News of the Weird

In an era of tight education budgets, one category of Texas school spending seems unrestrained, according to a May Houston Chronicle story: high school football stadiums. More than 20 new or planned facilities ("gridiron cathedrals") resemble those of professional teams, with luxury suites, plush locker rooms and weight rooms, or even climate-controlled indoor practice facilities. The $20 million stadium in Denton, Texas, which includes a $900,000, three-story scoreboard with instant replay, is barely better than the state-of-the-art fields in Waco, Southlake and Mesquite, but may not hold up to the $27 million facility in Round Rock. Critics bemoan the terribly misplaced priorities, but defenders say the stadiums may eventually pay for themselves and that construction bonds are more accessible than the tax money necessary to raise teacher salaries.

-- Russian "astrologist" Marina Bai has filed a lawsuit in the Presnensky district court in Moscow against the U.S. government's NASA, claiming that her business will be ruined if the agency is allowed, as planned, to crash a rocket into the Tempel 1 comet on July 4 to see what can be learned from the experience. Bai said the collision will "interfere with the natural life of the universe," which will in turn harm her "system of spiritual values," and she seeks 8.7 billion rubles (about US$311 million, which is the reported cost of the entire mission).

-- Rhonda Nichols, 40, filed a lawsuit in April against a Lowe's Home Center in Alton, Ill., seeking a minimum of $50,000 for injuries she says she suffered when a bird about the size of a pigeon flew against the back of her head while she was shopping in the store's outdoor gardening department. According to the lawsuit, the bird caused injuries to her head, brain, neck, muscles, bones, nerves, discs and ligaments, and led to the loss of neurological functions and cognitive skills. Said a Lowe's assistant manager, "It's an outside garden area. What are we supposed to do?"

-- The courts of Madison County, Ill. (near St. Louis), have a reputation in the legal community as friendly to plaintiffs who sue companies, and thus attorneys are eager to find lawsuits to file there. (Rhonda Nichols' lawsuit against Lowe's, above, is an example.) In 2002, lawyer Emert Wyss conceived a Madison County lawsuit on behalf of a client against a mortgage company for collecting what he thought were bogus fees on real estate transactions. Wyss' litigation stimulus (he received a referral fee and was part of the lawsuit) proved too clever: The litigation team strategically added a local title company as co-defendant, only to discover that the title company is owned by Emert Wyss. Thus, in a rush to litigate in Madison County, Wyss had actually sparked a lawsuit against himself. (He eventually withdrew from the team.)

-- In May, backhoe contractor and part-time sculptor Ricky Pearce created a 17-foot-high, 40-ton concrete figure of the legs of a reclining woman in a grassy lot between two churches in a quiet neighborhood in Henderson, N.C. The legs, bent at the knees, noticeably parted, and accompanied by landscaped foliage "strategically placed" (according to a report from WNCN-TV in Raleigh), are supposedly in tribute to Marilyn Monroe. Asked one neighbor, "Why do they (sic) just show the legs?"

-- The project Sleeping With the Enemy, at the Jack the Pelican Presents gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y., involves two gay Israeli artists (Gil and Moti) who have recently dated dozens of local Arab men and who announced in May that they are ready to select one of them to seduce, with the idea that their tryst take place at the gallery as a statement on defusing Arab-Israeli hostilities.

-- In May, at the annual spring auction at Christie's in New York City, Massachusetts artist Tom Friedman managed to sell a piece consisting of an ink squiggle on a 12-by-18-inch piece of white paper (described in the Christie's catalog as "starting an old dry pen on a piece of paper"). It was sold for $26,400, according to a Washington Post report. Friedman was less successful in offering a 2-foot white cube that contained, on one surface, a tiny speck of his own feces, for which he expected an opening bid of $45,000, but got no takers.

Computer repairman Dennis Avner of Guatay, Calif., is perhaps the world's most extreme variation of a "furrie" (a person who adopts the persona of an animal). Avner has tiger-stripe tattoos covering most of his body, dental implants sharpened to points to resemble tiger teeth, and metal-stud implants around his mouth to hold his long, plastic whiskers. He has had ear and lip surgery to make his head more cat-like and wears special contact lenses to make his eyes appear as ovals. He told the San Diego Union Tribune in May that Guatay folks are mostly tolerant of him but that he nonetheless has decided to relocate to Washington state.

(1) In April, a federal appeals court, following an in-depth hearing, turned down a challenge by the J.M. Smucker Co., which had unsuccessfully tried to patent its frozen Uncrustables sandwiches by claiming they are legally unique because the edges of the bread are pinched together to hold the peanut butter and jelly in. (The U.S. Patent Office had apparently realized that lots of mothers routinely make pb&j sandwiches in a similar manner.) (2) And in April, an arbitrator ruled that Painesville, Ohio, police officer Stuart Underwood could not be fired merely for having sex while on duty because he was on his break at the time and kept his radio on to listen for emergency calls.

(1) A man who decided to wear a Pluto dog mask to rob a Gordon's Mini Market in Cranberry, Pa. (near Pittsburgh), was unsuccessful, forced to flee empty-handed when the clerk could not bring himself to stop laughing at the disguise (March). (2) KPRC-TV in Houston reported in April that kidnappers broke into Nora Montoya's home, duct-taped her, and were ready to take her away, but apparently got scared and merely left a note at the scene demanding $2,000, promising to come back later to pick it up (but they didn't).

News of the Weird reported in 2000 and 2003 on the proposal for a space "elevator," which its champions believe will be a way to place missiles into orbit at about 5 percent of current cost. The elevator would be a 60,000-mile-high flexible shaft, tethered to Earth, made of super-strong "carbon nanotubes," allowing objects to be raised and lowered within it. Supporters believe development is progressing, even though the longest nanotube so far produced is about 5 feet long. In May 2005, Bremerton, Wash., entrepreneur Michael Laine announced he would open, as LiftPort Nanotech, a nine-person factory to make nanotubes in Millville, N.J., and pronounced the project on target on a 13-year timetable.

Thor J.S. Laufer, 42, charged with theft of tools and furnishings from several construction sites in Port Washington, Wis., in January, told a judge that he stole a wide range of items in order to disguise the fact that the only things he really wanted from the thefts were doorknobs. Police said he had dozens of them in what he called his personal collection. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1-19-05]

Recurring Themes: A 19-year-old man in San Jose, Calif., became one of the latest to pay the ultimate price for attempting to clear a jam in a wood chipper by stomping down on the debris with his foot (November). And Albania's most wanted criminal, Riza Malaj, fatally underestimated the length of fuse he would need while dynamite-fishing for trout near Tirana (April). And a Salem, Ala., man became the most recent to fatally miscalculate the danger in trying to steal copper wire from inside an electrical substation (March).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

The agency that oversees Spain's stock market announced that it will implement a rule starting in July to require each director of an exchange-listed company to disclose not just names of family members but of any other "affectionate relationship," straight or gay, that the director may have. The purpose is to help monitor insider trading. (Also, in Nanjing, China, municipal officials were ordered in May to disclose any extramarital affairs, as a way of reducing officials' payoffs to mistresses, according to Xinhua news agency.)

-- Aberdeen, Wash., fourth-grader Tyler Stoken was suspended in May for a week for balking, on a statewide test, at composing a short essay on what would happen if, one day at school, you "see your principal flying by a window." Tyler, reportedly a good student, said he thought any passage he wrote would be making fun of the principal, which he refused to do. The principal subsequently viewed that as insubordination (perhaps because it also lowered the school's overall score) and suspended Tyler, but the superintendent later apologized.

-- Official guidelines issued in May by Britain's Joint Council on Qualifications, directed to agencies that administer high school and junior-high standardized tests, call for students to receive extra points on the test if they have experienced pre-exam stress due to selected circumstances: death of a parent or close relative (up to 5 percent extra), death of other relative (up to 4 percent), death of pet (2 percent if on exam day, 1 percent if the day before), witnessing a distressing event on exam day (up to 3 percent), just-broken arm or leg (up to 3 percent), headache (1 percent).

-- Among the most striking federal government "pork" grants funded in November was $1.5 million for a new bus stop (several times more than the typical cost) in front of the Anchorage (Alaska) Museum of History and Art. To replace the current kiosk, the city's transportation director said he imagines a generous upgrade, including perhaps a heated sidewalk to deal with the snow: "We have a senator (Ted Stevens) who gave us that money, and I certainly won't want to appear ungrateful."

-- An undercover sheriff's deputy (whose name was not disclosed in a May news report) filed a lawsuit recently against the Florida Hospital in Orlando because, he said, when he went for a shot of pain medication in his hip in October 2000, he was injected instead with what appeared to be cosmetic makeup glitter. The deputy said a four-inch mass was removed and appeared to contain specks of green and red sparkle, and that pain at the site continues.

-- Police in Springfield, Ore., charged Pamela Ann Hemphill, 51, with theft in April after she allegedly snatched neighbor Walter Merritt's Charles Schulz-signed, original Peanuts cartoon strip, locked herself in a bathroom, removed her clothes, got under the shower, wet the cardboard thoroughly, and finally flushed the pieces down the toilet. Hemphill declined to explain; Merritt said he had no clue as to motive; and the Springfield News reporter has not yet followed up on the story.

(1) The Florida Supreme Court in March disbarred attorney David A. Barrett for violating the state's professional conduct code, including paying for an assistant to attend a chaplain's course at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital in order to offer prayers in the rooms of accident victims and solicit business for Barrett. (2) In County Cork, Ireland, in December, Dane Ring, 13, was suspended from school for two days after he ignored what schoolboys know is the cardinal rule of bodily functions, which is to never admit that you're the person, in a crowded room, who just passed gas.

-- (1) A man identified as David Connor (by Boston police) or Timothy Connor (by Providence, R.I., police) was arrested after allegedly robbing the Beacon Hill Wine and Spirits in Boston in April of about $1,000, and according to the surveillance video, he appeared to ask for a head start of "60 seconds" before police were called and then to shake the clerk's hand as if cementing the agreement. (2) In May, Jim Stelling, the Republican Party chairman in Seminole County, Fla., won a lawsuit for defamation against an intraparty official who had accused him of being married six times, which Stelling said he found particularly insulting, since he "believe(s) in family values." Stelling said he has been married only five times. (The judge ruled that Stelling was not defamed enough for money damages.)

-- Among official job-title changes implemented by the Scottsdale, Ariz., school district this year, according to a February Arizona Republic report, were those for receptionist (now, "director of first impressions") and school bus driver (now, "transporter of learners"). Said Superintendent John Baracy, "This is to make a statement about what we value in the district. We value learning." Said the new first-impressions director, "I think it's classy. Everyone wants to be important."

(1) In April, police in Buffalo, N.Y., said Thomas L. Hunter, 55, ran off with a case of brandy from the Eastside Liquor store, but during the getaway, he dropped the case, and bottles shattered. He was arrested when he returned to the scene of the spill and started sucking up brandy with a straw. (2) At a train station in Ogori, Japan, in May, a seeing-eye dog apparently misunderstood a spoken command and led a blind couple off of a platform and tumbling onto the tracks. The couple and the dog had been headed for a workshop for assistance dogs.

Four former patients of clinical psychologist Letitia Libman sued Delnor-Community Hospital in Geneva, Ill., in March and April for malpractice, including claims that Libman's hospital treatments for neurological disorders included tarot cards, love potions, DNA-based hexes, and patient nudity and self-mutilation. Libman also allegedly bragged of her travels among space aliens. In May, the lawsuits were amended to include Libman herself as a defendant, a move that the plaintiffs initially resisted because they feared Libman's witchy retribution.

-- Former caddie Gary Robinson recently filed a lawsuit against pro golfer Ms. Jackie Gallagher-Smith, claiming he was made an "unwitting sperm donor" in their brief romance since he believes it was he who fathered her child born in March. His lawsuit is for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which is the same claim that has been successful in the early stages of another lawsuit, reported in News of the Weird in March, in which a male doctor in Chicago sued a female doctor who had his child during their affair. (Gallagher-Smith maintained that her husband is the father, and DNA tests cannot be forced on a married woman in Gallagher-Smith's home state of Florida.)

-- Most of the seemingly inexhaustible telephone harassers reported in News of the Weird through the years have been Japanese men and woman, scorned in love or business, but American Timothy John Campbell, 45, was arrested in Atlantic, Iowa, in May and charged with stalking a woman by, among other tactics, telephoning her as many as 3,000 times a month. The victim was a waitress at a bar patronized by Campbell but said she ignored his overtures.

Police in Hackettstown, N.J., charged Juan Vargas, 29, with public intoxication at a Dunkin Donuts shop after spotting him speaking into his wallet as if it were a cell phone (February). And in Danbury, N.H., in March, Steven Metallic, 39, was arrested after a two-hour standoff in which he filled his mother's home with propane gas and threatened to blow it up. Metallic finally fell for a police ruse when they pretended to leave; officers who remained behind captured Metallic tiptoeing out of the house.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

Pastor Joe Van Koevering speaks reverently of the "precious Jewish people," whom "God loves," but a principal mission of his Gateway Christian Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., is to speed up the end of the world (and, thus, the deaths of nonbelievers) by financially helping to send as many Jews as possible "back home" to Israel. According to the Bible's Book of Revelation, the holy war that will bring the apocalypse will start only after Jews (of an indeterminate number) return to the holy land. According to a May St. Petersburg Times story, Van Koevering became tearful when speaking of the Jews that will be left behind to fight, and die, so that "true believers" can be taken away in the rapture.

-- The East Valley Tribune reported in April that the police department in Mesa, Ariz., was still awaiting word about its $100,000 federal grant request to buy and train a capuchin monkey for its SWAT team. Capuchins are now used as assistance animals for the disabled, in that they can be taught to fetch things off of shelves, and the police want to see if one can be trained to unlock doors and search buildings on command. The Pentagon's visionary research agency, DARPA, is considering the proposal.

-- More Bright Ideas: (1) The state government of Victoria in Australia recently approved allowing the new cemetery in Darlington to economize on space by burying bodies in upright positions. (2) A male inmate and a female inmate in a Turkish prison were given additional four-month sentences in February for destruction of property after they were convicted of having made a 4-inch hole in the wall separating their cells and using it to conceive a child (according to Istanbul's largest morning newspaper, Hurriyet).

-- A DUI suspect (unnamed in a March Toronto Sun report) put a handful of his own feces in his mouth in a police station in what officers said was an attempt to foil a Breathalyzer test. Said an official, "I don't think alcohol alone would make you do (that)." Nonetheless, said police, the man, who had been stopped on Highway 11 near Barrie, Ontario, still registered double the threshold for impairment.

-- After an investigative report by Orlando's WKMG-TV in April, a man who was hired by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last year to help Florida hurricane victims admitted that he bought an elderly woman's $1 million, Melbourne Beach oceanfront home from her for $250,000, but denied that he had taken advantage of her. Gary C. Jones, 62, who is a licensed real estate broker in Missouri but who works on contract for FEMA advising victims about home damage, said it was the woman who pushed for the sale because she was distressed by the $50,000 hurricane damage to the house.

-- Air Travel Blues: (1) In March, a woman suffered a midflight heart attack, leading the KLM pilot to emergency-land at Heathrow Airport in London, but she died before an ambulance could arrive. Six months earlier, Heathrow officials had eliminated costly standby ambulances, resulting in the woman's plane being met by a paramedic on a bicycle (which carried some emergency equipment but not nearly as much as an ambulance). (2) In a major incident on Feb. 11, security officers at Dublin International Airport "booted" (in Ireland, clamped) an ambulance at a terminal entrance, even though it was parked in an area reserved for emergency vehicles; a patient with serious injuries was delayed until paramedics paid cash to have the boot removed.

Gregory Withrow and an associate staged a two-man protest at the California state capitol in Sacramento in April against U.S. policies on Iraq and on immigration, and in favor of white supremacy, among other issues. The associate's role in the protest was to drive 6-inch nails into Withrow's hands on a cross as he stood as a martyr for six hours. Withrow had brought notes with him from a Butte County, Calif., health official (seemingly approving Withrow's plan to hurt himself) and from the Sacramento Parks Department (affirming that no permit was needed for such a protest).

Mr. Brij Dhir, a San Francisco law student and India-licensed attorney, recently filed a lawsuit against a northern California microbrewery for the "hate crime" of manufacturing Indica India Pale Ale with a label featuring the Hindu god Ganesh (a man with the head of an elephant) holding Indicas in one of his four hands and his trunk. In an attempt to accommodate Dhir, Lost Coast Brewery closed down the brand, but Dhir still wants at least $25,000 for his own indignation and said that $1 billion might be necessary to compensate Hindus for their trauma.

In 2002, Boston surgeon David Arndt had his license suspended after he left the operating room in the middle of a procedure in order to cash a check at a nearby bank. (Subsequently, Arndt was also charged with cocaine possession and sexual abuse of a minor.) In April 2005, prominent Boston plastic surgeon Joseph Upton stepped away from the operating room during a scheduled break in surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and walked down the street to Children's Hospital Boston to conduct another surgery that he had double-booked for the time, before returning to Beth Israel and satisfactorily finishing the first job. Both patients are fine, but Dr. Upton was ordered not to double-book in the future and not to leave the floor during surgeries.

News of the Weird last mentioned Bhutan, a kingdom nestled between India and Tibet, in 1999, when the country had just legalized television-watching (and following a New Yorker magazine travel feature describing Bhutan's countryside paintings of the nation's Buddhist icon, the penis. Because the sainted Lama Drupka Kinley supposedly used his penis to flail away at evil spirits, followers today regard it as a symbol of fertility and demon-resistance). A March 2005 BBC News dispatch reported that penis art is still in abundance on houses and stores en route from the airport to the capital city of Thimphu, but is beginning to grate on a new generation, especially young women.

Among the items cleared by senior Israeli rabbis as kosher for Passover this year, according to reports in the Jerusalem Post: (1) the erectile-dysfunction drug Viagra (provided the pill is placed in special gelatin capsules before Passover begins) and (2) dog food and cat food sold by KosherPets of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (approved by the Chicago Rabbinical Council to be kept in kosher homes during Passover week). [New York Times, 4-15-05] [Jerusalem Post, 4-12-05]

Ricardo Guzman, 48, pleaded guilty in October to having fatally shot his partner in crime, Roberto Ortiz, in a barroom argument over who was the better burglar (New York City). And in March, feng shui master Tneo Ho Seng, 50, died in a fire that started on a porch and, unluckily, burned down his house (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). And in January, a 17-year-old boy in the electricity-shunning Amish community was electrocuted when he tried to remove a downed power line that had become entangled in the wheels of his buggy. (Chardon, Ohio).

Three weeks ago, based on an April report in The New York Times, I mentioned with implied skepticism that cyclist Tyler Hamilton, at a hearing on whether he illegally transfused blood before a race, had claimed that different blood found in his test was the result of a "vanishing twin" during the first trimester of his mother's pregnancy. Although Hamilton's claim was rejected at the hearing, a subsequent New York Times report indicates that the phenomenon might be much less rare than the hearing examiners believed, and I now conclude that I ought not to have chosen the story for News of the Weird.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)