From: Travis
From: Chuck Shepherd
Date: Sun, Nov 23, 2008
Subject: News of the Weird, November 23, 2008
WEIRDNUZ.M085 (News of the Weird, November 23, 2008)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* When a four-bedroom house inhabited by 50 tenants partially
collapsed in October in Honolulu, at least 10 of the residents said
they had been pressured to let the property manager give them
experimental "stem-cell" injections. Manager Daniel Cunningham,
56 and a de-licensed chiropractor, said he has been injecting the
substance, phenol, himself for years, to treat gnarled hands (though
the hands appeared to a Honolulu Advertiser reporter to be
deteriorating to the point where Cunningham wears socks over
them). One man said Cunningham injected him directly into the
eye, and others complained of various side effects. Cunningham
ran for mayor of Honolulu this year and in the September primary
received 737 votes on a platform of complaining about
government's meddling into health care. [Honolulu Advertiser, 10-
29-08, 11-4-08; KGMB-TV (Honolulu), 11-2-08]
The Continuing Crisis
* Deceitful mating strategies may be rife in the animal kingdom
(especially among humans), but Australian researchers recently
documented the sexual guile of a group of orchids that basically
trick male wasps into pollinating them by resembling the look and
smell of female wasps. Writing in The American Naturalist, the
authors noted that female wasps reproduce both with and without
sperm, with the latter creating male offspring. Consequently, the
researchers hypothesized, when orchids commandeer sperm, it
indirectly leads to the birth of more future pollinators. (Charles
Darwin's subsequent book, after The Origin of Species, was The
Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects.)
[New York Times, 7-15-08]
* The remote Manitoba First Nations tribes in Canada have largely
moved past ordinary alcohol abuse, according to an October
Winnipeg Sun report, to the abuse of much more potent
"superjuice," made with a fast-acting yeast that encourages quick
brewing. According to a local probation officer, though,
underbrewing results in the swill's continuing to ferment in the
stomach after consumption, causing violent pain and progressive
inebriation lasting for days. [Winnipeg Sun, 10-27-08]
* In 2003, retired Colorado businessman John Haines, who was
concerned about dangerous cracks in the Tomb of the Unknowns at
Arlington National Cemetery, went to great lengths to find and
purchase a huge slab of the identical high-grade white marble of
the Tomb and offered it, free of charge, shipping included, to the
Army (which has been considering reconstruction of the Tomb
since 1987). In the ensuing five years, according to an August
Denver Post story, the Army continues to ignore Haines, yet
periodically shows interest in opening the reconstruction to
competitive bidding, but mostly just allows the idea to languish.
[Denver Post, 8-18-08]
The Sacred Institution of Marriage
* In September, a Wisconsin appeals court suppressed the
surveillance video that allegedly captured David Johnson, 59,
having sex with his comatose wife in a Portage nursing home,
obviously violating the state law against sex without consent.
Nursing home caregivers had installed the camera to protect the
wife, but the court ruled it an invasion of the privacy of the marital
relationship. [Tampa Tribune-AP, 9-12-08]
* In November, the Bombay high court expunged the arranged-
marriage records of an Indian couple who had separated
immediately after their 1998 honeymoon when the husband
complained that he had been unable to consummate because the
bride had large boils on her face. She has since been cured of her
disorder and did not want future suitors to read of her past. [Times
of India, 11-4-08]
The New Nature of Work
* (1) Officer Keith Breiner, suspended from the police force in
Beaumont, Tex., for crossing the line during an undercover
prostitution sting (that is, he actually had sex), defended himself in
an August hearing. "It was a job, sir. I didn't have pleasure doing
it." It was, he said, "something I did for the city." (2) In his
murder trial in October in Leeds, England, chef Anthony Morley
testified that the killing was in self-defense, but he did admit to
carving, cooking, and eating part of the body afterward. "At some
point [the victim's] body had just become something I would deal
with at work, a piece of meat. . . . That's my daily task, preparing
meat." [Beaumont Enterprise, 8-21-08] [The Sun (London), 10-14-
08]
News That Sounds Like a Joke
* (1) In October, the local government council in Worcester,
England, ordered Bill Malcolm to take down the three-foot-high,
barbed-wire fence he had installed to deter the thieves who had
broken into his storage shed three times in the previous four
months. According to the Daily Mail, the council said it feared the
government would be sued by a wounded trespasser. (2) In
August, the local government in Dymchurch, England, said a
traditional celebration of the inspirational character Dr. Syn would
have to be altered because the town had been unable to obtain
liability insurance. According to legend, the swashbuckling Dr.
Syn braved enemy troops to bring food to starving villagers by
horseback, but without liability insurance, the man portraying Dr.
Syn would now have to merely walk through the village. [Daily
Mail (London), 10-8-08] [Daily Telegraph, 9-4-08]
Kids, Let a Professional Handle This
* Two high school boys in Markesan, Wis., were hospitalized in
September with broken pelvises after a "prank" went bad and a
classmate inadvertently drove over them as they lay in the road in
front of her car. On the other hand, a professional, Tom Owen
(known as the "Human Speed Bump"), was hospitalized in October
with similar injuries after he attempted to break the Guinness Book
record by being run over by eight vehicles (with the last one, a box
truck, leaving him in bad shape). Owen got certification, though,
because the truck did pass completely over him. [WISC-TV
(Madison, Wis.)-AP, 9-23-08] [Arizona Republic, 10-17-08]
Failure to Keep a Low Profile
* (1) University of New Hampshire officials banned Bert Allen III,
44, a convicted sex offender, from campus in September for
posting flyers without permission, seeking a "trophy wife." To
further draw attention to himself, Allen sued for a restraining order
(unsuccessfully) to allow the continued solicitation. (2) Police in
Covington, Ky., arrested Gregory Griggs, 19, in October at the
USA Motel, a suspected drug market. Though several people were
booked that night, Griggs was the one wearing the t-shirt that read,
"It's Not Illegal Unless You Get Caught." [WMUR-TV
(Manchester), 9-29-08, 10-7-08] [Kentucky Enquirer, 10-17-08]
Recurring Themes
* Many people believe Israelis have more important things to
worry about these days, but the city government of Petah Tikva (a
Tel Aviv suburb) became the latest municipality to implement a
registry of dog DNA, to encourage owners to pick up after their
pets in the city's streets and parks. Abandoned droppings will be
analyzed and those dogs' owners punished. [Reuters, 9-16-08]
Lawsuits from the Nether Regions
* (1) In August, a woman filed a lawsuit in Orange, Tex., against
the manufacturer of the Sea-Doo personal water vehicle, claiming
negligent design, after she fell off the back end and directly into the
powerful jet stream from the vehicle's water pump. According to
the lawsuit, "The high-pressure stream . . . penetrated her orifices
causing massive, mutilating injuries." (2) However, in September,
a federal jury in Baltimore rejected the claim by a 64-year-old West
Virginia man that a Frederick, Md., surgeon had stapled his rectum
shut during an operation. The jury accepted the doctor's
explanation that it was the man's longtime, heavy smoking that
caused his rectum to become swollen and shut for 17 days.
[Southeast Texas Record, 8-6-08] [Daily Record (Baltimore), 9-29-
08]
A News of the Weird Classic (November 2004)
* Gary Arthur Medrow, then 44, first made News of the Weird in
our inaugural year, 1988, but his criminal record (mostly for
impersonating police officers) goes back at least 10 years before
that. Medrow's periodic compulsion is to call someone on the
telephone (usually a woman), pretend to be a law enforcement
investigator, ask her to lift another person in her home, carry that
person into another room, and then describe the results to Medrow.
News of the Weird reported Medrow's relapses in 1991, 1997, and
most recently, in 2004, when he was charged in New Berlin, Wis.
[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9-20-04]
Thanks This Week to Candy Clouston, Gil Nelson, Wayne
Jackson, Ken Berkun, Sandy Pearlman, Kevin Dean, Milford
Sprecher, Jessica McRorie, and Stephen Taylor, 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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