News of the Weird, August 15, 2010
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Woody Allen Joke, Come to Life: Shirley Anderson, 71, is suing
her son Ken, 46, in Vancouver, British Columbia, for parental
support--even though she and his father had abandoned him when
he was 15 (having one day just picked up and moved and, as in Mr.
Allen's joke, "left no forwarding address"). An archaic 1922 law in
British Columbia obligates adult children to support "dependent"
parents, and in 2000, Shirley sued, demanding $350(Cdn) per
month each from Ken, who is a trucker, and his four siblings (three
of whom were at least 17 when the parents left and not considered
"abandoned"). A judge awarded token interim support pending a
final resolution, which after years of paperwork and delay was to
come in early August but has been postponed once again.
[Vancouver Sun, 8-4-10, Montreal Gazette, 7-24-10]
The Continuing Crisis
* We Have Rules! A team of anglers from Hatteras, N.C., had first
place wrapped up in the prestigious Big Rock Blue Marlin
Tournament in June, salivating over their $1,231,575 prize money
(including a bonus for single-largest catch), when judges discovered
that one member of the Hatteras crew, Peter Wann, had not gotten a
$30 North Carolina coastal recreational fishing license before their
boat pushed off that day. Under the rules, the entire team was
disqualified, and the runner-up, from Cape Carteret, N.C., got the
money. [Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.), 6-26-10]
* They Don't Make "Drug Lords" Like They Used to: (1) Widely-
feared Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher "Dudus" Coke was
arrested in June and extradited to New York City after being picked
up wearing women's clothes and a 1970s style Afro wig too small
for his head (with a pink wig on standby). The Jamaica Observer
reported that Coke wet his pants as he was arrested. (2) Longtime
South African drug lord Fadwaan "Fat" Murphy, speaking at a bail
hearing in January in Cape Town, disclosed that he was born a
hermaphrodite and has a separate identity ("Hilary"), which became
relevant when arresting officers discovered that Murphy was
wearing a strap-on penis. Nonetheless, he insists he is a man: "I
look like a man. I talk like a man. I am a man." [Daily Mail, 6-24-
10; Jamaica Observer, 6-27-10] [Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 1-
10-10]
* "[A] new high point" in electoral politics in Philadelphia occurred
this spring, according to the publisher of Philadelphia Gay News,
when openly gay state Rep. Babette Josephs "outed" her primary
opponent Gregg Kravitz as straight. According to Josephs, the
heterosexual Kravitz was posing in Josephs's gay-friendly 182nd
District as bi-sexual. Kravitz said he is "attracted" to both men and
woman and found Josephs's comments offensive. [Philadelphia
Inquirer, 4-22-10]
* Charmed Lives: (1) Recently while visiting her childhood home
of Bishop, Tex., Joan Ginther won a Texas lottery drawing for the
fourth time, taking home a $10 million first prize to lift her career
Texas lottery winnings to $20.4 million. (By then, she had already
moved to Las Vegas.) (2) At the other end of luck, British farm
worker Mick Wilary, 58, was hospitalized in April after machinery
crushed both his legs. According to the Daily Telegraph, Wilary
has also had his ankles broken (twice), ribs cracked, finger cut off,
head split open, collarbone broken, and fingers broken, and been
stabbed, and been frequently kicked by livestock. [WMAR-TV
(Baltimore)-Scripps Howard News Service, 7-2-10] [Daily
Telegraph, 4-12-10]
* Thinking Large: (1) Northern Ireland farmer William Taylor
introduced his prototype Livestock Power Mill recently and claimed
that the world's 1.3 billion cattle, using treadmills for eight hours a
day, could produce 6 percent of the world's electricity requirement.
(The cow must keep walking to avoid sliding down an incline.) (2)
California gubernatorial candidate Douglas Hughes proposed this
year to solve the state's child-molestation problem by developing an
island 30 miles off the Santa Barbara coast to contain the state's
pedophiles, who would, according to The Daily Caller, "write their
own constitution, build their own infrastructure, and maintain a
society." [Popular Science, 4-16-10] [Daily Caller, 5-21-10]
* Avoiding Marriage, The Hard Way: A female lawyer from Puri,
India, in her mid-30s told The Times of India in July that she
recently underwent gender-reassignment surgery in part to avoid the
male-female marriage that her parents were arranging for her: "I did
not want a family life which is being forced on girls in our society."
[The Times of India, 7-4-10]
* The Power of Books: Speaking to the city council of Crestview,
Fla., in July, the founder of the local "Protect Our Children"
citizens' group said her son (whose age was not revealed) had "lost
his mind" when he looked through the violent Japanese "Manga"
graphic novel he found on open stacks in the Crestview Public
Library. "Now," she said, "he's in a home for extensive therapy."
[Northwest Florida Daily News, 7-6-10]
It's Never Sunny in North Korea
* North Korea's World Cup adventure began auspiciously with a
hard-fought 2-1 loss to a superior Brazil team, leading the
government to release photographs of the North Korean coach
supposedly receiving long-distance telepathic strategy signals
during the game from Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il. With the country's
hopes up, the team was embarrassed in two subsequent games and
dispatched from the tournament. Back home in July, the players
were paraded into the People's Palace of Culture in Pyongyang,
where for six hours, they were publicly denounced and taunted.
Coach Kim Jong-huh is said to fear an eventual violent end. [United
Press International, 6-23-10; Toronto Star, 7-30-10]
* Just before the World Cup matches, North Korea issued a public
demand for compensation, blaming the United States for almost
every single misfortune suffered by the country in the last 65 years.
Its official news agency assigned the U.S. responsibility for five
million people injured, kidnaped, missing or killed--as well as for
economic damages resulting from U.S.-led trade sanctions.
According to the news agency, America can atone for the losses by
sending North Korea $65 trillion. [Agence France-Presse, 6-25-10]
Perverts on Parade
* (1) James Burden, 55, was convicted of indecent exposure in
Scotland's Falkirk Sheriff Court in June based on a March incident
when a neighbor looked out her window before dawn and saw
Burden, naked, smoking a cigarette, and masturbating while
bouncing on her family's outdoor trampoline. Burden said he did
not know anyone would be watching at that hour. (2) In New
Zealand's Auckland District Court in June, Judge Mary Beth Sharp
dismissed an elderly male juror from a trial involving sexual abuse
because the man disclosed, under questioning, that he had worn a
condom under his clothes in the jury box because the testimony was
making him aroused. [STV (Glasgow), 6-2-10] [New Zealand
Herald, 6-4-10]
Least Competent Criminals
* (1) Justin Johnson, 21, was arrested in Bloomfield, Ind., in July
after failing to get a Bloomfield State Bank branch to cash his bogus
check for $1 million, which he presented to a teller in the bank's
drive-through window. Optimistic, he had handed over his driver's
license for ID along with the check. (2) Scot Davis, 52, was
charged with robbing the All in the Family bar in Des Moines,
Iowa, in March. Davis, a contractor who is friends with bartender
Gladys York, had spent the evening at the bar passing out business
cards before leaving. Said York, when Davis re-appeared carrying a
.22-caliber rifle and demanding money, "Scot, What the
(expletive)?" Said an officer, "This is not the hardest case our
detectives have ever had to investigate." [Greene County Daily
World (Linton, Ind.), 7-27-10] [Des Moines Register, 3-20-10]
A News of the Weird Classic (October 1989)
* Ron Kravitz, 22, filed a lawsuit in June [1989] against Mickey
Mantle Sports Productions, Inc., for injuries he suffered the
previous September while watching a company baseball video in his
den to improve his base-stealing technique. While attempting to
"beat" Tom Seaver's pickoff throw to "first base," he crashed into a
table, resulting in torn ligaments and a severed tendon, which he
thought somehow was the production company's fault. [Baltimore
Sun, 6-5-89]
Thanks This Week to Tim Allen, Beth Beggs, Andrew
Davis, John Ellwood, Sandy Pearlman, and Bruce Leiserowitz,
* * * * *
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