News of the Weird, December 27, 2009
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* But What If the Device Falls into the Wrong Hands? A 55-year-
old British man whose bowel was ruptured in a nearly catastrophic
traffic accident has been fitted with a bionic sphincter that opens
and closes with a remote controller. Ged Galvin had originally
endured 13 surgeries in a 13-week hospital stay and had grown
frustrated with using a colostomy bag until surgeon Norman
Williams of the Royal London Hospital proposed the imaginative
operation. Dr. Williams, who was interviewed along with Galvin
for a November feature in London's Daily Mail, wrapped a muscle
transplanted from Galvin's leg around the sphincter and attached
electrodes to tighten or loosen the muscle's grip. [Daily Mail, 11-
10-09, 11-13-09]
Unreformed Health Care System
* The Wisconsin Department of Corrections decided in October
that it (i.e., taxpayers) should fund complex facial reconstruction
surgery for inmate Daryl Strenke, who is serving 30 years after
pleading guilty to murdering his girlfriend. Strenke had shot
himself in the face in apparent remorse for the killing, severely
disfiguring his mouth and jaw and making it nearly impossible for
him to eat or speak normally. [WISN-TV (Milwaukee), 10-12-09]
Britain's Safety Weenies
* (1) In November, the Solihull Council in Britain's West Midlands
county ordered a flooring store to remove the festive balloons it
had pinned out front to attract business, calling them hazards. One
councilor explained that drivers may be distracted by the colors,
and another was concerned that if a balloon came loose, it might
possibly float into traffic and lure a child to follow it. (2) In
October, Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers prepared a
guidebook of instructions for bicycle-duty officers on how to ride a
bike. The book was 93 pages long, containing such assistance as a
diagram on how to turn left or right ("deployment into a junction").
(Following widespread ridicule, the Association decided in
November not to release it. ) [Daily Telegraph, 11-24-09] [Agence
France-Presse, 11-12-09]
* Examiners from Britain's Health and Safety Executive,
inspecting bowling alleys for hazards, considered
recommendations (according to a November Daily Mail report)
that included erecting barriers over the lanes to prevent bowlers
from wandering the alleys and perhaps getting caught in pin-setting
machines or, feared one inspector, bowlers injuring themselves
trying to knock over pins by hand. The barriers would leave space
for the ball to roll under. [Daily Mail, 11-30-09]
The Science of Sex
* Wake Forest University's Institute of Regenerative Medicine,
which has successfully grown human bladders in the lab using only
a few extracted cells sprayed onto a chemical frame that mimics
the body's tissues, has so far been unsuccessful at regenerating
penises because of the organ's complexity. However, it announced
in a November journal article a success with rabbit penises. Four
of the 12 rabbits with lab-grown phalluses successfully
impregnated females, and in an unexpected finding, the new
penises appear not to lessen sexual desire, in that all 12 of the
rabbits began mating within one minute of meeting females.
[Wired.com, 11-9-09]
* Occasionally, people lose their short-term memory following
vigorous sex, according to doctors interviewed for a November
CNN report on "transient global amnesia." The condition occurs
because blood flow to the brain is restricted by the strenuous
activity, temporarily disabling the hippocampus from recording new
memory. One sufferer, "Alice," recalled her experience,
recounting how she initially cracked a joke about being unable to
remember how good the sex was that she just had, and then
supposedly repeated the joke over and over, each time as if she had
just thought of it. [CNN, 11-4-09]
Common Sense Takes a Vacation
* (1) Three men were convicted in August in Kansas City, Mo., of
having convinced "numerous" customers to buy 3-inch-by-4-inch
laminated "diplomat" cards that, promoters said, would legally free
them from ever having to pay taxes or being arrested for any crime.
According to the FBI, customers ponied up fees ranging from $450
to $2,000 to get the cards. (2) Dr. Yehu Azaz, a wealthy, respected
physician, gave up his career in 1991 and gave away all of his
possessions, coming under the spell of guru Rena Denton's
spiritual healing center in Somerset, England. In a 2009 lawsuit to
recover his wealth, Azaz said that despite being an educated
professional, he did not realize what he had done until 2003
because he had been brainwashed ("unduly influenced") by the
aged guru. (A judge tossed out his lawsuit in July.) [Springfield
(Mo.) News-Leader-AP, 9-1-09] [Daily Telegraph (London), 7-8-
09]
Must Be Something About Septic Systems
* After six years of total obstinacy, Janet and Lowell Carlson
finally agreed in October to upgrade their farm's septic system in
Camden Township, Minn. Until then, the couple had ignored
numerous inspections, sheriff's visits, and court orders even though
a new system had already been paid for (by escrow funds left by
the owner who sold them the farm). The Carlsons' inspiring
principle throughout the six years of living with failed plumbing
was to challenge the county for its "inconsistent" enforcement of
septic upgrades. [Star Tribune, 10-2-09; Chanhassen Villager, 10-
7-09, 10-22-09]
* Scottish pig farmer Peter Roy, 72, is embroiled in a long-
standing dispute with the Perth and Kinross Council over who has
the responsibility for repairing the sewage system on his farm in
Craigmuir, but has taken a more hardcore approach than the
Carlsons. He has saved his sewage in oil barrels stored on his
property (now numbering about 80) to the outrage of neighbors.
Roy has also periodically stepped up his protests to include leaving
full barrels around town. [BBC News, 11-26-09]
People With Too Much Money
* After Nicolas Cage filed a lawsuit against him for mismanaging
the actor's money, Cage's former business manager Samuel Levin
filed his defense in November, charging Cage with creating his
own problems by disregarding Levin's budgetary advice.
According to Levin, Cage's 2007 purchases included three houses
(costing $33 million), 22 cars (including 9 Rolls-Royces), and 47
works of art. By 2008, said Levin, Cage owned 15 houses, four
yachts, a Gulfstream jet, and an island in the Bahamas. [New York
Post, 11-19-09]
Least Competent Criminals
* Better Planning Needed: (1) Brier Cutlip, 22, and Paul Bragg,
25, who were on parole and prohibited from possessing firearms,
were re-arrested in December in Elkins, W.Va., when they showed
up for a parole appointment. However, they had just come in from
a day of hunting and were still wearing orange vests, alerting the
parole officer to the fact that they had been firing guns all day. (2)
Grandville Lindsey, 30, on probation in Beaumont, Tex., after a
child-sex conviction and prohibited from visiting any "social"
websites, was re-arrested in November when he sent a Twitter alert
to a woman he had met while in the probation office, asking to
include her as an online "friend." [WBOY-TV (Clarksburg,
W.Va.), 12-3-09] [Beaumont Enterprise, 12-1-09]
Things You Thought Didn't Happen
* British Museum officials announced in September that the hoard
of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon gold and silver treasure discovered on
land in Staffordshire (at least 1,500 pieces, including crosses and
parts of helmets and daggers) would take a year to evaluate fully
but could be worth "many times" the 1 million pounds ($1.6
million) archeologists initially estimated. The treasure was
discovered by an unemployed 55-year-old man using one of the
widely ridiculed, hand-held metal detectors that beachcombers
favor to recover loose coins in the sand. [BBC News, 9-24-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (April 2001)
* Hillsborough, England, was the site of a soccer stadium disaster
in 1989, in which 96 fans were crushed to death. In March 2001,
the government revealed that a police officer who worked at that
site beginning in 1998 nonetheless acquired post-traumatic stress
disorder from continually imagining the 1989 carnage and for that
received a disability settlement from the government of the
equivalent of about $560,000. That amount, according to a report
in London's Guardian, is more than 100 times what was paid to any
of the families of the 96 people who were killed at the site.
[Guardian Weekly, 3-14-01]
Thanks This Week to Larry Seltzer, Sam Gaines, Rick
Matz, Jeromy Tichner, and Stephen Taylor, and to the News of the
Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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