News of the Weird

Gerardo Flores, 19, was convicted of murder in June in Lufkin, Texas, in the death of the 5-month-old fetus of his girlfriend, Erica Basoria. Flores admitted that he had stood on Basoria's stomach several times at her request to induce a miscarriage, but Basoria had told authorities that she had also punched herself in the stomach several times. Under Texas law, killing a fetus is a capital offense, and so Flores automatically received a life sentence, but Basoria could not be charged because of her constitutional right to abortion.

-- (1) British entrepreneur Colin Dowse recently introduced Sprayonmud (about US$14 a quart), dirty water chemically treated for greater stickiness, mainly for urban SUV owners to pass themselves off as all-terrain adventurers. (2) The maker of Doggles (which for several years has sold sunglasses for dogs at about $25) now offers corrective-lens Doggles starting at $75, which veterinary ophthalmologists can prescribe as alternatives to $2,000 lens-replacement surgery, according to a March report by KMGH-TV in Denver.

-- In the last few years, Taiwan entrepreneurs have opened restaurants with motifs such as prisons, zombies and Mao Zedong, but the latest is Eric Wang's "Marton," in Kaohsiung, whose theme is the toilet. All seats are what you would think, with food served on a glass tabletop resting on a bathtub, and some of the delicacies are presented in miniature toilet bowls (among them, curry hot pot, and disturbingly, chocolate ice cream).

-- Recent scholarly findings (reduced to their essence in a May Wall Street Journal column): It's much easier to identify someone if he is physically near you than if he is up to 450 feet away (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, February). People who choose their careers carefully, rather than on a whim, experience greater job satisfaction (Journal of Economic Psychology, vol. 26, no.3). College students tend to drink more alcoholic beverages than they realize (Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, April). If patients voluntarily tell a doctor about a bad side effect of a medicine, they are more likely to be switched to a safer one than if they don't (Archives of Internal Medicine, January).

-- According to a study by Professor Martin Gibala and others, published in the June Journal of Applied Physiology, people can get the health benefits associated with two hours' cycling in just two minutes. Gibala said that over a two-week period, two hours daily of moderate-speed riding made cyclists no healthier than four all-out, to-the-max 30-second bursts daily (with four minutes' rest in between). (However, all subjects were already at least moderate exercisers.)

-- (1) New York state Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, from Manhattan, introduced a bill in June to require a minimum wage for comedians (at least $125 per 20-minute show at comedy clubs on weekends and $28 on weekdays). (2) North Carolina correctional officials began rethinking inmate manufacturing programs recently when they discovered that, even though they pay prisoners only $3 a day in their T-shirt-making concession, suppliers in Bangladesh can make the shirts for 38 percent less.

-- London's Housing Market: Agence France Presse reported in May that an agency had just rented out a 54-square-foot apartment in Notting Hill (loft bed over a kitchenette, closet and shower) for the equivalent of US$1,065 a month. And in the Haringey Park neighborhood, developer Andrew Markey proposed to convert the kitchen and hallway of a house he owns into its own two-story townhouse (producing a living room 21 feet by 8 feet). Agents said such a house might go for the equivalent of US$325,000, but in June, the local council rejected his initial plans.

In March, Mark Allen Shook, 43, attempting to flee (with his dog) Mountain Ranch, Calif., police officers who had come to arrest him on a domestic violence charge, was captured after a chaotic fight during which the dog bit off part of Shook's ear. And in Eltham, England, in May, a family's dog, chasing a ball, bumped the ladder on which a man was standing to trim some bushes with a chainsaw, causing him to fall and fatally slice the neck of his wife, who was holding the ladder.

(1) Five Buddhist monks in Bangkok were defrocked in May after a street fight culminating years of hostility between two temples, according to a Reuters dispatch. Said one (who used brass knuckles), "When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So will I." (2) In May, a 1,500-pound camel named Poon, roaming around his home at the Mayle Farm in Shinnston, W.Va., decided to sit down on top of a woman who was painting a fence. No one could hear her muffled screams, but she managed to call 911 on her cell phone, and help arrived just as Poon had begun to bite her.

In March, The Australian newspaper identified an upswing in the business of some beauticians who have responded to customers' desires to lighten the skin around their anuses. A beautician in Sydney said she had long been helping sex workers for that condition but that lately the clients are civilians trying to please boyfriends who are taken by how "clean and light" porno actresses seem. Said another beautician of the ingredient she uses, "I explain that it will give them eczema and (other problems), but they want it anyway."

Easy Identifications: (1) Awiey "Chucky" Hernandez, 20, was arrested when he went to the 90th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, N.Y., to check on the status of a pal and inadvertently stood directly in front of his own "wanted" poster (on robbery and drug charges). The in-custody pal Hernandez had come to inquire about was Huquan "Guns" Gavin, 18, who appears with him on the poster. (2) Charles Cross Jr., was arrested on the street minutes after allegedly robbing a Fifth Third Bank in Louisville, Ky., in May, because he displayed the effects of having been looking directly into his stash bag at the moment the red-dye device exploded.

Even though AIDS continues to spread through sub-Saharan Africa, the pernicious custom of the village "cleanser" persists in Zambia, Kenya, Malawi and other countries (mentioned in News of the Weird in 2003). When a husband dies, the widow traditionally must break the marital bond by soon having sex again, lest the entire village be spiritually condemned. The preferred partner is a relative of the husband, but if none is available, the village leader calls on a professional "cleanser" who performs the task in exchange for a chicken or other remuneration. According to a May New York Times dispatch from Malawi, cleansers believe that wearing a condom will provoke other bad spirits.

A man fell to his death from an overpass onto Interstate 5 in Seattle, the loser of a who-can-hang-the-longer game with a friend (May). And a 22-year-old intoxicated man from Aberystwyth, Wales, accidentally fell through a window and fatally landed on a spiked fence after having pulled down his trousers and screamed to no one in particular, "Who wants some of this?" (April). And in Frederick, Md., a judge convicted Ben Meacham, 23, on two misdemeanor counts for his role in the death of a 21-year-old pal, who had said he wanted to do something unusual on his motorcycle because it was about to be repossessed over a loan default. With Meacham videotaping, the pal, pantsless, did a wheelie before losing control and accidentally, fatally ramming a parked truck (June).

Yamaha Corp. recently introduced the MyRoom, which is a customizable, soundproof, shed-like structure, with 27 square feet of floor space, for installation inside notoriously crowded Japanese homes, so that a resident can get privacy (or be exiled if he or she gets annoying). The company expects a sales surge in 2006, when Japan's first wave of baby-boom salarymen retire and begin staying home a lot. Yamaha developed the MyRoom concept for musicians to practice in, but subsequently realized that the boxes (which sell for the equivalent of about US$5,500) had a much larger appeal.

-- James Carroll Bayley, 44, pleaded guilty in May to killing his brother, Robert, in an incident in Raleigh, N.C., in which James alleged that Robert had come by, drunk, to retrieve his power drill that James had borrowed. James told the judge that he certainly didn't mean to kill Robert, but had grabbed his gun for protection, then "shot him in the right leg to knock him down." "Then," said James, "after a short time, I shot him in the head to make him dizzy so he would fall."

-- In May, Mr. Oran Ambus was locked in a standoff with the St. Louis dog pound, which was holding his 9-month-old rottweiler. Ambus could pick up the dog any time he wanted, reported KSDK radio, provided he would neuter him, but he refused, citing the Book of Leviticus, which he believes permits animals in heaven only if they are unaltered. (Thus was Ambus' dilemma: Get his dog back unholy or, given the pound's put-to-sleep policy, allow its imminent, but holy, demise.)

-- A man (identified in court papers as John Doe), who suffered injuries and sexual dysfunction 11 years ago when a woman unexpectedly changed positions during intercourse (and fell on him and fractured his penis), was again turned down in his attempt to sue the woman. The Court of Appeals of Massachusetts said in May that it would be impossible for a judge or jury to decide which movements in consensual sex were legally reasonable or unreasonable.

-- The San Diego Union Tribune reported in April that Los Angeles Angels' first baseman Darin Erstad was wearing a leather-pouched "balance necklace" of minerals that (according to the manufacturer) will "achieve alignment of body, mind and spirit" and "address the electro-pollution, toxic vapors, scars, surgeries and traumas to the skin by organizing the quantum nature of man," which are things important to Erstad to avoid the kinds of injuries he had experienced in previous seasons. Erstad said that since he has been injury-free so far in 2005, "it must be working," but the player who recommended the necklace, teammate Steve Finley, is substantially underperforming so far this season.

(1) Julie Atkins, 38, of Derby, England, featured in a May BBC TV documentary on childbirth because her three daughters gave birth last year at, respectively, ages 12, 14 and 16, told the Sunday Mercury newspaper: "I don't care what people say about me. I blame the schools. Sex education for young girls should be better." (2) Tommy Rollins Jr., 26, who police say shot Missouri state trooper Brandon Brashear nine times during a traffic stop (chasing him onto the median of Interstate 470 in Kansas City), told reporters in May, "The society's what caused me to do what I did. Just look at the society we live in." (At press time, Brashear was in critical condition.)

(1) In Eatonton, N.J., in March, a man carjacked a van even though, unknown to him beforehand, it was transporting inmates from Northern State Prison to a highway work detail. (The suspect was arrested after a 70-mile chase.) (2) Washington's King County agreed in April to pay $23 million to Stockpot Soups to relocate to make room for a prospective sewage-treatment plant. Until recently, Stockpot had famously tormented its neighbors most Mondays and Tuesdays (its onion-soup-making days) with a putrid, body-odor-type smell.

-- A reporter for the Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram, observing the workings of modern pothole-filling technology for an April story on the local street department, described the "Super-Patcher" machine as releasing a flow of "what appeared to be greasy, black beans" following a "phlegm-textured stream of sticky tar" that "coated the pothole like a pound of snot."

-- After a guest on the Oprah Winfrey show proclaimed the use of Premarin vaginal cream and Preparation H on her face to smooth out wrinkles, Baltimore's WBAL-TV did a follow-up with local doctors, who generally agreed that the ingredients might work but were nonetheless harmful to facial skin. Said female Maryland gynecologist Terry Hoffman, "Personally, if something is meant for my 'hu-ha,' I don't think I'm going to put it on my eyes."

-- (1) Michael Lewis, 27, decided for some reason to fire his pellet gun at a .22-caliber bullet lying on a picnic table to see if he could hit it. He did; it exploded; and some of the bullet fragments lodged in his groin. He was hospitalized at Salina (Kan.) Regional Medical Center in March. (Police said alcohol was not involved, leaving "judgment" as the likely explanation.) (2) Justin Mitchell Oaks, 21, and his wife were miraculously uninjured after Oaks inadvertently drove their Toyota Corolla underneath an 18-wheeler on Interstate 10 in Tucson, Ariz., in April, got stuck, and was dragged 800 feet before the truck could stop. (Alcohol was not the problem here, either, but rather a cell-phone conversation.)

-- Christopher Lamping, 20 at the time, was arrested for DUI in Indiana, Pa., in March, after he leaned on the horn repeatedly through three light changes because the car in front of him would not go through the green lights. The car in front was a marked Indiana police cruiser whose officers were talking to a man on the sidewalk, and after hearing enough of Lamping's horn, one officer walked over and noticed Lamping's odor of alcohol. According to the Indiana Gazette story, Lamping later explained that he "just didn't think of" driving around the stopped car.

Australian Jo Lapidge is the latest to offer a toilet training system for cats, according to a May Reuters dispatch. Her Litter-Kwitter is a four-step process to accustom the cat to relieve itself over a toilet bowl: (1) a red toilet-seat "disc" on top of cat litter; (2) the red-seat-and-litter device placed on top of the bowl requiring the cat to jump up to use it; (3) a yellow-seat disc without litter but with a small hole so that the water below is not prominent; and (4) a green-seat disc with a larger hole. Lapidge said it took eight weeks to train her cat, Doogal, even with his problem of climbing voluntarily into the bowl from time to time to play.

The following people accidentally shot themselves recently: Accused taxicab robber Rodriguez Massett (in the foot, while running from police) (Roswell, Ga., May). Convenience store clerk Bunny Nat (in the hip, while adjusting the "protection" gun he carries in his waistband) (Des Moines, Iowa, April). A 21-year-old man (who, while horsing around, fatally believed an "unloaded" gun could not also have a bullet in the chamber) (Tacoma, Wash., April). A 16-year-old boy (in the leg, while aiming at a snake in his yard) (Port Wentworth, Ga., June). Kole Eugene Maxwell, 18 (shot himself three times during one session of cleaning his 9mm pistol) (Centre, Ala., May).

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.)