News of the Weird, August 1, 2010
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Among the promotions offered by New York City's upscale
Marmara Manhattan hotel is a "birth tourism" package exploiting
the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. For about $35,000, a
foreign expectant mother with a visa can spend her delivery week in
luxury accommodations (including medical care) - and assure her
baby automatic U.S. citizenship. (That child could then become an
"anchor," subsequently making it easier for the parents to acquire
"green cards.") Also, the Washington Post reported in July that
three agencies in China, with U.S. affiliates, offer similar packages
to their affluent citizens, whose primary concern seems to be
providing their children access to a U.S. education as an alternative
to China's expensive, competitive system. (Historians agree that the
purpose of the "citizenship right" in the 14th Amendment, ratified
in 1868, was to recognize former slaves as citizens.) [Breaking
Travel News (London), 6-10-10; Washington Post, 7-18-10]
More Tales of the Miracle Drug
* (1) A naked, 47-year-old man was taken to an El Paso, Tex., burn
center in July after "friends" won a bet and got to set his prosthetic
leg on fire, and it spread to his body. The man admitted to police
that he had lost fair-and-square, by downing "only" six beers. He
was treated for several days and released. (2) In June, two 34-year-
old men in Horsham, Australia, underwent surgery as a result of a
plan hatched during a drinking bout. They had both wondered if it
hurt to get shot and thus obliged each other. [Fox News-AP, 7-11-
10; KVIA-TV-AP (El Paso), 7-16-10] [Daily Telegraph (London),
6-23-10] [UPDATE: The 47-year-old later changed his story, and it
is not clear yet how much of his explanation was true.]
Cultural Diversity
* Black magic failed to secure the World Cup for Africa this year,
but on the other hand, the weak host team, South Africa, managed
an opening round draw with Mexico and an upset victory over
France. "Sangomas" (traditional "healers") spreading "muti"
(powders, potions, animal bones, especially from speedsters like
horses and ostriches) had been out in force. World Cup stadium
security was tight, but in African league soccer games, it is not
uncommon for sangomas, pre-game, to bury animal parts on the
field, or to have players urinate on it to improve the karma. [Wall
Street Journal, 6-10-10, Globe & Mail (Toronto), 6-10-10]
* British Safety Ninnies: (1) Britain's head constable told a police
chiefs' meeting in June that they were being "buried" under a
"telephone directory"-sized (6,497 pages) compilation of rules and
regulations telling street bobbies in massive detail such things as
how to apply handcuffs and ride bicycles. (2) The local government
that runs the Ebdon Road Cemetery in Weston-super-Mare,
England, ordered the removal of the small cross marking the grave
of Rosemary Maggs, who died in May. The local council has
prohibited crosses in the cemetery, citing safety. [BBC News, 7-1-
10] [The Bath Chronicle, 6-23-10]
* Things You Didn't Think Happened: (1) Although 85% of
Americans are covered by health insurance, the figure in Rwanda is
92%. In that country's 11-year-old system, everyone pays $2 a year
--obviously just for basics. However, Rwandans' main problems are
more easily treatable--infections, malnutrition, malaria, unsafe
childbirth--and not expensive diabetes, obesity, or cholesterol-clogged
arteries. (2) In Israel's West Bank, Palestinians have a highly
competitive race-car season, and one team on the rise this year is the
sexism-fighting female squad led by driver Suna Aweida. "Driving
is driving," she told BBC News in June. [New York Times, 6-15-
10] [BBC News, 6-10-10]
* In July, acknowledging pressure from local Asian activists,
officials at the Exchange mall in Rochdale, England, said they
would remove the toilets from two of the facility's restroom stalls
and build "Nile pans," also known as "squat toilets"--also to
Westerners referred to as "holes in the ground." The officials said
they were trying to serve the many Pakistani and Bangladeshi
immigrants living in Greater Manchester. [Daily Mail, 7-15-10]
Latest Religious Messages
* One of Britain's 200 or so "consecrated hermits" might soon be
homeless as the owner of her cottage in rural Shropshire County has
listed it for sale. Karen Markham, 44, lives by rules set down by St.
Benedict, the founder of western monasticism, that require her to
rise at 4 a.m., pray and chant for three hours, then contemplate in
silence. For recreation, she weaves rugs using wool from local
sheep, according to a May report in the Daily Telegraph. [Daily
Telegraph, 5-30-10]
* American "Sangomas": (1) In July, a fifth-grade teacher at Jacox
Elementary School in Norfolk, Va., resigned under pressure after
administrators discovered she was rubbing "holy oil" on students
and their desks during school. (2) Teachers Leslie Rainer and
Djuna Robinson were removed from teaching duties at Blanche Ely
High School in Pompano Beach, Fla., in March after they were seen
sprinkling "holy water" onto a colleague, a self-described atheist.
Other witnesses disputed the details, but the two were charged
under the school's "anti-bullying" policy for aggressiveness toward
the other teacher. [WAVY-TV (Norfolk), 6-16-10] [South Florida
Times, 5-22-10]
Questionable Judgments
* At press time, the city council of Barre, Vt., continues to debate
extending its pet "leash" law to cats, following a woman's complaint
that a neighbor's cat continues to foul her yard with droppings. In
the few towns that try to enforce leash laws on cats, a main rationale
has been to protect friendly birds. (The late U.S. statesman Adlai
Stevenson, when he was governor of Illinois, once rejected such a
law, terming leashing "against the nature of the cat.") [MSNBC-
AP, 6-17-10]
* Hard Time, Hard Luck: Harry Jackson, 26, was in jail in
Woodbine, Ga., in March, on several minor charges such as driving
on a suspended license. However, acceding to pressure from fellow
inmates, brought on by the jail's non-smoking policy, Jackson
agreed to break out, steal cigarettes at a nearby convenience store,
and break back in, undetected. "[D]on't come back empty-handed,"
one inmate supposedly warned him. Jackson was apprehended
climbing back in over a fence. In May, a judge sentenced him, for
the earlier charges plus the escape and subsequent burglary, to 20
years. [Arizona Republic-AP, 4-7-10, WJXT-TV (Jacksonville,
Fla.), 3-9-10]
The Weirdo-American Community
* John Mark Karr burst onto the national scene in 2006 when he
famously, falsely, confessed to murdering little JonBenet Ramsey
10 years earlier, but since then, his life has been even more bizarre.
He has spun through a series of romances with JonBenet-like
youngsters, the latest with Samantha Spiegel, who was 9 when they
met and is now 19 and recently got a restraining order against him.
Karr is currently known as "Alexis Reich" in preparation for his
gender-reassignment surgery, which Spiegel says Karr wants only in
order to make it easier to befriend, and seduce, younger and younger
girls. According to another ex-girlfriend, Karr asked her to solicit
little girls to join a cult he was starting called "The Immaculates," to
fulfill fantasies including taking baths with young girls. [Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, 5-25-10]
Redneck Chronicles
* From Florida's Panhandle Region: (1) A 24-year-old man was
arrested in Crestview, Fla., in April after he allegedly removed a
window air-conditioner and crawled into a house in which his wife
was staying. They had recently separated, and he told police that he
had not "gotten any" in three weeks and was going to "get some."
(2) In June in Okaloosa County, passenger Courtnea Bradley, 21,
roughed up the driver while the car was moving, making it swerve
wildly, thus allegedly endangering her baby in the back seat. At the
subsequent traffic stop, a defiant Bradley allegedly told officers,
"My [expletive] family is one of the richest around, and we will
have y'all's [expletive] jobs." [Northwest Florida Daily News, 4-26-
10, 6-22-10]
A News of the Weird Classic (August 1991)
* In May [1991], 19 members of the Michigan House of
Representatives (led by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee)
introduced a resolution designed to deal with obnoxious social
problems, but without creating expensive regulatory programs. The
resolution would establish, at the State Archives, a "Registry of
Bothersome Practices," on which people could contribute to an
official list of complaints about such things as elevator music and
magazine blow-in subscription cards. [National Law Journal, 5-27-
91]
Thanks This Week to Kathryn Wood, Russell Bell, Sid
Sidner, Gil Nelson, Bruce Leiserowitz, Heidi Nicolette Jones, and
Mark Dubbin, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial
Advisors.
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