News of the Weird / Pro Edition (December 16, 2013)

News of the Weird Pro Edition
Angst, Confusion, Cynicism, Ridicule

Prime Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
December 16, 2013
(datelines December 7-December 14) (links correct as of December 15)

[Yr Editor is taking his annual holiday hiatus from these Monday posts, which will now by the way return to being called News of the Weird Pro Edition. Although a fresh News of the Weird will continue to appear on Sundays, the next Pro Edition will pop in, at the latest, on Monday, January 6th. As usual, Yr Editor, himself, does not rest and will be at work each day of the hiatus, hand-picking prime cuts of underreported news.]

Can’t Possibly Be True: In a 3-part series this week the Wall Street Journal reminded us that we used to be a nation of lobotomies, even for especially for our wounded warriors. The procedure was quite controversial but never so controversial that a critical mass of the relevant professions outright-condemned it. Result: The total-single-minded neurologist (and, more important, non-surgeon) Walter Freeman could, in broad daylight in front of witnesses take an icepick from his kitchen and jam it into a patient’s eye socket, twist it a bit, and wait around optimistically for weeks for a favorable outcome. Seriously. Dr. Freeman, who died in 1972, spent his last years traveling the country collecting testimonials from the few patients who believe he helped them. Wall Street Journal Part II (on Dr. Freeman) /// WSJ Part I /// WSJ Part III

America, of course, guarantees equality before the law that it mostly strives for equality before the law--so that we still notice when these things occur: (1) A defense lawyer in New York asks the judge to go easier on his murdering client on the ground that . . the victim was not “a person in the higher end of the community” (i.e., she was a whore). Ewww, cringe. (2) Defense lawyers for a 16-yr-old driver in Texas tries to get the judge to go easier on the four-body DUI vehicular-homicider on the ground that . . he is from a rich family whose parents never held him accountable for anything. Ewww, cringe No, wait. That one worked. New York Post /// KRLD-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth) /// CNN

How to Get Rich: The Petite Syrah café in Nice, Frawnts, trying to induce civility, raised its coffee price to €7 (about $9.50)--unless you accompany it with a bonjour and a s’il vous plait, in which case it’s €1.40 (about $1.90). However, politeness is not in the French’s wheelhouse. Never underestimate the resistance! The Local (Paris)

Genentech manufactures Avastin and Lucentis, which are both blindness and cancer-cell inhibitors, but the first costs about $50 a dose, the second $2,000. They’re the same drug. Are they totally, exactly alike? No, and well-paid doctors and lobbyists lull colleagues and regulators to sleep splitting hairs over why the 200 performed something-something percentage better for some people in some study given under some-some protocol for some certain conditions that may or may not be relevant to this-here patient who we’re prescribing the 200 to. By law, doctors billing Medicare get a 6% cut on the drug. Washington Post

Gone Too Far: Celebrity cosmetic surgeon Michael Niccole beamed with pride (according to this story rustled up last week by London’s Daily Mirror) back when he gave his own teen daughters (years ago; they’re now 25) boob jobs. Daily Mirror

No Way! Way. Cops tell the Ohio att’y gen’l’s office that pet owners are abusing their, umm, companions in order to get pain meds from vets . . for the owners either to self-medicate or sell. Yikes. Dayton Daily News

A 17-yr-old girl in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, reported to a doctor with mutilated genitals--the result, she said, of her injectable krokodil habit. (Depending on what it’s cut with, it might rot flesh at the injection site, making the skin look like croc skin. Oh baby oh baby.) New York Daily News

“Every day Mumbai produces enough sewage to fill 4,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools,” but the system still must be cleaned (at least once a year) by hand. This YouTube video was uploaded last week. YouTube

Insane Clown Posse’s biographer Nathan Rabin told the New York Times he’s a little disenchanted with the hard-core outlaw rock group. Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope seem “incredibly defanged,” “two affable, middle-aged men in clown makeup.” Said Violent J, “I just want to come home, be with my kids, just kick back and watch TV.” New York Times

The World’s Greatest Newspaper reported on a college student in the UK who transcends appropriate cliches and is, in fact, allergic to books. [Wait, no, she’s not. This is just another one of those extremely annoying British “weird” news stories, immediately recognizable because the “victim” of the applicable tragedy is always captured in a merry series of photos exaggerating her or his condition. The headline says if she opens a book, she dies. The story says she has asthma and that UK colleges’ buildings are old and musty. Never mind.] World’s Greatest Newspaper

The Aristocrats!

Last week’s alleged public turkey-chokers: Steven Schmidt, 51, Seattle (serial drive-by’s); Dwight Eddington, Jr., 26, Sanford, Fla. (following shoppers at a Beall’s department store); unnamed suspect, Henrico, Va. (roaming a Walmart parking lot performing for shoppers); Cornelius Fergueson, 45, Philadelphia (standing at his office window) (Bonus: He’s a psychologist for the Philadelphia Family Court system). Also: Deacon Alexander Garcia, of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Nampa, Id. (met in a storage room with a way-underage girl and said, “Satan” “may have taken control” of his body). Also: Robert Greis, 67, Orlando (caught with a mirror on his shoe looking up a woman’s skirt) (Bonus: his girlfriend’s skirt!).
KOMO News (Seattle) /// Orlando Sentinel /// WWBT-TV (Richmond, Va.) /// Philly.com /// Idaho Statesman (Boise) /// WKMG-TV (Orlando)

Update

That non-prostitution cuddle shop supposed to open in Madison, Wis., last month didn’t. A Madison assistant city attorney-chick said, “No offense to men, but I don’t know any man who wants to just snuggle.” (Similar shops in Rochester, N.Y., Boulder, Colo., and San Francisco are still apparently doing OK.) Associated Press via BayNews9.com (St. Petersburg, Fla.)

Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]

Good thing this guy’s only charged with Disorderly Conduct because he might not stand a chance in a court of law. The Smoking Gun

Editor's Notes

As Yr Editor got caught in the saga of Dr. Freeman, I experienced an interesting week that I pass on to you, although if you are a doctor (or watch “House”), you know all this. Some doctors treat “patients”; other doctors treat “illnesses.” You’ll often get way-different results depending on which type you consult [cf. If you mainly have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail]. Dr. Freeman (and the first cardiologist who treated me for atrial fibrillation) mostly were driven to learn of success rates for, in one case, lobotomies, and in the other re-setting the heart to normal rhythm. Maybe need the other kind of doctor.

Newsrangers: Peter Stekel, and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.