News of the Weird (June 15, 2014)
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M375, June 15, 2014
Copyright 2014 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Thirty thousand spiders led by members of the British Tarantula Society gathered in Coventry on May 18th for the annual BTS exhibition, with a “Socotra Island blue baboon” spider taking “Best in Show” for first-time entrant Mike Dawkins. According to news reports, judges ignore spiders’ personalities and select by objectifying the body--seeking “shiny coats, correct proportions, an active demeanor, and proper stance” (which means that “all eight legs should be upright and perfectly poised”). Veteran judge Ryan Hale said winning does not necessarily make a spider more valuable but is likely to enhance the keeper’s reputation in the tarantula-training community. [Mother Nature News, 5-23-2014]
Government in Action
Susan Coppinger, 47, was promoted by the city of Boston in January to a job paying $38,800 in the Inspectional Services Department--even though a month earlier she had been arrested for bank robbery. In fact, police said it was her second robbery of the same Santander Bank in nearby Quincy. Apparently, the city’s human resources office does not monitor mugshots on MassMostWanted.com, but in April, the city finally secured Coppinger’s resignation. [WCVB-TV (Boston), 4-1-2014]
For panicking drivers headed in an emergency to University Hospital in Tamarac, Fla., ready to turn left into the ER because of bleeding, shortness of breath, etc., the city still requires patiently waiting for the traffic light to turn green--no matter what--and has a $158-per violation red-light camera perfectly aimed, according to a WPLG-TV investigation reported in March. The station noted that the traffic magistrate handling appeals serves at the pleasure of the city and so far has not relented on tickets involving even provable emergencies. [WPLG-TV (Miami), 3-2-2014]
Alarmed that its internal rating system revealed that some employees actually perform better than others, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced in May that it was scrapping the system. Agency director Richard Cordray expressed dismay that the system failed to reveal worker disparities that matched up on the basis of age, race, union status, and longevity with the agency, and said that until they find a system that proves, for example, that union members work just as well (or badly) as non-members, all employees will be paid as if they were doing excellent work. [American Banker, 5-19-2014]
Great Art!
Weird Japan: When Ayano Tsukimi, 64, moved from Osaka back to her home village of Nagoro, she found a population of only 37 people and set out to “replace” those who had moved away--by creating life-size stuffed dolls, with unsettling facial features, which she positions around town as if to suggest a larger population. Tsukimi estimated that she has created about 350 “inhabitants,” and, reported Global Post in May, “imagines a future where she’s outlived all her neighbors, and only dolls remain.” [Global Post via The Week, 5-10-2014]
Food trucks are ubiquitous in many urban areas, bringing ethnic foods to street corners, and now in the New York City neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Soho, art impresarios bring stage presentations to the insides of 24-foot trucks parked on the street. Typically, ticket-holders (fewer than 20) climb in for a 30-minute play, followed by a 15-minute “intermission” a few steps away at a neighborhood bar, and then it’s back in the truck for another half-hour. One art-truck producer blamed outlandish New York City real estate prices for the turn to mobile sites. [BrooklynBased.com, 5-22-2014]
China’s pre-eminent (and perhaps most terrifying) performance artist, He Yunchang, 48, acknowledged to Agence France-Presse in May that he will do “anything” to advance “art”--as long as it does not kill him. Mr. He most famously removed part of a rib on opening day of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 (on the “lucky” date of 8-8-08) and in 2010 assembled 25 people to vote on whether he should be slashed from collarbone to knee and left bloody on a bed. (Cutting won, 12-10, with three abstentions, and a doctor reluctantly made the incision.) A gallery owner in Australia told AFP that He’s “pain” and “discomfort” “have a transcendent quality” and are “silent rebukes” to Chinese people who endure hardship just for money--ironically believing money will protect them from suffering. [Agence France-Presse via Rakyat Post (Kuala Lumpur), 5-9-2014]
The Itella postal service of Finland announced in April that it would soon sell stamps featuring 33 designs honoring the late Finnish homoerotic artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as “Tom of Finland.” None were to be “hardcore” images, although a more-explicit companion exhibit will open soon at Finland’s Postal Museum. (Finland, however, is not among Europe’s leaders in progressive treatment of gays.) [Global Post via Salon.com, 4-16-2014]
Police Report
Dan Greding, working on contract with the city of Santa Barbara, Calif., was busy at work one February day installing signs on street lamps warning that only “75 Minute Parking” was permitted. On one block, three signs were called for, but the last one required Greding to drill into concrete, insert screws, and wait for the concrete to dry--which apparently took more than 75 minutes, and a passing police officer ticketed his truck. Greding’s first appeal of the citation was denied, but a second appeal was pending at press time. [KEYT-TV (Santa Barbara), 5-7-2014]
Least Competent Criminals
The 9-1-1 call at 1:50 a.m. on May 29th came from a driver who said he was lost on Deen Still Road near Polk City, Fla., and being chased by wild hogs. A sheriff’s deputy fairly easily “rescued” Andrew Joffe, 24, but then discovered that Joffe (a) had an active arrest warrant and (b) was in possession of a GPS device that he admitted stealing from a car that evening. The Polk County sheriff told reporters that it was “unusual” for an absconding thief, with a warrant, to bring himself to deputies’ attention like that but acknowledged with a wink that “it does get pretty dark out on Deen Still Road in the middle of the night.” [WWSB-TV (Sarasota), 5-29-2014]
The Aristocrats!
(1) Gregory Schwartz, 40, was arrested in Clairemont, Calif., in March, charged with crawling under a ladies’ restroom stall door at a Big Lots store to molest a shopper. (Schwartz was dressed as a Barbie doll.) (2) Jeremy Grinnell, 42, pleaded guilty in May in Grand Rapids, Mich., to having propped up a ladder under a couple’s bedroom window in November and climbed up to watch them having sex. (At the time, Grinnell was a local pastor and a professor at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.) (3) Police in Ypsilanti, Mich., made an arrest in May to end a six-months’-long reign of disgust in which someone frequently defecated on the same slide in Prospect Park--even, amazingly, on the coldest days of the season. [KNSD-TV (San Diego), 3-2-2014] [Grand Rapids Press, 5-13-2014] [Ann Arbor News, 5-14-2014]
Recurring Themes
(1) A 51-year-old man drowned in Adelaide, Australia, in February--the latest person to inadvisedly jump into the water to retrieve a low-price belonging--this time, his toy boat that had gone awry. (2) A man and woman, both age 40, died in Williamsport, Pa., in February--discovered in their car in their closed garage with the engine still running and the car nearly out of gasoline. Thus, the partially-clad couple appeared to be the most recent to have suffocated in that manner while having sex. [Australian Associated Press via The Advertiser (Adelaide), 3-1-2014] [Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), 2-2-2014]
Readers’ Choice
In April, police in Ottawa, Ontario, arrested a 62-year-old man as the one who had been indecently exposing himself to visitors to Mooney’s Bay Park. Detained was Donald Popadick, whose family name (according to diligent journalism by the National Post) is present in only three Canadian households and is perhaps derived from the Serbian name Popadic. (Popadick’s arrest was made by Sgt. Iain Pidcock.) [National Post, 4-29-2014]
Thanks This Week to Wayne Saddler, David Swanson, David MacDonald, Andrew Hastie, Lynn Marshall, Steve Dunn, Rick Sabadka, Peter Trobridge, and Paul Baez, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M375, June 15, 2014
Copyright 2014 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Thirty thousand spiders led by members of the British Tarantula Society gathered in Coventry on May 18th for the annual BTS exhibition, with a “Socotra Island blue baboon” spider taking “Best in Show” for first-time entrant Mike Dawkins. According to news reports, judges ignore spiders’ personalities and select by objectifying the body--seeking “shiny coats, correct proportions, an active demeanor, and proper stance” (which means that “all eight legs should be upright and perfectly poised”). Veteran judge Ryan Hale said winning does not necessarily make a spider more valuable but is likely to enhance the keeper’s reputation in the tarantula-training community. [Mother Nature News, 5-23-2014]
Government in Action
Susan Coppinger, 47, was promoted by the city of Boston in January to a job paying $38,800 in the Inspectional Services Department--even though a month earlier she had been arrested for bank robbery. In fact, police said it was her second robbery of the same Santander Bank in nearby Quincy. Apparently, the city’s human resources office does not monitor mugshots on MassMostWanted.com, but in April, the city finally secured Coppinger’s resignation. [WCVB-TV (Boston), 4-1-2014]
For panicking drivers headed in an emergency to University Hospital in Tamarac, Fla., ready to turn left into the ER because of bleeding, shortness of breath, etc., the city still requires patiently waiting for the traffic light to turn green--no matter what--and has a $158-per violation red-light camera perfectly aimed, according to a WPLG-TV investigation reported in March. The station noted that the traffic magistrate handling appeals serves at the pleasure of the city and so far has not relented on tickets involving even provable emergencies. [WPLG-TV (Miami), 3-2-2014]
Alarmed that its internal rating system revealed that some employees actually perform better than others, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced in May that it was scrapping the system. Agency director Richard Cordray expressed dismay that the system failed to reveal worker disparities that matched up on the basis of age, race, union status, and longevity with the agency, and said that until they find a system that proves, for example, that union members work just as well (or badly) as non-members, all employees will be paid as if they were doing excellent work. [American Banker, 5-19-2014]
Great Art!
Weird Japan: When Ayano Tsukimi, 64, moved from Osaka back to her home village of Nagoro, she found a population of only 37 people and set out to “replace” those who had moved away--by creating life-size stuffed dolls, with unsettling facial features, which she positions around town as if to suggest a larger population. Tsukimi estimated that she has created about 350 “inhabitants,” and, reported Global Post in May, “imagines a future where she’s outlived all her neighbors, and only dolls remain.” [Global Post via The Week, 5-10-2014]
Food trucks are ubiquitous in many urban areas, bringing ethnic foods to street corners, and now in the New York City neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Soho, art impresarios bring stage presentations to the insides of 24-foot trucks parked on the street. Typically, ticket-holders (fewer than 20) climb in for a 30-minute play, followed by a 15-minute “intermission” a few steps away at a neighborhood bar, and then it’s back in the truck for another half-hour. One art-truck producer blamed outlandish New York City real estate prices for the turn to mobile sites. [BrooklynBased.com, 5-22-2014]
China’s pre-eminent (and perhaps most terrifying) performance artist, He Yunchang, 48, acknowledged to Agence France-Presse in May that he will do “anything” to advance “art”--as long as it does not kill him. Mr. He most famously removed part of a rib on opening day of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 (on the “lucky” date of 8-8-08) and in 2010 assembled 25 people to vote on whether he should be slashed from collarbone to knee and left bloody on a bed. (Cutting won, 12-10, with three abstentions, and a doctor reluctantly made the incision.) A gallery owner in Australia told AFP that He’s “pain” and “discomfort” “have a transcendent quality” and are “silent rebukes” to Chinese people who endure hardship just for money--ironically believing money will protect them from suffering. [Agence France-Presse via Rakyat Post (Kuala Lumpur), 5-9-2014]
The Itella postal service of Finland announced in April that it would soon sell stamps featuring 33 designs honoring the late Finnish homoerotic artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as “Tom of Finland.” None were to be “hardcore” images, although a more-explicit companion exhibit will open soon at Finland’s Postal Museum. (Finland, however, is not among Europe’s leaders in progressive treatment of gays.) [Global Post via Salon.com, 4-16-2014]
Police Report
Dan Greding, working on contract with the city of Santa Barbara, Calif., was busy at work one February day installing signs on street lamps warning that only “75 Minute Parking” was permitted. On one block, three signs were called for, but the last one required Greding to drill into concrete, insert screws, and wait for the concrete to dry--which apparently took more than 75 minutes, and a passing police officer ticketed his truck. Greding’s first appeal of the citation was denied, but a second appeal was pending at press time. [KEYT-TV (Santa Barbara), 5-7-2014]
Least Competent Criminals
The 9-1-1 call at 1:50 a.m. on May 29th came from a driver who said he was lost on Deen Still Road near Polk City, Fla., and being chased by wild hogs. A sheriff’s deputy fairly easily “rescued” Andrew Joffe, 24, but then discovered that Joffe (a) had an active arrest warrant and (b) was in possession of a GPS device that he admitted stealing from a car that evening. The Polk County sheriff told reporters that it was “unusual” for an absconding thief, with a warrant, to bring himself to deputies’ attention like that but acknowledged with a wink that “it does get pretty dark out on Deen Still Road in the middle of the night.” [WWSB-TV (Sarasota), 5-29-2014]
The Aristocrats!
(1) Gregory Schwartz, 40, was arrested in Clairemont, Calif., in March, charged with crawling under a ladies’ restroom stall door at a Big Lots store to molest a shopper. (Schwartz was dressed as a Barbie doll.) (2) Jeremy Grinnell, 42, pleaded guilty in May in Grand Rapids, Mich., to having propped up a ladder under a couple’s bedroom window in November and climbed up to watch them having sex. (At the time, Grinnell was a local pastor and a professor at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.) (3) Police in Ypsilanti, Mich., made an arrest in May to end a six-months’-long reign of disgust in which someone frequently defecated on the same slide in Prospect Park--even, amazingly, on the coldest days of the season. [KNSD-TV (San Diego), 3-2-2014] [Grand Rapids Press, 5-13-2014] [Ann Arbor News, 5-14-2014]
Recurring Themes
(1) A 51-year-old man drowned in Adelaide, Australia, in February--the latest person to inadvisedly jump into the water to retrieve a low-price belonging--this time, his toy boat that had gone awry. (2) A man and woman, both age 40, died in Williamsport, Pa., in February--discovered in their car in their closed garage with the engine still running and the car nearly out of gasoline. Thus, the partially-clad couple appeared to be the most recent to have suffocated in that manner while having sex. [Australian Associated Press via The Advertiser (Adelaide), 3-1-2014] [Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), 2-2-2014]
Readers’ Choice
In April, police in Ottawa, Ontario, arrested a 62-year-old man as the one who had been indecently exposing himself to visitors to Mooney’s Bay Park. Detained was Donald Popadick, whose family name (according to diligent journalism by the National Post) is present in only three Canadian households and is perhaps derived from the Serbian name Popadic. (Popadick’s arrest was made by Sgt. Iain Pidcock.) [National Post, 4-29-2014]
Thanks This Week to Wayne Saddler, David Swanson, David MacDonald, Andrew Hastie, Lynn Marshall, Steve Dunn, Rick Sabadka, Peter Trobridge, and Paul Baez, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
Y'know, from what I can tell on Google maps, Nagoro is nestled between two ridges.
You might say it's become a
Valley of the Dolls!
Thank you, remember to tip your waitress.
You might say it's become a
Valley of the Dolls!
Thank you, remember to tip your waitress.
Posted by SteveWithAQ on 06/15/14 at 12:44 PM
UK Tarantulas They eat bugs, they're quite, don't take up a lot of space, and don't need to be walked. What else do you want out of a pet, love? companionship? Bah!
Boston Bureaucracy What? No one's heard of It Takes a Thief?
Tamarac, Fla. Ya think, maybe, it's all about the money?
Financial Protection Bureau As a programmer I can relate with the end user's consternation about not being able to cook the books once the code is written. BAD PROGRAMMER!
Weird Japan All I need to know is, "Are they anatomically correct?" [ ]YES [ ]NO
NY Art on Wheels Truly life is a circle but sure as God made little green apples someone thinks they've invented the traveling stage show concept.
He Yunchang Dho!
Finland's Stamps Philatelists will be sucking those rascals up.
75 Min. Parking RTFS! (Which is akin to RTFM)
Deen Still Road Help! Help! It's dark in here.
Mooney’s Bay Park You've GOT to know Greek slang to get the full irony of this one.
Boston Bureaucracy What? No one's heard of It Takes a Thief?
Tamarac, Fla. Ya think, maybe, it's all about the money?
Financial Protection Bureau As a programmer I can relate with the end user's consternation about not being able to cook the books once the code is written. BAD PROGRAMMER!
Weird Japan All I need to know is, "Are they anatomically correct?" [ ]YES [ ]NO
NY Art on Wheels Truly life is a circle but sure as God made little green apples someone thinks they've invented the traveling stage show concept.
He Yunchang Dho!
Finland's Stamps Philatelists will be sucking those rascals up.
75 Min. Parking RTFS! (Which is akin to RTFM)
Deen Still Road Help! Help! It's dark in here.
Mooney’s Bay Park You've GOT to know Greek slang to get the full irony of this one.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 06/15/14 at 01:07 PM
Tarantulas- OMGWTFAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! (I don't care for spiders of any kind.)
bank robber- No one in city government reads the paper or watches the news??
red light/ER- The city thinks it a great revenue idea but its gonna result in a lawsuit eventually. "I waited for the light and my husband died because of it."
employee performance- Sounds like the everyone is a winner child care philosophy that has screwed up the last couple of generations of kids.
mobile shows- The stripper people have already been doing this.
sadistic art- This guy is psychotic and should be held in a psych hospital for treatment because he is a danger to himself.
gay stamps- The anti-gay people here would loose their minds over gay stamps!!
signs- That's what he gets for F-ing up the scenery.(song)
stall crawling Barbie- Its Ken in drag with dirty hands and knees.
peeping pastor- At least he is perving on adults.
poo on slide- Community service cleaning restrooms or perhaps emptying porta-potties seems appropriate.
bank robber- No one in city government reads the paper or watches the news??
red light/ER- The city thinks it a great revenue idea but its gonna result in a lawsuit eventually. "I waited for the light and my husband died because of it."
employee performance- Sounds like the everyone is a winner child care philosophy that has screwed up the last couple of generations of kids.
mobile shows- The stripper people have already been doing this.
sadistic art- This guy is psychotic and should be held in a psych hospital for treatment because he is a danger to himself.
gay stamps- The anti-gay people here would loose their minds over gay stamps!!
signs- That's what he gets for F-ing up the scenery.(song)
stall crawling Barbie- Its Ken in drag with dirty hands and knees.
peeping pastor- At least he is perving on adults.
poo on slide- Community service cleaning restrooms or perhaps emptying porta-potties seems appropriate.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 06/15/14 at 06:51 PM
"employee performance- Sounds like the everyone is a winner child care philosophy that has screwed up the last couple of generations of kids."
I dunno, reads like they were peeved that the data wouldn't fit their pet theories.
(Imagine that, Data showed people acting like individuals instead of neatly compartmented demographics... no wonder they chucked the whole thing!)
I dunno, reads like they were peeved that the data wouldn't fit their pet theories.
(Imagine that, Data showed people acting like individuals instead of neatly compartmented demographics... no wonder they chucked the whole thing!)
Posted by Captain DaFt on 06/16/14 at 02:39 AM
CFPB - what is really astounding is that whites outperformed Asians. That was probably the key clue that something wasn't quite right. Everything else made sense.
Finnish stamps - and none will be self-adhesive, users will have to lick every one, with the glue tasting like sh*t.
Gregory Schwartz - obviously a transgender who shouldn't be held responsible for his/her actions.
Ypsilanti - probably kept forgetting their pooper scooper, since it isn't be against the law to answer nature's call in public. The perp wasn't even charged with littering.
Williamsport - with it so cold out, it probably took a while to get things going.
Donald Popadick - indecency is still against the law? How prudish of the Canadians.
Finnish stamps - and none will be self-adhesive, users will have to lick every one, with the glue tasting like sh*t.
Gregory Schwartz - obviously a transgender who shouldn't be held responsible for his/her actions.
Ypsilanti - probably kept forgetting their pooper scooper, since it isn't be against the law to answer nature's call in public. The perp wasn't even charged with littering.
Williamsport - with it so cold out, it probably took a while to get things going.
Donald Popadick - indecency is still against the law? How prudish of the Canadians.
Posted by RobK on 06/16/14 at 12:04 PM
Tarantulas: Well? How is this weirder than a twelve-cat biddy?
Traffic fines: And this is why you guys need to keep the trias politica better separated.
Nagoro: She'll probably find that those last 37 now leave pretty pronto, too.
Art trucks: are older than even Expat thinks. Passion plays used to do this in the middle ages. And it's not a bad idea, really.
Traffic fines: And this is why you guys need to keep the trias politica better separated.
Nagoro: She'll probably find that those last 37 now leave pretty pronto, too.
Art trucks: are older than even Expat thinks. Passion plays used to do this in the middle ages. And it's not a bad idea, really.
Posted by Richard Bos on 06/17/14 at 08:26 AM
Ahm... I had cast my mind back that far and, most likely, farther if history would bear me out.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 06/17/14 at 09:33 AM
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