News of the Weird, June 29, 2008
Minister Chuck
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Faced with its Alzheimer's residents' tendency to wander away,
the Benrath Senior Centre in Dusseldorf, Germany, came up with a
novel approach: a fake bus stop (an exact replica of a real one) out
front. Straying residents might be attracted to the familiar colors
and design of the kiosk (because long-term memory is typically
still robust) and wait there for a bus instead of trying to "go home"
on foot. But short-term, the resident is typically unaware of how
long he has been waiting and will remain until a Centre employee
sees him and can guide him back into the home (which often is
easy because the resident has by then forgotten why he is sitting
there, according to a June dispatch from Berlin in London's Daily
Telegraph). [Daily Telegraph (London), 6-3-08]
Bright Ideas
* Minor league pitcher John Odom was traded in May by the
Calgary Vipers of the independent Golden Baseball League to the
Laredo Broncos of the independent United League, but his
exchanged counterpart balked at leaving the U.S. for the Canadian
team. The clubs huddled and announced that Odom would still
report to Laredo, which would send Calgary not a player in return,
but 10 bats. [MSNBC-AP, 5-23-08]
* Car dealer Walter Moore of Max Motors in Butler, Mo. (an hour
south of Kansas City), announced in May a free premium to every
car purchaser: either $250 worth of gasoline or a gift certificate for
a handgun. He told KMBC-TV that 80 percent of customers
choose the gun. [KMBC-TV (Kansas City), 5-20-08]
Weird Science
* Technically, Macie McCartney was born on May 3rd of this year
in Laredo, Tex., but that appearance outside the womb was actually
her second. When a large tumor showed up on Macie six months
into her mother's pregnancy, surgeons actually pulled the fetus
almost completely out of the uterus so they could excise the growth
and then re-inserted it. Following that rare procedure, the birth
was normal, according to Dr. Darrell Cass, who explained it in
June to viewers of NBC's "Today" show. [KXAN-TV-NBC
(Austin), 6-11-08]
* Ironies: (1) Evolution scientists at Switzerland's University of
Lausanne reported in June that over the course of 30 to 40
generations, ordinary flies tend to live longer if they're stupid. The
researchers guessed that heightened neural activity overtaxed their
systems. (2) Cardiologists at Hartford (Conn.) Hospital, writing in
the June Annals of Emergency Medicine, described a patient
suffering from irregular heartbeat but whose rhythm was restored
to normal following a Tasering by police. [Agence France-Presse,
6-4-08] [Medical News Today, 5-28-08]
Animals Amok
* BBC filmmakers announced in June that they had captured, for
perhaps the first time ever, an episode of pandas mating in the
wild, for the "Wild China" TV series. A male is shown fighting
off other males to coax a female down from a tree. What follows
that, said producer Glenn Maxwell, are "loud calls which will
make viewers think instantly of the Wookie character from the Star
Wars movies. I liken it to Chewbaccas in a pub brawl."
Eventually, the female descends, and the pair get to work,
"breathing hard and panting," said Maxwell. "You can see the
steam coming out of their mouths." [BBC News, 6-7-08]
* Animals in Trouble: (1) China's Xinhua news agency reported in
March that a farmer in Jilin province had been found with a
tortoise that is addicted to nicotine. The farmer, a smoker himself,
said he was surprised when the pet puffed on a cigarette he had
playfully stuck in its mouth, and since then, he occasionally shares
smokes with it. (2) Magistrates in Sunderland, England, accepted a
guilty plea in June from Samantha Pearson and David Step for
animal cruelty. The couple had relocated quarters last October but
left behind a pet, Milly, to starve to death. Milly was a pet rat.
[Agence France-Presse, 3-27-08] [Sunderland Echo, 6-6-08]
Coaches Gone Wild
* (1) High school soccer coach Sanford Kaplan, 57, was arrested in
Lincoln, Neb., in May and charged with having imprisoned several
underage boys in sessions in his garage in which they were bound,
gagged, and suspended from the rafters. (2) Track coach Lawrence
"Poppy" Vincent, 74, of Bracken Christian School in Bulverde,
Tex., was arrested in May and charged with indecent exposure to
an undercover police officer; Vincent was wearing floral women's
panties and a bra. (3) Football coach Steve Halpin, 52, was
permitted to retire quietly in June from Mesquite High School near
Dallas, Tex., after officials discovered that he had pawned 270
items since January 2007, including school equipment (which, in
each case, he had later retrieved from the pawnshop). [KMTV
(Omaha), 5-14-08] [WOAI-TV (San Antonio), 5-6-08] [Dallas
Morning News, 6-12-08]
District of Calamity (continued)
* Washington, D.C., police chief Cathy Lanier decided in May to
rehire 17 cops who had been fired for misconduct. The cases
against the officers were solid, she noted, except that their hearings
before a police trial board had not been held within the required 55
days after the charges were filed. D.C. courts and arbitrators had
previously reinstated officers where the 55-day deadline was not
met, and Lanier felt she had no choice. (However, the following
week, Lanier announced she was beginning the process of re-firing
the 17 officers, this time because they would be unable to perform
their jobs since they could not be credible witnesses in criminal
cases because of their records.) [Washington Post, 5-20-08, 5-24-
08]
Fetishes on Parade
* (1) "There's really no way to explain people's fetishes," said
University of Cincinnati campus police Capt. Karen Patterson,
describing the arrest of Dwight Pannell, 43, for allegedly crawling
under a library table, squirting liquid from a syringe on a female
student's shoe, and photographing it. Pannell told police he was
just trying out his new camera. (2) In February, police officer
Michael Curtin, 36, was removed from the force in Munhall, Pa.,
and in April was charged with offering two underage girls $1,000
each to let him suck their toes. [Cincinnati Enquirer, 5-29-08]
[Philly.com-AP, 5-1-08]
Least Competent Criminals
* Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Sharon Platt allegedly stole
about $5,000 from her employer, Murphy Motors of Williston,
N.D., recently and left town. She was apprehended in Pittsburgh,
Pa., in May after she applied for a job and listed Murphy Motors as
a reference, and her old employer alerted Pittsburgh police. (2)
Charles Ray Fuller, 21, was arrested in Fort Worth, Tex., in April
after he took a blank check belonging to his girlfriend and wrote it
out to himself for $360,000,000,000.00, which he presented to
Chase Bank. He remained in character after his arrest, assuring
police that the check was legitimate, offered by the girlfriend's
mother to help him start a record label. [Grand Forks Herald, 5-23-
08] [Star-Telegram (Fort Worth), 4-29-08]
Update
* Methane's longstanding menace as a climate-altering greenhouse
gas is closer than ever to being controlled, said New Zealand
scientists in June after genome-mapping found the source of
flatulence in ruminant animals, and the researchers said they
thought they could vaccinate against it. While livestock account
for only 2 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas, it causes over half of
New Zealand's. Unless the vaccination is successful, farmers will
face a huge tax on methane by 2012 brought on by the
requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. [Daily Telegraph (London), 6-
5-08]
News that Sounds Like a Joke
* (1) When a big storm came through Alma, Ark., on the evening
of May 7th, residents rushed out to secure themselves inside the
brand-new community shelter the town had just built with great
fanfare. However, as the winds raged, the twenty people who
showed up had to sprawl on the ground because the shelter was
locked, and the deputy with the key was busy on a call. (2) In
January, Dr. Steve Paulk announced that he would commence
offering breast augmentation procedures and would be working out
of Moundview Memorial Hospital in Friendship, Wis. [KHBS-TV
(Fort Smith), 5-8-08] [Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, 1-25-08]
Thanks This Week to Ed Duval, Stephen Taylor, Jim Pross,
Zach Chaney, Sam Varshavchik, Bill Jones, and Alan Magid, and
to many who noticed the difficulty of passing a $360 billion check,
and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at
http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com (or
www.NewsoftheWeird.com / WeirdN...@Yahoo.com / P.O.
Box 18737, Tampa FL 33629).