News of the Weird, August 2, 2009
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* Apparently believing that religious competition in the Middle
East is not exciting enough already, the television station Kanal T
in Istanbul, Turkey, is preparing a reality game show for September
release in which 10 certified atheists try to resist conversion by a
priest, a rabbi, a Muslim imam, and a Buddhist monk. The exact
rules have not been disclosed, but the "winning" convert will
receive an expense-paid trip to the holy land of the most persuasive
religion (the Vatican, Jerusalem, Mecca, or Tibet). According to a
July Reuters report, Turkey's Islamic Religious Affairs Directorate,
not surprisingly, had vowed never to co-operate. [Reuters, 7-3-09]
Bright Ideas
* By early July, Jonathan Baltesz and his wife and kids were
desperate to find their 10-year-old black Labrador mix, Simon,
who had run away. They had one more plan, however. The family
members urinated into containers and sprinkled the contents at
various locales around their town (Bristol, England), laid out so
that Simon could follow a trail home. (Results were unavailable at
press time.) [Bristol Evening Post, 7-9-09]
* The British charter airline Thomas Cook announced at the gate in
the resort island of Mallorca in June that, regardless of seat
assignments on a departing flight, passengers should sit toward the
rear of the aircraft in order to balance the load (since it was already
front-heavy with cargo and therefore harder on the pilot). Not
surprisingly, 71 apprehensive passengers refused to board. (Also,
some incoming passengers on that same aircraft, which
experienced a similar balance problem, had dramatically dropped
to their knees in the terminal, kissing the ground, calling the flight
their worst ever.) [Daily Mail (London), 6-23-09]
The Continuing Crisis
* The "New Age" movement might be growing too inclusive,
according to a July report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (published
in a city where the concept of "New Age" is already highly
nuanced). "[P]agans feel jilted," wrote the reporter. "Chiropractors
want out [of consideration]," "channelers wonder if they belong,"
and "organic farmers don't want to be near pet psychics." Said one
St. Paul merchant, "I have customers who completely believe in
fairies and will laugh at you if you believe in Bigfoot." But, said
one New Age magazine editor, the movement should "encompass
anything on a spiritual path--Bigfoot, Jesus, Budda. Even
worshiping a frog is sort of OK." [St. Paul Pioneer Press, 7-13-09]
* Some parents of students at the Al-Islah Muslim girls' school in
Blackburn, England, discovered that a staff secretary, Shifa Patel,
28, had a Facebook page, featuring innocuous photos of herself but
dressed in other than her full-body robe and headscarf, which are
her everyday school attire. The photos also reveal that she has
close-cropped hair. One assumption led to another, and soon Patel
was accused of being a man who dresses as a woman in order to
mingle with females. Patel went to the trouble of getting a doctor's
certificate of her gender, but the parents refused to accept it, and in
June, Patel (and the school's headmistress) resigned in despair.
[Daily Mail, 6-13-09]
* A young copperhead snake trespassed into a building near
Poolesville, Md., in June and delivered several venomous nips to
the hand of Sam Pettengill. Often snakes do not survive such
encounters because the victim's first impulse is to kill the attacker.
Fortunately for this snake, it had wandered into a Buddhist temple,
and Pettengill had an obligation, according to a Washington Post
report. Before he set out for the hospital for treatment (which
turned out to be four antivenin cycles), Pettengill took the snake in
his throbbing, increasingly pain-wracked hand, circled a prayer
room three times to bless it, and released it back into the woods.
[Washington Post, 6-3-09]
* World's Toughest Job: Farah Ahmed Omar was appointed
recently as chief of Somalia's navy, which ordinarily would be on
the front lines against the throng of pirates operating off the
country's coast. Omar's job is difficult, though, because the
Somalia navy has not a single boat nor a single sailor, and Omar
himself has not been to sea in 23 years. However, he told a
reporter he was optimistic that the piracy could be stopped. [BBC
News, 6-16-09]
Fine Points of the Law
* An 18-year-old, severely mentally-challenged, Paris, Tex., man
was sentenced in February to 100 years in prison for a single act of
what might amount to the childhood sex game of "doctor" with a 6-
year-old neighbor. The man has an IQ of 47, and no coercion or
violence was involved, but the jury was not given the option to
send the man to a care facility in lieu of prison. In fact, his original
lawyer failed even to argue his client's incompetency as a defense
because, he said, he thought the man obviously would get
probation. In a final touch, Lamar County judge Eric Clifford, able
to punish the man on just one count with four other counts running
concurrently, instead chose to stack the five counts to total 100
years, and in April, after listening to a parade of witnesses beg him
to reconsider the sentence, he refused. [Dallas Morning News, 6-
10-09]
* It's the Shoes: Palm Beach County, Fla., defense lawyer Michael
Robb resisted a courtroom motion in June to force him to discard
his well-worn Cole Haan loafers and go buy a new pair. The
plaintiff's lawyer Bill Bone had complained that jurors would see
the holes in the bottoms of Robb's shoes and be unfairly
sympathetic to Robb's clients as humble and frugal and therefore
more deserving to win. The motion was denied. According to a
Palm Beach Post story, Robb said later that he has a renewed
enthusiasm for the shoes. [Palm Beach Post, 6-27-09]
People With Issues
* (1) Todd Hall, 36, was sentenced to a year in prison after his
conviction in Bentonville, Ark., in June for habitually biting the
toes of his son, which Hall said he did up to age 6 as routine
discipline. (He had earlier been on probation for the disciplinary
biting of his 10-month-old daughter.) (2) In June in Muncie, Ind.,
in his second such conviction in seven months, Robert Stahl, 64,
was found guilty of resolving disputes with men in their 50s by
reaching into their mouths and yanking out their dentures.
[Northwest Arkansas News, 6-17-09] [Star Press (Muncie), 6-15-
09]
Least Competent Criminals
* (1) A Polynesian man in his 20s was being sought as the robber
of the Black Diamond Equipment store in Salt Lake City in June.
He made off with some gear from the ski and climbing accessory
store, but had originally demanded jewelry, as he apparently
thought he was knocking off a "diamond" store. (2) Motorist
Zackary Johnson was arrested in Athens, Ga., in June after pulling
over a passing police car to inquire whether he had any warrants
outstanding against him. No, answered the officer after a computer
check, but he noted that Johnson's driver's license is under
suspension, and he was arrested. [KSL-TV (Salt Lake City), 6-15-
09] [Athens Banner-Herald, 6-8-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (2000)
* Rarely has a city experienced a "better" year of weird news than
Akron, Ohio, in 2000. A father was indicted for constantly
roughing up his gifted teenage daughters to encourage even higher
achievement (including threatening to kill one for misspelling
"cappelletti" in the National Spelling Bee). A man was found
living with his father's corpse for 11 years, discovered only when
his mother died, and he failed to bury her, also. A 69-year-old man
sued a woman for tricking him into marrying her when he had
intended to marry her mother. A woman defended a charge of
sexually molesting her 7-year-old son, by claiming that the family
dog had raped him. A 10-year-old boy, trying to avoid leaf-raking
chores by hiding underneath them, was hospitalized when his
mother accidentally drove over the leaves. A high school coach
got caught cheating when he sneaked in to run the second leg of his
school's 4x100 relay at a track meet. [Akron Beacon Journal, 8-13-
00, 7-26-00, 7-11-00, 7-6-00]
Thanks This Week to Cindy Denny and Peter Smagorinsky,
and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
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