Colorado Man Finds a Clinton* in His Fruit Punch
Juan Sanchez-Marchez, 41, was halfway through a 20-oz. Ora Potency Fruit Punch when he noticed what turned out to be a cleanly-whacked-off, 3-inch-long human schlong in the bottle, and the investigating police officer in Commerce City (adjacent to Denver on the north) says Sanchez-Marchez is “very credible.” The drink is dark red, and at first, the label obscured the contents. DNA tests will be run to try to locate the body it belongs to. [*—In sympathy with the federal Communications Decency Act, this website uses certain euphemisms in place of offensive words; if you don’t like that policy, go Newt yourself.] [Rocky Mountain News, 9-29-01]
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Lost Soldier Turns Up in El Salvador After 32 Years
Another of those guys who enlist in wartime and then don’t much keep up with the news turned up in the jungle (in either Guatemala or his native El Salvador), surprised that the 1969 war (El Salvador invading Honduras) ended about 100 days after it started. Salomon Vides, 72, was further driven into hiding because he often heard gunfire over the years, but rescuers noted that he was living off berries in an area populated by hunters. Reporters said Vides looked authentically out of the loop, for example, having a tough time with the concept of a pop-top soda can. [Washington Post, 9-28-01]
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The Latest from India
(1) India may be in a major world hot spot this week, but the Health Ministry forges on, announcing a research project to measure the clintons (length and width at full erection) of a cross-section of the population (er, men only) to learn if there are regional differences so as better to understand condom-breakage rates. (2) A sort-of-health institute in Jaipur told The Indian Express (Bombay) about its dazzling array of urine- and cow-dung- based products as palliatives for nearly everything (or actually, everything, according to 3 doctors), most notably kidney problems, skin diseases, and cancers. The most provocative claim: Coat your roof with cow dung to ward off nuclear radiation. [Sources: Indian Express (9-29-01); Indian Express (9-28-01)] [This Link is to the first story]
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This Link
is to the second story from The Latest from India.
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Below the Fold for Sunday (September 30, 2001)
Katherine Norfolk, 19, and her parents filed a lawsuit for about $250G against Hurstpierpoint College (West Sussex, England), claiming it did not instruct her properly in Latin, causing her to screw up on exams and not get accepted at Oxford, ruining her career and “earning” power (such as a Latin major can expect).
Actress Jenna Elfman announced she was funding a Church of Scientology mission in San Francisco (as Lisa Marie Presley and Isaac Hayes have in Memphis and Kirstie Alley has in Wichita, Kan.).
A Snohomish County, Wash., jury convicted former cult leader (the Gatekeepers) Chris Turgeon and an empty-headed follower of murder; they’re already serving 80 yrs on other charges, but none of the convictions matters, in that Turgeon says the world will end on 3-22-04, anyway, so he largely got to commit free crimes.
One of the several troupes of erotic Japanese female wrestlers (e.g., Nippon Catfight League) has affiliated, somewhat, with the notorious Tokyo Shock Boys (whose performances feature, e.g., lighted firecrackers exploding in their orenthals*, bricks tied to their clintons*”), which will eventually make the World Wrestling Federation look like 2 guys in Mayberry playing checkers.
[Sources: London Daily Telegraph (9-30-01); Yahoo-AP (9-29-01); Seattle Times (9-29-01); Mainichi Daily News (9-29-01)]
O.J. Readies for Trial Again
Miami-Dade prosecutors are pessimistic that the O.J. Simpson road-rage charges will be settled before trial, which is expected to be a bear just in finding a jury unbiased against the defendant (jury selection starts 10-9-01). He’s accused of reaching into a guy’s car, grabbing his glasses, and scratching him, on the ground that the guy’s driving made him fearful for the safety of little Sydney and Justin (well, little Justin, anyway), riding in his own vehicle. (The victim said it was O.J. who was the bad driver, not him.) Yr Ed says anybody who pisses O.J. Simpson off and comes away with only a scratch should be deliriously thankful. Simpson faces 16 yrs in prison, but prosecutors say they are seeking only to send him to anger-mgmt class, the futility of which right there is enough to pull the plug on this waste of resources. [Miami Herald, 9-29-01]
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More from the F State
(1) Broward County prosecutors announced that no charges will be filed in the notorious 1997 land deal vote by the county commission that seems straight out of a Carl Hiaasen novel. Developer Michael Swerdlow wanted to sell 270 acres east of Fort Lauderdale Int’l Airport; it was appraised at $24M; it was then (bogus-)appraised at $68M; Swerdlow said his price was $120M, take it or leave it; the commission voted 4-3 to pay $120M. Prosecutors said just a bad deal, and the bad commissioners have been voted out, but no crime. (2) Patrick Charge, 48, was killed in Holly Hill when his car accidentally rammed the back of a flatbed truck during his escape from a hit-and-run accident 4 blocks away. [Sources: Miami Herald (9-29-01), Tampa Tribune-AP (9-28-01)] [Link is to the first story]
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Canadian Judge: Voluntary, Sincere Confession Tossed Out
A provincial judge in Halifax ruled that Brenda Young’s signed statement that she cheated the gov’t out of $70,000 Cdn in welfare benefits could not be used against her, in that she was actually “coerced” into making it. The coercion? A welfare worker had told her that they were onto her, and, according to the judge, she felt that unless she confessed, her benefits would be cut off. [Ed.: “Cut off” also describes what the judge then did to the rest of the analysis that would flow from his last point.] [National Post, 9-29-01]
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People with Issues
Archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura, who confessed last yr to planting fake relics at two ancient sites in Japan, has now confessed, from a hospital bed, of having phonied up 20 more sites, thus sending the entire Japanese archaeological mission into a tizzy. We don’t yet know Fujimura’s precise reasoning for all of this, or whether he continued to do it after getting caught the first time, but aren’t people in Japan supposed to take The Only Way Out when they get caught at something like this? [Mainichi Daily News, 9-29-01]
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Theft with an Attitude, in Fort Smith
The less-interesting part of the story is that Mark Toon, 24, was arrested Wednesday and charged with breaking into the Van Alma Tire Center in Fort Smith, Ark., and stealing a couple of things and that the police didn’t have to work hard on the case because Toon dropped his wallet at the scene. But, according to police, someone (they think it was Toon, also) urinated on the outside of the shop’s front window and then rested his buttocks against it, leaving two sets of what police described as buttocks-shaped prints on the glass. (Also, Toon’s middle name is Wayne, but Yr Ed only collects murderers.) [Southwest Times Record, 9-27-01]
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The Maharishi Speaks
From physicist Robert L. Park’s newsletter What’s New (9-28-01): At a National Press Club (Washington, D.C.) conference Friday (9-28), physicist John Hagelin (Natural Party presidential candidate) told reporters that right now, 40,000 Yogic Flyers are training in India to “generate a powerful, scientifically-proven unified consciousness field” that will give permanent world peace. Then came a live satellite message from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (“in a rambling, at times incoherent speech”), warning: “President Bush doesn’t know science. He’s uneducated, ignorant, and following the path of failure. The solution is with me.” [WhatsNew@aps.org]
Below the Fold for Saturday (September 29, 2001)
Mike Melham (Lawn Shop Services, Medicine Hat, Alberta) successfully lobbied the city planning commissioners to let him store a big pile of manure on his property; he handed them bags of the treated stuff to demonstrate how (relatively) odorless it is.
Kansas state Sen. Kay O’Connor told the Kansas City Star that, deep down, she’s against women voting: “[I]f men were taking care of women [as they should], we wouldn’t have to vote.”
Christopher W. Willis, jailed in July in St. Charles County, Mo., on a minor charge, was quickly released and a check for $8 cut for him to account for the $8 cash he handed over on his way in; he was back in jail in August after altering the check to read “$98" and cashing it (and leaving his fingerprints).
Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum said a CT scan was performed Thursday to learn more about the mummified body of an overweight 19th century woman that had turned almost entirely into soap (actually, adipocere).
[Sources: National Post (9-29-01); Kansas City Star (9-28-01); St. Louis Post-Dispatch (9-28-01); Wired-AP (9-28-01)]
Japanese Cult Member Spared Prison for Letting Dad Mummify
A judge in Chiba today found Kenji Kobayashi guilty of negligence in the deterioration death of his father in 1999, but then gave him only a suspended 30-month sentence, citing the son’s innocent intentions. Kenji is a member of the Life Space cult, which believes in the Shakty Pat method of medical care, in which the patient’s head is patted (irrespective of the illness) to deliver healing power, but that proved no match for the old man’s brain hemorrhage. Kenji testified that he was confident his father would recover, even after the body had started to mummify. [Daily Mainichi, 9-28-01]
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While the Generals and the Mullahs Confer, Afghanistan Makes Plans for Cricket
Afghan cricket officials asked Pakistan on Wednesday if its teams could compete in next month’s Quaid-e-Azam Trophy tournament, and the Pakistanis agreed. Afghanistan’s national sport, however, is buzkashi, in which teams of horsemen battle over a goat carcass, a game that the Reuters reporter described thusly: “To the casual observer, it appears to have few rules.” [Excite-Reuters, 9-27-01]
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F-State Sex News
A judge in Orlando ruled yesterday that Joseph Nichols, now serving 5 yrs for squirting schoolgirls with his semen-loaded water gun (and then snapping their photographs) must be tracked by GPS for up to 15 yrs when he gets out. And Broward County officials are debating whether to re-lock up Felipe Pichardo soon, after he is released from his 18-yr prison term for a rape; the state can send him through post-sentence sex-offender confinement, but that might cost up to half a million bucks, or it can deport him to the Dominican Republic at no cost, which he would gladly accept, but as alarmed as the F State gets over these sex cases, the Broward County people aren’t sure which path to follow. [Orlando Sentinel, 9-27-01] [Miami Herald, 9-28-01] [the Link is to the latter case]
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Below the Fold for Friday (September 28, 2001)
John Yount was arrested and jailed in Meadville, Pa., on Wednesday, just as he was about to say “I do” to Kim Schreckengost in front of a marrying judge; seems Kim’s domestic-abuse stayaway order against John was still in force, and Meadville police take those things seriously.
It’s tough to be a dog in Scotland, as Sam the West Highland terrier may soon discover; a district judge in Aberdeen sentenced him (the pet of Mr. William Shaw, 56) to walk that last mile for repeatedly violating the court’s no-bark order.
An inquest was held yesterday in Harrogate, North Yorks, England, in the death of a 14-yr-old girl who had fainted at the gross photographs in FHM magazine’s supplement, The Carnival of the Grotesque, fallen, and hit her head on a concrete piling.
[Sources: Meadville Tribune (9-27-01); London Daily Telegraph (9-28-01); London Daily Telegraph (9-28-01)]
Editor's Notes (Friday, September 28, 2001)
* Yet another technical problem on this website was discovered yesterday (and fixed yesterday), but it is possible that those using the Submit News page to send Yr Ed stories during the past two weeks had their messages eaten somewhere. A few messages got through, but I did not become suspicious at the low volume because I was assuming readers were merely in a post-Sept. 11 funk. If you went to the trouble of sending me news that I failed to receive at all, I am so sorry, both for disappointing you and for myself, for not having the benefit of your help.
Editor's Notes (Thursday, September 27, 2001)
Click the link at the bottom of the paragraph to get to today’s news, but here are a few of Yr Ed’s thoughts on where we are now, weirdnewswise:
* With strained news holes (even those theoretically unlimited news holes online have limits, if only based on the energy of the editors to produce and format the copy), editors are still leaving much Ordinary Weird News on the city room floor. It’s almost like the old days BB (Before Bobbitt), when the vast majority of daily newspapers didn’t think their readers were looking for Weird News. The world has not become less weird in the last 2 weeks; it’s simply that editors have made it harder for me to inform you of how weird it continues to be.
* On the other hand, alarmist voices on the few days after September 11 were clearly wrong: This is not the “end of irony.” As the unassailable reactions of “grief” and “courage” gradually subside in the public’s mind, to be replaced by the simplistic reactions of jingoism and religious superiority, irony and its first cousin, cynicism, will come oozing back. On to the news:
Hapless Cities: Lynn (Mass.)
According to a Boston Globe report today, the waters off Lynn’s half-mile shoreline in an Atlantic Ocean bay just west of the Nahant causeway have (for 100 yrs) formed huge masses of a rare algae found nowhere else, and which will grow nowhere else, and which grows in such quantity (a “pudding,” according to one report) that when it washes on shore and decomposes, the stench grosses out everyone for blocks around, every single summer, and despite much work by some of the nation’s most renowned phycologists on how to get rid of it, the algae always wins. The latest idea: a gigantic vacuum cleaner. [Boston Globe, 9-27-01]
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Much Ado About the Latest Anna Nicole Smith Ruling
Yr Ed is on the job and says don’t be fooled by the headlines. A California bankruptcy judge yesterday said he would set aside one earlier anti-Smith order of a Texas court: the one that had Smith paying her stepson’s legal fees in their battle over her late hubby’s estate. But apparently still standing is the same Texas court’s original award to her of $474M from the potentially $2B estate. Anyway, a federal district judge in California (thought to be more sympathetic to the stepson) still has jurisdiction as of now, but there are many miles to go in this journey unless the parties settle. [Dallas Morning News, 9-27-01]
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More Things to Worry About in the Post-Sept. 11 World
Israeli security forces got all fertoutsed over what they feared was a suicide parachuter from Jordan, landing near the airport in the town of Eilat on Tuesday. It turned out to be Rabbi Shimon Eizenbach carrying out a pre-Yom Kippur ritual of kapparot, floating down in an ultralite while holding a hen in one cage (to atone for women) and a rooster in another (for men). He didn’t get shot down, and, according to him, the town is now blessed. [Jerusalem Post, 9-26-01]
Somewhere, Lyle Lovett and Ron Wood Are Stroking Their Chins
According to an Agence France-Presse wire story in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, rock “star” Zang Tianshuo, 37, has won about $2,800 in a defamation lawsuit against two websites that ranked him among China’s ugliest singers. [South China Morning Post, 9-26-01]
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Below the Fold for Thursday (September 27, 2001)
A Washington Post obituary yesterday informed us that Joseph B. Slowinski, 38, passed away 2 weeks ago in Myanmar, of the bite of one of those “2-step” krait snakes (so deadly that that’s about all a victim can muster after having been bitten); since Dr. Slowinski was a world-renowned herpetologist, his obit had to be titled, respectfully, “expert” snake-handler. [Washington Post, 9-26-01]
Surprise! Can't Grab Your Crotch in Utah
The state Supreme Court overturned a Court of Appeals ruling yesterday and said a 15-yr-old boy was properly convicted when he lewdly grabbed his (clothed) crotch and gestured to a woman in a convenience store parking lot. The lower court had found it not so offensive [cf. Roseanne, Madonna, Michael Jackson] and said, besides, it might be “expressive symbolic speech.” One high court dissenter said he had a solution to the whole dilemma: send the case back to trial for a clarification on whether the kid’s action amounted to illegal “public masturbation.” [Salt Lake Tribune, 9-26-01]
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Disgruntled Ex-Husband to Turn State's Evidence (as a Woman)
Add Janet Cote to the list of spouses for whom it might have paid off to have been a little nicer in her divorce. She’s a Miami-Dade police dispatcher who got temporary disability in 1999 from falling over a chair, but apparently it was a scam, with the knowledge of her then-husband, Florida City police Capt. Scott Cote. Well, now, they’re divorcing, and prosecutors who had earlier brought charges against Janet for the scam (after an investigator followed her around during her “disability”) were delighted to entertain Scott’s offer to testify against her. And then Scott walked in in a pantsuit, bare midriff, heels, makeup, and perfume, and announced he is Stacey, ABV [all but vaginoplasty]. Prosecutors think the out-of-the-closet change will enhance her credibility. [Miami Herald, 9-26-01]
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Procreation Advice: The Stranger, the Better
Cambridge University researchers told New Scientist that the more genetically distinct the partners in mating, the more prolific they and their offspring are. Unfortunately for science, the sample was limited to grey seals, pilot whales, and albatrosses. [NewScientist.com, 9-24-01]
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Recent Questionable News
Yr Ed didn’t like these stories but feels an obligation to mention them, lest you think he’s not on the ball; for the record, however, they don’t meet my criteria, sourcewise (which doesn’t mean they didn’t happen):
The moderate-circulation Spanish-language newspaper Reforma of Mexico City reported that the mayor of the town of Apatzingan (about an inch below Guadalajara in my atlas) had not been hearing “Afghanistan” clearly on the radio and thus sent a letter to President Bush begging him not to attack his town, swearing that it had no role in the events of September 11; the news report has now run worldwide on the Agence France-Presse wire. [Reforma, 9-16-01]
And another of those odd reinsurance ventures of Goodfellows in London showed up in the Sunday Mail: For a $350 annual premium, Claire Roe, 24, has bought $170,000 worth of protection against declining beauty after her upcoming childbirth. [9-23-01]
Below the Fold for Wednesday (September 26, 2001)
The New Mexico Corrections Dept., gearing for its first execution in 41 yrs, turned to the experts for know-how: It announced it was putting the whole thing in the hands of 2 guys it had just hired from the Texas system.
Lucson Aladin, 32, was arrested Sunday by Stamford, Conn., police when his voodoo ritual of setting fire to his evil-spirited teddy bear in his backyard got out of hand.
The Reuters wire ran a courageous story yesterday, that a female metalworker had won $1,300 in damages from her employer, Usinagem RPM (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), because her boss had repeatedly called her a “dumb blonde” in front of everybody.
Sources: [Dallas Morning News, 9-26-01] [Boston Globe-AP, 9-25-01] [Japan Today-Reuters, 9-26-01]
The 5-Yr-Old Kid with Gender-Identity Disorder Doing Fine
The world may still be stunned at how someone so young can have been so confidently diagnosed, but a report yesterday said the former Westerville, Ohio, boy (now age 7), whose parents started to dress him up as a girl last year, is now living elsewhere with foster parents as a boy and doing okay. [Cincinnati Enquirer, 9-24-01]
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Endangered Species Act Didn't Kill Washington Firefighters
Contrary to earlier suggestions, even though the ES Act did cause firefighters to refrain from loading helicopter buckets with river water for 2 hrs, that delay was not the cause of 4 firefighters’ deaths in a Cascade Mountains fire this summer. The Forest Service report, due out this week, says the cause was the failure of water pumps that would have produced 10x the amount of water that helicopters could have ferried to help the trapped firefighters. [Arizona Republic-AP, 9-24-01]
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Unclear on the Concept
Rev. Rob Taylor has been pastor of St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Streetsboro, Ohio, for a year, during which time he has also been a munitions systems specialist in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, and now he has been called up, and now, all of a sudden, this bomb-versus-love thing is a conflict for him, according to an Associated Press dispatch. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel-AP, 9-24-01]
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Something Else That's Not a Good Idea Just Now
Pat Turner’s planned “Crash Café” restaurant, for Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, has been deep-6'd. He had planned a huge DC-3 tail section over the front door, with continuous videos and sounds of train wrecks and buildings imploding. Originally, the idea was for the public “to indulge their undeniable fascination with the destructive, erotic nature of crashing [o]bjects,” according to Turner’s website. [tbo.com-AP, 9-24-01]
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America's Sense of Higher Purpose Hasn't Trickled Down to Prattville Yet
Police in Prattville, Ala., arrested Jonathan Brown, 27, and charged him with shooting his brother, Demetric AnTwone Brown, 20, because he didn’t like the way Demetric had taken care of his dog. [Montgomery Advertiser, 9-21-01]
Below the Fold for Tuesday (September 25, 2001)
Rev. William Michael Poole, 51, a Carpentersville, Ill., Pentecostal minister, was sentenced to probation and 30 hrs community service for approaching 2 teenage girls and asking them for travel directions while he was absolutely butt-naked. [Chicago Tribune, 9-22-01]
150 pro-America demonstrators marched and chanted yesterday at the U. of California-Berkeley’s Sproul Hall, birthplace of the free speech and antiwar movement in the early 1960s. [Excite-Reuters, 9-25-01]
A hearing began yesterday before the Canadian Transportation Agency on whether overweight airline passengers have the right to buy adjacent seats for the price of one if they suffer from morbid obesity as a “disability”; the plaintiff said she was confined to one seat in a 1997 flight and got roughed up by food carts. [National Post, 9-25-01]
Cumulative Thank Yous for the Week
Albert Clawson, Lance Spangler, Taylor Mack, Raghav Singh, Bob Speed, Leslie Goodman-Malamuth, Andre May, John Cieciel, Leigh Ann Newman, Nathan Herman, Roger Gulbransen, Eliot Salant, Chris Atwell, Joe Littrell, Paul Music, Linda Welsh, Ellen McCullough, Jonathan Eisenberg, Dan Bohlen, Boyd Campbell, and the News of the Weird Senior Advisors and Chief Correspondents.
The Man Who Trains Yaks for the Circus
A Baltimore Sun dispatch from Moscow reported on circus trainer Vitaly Tikhonov, whose specialty is yaks that waltz, jump through flaming hoops, and carry bears on their backs. “American circuses dazzle with razzmatazz,” wrote the Sun, but in Russia, “a man and his idea triumph,” for instance, the trained porcupines, the bear that does tricks while holding a rooster, the dog that carries a cat on its back, and the tiger that drives a motorcycle. Tikhonov says it takes a year to train a yak, and about $1,400/month in food (versus Tikhonov’s own salary of about $175/month). [sfgate.com-Baltimore Sun, 9-23-01]
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About that Impending Showcase for Anarchy: Never Mind
The 37 anarchists who had intended to fight charges arising out of their violent demonstrations on May 1 in Long Beach, Calif., by turning their trials into a theater of political harangues, have all of a sudden begun quietly pleading guilty. Said one defense attorney, the community might not be ready at this time for a trial in which America and its police officers are ridiculed and called brutal enemies (but about a half-dozen hard-core defendants haven’t conceded yet). [Los Angeles Times, 9-22-01]
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Speeding and Licenseless, She's Still Not Responsible for a Fatal Accident
A jury in Guildhall, Vt., found Kristin Breen, 16, not guilty of all charges stemming from losing control of her car, causing a crash, killing a passenger. She was 15 at the time, had no license, was driving 70 mph in a 60 zone. The parents of the dead girl went nuts at the verdict. [Boston Globe-AP, 9-23-01]
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Below the Fold for Monday (September 24, 2001)
The least-up-on-current-events travel agent in Pakistan (working for Princely Travel of Karachi) was fired on Thursday for blithely accepting a prank airline reservation in the name of “Osama bin Laden” from Karachi to Islamabad on Friday. [Excite-Reuters, 9-21-01]
And speaking of Evil, police in Tampa arrested Randolph Standifer, 21, and charged him with the rape and mutilation of a 9-month-old girl (whom he left for dead in the woods, but she was found in time by searching police); he was an acquaintance of the family, but, said the baby’s grandmother, “Something about him wasn’t right.” [Tampa Tribune, 9-23-01]
©
2001, Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
