News of the Weird (January 3, 2016)
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M456, January 3, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
WEIRDNUZ.M456 (News of the Weird, January 3, 2016)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
New World Order: In December, Canada’s supportive organization The Transgender Project released a biographical video of the former Paul Wolscht, 46 and the father of seven children with his ex-wife Marie, describing his new life as not only a female but a six-year-old female, Stephoknee Wolscht. She told the Daily Xtra (gay and lesbian news site) that not acting her real age (even while doing “adult” things like working a job and driving a car) enables her to escape “depression and suicidal thoughts.” Among the trans-age’s favorite activities are (coloring-book) coloring, creating a play-like “kingdom,” and wearing “really pretty clothes.” Stephoknee now lives with the couple who adopted her. [The Independent (London), 12-16-2015]
Unclear on the Concept
Thee, Not Me: American “millennials” (those aged 18-29) continue a “long-standing tradition,” the Washington Post wrote in December, describing a Harvard Institute of Politics poll on their views on war. Following the recent Paris terrorist attacks, about 60 percent of U.S. millennials said additional American troops would be needed to fight the Islamic State, but 85 percent answered, in the next question, that “no,” they themselves were “probably” or “definitely” not joining the military. [Washington Post, 12-10-2015]
Exceptional Floridians
(1) Police in St. Petersburg reported the December arrest of a 12-year-old boy whose rap sheet listed “over 20" arrests since age 9. He, on a bicycle, had told an 89-year-old driver at a gas station that the man’s tire was low, and when the man got out to check, the boy hopped in the car and took off. (2) A driver accidentally plowed through two small businesses in Pensacola in December, creating such destruction that the manager of one said it looked like a bomb had hit (forcing both--a tax service and a casket company--to relocate). The driver told police he was attempting to “travel through time.” [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 12-15-2015] [WEAR-TV (Pensacola), 12-23-2015]
Compelling Explanations
(1) Breen Peck, 52, an air traffic controller who has been having career troubles in recent years, was arrested during a traffic stop on New York’s Long Island in December when officers found illegal drugs in his car. “That’s meth,” he said. “I’m an air traffic controller.” “I smoke it to stay awake.” (2) In a “she-said/he-said” case, wealthy Saudi businessman Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was acquitted of rape in December in England’s Southwark Crown Court, apparently persuading jurors of “reasonable doubt” about his DNA found in the alleged victim’s vagina. Perhaps, his lawyer said, Abdulaziz was still aroused after sex with the other woman in the room and accidentally fell directly upon the alleged victim lying on a couch. [New York Post, 12-11-2015] [The Independent, 12-16-2015]
Ironies
Christopher Manney was fired from the Milwaukee Police Department in 2014 after shooting a black suspect to death in a case bearing some similarity to 2015 shootings that produced “Black Lives Matter” protests--not fired for the shooting (adjudged “not excessive force”) but for improper actions that preceded the shooting (not announcing a valid reason for a patdown and conducting a not-by-the-book patdown). Two days before the firing, he had filed a disability claim for post-traumatic stress disorder from the shooting and aftermath, and in November 2015 the city’s Annuity and Pension Board, following city law, approved the claim. Thus, Manney, despite having been subsequently fired (i.e., two days later), retired with full disability, with basically the same take-home pay he was receiving when fired. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11-5-2015; WITI-TV (Milwaukee), 10-16-2015]
In November, as anti-Muslim tensions arose in several U.S. cities following the Paris terrorist attack, two chapters of the Satanic Temple church (San Jose, Calif., and Minneapolis) offered to protect Muslims who feared a backlash. The Minneapolis group offered “just big dudes walking you to where you need to be,” for example, grocery-shopping--an offer “of genuine compassion for our fellow human beings.” (The offer was subsequently rescinded by the Minneapolis church’s executive ministry, reasoning that they are “not a personal security service.”) [City Pages (Minneapolis), 12-22-2015]
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
In November, a 62-year-old customer at Ancient City Shooting Range in St. Augustine, Fla., was hit in the lower abdomen area by another shooter, 71, because the victim was standing behind the target (“for some reason,” was all a fire-rescue spokesman would say). The shooter thought the man was elsewhere on the property. [Jacksonville.com, 11-27-2015]
Least Competent Criminals
Oops! (1) Jasper Harrison, 47, working inside the storage unit in Edgewater, Fla., where he grows his marijuana, heard a helicopter overhead on December 9th, panicked, and called 911 to turn himself in to pre-empt what he presumed was a SWAT raid. Actually, the helicopter belonged to a local news station headed elsewhere, but police later arrested Harrison based on the 911 call. (2) Lloyd Franklin, 34 and suspected in a North Carolina double murder, fatally shot himself in a Bensalem, Pa., motel room in November when police knocked on the door. However, cops actually had come to arrest another man in the room, on a parole violation. [Orlando Sentinel, 12-10-2015] [KYW-TV (Philadelphia), 11-8-2015]
The Continuing Crisis
Elaine Williams, 47, was arrested in December in North Forsyth, Ga., and charged with trying to buy a baby for her daughter, 14, via an ad on Craigslist. Williams said her daughter said she “wanted a baby and would get one with or without [my] help.” (Bonus: Williams lives near Jot Em Down Road.) [Forsyth County News, 12-7-2015]
Easily Disrespected: Two foreign students at the liberal-arts Oberlin College complained in a recent school publication that the cafeteria selections--supposedly “inclusive” of world cultures--was actually denigrating those cultures by offering inferior versions of national dishes. Vietnamese student Diep Nguyen wrote that the correct “banh mi” sandwich should be a “crispy baguette with grilled pork, pate, pickled vegetables, and fresh herbs” and not, he complained, “ciabatta bread, pulled pork, and coleslaw.” Said Japanese student Tomoyo Joshi, sushi with “undercooked rice and lack of fresh fish is disrespectful.” (Cafeteria managers told the Washington Post they were proud of their commitments to other cultures, to local farming, sustainable foods, and animal-treatment concerns.) [Oberlin Review, 11-6-2015] [Washington Post, 12-21-2015]
The Aristocrats!
(1) A customer had to be dragged from a burning sex shop by firefighters in the notorious Reeperbahn “sin” section of Hamburg, Germany, in November when he refused orders to evacuate. He had shut himself inside a private booth to watch a film (“Throbbin Hood”) and was heard complaining (while coughing from smoke inhalation), “I haven’t finished yet.” (2) Police in Richmond, Va., announced in December that high school math teacher Kenneth Johnson III turned himself in for several recent residential shoe thefts. Each time, the shoes taken from homes were returned to their owners but with “bodily fluids” added. [Daily Mail (London), 11-25-2015] [WTVR-TV (Richmond, 12-5-2015]
Update
Road to Nowhere: The “Bridge to Nowhere” played an outsize role in politics a decade ago as an example of uncontrolled government spending (before Congress killed it). (Ketchikan, Alaska, planned a sleek international airport upgrade on nearby, barely-inhabited Gravina Island, but needed a sleek bridge to get there, and the $450 million bridge would be built first.) These days, reported Alaska Dispatch News in November, the original 3.2-mile, $28 million access road on Gravina Island, built to access the bridge, now just ends in a “scrub forest.” One optimistic state official said the road gets “more use all the time”--boaters come for “hunting and fishing, berry picking, things like that. It’s actually a nice road.” [Alaska Dispatch News, 11-16-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (June 2011)
A prison guard is "the greatest entry-level job in California," according to an April [2011] Wall Street Journal report highlighting its benefits over those of a typical job resulting from a Harvard University education). Starting pay is comparable; loans are not necessary (since the guard "academy" actually pays the student); and vacation time is more generous (seven weeks, five paid). One downside: The prison system is more selective: While Harvard accepts 6.2 percent of applicants, the guard service takes fewer than 1 percent of its 120,000 applicants). [Wall Street Journal, 4-30-2011]
Thanks This Week to Rich Heiden, Rachael Bock, and Stuart Worthington, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M456, January 3, 2016
Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
WEIRDNUZ.M456 (News of the Weird, January 3, 2016)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
New World Order: In December, Canada’s supportive organization The Transgender Project released a biographical video of the former Paul Wolscht, 46 and the father of seven children with his ex-wife Marie, describing his new life as not only a female but a six-year-old female, Stephoknee Wolscht. She told the Daily Xtra (gay and lesbian news site) that not acting her real age (even while doing “adult” things like working a job and driving a car) enables her to escape “depression and suicidal thoughts.” Among the trans-age’s favorite activities are (coloring-book) coloring, creating a play-like “kingdom,” and wearing “really pretty clothes.” Stephoknee now lives with the couple who adopted her. [The Independent (London), 12-16-2015]
Unclear on the Concept
Thee, Not Me: American “millennials” (those aged 18-29) continue a “long-standing tradition,” the Washington Post wrote in December, describing a Harvard Institute of Politics poll on their views on war. Following the recent Paris terrorist attacks, about 60 percent of U.S. millennials said additional American troops would be needed to fight the Islamic State, but 85 percent answered, in the next question, that “no,” they themselves were “probably” or “definitely” not joining the military. [Washington Post, 12-10-2015]
Exceptional Floridians
(1) Police in St. Petersburg reported the December arrest of a 12-year-old boy whose rap sheet listed “over 20" arrests since age 9. He, on a bicycle, had told an 89-year-old driver at a gas station that the man’s tire was low, and when the man got out to check, the boy hopped in the car and took off. (2) A driver accidentally plowed through two small businesses in Pensacola in December, creating such destruction that the manager of one said it looked like a bomb had hit (forcing both--a tax service and a casket company--to relocate). The driver told police he was attempting to “travel through time.” [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 12-15-2015] [WEAR-TV (Pensacola), 12-23-2015]
Compelling Explanations
(1) Breen Peck, 52, an air traffic controller who has been having career troubles in recent years, was arrested during a traffic stop on New York’s Long Island in December when officers found illegal drugs in his car. “That’s meth,” he said. “I’m an air traffic controller.” “I smoke it to stay awake.” (2) In a “she-said/he-said” case, wealthy Saudi businessman Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was acquitted of rape in December in England’s Southwark Crown Court, apparently persuading jurors of “reasonable doubt” about his DNA found in the alleged victim’s vagina. Perhaps, his lawyer said, Abdulaziz was still aroused after sex with the other woman in the room and accidentally fell directly upon the alleged victim lying on a couch. [New York Post, 12-11-2015] [The Independent, 12-16-2015]
Ironies
Christopher Manney was fired from the Milwaukee Police Department in 2014 after shooting a black suspect to death in a case bearing some similarity to 2015 shootings that produced “Black Lives Matter” protests--not fired for the shooting (adjudged “not excessive force”) but for improper actions that preceded the shooting (not announcing a valid reason for a patdown and conducting a not-by-the-book patdown). Two days before the firing, he had filed a disability claim for post-traumatic stress disorder from the shooting and aftermath, and in November 2015 the city’s Annuity and Pension Board, following city law, approved the claim. Thus, Manney, despite having been subsequently fired (i.e., two days later), retired with full disability, with basically the same take-home pay he was receiving when fired. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11-5-2015; WITI-TV (Milwaukee), 10-16-2015]
In November, as anti-Muslim tensions arose in several U.S. cities following the Paris terrorist attack, two chapters of the Satanic Temple church (San Jose, Calif., and Minneapolis) offered to protect Muslims who feared a backlash. The Minneapolis group offered “just big dudes walking you to where you need to be,” for example, grocery-shopping--an offer “of genuine compassion for our fellow human beings.” (The offer was subsequently rescinded by the Minneapolis church’s executive ministry, reasoning that they are “not a personal security service.”) [City Pages (Minneapolis), 12-22-2015]
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
In November, a 62-year-old customer at Ancient City Shooting Range in St. Augustine, Fla., was hit in the lower abdomen area by another shooter, 71, because the victim was standing behind the target (“for some reason,” was all a fire-rescue spokesman would say). The shooter thought the man was elsewhere on the property. [Jacksonville.com, 11-27-2015]
Least Competent Criminals
Oops! (1) Jasper Harrison, 47, working inside the storage unit in Edgewater, Fla., where he grows his marijuana, heard a helicopter overhead on December 9th, panicked, and called 911 to turn himself in to pre-empt what he presumed was a SWAT raid. Actually, the helicopter belonged to a local news station headed elsewhere, but police later arrested Harrison based on the 911 call. (2) Lloyd Franklin, 34 and suspected in a North Carolina double murder, fatally shot himself in a Bensalem, Pa., motel room in November when police knocked on the door. However, cops actually had come to arrest another man in the room, on a parole violation. [Orlando Sentinel, 12-10-2015] [KYW-TV (Philadelphia), 11-8-2015]
The Continuing Crisis
Elaine Williams, 47, was arrested in December in North Forsyth, Ga., and charged with trying to buy a baby for her daughter, 14, via an ad on Craigslist. Williams said her daughter said she “wanted a baby and would get one with or without [my] help.” (Bonus: Williams lives near Jot Em Down Road.) [Forsyth County News, 12-7-2015]
Easily Disrespected: Two foreign students at the liberal-arts Oberlin College complained in a recent school publication that the cafeteria selections--supposedly “inclusive” of world cultures--was actually denigrating those cultures by offering inferior versions of national dishes. Vietnamese student Diep Nguyen wrote that the correct “banh mi” sandwich should be a “crispy baguette with grilled pork, pate, pickled vegetables, and fresh herbs” and not, he complained, “ciabatta bread, pulled pork, and coleslaw.” Said Japanese student Tomoyo Joshi, sushi with “undercooked rice and lack of fresh fish is disrespectful.” (Cafeteria managers told the Washington Post they were proud of their commitments to other cultures, to local farming, sustainable foods, and animal-treatment concerns.) [Oberlin Review, 11-6-2015] [Washington Post, 12-21-2015]
The Aristocrats!
(1) A customer had to be dragged from a burning sex shop by firefighters in the notorious Reeperbahn “sin” section of Hamburg, Germany, in November when he refused orders to evacuate. He had shut himself inside a private booth to watch a film (“Throbbin Hood”) and was heard complaining (while coughing from smoke inhalation), “I haven’t finished yet.” (2) Police in Richmond, Va., announced in December that high school math teacher Kenneth Johnson III turned himself in for several recent residential shoe thefts. Each time, the shoes taken from homes were returned to their owners but with “bodily fluids” added. [Daily Mail (London), 11-25-2015] [WTVR-TV (Richmond, 12-5-2015]
Update
Road to Nowhere: The “Bridge to Nowhere” played an outsize role in politics a decade ago as an example of uncontrolled government spending (before Congress killed it). (Ketchikan, Alaska, planned a sleek international airport upgrade on nearby, barely-inhabited Gravina Island, but needed a sleek bridge to get there, and the $450 million bridge would be built first.) These days, reported Alaska Dispatch News in November, the original 3.2-mile, $28 million access road on Gravina Island, built to access the bridge, now just ends in a “scrub forest.” One optimistic state official said the road gets “more use all the time”--boaters come for “hunting and fishing, berry picking, things like that. It’s actually a nice road.” [Alaska Dispatch News, 11-16-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (June 2011)
A prison guard is "the greatest entry-level job in California," according to an April [2011] Wall Street Journal report highlighting its benefits over those of a typical job resulting from a Harvard University education). Starting pay is comparable; loans are not necessary (since the guard "academy" actually pays the student); and vacation time is more generous (seven weeks, five paid). One downside: The prison system is more selective: While Harvard accepts 6.2 percent of applicants, the guard service takes fewer than 1 percent of its 120,000 applicants). [Wall Street Journal, 4-30-2011]
Thanks This Week to Rich Heiden, Rachael Bock, and Stuart Worthington, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
Craigslist baby purchase: According to Wikipedia, "Jot Em Down Store was a popular name for general stores in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It referred to the store owner or clerk jotting down the customer's purchase requests, and then retrieving them for the customer." Presumably there was once such a store on Jot Em Down Road.
Posted by ges on 01/03/16 at 08:05 PM
Magnificent list this week, Chuck; it is a veritable cornucopia of weirdness. Also, I desperately want to build a wall across the northern-most part of the Florida peninsula, in preparation for the rising sea level.
Posted by Justin S. on 01/03/16 at 09:54 PM
As an added bonus, the only city in Forsyth County, Georgia is named Cumming.
Posted by TheCannyScot in Atlanta, GA on 01/04/16 at 09:41 AM
The Japanese who complain about the fish not being fresh is certainly daydreaming if he expects a school cafeteria to serve sushi with fresh fish. The Vietnamese student, on the other hand, is right and I bet he is voicing the complaints of all the non-WASPs students of the college. When they serve a Reuben sandwich and call it a banh mi, you can expect all kind of weird foodstuff, ranging from couscous (chicken in tomato sauce on rice) to samosas (egg rolls filled with potato salad) to tamales (chicken rice stuffed in a plastic wrap) to spam musumi (open face ham sandwich). And I bet the rice is generic Uncle Ben.
Posted by Yudith on 01/04/16 at 12:55 PM
Yudith: but even to this very white European, sushi with second-rate fish is inedible. I'm a Dutchman, I don't mind raw herring, but if you don't salt it, raw fish must be fresh, very fresh. If they can't manage that, cook it and don't call it sushi.
Posted by Richard Bos on 01/04/16 at 05:08 PM
Richard, I totally agree with you; this cafeteria should not serve sushi. There are several cooked dishes in the Japanese cuisine, including katsudon (crusty pork chops), ramen and rice omelet. However, this place would transform them into fried Snickers, Spaghetti-O and a fried egg on Uncle Ben's with ketchup.
Posted by Yudith on 01/05/16 at 07:35 AM
Justin S. how right you are, Florida does need a wall to contain all it's weirdness. The ocean is another matter.
Wrong time, wrong place. Our fair state's citizens continue to shoot themselves or others with alarming frequency. A friend with the Miami-Dade police told me that accidental shooting are so common they rarely get news coverage unless there is a fatality involved. Jackson Hospital in Miami is a favorite for trauma surgeons in training because of the frequency of gunshot wounds.
Visiting friends house several years ago I noted the front door and his truck had a number of duct tape patches. He admitted he was doing a "combat loading drill" from u-tube with his AK-47 and there was a misfire. I unfriended him quickly.
Oberlin College. I wonder if they provide MREs for veterans?
Wrong time, wrong place. Our fair state's citizens continue to shoot themselves or others with alarming frequency. A friend with the Miami-Dade police told me that accidental shooting are so common they rarely get news coverage unless there is a fatality involved. Jackson Hospital in Miami is a favorite for trauma surgeons in training because of the frequency of gunshot wounds.
Visiting friends house several years ago I noted the front door and his truck had a number of duct tape patches. He admitted he was doing a "combat loading drill" from u-tube with his AK-47 and there was a misfire. I unfriended him quickly.
Oberlin College. I wonder if they provide MREs for veterans?
Posted by Gator Guy on 01/05/16 at 10:02 AM
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