Sunday, November 11, 2001
Good morning. Weekend stories are posted by noon New York time (and weekdays by 10 a.m.).
Thanks This Week So Far to
Tom Slone, Geoff Temple, Joe Littrell, William Poulin, Greg Klosterman, Harry Farkas, Michael Lewyn, Leslie Goodman-Malamuth, Vic McDonald, Greg Bogle, Stuart Johnson, Mark Sutton, Brian Harris, Dave Beck, Jerry McCollom, Yvonne Pover, Glenn Smoak, Roger Gulbransen, Jason Rule, Kerry O'Conner, Bob Minton, Mark Lutton, Alan Denney, Stephen Fromm, Skip Munger, Adrian Foster, Larry Ellis Reed, John Cieciel, Michael Colpitts, Paul Music, Paul Blumstein, Jeff Brielmaier, Steve Miller, Bruce Townley, Mark Hahn, Paul Bogrow, Howard Ray, Geoffrey Egan, Christine Van Lenten, Jenny Beatty, Gil Nelson, and the News of the Weird Senior Advisors and Chief Correspondents.
Thinning the Herd of Bad Drivers
Mr. Rejean Pellerin, 48, is no longer with us, having inadvertently smashed into a utility pole in Laval, Quebec, on Thursday, the result of careening after angrily ramming a slow-moving car on the highway. And a coroner’s report this week (Illiopolis, Ill.) made it official: The cause of car-crash death of Mr. James C. Pygott, 18, in October was that he and his front-seat companion, after arguing about which was less fit to drive, attempted to switch positions while maintaining their speed (estimated at 55-70 mph). [Miami Herald-CP, 11-8-01] [Springfield State Journal-Register, 11-7-01] [Link is to Pellerin.] [Pygott story is still available at www.sj-r.com, search Pygott.]
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Toronto Radio Producer Donates Huge Porn Collection to Science
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation producer Max Allen has donated his 4,000-plus-item porn collection to the U. of Toronto, and a professor named Brian, er, Pronger obtained a grant of about US$90,000 to catalog it all, the Toronto Star reported. (But there were several holdups with the grant; said Allen, “Wherever there’s sex, there is trouble.”) [Toronto Star, 11-9-01] [Click the Link to see the article, but for the record, this is the url, and there is no newtin’ excuse to have one so long.]
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Below the Fold for Sunday
David Edward Wenetta, 26, was picked up in Springfield, Ore., after basically leading police to his home-meth lab by setting his girlfriend’s car on fire after a domestic squabble; there was also the matter of the 2-ft-long alligator in his bathtub.
Three men and a woman (not Asians) escaped in Fukuoka, Japan, after robbing a branch of the Saga Bank on Thursday, but in their haste they were forced to leave their booty (about $390G) on an overhead rack in the train they were escaping in.
The New York Times reported Saturday that Verizon convinced NY regulators to suspend its requirement prohibiting Verizon from billing for undelivered service; thus, all the World Trade Center, etc., customers, have to pay for downtime unless they do rebate paperwork.
[Sources: Eugene Register-Guard, 11-10-01; Mainichi Daily News, 11-9-01; Yahoo-AP, 11-10-01]
Saturday, November 10, 2001
Good morning. The function of the paragraph you’re reading is to somehow get today’s date on this page, and to do that, I have to write something in this space. We’re working on how to do that more sensibly. Here’s the news:
She's Got a Bright Future
Yr Ed usually doesn’t bother with Guinness Book performances (on the ground that bizarre is best if you’re not trying to be bizarre), but on the BBC website right now are photographs of the record-setting (7cm) tongue of a 12-yr-old German girl. Said Annika Irmler, “My friends always said I had an incredibly long tongue [and that] I could make lots of money with it one day.” [BBC News, 11-9-01]
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Pervert-Friendly Sentencing
Buffalo Bills running back Travis Henry was sentenced yesterday to 100 hours’ community service on his guilty plea to attempted sexual misconduct with a 15-yr-old girl. The court assigned him to Buffalo’s St. Augustine Community Service Corporation, where most of his duties will consist of counseling youth. [CNN-AP, 11-9-01]
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Sheep Remember Sheeps' Faces
Sheep may all look alike to you, but British researchers, writing in Nature this week, concluded that sheep can remember and identify the specific faces of up to 50 other sheep, for up to 2 yrs at a time. They can probably even remember human faces, or sheep faces in silhouette; however, unlike Yr Ed and other advanced humans, they may not be able to remember/identify potential partners by their body parts. [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News, 11-8-01]
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Below the Fold for Saturday
Officials in Istanbul said they had identified a 46-yr-old transsexual male prostitute who tested HIV-positive and whom they believe may have had sex with as many as 5,000 people since he was last tested.
Latest Comparison: According to the attorney for several Benicia (Calif.) High School students suspended for toilet-papering the school, principal Robert Palous, in meting out the punishment, described the kids’ actions as comparable to the World Trade Center attack.
[Sources: Agence France-Presse, 11-9-01; San Francisco Chronicle, 11-9-01]
New Bedford Forgives Again
State Rep. George Rogers of New Bedford, Mass., was re-elected this week despite the fact that he goes to trial next month for allegedly showing porn to a (male) minor. New Bedford is in the district of U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, whose storied re-election career was never derailed by a 1983 House censure for seducing an underage (male) page. [Boston Globe, 11-8-01]
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Friday, November 9, 2001
America’s most gay-friendly town? What’s in that prostitute’s card files? More clintons* in the news. Plus: An abrupt end to a police chase and Mormon students almost get around Provo’s dance ban. [*—In the spirit of the federal Communications Decency Act, we replace certain offensive words with euphemisms. If you’re not down with that, well, go helms in your hat!]
Maryland Madam's Customer Bio's Made Public
Judge G. Edward Dwyer Jr. released a box of prosecution material from a prostitute’s private files on Wednesday but forbade the news media from publishing any names except those of public figures or public officials. Frederick, Md., Mayor Jim Grimes thought friends of his might have been in the files and so fought against disclosure for the past year, but Good-Gov’t won out on Tuesday, when Grimes got his behind kicked at the polls. Defeat prompted Grimes to tell the Associated Press, “I absolutely feel that the same thing that happened at the World Trade Center has hit me. I was terrorized by The Frederick News-Post.” [Frederick News-Post, 11-8-01]
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Bad Things Happen to Good Things
The Boulder (Colo.) Public Library is hearing surprisingly few complaints about its “Hung Out to Dry” anti-domestic-violence exhibit on display; it consists of 21 ceramic clintons hanging on a clothesline. (One mother, to young boy, quoted by the Rocky Mountain News: “No, dear, they’re corn cobs.”) And Saskatoon Correctional Centre has some explaining to do after Marlon Gidluck (serving 5 months for robbery) probably contracted flesh-eating disease there, directly on his you-know-what. Said Gidluck’s mother, “His testicles [Actually, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix inserted the word testicles; his mother had used a different word, so you do the math] were like grapefruits, and you couldn’t even see his penis because the area around it was so inflated.” [Ed.: Male readers know the old punchline: Doctor: “Oh, no, you don’t need any fancy medical procedure.” Man breathes sigh of relief. Doctor: “Yeah, wait three days. It’ll fall off by itself.”] [Saskatoon StarPhoenix, 11-8-01] [This Link is to the Boulder story.]
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This Link
is to the Saskatoon story.
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Below the Fold for Friday
Contra Costa County (Calif.) sheriff’s deputies chased down alleged cop-assaulter Roy Amador Jr. Monday night, a task that was helped by Amador’s car’s accidentally ramming a dairy farm’s manure pile that was close to the highway (and stalling out).
Two Brigham Young students ordained themselves as Universal Life Church ministers in order to be exempt from the Provo no-dance-party city ordinance (churches are exempt), but then got into trouble with the BYU Honor Code because the students had previously declared they were Mormons.
[Sources: Los Angeles Times, 11-8-01; Salt Lake Tribune-AP, 11-8-01]
Obsessive Avoidance Hits Philadelphia Councilman
Channel 29 in Philadelphia reported that City Councilman Angel Ortiz has been driving since 1976 without a license, including the last 17 yrs as a municipal employee or council member: “I kept trying to make time to get a new license, and it seemed that something pressing always took precedence.” (Said the Council president, on being told about Ortiz’s problem [and I quote]: “Holy mackerel!”) And, like, on the same newtin’ day, in Okinawa, a police officer was fired for having driven for the last 15 yrs without a license. [Philadelphia Daily News, 11-6-01] [Mainichi Daily News, 11-6-01] [Link is to PDN.]
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Pakistan's Answer to Whippets
A Reuters report yesterday from Quetta, Pakistan, described the small but growing community of people whose particular substance-abuse problem is scorpions (i.e., dry the stingers, grind them up, then light them and suck the smoke). “When I smoke scorpion,” said Ghulam Raza, “then the heroin is like nothing to me.” Addicts hang out at the cemetery, where outsiders tend to leave them alone (though there is an occasional problem with enstupored persons falling into partially-dug graves). [Yahoo-Reuters, 11-7-01]
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Disgruntled Searchee Testifies in Lawsuit Against Houston Police
Damien Williams, 20 and one of three plaintiffs alleging in a lawsuit that Houston police roughed them up in a 1997 arrest, testified on Monday that a cop stuck his finger up Williams’s butt, ostensibly looking for drugs (but found none), and that this shouldn’t be allowed. The police did find drugs in the non-sunshine location on one of the three, but claimed the search was lawful in that the guy had not jammed the bag completely inside and thus they did not perform a “cavity” search (which is subject to special regulations). [Houston Chronicle, 11-6-01]
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another Very Expensive Sex Episode
Birmingham, England, plumber John Walker, 25, was recently blindsided by a paternity ruling that will cost him close to $100,000. An older woman had seduced him when he was 15. He never saw her again. She remembered him. She wants help raising the kid. DNA says it’s Walker’s. Walker’s got to pay until the kid turns 19 (or later, if he stays in school). [The Times (London), 11-6-01]
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Sex in Small Places
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the right of privacy that people normally get while attending to traditional functions in a public restroom does not apply if you’re fornicating (especially since the parties were 14 and 17, respectively, at Rockdale County High School). And the sheriff in Syracuse, N.Y., reported that a female inmate had been impregnated by her husband-inmate during one of the few “contact” visits they were allowed, at which deputies gaze into the room every 2 minutes, which, said the couple, was about 90 seconds longer than it took them to take care of business. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11-6-01] [Syracuse Post-Standard, 11-7-01] [Link is to the Syracuse story.]
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Below the Fold for Thursday
Britain’s Ministry of Defense, after 50 yrs worth of investigations, said it no longer wants to be in the loop on extraterrestrial-sighting reports.
Treavor Harvey, 34 and 270 lbs. and president of a Sarasota, Fla., group that helps steer at-risk kids away from crime (and coach of a football team of 7-yr-olds), was arrested for slugging a referee in the head in a dispute over the officiating.
[Source: The Guardian, 11-3-01; Fox News, 11-7-01]
Was Dr. Sharpe Crazy or Just Insane?
Jury selection continues today in Lawrence, Mass. (and on Court TV) in the trial of Dr. Richard Sharpe, accused of shooting his wife to death in July 2000 in front of witnesses, and notable for his penchant for cross-dressing (and using his wife’s birth control pills to make his breasts grow and getting rid of most of his body hair). He had been treated for various mental illnesses (which is not necessarily a marker for the “insanity” that the law requires for acquittal). [Boston Globe, 11-5-01]
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Latest from the F State
How lucky in timing is Mitchell Monteverdi, whose case finally went to trial yesterday in Tampa? In letters mailed in February 2000, he allegedly threatened a judge and a reporter with death by anthrax, and now, oh, yeah, he’s got a great chance at a fair trial. And in the Katherine Harris’s parents’ estate case [Weird Planet Daily, 10-1-01], a judge ruled on Friday that there was not “even a scintilla of credible evidence” to support the position of Harris and her mother that Harris’s uncle was scamming them. And a 41-yr-old pastor was arrested for sexual battery on a 13-yr-old girl, and what a set-up this is: Father Derrick Moseley has a “home church,” focuses his ministry on children, and often holds sleepovers. [Tampa Tribune, 11-5-01] [Tampa Tribune, 11-3-01] [Tampa Tribune, 11-4-01]
Uncreative Sentencing
Dyersburg, Tenn., judge Lee Moore sentenced thief-arsonist David Lowery, 25, to 11 yrs of house arrest (only work and church as reasons for leaving) (rather than 3 yrs in the slammer). “[Y]ou’ve gone as far as the court [will let you] go,” said the judge, unnecessarily. [Knoxville News-Sentinel, 11-5-01]
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Another Toilet Explosion
In Dublin last week, Judge Liam Devally ruled for the plumber in an insurance company’s lawsuit to be reimbursed for payouts associated with a toilet that somehow “exploded” in the Cuckoo’s Nest pub while Dierdre O’Farrell was sitting on it (although there was testimony that she did like many women and just hovered over it, holding herself above the seat with her hands). O’Farrell had allegedly admitted that she used makeup blusher to touch up her butt bruises to make them look worse for the insurance company photographer. [Irish Independent, 11-2-01]
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Below the Fold for Wednesday
In Alexandria, Va., Asher Levin, 31, was convicted of homicide for punching his daughter, 3, to death last yr; a neighbor testified that Levin said he did it in self-defense, that the 33-lb. kid came after him with a plastic keyboard and it “was either her or me, I wasn’t going to get hurt.”
The gov’t of India has proposed to issue a laminated ID for every resident of the provinces that border on Bangladesh, to keep down immigration problems; actually, the proposal is for cards for resident cows, to keep down smuggling problems, and the cards would be attached to their ears.
[Sources: Washington Post, 11-2-01; Times of India, 11-5-01]
Editor's Notes (Wednesday, November 7, 2001)
* From devoted reader Kurt Hoffmaster: "What happened to NOTW? I missed it for a few weeks and when I came back the set up is different, the categories are different, the introduction to the stories at the beginning are not necessary and frankly, the writing, formerly concise and witty now simply sucks and appears to be catering to five year olds! I want the old NOTW back." [Ed.: . . . er, . . . oh, never mind.]
More Reasons Why Smoking Is Unhealthful
A Greyhound bus capsized about 50 miles south of Phoenix yesterday, injuring 33, when a passenger went nuts and fought the driver for control at 70 mph, owing to his frustration at not being able to smoke. [Wired-AP, 11-5-01]
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Another Story that Cat People Won't Like
Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti told London’s Daily Telegraph that the company had a project in the 1960s (“Acoustic Kitty”) in which a cat had batteries and wires surgically installed, with an antenna in the tail, so that it would transmit eavesdropped conversations back to a monitoring station. “They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry,” Marchetti said, “so they put another wire in override that.” The project was 5 yrs in development, and the first Kitty on the job was immediately run over by a taxicab. [Daily Telegraph, 11-4-01]
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The Best Revenge Isn't "Success"; It's "Sewage"
A court in Queensland, Australia, sentenced Vitek Boden, 49, to 2 yrs in prison for his payback to the local Maroochy Shire’s gov’t’s failure to hire him. He hacked into the town’s brand-new waste-disposal system and diverted millions of gallons of raw sewage to where it didn’t belong, including to the grounds of the Hyatt Regency hotel. [The Register, 10-31-01]
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F State High School Boy Seems Committed to that Dress
Michael Kuhne, 17, said he may not go back to Pine Ridge High in Deltona (halfway between Daytona and Orlando) because they suspended him last week for wearing a dress. He said he just felt like it, and his mom was cool about it, having loaned him the offending garment. [WFTV (Orlando), 11-1-01]
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This Explains Why They Can't Solve That Jon Benet Ramsey Thing
There’s a sheriff’s deputy wannabe loose in Boulder County, Colo., making traffic stops and lecturing motorists. His latest victim was Chuck Heidel, who fell for it big time. Only problem is that Chuck Heidel is himself a detective with the Boulder Police Dept. He only learned the guy was an imposter when he went to the sheriff’s office to complain that he was wrongly stopped. [Rocky Mountain News, 10-31-01]
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Letter-Hoarding Postal Carrier Gives Plausible Explanation
Postal worker Graham Fletcher, 25, was sentenced to only community service on Wednesday in Edinburgh, Scotland, on a plea-bargained charge of hoarding 2 items (reduced from 696). He said he was doing fine until he decided to surprise his wife at a ladies-night-out but found her newting a guy out back against a Ford van. He then wandered around, sank into depression, and stole mail as a “cry for help.” [The Scotsman, 11-1-01]
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Updates
The Pentagon Friday decided to change the color of the food packages we drop from airplanes over Afghanistan from yellow to blue, so as to be distinguished from the cluster bombs we drop from airplanes, which will remain yellow (see Weird Planet Daily, 10-31-01). [Ed.: Yr Ed is sad to realize he’ll never be able to hear the actual inside, high-level Pentagon discussion of that issue.] And the Icelandic Phallological Museum, mentioned in News of the Weird 607 (9-24-99) as a storehouse of unusual clintons of the animal community, has a website so that you no longer have to fly to Reykjavik: www.mh.is/vefir/phallus/index.htm (Message for you to cut and paste, if you need it: Dear Supervisor: Please allow Mr./Ms. [fill in your name] to view this site while at work, in the serious pursuit of scholarship. Sincerely, Chuck Shepherd, Editor, News of the Weird.) And also on 10-31-01, Yr Ed reported on Pennsylvania’s Mr. Kenneth Wells, hosed for 12 yrs for fatal gunplay during sex, and we now learn of a 37-yr-old man in Helsinki getting 5 yrs on the same day for the same thing! [Nandotimes.net-AP, 11-2-01] [Reuters, 10-30-01]
Oliver Jovanovic Freed; Served Only 20 Months for Nothing
NYC prosecutors dismissed all charges Thursday against the S’er who roughed up the 20-yr-old M’er who had met him for an explicit S&M date in 1996 and who was subsequently convicted of assault based on her testimony (and who served 20 months in prison before an appeals court slam-dunk granted him a new trial). The original judge, William A. Wetzel, had misread the state’s rape shield law to say that the woman’s explicit e-mail invitations for him to do those things to her could not be introduced as evidence, and now that they would be appearing in the retrial, the “victim” said, Oh, never mind. Further dismaying: The celebrated chief of the city’s sex-crimes unit, Linda Fairstein, was apparently down with this prosecution from day one. [New York Times, 11-2-01]
Below the Fold for Monday
Officials in Lanzhou, China, exercising the Chinese gift for subtlety, announced the reason why they had shuttered the recently-opened Bin Laden’s Beef Noodles restaurant was that the owner had an “unhealthy understanding of business culture.”
Update: Kerry Anne Koop reached a settlement with the Ministry of Child Protection (Kelowna, British Columbia) whereby she can keep her kids and the 16 ft. Burmese python, but there are safeguards (e.g., 2 adults present when child is around the snake).
Recurring: A full-fledged, but brief, radiation alert kicked in at a landfill in northern New Mexico when a Las Vegas garbage truck delivered “human waste” from a cancer patient undergoing radiation treatment.
A wedding reception in Hydaburg, Alaska, turned into a brawl when one of the womenfolk accidentally walked in on one of the menfolk in a restroom, fully exposed; offense was taken, and punches and WWF-style chairshots were freely given until cops arrived.
[Sources: Los Angeles Times-AP, 11-4-01; Victoria Times Colonist-CP, 11-2-01; Albuquerque Journal, 11-2-01; Anchorage Daily News, 11-2-01]
©
2001, Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
