News of the Weird, February 10, 2008
Minister Chuck
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* China's historic fascination with crickets has recently been
exhibited in cricket beauty contests, singing competitions, and
prize fights, according to a January Los Angeles Times dispatch,
and has led even to increasing vigilance about crickets cheating
with performance-enhancing drugs. The fighters duel in terrarium-
sized containers, and, according to the Times, "Overhead cameras
[project] the action onto large screens," allowing spectators close-
ups of crickets tossing each other around with their powerful jaws.
The best fighters may sell for the equivalent of $10,000, are raised
on vegetables and calcium supplements, and are sexually active
before fights. The doping issue mostly involves the "singers";
slowing the vibration of the cricket's wings produces an
attractively lower pitch. [Los Angeles Times, 1-13-08]
The Litigious Society
* In October, Korie Hoke filed a $1.6 million lawsuit against the
Tempe, Ariz., police, claiming that it was actually an officer's fault
that she, after a New Year's Eve bender, crashed into a cement
wall and suffered serious injuries. Hoke had called police to a
party, distraught that she had caught her boyfriend cheating on her,
and the officer summoned her parents to pick her up. (Hoke was
cited only for underage drinking, but she later tested above the
blood-alcohol legal limit.) The officer, after obtaining Hoke's
assurance that she would await her parents and after searching
Hoke and her car and finding no car key (Hoke had hidden it), left
the scene. Hoke then drove away and crashed and now claims it
was the officer's fault for not staying with her. [East Valley
Tribune, 11-3-07]
* Scott Anthony Gomez, Jr. filed a lawsuit in January against jail
officials in Pueblo County, Colo., alleging among other things that
they failed to take security precautions to prevent him from
escaping. He seriously injured himself last year when he fell 40
feet while scaling a wall in his second escape attempt. He said
that, after his first escape, he had told then-sheriff Dan Corsentino
how lax security was but that no "improvements" had been made.
[KMGH-TV (Denver), 1-4-08]
* On Second Thought: (1) In August 2004, business executive
Tomas Delgado, driving 100 mph in a 55mph zone, fatally
smashed into a 17-year-old bicyclist near Haro, Spain. In 2006,
Delgado sued the boy's family for the equivalent of about $29,000
for damage to his car, and the lawsuit languished until January
2008, when, perhaps shamed by worldwide publicity, Delgado
dropped it. (2) In December, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority
filed a lawsuit demanding payment from the families of four
people killed by an out-of-control tractor-trailer in 2006
(presumably to recoup clean-up costs and damage to the roadway).
However, after the New York Post asked NJTA lawyer William
Ziff for a comment, he rushed to the Union County courthouse and
withdrew the lawsuit. [CNN-AP, 1-30-08] [New York Post, 12-17-
07]
Compelling Explanations
* As the home-mortgage industry continued to reel in January from
the Countrywide Financial Corp. debacle, a federal bankruptcy
judge learned that the company, in at least one case (with others
suspected), had not only backdated crucial documents but
fabricated them altogether and then told the judge the company
was merely trying to be "efficient." A court had approved the
recasting of a client's debt to Countrywide in March 2007, closing
the case, but the next month, Countrywide "discovered" a way to
get extra money and thus created three letters supposedly sent to
that client before March 2007. However, Countrywide later
acknowledged that the letters were actually written after March
2007 but that making up documents was merely "an efficient way
to convey" information. [New York Times, 1-8-08]
* A prize-winning paper from a Hebrew University researcher,
seeking to explain the paucity of rapes by Israeli soldiers of
Palestinian women, concluded that the soldiers were merely using
a "strategy" of non-rape, according to a December report on Arutz
Sheva. Such a hands-off policy "strengthens the ethnic
boundaries," wrote Ms. Tal Nitzan, seemingly suggesting that
Israeli soldiers primarily feared increasing the Palestinian
population. Nowhere, critics pointed out, did Nitzan suggest that
rape is rare because Israeli culture condemns it. [Arutz Sheva
(Israeli National News), 12-23-07]
Ironies
* California's Solar Shade Control Act protects solar panels from
obstructions from sunlight, and in January, Santa Clara County
officials sought to enforce the law against homeowners who
themselves are staunch environmentalists. Since the back yard of
Prius-owners Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett contains lush
redwood trees that block their neighbor's panels, the county
ordered that the trees be cut down. [San Jose Mercury News, 1-24-
08]
* Tolerance: (1) In November, 70 petitioning neighbors said they
were fed up with the Museum of Tolerance in West Hollywood,
Calif. The final straw was the Museum's application to expand its
building, extend hours of operation until midnight, and reduce the
buffer zone between it and nearby homes. (2) Officials of Hyde
Park Baptist Church in Austin, Tex., initially agreed to host the
annual multi-denominational Austin Area Interreligious Ministries
Thanksgiving celebration last year but abruptly canceled when they
came to realize that Muslims might actually pray there. Under
criticism, the Church said that it "hopes" the religious community
"will . . . be tolerant of our church's beliefs" that necessitated the
decision. [Chicago Sun-Times-AP, 11-15-07] [Austin American-
Statesman, 11-16-07]
* In January, the Chinese retailers at Silk Street Market, which is a
notorious supplier of knock-off merchandise such as Louis
Vuitton, announced that they would begin creating clothing and
other items under their own SilkStreet brand, and they naturally
issued the warning, "Anyone using the brand [without permission]
will be held liable." [Reuters, 1-24-08]
Creme de la Weird
* Energetic Perverts: (1) Elementary school principal John
Stelmack, 60, was arrested in Bartow, Fla., in December and
accused by prosecutors of innocently photographing young girls
but then using a computer software program to place their heads on
photos of nude women (which may not even be illegal, according
to a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision). (2) Kazuo Oshitani, 48,
was arrested in Osaka, Japan, in December as the one who draped
perhaps more than 170 items of women's underwear over objects
in his neighborhood (and who possessed at least 200 more such
items in his home). He was charged with littering. [Tampa
Tribune, 12-22-07] [Agence France-Presse, 12-3-07]
Least Competent People
* It is apparently becoming more difficult to recruit competent
suicide bombers in Afghanistan because twice in a two-day period
in January, clumsy bombers accidentally blew themselves up
before they ever had the chance to take their targets out. One fell
down a flight of stairs while on his way to an attack in the town of
Khost, and the other's bomb accidentally exploded as he was
getting dressed for an assignment in the town of Lashkar Gah
(although the latter bomber did take three colleagues with him).
[Agence France-Presse, 1-24-08]
Recurring Themes
* At least one collector spent the equivalent of $40 on an original
"Freddie W.R. Linsky" abstract expressionist painting, praising its
"flow" and "energy," according to a December report in London's
Daily Mail, and a gallery in Berlin was said to have made an
inquiry about Linsky's other works. Linsky, as longtime News of
the Weird readers might guess, is an enthusiastic 2-year-old, whose
mother had him daub ketchup splotches onto canvases and then
uploaded the images to art patron Charles Saatchi's online gallery.
Among Mom's lush captions to Linsky's ketchup-period works
was: "The striking use of oriental calligraphy has the kenji-like
characters stampeding from the page." [Daily Mail (London), 12-2-
07]
Undignified Deaths
* More Ironies: (1) A 66-year-old millionaire roofing company
founder was killed at his home in Rock, Wis., in December when
he accidentally fell through the roof of his garage. (2) An 18-year-
old Amish man was killed in Hustiford, Wis., in October when,
working on a construction crew, he came into contact with a high
voltage wire and was electrocuted. (3) Inmate Frederick Fretz, 45,
serving time for molesting a young boy, died in January in the
dining hall at the federal penitentiary in Atwater, Calif., when he
choked on a hot dog. [Chicago Tribune-AP, 12-21-07] [WISC-TV
(Madison, Wis.), 10-19-07] [KPIX-TV (San Francisco)-AP, 1-4-
08]
Thanks This Week to Kathryn Wood, Diane Gunnels-
Rowley, Stefan Palys, Jan Wolitzky, Mike Lewyn, Larry Seltzer,
Victor Hoisington, Lonnie Stauffer, and Bren McCullough, and to
many finders of the Undignified Deaths stories, 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).