News of the Weird (April 12, 2015)
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M418, April 12, 2015
Copyright 2015 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
The Importance of Family: On February 9th a single traffic stop in Alderson, W.Va., resulted in the arrest of six people, from the same family, trafficking in stolen power tools (including one man who traded a leaf blower and hedge trimmer for Percocet pills). However, a month later, members of an even more charming family were caught in raids in Elyria, Ohio. Officers from three jurisdictions arrested 34 people--all related to each other--in connection with a $400,000 drug operation. [Register-Herald (Beckley, W.Va.), 2-12-2015] [WEWS-TV (Cleveland), 3-18-2015]
Government in Action
The pre-dawn line in March actually started forming at midnight, snaking around the building in Maitland, Fla., but it wasn’t for concert tickets. The dozens of people needed coveted visitor passes just to speak to an IRS agent--because budget cuts and personnel reductions have limited services. “I just came here to verify my identity,” said one frustrated taxpayer, who arrived at 8 a.m. and would not be served that day. The agency said its budget had been cut by $1 billion since the Congressional “sequestration” in 2011. [News 13 (Orlando), 3-16-2015]
Nope, They Haven’t Grown Back Yet: Canada’s Department of Veterans Affairs requires any vet receiving disability benefits to have a doctor re-certify the condition annually--including people like Afghan war double-leg amputee Paul Franklin. He complained to Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News in March that he had been harshly threatened with loss of benefits if he failed to file (even though the Department told CBC News that it might perhaps relax the certification requirement to “every third year”). [CBC News, 3-27-2015]
Wait, What?
Several theaters in Denmark reported in March that they had begun adding subtitles--to Danish-language films, because so many customers complained that that the dialogue was incomprehensible. Apparently, it is widely known that spoken Danish is harder to understand than the written, but Copenhagen’s website The Local reported that actors had rebelled at improving their diction, claiming that their “mumbling” adds “realis[m]” to the films. [The Local, 3-6-2015]
Attention to Detail: Major league pitcher Max Scherzer, new this season to the Washington Nationals, informed manager Matt Williams in March, according to a New York Times report, that he requires assistance when he warms up during daily practice sessions. He spoke of the importance of simulating actual game conditions, and since Scherzer is a starting pitcher, he needed someone to stand beside him and hum “The Star-Spangled Banner” before he begins his practice pitching. [New York Times, 3-2-2015]
Perspective
Lawyers Brendan and Nessa Coppinger live in a Washington, D.C., row house next door to a tobacco user, whose smoke seeps into their unit, and (especially since Nessa is pregnant) the Coppingers have filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the neighbor. However, the anti-corruption website Republic Report found that one of Nessa Coppinger’s clients is Suncoke Energy, which is being sued by four Ohio residents who allege that Suncoke does to them what Coppinger’s neighbor does to her and her fetus. (Suncoke’s “clouds of haze,” containing particulates of lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, creosote, coal tar pitch, and other alarming substances allegedly threaten the neighbors’ health and property values.) [Salon.com, 3-24-2015]
The Continuing Crisis
Superman: While thousands of Japanese women accept commercial pornographic movie roles, only a dwindling number of males (by one estimate, only 30 industrywide) are available to pair with them (“stallions on call,” according to one producer). That makes the undisputed king of Japanese porn “Shimiken,” 35, in such demand that he works as many as six movies a day with few days off. His oeuvre, according to an double-entendre-laden March profile in Details magazine, includes 7,000 films, with at least 7,500 “co-stars,” including, once, 72-year-old twins. To maintain his vigor, he hits the gym fanatically and downs mineral supplements and complex amino acids--but no Viagra. “I haven’t had to use it,” he said (adding, after a pause, “yet”). [Details, March 2015]
Among Colorado’s legal contortions to improve mass murderer James Holmes’s chances of getting a “fair” trial, officials in January called more than 9,000 people to choose its jury of 12 (plus 12 alternates) who will somehow surmise whether the Aurora theater shooter was legally sane at the time he killed 12 and wounded 70. The 9,000 first had to complete lengthy questionnaires, with “thousands” returning for individual interrogation, and many for follow-up screening. (Among the prospects the judge encountered was one man skeptical of the death penalty--except in the case of a “zombie apocalypse.” Said Judge Carlos Samour Jr., “You meet some interesting people in this job.”) [Associated Press, 3-9-2015]
Unclear on the Concept
Some states that rushed to enact systems to evaluate schoolteachers by the test scores of their students left the “details” of such regimens for later, resulting, for example, in absurdities like the Washington, D.C., public school custodians and lunchroom workers who were a few years ago being job-evaluated, in part, by student test scores in English and math. In March, a New York public school art teacher, writing in the Washington Post, complained that his coveted “effective” rating one year had dropped to “developing” simply because his school’s student “math” score had fallen. Furthermore, since he is now “developing,” he must file plans for improving his performance (i.e., how, from art class, he can raise “math” scores among students he does not teach). [Washington Post, 3-25-2015]
Quintessential Australia
(1) In March, the Simoneau family in a town near Australia’s Sunshine Coast at first considered the three-foot-long slitherer to be one of the country’s ubiquitous snakes, but the home invader was moving very slowly and, it turned out, was merely from one of those hair-raising Australian species--gigantic earthworms. (2) Dogs and cats, as well as wild animals searching for food sometimes show up with their heads caught in fences, buckets, or food containers (and, to avoid starvation, need to be freed by helpful humans). In a suburb of Adelaide, in March, a deadly Eastern brown snake turned up needing similar aid, but it being Australia, its head was stuck in a beer can. [Sunshine Coast Daily, 3-5-2015] [ninemsn.com.au (Sydney), 3-15-2015]
Marketing Challenges
(1) Burger King Japan commenced an April rollout--limited in duration and only in Japan--of Burger King-branded cologne (mimicking the Whopper’s savory “flame-grill[ing].” Early reviews were favorable (even though the launch date, suspiciously, was April 1st). (2) A small Virginia defense contractor won a $7 million job recently to help Pentagon analysts sift through supercomputer research, and according to the industry watchdog Defense One, the firm has decided to stick with its long-ago-selected original name. Even though events have overtaken that name, the company will still be known as Isis Defense. [The Verge, 4-1-2015] [DefenseOne.com, 3-9-2015]
Least Competent Criminals
Didn’t Go As Planned: (1) Surveillance cameras revealed a man with a gun inside the Circle K in Palm Bay, Fla., on January 31st. Since the clerk was in the back, with the cash register locked, the man decided to wait for him--for 17 seconds, according to the video--but then, impatient, fled empty-handed. (2) According to the February police report, Matthew Semione, 26, handed a holdup note (implying that he was armed) to an Ormond Beach, Fla., Sun Trust bank teller, who walked away to get money. Semione grew weary of waiting and left empty-handed, but was arrested minutes later. [Florida Today, 2-1-2015] [Daytona Beach News-Journal, 2-19-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (September 2010)
To most, the toilet is merely functional, but to brilliant thinkers, it can be the birthplace of masterpieces. Thus, the price tags were high this summer [2010] when commodes belonging to two creative giants went on sale. In August, a gaudily designed toilet from John Lennon's 1969-71 residence in Berkshire, England, fetched 9,500 pounds (about $14,740) at a Liverpool auction, and a North Carolina collectibles dealer opened bids on the toilet upon which reclusive author J.D. Salinger spent many hours while at his home in Cornish, N.H. The dealer's initial price was $1 million because, "Who knows how many of Salinger's stories were thought up and written while [he] sat on this throne!" [Reuters, 8-28-2010] [BBC News, 8-20-2010]
Thanks This Week to Ken Lilly and Gerald Davidson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M418, April 12, 2015
Copyright 2015 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
The Importance of Family: On February 9th a single traffic stop in Alderson, W.Va., resulted in the arrest of six people, from the same family, trafficking in stolen power tools (including one man who traded a leaf blower and hedge trimmer for Percocet pills). However, a month later, members of an even more charming family were caught in raids in Elyria, Ohio. Officers from three jurisdictions arrested 34 people--all related to each other--in connection with a $400,000 drug operation. [Register-Herald (Beckley, W.Va.), 2-12-2015] [WEWS-TV (Cleveland), 3-18-2015]
Government in Action
The pre-dawn line in March actually started forming at midnight, snaking around the building in Maitland, Fla., but it wasn’t for concert tickets. The dozens of people needed coveted visitor passes just to speak to an IRS agent--because budget cuts and personnel reductions have limited services. “I just came here to verify my identity,” said one frustrated taxpayer, who arrived at 8 a.m. and would not be served that day. The agency said its budget had been cut by $1 billion since the Congressional “sequestration” in 2011. [News 13 (Orlando), 3-16-2015]
Nope, They Haven’t Grown Back Yet: Canada’s Department of Veterans Affairs requires any vet receiving disability benefits to have a doctor re-certify the condition annually--including people like Afghan war double-leg amputee Paul Franklin. He complained to Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News in March that he had been harshly threatened with loss of benefits if he failed to file (even though the Department told CBC News that it might perhaps relax the certification requirement to “every third year”). [CBC News, 3-27-2015]
Wait, What?
Several theaters in Denmark reported in March that they had begun adding subtitles--to Danish-language films, because so many customers complained that that the dialogue was incomprehensible. Apparently, it is widely known that spoken Danish is harder to understand than the written, but Copenhagen’s website The Local reported that actors had rebelled at improving their diction, claiming that their “mumbling” adds “realis[m]” to the films. [The Local, 3-6-2015]
Attention to Detail: Major league pitcher Max Scherzer, new this season to the Washington Nationals, informed manager Matt Williams in March, according to a New York Times report, that he requires assistance when he warms up during daily practice sessions. He spoke of the importance of simulating actual game conditions, and since Scherzer is a starting pitcher, he needed someone to stand beside him and hum “The Star-Spangled Banner” before he begins his practice pitching. [New York Times, 3-2-2015]
Perspective
Lawyers Brendan and Nessa Coppinger live in a Washington, D.C., row house next door to a tobacco user, whose smoke seeps into their unit, and (especially since Nessa is pregnant) the Coppingers have filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the neighbor. However, the anti-corruption website Republic Report found that one of Nessa Coppinger’s clients is Suncoke Energy, which is being sued by four Ohio residents who allege that Suncoke does to them what Coppinger’s neighbor does to her and her fetus. (Suncoke’s “clouds of haze,” containing particulates of lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, creosote, coal tar pitch, and other alarming substances allegedly threaten the neighbors’ health and property values.) [Salon.com, 3-24-2015]
The Continuing Crisis
Superman: While thousands of Japanese women accept commercial pornographic movie roles, only a dwindling number of males (by one estimate, only 30 industrywide) are available to pair with them (“stallions on call,” according to one producer). That makes the undisputed king of Japanese porn “Shimiken,” 35, in such demand that he works as many as six movies a day with few days off. His oeuvre, according to an double-entendre-laden March profile in Details magazine, includes 7,000 films, with at least 7,500 “co-stars,” including, once, 72-year-old twins. To maintain his vigor, he hits the gym fanatically and downs mineral supplements and complex amino acids--but no Viagra. “I haven’t had to use it,” he said (adding, after a pause, “yet”). [Details, March 2015]
Among Colorado’s legal contortions to improve mass murderer James Holmes’s chances of getting a “fair” trial, officials in January called more than 9,000 people to choose its jury of 12 (plus 12 alternates) who will somehow surmise whether the Aurora theater shooter was legally sane at the time he killed 12 and wounded 70. The 9,000 first had to complete lengthy questionnaires, with “thousands” returning for individual interrogation, and many for follow-up screening. (Among the prospects the judge encountered was one man skeptical of the death penalty--except in the case of a “zombie apocalypse.” Said Judge Carlos Samour Jr., “You meet some interesting people in this job.”) [Associated Press, 3-9-2015]
Unclear on the Concept
Some states that rushed to enact systems to evaluate schoolteachers by the test scores of their students left the “details” of such regimens for later, resulting, for example, in absurdities like the Washington, D.C., public school custodians and lunchroom workers who were a few years ago being job-evaluated, in part, by student test scores in English and math. In March, a New York public school art teacher, writing in the Washington Post, complained that his coveted “effective” rating one year had dropped to “developing” simply because his school’s student “math” score had fallen. Furthermore, since he is now “developing,” he must file plans for improving his performance (i.e., how, from art class, he can raise “math” scores among students he does not teach). [Washington Post, 3-25-2015]
Quintessential Australia
(1) In March, the Simoneau family in a town near Australia’s Sunshine Coast at first considered the three-foot-long slitherer to be one of the country’s ubiquitous snakes, but the home invader was moving very slowly and, it turned out, was merely from one of those hair-raising Australian species--gigantic earthworms. (2) Dogs and cats, as well as wild animals searching for food sometimes show up with their heads caught in fences, buckets, or food containers (and, to avoid starvation, need to be freed by helpful humans). In a suburb of Adelaide, in March, a deadly Eastern brown snake turned up needing similar aid, but it being Australia, its head was stuck in a beer can. [Sunshine Coast Daily, 3-5-2015] [ninemsn.com.au (Sydney), 3-15-2015]
Marketing Challenges
(1) Burger King Japan commenced an April rollout--limited in duration and only in Japan--of Burger King-branded cologne (mimicking the Whopper’s savory “flame-grill[ing].” Early reviews were favorable (even though the launch date, suspiciously, was April 1st). (2) A small Virginia defense contractor won a $7 million job recently to help Pentagon analysts sift through supercomputer research, and according to the industry watchdog Defense One, the firm has decided to stick with its long-ago-selected original name. Even though events have overtaken that name, the company will still be known as Isis Defense. [The Verge, 4-1-2015] [DefenseOne.com, 3-9-2015]
Least Competent Criminals
Didn’t Go As Planned: (1) Surveillance cameras revealed a man with a gun inside the Circle K in Palm Bay, Fla., on January 31st. Since the clerk was in the back, with the cash register locked, the man decided to wait for him--for 17 seconds, according to the video--but then, impatient, fled empty-handed. (2) According to the February police report, Matthew Semione, 26, handed a holdup note (implying that he was armed) to an Ormond Beach, Fla., Sun Trust bank teller, who walked away to get money. Semione grew weary of waiting and left empty-handed, but was arrested minutes later. [Florida Today, 2-1-2015] [Daytona Beach News-Journal, 2-19-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (September 2010)
To most, the toilet is merely functional, but to brilliant thinkers, it can be the birthplace of masterpieces. Thus, the price tags were high this summer [2010] when commodes belonging to two creative giants went on sale. In August, a gaudily designed toilet from John Lennon's 1969-71 residence in Berkshire, England, fetched 9,500 pounds (about $14,740) at a Liverpool auction, and a North Carolina collectibles dealer opened bids on the toilet upon which reclusive author J.D. Salinger spent many hours while at his home in Cornish, N.H. The dealer's initial price was $1 million because, "Who knows how many of Salinger's stories were thought up and written while [he] sat on this throne!" [Reuters, 8-28-2010] [BBC News, 8-20-2010]
Thanks This Week to Ken Lilly and Gerald Davidson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
Importance of Family And not one mention of the Mafia. BTW, who puts the value on those drug busts?
IRS Budget Cuts I've got a better money saving idea. I hear an 11.8% flat tax is all that is needed.
Canadian Vets At least they're being looked after.
Mumbling Danes Tabe ur net tabe, thets the quston.
Max Scherzer So what!?! Even Billy needed a hum-job from time to time.
Superman Ah... shouldn't that have been 'Superstud', Chuck?
9,000 People When did lawyers, in the guise of legislators decide that they got to pick and choose there '12 good men and true'? Pull 12 names and get on with it.
Teacher Evaluation What do you expect? The people coming up with these absurd ideas were taught by the teachers they're attempting to evaluate. G.I.G.O.
Downunder So, save the worm and, what, save the snake too? I've heard they're 'protected' and, because of that are starting to become a nuisance.
Thanks, Chuck! Have you had your A/C checked out this year yet?
IRS Budget Cuts I've got a better money saving idea. I hear an 11.8% flat tax is all that is needed.
Canadian Vets At least they're being looked after.
Mumbling Danes Tabe ur net tabe, thets the quston.
Max Scherzer So what!?! Even Billy needed a hum-job from time to time.
Superman Ah... shouldn't that have been 'Superstud', Chuck?
9,000 People When did lawyers, in the guise of legislators decide that they got to pick and choose there '12 good men and true'? Pull 12 names and get on with it.
Teacher Evaluation What do you expect? The people coming up with these absurd ideas were taught by the teachers they're attempting to evaluate. G.I.G.O.
Downunder So, save the worm and, what, save the snake too? I've heard they're 'protected' and, because of that are starting to become a nuisance.
Thanks, Chuck! Have you had your A/C checked out this year yet?
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 04/13/15 at 10:39 AM
Relatives- Haven't you ever heard of a family business?
IRS- I think they should be merged with the DMV due to their similar stellar service.
Vets- Ah yes, the one size fits all approach that is taken to everything now. God forbid the people who risked life and limb for their country get some damned individual attention.
Language- Me thinks there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.(and its enunciation)
Play ball- Get him Roseanne Barr, bet he gets over it then.
Lawyers- First kill all.../Sad about the empty seats.../yadda yadda.
Shimiken- Hell of a way to get worked to death. He's working his bone to the bone!
9000- Need at least 100 just to get 24 literate people nowadays.
Giant worms/snakes- Ewwww! Giant worms a marginally less horrifying than snakes and any dead snake is a good snake!
Thieves- Apparently their mamas never told them patience is a virtue.(which I do not possess BTW)
IRS- I think they should be merged with the DMV due to their similar stellar service.
Vets- Ah yes, the one size fits all approach that is taken to everything now. God forbid the people who risked life and limb for their country get some damned individual attention.
Language- Me thinks there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.(and its enunciation)
Play ball- Get him Roseanne Barr, bet he gets over it then.
Lawyers- First kill all.../Sad about the empty seats.../yadda yadda.
Shimiken- Hell of a way to get worked to death. He's working his bone to the bone!
9000- Need at least 100 just to get 24 literate people nowadays.
Giant worms/snakes- Ewwww! Giant worms a marginally less horrifying than snakes and any dead snake is a good snake!
Thieves- Apparently their mamas never told them patience is a virtue.(which I do not possess BTW)
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 04/13/15 at 04:24 PM
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