News of the Weird/Pro Edition
You're Still Not Cynical Enough
Prime Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
November 8, 2010
(datelines October 30-November 6) (links correct as of November 8)
Return of Ohio's No. 1 Problem, Plus Dainty Elephants and the World's Ugliest Woman
★ ★ ★ ★!
"Golden" Oldie: Alan Patton, 59, the Dublin, Ohio, guy with a thing for young boys' urine, was arrested again. What he does is put Saran Wrap at the bottom of urinals so that he can go collect the puddle after a boy tinkles. He had to do 60 days last time they caught him, and this time he'll have to answer to the since-enacted Alan Patton Law
[I just made up the name, but it was indeed aimed specifically at him.].
Columbus Dispatch
One Day, Vengeance Will Be Theirs: That Safari World park near Bangkok (the one that has featured orangutans in trunks kickboxing) has outdone itself: elephants tightrope-walking. (Bonus: They're pretty good at it--plus, because of encroaching rural development, the job market for elephants is in severe decline, and they're actually lucky to get
any gig.)
Daily Mail (London)
Thank God We Kicked British Butt at Yorktown: Otherwise, we'd have to put up with wimpiness like this. Ya see, because
somebody complained, British officials decided last week that Army cadets (ages 12-18) can't show their precision rifle-drill skills on Remembrance Day because it's unseemly for kids to be seen in public handling guns.
Daily Mail
Talk About Your "Crime Against Nature": In a motel in Jackson County, W.Va., Melissa Williams was arrested for brandishing a knife at her ex- and another man in her room after they balked at performing, umm, orally on her. The police report stated that one of the men "became overwhelmed by the horrible vaginal odor emitting from" poor Melissa.
TheSmokingGun.com ///
[excerpt of police report]
Banks Get Serious About Their Foreclosure Errors: ProPublica.org scoured the help-wanted ads to check the hiring of people to work on correcting the foreclosure paperwork. For almost all: It's a high-school grad/GED position--except for the one that offered $10-$12 an hour for "Foreclosure Department Supervisor."
ProPublica
Have You Done the New TSA Airport Rule on Belts? You must remove yours. Everyone. No exceptions.
[Why?] Because belts may interfere with the full-body scan machine.
[What if our airport doesn't even have scan machines?] What part of "no exceptions" is giving you trouble?
Salon
And Still More Things To Worry About
Dodge Truck Sales Booming in Manteca, Calif.! Unfortunately, that's in part because the Cabral Chrysler dealership is glad to sell this guy a truck even though he was a dementia patient wearing pajamas and slippers and in a wheelchair. (He signed the papers, took the keys, hopped in, led police on a high-speed chase, and dropped dead shortly after.)
KXTV (Sacramento)
Treatments for Age-Related Macular Degeneration:
Lucentis ($2,000 an injection) or the equally effective
Avastin (off-label: $50). Problems: (a) Lucentis thus costs Medicare (i.e., you) a bargeload of money. (b) Both drugs are made by the same company. (c) That company, somehow, for some odd reason, prefers that patients use Lucentis and therefore offers a "promotion program" (i.e., bribes) for doctors to prescribe it. (Bonus: The bribes are legal.)
New York Times
A literal "armed robbery" in Cleveland: Three shoplifters were confronted by a store employee, but one of the perps rolled up her sleeve and thrust her arm toward the man, pointing out that he should stand back because she is infected with the bad-news MRSA bacteria. The three fled.
News-Herald (Willoughby, Ohio)
Scotland's Western Isles Council, looking to economize a bit on helping an autistic, special-ed, 18-year-old, built him a "safe outdoor play area." (It's a cage.) (It could be a dog run if you had a very small dog and didn't much like him.)
STV (Aberdeen, Scotland)
According to her, she was in the OR only for removal of a small piece of skin on her vulva, but just as she was going under, the doctor whispered in her ear that he was gonna take out her clit, too. Then, lights out. She's been stewing ever since but finally came up with the
gonads ovaries to file charges. The doctor said he saved her life, leading to a play on the old one-liner ("Yeah, but if you don't have a clitoris . . ..")
Australian Associated Press via The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
Somewhat Extreme: The debt collection agency Unicredit got smacked down (civil lawsuit by the Pennsylvania Attorney General) for setting up an elaborate fake courtroom, with fake judge and fake sheriff's deputies, to intimidate debtors.
Associated Press via Bloomberg Business Week
Losers
Michael Price, 40, has left the building, after a very, very unsuccessful home invasion in Tacoma, Wash., during which the resident, and Michael and his accomplice, had a gunfight, with Michael losing. (Bonus: killed in crossfire by his partner).
Seattle Times
Recurring Theme: The bank robbery went OK until the robber's getaway waddle was foiled by too-saggy pants, delaying him just enough that the dye pack exploded while he was still in the bank. He dropped the money and fled.
Columbus Dispatch
Karen Remsing was arrested in the Pittsburgh, Pa., hospital room of her terminally ill child, where she had just tapped into his IV line to get some of his pain meds.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
More Redneck Chronicles: In South Brunswick, N.J., a toddler's caregiver, who is, for heaven's sake, 38 years old, was caught on surveillance camera just climbing up and urinating in the kitchen sink . . three times.
Star-Ledger (Newark)
Pervos
Recurring Theme: What is it with Washington state bestio-pervs? This guy's main squeeze was a goat. (Bonus: He's an avid FarmVille player--though crop-farming, not livestock.)
Seattle Weekly
Inadequate pharmacological warning: "Do not consume alcohol when taking this medication." Better: "If you consume alcohol with these drugs, you might uncontrollably unzip and whack off in public and have utterly no recollection of it later." Awkward.
Irish Examiner (Dublin)
The well-known perv (e.g., named his favorite yacht
Tits), Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei (the Sultan's bro'), is so rich that his sexual proclivities never reach courtrooms, but . . that was before he stiffed his own lawyer. The lawyer wants Jefri's four life-sized, personally commissioned statues on his New York estate to be considered as part of his wealth available to pay the lawyer's bill. The statues are of Jefri, his main squeeze, and the two of them having sex.
New York Post
Your Weekly Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . . until the mug shot is released]
District Attorney Myrl Serra denied the charges, but it's not his call; it's yours. Guilty of pressuring his subordinates for (manual) sex?
Denver Post
Juan Reyes-Santiago, 39, either a camera-wielding restroom perv or a father genuinely concerned about who was stealing his musician-son's drumsticks.
WKMG-TV (Orlando)
Joseph DiVanna, 47, arrested in Ocean City, Md., on trick-or-treat night cussing loudly at kids while wearing a baby diaper (but he may have been unjustly persecuted).
Sarasota Herald Tribune ///
The Weekly Vice
They say Robert Gray might be guilty of probation violation and failure to register as a sex offender, but don't be judging him just because he thinks he's a vampire, sleeps in a coffin, drives a hearse, and has dental-implant fangs.
KSAZ-TV (Phoenix) [video]
Below The Fold
An arts dispute arose in Salisbury, N.C., between an antique dealer who was making a point by clothing a statue in underwear, and the local arts council head, who said she was grossed out by that and who thus snatched the drawers. (Bonus: She said she went to the dealer's home to discuss the matter first but then was "attacked" by his chickens.)
Salisbury Post
Recurring Theme: And how, exactly, do you swallow (whole) a pair of scissors? (Bonus story: A guy in China swallowed a chopstick 28 years ago, and they're just now getting the last vestiges out of him.)
BBC News ///
Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News
What would the 71-year-old woman in British Columbia want with an industrial incinerator? The seller asked; she answered (specifically, to burn up her husband). She's now on trial.
Vancouver Sun
In Cumbria, England, Anne Woods, 63, won the World
"Gurnng" "Gurning" Championship for the 27th consecutive year, further entrenching her (when she wants to be) as the planet's ugliest woman. ("Gurning" appears to be a British term for contorting your face.)
Daily Telegraph
Editor's Notes
Update:
NOTW/Pro reported [6-21-2010] that Ozzy Osbourne had commissioned a complete full genome workup, both because he can afford it and because he's now a "health" columnist for London's
Sunday Times. Turns out there's less than meets the eye. What really needs to happen is to compare it to the workup of a person of Ozzy's demographic
except for the lifetime of substance abuses.
Then, we could see which of Ozzy's genes are responsible for his world-class indestructability.
Scientific American
A Real Editor's Note/Reminder: Last week, I had a couple of errors in the original post (corrected same day), but because I'm
lazy much too busy, I correct them only online on the WeirdUniverse.net blog and the NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com blog; I do not mail the corrections to the Google Groups list of those who receive the post by e-mail. I regret the
laziness frenzy of my workday.
Newsrangers: Steve Ringley, Christopher Nalty, Alan Magid, Graham Rankin, and Brad Gray, and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors
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