From: Travis
From: Chuck Shepherd
Date: Sun, Nov 16, 2008
Subject: News of the Weird, November 16, 2008
WEIRDNUZ.M084 (News of the Weird, November 16, 2008)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek, 29, has developed jewelry
consisting of tiny crystals or flowers that hang directly from the eye
via micro-thin medical wire attached to either prescription or blank
contact lenses and, in the light, give the appearance of tears
streaming down the cheek. He expects to hit the market soon,
according to an October report in London's Daily Mail, at a price of
the equivalent of around $325. Though the adornments appear to
be painful or dangerous, Klarenbeek said users of his prototypes so
far have been "amazed" at their comfort. [Daily Mail, 10-3-08]
Can't Possibly Be True
* Residents of an Austin, Tex., neighborhood undergoing a
federally mandated sewer replacement noticed that, for several
weeks starting in September, the work crews would spend the first
three hours of their 12-hour days digging a huge hole in the street,
and the last three hours re-filling and paving over it (repeating the
process each day). The 20-foot by 20-foot by 20-foot deep hole in
Monroe Street was too big to be covered with metal plates, and the
city's "policy" of minimal traffic disruption required repaving for
nighttime use, at least doubling the cost of the work. [Austin
American-Statesman, 10-8-08]
* Pay Those Dentist's Bills! (1) In October, a 58-year-old patient
accused the Rush Green Dental Practice in Romford, England, of
injecting novacaine in preparation for an extraction but then
refusing to pull the tooth until he had handed over an additional
œ30 ($47) cash. (The patient had to go home to get his ATM card,
according to a Daily Mail report, and did not make it back until the
novacaine had begun to wear off.) (2) Police in the Bavarian town
of Neu-Ulm said they were investigating a dentist who allegedly
barged into the home of a 35-year-old patient in September, tied
her hands, forced her mouth open, and removed dentures worth the
equivalent of about $500 because the woman's insurance company
had declined to pay. [Daily Mail (London), 10-11-08] [The Local
(Berlin), 9-24-08]
* Blind Justice: An administrator of criminal-case appeals in
Louisiana committed suicide in 2007, partly (according to his
suicide note) because of guilt that, for 13 years, he had complied
with a judge's order to deny, sight-unseen, all appeals filed by
defendants who were acting without lawyers. (Under state law,
only death row convicts get assistance for appeals; all others, even
convicted murderers, either fend for themselves or forfeit the
appeal right, no matter how indigent.) According to the
administrator (the extent of whose claims are still being
investigated by the state Supreme Court), none of the supervisory
judges involved in denying the 2,400 appeals ever read a single
word in them. [Times-Picayune, 10-10-08]
People Who Need Attention
* (1) In October, Travis Fessler of Florence, Ohio, broke the
Guinness Book record by holding 11 Madagascar hissing
cockroaches in his mouth for the mandatory 10 seconds. (2) Briton
Sarah Burge, 49, broke the Guinness Book record for the most
cosmetic surgery, having now spent a total of œ539,500 ($850,000)
on more than 100 procedures, according to an October report in
London's Daily Mail. [Cincinnati Enquirer, 10-13-08] [Daily Mail,
10-29-08]
Unclear on the Concept
* In November, after two years of controversy, the school board in
Jacksonville, Fla., voted 5-2 to retain the designation of Nathan
Bedford Forrest High School, which is named for a Confederate
general who was also an early Ku Klux Klan leader. Advocates for
change described Forrest as one of America's biggest Civil War
slave traders, but a local Confederacy historian said his research
indicated that Forrest was "nice" to his slaves and that "[t]hey
loved him." [Florida Times-Union, 10-22-08, 11-4-08]
It's Good to Be a British Prisoner
* (1) The Sun reported in September that officials at London's
Holloway Prison had recently staged a morale-boosting costume
dance party for female inmates, even though Holloway houses
Britain's worst female murderers. As a result, families of murder
victims learned that the killers had a jolly good time, dressed up as,
for example, vampires and ghouls, covered with fake blood. (2)
Britain's Prison Service issued guidelines recently calling for
guards to refer to their male charges by "Mr." and their surnames,
to foster "decency" and "respect." Inmates should be treated, said
one official, "like [we expect] our children to be treated." [The
Sun (London), 9-13-08] [Daily Telegraph (London), 9-30-08]
Local Government Follies
* (1) Police in Cobb County, Ga., said in October that County
Commissioner Annette Kesting had asked local "high voodoo
priestess" George Ann Mills to perform a "death ritual" on her
longtime political rival Woody Thompson ("cancer" or a "car
accident" preferred). Mills acknowledged helping Kesting on
some "family" issues, by sacrificing three hens and a rooster, but
said she would never help take a human life. (2) In Flint, Mich.,
two people (an assistant to the mayor and a local activist) accused
City Councilwoman Jackie Poplar of assault following a rancorous
Council meeting. Poplar allegedly sprayed the pair with a can of
Raid, proclaiming, "Pests! We need to get rid of these pests!" [The
State (Columbia, S.C.), 10-8-08] [Flint Journal, 10-2-08]
Mechanically-Inclined Perverts
* (1) Akira Hino, 51, was arrested in Tokyo in September and
charged with stealing a woman's underpants, using a fishing rod to
reach a laundry pole on an apartment balcony. Police found more
than 500 women's undies in his apartment. (2) A 34-year-old
primary-school teacher was convicted in September for a 2007
incident in Clydebank, Scotland, in which, during a drive to work,
he was arrested after he stopped in front of a high school and was
caught watching students while fondling himself with an electrical
vibrator plugged into his car's cigarette lighter. [Agence France-
Presse, 9-30-08] [Clydebank Post, 10-1-08]
Least Competent Criminals
* Jose Diaz Jr., 35, was arrested and charged with shoplifting from
a Wal-Mart in Madison Township, Ohio, in October after
attempting to run from the store with a digital camera. He first
crashed into the glass front door (which looked open, but was
closed), cutting himself badly, but then exited into the parking lot,
where he almost immediately ran into a cement post, allowing
security personnel to catch up with him. [Lorain Morning Journal,
10-20-08]
Recurring Themes
* The latest evidence that, for men, size is important: (1)
Following a men's room argument in September, five men of
Indian descent left a bar, returned with guns, and killed three
patrons. According to police, the altercation started when one
Indian man at a urinal called attention to a white South African
man's "small" size, and the incident escalated. (2) In August, the
indecent-exposure conviction of a Houston, Tex., urologist was
upheld on appeal despite the doctor's insistence that he is so
"small" (2.8 inches) that it would have been impossible for his sex
organ to be seen by anyone, even if he had tried to expose himself.
[Independent Online (Cape Town)-South African Press
Association, 9-11-08] [Houston Chronicle, 8-19-08]
The Only Way Out
* Initially, authorities ruled the March shooting death of Texas
restaurant executive Thomas Hickman, 55, a kidnap-murder, since
he had been shot in the back of the head and the body dumped in
the New Mexico desert. Later, however, investigators found the
murder weapon nearby, attached to balloons that had snagged on
cactus, and in July concluded that Hickman had killed himself but
rigged helium-filled balloons to carry the gun away as he lay dying
(a plan that resembled a 2003 episode of "CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation"). [Dallas Morning News, 7-16-08]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 2003)
* Researchers at Plymouth University in England, with a small
Arts Council grant, could not quite test whether an infinite number
of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters could produce
the works of Shakespeare but did see what six Sulawesi crested
macaque monkeys would write with a computer over a four-week
period. According to a report in The Guardian, the apes produced
about five pages of text between them, mostly consisting of the
letter S. According to Professor Geoff Cox, the monkeys spent a
lot of time sitting on the keyboard. [The Guardian, 5-9-03]
Thanks This Week to Paul Andrews, Sandy Pearlman, Kurt
Knochel, Sue Clark, Stephen Taylor, and Mark Svevar, 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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