Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* Norway is home to perhaps the most inmate-friendly prison in the
world (as mentioned previously in News of the Weird), but the
correctional system has an imminent crisis, as Anders Behring
Breivik (the confessed killer of 77 people last year) is nearing
formal conviction and sentencing.  Officials fear the sociopathic
Breivik will try to kill inmates to add to his toll, yet Norwegian law
forbids solitary confinement as cruel.  Consequently, according to a
May report by Norway's Verdens Gang newspaper, the officials
have begun a search to select, hire, and train appropriate "friends" to
hang out with Breivik behind bars, to win his trust and prevent
further mayhem.  Among Breivik's  favorite recreational
distractions:  chess and hockey. [Daily Telegraph (London) via
MSNBC, 5-31-2012]

Cultural Diversity

* Collections of comically poor translations are legion, but the
Beijing Municipal government, in sympathy with English-speaking
restaurant-goers, published a helpful guidebook recently of what the
restaurateurs were trying, though inartfully, to say.  In an April
interview with the authors, NBC News learned the contents of
"Hand Shredded A$$ Meat" [sic] (merely donkey meat) and other
baffling English descriptions (all taken from actual menus), such as
"Cowboy Leg," "Red-Burned Lion Head," "Blow-up Flatfish with
No Result," and the very unhelpful "Tofu Made By Woman With
Freckles" and "Strange Flavor Noodles."  [MSNBC, 4-20-2012]

* Competitive facial-hair-growers are revered in some countries,
with Pakistan and India featured in recent reports.  Pakistani Amir
Muhammad Afridi, 42, whose handlebar lip hair extends in an arc
almost to the top of his head, told reporters he had to move from his
rural home to the more secular Peshawar because of threats that his
pride and joy was un-Islamic.  And the Guinness Book record-
holder, Ram Singh Chauhan, 54, of India, offered grooming tips in
an interview with BBC News, revealing that he keeps his 14-foot-
long moustache conditioned by cleaning and combing it for an hour
each day (treated with coconut-based hair oil) and lamented that he
must wind it around his neck to keep it from interfering with his
daily activities.  [Daily Telegraph (London), 4-9-2012] [BBC News,
5-17-2012]

* In the spirit of the empowerment of dissidents around the world,
activists in Ukraine and South Africa recently erected downright
disrespectful statues lampooning leaders.  In Kiev and the  western
city of Lvov, Ukraine, activists unveiled five-foot-high statues of
former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin urinating.  (Police in both cities
took them down quickly, however.)  And South African artist Brett
Murray museum-exhibited a red, black, and yellow acrylic painting
of President Jacob Zuma ("Hail to the Thief II") with his genitals
exposed, an allusion to Zuma's having beaten a rape charge in 2006.
(The Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, which first resisted
pressure, agreed in May to remove the painting.)  [RIA/Novasti
(Moscow), 5-8-2012] [BBC News, 5-18-2012]

* Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announced in
April that it would begin a national inquiry over the alarming
number of bathtub deaths in 2011--nearly three times the number of
those killed in traffic accidents.  News reports pointed out that many
Japanese workers relax in tubs at the end of the day, even when they
have overimbibed and are vulnerable to drowning. [Daily Telegraph
(London), 4-30-2012]

Wait--That's Illegal?

* (1) In Kent, Washington, in May, Yong Hyun Kim, 21, was
charged with assault at a movie house.  Annoyed by a group of kids
in the row behind him who were constantly talking, laughing, and
throwing popcorn during "Titanic," Yong slapped the nearest boy,
bloodying his nose and knocking out a tooth.  (2) In Pirmasens,
Germany, in May, a 61-year-old woman was fined the equivalent of
almost $1,000 for assault.  Frustrated by telemarketers' constantly
cold-calling her, she took it out on one by blowing a whistle into the
telephone, allegedly permanently damaging the telemarketer's
hearing.  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5-22-2012] [The Local
(Hamburg), 5-22-2012]

Latest Religious Messages

* Google Trends notes that five of the top seven countries in the
world whose residents search "sex" are Muslim, and in Iran,
especially, a "virtual cottage industry" has developed of clerics
turning into amateur sexologists, according to the May/June Foreign
Policy--often with mockable results.  For example, one cleric
declared, "If a person has intercourse with a cow, a sheep, or a
camel," it is not proper to consume the animal's milk.  Leaders,
from former president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (who believed that
women's hair emits sexual rays) to the current Ayatollah Khamenei
(who approves the concept of Islamic "temporary marriages" that
justify quick assignations) promote internal friskiness while at the
same time denouncing outsiders (especially America) of attempting
to corrupt the country's morals. [Foreign Policy, May/June 2012]

* Two veteran Church of England vicars were in the news in May
for their unique approaches.  Rev. Andy Kelso left the Church after
25 years to start an Elvis Presley Gospel Tribute act as "Elvis
Prayersley."  Said Kelso, "I felt God say to me very strongly, 'Take
Elvis to the church.'"  And Rev. Nick Davies of Cheltenham,
England, promises to continue breathing fire part-way through his
sermons (to mark Pentecost, in which the Holy Spirit descends on
Jesus's disciples, appearing as "tongues of flame"). [Metro (London),
5-24-2012] [BBC News, 5-27-2012]

* Hard Month for Gays and Lesbians:  Internet video excerpts of
church services, all posted during May, recorded Christian pastors
prescribing harsh futures for homosexuals.  Pastor Sean Harris
(Fayetteville, N.C.) recommended roughing up a limp-wristed son if
the boy acts effeminately (but said later he was joking).  Pastor Ron
Baity (Winston-Salem, N.C.) wants gays and lesbians "prosecuted"
(though the excerpt was not clear what particular statute was
violated).  Pastor Charles Worley (Maiden, N.C.) wants gays and
lesbians rounded up and isolated behind an electrified fence so they
won't breed to the larger population.  Pastor Curtis Knapp (Seneca,
Kan.) said "the government" should just kill them all (according to
Biblical commandment, he said).  Pastor Dennis Leatherman
(Oakland, Md.) likes "the idea" of killing them but added that it
would be wrong.  And at the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in
Greensburg, Ind., a 3-year-old boy's rendition of "Ain't no homo
going to make it to heaven" also made it around the world on the
Internet.
[CNN, 5-8-2012] [Winston-Salem Journal, 5-8-2012] [CNN, 5-23-
2012] [Huffington Post, 5-30-2012] [Huffington Post, 5-31-2012]
[WRTV (Indianapolis), 5-31-2012]

Chutzpah!

* Ms. Stormy Moody was arrested and charged with aggravated
burglary in Henderson County, Tenn., in May after her next-door
neighbor returned from a trip and discovered that quite a few items
(from the petty to the more expensive) were missing from the home.
For some reason, Moody felt secure enough to be wearing some of
the clothing as she chatted sympathetically with the victim about the
missing items. [WBBJ-TV (Jackson, Tenn.), 5-23-2012]

* Most public officials caught "sexting" immediately turn
remorseful, but not Michigan appeals court judge Wade McCree III.
In April, when the husband of a female bailiff in McCree's court
saw that the judge had sent the bailiff a shirtless photo of himself,
McCree told a curious reporter for Detroit's WJBK-TV, "Hot dog,
yep, that's me."  "I've got no shame in my game."  "I'm in no more
clothes than I'll be at the Y this afternoon when I swim my mile."
The still-irate husband said he would pursue a judicial commission
complaint against McCree. [Fox News, 4-24-2012]

People Different From Us

* (1) Calvin Hill, 54, was arrested in Greenwood, S.C., in May after
allegedly stabbing a 41-year-old man with whom he was arguing in
the back seat of a car.  The police report stated that the men were
arguing "about who can have the most sex."  (2) WJBK-TV
reported in June that two men in the Brightmoor neighborhood of
Detroit wound up in a gunfight over which one made Kool-Aid
better.  (Neither man was hit, but two bystanders were reportedly
wounded.)   [The Smoking Gun, 5-8-2012] [WJBK-TV, 6-1-2012]

Recurring Themes

* In Stockholm, N.Y., in May, a 24-year-old man became the most
recent to have a friend shoot him just because the man wanted to
know what it felt like to get shot.  The friend, Shawn Mossow, 25,
relented, finally, and fired a .22-caliber rifle shot into the man's leg,
but the man is expected to make a full recovery. [Associated Press
via WSYR-TV (Syracuse), 5-15-2012]

CORRECTION:  Contrary to News of the Weird of 5-27-2012,
prominent "breatharian" Ellen Greve is not dead, which clearly
means that she has been cheating on the "sun and air only" diet that
she promoted during the 1990s.  In reading a news story, I must
have confused Greve with one of her followers (who apparently
observed the diet faithfully).

     Thanks This Week to Gary DaSilva, Max Noriega, Gerald
Sacks and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

                   * * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
(daily), and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.