News of the Weird, December 13, 2009
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Chuck Shepherd
Dec 13, 2009, 5:44:33 PM12/13/09
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WEIRDNUZ.M140 (News of the Weird, December 13, 2009)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Commercial test-preparation courses are already popular for
applicants to top colleges and graduate schools, and recently also
for admission to prestigious private high schools and grade
schools. Now, according to a November New York Times report,
such courses and private coaching are increasingly important for
admission to New York City's high-achiever public kindergartens,
even though the applicants are just three and four years old. Basic
coaching, which may cost more than $1,000, includes training a
child to listen to an adult's questions and to sit still for testing.
Minimum qualification for top-shelf kindergartens are scores at the
90th percentile on the Olsat reasoning test and the Bracken School
Readiness knowledge test. [New York Times, 11-21-09]
Police Report
* In the past three years, at least 39 drivers in Dallas, Tex., have
been ticketed by police officers for the "offense" of being "a non-
English speaking driver," according to a Dallas Morning News
investigation in October. The software for officers' in-car
computers features a check-off box with the phrase, perhaps
leading officers (and their sergeants) to believe it constituted a
separate traffic offense rather than merely an indication that the
motorist might not have understood an officer's instructions. The
police chief expressed shock at the report and promised to end the
practice. [Dallas Morning News, 10-23-09]
* The Public Record: (1) From the Findlay, Ohio, police: "A
woman called the police early Saturday morning (October 31st)
during an argument with her husband after he claimed that the
woman's daughter performed oral sex on him, and the daughter
was better at it." (2) From the Steamboat Pilot (Steamboat
Springs, Colo.), November 4th: "Police were called to a report of a
suspicious incident in the 2900 block of West Acres Drive where a
woman reported that she found feces in her toilet that she did not
think she put there." [The Courier (Findlay), 11-2-09] [Steamboat
Pilot, 11-4-09]
* Justifiable Felonies? (1) Five people were arrested in Los
Angeles in October and charged with kidnaping and "torturing"
two "loan modification" agents who had taken fees while
promising to save their home from foreclosure but had allegedly
failed to help. (2) Daniel Adler, 61, was arrested in October in
Stony Point, N.Y., and charged with assault. Police said Adler had
been solicited by a Sears Home Improvement telemarketer and had
agreed to an appointment but that when the employee arrived,
Adler allegedly punched him in the face. Adler said he had
scheduled the appointment only to "advise" Sears, in person, to
stop calling him. [KTLA-TV (Los Angeles), 10-26-09] [WABC-
TV (New York City), 10-12-09]
* Oops! In an October incident, an off-duty Jacksonville, Fla.,
sheriff's deputy forgot to leave her service weapon outside when
accompanying her mother to Shands Jacksonville hospital for an
MRI. The powerful magnet sucked her Glock away in a flash,
trapping the deputy's hand between the machine and the gun.
Repairs, plus the lengthy powering-down and re-powering of the
machine, was said to have cost the hospital $150,000. [WJXT-TV
(Jacksonville), 10-1-09]
Government In Action
* Google 1, FBI 0: In September, Nebraska prison guard Michal
Preclik, 32 (who had been on the job for a year and had just been
promoted), was discovered to be on the lam from Interpol for drug
and fraud crimes in the Czech Republic. The Corrections
Department's background check, on the FBI's National Criminal
Information Center database, had turned up nothing, but when
officials subsequently Googled Preclik, the Interpol wanted poster
was one of the top results. [Lincoln Journal Star-AP, 10-20-09]
* Promoting the General Welfare in Malaysia: (1) The government
of the state of Terengganu initiated a campaign in November to
halt the growing divorce rate by offering pre-marital classes in
sensuality. Also, because newlyweds have identified spousal body
odor and ugly pajamas as turn-offs, the government invited
cosmetics firms and lingerie sellers to improve their offerings. (2)
The chairwoman of the family and health committee of Malaysia's
Kelantan state suggested in October that male legislators should
take, as additional wives (permitted under Islam), some of the
16,000 unmarried mothers now dependent on state support. [Indo
Asian News Service, 11-2-09] [Reuters, 10-29-09]
* U.S. Homeland Security officials confirmed in October that an
estimated 200,000 temporarily-admitted foreign visitors to the U.S.
since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are still in the country illegally,
with overstayed visas, and that there is still no system in place to
catch them. The problem had surfaced in September when a 19-
year-old Jordanian man (legally admitted on a since-expired tourist
visa) was arrested and accused of plotting to blow up a Dallas
skyscraper. He had been arrested two weeks before that on a
traffic violation, and even though he was on an FBI watch list
because of visits to a Jihadist website, he had no immigration
"record" and thus was released after paying the traffic fine. [New
York Times, 10-12-09]
Democracy in Action
* When the DRP party candidate for president of Mexico City's
most populous borough lost in the primary this year, party officials
hatched a plot to elevate a street peddler, "Juanito" Angeles, to run
in the general election, with the "understanding" that he would step
aside if victorious, in favor of the original candidate Clara
Brugada. Helped by his "everyman" image (according to a New
York Times dispatch), Angeles won the election. However, his
sudden power and celebrity apparently went to his head, and he
refused to relinquish the presidency. (He finally agreed, in
September, but only after receiving concessions from the party.)
[New York Times, 9-29-09]
* Florida Democracy in Action: (1) When a Broward County
Republican club held its scheduled meeting in October at a local
gun range (according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel report),
among the shooters was the Congressional candidate trying to
unseat the Democratic incumbent, and on his target as he fired
away, someone had written the Democrat's initials. (2) Also in
Broward County in October, the father (a Democrat) of County
Mayor Stacy Ritter was arrested and charged with threatening his
daughter at gunpoint. The father is running for mayor of Tamarac
and was upset that his daughter had endorsed his opponent. [South
Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10-8-09] [Miami Herald, 10-8-09]
Update
* Franciscan monk Cesare Bonizzi, 63, who 15 years ago turned
from spiritual new age music to heavy metal (inspired, he said, by
the groups Metallica and Megadeth) and who has spent the last
several years as the robe-clad lead singer of his own band, Fratello
Metallo, announced his retirement in November after realizing, he
said, that the devil had tempted him too much with celebrity and
turned him away from his brothers. [Reuters, 11-13-09]
Undignified Deaths
* (1) William Evans, 57, on trial in St. Augustine, Fla., in August
for a sex crime that occurred nearly 30 years ago (but not erased by
the statute of limitations), committed suicide while away from the
courthouse, awaiting the jury's decision. Without knowing that, the
jury came back and declared him not guilty. (2) Engineering
student Ken Kitamura, 19, drowned in the Yodogawa River in
Osaka, Japan, in August. He and several colleagues had
constructed a prototype canoe made of concrete, and Kitamura was
the first to try it out. [St. Augustine Record, 8-28-09] [Mainichi
Daily News, 8-17-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (April 1999)
* News of the Weird reported in October 1998 the on-the-job death
by snake bite of serpent-handling preacher John W. (Punkin)
Brown Jr. (In a landmark book on Southern snake-handling
preachers, Salvation on Sand Mountain, Brown was called the
"mad monk," the one most "mired" in the "blood lust of the
patriarchs.") Because Brown's wife had died three years earlier (of
a snake bite during services in Kentucky), the Browns' three
orphans were objects of a custody fight between the two sets of
grandparents. In February 1999, the wife's parents won primary
custody, in a Newport, Tenn., hearing, largely because Mr. Brown's
parents were not able to refrain (despite a judge's orders) from
taking the grandkids to snake-handling services. [Knoxville News-
Sentinel, 2-13-99]
CLARIFICATION: Two weeks ago, News of the Weird reported
that HoneyBaked Ham had fired Richard Huether, manager of its
Cary, N.C., store, while he was still recuperating from being shot
in a robbery of the store. The report noted that among the
hardships of now being unemployed, his health insurance premium
(under "COBRA") would thus become steeply expensive.
However, following the publication of the WRAL-TV story on
which the News of the Weird report was based, HoneyBaked
decided to prepay Huether's COBRA expenses for the next 18
months.
Thanks This Week to Jennifer Norcross, Kathryn Wood,
John Votel, Sam Gaines, and Tom Barker, and to the News of the
Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Geoffrey
Egan, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl
Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and the News of the Weird Editorial
Advisors (Paul Blumstein, John Cieciel, Harry Farkas, Fritz
Gritzner, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller,
Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Rob
Snyder, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).
* * * * *
Are you ready for News of the Weird / Pro Edition? Every
Monday at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com and
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net. Other handy addresses:
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com,
and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Commercial test-preparation courses are already popular for
applicants to top colleges and graduate schools, and recently also
for admission to prestigious private high schools and grade
schools. Now, according to a November New York Times report,
such courses and private coaching are increasingly important for
admission to New York City's high-achiever public kindergartens,
even though the applicants are just three and four years old. Basic
coaching, which may cost more than $1,000, includes training a
child to listen to an adult's questions and to sit still for testing.
Minimum qualification for top-shelf kindergartens are scores at the
90th percentile on the Olsat reasoning test and the Bracken School
Readiness knowledge test. [New York Times, 11-21-09]
Police Report
* In the past three years, at least 39 drivers in Dallas, Tex., have
been ticketed by police officers for the "offense" of being "a non-
English speaking driver," according to a Dallas Morning News
investigation in October. The software for officers' in-car
computers features a check-off box with the phrase, perhaps
leading officers (and their sergeants) to believe it constituted a
separate traffic offense rather than merely an indication that the
motorist might not have understood an officer's instructions. The
police chief expressed shock at the report and promised to end the
practice. [Dallas Morning News, 10-23-09]
* The Public Record: (1) From the Findlay, Ohio, police: "A
woman called the police early Saturday morning (October 31st)
during an argument with her husband after he claimed that the
woman's daughter performed oral sex on him, and the daughter
was better at it." (2) From the Steamboat Pilot (Steamboat
Springs, Colo.), November 4th: "Police were called to a report of a
suspicious incident in the 2900 block of West Acres Drive where a
woman reported that she found feces in her toilet that she did not
think she put there." [The Courier (Findlay), 11-2-09] [Steamboat
Pilot, 11-4-09]
* Justifiable Felonies? (1) Five people were arrested in Los
Angeles in October and charged with kidnaping and "torturing"
two "loan modification" agents who had taken fees while
promising to save their home from foreclosure but had allegedly
failed to help. (2) Daniel Adler, 61, was arrested in October in
Stony Point, N.Y., and charged with assault. Police said Adler had
been solicited by a Sears Home Improvement telemarketer and had
agreed to an appointment but that when the employee arrived,
Adler allegedly punched him in the face. Adler said he had
scheduled the appointment only to "advise" Sears, in person, to
stop calling him. [KTLA-TV (Los Angeles), 10-26-09] [WABC-
TV (New York City), 10-12-09]
* Oops! In an October incident, an off-duty Jacksonville, Fla.,
sheriff's deputy forgot to leave her service weapon outside when
accompanying her mother to Shands Jacksonville hospital for an
MRI. The powerful magnet sucked her Glock away in a flash,
trapping the deputy's hand between the machine and the gun.
Repairs, plus the lengthy powering-down and re-powering of the
machine, was said to have cost the hospital $150,000. [WJXT-TV
(Jacksonville), 10-1-09]
Government In Action
* Google 1, FBI 0: In September, Nebraska prison guard Michal
Preclik, 32 (who had been on the job for a year and had just been
promoted), was discovered to be on the lam from Interpol for drug
and fraud crimes in the Czech Republic. The Corrections
Department's background check, on the FBI's National Criminal
Information Center database, had turned up nothing, but when
officials subsequently Googled Preclik, the Interpol wanted poster
was one of the top results. [Lincoln Journal Star-AP, 10-20-09]
* Promoting the General Welfare in Malaysia: (1) The government
of the state of Terengganu initiated a campaign in November to
halt the growing divorce rate by offering pre-marital classes in
sensuality. Also, because newlyweds have identified spousal body
odor and ugly pajamas as turn-offs, the government invited
cosmetics firms and lingerie sellers to improve their offerings. (2)
The chairwoman of the family and health committee of Malaysia's
Kelantan state suggested in October that male legislators should
take, as additional wives (permitted under Islam), some of the
16,000 unmarried mothers now dependent on state support. [Indo
Asian News Service, 11-2-09] [Reuters, 10-29-09]
* U.S. Homeland Security officials confirmed in October that an
estimated 200,000 temporarily-admitted foreign visitors to the U.S.
since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are still in the country illegally,
with overstayed visas, and that there is still no system in place to
catch them. The problem had surfaced in September when a 19-
year-old Jordanian man (legally admitted on a since-expired tourist
visa) was arrested and accused of plotting to blow up a Dallas
skyscraper. He had been arrested two weeks before that on a
traffic violation, and even though he was on an FBI watch list
because of visits to a Jihadist website, he had no immigration
"record" and thus was released after paying the traffic fine. [New
York Times, 10-12-09]
Democracy in Action
* When the DRP party candidate for president of Mexico City's
most populous borough lost in the primary this year, party officials
hatched a plot to elevate a street peddler, "Juanito" Angeles, to run
in the general election, with the "understanding" that he would step
aside if victorious, in favor of the original candidate Clara
Brugada. Helped by his "everyman" image (according to a New
York Times dispatch), Angeles won the election. However, his
sudden power and celebrity apparently went to his head, and he
refused to relinquish the presidency. (He finally agreed, in
September, but only after receiving concessions from the party.)
[New York Times, 9-29-09]
* Florida Democracy in Action: (1) When a Broward County
Republican club held its scheduled meeting in October at a local
gun range (according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel report),
among the shooters was the Congressional candidate trying to
unseat the Democratic incumbent, and on his target as he fired
away, someone had written the Democrat's initials. (2) Also in
Broward County in October, the father (a Democrat) of County
Mayor Stacy Ritter was arrested and charged with threatening his
daughter at gunpoint. The father is running for mayor of Tamarac
and was upset that his daughter had endorsed his opponent. [South
Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10-8-09] [Miami Herald, 10-8-09]
Update
* Franciscan monk Cesare Bonizzi, 63, who 15 years ago turned
from spiritual new age music to heavy metal (inspired, he said, by
the groups Metallica and Megadeth) and who has spent the last
several years as the robe-clad lead singer of his own band, Fratello
Metallo, announced his retirement in November after realizing, he
said, that the devil had tempted him too much with celebrity and
turned him away from his brothers. [Reuters, 11-13-09]
Undignified Deaths
* (1) William Evans, 57, on trial in St. Augustine, Fla., in August
for a sex crime that occurred nearly 30 years ago (but not erased by
the statute of limitations), committed suicide while away from the
courthouse, awaiting the jury's decision. Without knowing that, the
jury came back and declared him not guilty. (2) Engineering
student Ken Kitamura, 19, drowned in the Yodogawa River in
Osaka, Japan, in August. He and several colleagues had
constructed a prototype canoe made of concrete, and Kitamura was
the first to try it out. [St. Augustine Record, 8-28-09] [Mainichi
Daily News, 8-17-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (April 1999)
* News of the Weird reported in October 1998 the on-the-job death
by snake bite of serpent-handling preacher John W. (Punkin)
Brown Jr. (In a landmark book on Southern snake-handling
preachers, Salvation on Sand Mountain, Brown was called the
"mad monk," the one most "mired" in the "blood lust of the
patriarchs.") Because Brown's wife had died three years earlier (of
a snake bite during services in Kentucky), the Browns' three
orphans were objects of a custody fight between the two sets of
grandparents. In February 1999, the wife's parents won primary
custody, in a Newport, Tenn., hearing, largely because Mr. Brown's
parents were not able to refrain (despite a judge's orders) from
taking the grandkids to snake-handling services. [Knoxville News-
Sentinel, 2-13-99]
CLARIFICATION: Two weeks ago, News of the Weird reported
that HoneyBaked Ham had fired Richard Huether, manager of its
Cary, N.C., store, while he was still recuperating from being shot
in a robbery of the store. The report noted that among the
hardships of now being unemployed, his health insurance premium
(under "COBRA") would thus become steeply expensive.
However, following the publication of the WRAL-TV story on
which the News of the Weird report was based, HoneyBaked
decided to prepay Huether's COBRA expenses for the next 18
months.
Thanks This Week to Jennifer Norcross, Kathryn Wood,
John Votel, Sam Gaines, and Tom Barker, and to the News of the
Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Geoffrey
Egan, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl
Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and the News of the Weird Editorial
Advisors (Paul Blumstein, John Cieciel, Harry Farkas, Fritz
Gritzner, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller,
Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Rob
Snyder, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).
* * * * *
Are you ready for News of the Weird / Pro Edition? Every
Monday at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com and
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net. Other handy addresses:
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com,
and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.
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