News of the Weird

-- Murderer Joe Labriola, serving a life sentence at Massachusetts' Norfolk prison, told the Boston Globe in August that he would very soon legally register an inmates' political action committee to dispense money to candidates and give the incarcerated a stronger voice in state elections. (Prisoners can vote in Massachusetts.) Said Labriola, "In the '70s, we thought we could make change (on prisoner issues) with violence," but now "we can make changes by using the vote."

-- An August Associated Press retrospective on legendary Liberian Joshua Milton Blahyi, 25, caught him roaming Monrovia in a suit and tie, preaching for his Soul-Winning Evangelistic Ministry. However, for the previous several years, he was the country's most famous, fearless and vicious warrior, widely known because he and the battalion he headed waged war in the nude, and hence his moniker, Gen. Butt Naked. He says his transformation occurred one day in 1996 when he was standing nude on the front lines waiting to kill some people, and God told him to stop. (However, putting on clothes was Blahyi's own idea, he said.)

-- Recent Adulterated-Food Lawsuits: For a spider in a breakfast at a Belle Vernon, Pa., Denny's restaurant (April), the customer received a $1,500 settlement; for a human fingertip in deli ham at a Tampa, Fla., Publix supermarket (May), a jury awarded $13,000; for a cockroach in the collard greens at an Orangeburg, S.C., KFC (June), a jury awarded $607,500. On the other hand, a judge in San Luis Obispo, Calif., ruled in March that the mouse in Richard Lang's McDonald's hot apple pie had been inserted after the sale, and also in March, highly regarded scientist Michael Zanakis, 43, was indicted in Brooklyn, N.Y., for extortion for allegedly planting a rat's tail in his son's McDonald's Happy Meal and demanding $5 million.

-- Perennial Kentucky candidate Thurman Jerome Hamlin, 73, has lost races for governor and the U.S. Senate and House and several other offices without complaining of injustice. In May, however, he filed a federal class-action employment-discrimination lawsuit against the University of Kentucky because it failed to interview him recently when the position of men's basketball coach became available.

-- Misa Teresaka, 32, filed a lawsuit for about $130,000 in July against the Discovery Bay health club in Hong Kong and her personal trainer Li Ching for injuries she suffered in 1995. She said the trainer encouraged her to continue to lift weights despite severe back aches and that the pain is now so bad that her career prospects are diminished because she can no longer bow.

-- In February in Montreal, the Sisters of Our Lady of Good Counsel, an order of nuns in Chicoutimi, Quebec, filed a lawsuit against the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, an order of nuns in Quebec City, over a $30 million (Cdn) investment dispute about a shopping center.

-- Steven Weisblat of New City, N.Y., filed a lawsuit against a recently married Armenian-American couple in Hackensack, N.J., in April for various injuries incurred while he was a guest at their wedding. According to the lawsuit, as tradition, the groom was tossed into the air by dancers, but they were inebriated and tossed him too far, and he landed on Weisblat, who wasn't even on the dance floor at the time.

-- James Van Gorder, 31, filed a lawsuit in August against the Parkway Chiropractic Center in Detroit for negligence during his recent treatment for back pain. According to Van Gorder, the chiropractor had him take off his clothes and lie face down on the two-part examining table. The way he was lying, his genitals fell between the parts, and when the chiropractor adjusted the table, Van Gorder got caught. He claims extreme pain, suffering, disfigurement and loss of sexual desire.

-- In June, to publicize the fact that it would soon resume bulk trash pickups (suspended for several months because of budget problems), the District of Columbia Department of Public Works paid to make TV public service announcements demonstrating that its crews were at work. However, according to the Washington Business Journal, fresh bulk trash (appliances, sofas, etc.) was brought in, at additional cost, to give the ads the proper look, despite the fact that residents had a huge backlog of the same items that they were perfectly willing to put out on the curb for free.

-- In March, an abandoned, severely cannibalized 1974 Dodge Dart, which had been sitting on the side of U.S. 68 near Wilmore, Ky., since 1988, was finally removed. During that time, the state government and Jessamine County each relentlessly argued that removing it was the other's responsibility.

-- In July, the Nova Scotia Gaming Control Commission formally banned the popular charity fund-raiser "cow patty bingo," in which a promoter marks a field into squares, takes bets, and then releases a recently fed cow to "select" a winning square. The commission believed the game could be rigged by training a cow to use a particular spot in the field. The next day, incoming Nova Scotia Premier Russell MacLellan said the ban could be ignored. That same week, the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County, Calif., announced that a similar fund-raiser for the imminent Gilroy garlic festival, based on the famous Clydesdale horses' two-mile march through town, could not be held because it violated the state gambling law.

-- The San Jose Mercury News reported in March on some working models of the Defense Department's tiny flying machines ("micro air vehicles"), no larger than birds, including one helicopter that could fit inside a peanut shell, that are suited for tasks such as locating hostages in occupied buildings, sniffing out poisonous chemicals, and finding enemy snipers. Each micro air vehicle carries cameras, sensors, transmitters and antennas.

-- A February New York Daily News story detailed what NYPD procedures require when a squad car needs a new tire. The officer must fill out a Tire Replacement Request form and send it to the Tire Integrity Unit, go pick up a tire at a city vehicle maintenance facility, take it to a city-approved vendor to have it put on, take the old tire back to the police garage, and have the precinct commander sign the Tire Replacement Request form certifying that the new tire is actually on the car. In 1995, the last year for which figures were available, NYPD salaries during tire-changing was nearly $500,000.

-- News of the Weird Themes, Recently Updated: Latest incident of a dog stepping on a gun and causing it to discharge and shoot the dog's owner, in Tacoma, Wash., in July; latest emphysema patient to die when he lit a cigarette and accidentally ignited his oxygen supply, in La Habra, Calif., in July; latest arson charges to be brought against a firefighter allegedly just trying to get some overtime pay, in Weiser, Iowa, in July; latest fatal beatings in Africa of so-called sorcerers who are suspected of making men's penises shrink or vanish with a mere handshake, in Dakar, Senegal, in August.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)

-- The New York Post reported in June that New York state has provided about 25 free organ-transplant operations (costing taxpayers about $1 million) for illegal aliens during the 18 months since Gov. Pataki promised to end the practice. State officials cited by the Post said they knew of "dozens" of cases over the years in which foreigners flew into the city, applied for Medicaid, received the expensive transplant surgery (including sex changes), and then flew home.

-- Life Imitates a Simon & Garfunkel Song: In May, according to a call taken by a Madison, Wis., police officer, a 26-year-old man phoned 911 to report that when he returned from a bathroom visit in the middle of the night, a stranger wearing only boxer shorts had taken his place in bed. The man turned out to be a very intoxicated 22-year-old student from DePere, Wis.

-- In December, at least 2,000 workers at a Sanyo Universal Electric company plant in Bangkok burned down the eight-story headquarters building along with the factory, warehouse, and inventory of refrigerators and TV sets. The workers were upset that they would receive a bonus of only three months' wages, which is generous by Thai standards but still only about half of last year's bonus.

-- In June, three environmental activists from Greenpeace set up a 12-foot-by-6-foot survival station atop a narrow, barren, 65-foot-high rock called Rockall, 290 miles off the coast of Scotland, and vowed to remain there until the British government stops oil exploration in the Atlantic Ocean. In Rockall-area storms, waves often reach heights of 90 feet and more.

-- Items Recently Thrown in Protest: A live pig, thrown into the office of the Massachusetts Bar Association in Boston in February to protest the legal profession; rotting bison entrails at Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in March in Gardiner, Mont., by a man protesting the thinning of the bison herd; about $4,000 worth of money by a man in front of city hall in Seoul, South Korea, in May, to protest corrupt politicians; and bags of excrement and rocks, hurled by Ultra-Orthodox Jews at other Jews in Jerusalem in June, to protest mixed-gender praying.

-- A January New York Times story reported on the limited success so far in eliminating, in some parts of Ghana, the practice of giving a virgin daughter to a priest in order to atone for some sin of the girl's family. One example cited was a 12-year-old girl, the product of a rape, given to the local priest by the rapist as a slave (sexual and otherwise) in order to appease spirits who otherwise would treat the rapist and his family harshly. If the sin is severe, the family must provide girls for several generations.

-- In April, Premier Lien Chan of Taiwan ordered a crackdown on the national craze of public betel-nut chewing, which he said was responsible for mouth cancer, slimy sidewalks when they are spit out, and immorality, in that they are mostly sold by young, underdressed women at sidewalk stands. The betel nut is reportedly a mild stimulant and is slightly more expensive than a cigarette.

-- The Washington Post reported in May that some tribes in Yemen routinely kidnap tourists and hold them for days, though treating them well, regaling them with propaganda, and ultimately offering them to the government in exchange for political concessions, such as new road construction. Said the speaker of the Yemen parliament, "Kidnapping is part of tourism. [The] tourist will end up learning about the customs of the tribes, as well as their good hospitality."

-- A May report in the Jakarta Post described the daily rush of ill people to the home of Cecilia Subini and her husband Florentinus Suparmo in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in order to be therapeutically licked and nuzzled by their bull Joko Andhini. Thousands believe in the power of Joko's body, saliva and urine (which some rub on their skin and others drink) to cure such maladies as incontinence, arthritis, strokes, rashes, diabetes and cancer. And an Associated Press dispatch from Hyderabad, India, in June touted the success of the sardine-and-herb asthma treatment that hundreds of thousands travel for, to the Goud family home, on the one astrologically auspicious day of the year for swallowing the fish.

-- In January, despite increasing worldwide condemnation of so-called female circumcision in certain areas of Africa, an organization called the Bondo Society (described in a Reuters news report as a "powerful women's secret society") in Freetown, Sierra Leone, arranged for the unanesthetized clitoral removals from about 600 girls in a homeless persons' labor camp.

-- According to New York City police in May, Sidonia Williams tried to open a Lord & Taylor charge account by flashing a piece of U.S. currency in the amount of $1 million. There is no such denomination. Hers was created by pasting 0's onto a $1 bill and running it through a color copier. She cheerfully pointed out that she had 194 more just like it in her bag and insisted to the federal magistrate that she had committed no crime.

-- Steven Richard King, 22, was arrested in April for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch in Modesto, Calif., without a weapon. He used his thumb and finger to simulate a gun, but unlike most robbers who use this tactic, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket while doing it. The teller, realizing he had nothing to fear, merely walked away. King got tired of waiting and walked away, too, but police caught him nearby.

-- Robert A. Jackson, 17, and another man were arrested in July and charged with robbing a St. Peters, Mo., convenience store and a Citgo gas station. According to police, after the first robbery, Jackson couldn't get his getaway car started and so apologized to the clerk and gave the money back in exchange for a jump-start. The clerk started the car, then called police, who were in the area looking for Jackson when he allegedly pulled the second job.

-- Reginald Hunter, 43, was arrested in June and charged with robbing a convenience store in York, Pa., at 3 a.m. When the clerk told police the man's footwear consisted of flip-flops, police surmised he might live nearby. Sure enough, Hunter lives a few doors down from the store.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)

-- The Times of London reported in July on an 86-year-old woman living without electricity in her Sheffield, England, home for 20 years because she had interpreted a power failure in 1977 as her being dropped as a customer. It turns out that Yorkshire Electric Co. had only accidentally failed to hook her back up, but she said she was too embarrassed by her low utility use to ask if there had been a mistake. For years, neighbors thought the woman preferred to live by candlelight.

-- A Washington Post report in March on prison corruption in Mexico revealed that drug traffickers supposedly under maximum security actually have "spacious rooms, cooks and maids, cellular phones, a gymnasium, a sauna, and manicured gardens where they host barbecues," among other things. And in May, The New York Times revealed that a federal jail in Brooklyn has been run as a "Mafia social club," where family business "sit-downs" featured smuggled-in meatballs, manicotti, vodka and wine. And in May, imprisoned Gangster Disciple leader Larry Hoover was convicted in Chicago of running a vast prison drug operation in which he typically issued memos and gave orders by cellular phone while wearing $400 alligator boots and eating specially prepared food in his cell.

-- Union News: In July, a Teamsters local in Oakland, Calif., protested Mills College's use of goats to clear brush on its land. Since the union has a contract with Mills, a Teamsters official said the college should either replace the goats with its members, or unionize the goats. And in June, The New York Times reported that the union representing office cleaners gives worse treatment to the workers who clean its own New York City headquarters offices than it gives to any other office cleaners. The union's own cleaners have no right to grievance procedures regarding wages, discipline or firing.

-- In April off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., the Coast Guard managed to rescue 16 people from a 40-foot yacht that began to sink while a commercial porno movie was being shot on board. Among the rescued was the veteran star Nina Hartley.

-- Maria Soto, 42, of Silver Spring, Md., was charged in April with practicing dentistry without a license based on a complaint from a patient who was referred to her because she was "cheap." According to the complaint, Soto extracted the wrong tooth from the man, and on yet another visit, she said a tooth was too big for his mouth, removed it, filed it down, and put it back it with Krazy Glue.

-- Student Jaimie Rising of Indiana University of Pennsylvania filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in March against Prof. Gordon Thornton for his behavior in his psychology of death course. According to the lawsuit, Thornton asked in class whether any student had ever kissed a dead person, and Rising said she had kissed her father when he died, an action which Thornton then described aloud as "disgusting and gross." Thornton allegedly continued, asking Rising whether she had "stuck her tongue down her father's throat."

-- In May 1996, Marvin Bright was shot to death, reportedly by a co-worker near Nashville, Tenn. Since then, five women have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the alleged assailant, claiming they are the mothers of one each of Bright's five children. And in June, Glynn "Scotty" Wolfe, 88, reported to be the world's most often-married man, passed away in Redlands, Calif., but none of his 29 wives claimed the body, and only two weeks later did his son (from wife No. 14) do so.

-- Buenos Aires psychologist Federico Andahazi's first novel, about the discovery of the clitoris by a 16th-century Italian doctor, won a prestigious local literary prize last year, but when the sponsors canceled the award ceremony rather than honor such a controversial book, "The Anatomist" became a best seller. According to a May New York Times story, many Argentinians hope the book "will generate a new understanding of female sexuality," since male pleasure needs still predominate in that country.

-- During a March review of University of New Mexico Hospital expenses, the Board of Regents found that in 1996, a hemophiliac patient (a boy who has since died) received a genetically engineered blood-clotting medicine that cost $2.4 million over a three-month period. A hospital official explained that the clotting agent is so rare, they were unable to negotiate a volume discount. The university said it hoped Texas, where the boy lived, would pick up the tab.

-- Recent Medical No-No's: In May, a University of Maryland entomologist warned that people should not wear dog flea collars to ward off bugs, noting that human skin is far more sensitive to the ingredients than animal fur. And also in May, a doctor in Dublin, Ireland, writing in a British Medical Association journal, told of a golfer who developed hepatitis from the "agent orange" defoliant used by his golf course because he had the habit of licking his ball for good luck before each drive.

-- In May, the business school at the University of California at Berkeley appointed Ikujiro Nonaka to an endowed position (sponsored by $1 million from Xerox Corp. and its Japanese affiliate) as Distinguished Professor of Knowledge.

-- How to Tell If You're Too Rich: The Wall Street Journal reported in May on the growing market for designer clothing for the very young. One homemaker from Short Hills, N.J., reported spending $20,000 on clothes for her 2-year-old daughter. Among popular toddlers' items: a $250 Versace black motorcycle jacket and a $329 denim jacket-and-pants set from Moschino.

In Alabama, murderer Billy Wayne Waldrop was executed in January, and the next month, murderer Dudley Wayne Kyzer was turned down for parole. Two weeks later, murderer Coleman Wayne Gray was executed in Virginia. In May, murderer Larry Wayne White was executed in Texas. In July, Maryland inmate Richard Wayne Willoughby was sentenced to life in prison for killing another inmate. And once again this April 19, the nation was reminded that the Oklahoma City bombing date commemorated not only the seige at Waco, but the 1995 Arkansas execution of murderer and militia hero Richard Wayne Snell.

-- In May, News of the Weird mindlessly reported the conclusion of the editors of the journal Nature that the use of dog-hair DNA in a murder case was the first criminal-trial use of nonhuman DNA. Not only is that incorrect, but News of the Weird itself reported one such incident in 1995, in which two men were charged with cattle-rustling in Cocoa, Fla., based on matching the DNA of a calf with the DNA in an uncooked slab of pot roast from the calf's mother. A News of the Weird reader turned up an even earlier cattle-rustling case, in 1993 in Brownstown, Ill.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com. Chuck Shepherd's latest paperback, "The Concrete Enema and Other News of the Weird Classics," is now available at bookstores everywhere. To order it direct, call 1-800-642-6480 and mention this newspaper. The price is $6.95 plus $2 shipping.)