the test 3 times, and DMV granted the license on the 4th try even though he again failed the vision test. In the January trial, DMV's negligence was found to be the cause of injuries to Deborah Ann Mohr, whom Lizarralde plowed into in a crosswalk in 1990. Beijing's official "Heilongjiang Legal News" publication reported in January that the wife of Zhang Jingui, following the advice of a fortuneteller on how to improve marital relations, cut off his penis with a pair of scissors. The fortuneteller had concluded that the problem in the relationship was Zhang's faulty organ and that the wife's only hope was to remove it so that a new one would grow. COMPELLING EXPLANATIONS: In December, fashion designer Oribe Canales returned to work at Elizabeth Arden's studio in New York City, following a week's in- patient care at a Minnesota drug rehab clinic. In the event that led to his treatment, Canales, at a fashion show, had spontaneously smeared blue paint on the models just as they were to walk out on the runway. Reflecting on that moment, an unrepentant Canales said in December, "It was genius. My interpretation was Hiroshima--and that radiation can be beautiful." THE WEIRDO-AMERICAN COMMUNITY: In November, the Rev. Joseph R. Chambers, a radio evangelist in Charlotte, N.C., issued a four-state warning that Barney the TV dinosaur is a tool of Satan because he teaches kids to love others in spite of their differences. In September, the Baptist Rev. Charles Mainous, Pastor Tom Coffman, and other Columbus, OH area ministers issued a similar warning about the Rev. Billy Graham, who Coffman said is "helping the anti-Christ" by bringing various religions together. *** LEAD STORY: The epicenter of the recent California earthquake is about 5 miles from the US's largest egg farm, where hens had produced their usual 1 million eggs in the hours before the quake hit. The damage to the farm was a snapped water line, toppled empty egg pallets, and a grand total of ONE broken egg {emphasis mine}. Said manager Robert Wagner to his employees, "We had a 6.6 earthquake that broke less [sic] eggs than you guys do while you're working." (Post hoc: The earthquake has since been upgraded to a 6.8. -B.W.) LAST DAYS OF THE PLANET: A London veterinarian said in January that Eileen Wilson's pet bird Peter died of lung cancer from Wilson's smoking. Wilson disputed the diagnosis, claiming that her previous bird had lasted 12 years despite her smoking and that Peter had only begun to cough during his last days. According to the newspaper feature "Earth Week," Australia recently employed 80 hens as sentinels so authorities will know when an expected invasion of mosquitoes on the central Queensland coast has started. And in Russia, rats have been recently employed at the border to munch on samples of Chinese potatoes to check their edibility. In January, five prison guards at the Boise (ID) Maximum Security Institu- tion were accused of taunting death row inmates by playing a 1971 Neil Young song, "The Needle and the Damage Done," during a scheduled execution by injection. FETISHES ON PARADE: The London Independent's weekly magazine reported in November on the Hush-a-Bye Baby Club in southern England, where adult male members dress as female infants and refer to themselves as "Baby Michelle", "Baby Cathy," etc. "Mummy Clare" runs the club, charging about $110/night ($140 for non-members), which includes baby food, bottled milk and diaper service. Spanking is $7 extra. In East Bernstadt, KY, Jimmy Humfleet, 33, was charged with the murder of his uncle, Samuel Humfleet. According to the local sheriff, Jimmy said he did it because he caught Samuel having sex with one of the two pit bulls belonging to the owner of the trailer in which they were partying. In fact, Jimmy had called 911 twice that evening to report the molestation. A deputy shot and killed the dog later that evening because it was foaming at the mouth and had attacked him. An autopsy on Samuel turned up no dog hairs or other evidence of molestation. THE WEIRDO-AMERICAN COMMUNITY: Dr. Walter H. Kaye, reporting in a recent medical journal,found that female bulimics retained about 1200 calories of food after they purged, no matter how much food they had taken in or what their regurgitation rate was. Kaye and his colleagues came to this conclusion by carefully studying the content of the subjects' "vomitus." To protect its town Christmas tree from thieves and vandals this season, the city of Moncton, NB, enclosed its 20-foot tree inside a 10-foot chain link pen for the duration of the holidays. MARCH 2, 1994 FAULTY MACHINE ELECTROCUTES COWS MAIDSTONE, ENGLAND--A farmer accidentally electrocuted 46 of his cows with a faulty milking machine yesterday morning. Just eight of William Murdoch's specially bred herd survived when he turned on the electric milking machine, which was attached to the cows' teats. ------ This one is old, but... ------- August 27, 1993 MOM HIRES STRIPPER, LOSES HER SON, 12 ROCKFORD, Ill. -- A woman lost custody of her son and was sentenced to 45 days in jail after admitting she hired a stripper for the boys 12th birthday party. At the March 6 party, the dancer stripped down to a halter and G-string. The mother allowed her son to lick whipped cream off the dancer's breasts, officals said. The state now has legal custody of the boy until he turns 19. *** LEAD STORY: In January, Nassau (NY) County Judge Michael Gallaso dismissed sexual misconduct charges against Lamont Hough, who was accused of having unconsented-to sex with his brother Lenny's girlfriend. Allegedly, Lamont had appeared at her bedroom door at 5 a.m., and she had groggily invited him in. She realized her alleged error only when Lamont turned to her after sex and said, "Are you going to tell Lenny?" COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE TRUE: A 35-year old man in Eagle Valley, CO, who was badly beaten in the face in a fight at the Brush Creek Saloon on New Year's Eve, called an ambulance shortly after he arrived home because, when he blew his nose, his left eyeball came loose from the socket. Doctors repaired his eye orbiter bone and repositioned the eyeball. In October, Canadian environmentalist William Lishman and an asso- ciate flew two ultralight aircraft from Blackstock, Ontario, to Gaines, NY, and then to Airlie, VA, leading a flock of 18 geese. The two men were demonstrating to the geese how to fly south for the winter. The geese had been raised in captivity and lacked migration skills. PEOPLE UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: The trade association International Business Forms Industries Inc. recently changed its name to The International Association Serving the Forms, Information Management, Systems Automation and Printed Communications Requirements of Business. According to witnesses, a middle-age, 6'4" man with a gray beard robbed a convenience store in Perryopolis, PA, in August. As a disguise, he was wearing a large rabbit head, inlcuding floppy ears. However, the face had been cut out so the robber's face was clearly visible. In 1992, the Pro-Line Cap Co. of Fort Worth was cited by OSHA for not having adequate restroom facilities for its female employees. Shortly afterward, according to an EEOC complaint filed in January, the company, rather than add the restrooms necessary, merely fired 30 female employees so as to remove the need. THE WEIRDO-AMERICAN COMMUNITY: Sharon Church, 24, who lives near Atlanta, was senteenced to 15 years in prison in November for an assault against a 27-year old male pedestrian. After luring the man into her apartment, she pulled out a butcher knife, stabbed him in the shoulder, screamed at him to have sex with her "or die", ordered him to disrobe, slashed the bed around him with the knife, and repeatedly performed oral sex on him. From jotten@mrj.com Mon Mar 14 07:06:19 1994 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rumman@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: News of the Weird #316 WEIRDNUZ.316 (News of the Weird, February 25, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * The epicenter of the January California earthquake is five miles from the United States's largest egg farm, where hens had produced their usual one million eggs in the hours before the quake hit. The damage to the farm was a snapped water line, toppled empty egg pallets, and a total of one broken egg. Said manager Robert Wagner to his employees, "We had a 6.6 earthquake that broke less eggs than you guys do when we're working." [San Francisco Chronicle, 1-31-94] Last Days of the Planet * In a report in a recent issue of Audubon magazine, Ursula Garza de Garza of the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, mentioned that her dogs no longer have a flea problem. "We grab the dogs and stick them in the canal [that connects several Matamoros chemical companies], and the fleas are gone. All the hair falls off, too, but gradually it comes back." [Audubon Magazine, November-December 1993] * The Washington Times, citing a Federal Protective Service report, revealed in May that staff and volunteers of the 1993 Clinton inaugural stole $154,000 worth of electronic equipment used for the festivities. [Washington Times, 5-21-93] * In January, an investigation by a British network TV news program revealed that the late Ferdinand Marcos's stashed-away gold fortune totals 1,200 tons--the equivalent of 15% of the contents of Fort Knox and about 1% of all the gold ever mined in the world. [The Independent, 1-20-94] * A London veterinarian said in January that Eileen Wilson's pet bird Peter died of lung cancer from Wilson's smoking. Wilson disputed the diagnosis, claiming that her previous bird had lasted 12 years despite her smoking and that Peter had only begun to cough during his last days. [Edmonton Journal-Reuter, 1-27-94] * To protect its town Christmas tree from thieves and vandals this season, the city of Moncton, New Brunswick, enclosed its 20-foot-high tree inside a 10- foot-high chain-link pen for the duration of the holidays. [Globe & Mail-CP, 12-11-93] * According to the newspaper feature "Earth Week," Australia has recently employed 80 hens as sentinels so authorities will know when an expected invasion of mosquitos on the central Queensland coast has started, and Russia has recently employed rats at the border to munch on samples of Chinese potatoes to check their edibility. [Houston Chronicle,11-1-93; Rocky Mountain News,Jan94] * In January, five prison guards at the Boise, Idaho, Maximum Security Institution were accused of taunting death row inmates by playing a 1971 Neil Young song, "The Needle and the Damage Done," during a scheduled execution-by-injection. [USA Today, 1-28-94] * The organization Bat Conservation International proposed recently that the former Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire convert 15 vacant nuclear missile bunkers into bat caves. The bunkers apparently have just the proper temperature, humidity, and air circulation to suit bats. [Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 1994] Fetishes on Parade * In November, Sharon Ryan, a former patient and employee of renowned diet doctor Walter Kempner, filed a lawsuit against him in Durham, N. C., alleging that they had a long-term affair during which he physically and emotionally abused her. Among the accusations was that Kempner spanked Ryan's bare buttocks with a riding crop. In December, Kempner, 91, said he once hit Ryan with a riding crop at her request because she said she needed punishment for failing to stick to the diet he had prescribed. [Greensboro News & Record-AP, 1-2-94] * The London Independent's weekly magazine reported in November on the Hush-a-Bye Baby Club in southern England, whose adult male members dress as female infants and refer to themselves as "Baby Michelle," "Baby Cathy," etc. "Mummy Clare" runs the club, charging about $110 a night ($140 for non-members), which includes baby food, bottled milk, and diaper service. Spanking is about $7 more. [The Independent Magazine, 11-6-93] * In East Bernstadt, Ky., in December, Jimmy Humfleet, 33, was charged with the murder of his uncle, Samuel Humfleet. According to the local sheriff, Jimmy said he did it because he caught Samuel having sex with one of the two pit bulls belonging to the owner of the trailer in which they had been partying. In fact, Jimmy had called 911 twice that evening to report the molesting. A deputy shot and killed the dog later that evening because it was foaming at the mouth and had attacked him. An autopsy on Samuel turned up no dog hairs or other evidence of molestation. [London, Ky., Sentinel-Echo, 12-30-93, 12-31-93; Lexington Herald- Leader-AP, 1-15-94] * In August the Economic Evening News of Taiyuan, China, reported that a woman in her 30s, unidentified in the story, had eaten more than 800 rubber nipples from baby bottles in the last three years. A province health official said all family members apparently like the smell of rubber. [USA Today, 8-17-93] The Weirdo-American Community * Dr. Walter H. Kaye, reporting in a recent medical journal, found that female bulimics retained around 1,200 calories of food after they purged--no matter how much food they had taken in or what their regurgitation rate was. Kaye and his colleagues came to this conclusion by carefully studying the content of the subjects' "vomitus." [Psychology Today-American Journal of Psychiatry, September-October 1993] Least Competent Customers * In January and February, Oklahoma City police turned up several motorists who had purchased automobile liability insurance coverage under "God's Insurance Policy." The salesmen had convinced the customers that such coverage would comply with Oklahoma's mandatory- insurance law, even though the $285 policy contained mostly text from the Bible, stated that it was "issued by the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost," and reasoned that since it was "fear" that caused accidents, the policy would protect its purchasers even better than commercial insurance would. [The Daily Oklahoman, 2-5-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Tue Mar 22 07:46:43 1994 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rumman@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, wbt@cbemf.att.com Subject: News of the Weird #317 WEIRDNUZ.317 (News of the Weird, March 4, 1994 by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In January, Nassau County (N. Y.) judge Michael Gallaso dismissed sexual misconduct charges against Lamont Hough, who was accused of having unconsented-to sex with his brother Lenny's girlfriend. Allegedly, Lamont had appeared at her bedroom door at 5 a.m., and she had groggily assumed that Lamont was Lenny and invited him in. She realized her alleged error only when Lamont turned to her after sex and asked, "Are you going to tell Lenny?" [New York Law Journal, 1-18-94] Couldn't Possibly Be True * A 35-year-old man in Eagle Valley, Colo., who was badly beaten in the face in a fight at the Brush Creek Saloon on New Year's Eve, called an ambulance shortly after he arrived home because, when he blew his nose, his left eyeball came loose from the socket. Doctors repaired his eye orbiter bone and repositioned the eyeball. [Eagle Valley Enterprise, 1-16-94] * In June, Brad Varnum rescued his two sons, Justin, 14, and Jared, 12, who were injured by electricity while playing near a swimming pool in Pembroke Pines, Fla. Justin had put his hand on a power line pole and was wrapped around it by the force of electricity. When Jared tried to rescue Justin, he suffered the same fate. By the time their father came to their aid, the boys' skins were purple, and they were unconscious. After being knocked down twice by electricity trying to free the boys, the father succeeded by grasping their swim trunks without touching their skin. [Chicago Tribune-AP, 6-2-93] * In San Leandro, Calif., in January, when neighbors reported two weeks of mail and newspapers piling up outside, police broke into the home of Frederic Green, 82. After examining his stiff, cold body, police officers assumed Green was dead and called for a coroner. As the coroner was taking photographs of the scene, the flash from his camera momentarily startled Green, who regained consciousness. [San Antonio Express-News-AP, 1-29-94] * Last spring, a judge in Clinton, Tenn., suspended the 45-day drunken-driving sentence of Laverne J. Parman after he demonstrated at a hearing that he had given himself up a total of 28 times at the Anderson County jail to serve the sentence but that each time he was turned away. The jail has been cited for overcrowding and had about 500 people waiting to serve sentences at the time. [Knoxville News-Sentinel, 4-15-93] * In October, Canadian environmentalist William Lishman and an associate flew two ultralight aircraft from Blackstock, Ontario, to Gaines, N. Y., and then to Airlie, Va., leading a flock of 18 geese. The two men were demonstrating to the geese how to fly south for the winter. The geese had been raised in captivity and thus lacked migration skills. [Edmonton Journal-CP, 10-20-93] * In January, James Brindamour, 38, filed court papers in Warwick, R. I., asking to share the proceeds of a $350,000 accidental-death policy on his daughter, who was killed in an auto crash in August. Brindamour abandoned the family in 1983 and owes more than $69,000 in child support. [San Antonio Express-News, 1-15-94] People Unclear on the Concept * The trade association International Business Forms Industries, Inc., recently changed its name to The International Association Serving the Forms, Information Management, Systems Automation and Printed Communications Requirements of Business. [Print & Graphics newsletter, January 1994] * A German court ruled in November that at the prison in Giessen, Germany, guards may not enter inmates' cells without first knocking and being invited in. German law requires prisons to reflect general living conditions outside the prison as much as possible. [Edmonton Journal, 11-16-93] * According to witnesses, a middle-aged man, 6-feet-4, with a gray beard robbed a convenience store in Perryopolis, Pa., in August. As a disguise, he was wearing a large rabbit head, including large, floppy ears. However, the face had been cut out so that the robber's face was fully visible. [The Tennessean, 8-28- 93] * In 1992, the Pro-Line Cap Company of Fort Worth was cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for not having adequate restroom facilities for its female employees. Shortly afterward, according to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint filed in January 1994, the company, rather than add the restroom facilities, merely fired 30 female employees so as to remove the need. [Dallas Morning News, 1-5-94] Feuds * Sarah F. Bates, 58, was arrested in Franklin, Tenn., on Christmas day after she allegedly punched her son- in-law Richard Harrington and threw a stereo at his son (her grandson), injuring him. She was upset because she disagreed with Harrington's decision to let the boy sit at the "grown-ups'" table for dinner. [Nashville Banner, 1-4-94] * In January, an unidentified man crashed a road grader into the home of Jeff Bankston in Wilmer, Ala., nearly totaling the dwelling; its sole-remaining support was hurriedly propped up with a tire. Jeff Bankston said he had been having a longstanding battle with the man, who had initially become enraged when Bankston repeated a claim he had heard to the effect that removing the valve stem from a tractor tire would prevent someone else from using the tractor. [Tuscaloosa News-AP, 1-19-94] The Weirdo-American Community * Sharon Church, 24, who lives near Atlanta, Ga., was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November for an assault against a 27-year-old male pedestrian. After luring the man into her apartment, she pulled out a butcher knife, stabbed him in the shoulder, screamed at him to have sex with her "or die," ordered him to disrobe, slashed the bed around him with the knife, and repeatedly performed oral sex on him. [Atlanta Journal-Consitution, Nov93] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Tue Mar 29 07:07:00 1994 To: brunstro@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, rumman@cs.wm.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, tracey@cs.wm.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, lmclan@icase.edu, avik@icase.edu, cokus@icase.edu, ot@icase.edu, jjq@icase.edu, wbt@cbemf.att.com Subject: News of the Weird #318 WEIRDNUZ.318 (News of the Weird, March 11, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * Iowa child welfare officials have begun collecting past-due support from the paycheck of Rodney Darnell, 24, of Burlington, Ia., on behalf of 7-year-old Eric Weber. A DNA test proving Darnell is not Weber's father was ruled "irrelevant" by authorities, as was the statement by the boy's mother, Elizabeth Weber, that Darnell was not the father. The state's case rests on a paternity ruling in 1987 that Darnell was the father, but he failed to attend that hearing because, he said, he was in high school at the time and had received no notice of the hearing. [Des Moines Register, Jan94] The Entrepreneurial Spirit * Camden, N. C., sculptor Maria Juliana Kirby-Smith recently offered for sale a three-foot high lawn jockey statue of U. S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. The sculpture has been displayed at the Blue Spiral 1 Gallery in Asheville, N. C., and sells for $700. [Carologue [catalogue of Carolina arts news], Winter 1993] * People Weekly magazine reported recently that Avon cosmetics company has more than 36,000 sales representatives in the Amazonia region of Brazil, with sales growing at 50% a year. Photographs showed an expedition by zone manager Sonia Pinheiro to introduce her products to the Tembe indians in Tenetehara. Avon representatives in Amazonia sell the complete range of Avon products, from lipstick, moisturizer, and mascara, to men's bikini briefs, and accept for payment almost any barterable item, such as fish. [People Weekly, Dec93] * Using a van painted with "1-800 AUTOPSY," Vidal Herrera acts as a free-lance coroner in Los Angeles County, where budget cuts have reduced the size and efficiency of the county coroner's office. He offers services ranging from routine autopsy to the delivery of brains and other body parts to organ banks. Said Herrera, "The death business is . . . recession-proof." [New York Newsday, 11-3-93] * From the Atlanta leather-goods shop B. D. Jeffries, the store's most unusual item: a $65 crocodile-skin tampon holder. [[Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Oct93]] * The New York Times reported in January on the fashion design "business" of Connecticut's Ed Kirko, who sells clothing that he has fired rounds through with rifles, handguns, and shotguns. Very popular is the Stetson hat with the single hole that appears to have penetrated the wearer's skull, for $75. Customers can design their own, as one woman did by sending Kirko money and a pair of her boyfriend's briefs so that buckshot holes could be fired into the crotch area. [New York Times, Jan94] The Litigious Society * Last year, Bobby Hughes won $800,000 from a lower court in Virginia to cover injuries he suffered when he tripped over a railroad trestle. He was trespassing at the time, and his major injuries were scraped hands and knees. In January 1994, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the award. [USA Today, 1-10-94] * Los Angeles lawyer Gary P. Miller won an $85,000 disability payment from Equitable Life Assurance Society for his claim that he has been allergic to courthouses for two years and therefore cannot work at his profession. His disability stems from his arrest in 1992 on insurance fraud charges; he claims that exposure to the criminal justice system now causes him stress, mood swings, and physical sickness. The insurance company is now trying to get its money back. [Columbus Dispatch-AP, Dec93] * In May, a still-male transsexual, suing under the Washington state anti-discrimination law, was turned down in his challenge to the dress code of his employer, Boeing. Under the company's code, either gender may wear lipstick, pantyhose, earrings, foundation makeup, slacks, blouses, sweaters, flat shoes, and clear nail polish; however, the man wanted also to wear a pink pearl necklace. [Labor Law Reports, 5-17-93] * In January, a jury in Toronto awarded over $2 million to David Stringer, 36, in his lawsuit against David and Lisa Ashley after he broke his neck jumping off the Ashleys' roof into their swimming pool. According to testimony in the trial, the Ashleys warned Stringer not to make the jump, but four times he climbed through a window, ascended to the roof, and jumped. Stringer's own lawyer termed his client's behavior "idiotic." The Ashleys are insured for only one-fourth the amount of the judgment. [Globe & Mail-CP, 2-2-94] * The Ohio Court of Claims ruled in January that Mansfield Correctional Institution was not liable for the injury that inmate Ira Tillery, 35, suffered. Tillery, serving 5-to-25 for rape and robbery, severed a finger when he fell to the ground after slam-dunking during a basketball game. [Columbus Dispatch, 1-22-94] Cliches Come to Life * In August, police in Carlisle Township, Ohio, said they had no leads on the identity of the voyeur captured on the security-camera videotape at the Elyria Value City store. The tape shows a man stalking a woman through the lingerie and shoe departments. When the woman stopped to examine some clothing on a rack, the man stealthily approached her from behind, held a small pocket mirror close to the floor, and looked up her dress. [Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8-5-93] * James "Bubba" Wilson, 20, filed a lawsuit in January in Rockwood, Tenn., for $10.7 million against the Rockwood police for false arrest. Wilson claims police looking for a drug suspect named "Bubba" approached him on the porch of his mother's home, asked if he was "Bubba," and took him into custody when he said he was. Wilson was released shortly afterward when police realized he was the wrong "Bubba." According to the lawsuit, "Bubba" is probably the most common name in Rockwood. [Knoxville News-Sentinel, 1-7-94] The Weirdo-American Community * In New Hope, Minn., in January, a 44-year-old woman had her home condemned by health authorities who, acting on neighbors' complaints, removed 454 live rats from it and estimated that another 500 were hiding in the walls. According to investigators, she originally purchased three white rats to save them from being fed to snakes, then purchased a few more, watched them breed, fed them well, and took ill rats to the vet. Authorities found a bed completely covered with nesting rats and said much of the furniture, walls, and about 100 oil paintings in the basement had been gnawed through. [The Sun-Post, 1-19-94; Minneapolis Star- Tribune, 1-22-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Tue Apr 5 13:44:29 1994 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rumman@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, wbt@cbemf.att.com Subject: News of the Weird WEIRDNUZ.319 (News of the Weird, March 18, 1994 by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In January at the Lake Como Fish and Game Club near Syracuse, N. Y., Brian Carr beat out three dozen competitors in the annual ice-fishing derby, with 155 catches. The temperature that day was minus-30, and prize money for the top three anglers was $8, $6.50, and $5. [Syracuse Herald-Journal, 1-18-94] The Continuing Crisis * In Las Vegas, Nev., in November, thieves broke into the car of James Ross and Maryo Griffin just before they were to be married, and stole, among other things, a cardboard box containing the ashes of Ross's first wife, Judy. Ross and Griffin had planned to scatter the ashes in the Grand Canyon, then marry in Las Vegas, thus dramatizing for Griffin the end of Ross's first marriage. Said Griffin, "They got Judy. I don't see how we can be married until we get Judy taken care of." [Knoxville News-Sentinel-AP, 12-2-93] * In January, game wardens near Arambagh, India, finally managed to herd 50 renegade elephants that had rampaged for days over 250 miles of terrain. In two days, the elephants would have reached Calcutta, where they could have done severe damage. The elephants could not be killed because they are an endangered species, but people had used stones, spears, fires, and tribal drumbeats to ward them off. At least six people were trampled to death. [Chicago Tribune-AP, 1-3-94] * In January, [ITAL] The Times (London, England) reported that a recent feud in the southern French town of Pia was coming to a head. Animal-rights activist Joelle Cinca happens to live next door to one of France's top pornographic film producers, Gerard Menoud, who sometimes shoots sex scenes in his yard. Menoud claims that the noise made by the geese Cinca keeps in her garden disturbs his films' sound tracks; Cinca claims that Menoud's actresses' loud orgasms have traumatized her geese. [The Times, 1-2-94] * In January, Susan Franano, general manager of the Kansas City Symphony, suspended oboist Ken Lawrence after he made a "facetious response" to a complaint about him. Franano had relayed a complaint by a horn player that, during a rehearsal for "Nutcracker," Lawrence had passed gas in a loud manner, "creating an overpowering smell." [Kansas City Star, 2-3-94] * In November, officials at the Tokyo Sea Life Park aquarium reported that about ten percent of its bluefin and yellowfin tuna have developed deformed faces because of the "stress" of swimming in a small tank. Large bumps have appeared on some fishes' faces; other fishes' eyes have become partially dislodged. [The Daily Yomiuri, 11-20-93] * In December, Atlanta, Ga., attorney Dennis Scheib stopped by the prosecutor's office on his way to court to represent a new client in a criminal case. Just outside the office, he saw two officers chasing a man down the hall, and he joined in to help. After the three men caught the escapee and handcuffed him, Scheib learned the man was the client he had been on his way to court to represent. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 12-29-93] * In January, the government of Brazil reported an annual inflation rate for 1993 of 2,500 per cent, and Yugoslavia reported that the cost of living rose 6 trillion per cent over the course of 1993. In Belgrade, a factory that manufactures steel springs paid its workers in live pigs rather than money. In Rio de Janeiro, a survey sponsored by the weekly news magazine [ITAL] Isto E found that inflation was at least partly responsible for the diminished frequency of sexual relations in Brazil--from an average person's three times a week to 1.6. Said a Sao Paulo psychotherapist, "You can't be a victim in the street and a hero in bed." [New York Times, 1-5-94; 1-25-94; 12-31-94] * In January, the wife of Peter Harrower was granted a divorce in Edinburgh, Scotland, after 46 years of marriage, because Harrower cussed too much. Magistrate Nigel Thomson said the clinching factor was that Harrower's 21-month-old grandson had begun to cuss after being around him. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch-Reuters, 1-22-94] * In December, the Illinois Appellate Court postponed indefinitely the electric shock therapy that had been prescribed for Lucille Austwick, 80. Lower courts had declared her mentally incompetent and had scheduled the therapy, but her guardian testified that, when informed of the therapy, she said, "That's ridiculous. If they want to do that, let them go shock themselves." [Baltimore Sun, 12-31-93] * In December, the Torrance (Calif.) [ITALICS] Daily Breeze reported that several parents were protesting the decision of an El Segundo, Calif., skateboard manufacturer to call itself "Bitch" and to feature a company logo of a man pointing a gun at the head of a woman. The newspaper reported that an employee who answered the phone at the company said the name and logo were not designed to offend anyone. He said, "It's called doing our own thing. It's the 90's." [The Daily Breeze, 2-2-94, 2-9-94] * A veterinarian in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, England, told the Associated Press in February that the cause of attrition among swans that have populated the River Tweed since medieval times is recent clean-water rules. Dr. David Rollo said the swans' main food--effluent from the decaying of barley--is no longer abundant in the river. And the Environmental Protection Agency recently ordered the city of San Diego, Calif., to stop its cleanup of a portion of the Tijuana River because the efforts would cause irreparable harm to the "sewage-based ecology." [St. Louis Post-Dispatch-AP, 2-8-94; Insight, 1-17-94] The Weirdo-American Community * Rachel Barton-Russell petitioned a court in Springfield, Ore., in February for a ruling on the meaning of the state's law against corpse abuse. Her deceased husband, Donal Eugene Russell, had declared in his will that he wanted his skin used to make book covers for a collection of his poetry, but the state Mortuary and Cemetery Board claims that carrying out that request would subject a funeral home to liability for corpse abuse. [Eugene Register-Guard, 2-12-94] Least Competent Person * In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in February, accused murderer Donald Leroy Evans, 38, filed a pre-trial motion asking permission to wear a Ku Klux Klan robe in the courtroom and to be referred to in legal documents by "the honorable and respected name of Hi Hitler." According to courthouse employees interviewed by the Associated Press, Evans thought Adolf Hitler's followers were saying "Hi Hitler" rather than "Heil, Hitler." [Houston Post-AP, 2-13-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Wed Apr 13 07:19:17 1994 To: Rebecca_R._Powell.wbst129@xerox.com, adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, avik@icase.edu, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, cokus@icase.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, jjq@icase.edu, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, lmclan@icase.edu, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, ot@icase.edu, rumman@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, tracey@cs.wm.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, wbt@cbemf.att.com Subject: News of the Weird #320 WEIRDNUZ.320 (News of the Weird, March 25, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In February, the Royal Bank of Scotland announced that it would begin to issue extra check-cashing ID cards to its transvestite customers who request them-- so that they might have separate cards depicting themselves dressed as male and female in order to "avoid embarrassment or difficulties," according to a Bank spokesman. [Globe and Mail-Reuter, 2-25-94] Oops! * About 15 customers had gathered their grocery items at a Safeway in Oxon Hill, Md., shortly after 10 a.m. on Christmas morning and were lined up at the checkout lanes, but no cashiers were on duty, and no one answered calls to the back of the store. Local police were called and after investigating found that the store was supposed to be closed but that the Christmas Eve crew had accidentally left the lights on and the doors unlocked, giving shoppers the impression it was open. [Washington Post, 12-26-93] * In October, in Iran, where celebratory gunfire is traditional at weddings, a guest named Rasool lost control of his automatic weapon at a wedding in Lorestan province, accidentally killing 6 people and wounding 14. In Champion, Ohio, in January, Rev. Thomas Gillum, presiding at the burial of a Korean War veteran, was accidentally shot in the face when the local VFW honor guard fired a four-gun salute. [Raleigh News & Observer, 10-4-93; Youngstown Vindicator, 1-26-94] * The international food company Nestle UK was fined about $20,000 in January for injuries suffered by its employee Alex Tuvey-Smith, 36, at a plant in York, England. While cleaning excess chocolate off the sides of a giant mixing bowl, he slipped and fell in, triggering the mixing paddles, which whipped him for more than a minute before they were shut off. [London Independent, Jan94] * Car salesman Joseph LaRaviere, 29, attempting to help a couple who had run out of gas in their car near Ruskin, Fla., in October, got his right index finger stuck in the gasoline filler pipe. It remained there for about two hours before firefighters arrived and rescued him. [Tampa Tribune, Oct93] Well-Put * Roy Kinne, 28, an unemployed Chicago-area man who happened to be home on the December afternoon when an 8-year-old boy fell through the ice in a lake adjacent to Kinne's house, and who rescued him: "If I would have had a life, I might not have been [home]." [Chicago Tribune, 12-15-93] * Milwaukee, Wis., juvenile court judge Mike Malmstadt, quoted in a Time magazine story on how hostility by drivers increasingly provokes violent reactions by others: "I don't give people the finger from my car, and I haven't for a while." [Time, 12-20-93] * Professional soccer team manager Dan O'Riordan, defending his decision to levy fines against players for flatulence in the locker room: "It can get fairly oppressive when you've got 20 players in a tiny dressing room all suffering the effects of a Sunday night curry." [Soccer America, 8-9-93] * Tennessee state Rep. Frank Buck, commenting in January on a report on the death penalty that fixed the cost of lethal-injection execution at $46,000 and of a firing squad at $7,000: "With figures like these, should we wonder why people don't trust government? I believe I can figure out a way to shoot somebody for less than $7,000." [The Tennessean, 1-20-94] * Attorney Daryl Blue announced in December that he would appeal the conviction of his client Freddie Armstrong for stabbing an 81-year-old preacher to death and cutting off his head before stunned onlookers who included police officers, at a Bastrop, La., funeral home. Blue claims that Armstrong was obviously insane at the time: "A rational man does not decapitate a man's head in the presence of a police officer." [Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate-AP, 12-12-93] * The Swedish hockey team's coach Curt Lundmark, on why he did not protest more vigorously a disallowed goal by his team in its Olympic loss to Canada in February: "Sweden's influence in international hockey is like a duck fart in Africa." [Globe and Mail, 2-22-94] Creme de la Weird * The London newspaper The Independent reported in January on the Monday Club, a group of older men who meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at the Porchester Baths in London to be "schmeissed"--whipped while naked in a steam room by men wielding a ritual yellow wig, then immersed in ice-cold water. "Your body is like a car," said one, "and a schmeiss is like being serviced." The ritual has been practiced for over 60 years, and advocates claim it produces deep relaxation and a longer life span. [The Independent, 1-19-94] Least Competent Police * The victim of a car theft while visiting Omaha, Neb., in February, Algona, Iowa, judge Joseph Straub walked into the lobby of a local police station around 10 p.m. to file a report rather than wait for officers to come to the scene. According to the judge, he pushed the buzzer on the locked front door several times, and saw officers moving around inside, but no one answered. Using the pay phone in the lobby, he called the station to ask that an officer open the door and take his report. Ten minutes passed before an officer opened the door. He went back inside, and ten more minutes passed before another officer appeared. Then he left, and nothing happened for ten more minutes. Exasperated, the judge, still in the lobby, called 911. A few minutes later, a sergeant came out, then went back in, and finally, a few minutes after that, an officer drove up to the front of the building, got out of her squad car, and took Straub's report. [Des Moines Register, Feb94] Least Dignified Death * In October, a police officer in Rock Island, Ill., showing his partner how a fellow officer had accidentally shot and killed himself during a training exercise three days earlier, accidentally shot himself to death. [Chicago Sun-Times-AP, 10-25-93] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Wed Jun 22 14:09:13 1994 To: lmclan@icase.edu, avik@icase.edu, cokus@icase.edu, ot@icase.edu, jjq@icase.edu, bill@turtle.mrj.com, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, rpowell.WBST129@xerox.com, adam at xent dot com, rgaff@caci.nalda.navy.mil, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, tracey@cs.wm.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com Subject: More news of the weird WEIRDNUZ.328 (News of the Weird, May 20, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In Indiana over a six-week period in March and April, four men were involved in public incidents while naked. A nude man set a fire in a Michigan City, Ind., outlet store; a man pumped gasoline while nude at a Lebanon, Ind., station; a nude man claiming to be a pizza deliverer roamed an Indianapolis apartment complex (injuring his groin while fleeing as he unsuccessfully attempted to leap a fence); and a man left nude photos of himself in a Sullivan, Ind., state park men's room. All but the gasoline pumper were apprehended. [Toledo Blade, 3-30-94; 4-2-94; 4-22-94; 3-4-94] New Rights * A recent semi-official student pamphlet of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., explained that freedom from discrimination includes gays' and lesbians' right not to be stood too far away from during conversations with straights, and minority students' right not to have white students act surprised when a minority student performs a task well. [Roanoke Times & World News-AP, Dec93] * The Toronto Transit Commission voted in February to reinstate a 33-year-old man who had been fired because he took time off from a rail-repairing job in the middle of the day to go have sex with a prostitute in a nearby alley. [Sault Star-CP, 2-16-94] * The Los Angeles Daily News reported in April that the city's Department of Building and Safety had ordered an adult nightclub to remove its stage, which was built as a large shower, where nude dancers would cavort for customers' enjoyment. Authorities said the shower was not wheelchair-accessible for disabled nude dancers, although no such dancers have come forward. [Washington Times-L. A. Daily News, 4-22-94] * The Wall Street Journal reported in April on a potential legal defense being considered by some well- to-do professionals who fail to file income tax returns. Such nonfilers should be excused because they suffer from an anxiety syndrome characterized by "an overall inability to act in [their] own interest," according to a recent New York Law Journal article. Victims are "highly ambitious, hypercritical, detail- oriented people," according to a psychiatry professor, and thus cannot relax, don't know how to delegate, and tend to procrastinate and become secretive. [Wall Street Journal, 4-18-94] * The Washington Post reported in March that several employees of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates the savings & loan industry, have threatened to sue the agency if they are disciplined for playing "fantasy sports" leagues (such as Rotisserie baseball) during working hours. Said one, if every such player at OTS were were disciplined, it would "clean out the agency." [Washington Post, 3-8-94] Just Can't Stop Myself * In September, St. Paul, Minn., police stopped Jimmy Monk, 39, and confiscated from his car's roof a 20-foot ladder, which had been reported missing. At the time, he was awaiting sentencing on two other ladder thefts and was a suspect in a rash of about two dozen others. Said a police sergeant, "He just can't seem to walk past [a ladder] without taking it." [St. Paul Pioneer-Press, 9-18-93] * In July, Susumu Suzuki, 45, was arrested in Takasaki, Japan, and charged with having made approximately 8,500 phone calls to city hall--as many as several hundred a day--and then hanging up without speaking. He cited as his motive a 20-year-old snub by city hall when he applied for a job after graduating from college. And in September, Mikiko Miyamoto, 43, was charged with having made as many as 100 similar phone calls a day for 12 years to a female acquaintance in Tokyo. [The Daily Yomiuri, 7-13-93] [Reuters wirecopy, 9-30-93] * In Cincinnati in January, Thomas David West was back in court on charges that he violated his probation by resuming his practice of impersonating doctors and lawyers. He was released from prison in June, where he had served time for impersonating a doctor, among other identities, and was charged this time with posing as a lawyer for a Cincinnati firm. When he took the witness stand at the probation hearing, he said his current employment was as chief fundraiser of a Kentucky state- funded project, but officials said there was no such person. [Cincinnati Enquirer, 1-19-94] * In April in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Erin Prendergast, 20, pleaded guilty to 174 more parking violations, with total fines reaching nearly $5,000. In January, she had pleaded guilty to 248 parking tickets totaling more than $7,000. Officials said still more violations against her were awaiting processing. When the judge asked how she could accumulate so many violations, Prendergast, who was described as "affable" by a Cedar Rapids Gazette reporter, said "I don't know." [Cedar Rapids Gazette, Jan94, 4-9-94] * In February Vincent Corda, 64, was taken into custody at the Stratford, Conn., police station after refusing to heed numerous demands that he stop taking photographs of police officers and leave. He had been there previously, taking officers' photographs, and the department had secured a restraining order to keep him away. [New Haven Register, 2-19-94] Most Dysfunctional Family * In April, a jury in Canton, Ohio, convicted Estella Sexton, 47, of sexually abusing her 13-year-old daughter, one of her 11 children. According to the girls's brother, their father Eddie Sexton, who is now in jail in Florida, conducted satanic seances featuring cat carcasses and the spirits of dead relatives. Another daughter, Pixie Sexton-Good, recently pleaded guilty in Florida in the death of her infant son and agreed to testify against her father and another brother who will soon stand trial for the death of Pixie's husband, Joel Good. Furthermore, according to other siblings, the dead infant was fathered by Eddie Sexton, but Eddie said one of the brothers did it. [Columbus Dispatch-AP, 4-6-94; Canton Repository, 4-13- 94, 4-15-94, 4-19-94] Least Competent People * In two April incidents, Rogelio Aparicio, 46, in Manila, and an unidentified man on the steps of the main police station in Durham, N. C., each pulled out guns and fired two shots at his own head, in apparent suicide attempts, missing each time. [St. Johnsbury Caledonian-Record, Apr94] [Greensboro News & Record, Apr94] * The "Director's Message" column of the March newsletter of the Florida chapter of Rev. Donald Wildmon's American Family Association referred 14 times to an inside group of "journalists, reporters, and media mongers" by the term clique, which was misspelled each time as "click." [Folio Weekly, 3-29-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Wed Jun 22 14:09:50 1994 To: lmclan@icase.edu, avik@icase.edu, cokus@icase.edu, ot@icase.edu, jjq@icase.edu, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, rpowell.WBST129@xerox.com, adam at xent dot com, rgaff@caci.nalda.navy.mil, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, tracey@cs.wm.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, bill@turtle.mrj.com Subject: News of the weird WEIRDNUZ.326 (News of the Weird, May 6, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * In April, an AIDS activist organization in Madras, India, made a public plea that eunuchs convening for their annual festival near the city later in the month use condoms during their wild celebration. Many, but fewer than half, of the country's 400,000 eunuchs retain their penises, and Community Action Network estimated that 10,000 sex acts would take place at the close of the 15-day gathering. An AIDS activist said that because most eunuchs were recruited by force, they are "angry" and show little sexual restraint. [London (Ontario) Free Press-Southam News, 4-12-94] The Litigious Society * In February, New Mexico state patrolman Norman Martinez filed a lawsuit against a Santa Fe bar and its bouncer for injuries he suffered during an off-duty fight. Martinez is asking additional compensation for his broken nose because he can no longer properly sniff for alcohol on the breath of drivers. [Albuquerque Journal, 2-18-94] * Frances Bobnar of Adamsburg, Pa., filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Lottery Commission in March, claiming that she and family members have spent over $150,000 on lottery tickets during the last ten years but have never won. [Philadelphia Inquirer-AP, 3-23-94] * In November Tom Stafford of Mission Viejo, Calif., won $8,500 in a lawsuit against a local golf course. He hit an errant shot that ricocheted off a steel pole and smacked him in the forehead. [Globe & Mail, 11-12-93] * In February, Bernadette French, 36, won $1.1 million in a lawsuit against the Wilmington (Del.) Hospital. French, who suffers from manic depression, gouged her eyes out and then claimed the hospital staff was negligent in allowing that to happen. [USA Today, 2-28-94] * In March in Louisville, Ky., former paralegal Merrell Williams, 52, added a claim to his disability lawsuit against his former law firm, Wyatt Tarrant & Combs. Though he admitted that a 29-year smoking habit contributed to his heart problems, he also claimed that in the course of working for the firm's tobacco clients, he was "horrified" to learn about complicity between tobacco companies to suppress data on the dangers of smoking and that he suffered stress knowing he had to keep such information secret. [Louisville Courier-Journal, 3-11-94] * In January, Emmerson Phillips filed a claim against his employer, the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority, after he was turned down for sick leave. Phillips informed his employer that his daughter was getting married the following Sunday, that he intended to get roaring drunk at the reception and would probably have a hangover, and that he thus would be taking sick leave on Monday. The employer refused to grant the sick leave, but a local arbitration panel ruled in his favor. [Northwest Florida Daily News-AP,1-27-94] * In September, Bob Jones of Berkshire, England, filed a claim for about $1,200 with his insurance company for a loss he suffered during a power blackout. The body of his parrot, Polly, which was recently killed by Jones's dog, had been kept in the family freezer for posterity, but during the blackout, Polly thawed and decomposed. [Edmonton Journal, 9-9-93] Names from Hell * In a July story on odd names in England, the Wall Street Journal reported on the plight of a women's scholarly organization in the town of Ugley. Said spokesperson Irene Camp, "We try to call ourselves the Women's Institute of Ugley, but it never sticks." [Wall Street Journal, 7-21-93] * In November, there was a malfunction in the new telephone system in the public library in Edmonton, Alberta, which ordinarily would permit a machine to dial up a customer and announce by synthesized voice that requested materials were ready to be picked up. The system, which is referred to by its acronym, is the Electronic Library Voice Information System. [Edmonton Journal, 11-7-93] * Among recent names in the news: operator of a suicide hotline in Amsterdam--Jan Hilarius; Ph.D. candidate in demography at the University of California, Berkeley--Long Wang; New Orleans writer-- Quo Vadis Gexbreaux; co-creator of a just-released map of the Georgetown section of Washington, D. C.-- Outerbridge Horsey; Mansfield, La., jailer recently suspended after being accused of buying crack cocaine-- Billy Blow; Columbia, Mo., man sentenced to three years in prison in January for sexually abusing a 7-year-old boy--Fred Rogers. [Rock Island Argus-AP, 12-9-93] [Amicus Journal, Winter 1994] [Times-Picayune, Dec93] [Northwest (D. C.) Current, 12-1-93] [Baton Rouge Advocate-AP, 8-18-93] [Columbia Tribune, 1-13-94] Least Competent Criminal * Fargo, N. D., police reported that late in the evening on April 9, a person stole a car and tried to get past a quagmire of mud and water on a road but became stuck. That person then stole another car three blocks away and tried to pass through the same mess, again becoming stuck. He or she then stole a pickup truck a block away and tried yet another pass through. All three vehicles were found the next morning firmly stuck in the mud. [Fargo Forum, 4-13-94] I Don't Think So * In January, British actress Gillian Taylforth testified in court that, contrary to a police officer's assertion, she was not performing oral sex on her fiance Geoffrey Knights in the front seat of a car on a public road, but rather that he had just suffered a gastrointestinal attack and that she was merely comforting him by massaging his abdomen with her hands. Taylforth had filed a libel lawsuit against England's Sun newspaper for reporting the incident as oral sex, and the judge allowed the jurors out to the courthouse parking lot where Taylforth and Knights took their seats in the vehicle, with seatbelts fastened, and Taylforth demonstrated what she said she did. (The jury ruled against her.) [The Guardian, 1-13-94; The Economist, 1-29-94] Undignified Death * In March, George William Corrao, 41, was charged in the shotgun death of his mother in Milwaukee. According to police, while the two were watching television, Corrao became agitated because she was talking incessantly about Olympic skater Dan Jansen. [Syracuse Herald-Journal-Milwaukee Journal, 3-6-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Wed Jun 22 14:09:53 1994 To: bill@turtle.mrj.com, lmclan@icase.edu, avik@icase.edu, cokus@icase.edu, ot@icase.edu, jjq@icase.edu, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, rpowell.WBST129@xerox.com, adam at xent dot com, rgaff@caci.nalda.navy.mil, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, tracey@cs.wm.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com Subject: Yet another News of the weird WEIRDNUZ.329 (News of the Weird, May 27, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * The Boston Globe reported in February that Eulalia Rodriguez and her extended family receive government assistance payments totaling nearly $1 million a year. Rodriguez, who has been on public assistance for 26 years, has 14 children on welfare, 74 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren. Said she, "I'm sick of people acting like I'm some crook. We've got a lot of kids to feed." Rodriguez lives in a six-bedroom, three-story apartment in a gated Boston community called Harbor Point. [Boston Globe, 2-20-94] Government in Action * In March the Providence Journal-Bulletin reported that the Internal Revenue Service office in Rhode Island was specializing in pursuing tax underpayments by pizza parlors. The office calculated a standard amount of flour in a pizza, divided that by the total flour the restaurant purchased, found the number of pizzas made, and then determined the likely income of the store, which was often more than what the store reported. [Providence Journal-Bulletin, 3-1-94] * Reading, Pa., Fire Department official Michael J. Moyer was suspended for a day on October 12 for having violated a directive not to drive his Department car in the town's Labor Day parade. Moyer was thus not paid for his regular 8 a.m.-6 p.m. shift, but the person called in to replace him, at overtime pay, had to vacate his own subsequent shift, and according to regulations, the person who had to fill that later shift, also at overtime pay, was Michael J. Moyer, who thus earned $313 instead of the $155 he would have made had he not been suspended. [Reading Eagle, 10-23-93] * On March 8, the New York City Division of School Facilities finally attached doors to the stalls in the girls' restroom at Public School 206 in Brooklyn, following years of complaining by the principal. The doors were requisitioned on May 25, 1989--1,747 days earlier. [New York Post, 3-9-94] * Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review of federal government practices revealed recently that the Pentagon spends $4.3 billion a year on travel--$2.0 billion for the travel itself and $2.3 billion to process the paperwork. [AP wirecopy, 4-26-94] * In April, a Senate subcommittee found that the number of drug and alcohol addicts who had signed up for benefits under the Supplemental Security Income program for the "disabled" had tripled in three years, in large part because the government does not verify whether the benefits are spent on addiction counseling or merely to buy more drugs. A quarter of a million addicts receive $1.4 billion a year under the program. In Cleveland, Ohio, sheriff's deputies disclosed in January that 91 of the 330 fugitives rounded up during stings in 1993 were on welfare--receiving an average of $330 a month. Regulations prohibit cross-checking fugitives' records with welfare records. [Washington Times, 4-29-94; AP wirecopy, 1-10-94] * Among the projects cited in an April Denver Post article on the 10 "worst ideas in modern U. S. environmental history": a plan by a Department of the Interior official in the 1960s to flood the Grand Canyon for a hydroelectric plant; a plan by then-Atomic Energy Commission chairman James Schlesinger to dispose of nuclear waste by shooting it into the sun on a space shuttle; and the World Health Organization's 1960s program to kill mosquitoes on Borneo with U. S.-made DDT, which so disrupted the food chain that the island was soon overrun with rats, until the U. S. parachuted in cats to control them. [Denver Post, Apr94] * At a Jacksonville, Fla., City Council discussion of new park sites recently, a councilman told a councilwoman that she could "kiss my posterior," and she responded by threatening to "beat the hell" out of him. [American City & County, February 1994] Oops! * In April in Easthampton, Mass., a four-foot-long iguana got free from its cage in a car being driven by Joann Colby, causing her to lose control and allow the car to fall down a 25-foot embankment. She and the iguana received only minor injuries. In nearby Northampton, Mass., the next week, another iguana left its terrarium on a jaunt through Sheri A. Dilks's apartment and en route, accidentally triggered an alarm that brought firefighters. [Daily Hampshire Gazette, 4-24-94; 5-2-94] * On April 30, a driver, unidentified by police, was found in his car at the end of Interstate 8 in San Diego, Calif., with a map in his hand and a "perplexed look" on his face, according to a California Highway Patrol spokesman. He explained that he had come from New Mexico and was looking for Arizona. [Arizona Republic-AP, 5-1-94] * In January, gun safety instructor Ronald Paolillo, 43, and his 13-year-old son were injured by fragments of a 9mm bullet just before a class at the Branford, Conn., Gun Club. Paolillo was headed for the firing range when the bottom fell out of a box of ammunition, and as the bullets hit the floor, one exploded. [New Haven Register, 1-17-94] * In September at a dress rehearsal in a Swansea, Wales, theater, actress June Slavin of the English Shakespeare Company rushed along the balcony where she was to deliver the "wherefore art thou, Romeo" line, tripped, and toppled over the railing, falling ten feet and spraining her wrist. [San Francisco Chronicle-Reuters, 10-2-93] The Weirdo-American Community * In March, a manager at a Kroger store in Columbus, Ohio, apprehended a suspected shoplifter, who was charged with grand theft. Concealed in his clothing were over $300 worth of vaginal products, including 18 tubes of cream by made by three different companies and five packs of Monistat suppositories. [Columbus Guardian, Mar94] Least Competent Criminal * Michael Antonio Davis, 24, was arrested in Savannah, Ga., in April while inside a squad car parked in front of the Precinct 1 station house. According to an officer, who discovered the suspect sitting in the back of the car with a "most disgusted look" on his face, Davis had entered the car looking for guns but did not realize that police cars' back doors automatically lock, from inside and out, when closed. [Savannah Evening Press, 4-27-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird. From jotten@mrj.com Wed Jun 22 14:10:05 1994 To: lmclan@icase.edu, avik@icase.edu, cokus@icase.edu, ot@icase.edu, jjq@icase.edu, brunstro@cs.wm.edu, sharon@cs.wm.edu, sandor@cs.wm.edu, cassidy@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, urban@ta0.cs.uiuc.edu, rpowell.WBST129@xerox.com, adam at xent dot com, rgaff@caci.nalda.navy.mil, lmg@eagle.natinst.com, klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com, tracey@cs.wm.edu, dmgerman@indigo.uwaterloo.ca, ccreado@il.us.swissbank.com, bill@turtle.mrj.com Subject: News of the weird #2 WEIRDNUZ.327 (News of the Weird, May 13, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story * Clinton supporter George W. Smith told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in February of his plan to relieve one of the President's Whitewater problems. To reduce potential taxpayer liability for the failure of the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, Smith would encourage private contributions toward the bailout--by rebating baseball trading cards to each contributor, from Smith's four-room collection, at $2 in card value for each $1 contributed. Smith thinks $2 million could be raised toward the projected bailout cost of $47 million. [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Feb94] Couldn't Possibly Be True * In an August raffle to raise money to send Australian surfer Trudy Todd, 18, on the world pro surfing tour, the winner of the $1-a-ticket lottery got a fling with a Sydney prostitute of his choice, and second prize was a sex-shop voucher worth about $27. [San Francisco Chronicle-Reuters, 8-27-93] * In November, Brazil's heaviest woman, Joselina da Silva, who weighs 900 pounds, was admitted to a posh health spa in Sao Paolo. A specially-adapted ambulance was required to transport her to the facility, and when she arrived, firefighters had to remove a window and part of a wall so that she could be taken to her room. [London (Ont.) Free Press-Reuter, 11-4-93] * In court papers submitted in July, federal prosecutors moved to revoke the parole of convicted Irvine, Calif., bank swindler Charles J. Bazarian, who was then on the lam. In those papers, the prosecutors accused Bazarian of a second swindle: In 1992, he had convinced the man who prosecuted him three years earlier in the Irvine swindle to personally invest $6,000 in an Oklahoma company that turned out to be worthless. [National Mortgage News, 10-4-93] * In December, a three-year-old boy survived a 19-story fall from a Hong Kong apartment house, as numerous clotheslines impeded his fall. And in October, a construction worker in Mountain View, Calif., survived when a 10-ton concrete slab fell on him, because the slab was slightly concave. [San Francisco Examiner- Reuter, 12-5-93; Albuquerque Journal-Knight-Ridder, 10- 17-93] * As the result of simultaneous in vitro fertilization, one set of triplets was born to two mothers in two cities one month apart. Linda Schaper, 33, of Chesterfield, Mo., and her sister Barbara Payne, 32, of Columbia, Mo., gave birth in January and February, with Schaper having two babies. Schaper and her husband had produced six fertilized eggs, three of which were implanted into each woman. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2- 28-94] * The winner of a January contest sponsored by the Washington Mutual Bank, to select the most unusual places or events in the Washington-Oregon area, was the Douglas fir tree in Vashon Island, Wash., that contains a bicycle trapped inside the tree's bark. Local residents say that the bicycle was parked beside the tree years ago and that the bark eventually grew around it and completely enveloped it. The tree's growth has lifted the bicycle seven feet off the ground. [Seattle Times, Jan94] * In November, a jury in Montrose, Pa., acquitted Samuel J. Cosmello, Jr., who had confessed to killing his brother and burning his house down. The jury accepted the testimony of a psychiatrist who said Cosmello suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder that made him need to confess falsely. [Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, 11-17-93] Courtroom Antics * In November, a defense lawyer in San Francisco attempted to call a parrot to the witness stand on the chance that it might speak the name of the man who killed its owner, but the judge said no; last spring, a chicken took the stand in a Tyler, Tex., courtroom to facilitate a demonstration of vaccination procedures at a local prison; and also last spring, a police dog took the stand in a Pittsburgh, Pa., courtroom as a defense attorney tried to show that the dog, and not his client, was the aggressor in a fight. [New York Times, 11-12-93; Tyler Telegraph, 4-6-93; S-T, 4-7-93] * A January Associated Press report from the Gaza Strip described recent sentences handed down by one of the best-known of the local religious arbiters. (Most Gazans boycott the Israeli-run court system and opt for private arbitration.) A man who "winks" at a woman and says "Hey, beautiful!" should pay the woman's family about $2,500 and have his eye gouged out. As punishment for rape, the rapist must ride an oiled camel from his house to his victim's, and upon arrival, he must submit to having cut off any part of his body that has oil on it. A murderer's family was ordered to pay either a large amount of money to the victim's family or a smaller amount plus a the use of a woman to bear a son to replace the victim. [Columbia State-AP, 1-7-94] * In New Orleans in July, Kevin Dominique was acquitted of possession of stolen property, a crime for which he would have received only a short jail sentence. On hearing the verdict, and despite the judge's warnings on courtroom decorum, Dominique leaped to his feet, yelled "Thank God!" and bearhugged his lawyer. Judge Leon Cannizzaro then sentenced Dominique to six months in jail for contempt of court. (An appeals court freed Dominique after nine days.) [[Times-Picayune, Jul93]] * In September, the Judicial Council of Manitoba reprimanded Judge Frank Allen for comments he made in a domestic violence case. According to the Council, Allen told the male defendant, who had threatened to kill his girlfriend and himself, "There isn't any woman worth the trouble you got yourself into." [Edmonton Journal-CP, 9-3-93] Least Competent Person * In December, David Posman (serving time for a crime for which I labeled him in my book as one of America's Least Competent Criminals) escaped, and on January 6, according to police, entered a Providence, R. I., bank armed with a gun, walked up to a clerk, and demanded money. The woman informed Posman that he was in the loan department and that the tellers were on the other side of the lobby. After pulling off the robbery and jumping in the getaway car, he briefly got lost trying to elude police and was finally subdued after a brief chase. [Providence Journal, 1-7-94] Undignified Deaths * In April, the Utah Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of Frank Powell, who in 1987 ran over Glen Candland, culminating their fight over who had the best pickup truck. [USA Today, 4-12-94] Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the personal use of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.