from: Travis
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From: Chuck Shepherd
Date: Sun, Oct 5, 2008
Subject: News of the Weird, October 5, 2008
WEIRDNUZ.M078 (News of the Weird, October 5, 2008)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* The ashram-museum in Ahmedabad devoted to India's highly
revered icon of freedom Mahatma Gandhi recently re-installed a
replica of the spiritual leader's personal toilet, in that Gandhi's own
hygiene-consciousness was such a part of his legacy. It is said that
he cleaned the toilet daily and referred to it as his "temple," but
ashram officials had removed the it in the 1980s as somehow
inappropriate, according to a September dispatch from New Delhi
in London's Daily Telegraph. Gandhi had written that "a lavatory
must be as clean as a drawing room." [Daily Telegraph, 9-12-08]
Unclear on the Concept
* Bernard LeCorn, running for the school board in Ocala, Fla.,
declared himself the best-qualified school steward among the three
candidates because of his "doctorate," but the Ocala Star-Banner
discovered that not only was it from a well-known diploma mill
(cost: $249) but that Alabama A&M, a real school where he had
claimed to be a faculty member after receiving bachelor's and
master's degrees, had never employed him, and had enrolled him
only for one year. (In another diploma-mill fraud indictment in
August, one alleged purchaser of a doctorate was Bart Anderson,
superintendent of a school district in Columbus, Ohio.) [Star-
Banner, 8-14-08] [Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.), 7-30-08]
Can't Possibly Be True
* Jose Rivera, 22, survived two tours in Iraq, but back home in
California, he took a job at the high-security Atwater federal
prison, where officers cannot carry even non-lethal, crowd-control
weapons, and Rivera was murdered 10 months later by two
inmates armed with handmade shivs. "Every single inmate in there
is armed to the teeth for his own protection," complained one
officer, but a Bureau of Prisons spokesman told CNN in August
that "communication" with inmates is a better policy than even
modestly arming guards. [CNN, 8-26-08]
* When Eric Aderholt's house in Rockwell County, Tex., burned
down in June, it wasn't because the fire department was too slow.
They arrived within minutes, but none was aware that local
hydrants were locked. Apparently, departments know that hydrants
in rural areas have been shut off, as part of post-9/11 security, and
must be turned on with a special tool, which no one brought that
night. Texas law even requires shut-off hydrants to be painted
black, but the firefighters still arrived without the tool, and by the
time they retrieved it, Aderholt's house was gone. [WFAA-TV
(Fort Worth), 8-27-08]
* A member of Pakistan's parliament stood his ground in August,
defending news reports from his Baluchistan province that five
women had been shot and then buried alive as tribal punishment
for objecting to their families' choosing husbands for them. A
defiant Israr Ullah Zehri told the Associated Press, "These are
centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,"
despite condemnation by Zehri's colleagues. "Only those who
indulge in immoral acts should be afraid," Zehri said. [New York
Daily News-AP, 8-30-08]
Inexplicable
* The incredibly patient Joseph Shepard Sr., 53, sat quietly in St.
Louis-area lockups for more than two years expecting that his
lawyer, Michael Kelly, was working for his release on bond, but it
turns out neither Kelly nor prosecutors nor the judge was doing
anything at all. In fact, Shepard seemed innocently happy when a
St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter told him in August that he had
looked into the case himself and that Shepard would be released
soon. Shepard's attitude: "If I just sit here long enough,
something's going to happen." Three days later, federal judge
Carol Jackson released Shepard and chastised Kelly. (Shepard's
drug charges remain.) [Post-Dispatch, 8-31-08, 9-2-08]
* After a 14-week trial in 2003 in Durham, N.C., Michael Peterson
was convicted of murdering his wife with a fireplace poker and is
now serving a life sentence, but his former neighbor, Larry Pollard,
is certain that Mrs. Peterson was killed instead by an owl gone bad.
Pollard offered voluminous information about owls to buttress his
theory but acknowledged earlier that no feathers had been found at
the scene. However, in August, the State Bureau of Investigation
disclosed that one "microscopic feather" was on a clump of hair in
Mrs. Peterson's hand. Shouted Pollard, "[T]he feather has been
found" (although it was likely a household speck of down). [News
& Observer (Raleigh), 8-21-08]
People with Too Much Time on Their Hands
* In December 2003, Yves Julien worked a regular 11-hour shift,
plus overtime, all at premium pay, for the Canada Border Services
Agency, and then demanded an additional $9 (Cdn) for a sandwich
he had purchased when asked to put in the extra hours. The
Agency said he was not entitled, by contract, because the overtime
was already at premium pay. In September 2008, after nearly five
years of multiple reviews, hair-splitting legal decisions, and
lengthy appeals, Julien won his $9. [Globe and Mail, 9-10-08]
* Never Give Up: (1) In September, Melvin Dummar, now 62, the
man who famously claimed to be in Howard Hughes's hand-written
will (based on having given Hughes a ride in the desert in 1967),
was turned down again by a federal appeals court in his latest
challenge to the "official" 1976 will. (2) The U.S.'s most-ridiculed
litigator, Roy Pearson of the Washington, D.C., dry-cleaning case
(who in 2005 sued for $54 million over a pair of pants), announced
in September he was appealing the dismissal of his case. [Salt Lake
Tribune, 9-13-08] [WJLA-TV (Washington), 9-10-08]
The Weirdo-American Community
* Police in Knoxville, Tenn., arrested Richard Smith, 25, in
September after he called 911 from an air duct in the Knoxville
Museum of Art, and Smith immediately volunteered that he was
"special agent 0-9-3-1" with the "United States Illuminati" and that
he had come to retrieve a nuclear warhead from the Soviet Union
that was concealed in a blue plastic cow in the basement, according
to a report on WBIR-TV. Smith got trapped, he said, after he
received a phone call aborting the mission because the cow was
actually supposed to be in a museum in Memphis. He said he had
entered the Museum of Art by being lowered from a "CH2 Huey"
helicopter, but police basically rejected everything Smith said
except his name. [WBIR-TV (Knoxville), 9-17-08]
Least Competent Criminals
* Angel Cruz, 49, was indicted in August in Florida for various
dubious financial schemes, including attempting to convince
employees and contractors to accept his "United Cities Group"
"currency" as of parallel value with U.S. currency. Cruz came to
federal prosecutors' attention when he tried to sneak $214 million
of UCG money into a Bank of America branch in Miami and
allegedly threatened to take over the bank when it balked at
allowing withdrawals in U.S. dollars. [Orlando Sentinel, 8-23-08]
Recurring Themes
* Critters 4, Humans 0: (1) A 17-year-old boy in Reno, Nev.,
accidentally set his family's house on fire trying to kill spiders
(August). A woman in Santa Fe, N.Mex., accidentally caused
severe fire damage to her home while trying to torch a rattlesnake
(July). A 26-year-old man in Mobile, Ala., accidentally caused
$80,000 damage to his home and a shed trying to kill a swarm of
bees (June). A Buddhist monk accidentally burned down his
temple in Ojiya City, Japan, trying to destroy a hornets' nest
(September). [Reno Gazette-Journal-AP, 8-18-08] [KOB-TV
(Albuquerque), 7-27-08] [Mobile Press-Register, 6-4-08]
[MSNBC-AP, 9-4-08]
Now, Which One Is the Brake? (all-new)
* Elderly drivers' recent lapses of concentration, confusing the
brake pedal with the gas (or however artfully they explain it): A
Norfolk, Va., woman, 86, crashed against a Rite Aid pharmacy,
damaging a vending machine (May). A Lake Oswego, Ore., man,
81, crashed through the front of a U.S. Bank building, sending
employees scurrying (February). A Cincinnati woman, 80, crashed
halfway into a Dollar General store, damaging displays (May). A
75-year-old Shriner, driving a go-cart in one of the organization's
tiny-car exhibitions, lost control and hit, in succession, two kids
and two adults, before coming to a halt in bushes (July). [Daily
Press (Hampton Roads, Va.), 5-20-08] [Lake Oswego Review, 2-
11-08] [WKRC-TV (Cincinnati), 5-19-08] [Chicago Sun-Times, 7-
4-08]
Thanks This Week to Jim Peterson, Gabriel Fig, Ramona
Ferguson, Bob Adams, Mark Dubbin, Barry Rose, Morgan Snyder,
Shelly Turner, and Phillip Schiavone and to the News of the Weird
Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net <http://www.weirduniverse.net/> (or
www.NewsoftheWeird.com <http://www.newsoftheweird.com/>) or
mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] / P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL
33629.
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