Hot Blood

Band info here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 21, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Horror, Music, 1970s

You can’t afford not to dress right

In 1957 the American Institute of Men's and Boys' Wear began running print ads that sought to increase sales of men's clothing by using outright shame and scare tactics. Their message to men was that if you don't dress better you'll be a loser and an embarrassment to your family and friends.

Playing on social fears had long been a staple in advertising aimed at women, but hadn't really been seen in ads for men — at least, not done so blatantly. So the ads generated quite a bit of controversy. For instance, they prompted the following editorial in the Brownwood Bulletin (Dec 30, 1957):

Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 20, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Advertising, 1950s

Bugnet!

Does anyone under sixty years old recognize that this bit of lame bureaucratic humor is a DRAGNET parody?

Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 20, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Government, Insects and Spiders, Nature, PSA’s, Parody

Wonder Boy X-100

Newsweek - Oct 21, 1957

1957: Simplicity Manufacturing introduced its experimental lawnmower of the future — the Wonder Boy X-100. It could mow, weed, feed, seed, spray, vacuum the lawn, and plow snow, all the while keeping its operator in air-conditioned comfort. It had running lights and an onboard radio-telephone. And the manufacturer noted that it could also be used as a golf cart! It went at a top speed of 10 mph.

I don't think that Simplicity ever produced these for commercial sale.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 19, 2016 - Comments (6)
Category: Inventions, 1950s

Mystery Illustration 31

This portrait is intended to depict what mythical deity? Hint: not an Asian religion.

The answer is here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Sep 19, 2016 - Comments (11)
Category: Art, Gods, 1950s

News of the Weird (September 18, 2016)

News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M493, September 18, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Lead Story

What Goes Around, Comes Around: One of the Islamic State's first reforms in captured territory has been to require adult women to dress devoutly--including the face-covering burka robe, which, in Western democracies famously presents security dilemmas because it hinders identification. Now, after two years of Islamic State occupation in Mosul, Iraq, the security problem has come full circle on ISIS itself. Dispatches from the town reported in September that ISIS has likely banned the burka because it hinders identification of anti-ISIS insurgents who (female and male) wear burkas to sneak up on Islamic State officers. [Jerusalem Post, 9-6-2016]

Recurring Themes

Barbara Murphy, 64, of Roy, Utah, is the most recent "dead" person battling the federal government to prove she is still alive (but seemingly getting nowhere). She said Social Security Administration bureaucrats, citing protocols, have been tight-lipped about her problem and remedies even though her bank account was frozen; Social Security was dunning her for two years worth of Medicare premiums (since her 2014 "death"); and warning letters had been sent to banks and credit agencies. Nonetheless, Murphy told the Deseret News in August that, all in all, she feels pretty good despite being dead. [Deseret News, 8-25-2016]

Political connections in some Latin American countries have allowed convicted drug dealers and crime bosses to serve their sentences comfortably, and the most recent instance to make the news, from Agence France-Presse, was the presidential-suite-type "cell" occupied by Brazilian drug lord Jarvic Chimenes Pavao in Paraguay. When police (apparently not "politically connected") raided the cell in July, they found a well-appointed apartment with semi-luxurious furniture settings (including a conference table for Pavao to conduct "business"), embellished wallpaper designs with built-in bookcases, a huge TV among the latest electronics--and even a handsome shoe rack holding Pavao's footwear selection. Pavao also rented out part of the suite to other inmates for the equivalent of $5,000 plus $600 weekly rent. [Agence France-Presse via BBC News, 7-30-2016]

Sounds Familiar: (1) Chris Atkins in Denver, Colo., is among the most recent judicially-ruled "fathers" to owe child support even though DNA tests have proven that another man's semen produced the child. Atkins is in the middle of a contentious divorce/child custody battle in which his estranged wife wants both custody and support payments, and since Atkins did not contest his fatherhood until the child reached age 11, he has lost legal standing. (2) A high school girl and her parents told the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat in July that they were on the verge of filing a lawsuit demanding that the school district order the Leon High School cheerleader squad to select her (even though she had fallen twice during tryouts). [KDVR-TV (Denver), 7-27-2016] [Tallahassee Democrat, 7-18-2016]

Least Competent Criminals: Boyd Wiley, 47, was arrested in August when he walked in to the Putnam County (Fla.) Sheriff's office and, apparently in all seriousness, demanded that deputies return the 91 marijuana plants they had unearthed from a vacant lot in the town of Interlachen several days earlier. (Until that moment, deputies did not know whose plants they were.) Wiley was told that growing marijuana is illegal in Florida and was arrested. [Patch.com, 8-14-2016]

Not a Techie: The most recent perp to realize that cops use Facebook is Mack Yearwood, 42, who ignored a relative's advice and uploaded his Citrus County, Fla., wanted poster for his Facebook profile picture, thus energizing deputies who, until then, had no leads on his whereabouts. He was caught a day later and faces a battery complaint and several open arrest warrants. [WFLX-TV (West Palm Beach, Fla.) via Fox News, 9-2-2016]

Texan Monica Riley, age 27 and weighing 700 lbs., is the most recent "super-sized" woman to claim happiness in exhibiting herself semi-nude for "fans" (she claims 20,000) who watch online as morbidly obese people eat. She told the celebrity news site Barcroft Media in September that her 8,000 calories a day puts her on track to weigh 1,000 lbs. soon, and that her loving boyfriend, Sid, 25 and a "feeder," is turned on by helping her. Sid, for instance, feeds Monica her special 3,500-calorie "shake"--through a funnel--and supposedly will eagerly become her caretaker when she eats herself into total immobility. ("Safe For Work" website: SSBBW Magazine) [Barcroft Media via Daily Mail (London), 9-6-2016]

No Longer Weird

Another DIY Overkill: Police in Centralia, Wash., arrested a man (not identified in news reports) for reckless burning in August when, trying to rid his apartment of roaches, he declined ordinary aerosol bug spray in favor of making a homemade flamethrower (the aerosol spray fired up by a lighter). He fled the apartment when he realized he might have taken things too far. (Firefighters were called, but the damage was minimal.) [The Oregonian, 8-8-2016]

Population grows; goods must be hauled; traffic congestion is worse; and thus trucks keep spilling their loads on the highways. The really weird ones have set the bar perhaps unattainably high for this genre of news (e.g., the truck spilling pornographic magazines; the truck hauling ham colliding with the truck hauling eggs). In September, a tractor-trailer overturned on Interstate 295 in New Castle, Del., spilling a particularly low-value load. The truck, headed for the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, was filled with 22 tons worth of increasingly-shunned U.S. pennies, but these were even less useful (though perhaps, by metal content, more valuable!) because they were not-yet-engraved "blanks." [WPVI-TV (Philadelphia), 9-8-2016]

Updates

Roy Pearson, a former District of Columbia administrative law judge, may be the only person in America who believes that his 2005 $54 million unsuccessful lawsuit against his dry cleaners was not frivolous--and he has still not come to the end of his legal odyssey. In June 2016, a D.C. Bar disciplinary committee recommended that Pearson be placed on probation for two years because of ethics violations, including having made statements "unsupported" by facts when defending his contention that the cleaners' "satisfaction guaranteed" warranty made it liable for various negative occurrences in Pearson's life following the loss of a pair of pants at the store. Not surprisingly, Pearson, now age 65, announced that he would challenge the committee recommendation. [Washington Post, 6-8-2016]

Russian performance artist Petr Pavlensky's most infamous moment was in 2013 when, to protest government oppression, he nailed his scrotum to the ground at Moscow's Red Square. (He had also once sewn his lips shut and, at another time, set fire to a door at Russia's FSB security headquarters.) In August, the Burger King company announced a series of four limited-edition sandwiches inspired by Pavlensky for the artist's hometown of St. Petersburg. The scrotum performance, for example, will marked by an egg "nailed" to a burger by plastic spear. A company spokesperson said Pavlensky was chosen as the inspiration because he is popular with "the masses." [Moscow Times via The Guardian (London), 8-31-2016]

Once again, Iceland's "little people" have, when disrespected, roiled the country's public policy. In August, a road crew had inadvertently buried a supposedly-enchanted elfin rock along a highway being cleared of debris from a landslide, and immediately, all misfortunes in the area were attributed to the elves' displeasure. According to an Agence France-Presse dispatch, crews were quickly ordered to re-set the rock. (The incident was one more in a long series in which public and private funds in Iceland are routinely diverted toward projects thought to appease the elves.) [Agence France-Presse via Daily Telegraph (London), 8-30-2016]

A News of the Weird Classic (November 2012)

Former Arkansas state legislator Charlie Fuqua is running again [in 2012] after a 14-year absence from elective office. In the interim, reported the Arkansas Times, he wrote a book, "God’s Law: The Only Political Solution,” reminding Christians that they could put their rebellious children to death as long as proper procedure (from Deuteronomy 21:18-21) was followed. “Even though this [procedure] would rarely be used,” Fuqua wrote, “if it were the law of the land . . . it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.” (Fuqua failed to gain his party's nomination.) [Arkansas Times, 10-8-2012]

Thanks This Week to Rob Zimmer, Larry Neer, Jens Lund, and Jim Weber and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Posted By: Chuck - Sun Sep 18, 2016 - Comments (6)
Category:

Pollution-Detecting Shirts

These shirts sold by aerochromics alert their wearers to the presence of dangerous levels of pollution by changing color. They go for $500 a shirt. There are three styles to choose from that differ in pattern and what they react to — either carbon monoxide, radiation, or "particle pollution."

So if you get the carbon monoxide or radiation-detecting shirt, how exactly do you test that it really works — without putting yourself in a life-threatening situation?

Posted By: Alex - Sun Sep 18, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Fashion

Lipstick-Shaped Cigarette Lighter

Imagine the hilarity when your lady-love accidentally scorches her kisser! She'll be "smoking hot" then!

Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 18, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Cosmetics, Stupid and/or Dangerous Products, Face and Facial Expressions, Pain, Self-inflicted and Otherwise

Must Get Married by August 15th

August 1973: Jean Roth sat in the lobby of a building at Southern Illinois University with signs that read: "I must be married by August 15th for inheritance purposes."

She explained to anyone who asked that she would give $50,000 to any man who agreed to marry her for a year. Many men immediately volunteered to help her. In addition, "Scores of men called the campus newspaper to get the girl's telephone number."

But it turned out, not surprisingly, that the offer was bogus. It was all just a sociology experiment dreamed up by Dr. James M. Henslin, the teacher of a Sociology of Deviant Behavior class that Jean was enrolled in. Explained Dr. Henslin: "In this [class], we deal with deviance from the norm or deviance from what is expected of people. It was an experiment to create a form of deviance and look at the reactions."

So it sounds like it was one of those breaching experiments that became all the rage in sociology classes around that time (late 60s/early 70s).

The class had chosen Jean to be the heir in need of a hubby and had then coached her on how to respond to potential questions. In fact, Jean was already married. Her husband, also a student at the university, reportedly thought the experiment "was stupid."

Ogden Standard-Examiner - Jul 29, 1973

It reminds me of the Dormitory Escape Plan of 1967 that I posted about a couple of months ago, in which a young woman had advertised for a husband as a way to escape from the all-female dormitory that she hated living in.

Also, it seems that Dr. Henslin is the author of several sociology textbooks that are still in use — Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach and Social Problems: A Down to Earth Approach. He's now retired from Southern Illinois University.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Sep 17, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Experiments, Marriage, 1970s

Inedible Egg Products

Original article here.

Even after reading this article about the big change in export rules for inedible egg products that occured in 1983, I still have no idea what these products are, or what they are used for.

Apparently, the baffling subject is still being thrashed out by the USDA thirty years later.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 17, 2016 - Comments (10)
Category: Food, Eggs, 1980s, Twenty-first Century