News of the Weird (November 6, 2016)

News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M500, November 6, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Lead Story

Can't Possibly Be True: Kids as young as six who live on a clifftop in China's Atule'er village in Sichuan province will no longer have to use flexible vine-based ladders to climb down and up the 2,600-foot descent from their homes to school. Beijing News disclosed in October, in a report carried by CNN, that a sturdy steel ladder was being built to aid the 400 villagers after breathtaking photographs of them making the treacherous commute surfaced on the Internet earlier this year. [CNN, 10-26-2016]

Round Up The Usual Suspects ("Youth Pastors")

Sentenced to six years in prison for sex with teenage girls (September): former Youth Pastor David Hayman, 38 (Hackensack, N.J.). Sentenced to six months in jail for sending inappropriate texts to teenage boys (August): former Youth Pastor Brian Burchfield (Shawnee, Okla.). Charged and awaiting trial for impregnating a 15-year-old girl (October): Youth Pastor Wesley Blackburn, 35 (New Paris, Pa.). Sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl (September): former Youth Pastor Brian Mitchell, 31 (North Olmsted, Ohio). Charged and awaiting trial for luring teenagers into prostitution (October): Youth Pastor Ron Cooper, 52 (Miami, Fla.). Sentenced to 90 days in jail as part of a sex assault case involving a 13-year-old girl (September): former Youth Pastor Christopher Hutchinson, 37 (Parker, Colo.). [The Record (Hackensack), 9-23-2016] [KFOR-TV (Oklahoma City), 8-24-2016] [Associated Press via Washington Post, 10-15-2016] [Cleveland.com, 9-8-2016] [WFOR-TV (Miami), 10-19-2016] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 9-30-2016]

An "Ant" Version of Hell

Researchers in Poland reported in August the "survival" of a colony of ants that wandered unsuspectingly into an old nuclear weapon bunker and became trapped. When researchers first noticed in 2013, they assumed the ants would soon die, either freezing or starving to death, but, returning in 2016, they found the population stable. Their only guess: New ants were falling into the bunker, "replacing" the dead ones. Thus, ants condemned to the bunker slowly starve, freezing, in total darkness, until "newly" condemned ants arrive and freeze and starve in total darkness--and on and on. [Science Daily (8-30-2016) via WeirdUniverse.net (9-16-2016)]

Judicial Activism

Jackson County, Mich., judge John McBain briefly gained notoriety in October when a Michigan news site released courtroom video of a December 2015 hearing in which McBain felt the need to throw off his robe, leap from the bench, and tackle defendant Jacob Larson, who was resisting the one court officer on hand to restrain him. Yelling "Tase his ass right now" at Larson, McBain is shown holding on until help arrived--with Larson perhaps undermining his earlier courtroom statements claiming it was his girlfriend, and not he, who was the aggressor in alleged stalking incidents. [MLive.com, 10-13-2016]

Names in Florida News

Arrested in October and charged with kidnaping a 4-year-old girl in Lakeland, Fla.: a truck driver, Mr. Wild West Hogs. Arrested in West Palm Beach in August and charged with trespassing at a Publix supermarket (and screaming at employees), Mr. Vladimir Putin. And in August, at the dedication of a new unit at Tampa General Hospital's pediatric center, long-time satisfied patients attended, including Maria Luva, who told guests her son, now 8 years old, was born there: Ywlyox Luva. [Associated Press via TampaBay.com, 10-12-2016] [WPEC-TV (West Palm Beach), 8-30-2016] [Tampa Bay Times, 8-12-2016]

Perspective

In 1921, researchers for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife stated categorically in a journal that "the one predatory animal" inspiring practically nothing "good" is the mountain lion, but recent research in the journal Conservation Letters credits the animal for saving the lives of many motorists by killing deer, thus tempering the current annual number (20,000) of driver-deer collisions. Even killing deer, mountain lions still trail pussycats as predators; researchers in Nature Communications in 2013 estimated that "free-ranging [U.S.] domestic cats" kill at least 1.4 billion birds and 6.9 billion small mammals annually. [Washington Post, 7-21-2016] [Audubon.org, 1-30-2013]

Least Competent Criminals

On the way to the police station in Youngstown, Ohio, on October 19th, after being arrested for, among other things, being a felon in possession of a gun, Raymond Brooks, 25, asked an officer (apparently in all seriousness) whether, after he got booked at the station, could he have his gun back. (The police report did not specify whether the officer said yes or no.) [The Vindicator (Youngstown), 10-20-2016]

Recurring Themes

Sovereigns! The director of the Caribbean Cultural Center at the University of the Virgin Islands, facing foreclosure of her home by Firstbank Puerto Rico, decided she was not really "Chenzira Davis-Kahina" but actually "Royal Daughter Sat Yah" of the "Natural Sovereign Indigenous Nation of . . . Smai Tawi Ta-Neter-Awe," and she and her equally-befuddlingly-named husband have sued the bank for $190 million in federal court (and begun the flood of incomprehensible paperwork). The couple's law of "Maat" conveniently holds that attempts by federal marshals to seize their property would double the damages to $380 million. [Virgin Islands Daily News, 8-22-2016] [NOTE: Behind a Pay Wall]

"Emotional Support" Animals: "Daniel," age 4--and a duck-- accompanied a woman in her 20s in October on a flight from Charlotte, N.C., to Asheville, outfited in a Captain America diaper and red shoes to protect its feet, occasionally (if inadvisedly) giving the woman a peck on the mouth. The "reporter" was author Mark Essig, who has written favorably about pigs but admitted he'd never before been on a flight with "companion poultry" and mused whether Daniel, gazing out a window, experienced an "ancestral" yearning to fly. [Citizen-Times (Asheville), 10-17-2016]

The Art of Smuggling: At press time, Leston Lawrence, 35, an employee of the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa, was awaiting a court decision on charges that he stole $140,000 worth of thick gold coins ("pucks") that, over time, were taken from the Mint in his rectum. The Mint's "highest security measures" never turned up a puck on or in Lawrence; he was arrested after the Mint investigated a tip that he had sold an unusual number of them for someone of his pay grade. [Washington Post, 9-21-2016]

Government in Action

Mayor Paul Antonio of Toowoomba, Australia (pop. 100,000), admitted he had picked an uphill fight but still has recently been handing out cards to men on the street asking them to help the city (in unspecified ways) become completely free of pornography. Though the city has several tax-paying sex businesses (even a strip club and a brothel), Antonio's message (augmented by public confessions of men burdened by their porn habits) is directed at the Internet's ease of access to images of male "dominance and power" over females. [Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, 10-11-2016]

The Passing Parade

Tiny Thrills: (1) The town of Warley, England, announced it has applied to the Guinness people for the honor of having the world's smallest museum. The Warley Community Association's museum, with photos and mementoes of its past, is housed in an old phone booth. (So far, there are no "hours"; visitors just show up and open the door.) (2) The recent 100th anniversary of America's National Park Service drew attention to the park in Guthrie, Okla.--10 feet by 10 feet, behind the post office and dating from the original Land Office on the spot in 1889. (According to legend, the city clerk, instead of asking the government for land "100 foot square (100x100)," mistakenly asked for "100 square feet.") [Conde Nast Traveler, 10-17-2016] [KFOR-TV (Oklahoma City), 4-8-2016]

A News of the Weird Classic (March 2012)

Some municipal street signs with specific instructions are hard enough to read, anyway, but according to the signs in front of Lakewood Elementary School in White Lake, Mich. (filmed in February 2012 by Detroit's WJBK-TV), the speed limit drops to 25 mph on "school days only"--but just from "6:49-7:15 a.m., 7:52-8:22 a.m., 8:37-9:07 a.m., 2:03-2:33 p.m., 3:04-3:34 p.m., [and] 3:59-4:29 p.m." [WJBK-TV, 2-15-2012]

Thanks This Week to Alex Boese, Ellen Lockhart, Neb Rodgers, Mel Birge, and John Smith, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Bob McCabe, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Sandy Pearlman, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Peter Smagorinsky, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).

Posted By: Chuck - Mon Nov 07, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category:

Kenner’s Scottie Bagpipe

Introduced by Kenner in 1962, this plaid-patterned vinyl bag attached to a plastic flute allowed kids to play "exciting bagpipe effects." You need to watch the short video to appreciate the true horror of the sounds this thing created. Guaranteed to drive parents insane in mere seconds.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 07, 2016 - Comments (7)
Category: Music, Toys, 1960s

Follies of the Madmen #296

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 07, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Body, Business, Advertising, Products, Dreams and Nightmares, 1930s

Most Pills Swallowed

One of the world records that Guinness no longer tracks is that for "most pills swallowed." But from the late 1970s to the 1990s it consistently awarded this to one C.H.A. Kilner of Malawi (or perhaps Zimbabwe — accounts differ), who apparently took A LOT of pills following a pancreatectomy (removal of his pancreas) on June 9, 1967.

The exact number of pills taken by Kilner progressively increased over time. The 1978 edition of Guinness put it at 280,131 pills. A year later it had reached 311,136. By 1981 it was 359,061. And Kilner finally stopped taking pills on June 19, 1988, having reached a total of 565,939 pills.

Later reports did the math and figured out that this worked out to 73 pills a day, and that "if all the pills he had taken were laid out end to end they would form an unbroken line two miles 186 yards long."

Where exactly was Guinness getting this information from? I have no idea, because they seem to be the only source for it. I can't find any record of this Kilner guy in medical journals.

Guinness Book of Records - 1978 Edition

Detroit Free Press - Dec 4, 1978

Logansport Pharos Tribune - Feb 7, 1982

Guinness Book of Records - 1995 Edition

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 06, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Medicine, World Records

Electromechanical Arcade Games

Barring pinball and skeeball, how did primitive youngsters amuse themselves in arcades before computer-chip video games?

With electromechanical games.

As in the videos below.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 06, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Technology, 1960s, 1970s, Videogames and Gamers

Squirrel Burgers

Over at twincities.com, Dave Orrick extols the virtues of squirrel burgers, which he says are one of his "favorite ways to introduce people to squirrel meat."

Just get yourself some squirrels (you may have some scampering around in your back yard), skin 'em, run the meat through a grinder, and cook it up. Dave says that squirrel has "a distinct, nutty flavor." But if you find the flavor too strong, you can always dilute it with a bit of turkey meat.

I know there have been occasional efforts to encourage people to eat squirrel meat (see below), but these efforts always seem to fizzle. Kinda like the similar efforts to get people to eat insects.

Sydney Morning Herald - May 14, 1971

Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 05, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Food

Couch Potato Sculpture

I'm assuming all WU-vies will want to shell out $345.00 for this figurine as the perfect Xmas gift for that lazy brother-in-law, son, uncle, or father.



Home page here.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 05, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Art, Food, Hygiene, Parody

Let’s Say It Right

In October 1969, the U.S. Command in Vietnam issued a directive titled "Let's Say it Right" to the American Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN). The directive forbid military press officers from using certain terms and provided a list of acceptable terms in their place.

For instance, instead of referring to "free firing zones" in which anything that moved was considered enemy and could be fired at, officers were supposed to say "pre-cleared firing zones." And instead of "lull" they were supposed to refer to "light and scattered action."

A military spokesman said that the directive was actually just a "style sheet" whose purpose was to "get everyone using similar words."

Some more of the "no-no" words (as AFVN officers described them) were listed in this NY Times piece:

New York Times - Jan 11, 1970

GI Press Service - April 1971

Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 04, 2016 - Comments (5)
Category: Languages, Military, 1960s

Zorbing

Home page here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 04, 2016 - Comments (0)
Category: Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Death

Name That List, #34

What is this a list of? The answer is below in extended.

• Urban rabies
• Lobster-claw hand, bilateral
• Fall into well
• Complete loss of teeth, unspecified cause
• Pecked by turkey
• O'nyong-nyong fever
• Hang glider explosion injuring occupant
• Contact with hot toaster
• Major anomalies of jaw size
• Intrinsic sphincter deficiency
• Underdosing of cocaine
• Prolonged stay in weightless environment
• Burn due to water skis on fire

More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 03, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Name That List