News of the Weird, May 31, 2009
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* In a nondescript building next to a mosque in downtown Karachi,
Pakistan, the Qadeer brothers discreetly make and market a million
dollars' worth of fetish and bondage products a year for Americans
and Europeans (through sales to stores and on eBay). In fact, if the
radical Islamic office down the street knew about the Qadeers'
work, they might be in trouble, according to an April New York
Times dispatch, but fortunately, the gag balls, corsets, and whips
such as the "Mistress Flogger" are so odd for Pakistan that even the
veiled women who sew them for the Qadeers do not understand
that Americans use them for sex play. Customs officials, for
example, were puzzled about how to categorize the items for tax
purposes. "If our mom knew [the nature of our business]," said
brother Adnan, "she would disown us." [New York Times, 4-28-
09]
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
* Physician Geoffrey Hart, working with a grant from the National
Institutes of Health, recently developed the Pedi-Sedate headgear
to trick waiting-room kids into inhaling nitrous oxide while playing
video games, thus knocking themselves out and, according to
Hart's company, "dramatically improv[ing] the hospital or dental
experience for the child, parents, and healthcare providers." The
helmet contains sophisticated sensors to monitor the dosages and
effects on the child. [CNET News, 4-21-09]
* Manliness: (1) The Redneck Yacht Club opened in February
near Naples, Fla., consisting of an 800-acre carefully-designed mud
pit that drivers pay $30 to frolic in with their own customized off-
road vehicles. One mechanic told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in
April that he had spent $15,000 fixing up his rig, with six-foot-
high tires and a skull ornament. His review: "This place is kick-
butt." (2) For Germany's fathers' day in May, the Panzer Fun
Driving School in Germany's Brandenberg state suggested sending
men off to drive one of its 13 Soviet armored vehicles (following a
short class on the controls), and for an extra fee, patrons can ram
their tanks over an old car. [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 4-2-09]
[Spiegel Online, 5-14-09]
* Britons Sam Bompas and Harry Parr are revered chef-artists
whose medium is the gelatin mold, with which they have created
jelly models of, for example, London's St. Paul Cathedral and a
Madrid airport terminal, and who, for a New York customer,
recently created orange-juice jelly inside some Compari jelly to
produce a Compari-and-soda jelly. In April, the pair also opened a
London bar, Alcoholic Architecture, in which vaporized gin and
tonic saturate the air in equivalent strength of one gin-and-tonic
drink for every 40 minutes of exposure. [New York Times, 4-16-
09, 4-1-09]
* Confusing Business Model: Patrick Ellison and Frank Mack,
along with Edie Wells, were arrested in Dalton, Ga., in April after
what police said was a joint venture in which alleged prostitute
Wells knocked on a man's door and offered him sex, and when the
man declined, Ellison and Mack arrived and forced the man to
accept Wells's services. Following the sex, the three departed with
the man's money and credit cards. [Dalton Daily Citizen, 4-29-09]
Weird Science
* Good to Know: A case report in a recent issue of the journal
Emergency Medicine Australasia described the successful removal
of a leech from an eyeball. A 66-year-old woman, gardening in her
back yard in Sydney, had accidentally flicked some soil into her
eye. By the time a surgeon could extract the leech, it had roughly
tripled its body size by feeding on the eyeball's blood vessels. (The
key, by the way: a few drops of saline solution). [News.com.au-
Australian Associated Press, 4-20-09]
* In a recent journal article, researchers from the University of
Whitwatersrand (South Africa) and the University of Sydney
(Australia) reported that young male Augrabies lizards avoid older
predatory males by, basically, cross-dressing (pretending to be
female by suppressing their extravagant male coloration until they
are fully developed and able to defend themselves). Thus, they
avoid being attacked and, at the same time, increase their own
freedom to hit on females. (They must still be careful, say the
researchers, because the older males might whiff their male scent,
which cannot be suppressed.) [Agence France-Presse, 3-3-09]
Leading Economic Indicators
* In April, a manager at a Dean Health System clinic in Madison,
Wis., received corporate instructions to "immediately" lay off 50
listed employees, and the manager (a 30-year nursing veteran)
decided that that included pulling one RN out of a room in which
she was assisting with surgery, leaving just a physician and lower-
level staff members present. A clinic executive later called the
manager's timing an error but said there were no adverse
consequences to the patient. [Wisconsin State Journal, 4-13-09]
Things People Believe
* Ms. Indra Ningsih, a 26-year-old maid, was detained by a court in
Hong Kong in April after her employer accused her of spiking her
vegetable soup with menstrual blood. According to a report of the
case in Hong Kong's The Standard, the maid was employing a
belief in some southeast Asian cultures that menstrual blood has
special powers and would improve an otherwise-contentious
relationship between the maid and the employer. [Agence France-
Presse, 4-15-09]
Least Competent Criminals
* First-time bank robber (according to police) Jason Durant, 32,
reported to the hospital in New Milford, Conn., shortly after
knocking off the National Iron Bank in April. As he fled the crime
scene, he accidentally tumbled down a steep hill behind the bank,
losing control of his stash, and his gun, during the fall. He broke
his leg in several places (saying, later, that he heard snapping
sounds). At the bottom of the hill, he crashed into a plow blade,
slashing himself before dragging his bleeding, broken body to his
getaway car (with only $2 left from the robbery). Suspicious
hospital staff members notified police. [Republican-American
(Waterbury, Conn.), 4-30-09]
Recurring Themes
* Russia's long-running Moscow Cat Circus/Theater, reported in
News of the Weird in 1998, is still in service, astonishing all who
ever tried to train a cat. In the United States, Samantha Martin
runs her own similar show (at such venues as Chicago's Gorilla
Tango Theatre in March) featuring the Rock Cats trio on guitar,
piano, and drums, as well as a tightrope-walker, barrel-roller, and
skateboarder, among other daring performers. Martin admitted to a
Chicago Tribune reporter that the cats' music "sucks," in that
"when they're playing, they're not even playing the same thing,"
and anyway she has two backup drummers because her regular is
prone to "walking off in a huff," sort of "like diva actresses." "This
is why you don't see trained cat acts. Because . . . the managers
can't take the humiliation." [Chicago Tribune, 3-18-09] .527
Undignified Deaths
* Difficult Times for Funeral Eulogists: (1) A 54-year-old man was
found dead of a heart attack in a pornography video booth at the
Beate Uhse sex shop in Cologne, Germany, in December. (2) A
42-year-old comedian (and owner of a comedy club in Blackburn,
England) was accidentally asphyxiated in April inhaling laughing
gas while viewing computer pornography. [The Local (Berlin), 12-
5-08] [The Sun, 4-17-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (August 2001)
* In an October 2001 incident that started out resembling a comedy
movie scene, Alan Martin, 49, decided to petulantly protest police
officers' decision to confiscate his RV after a minor accident, and
deliberately lay down in the middle of a busy street in Daly City,
Calif., refusing to budge. As officers tried for a while to talk him
out of his obstinacy, they shielded his body by blocking a lane of
traffic with their cruiser. A few minutes later, one of those
notorious California hot-pursuit police chases just happened to
head down the same street, and the car driven by fleeing suspect
Kevin Domino, 37, accidentally rammed the stopped cruiser, then
drove over Martin, and then while trying to straighten out his car,
Domino ran over Martin again. (Police caught Domino a few
blocks later when his car stalled out, and Martin was hospitalized
in fair condition.) [San Francisco Chronicle, 10-3-01]
Thanks This Week to Richard Heiden, Bobby Stout, Phil
Carhart, and Joe Church, and to the News of the Weird Board of
Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net (or www.NewsoftheWeird.com) or
mail Weir...@earthlink.net / P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL
33629.