News of the Weird, April 6, 2008
Minister Chuck
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* Irish director-playwright Paul Walker's production of "Ladies &
Gents" opened for a March run in New York City 29 blocks north
of Broadway, in a public restroom. According to an Associated
Press report, the entire play takes place among the porcelain in a
bathroom in Central Park, portraying "the seedy underside of 1950s
Dublin," with the audience of 25 standing beside rows of stalls,
near "spiders, foul odors, and puddles of questionable origin."
Walker proudly admits that he wanted to take the audience "out of
their comfort zone" to create "a different energy." Actor John
O'Callaghan recalled that rehearsals were especially difficult:
"One man actually came in and had a pee right in front of us."
[KYW-TV (Philadelphia)-AP, 3-19-08]
Cultural Diversity
* In October, the government of Singapore, anxious about the
city's declining birth rate, began teaching its high school
polytechnic students in formal courses on how to flirt. Said Isabel,
18: "My teacher said if a guy looks into my eyes for more than
five seconds, it could mean that he is attracted to me and I stand a
chance," according to a March Reuters dispatch. The course
includes "love song analysis" and how to chat online. [Reuters, 3-
20-08]
* Officials in the Shivpuri district of India's Madhya Pradesh state,
needing a promising program to slow the country's still-booming
birth rate, announced in March that men who volunteer for
vasectomies will be rewarded with certificates that speed them
through the ordinarily slow line to obtain gun permits. Said an
administrator, the loss, through vasectomy, of a "perceived notion
of manliness" would be offset "with a bigger symbol of
manliness." [Agence France-Presse, 3-18-08]
Latest Religious Messages
* Ajinbayo Akinsiku's heavily-abridged version of the Bible, in the
graphic Japanese "manga" style, was recently published in the
United States, with the goal of making Jesus more "accessible" to a
younger, religion-indifferent generation. Quirky, illustration-rich
manga presents Biblical philosophy as action scenes using
contemporary dialogue, according to a February New York Times
review. In one example, Akinsiku (who hopes someday to become
an Anglican priest) has Noah taking census on the Ark: "That's
11,344 animals? Aargh! I've lost count again. I'm going to have
to start from scratch!" [New York Times, 2-10-08]
* Duquesne University and Boston College recently created
professional courses in financial and personnel management for
churches (and Villanova University even established a special
master's degree), thus recognizing that frauds by greedy priests,
and sexual abuse by errant clergy, cannot be resolved simply by
churches' demanding that their leaders behave. Lax U.S. churches
have lost tens of millions of dollars to embezzlement and sexual-
abuse lawsuits, but, said a Villanova official, "If [church officials]
were better trained in management, a lot of problems . . . could
have been avoided." [Boston Globe-AP, 2-12-08]
* Among the recent victims of internal religious strife in Malaysia
was Kamariah Ali, 57, who long ago renounced Islam and started
worshiping a two-story-tall "sacred teapot" she had built for her
Sky Kingdom cult (emphasizing the "purity of water"). She was
sentenced to jail as a failed Muslim in 2005, and the teapot
destroyed, and in March 2008, another court found that she had
been insufficiently rehabilitated and ordered her back to jail. [Daily
Telegraph (London), 3-6-08]
The Continuing Crisis
* Registered sex offender Jason Lee, 28, was arrested in
Cincinnati, Ohio, in February and charged with several counts of
deception for his seemingly benevolent acts of posting bond for
two female strangers who had been arrested. Later, according to
police, he had demanded sex and drugs from the women as
payback, and a prosecutor said Lee had trolled for names of
arrested women on the website of the Clerk of the Court. [WKRC-
TV (Cincinnati), 2-13-08]
* Questionable Judgments: (1) Jason Fife was sentenced to
probation and community service after harassing his estranged
wife's boyfriend with a special package delivery. Fife, said his
lawyer, now "understands that in a civilized society, a person
cannot send [someone] a severed cow's head . . .." (2) In
December, Sister Kathy Avery of St. Clare of Montefalco Catholic
School in Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., held all fifth- through eighth-
graders after class in the school's chapel so she could inform them
of the new rules against cussing. According to the kids, Avery
held nothing back: She recited a list of the actual, blush-producing
words and phrases she was talking about. Said Avery afterward,
"It got a little quiet in church." [Pottstown Mercury, 1-8-08]
[Detroit Free Press, 12-9-07]
* "Look, it is no big deal," Christopher Wilkins told the Fort
Worth, Tex., jury trying to decide in March whether to send him to
death row or life in prison. "I'm as undecided [about that] as you
are." Wilkins even belittled his own lawyers for bringing his
family in to beg the jury for mercy: "They [my lawyers] sprung
that charade on me," he told the jury. When his lawyers suggested
that his murders were not cold-blooded but were the result of drug
use, Wilkins said, "I wouldn't put too much weight on that."
Before leaving the witness stand, Wilkins complimented the
prosecutor ("You're doing a fine job") and added, "I haven't been
any good to anybody for the last 20 years and I won't be for the
next 20 or the 20 after that." (The jury chose the death penalty.)
[Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 3-12-08]
Sounds Familiar
* (1) Like a Paul Simon song: Anthony Raspolic reported a break-
in in the wee hours of January 1st in his apartment in Durant, Okla.
He told police that he was in bed with his girlfriend but got up and
left the room, and by the time he returned, someone had taken his
place. (The man scurried out of the bed, stole Raspolic's wallet,
and fled in his Ford Explorer.) (2) Like a Jennifer Beals movie:
The Associated Press profiled Cincinnati's Alexandra Harrill, 19,
in January, fascinated that she is a would-be ballerina saving up for
lessons by working as a welder, just like the 1983 Flashdance
character Alex Owens. [KTEN-TV (Denison, Tex.), 1-2-08]
[Columbus Dispatch, 1-26-08]
News That Sounds Like a Joke
* (1) In January just after police in Tyler, Tex., took Christopher
McCuin, 25, into custody on suspicion of killing and eating parts
of his girlfriend (an ear was found on the stove), People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals sent the sheriff a fax demanding that
McCuin receive only a vegetarian diet, suggesting that too much
meat-eating had already occurred in the case. (2) Mark Hotuyec,
46, was arrested in Joliet, Ill., in February and charged with
indecent exposure after he allegedly drove alongside a school bus
containing fourth-graders while openly fondling himself, visible to
kids looking out the window. (The bus was from the Wood View
Elementary School in Bolingbrook, Ill.) [Tyler Morning Paper, 1-
12-08] [WBBM-TV (Chicago), 2-22-08]
Least Competent Criminals
* Krystal Evans, 26, and Denise McClure, 24, rifled through
packages on a DHL delivery truck in December in Crescent City,
Calif., looking for their urine samples headed for the lab because
they were certain theirs would test positive, which would have
meant their return to jail. The driver summoned police, and the
women were arrested for destroying evidence and violating their
probation and in March were convicted and could face two years in
prison. Evans's original sample turned out to be clean, after all,
but during the December arrest, she tested positive for
methamphetamine. [Times-Standard (Eureka, Calif.), 3-18-08]
Adventures in Democracy
* (1) In January, the parents of Carroll County (Md.) Board of
Education candidate Draper Phelps, 28, obtained a protective stay-
away order against their son, marking the third consecutive year
they felt they needed one. (Phelps lost in the February primary.)
(2) In February, at a polling place in Chicago's 42nd Ward
(according to a Chicago Tribune report), one election judge (a
woman in her 30s) was charged with battery for punching another
election judge (a woman in her 50s) in the face. (3) Brian Sliter,
42, announced in March his candidacy for mayor of Wilmer, Tex.,
notwithstanding his 2004 arrest (resulting in probation) for trying
to arrange a tryst with an underage girl. [Carroll County Times, 1-
9-08] [Chicago Tribune, 2-5-08] [Austin American-Statesman, 3-
24-08] {UPDATE: Sliter withdrew from the race last week.]
Thanks This Week to Tom Barker, Randi Lowe, Michael
Calabrese, Stephen Taylor, Charles Onley, and Lew Call, 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).