News of the Weird, May 26, 2013

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M320 (News of the Weird, May 26, 2013)
by Chuck Shepherd       

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* The Department of Agriculture reported recently that in four of
America's largest cities--New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and
Denver--nearly one home out of 100 keeps chickens either for fresh-
egg supply or as pets, giving rise to chicken services such as
Backyard Poultry magazine, MyPetChicken.com, and Julie Baker's
Pampered Poultry store.  Among the most popular products are
strap-on cloth diapers for the occasions when owners bring their
darlings indoors, i.e., cuddle their "lap chickens."  Also popular are
"saddles" for roosters, to spare hens mating injuries--owing to
roosters' brutal horniness, sometimes costing hens most or all of
their back feathers from a single encounter. [NPR, 5-1-2013]

Government in Action

* "Consider the ways we're taxed," wrote Maryland's community
Gazette in April--when we're born, die, earn income, spend it, own
property, sell it, attend entertainment venues, operate vehicles, and
pass wealth along after death, among others.  Maryland has now
added a tax on rain.  To reduce stormwater runoff into the
Chesapeake Bay, the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the
state $14.8 billion, which the state will collect starting in July by
taxing "impervious surfaces"--any land area in its 10 largest
counties that cannot directly absorb rainwater, such as roofs,
driveways, patios, and sidewalks. [Gazette.net (Gaithersburg, Md.),
4-5-2013]

* The Washington Post reported in April that the federal
government is due to spend $890,000 this year to safeguard . .
nothing.  The amount is the total of fees for maintaining more than
13,000 short-term bank accounts the government owns but which
have no money in them and never again will.  Closing the accounts
is easier said than done, according to the watchdog Citizens Against
Government Waste because the accounts each housed separate
government grants, and Congress has required that, before the
accounts are closed, the grants must be formally audited--something
bureaucrats are rarely motivated to do, at least within the 180 days
set by law (though there is no penalty for missing the deadline).
[Washington Post, 4-24-2013]

* It's good to be the County Administrator of Alameda County,
Calif. (on San Francisco Bay, south of Oakland).  The San
Francisco Chronicle revealed in March that somehow, Susan
Muranishi negotiated a contract that pays her $301,000 a year, plus
"equity pay" of $24,000 a year so that she makes at least 10% more
than the next highest paid official, plus "longevity" pay of $54,000 a
year, plus a car allowance--and that she will be paid that total
amount per year as her pension for life (in addition to a private
pension of $46,000 a year which the county purchased for her).
[San Francisco Chronicle, 3-25-2013]

* The Way Washington Works:  (1) Congress established a
National Helium Reserve in 1925 in the era of "zeppelin" balloons,
but most consider it no longer useful (most, that is, ranging from
President Reagan to the Democratic congressman who in 1996
called it one program that, if we cannot undo it, "we cannot undo
anything").  The House of Representatives recently voted 394-1 to
continue funding it because of "fears" of a shortage that might affect
MRI machines and, of course, party balloons. (2)  In rare (these
days) bipartisan action, Congressional military "experts" of both
parties are about to force the Army to continue building Abrams-era
tanks--when the Army said it doesn't want them and can't use them.
The tank manufacturers, of course, have convinced Congress that it
needs the contracts, no matter what the Army says (according to an
April Associated Press analysis).  [Washington Post, 4-26-2013]
[Associated Press via Yahoo News, 4-29-2013]

Great Art!

* The Jewish Museum in Berlin is currently staging what has
become popularly known as the "Jew in the Box" exhibit to teach
visitors about Judaism--simply featuring one knowledgeable Jewish
person who sits in a chair in a glass box for two hours a day and
answers questions from the curious.  Both supporters ("We
Germans have many insecurities when it comes to Jews") and critics
("Why don't they give him a banana and a glass of water [and] turn
up the heat?") are plentiful.  [Daily Mail (London), 3-29-2013]

* The weather in Hong Kong on April 25th wreaked havoc on
American artist Paul McCarthy's outdoor, 50-foot-tall piece of
"inflatable art" in the West Kowloon Cultural District.  "Complex
Pile" (a model of an arrangement of excrement) got punctured,
which mostly pleased McCarthy's critics since his recent work,
reported the South China Morning Post, has often centered around
bodily functions.  [South China Morning Post (Hong Kong),
4-26-2013]

Police Report

* News of the Weird has reported several times on the astonishing
control that inmates have at certain prisons in Latin American
countries, with drug cartel leaders often enjoying lives nearly as
pleasurable as their lives on the outside.  However, according to an
April federal indictment, similar problems have plagued the City
Detention Center in Baltimore, Md., where members of the "Black
Guerilla Family" operated with impunity.  Between 2010 and 2012,
corruption was such that 13 female guards have now been charged,
including four women who bore the children of the Family's
imprisoned leader, Tavon White.  Cellphones, drugs, and Grey
Goose vodka were among the smuggled-in contraband, and the
indictment charges that murders were ordered from inside.
(Baltimore City Paper had reported 14 stories in 2009 and 2010 on
the gang-related corruption at the Center, but apparently state and
federal officials had failed to be alarmed.)  [DailyBeast.com,
4-26-2013; Washington Post, 5-6-2013]

* Frequent Flyers:  (1) Chicago police have arrested Ms. Shermain
Miles, 51, at least 396 times since 1978, under 83 different aliases,
for crimes ranging from theft (92 times) to prostitution and robbery.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, she is a virtuoso at playing
"the system" to delay her proceedings and avoid jail time.  (2) Alvin
Cote, 59, passed away in February of poor health in Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, following a "career" of 843 public-intoxication
arrests. [Chicago Sun-Times, 4-20-2013] [Star Phoenix
(Saskatoon), 2-13-2013]

* Somewhat Backwards DUI:  Danielle Parker was hospitalized,
and awaiting DUI charges, after a crash near Gaston, N.C., in March
even though she had been in the passenger seat of the car.  She had
handled the wheel momentarily because Brittany Reinhardt, 19, in
the driver's seat, was busy texting.  (Reinhardt, apparently sober,
was charged with "aiding and abetting" a DUI.)  [Gaston Gazette,
3-29-2013]

The Weirdo-American Community

* The biggest news out of Newtown, Conn., recently--not involving
the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School--came when
local environmental officials announced on April 29th that they
were investigating the finding of "200 to 300 one-gallon plastic
jugs" filled with urine in a home "in a state of disrepair."  No
charges were filed against the homeowner, but officials sought to
assure neighbors and users of the property that no health hazard was
present.  (The average person, reported the Connecticut Post,
produces about six cups of urine a day.) [Danbury News Times, 4-
30-2013]

Strange Old World

* Mr. Datta Phuge perhaps overly personifies India's national
obsession with the beauty of gold.  For special occasions, he outfits
his "knuckles, neck, and wrists" with golden "signet rings, chunky
bracelets, and a medallion," wrote BBC News in April after Phuge
had also purchased a crinkly-gold tailored shirt made for him for
about US$250,000.  The 7-lb. shirt (from Rankar Jewellers in the
city of Pune) has a velvet lining to keep it from irritating his skin,
and he must of course always travel with a bodyguard. [BBC News,
4-14-2013]

Readers' Choice

* (1) Sam Worby, 39, made headlines internationally in February
when, dressed as Batman, had hauled fugitive Daniel Frayne, 27,
into a Bradford, England, police station.  It turns out he was just
helping his friend Daniel turn himself in (on an outstanding arrest
warrant).  In a separate incident in April, the two "friends" were
arrested together and charged with burglarizing a garage in
Bradford.  (2) In a confessional in the April GQ magazine, the
sports writer Buzz Bissinger (creator of TV's "Friday Night
Lights") admitted that his later-in-life fame had enabled a
narcissism that caused him to impulsively buy 81 leather jackets in
a three-year period, plus 75 pairs of boots, 41 pairs of leather pants,
32 pairs of upscale jeans, 10 evening jackets, and 115 pairs of
leather gloves, among other extravagances and aberrations. [Daily
Telegraph (London), 4-16-2013] [GQ, April 2013]

     Thanks This Week to Hal Dunham, Thomas Wyman, David
Henshaw, and Thomas Goodey, and to the News of the Weird
Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe
Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney)
and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein,
Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott
Langill, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert,
Larry Ellis Reed, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and
Jerry Whittle).         
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