News of the Weird, September 5, 2010
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Chuck Shepherd is still overstimulated and is
resting. This week, again, he has left behind recent updates to
earlier "creme de la weird," plus some recent versions of seemingly
age-old weird-news themes.
Updates
* In 2007 News of the Weird highlighted the clothes cults of
impoverished Congo: "In [the country that] has lost an estimated
four million people in the civil wars of the last decade and where
many must get by on about 30 cents a day, 'gangs' of designer-
clothes-wearing men" have fashion smackdowns in the streets of
Kinshasa to prove that Versace and Gucci styles look better on them
than on others. These "sapeurs" (from the French slang for clothes)
continue to strut their genuine Gaultier and Dolce & Gabbana,
according to a March Washington Post dispatch. For one sapeur,
"Luzolo," who lives in a one-room shack with no bed, no water, and
no electricity (but a closetful of designer outfits) describes the
feeling as "like a spirit that comes in me." When he wears "the
labels," he said, "I feel there is no one above me." [Washington
Post, 3-11-10]
* Again this year, in April, the Senjosi Temple in Tokyo hosted the
possibly-400-year-old Naki Sumo ("crying baby contest"), in which
infants are blessed to good health by having Sumo wrestlers hoist
them into the air, hold them at arm's length, and coax them (no
squeezing!) to cry, thus signaling that the offering has been heard.
This year, 80 babies were glorified, with special spiritual favors
afforded those who cried the loudest and the longest. [Daily
Telegraph (London), 4-26-10]
* In 2007, News of the Weird mentioned the nightly ceremony on
the India-Pakistan border at Wagah Crossing as part pomp, part
macho posturing, and part Monty Python ("Ministry of Silly
Walks"), in which troops from both sides wearing hard-to-describe
headgear perform complicated boot-stomping maneuvers to assure
their countrymen that they are protecting their nation from the other
one. Lately, however, according to a July Agence France-Presse
dispatch, the high-kicking show has become subdued because so
many of the soldiers have reported knee injuries from the
exaggerated prancing. [Agence France-Presse, 7-21-10]
* Cosmetic surgery-obsessive Sheyla Hershey of Houston, Tex., has
endured more than 30 operations, including breast augmentations in
increasingly large sizes (in her quest to have the world's largest
pair). As News of the Weird reported, her luck started to go south
in 2008 when licensed Texas surgeons declined to implant the M
cups she wanted, and she was forced to use a clinic in Brazil. Last
year, for the birth of her first child, she had the Brazilian implants
removed--and later replaced with a smaller pair--but in June 2010,
she was diagnosed with a staph infection. At press time she was
still being treated with radical antibiotic therapy in Houston and
might lose one or both breasts. [KRIV-TV (Houston), 7-14-10]
* Notorious Boston criminal gang leader Whitey Bulger, who has
been on the run since 1995, made News of the Weird before that
because of some unusual dietary (and hence, excretory) habits.
Bulger would now be 80 years old, but law enforcement officials
have no idea where he is, or what he now looks like, or even if he is
alive, but they believe he likes to browse books. In April 2010, FBI
agents blanketed bookstores in Victoria, British Columbia, having
gotten word that he might be in the area, but nothing turned up.
(Bulger was the model for the Jack Nicholson character in the
movie "The Departed.") [The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 4-19-10]
* Oklahoma City Bomber-helper Terry Nichols, serving a life
sentence at the "Super Max" federal prison in Colorado, recently
ended what he said was his third hunger strike of 2010 to protest
food quality. Lack of fiber in the diet, he said, causes him "chronic
constipation, bleeding, [and] hemorrhoids" and thus disrespects
"God's holy temple," which is Nichols's name for his body. The
prison continues to offer Nichols only limited dietary options.
[TheSmokingGun.com, 8-5-10]
Recurring Themes
* The most recent instance of the cardinal sin of the jailing
profession occurred in a Minneapolis lockup in May, when a
witness in an active murder case was arrested, probably on an
unrelated charge, but placed in the same cell as the murder suspect,
Jonathan "Thirsty" Turner, who knew that the witness had already
given a statement against him. The witness was badly beaten, but
jailers were not certain enough that Turner did it to file charges.
[WCCO-TV-AP, 5-14-10] hal.dunham
* The Animal Planet channel, perhaps hard-pressed for new series
ideas, has reportedly ordered "The Skunk Whisperer" into
production, but there remain multi-use whisperers who claim they
can talk to and analyze all critters, with New Zealand's Faye Rogers
the latest to draw attention (and she singled out her ability with
"worms"). All beings, she said, are "connected by a higher
consciousness," allowing, for example, traveling birds to pass on
important "international information" to fish. She disputed a notion
spread by "horse whisperer" Bill Northern that cats are "wily"--
explaining that cats merely appear wily because they prefer to be
asked specific questions rather than generalities. In an August
interview with the Christchurch Press, she referred to "clients,"
indicating that at least some people pay the $65 (N.Z.) an hour ($45
U.S.) for her services. [The Press (Christchurch), 8-5-10]
* Japanese ice-cream makers are famous for expanding the universe
of conceivable flavors (as News of the Weird has mentioned several
times), but a gathering by the fashion/style website The Gloss in
July found several more, suggesting that maybe the world is about
to run out of what ingredients can go into ice cream: Haggis ice
cream (from Morelli's in London), Sardines and Brandy ice cream
(from Helader a de Lares in Venezuela), Caviar ice cream
(Petrossian in New York City), and Foie Gras ice cream (Phillippe
Faur in Toulouse, France, about $150). [TheGloss.com, 7-29-10]
* In several regions of the African nation of Cameroon, parents try
to keep maturing daughters off the market by "ironing" their breasts
(pressing them with heated stones and leaves to make them flatter
and the girls thus less desirable for sex). The practice reached
world media (and News of the Weird) in 2006 as part of a
condemnation campaign by the United Nations, but apparently it
continues unabated, according to new videos circulated this year
and described in the Washington Post in March. According to that
writer, who interviewed numerous health officials in Cameroon, the
practice apparently has little effect, in that the teenage pregnancy
rate remains very high. [Washington Post, 3-4-10]
* Alcor Life Extension Foundation makes the news regularly, as
family dysfunctions occur when someone buys a contract to have
his head frozen upon death so that some day, if the science
advances, he can be thawed and brought back to life. Typically,
survivors of little faith in science prefer a more dignified disposal,
as was the case with David Richardson, who had his brother Orville
buried in February 2009 despite Orville's $53,500 Alcor contract.
Most such disputes are raised and decided pre-death or
contemporaneous with death, but Alcor appealed an original Iowa
court decision in David's favor, and in May 2010, the Iowa Court of
Appeals reversed, ordering Orville dug up. (Alcor promotion
materials say that, for best results, the head should be frozen 15
minutes after the heart stops beating.) [Arizona Republic-AP, 5-15-
10]
* Reporters (and News of the Weird!) relish playing "gotcha!" with
people who convince authorities that they are injured too badly to
continue working, setting themselves up for sometimes lucrative
lifetime pensions, yet somehow seem to miraculously recover and
subsequently engage in vigorous physical endeavors. New York
City firefighter John Giuffrida, 42, retired on a disability pension of
about $75,000 a year in 2003, based on asthma and other lung
ailments from cleaning up the Sept. 11th Ground Zero, but two
years later, he was a regular on the mixed-martial-arts circuit and is
continuing to beat people up. (Giuffrida told a New York Post
reporter that the two activities "completely different." Strength and
endurance fighting, he said, is not the same as "running into a
building that is on fire with a smoke condition and toxins in the air."
[New York Post, 7-26-10]
Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of
Editorial Advisors.
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