Loose Body Parts in the News
(I) Jack Wilke filed a lawsuit against the police in Reedsburg, Wis., not only because they treated his wife’s suicide as a standoff situation (and therefore couldn’t give her medical attention and perhaps save her life) but because, when he asked them for her personal effects back, they gave him only a box containing some internal organs. (II) As part of a wrongful firing lawsuit, it came to light in an allegation in Charleston, W.Va., this week that the remains of murder victim David Allen Williams (at least, the remains sent to his sister in 1998) were by mistake those of a deer; the sister says she wants compensation only for her $825 cremation expenses [but it is probable she hasn’t discussed the matter with a member of the bar association yet]. (III) For the second time in a week, baffled postal authorities in Brno, Czech Republic, intercepted (the aroma, you know) packages containing decaying body parts. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8-23-01] [WSAZ-TV, 8-23-01] [Reuters, 8-25-01]
America's First Dog Church
“Folk artist” Stephen Huneck recently opened a dog-themed place of worship in St. Johnsbury, Vt., a testament to the medically-recuperative importance dogs have played in his own life. The themes in the church’s bric-a-brac are all-dog, and its announcement on the sign outside is “All creeds, all breeds, no dogma.” [London Daily Telegraph, 8-26-01]
Story Link
Computer Games Get Rough
Thanet Sommoi, 22, collapsed and died of a heart attack in the middle of a computer-game competition in Bangkok. And Daniel Tan Thiam Soon, 21, was sentenced to 6 yrs in jail (plus 6 strokes) for stabbing a 16-yr-old boy who had just killed off his character in a public competition in Singapore. Same game in both incidents: Counterstrike. [The Times of India-AFP, 8-26-01] [The Straits Times, 8-25-01]
Below the Fold for Sunday
A Reuters report on Friday revealed that the Third Command criminal organization at a town near Rio de Janeiro had begun bar-coding its cocaine packets. [Reuters, 8-24-01]
The Crown Prince of Norway got hitched up to a woman who’s not only a commoner, but a party gal, former waitress, and single mom with a 4-yr-old urchin (but a woman who has now renounced her druggie past). [New York Times, 8-26-01]
James M. Jorritsma, 38, was taken down by customers very shortly after he knocked over the Dip N Sip coffee shop in Brockton, Mass., on Friday, according to police reports; he was reportedly limping from a broken bone in his leg before the robbery, and acquired a broken bone in his other leg during the scuffle. [Associated Press, 8-24-01]
Editor's Notes (Sunday, August 26, 2001)
The problems with Yr Ed’s CompuServe.com e-mail address get more acute every day. Inevitably, some messages will be lost on the box, so readers are requested to use either the Submit News screen on this website or Newsweird@aol.com until further notice. Thank you.
A "Common Guy" with "Forethought"
Ralph Eugene Christie, Jr., 40, was nailed with some drug and illegal-weapons charges in Salisbury, N.C., on Tuesday for his survivalist setup in which he buried an old bus beside the ponds behind his trailer home and had stocked it up in case the endgame came. Inside was a good-sized arsenal, and some furniture, and, of course, file cabinets. “I’m not crazy,” Christie said. “I’m just a common guy who has enough forethought to think about his future.” [Greensboro News & Record-AP, 8-24-01]
Story Link
Archbishop Milingo Appears on TV, Chooses Church over Wife
It wasn’t even a half-hour with Connie Chung, but at least the Zambian Catholic priest who married a Moonie woman in May did appear to be speaking for himself instead of through statements issued by his Vatican “hosts,” and he affirmed that, yes, he was solidly in the Church’s camp (and that he loved his wife, still, but only like a sister). The lovely bride, Maria Sung, was watching on TV with friends and press, and went nuts, assuring everyone that Emmanuel must have been drugged. Ms. Sung has attempted a personal meeting for days now, but according to Moonie representatives, the hangup is with the Vatican, which so trusts the father that it insists on having a representative in the room at all times. [New York Times-Reuters, 8-25-01]
Editor's Notes (Saturday, August 25, 2001)
* Beginning a new format for Weird Planet Daily, which is to run a few stories at the top and then dig into the rest of the Editor’s news and attitude:
* Today’s New York Times runs a story on an academic paper delivered yesterday in San Francisco concluding that spanking isn’t so bad as a parental tool and accompanies it with a photo of the author, Dr. Diana Baumrind, that surely demonstrates a synchronicity between conclusions and the face of the concluder. Oooough!
* An op-ed piece in the Times by mathematician John Allen Paulos makes a familiar point for him, that readers overattribute frequency to events that seem to dominate news, especially at down times like August (shark attacks, West Nile virus, air-rage incidents, land area burned by forest fires). He did not touch on the proliferation of murderers of the middle name Wayne.
More Editor's Notes (Saturday, August 25, 2001)
* Contrary to the Associated Press report (and Weird Central), it was apparently not the rap star Nelly who tried to get a 3,000-person entourage into a club last weekend in Missouri. Nelly’s real people said the club manager fell for it because he was not of the proper “generation” to have recognized Nelly. That applies to Yr Ed, also, in that on the night in question, Nelly was appearing in concert about 4 miles fm Yr Ed’s home.
* Weirdos sending news tips are still requested to mail, for the time being, to Newsweird@aol.com instead of the CompuServe address, because CompuServe either is not capable or unwilling to help trash all of the SirCam virus messages that get sent to me, which results in my mailbox filling up very quickly and thus some messages of yours being lost. (I reiterate: My computer and this website are clean, clean, clean. But my CompuServe address is one of the many being used as a target for the virus.)
New Scientist: Neighborhood Nuclear Reactors to Power Tokyo?
The cutting-edge Brit science magazine is reporting this week that researchers at Japan’s Central Research Institute of Electrical Power Industry are busy studying whether compact nuclear reactors (the size of a broom closet) could be used to provide electricity for blocks of office and apartment buildings. The Rapid-L reactor was originally designed to make electricity on the moon. Scientists are working on that “safety” thing that often comes up in discussion where nuclear reactors are mentioned. [newscientist.com, 8-22-01]
Story Link
Below the Fold for Friday
A leader in the Washington (D.C.) Muslim Public Affairs Council said an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday night by CBS reporter Bob Simon questioning a Palestinian suicide-bomber recruiter contained fast-and-loose “translations” from the recruiter’s Arabic; allegedly, “I have no trouble doing what I’m doing” became “If you become a martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives, and everlasting happiness.” [Tampa Tribune-Knight Ridder, 8-24-01]
.
First, the 30-yr-old man was walking around naked in Everett, Wash., just because he felt like it, according to police, and then when they asked him what he did for a living, he cheerfully told them that he grew marijuana, and would you like to see my stuff, and then when the police said they needed to confiscate the plants, he helped load them. [The Herald (Everett, Wash.), 8-23-01]
Asked for a comment Wednesday on the 27-yr-old animal-rights activist’s nearly-nude protest, squatting tiger-like in a cage, of a circus coming to Denver, a circus spokeswoman sagely said: “Just because she is naked doesn’t mean she is right.” [Denver Rocky Mountain News, 8-23-01]
Man Resists Arrest, Wielding Feeding Tube
After he allegedly threatened his brother and in-laws, police were called to Anthony, Fla. (a few miles north of Ocala and Silver Springs) to subdue an out-of-control William Garret Eamigh, 32, but their presence just infuriated him more, causing him to play his trump card: He ripped out his feeding tube (undisclosed illness) and sprayed deputies with whatever comes out of a feeding tube when you yank it out of your stomach. [Ocala Star-Banner] [Ed.: Yr Ed hates to release undated items, but the story is available, in undated form, on the Star-Banner website, and when I e-mailed the writer explicitly asking the date of his story, he wrote, “within the last two weeks.”]
Story Link
Below the Fold for Thursday
Fort Madison, Iowa, parents Casey Joe Wolf, 20, and Jackie Sue Stiles, were given nonprison sentences for a domestic-violence incident in which they literally had a tug-of-war, using their 6-week-old baby, for “several minutes” (according to a police report). [Des Moines Register-AP, 8-22-01]
Arrested for murder in Florence, Ala.: Donald Wayne Darling II; dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Dallas, Tex.: accused murderer David Wayne Outlaw [a 2-bagger!]. [Florence Times Daily, 8-21-01] [Austin American-Statesman-AP, 8-22-01]
The latest cognitively-challenged criminal to wander up to a police officer and inquire out of curiosity whether there were any warrants outstanding against him (and be told, after a computer check, why, yes, there is one, and you’re under arrest, etc.): Daniel Roy McMasters, 22, Morgantown, W.Va. [Morgantown Dominion Post, 8-22-01]
FBI Busts McDonald's Game; Readers Bust News of the Weird Server with Tips on Story
Who says Americans don’t read anymore? Eagle-eyed NOTW readers waded through the entire Associated Press story yesterday, all the way to the very bottom, wherein it was disclosed that one of the 8 people busted for ripping off the McDonald’s Monopoly game was Ms. Brenda S. Phenis, who hails from Fair Play, South Carolina. [Yr Ed genuinely, deeply appreciates help from readers but, being a solo operator, hasn’t time to type in the names of all who tipped the story.] [Washington Post-AP (and MSNBC, and Yahoo, etc., etc.), 8-21-01]
Tony Rodham Denies He Had Sex with That Woman
Sen. Clinton’s bottom-feeding brother Tony, identified in news reports as being in the act of sex when the cuckolded boyfriend burst in and started pummeling him [Weird Central, 8-21-01], told the New York Post that he and the woman “are just good friends” and that they happened to have fallen asleep together on the sofa. He also said he didn’t need brother Big Hugh’s help the second time the guy came around that night, that in fact Tony whipped the guy’s butt. [New York Post, 8-22-01]
Story Link
Below the Fold for Wednesday
As of Sunday, the Uniontown (Pa.) Herald-Standard had published 78 straight days of critical caricatures and editorials on state Rep. H. William DeWeese’s alleged lack of candor; the publisher said he would keep it up, but Yr Ed hasn’t been able to raise the website to check. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8-19-01]
East Haven, Conn., police arrested Jamie Ferrucci, 25, and charged him with staging a daring afternoon prison-type bust-out, in which he drove an old car through a locked 8-ft gate (the car was banged up pretty bad in the process) to rescue, who, his brother, his partner, no, his dog Rocky from a town shelter; he could have had Rocky back for $10, because authorities said they usually waive the accumulated fines ($240 in Rocky’s case). [New Haven Register, 8-21-01]
Peruvian laborer Eduardo Veliz, who sliced off his clinton last yr in a protest about lack of jobs (it was reattached), stood in front of the parliament building in Lima on Monday and cut off a testicle because the job he now has pays so little. [Toronto Star-Reuters, 8-21-01]
Rap star Nelly got turned away Saturday night from the Shooter’s 21 club in Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., when all he wanted to do was get his entourage inside for the club’s show; authorities estimated the entourage at 3,000 people (for a facility already “full” at about 2,000 people). [Columbus Dispatch-AP, 8-21-01]
It's Official in Alabama and Pennsylvania: Cuckolds Can't Beat Up Their Rivals
A state appeals court on Friday overturned a wayward judge out of rural Russell County, Ala., who had declared that jilted husbands could not be sued for beating up on their rivals (even with a lead pipe). “Hit a cad / Go to jail” is apparently the law in Pennsylvania, too, where, over the weekend, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s slightly-less-ne’er-do-well brother Tony was beaten up on by the fiancé of the woman Tony was nailing on a sofa at the Rodham summer cottage north of Philadelphia (the fiancé being hustled off to jail); Big Hugh Rodham, who was also in residence, had to come get the guy off of Tony (who had assumed the fetal position as the man kicked him). [Montgomery Advertiser-AP, 8-18-01] [New York Post, 8-21-01]
Story Link
This Link
is to the Rodham incident.
Story Link
Below the Fold for Tuesday
San Antonio, Tex., groom Harold Brown, 31, was arrested during the wedding reception after allegedly firing 4 shots at a guest who had brought along one guest too many. [KSAT-TV12 (San Antonio), 8-19-01]
Minutes after being honored as Webster (N.H.)’s oldest citizen, Florence Scott, 91, was run down by an out-of-control car and hospitalized in fair condition. [WMUR-TV (Manchester, N.H.), 8-20-01]
Hillsboro (Ore.) Chrysler Plymouth Jeep Warehouse agreed to pay $120G in fines to the state for having sold 7 high-end vehicles (each of them at over-sticker prices, according to the attorney general’s office) in one month to a man with Alzheimer’s (although the general manager swears, why, they had no idea they had sold him all these cars). [Cleveland Plain Dealer-AP, 8-20-01]
Mr. Chuay Kotchasit of Thamuang, Thailand, fed up with his Gov’t Savings Bank mutual fund that had lost 2/3 of its value recently, withdrew the balance in person last week, wearing a shirt on which he had smeared feces, presumably to make a point of some sort about how angry he was. [South China Morning Post, 8-19-01]
"But I'd Better Know It Was God Sayin' It"
That was the qualifier issued by Ray Moore, who lives next door to Fayette County (W.Va.)’s Pentecostal House of Prayer, when asked if he would participate in the church’s snake-handling regimen; “If the Lord asked me to,” Moore said he would. The occasion was a Charleston Daily Mail story on Friday reporting on the intensive-care status of Alfred “Pooch” Preast, who took one on the hand from a timber rattler. Pooch’s uncle was a snake-handling legend in the area, and Pooch’s brother said Pooch was just showing off for his new galfriend, who had brought along her camera to the service (despite her personal aversion, in that she was raised in a family of snake-handlers but had bailed out at age 17). [Charleston Daily Mail, 8-17-01]
Story Link
Evidence of the Full-Moon Effect
What’s a good sign that we’re in an August news lull? The Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification went back through 5 yrs of crime reports to see if it could lend credence to the ol’ full-moon theory of crime (i.e., there’s more; it’s stranger). Answer: Homicide/manslaughter 4X as likely on a full-moon day (the whole day, not just when the moon is out) as on another day; some other crimes up on full-moon days, some down. UBCI also found that domestic assaults were actually up a bit on Super Bowl Sunday and Mother’s Day. [Deseret News, 8-19-01]
Story Link
Another Self-Ordained Minister Loses in Court and Probably Can't Understand Why
A self-made “minister of God,” Richard Friesen, was convicted in Winnipeg, Man., on Friday of possessing 555 grams of marijuana, despite a spirited defense by a fellow minister, Edward Jay Robin Belanger. Friesen seemingly expected that Belanger would help his case, such as when Belanger ordered sheriff’s officers to arrest the judge in open court, and when Belanger proclaimed that since marijuana was a gift from God, Friesen must walk, and when Belanger told the judge, “As [I am] a minister of God, I don’t see how you have the power to stop me.” [Ed.: The judge found it easy.] [Winnipeg Free Press, 8-18-01]
Story Link
Below the Fold for Monday
A sheriff’s lab crew in West Bridgewater, Mass., managed to get a record of the fingerprints of suspected drug-dealer Francisco Sanchez, 21, despite the man’s having strategically bitten his fingertips bloody while waiting for the crew to arrive; a person’s prints go “pretty deep,” said an officer. [Boston Globe, 8-18-01]
An 18-yr-old man was killed last week in Lebanon, Ore., during a fast car ride (yes, Alcohol Was Involved); he had his head out the passenger window when the car passed too close to a trash bin. [Albany Democrat-Herald, 8-15-01]
Harold Gammon and his girlfriend were arrested at a cabin in Geff, Ill. (between Flora and Fairfield if you’re scoring at home), for running a meth lab; the point of arrest for Gammon came when he decided to surprise the little woman by returning to the cabin, sticking his head through a window, and proposing actual marriage, at which point the cops, who were already inside, cuffed him, too. [Arizona Republic-AP, 8-17-01]
Cumulative Weird Central Thank Yous for the Week
Lance Spangler, Paul Hirschfield, Lyle Mariam, Jan Lewis, Perry Levin, Shanna Ovenell, Stephanie Potter, Matthew Akers, Roger Weber, Scott Bernitt, B. Welkin, Yosef Kaner, Matt Burns, Kathie Foster, Matthew Neal, Jerry Levenson, Gary Weinheimer, Rich Maier, Jane Rosenthal, Bob Allender, Russell Hart, Leslie Goodman-Malamuth, Pat Humiston, Austin Wyatt, Boyd Campbell, Mike Birch, Lisa Haskell, Buck Childress, Jessica Thompson, Joe Littrell, Roger Strong, and the News of the Weird Senior Advisors and Chief Correspondents.
©
2001, Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
