News of the Weird

-- The devastation of Kosovo this year by Serbian forces also disrupted another part of some Kosovars' lives: their extensive international crime network, which, according to a May report by the San Francisco Chronicle, "dominated" the narcotics business in Europe. The Kosovar network has now been supplanted by more vicious Albanian crime organizations, sometimes in conjunction with Sicilian Mafia families just across the Adriatic Sea, supported by a corrupt Albanian parliament. In March, the Albanian crime "boss of bosses" was arrested in Milan, Italy, en route as an Albanian diplomat to an International Crime Tribunal meeting in France.

-- In April, the Great Floridian Marker Program's deadline was extended again, to September, because it is far short of its millennial goal to officially recognize the 2,000 all-time greatest Floridians. Though the program has been in operation for more than a year, municipalities have nominated so few people (170) that program personnel may finally be realizing that there simply have never been 2,000 great Floridians.

In January, officials in Chelyabinsk, Russia, imposed a 5-ruble (about 20 cents) monthly tax on domestic dogs, based on their use of electricity and water. And in May, the owner of the Letostrui antiques shop in Sofia, Bulgaria, told reporters he hoped for a quick end to the bombing in neighboring Yugoslavia so that his missile debris (from NATO misfires that hit Bulgaria) would retain its high value and not be diluted by further debris from more NATO misfires. And a May Knight-Ridder News Service dispatch reported that Chile has covered for its lagging copper business with such dynamic exports as disposable diapers made from swamp moss and aftershave lotion made from snail slime.

-- More than 2,300 people were reported kidnapped in Colombia in 1998 in what are called "fishing expeditions," in which almost random groups of people are abducted until the captors sort out who is valuable and who isn't, according to a June Chicago Tribune story. Kidnapping is such a fact of life in Colombia that the format of one Bogota radio station is almost exclusively messages for kidnap victims from their relatives.

-- Artists wielded chainsaws in March in Samchok, South Korea, for the traditional anglers' Male Root Carving Competition. Celebratory penises up to 9 feet long are fashioned from pine logs along a waterfront to commemorate the time, 400 years ago, when a sailor died on a fishing trip and left a forlorn virgin on the shore. The phalluses are an attempt to appease her spirit and are dumped in the water after the event. Proclamation was led this year by the current mayor of Samchok, whose actual name is Kim Il Dong.

-- In India, 600,000 "untouchables" continue their miserable existence despite pledges by the government for the last 50 years to improve their lives, according to an April report in the London Observer. Members of the country's lowest caste empty dry latrines for a living, and anyone of a higher caste who even accidentally touches a so-called "scavenger" must undergo a ritual purification. A Delhi organization has liberated 40,000 scavengers over the past decade, mostly upgrading them to janitors.

-- Among the more controversial of the recent decrees of the Afghanistan fundamentalist Taliban government was to term a traditional Gurbuz tribe pastime as un-Islamic "gambling." In the game, two men tap eggs together, and the one whose egg breaks is the loser. In January, when Taliban soldiers tried to break up a game in the city of Khost, the tribesmen resisted, and in a standoff, five soldiers and seven tribesmen were killed.

-- In April, William Whitfield, 34, won about $185,000 (U.S.) from a Calgary, Alberta, judge for injuries he suffered when motorist David Calhoun smashed into his brand-new truck in 1990. Among the crash's consequences, according to medical testimony, was Whitfield's acquired desire, still unsubsided to this day despite electroshock therapy, to kill Calhoun in retaliation. According to the judge, Calhoun failed to testify at the trial out of fear of Whitfield, who has told his lawyer that he intends to kill Calhoun and then himself.

-- Ten U.S. representatives this decade gave absolute pledges not to serve more than eight years in office, and six are keeping their promises. Of the other four (including Republicans Scott McInnis of Colorado and George Nethercutt of Washington and Democrat Marty Meehan of Massachusetts), the best promise-voiding explanation was by Republican Tillie Fowler, elected from Jacksonville, Fla., in 1992 under the slogan "Eight (years) Is Enough." Fowler said in December 1998 that she might run in the year 2000 anyway, because "my problem was, I was too honest (when I made the pledge)."

-- Roy Hopkins, 32, speaking to a Toronto Star reporter in March about having recently stepped forward to admit to a 1995 murder for which another man had wrongly been serving a life sentence: "I may be a criminal, and I may be a thief, and I may be a robber, but I ain't a low-life."

-- Charles Ng, who was convicted in February in Orange County, Calif., of 11 torture-murders in a spree during 1984-85, claimed at his sentencing hearing in April that it was really his late buddy Leonard Lake who masterminded the killings and that he, Ng, had what a psychiatrist called a dependent personality disorder that made him too docile and compliant. Ng was so "docile" that he fled to Canada and skillfully fought extradition for six years after the killings and since 1991 has used numerous delay tactics, including firing several of his lawyers and suing three of them, to avoid going to trial.

In 1992 News of the Weird reported that a Cornell University researcher had developed an artificial dog (heated using cows' blood) to breed the 12,000 fleas a day he required for shipping to pharmaceutical companies to test flea and tick remedies. (The dog replaced 25 real dogs, which were probably quite relieved.) A June 1999 New York Times report finds that the now-semi-retired researcher, Dr. Jay Georgi, mainly sells the artificial dogs (whose efficiency is now as great as that of 104 real dogs), but does keep a small population of fleas on hand for small orders and emergencies. Dr. Georgi claims to retain his fascination with fleas: "I'm very fond of them."

In February, the mayor of Carsonville, Mich. (population 583), hanged himself in his tool shed three days before a contentious recall election, provoked by objections to his bill-paying lapses and violations of open-meetings laws. And in March in Tokyo, a 58-year-old executive, upset at Bridgestone Tire Co.'s large-scale (and for Japan, unusual) downsizing, which included a request that he accept early retirement, committed ritual hara-kiri with a 14-inch fish-slicing knife in a company conference room.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679, or Weird@compuserve.com.)

-- An April Associated Press dispatch extolled the dedication of Sierra Madre, Calif., garbage aficionado Kevin Inciyaki, age 9, who, according to his parents, has been into trash since he was 2 and whose family vacation snapshots (to Sea World, etc.) always feature him inspecting local trash cans. He follows garbage trucks on their routes and has recently begun raising garbage-eating worms, under the supervision of UCLA researcher Eugene Tseng, who apparently is a lot like Kevin, proclaiming that garbage is "one of the most fun things you can possibly imagine."

-- According to a May San Francisco Chronicle report, the 2,000 Transcendental Meditation adherents of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who moved to Fairfield, Iowa, several years ago have recently been clashing with the 8,000 townies over whether homes and businesses need to be rebuilt to face east so that, according to TM principles, the residents will lead more fulfilling, harmonious lives. (Sunrise produces energy; sunset produces lethargy.) TM people hold two of the city council's seven positions.

The latest person to shoot himself for perfectly understandable personal reasons: Henry Shepherd, 27, Cambridgeshire, England, who blasted his knee off with a shotgun in May to end the pain of a workplace injury. Said his brother, Lee: "He told me ... he'd rather have a stump (than the pain). The knee injury was ruining his life."

In May, former Marla Maples publicist Chuck Jones was convicted in New York City of burglarizing her apartment to get dozens of pairs of her shoes (with many of which he admitted to having a personal sexual relationship). And in March in Singapore, Zainal Mohamed Esa, 43, was jailed for stealing women's shoes, which he would sniff (according to his lawyer) "until the smell runs out."

In Athens, Ala., in May, Freamon Holt Jr., 29, was charged with theft after a lengthy chase that began when Holt fled on foot across a Kroger store parking lot carrying two steaks he did not pay for. Holt then jumped on a bicycle and rode away, but soon crashed into a utility pole, briefly knocking himself unconscious. However, he came to and fled again, and in a move characterized by a local newspaper writer as the final "leg" of his "triathlon" escape, Holt jumped into Town Creek, but a firefighter caught up to him after a short swim.

-- In April, Jay Monfort bowed to an imminent court ruling and took down the 4-foot-high wire fence he had erected on his property to protect his office in the town of Fishkill, N.Y., from a nest of deadly timber rattlesnakes 260 feet away. According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the timber rattler is endangered, and Monfort's fence "would block the snakes from their usual places to hunt, bask in the sun and reproduce, and would probably cause them 'physiological stress.'"

-- In February, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 95-5 to approve a bill urging federal recognition of the Rappahannock Indian tribe and seven others, but not before several unidentified members of the House began accompanying the debate with imitation tom-tom beats on their desks. Rappahannock representatives were in the gallery and were not amused.

-- Government Seeks Strippers: With an April help-wanted ad in the Palm Beach Post, the Florida labor department sought exotic dancers (7 p.m.-3 a.m., 40 hours a week, $11 per hour) to work at a club in Stuart, Fla. (When faced with work requests by immigrants, states are required by federal law to ascertain whether any domestic workers are available; if there are none, the immigrant qualifies for a federal work visa.) Meanwhile, according to an April report in the Windsor (Ontario) Star, the Canadian government has drastically reduced the number of Eastern European strippers allowed to work in the country, despite a chronic shortage of local strippers.

-- Another Endangered Species: According to a March London Daily Telegraph dispatch, the Brazilian government recently awarded a lone hermit tribesman a 96-square-kilometer personal preserve, off-limits to civilization, in the northwest part of the country near the Bolivian border. Loggers, ranchers and farmers in the area protested because of the impact on their livelihoods. A government team had tracked the hermit down in August 1998 to let him know of the planned preserve, but he resisted and in fact fired an arrow at them.

-- Tacky Officials: In February, prosecutors in Austin, Texas, filed a misdemeanor trespass charge against Judge Steve Mansfield of the state Court of Criminal Appeals, claiming that Judge Mansfield illegally tried to sell two tickets to the Texas-Texas A&M football game in November, was given a warning by Texas campus police, and then tried it again a few minutes later. And in March, a judge in Frederica, Del., fined Mayor Ira R. Glanden III $100 after he admitted in court to taking newspapers several mornings from the front of Greenley's Market before it opened.

-- In March, the federal government's auditor, the General Accounting Office, blasted the financial management of the Internal Revenue Service, with the lead investigator telling a congressional committee, "The IRS cannot do some of the basic accounting and record-keeping tasks that it expects Americans to do," including keeping proper paperwork. On the other hand, among the tax delinquents in the federal government, according to a May IRS report, are 7 percent of the Clinton White House staff (with an almost equal number of White Housers so far behind in tax payments that they have to pay in installments). A White House official said it had just sent out a memo reminding the staff to pay their taxes.

-- In 1997, a car belonging to Michel Emond, 36, was confiscated by the Quebec government's automobile insurance board based on alleged overdue fines, but a mistake had been made, and the board agreed to reimburse Mr. Emond's expenses. However, Emond got tired of waiting for the check, and in March 1999 took advantage of a provision in Quebec law and filed a document that permitted him to legally seize the board's headquarters in Quebec City (value, about $33 million (U.S.)) until the debt was paid. The next day (13 months after agreeing to do so), the board paid up.

Latest Spectacular Industrial Fatalities: A 35-year-old man died when 21 panes of glass crashed on him at a construction site (West Palm Beach, Fla., Feb.). And two railroad workers were killed when a loaded boxcar fell on them (Hamtramck, Mich., March). And two bin cleaners were killed when they were buried under an avalanche of corn in a grain elevator (Juniata, Neb., Apr.).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679, or Weird@compuserve.com.)

-- Jose Lopezes in the Operating Room: In May, Sr. Jose Maria Lopez, 33, had a foot amputated at Whittier (Calif.) Hospital Medical Center. He still has two remaining; what was taken was a 6-inch, footlike growth inside his left ankle that has always hampered his walking and limited his shoe selection. And a few days earlier, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, surgeons removed a miniature bottle from the rectum of a Sr. Jose Lopez, 43. He said he got drunk and passed out and thus has no idea how the bottle got there.

-- No More Inhumane Punishment: In May, controversial Phoenix tough-guy sheriff Joe Arpaio announced he would institute bedtime stories at the Maricopa County jails, consisting of audiotapes of classic novels (e.g., "Little Women") to be read at lights-out every night. The novels replace the previous bedtime fare, which ran for four years: a videotaped lecture series by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

-- According to an April Tampa Tribune story, the following fates have befallen young men who in recent years have recovered the submerged, religiously blessed cross in annual diving competitions during the Epiphany festival in Tarpon Springs, Fla.: One died in a car accident; one suffered a severe spinal injury; one was arrested on burglary charges; and, this year, according to police, two former winners and a third diver were charged with attempted murder for bashing two people's skulls with shovels because their car was going too slow.

-- In Montreal, Quebec, in December, convicted serial killer Allan Legere announced through his lawyer that he had increased the amount of his 1994 lawsuit against the prison for its failure to stop inmates from beating him up. Legere is serving life for five murders, including the rape and torture killings of three women and the beating death of a Catholic priest. One witness against Legere said she once remarked to him, "You like to torture," whereupon Legere allegedly responded, "Yes, I do."

-- In the election campaign of 1998, Fred Morgan, the new Republican leader in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, personally embraced the party's proposal for reforming motor vehicle regulation, including cracking down on residents who drive with out-of-state license plates; in December, Morgan admitted that the car in his parking space at the capitol, with the Arkansas tag, was his (but that he would register it in Oklahoma as soon as his late mother's probate got taken care of). And in February, Katrina Clark, the director of housing code enforcement for the city of Boston, was evicted from her apartment for failure to pay more than $3,500 in rent and for reneging on her repayment plan.

-- In a brawl at a recreation league softball game in Granada Hills, Calif., in March, which started after an umpire changed a call from safe to out, four off-duty Los Angeles police officers on one of the teams were roughed up with softball bats. Things went so bad for the officers that one ran to his car, retrieved his weapon, and held the other team at bay until on-duty officers arrived.

-- Ester Maria Pena, 58, was convicted and fined $100 in Frederick County, Md., in March for a 1998 traffic incident in which police chased her at high speeds for four miles and arrested her at gunpoint. According to police, Pena had sped off after they tried to pull her over for driving too slow.

-- In March, London's second-largest newspaper, the Sun, reported that 70 pages of medical records of Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family were found in a folder, lying on the side of a road near the southwest Scotland town of Ayr.

-- In January, following his transfer from a maximum-security prison to a minimum-security facility in British Columbia, convicted murderer Colin Thatcher persuaded warden Ron Wiebe to let him ship his horse to the prison so he could get in some riding. Wiebe told reporters the prison has in the past helped inmates prepare for post-release careers in ranching, but Thatcher, 60, is serving a life sentence for killing his ex-wife.

-- Prominent New York City chef (and TV cooking-show star) David Ruggerio pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in March for inflating at least 26 credit-card transactions at his Manhattan restaurant. According to the prosecutor, Ruggerio apparently thought he could add tips of $221,000 to credit-card dinner tabs totaling $4,000 (including one $30,000 tip on a $1,000 check) and not have the cardholders notice it.

The Classic Middle Name (continued, and getting out of hand): Executed for murder, in Florence, Ariz., in May: Robert Wayne Vickers. Convicted of murder, in Frederick, Md., in March: Bruce Wayne Koenig and in Lenexa, Kan., in May, Rodney Wayne Henry. Confessed to murder, in Fort Worth, Texas, in March: Arthur Wayne Goodman, Jr. Sentenced for murder, in Prattville, Ala., in May: Timothy Wayne Barnett. Charged with murder, in Birmingham, Ala., in May: Percy Wayne Froman, and in Houston in April: Bradley Wayne Cagle.

According to a report from New York's Newsday in April, the judge in the Abner Louima trial (in which a New York City police officer ultimately pleaded guilty to brutalizing a Haitian immigrant) permitted juror No. 299 to remain on the panel despite an objection by a defense lawyer that she had been seen reading the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News in the jury lounge (main story, "Woman Pregnant With Mummy's Baby"). After questioning the woman on whether she liked "weird stories," the judge let the matter pass.

-- In incidents one week apart in April, in Morristown, N.J., and Bloomfield Township, Mich., construction workers became trapped in sand pits, and in both cases, quick-thinking co-workers attempted to pull them out with backhoes. In both cases, the backhoe operators accidentally decapitated the workers.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com.)