News of the Weird, April 29, 2012

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M264 (News of the Weird, April 29, 2012)
by Chuck Shepherd

Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* In April, a research ship will begin surveying the Atlantic Ocean
floor off of Nova Scotia as the first step to building, by 2013, a
$300 million private fiber-optic line connecting New York and
London financial markets so as to speed up current transmission
times--by about five milliseconds. Those five milliseconds, though
(according to an April report in Bloomberg Business Week), will
enable the small group of firms that are underwriting the project
(and who will have exclusive use of it) to earn millions of dollars
per transaction by having their trade sales arrive five milliseconds
before their competitors' sales would have arrived. [Bloomberg
Business Week, 4-2-2012]

Cultural Diversity

* Brazil's Safety Net for the Poor: Dr. Ivo Pitanguy, the most
celebrated plastic surgeon in the country, apparently earned enough
money from well-off clients that he can now "give back," by
funding and inspiring more than 200 clinics to provide low-income
women with enhancement procedures (face lifts, tummy tucks, butt
lifts) at a reduced, and sometimes no, charge. A local anthropology
professor told ABC News, for a March dispatch, that "[i]n Brazil,
plastic surgery is now seen as something of the norm" (or, as the
reporter put it, "[B]eauty is [considered] a right, and the poor
deserve to be ravishing, too"). [ABC News, 3-23-2012]

* In a March interview on Bolivian television, Judge Gualberto
Cusi, who was recently elected to Bolivia's Constitutional Tribunal
from the indigenous Aymara community, acknowledged that
occasionally, when deciding tough cases, he relied on the Aymaran
tradition of "reading" coca leaves. "In moments when decisions
must be taken, we turn to coca to guide us and show us the way."
[BBC News, 3-15-2012]

* In February, the Life-End Clinic in the Netherlands announced
that six mobile euthanasia teams were placed in service countrywide
to make assisted-suicide house calls--provided the client qualified
under the nation's strict laws. (Euthanasia, legal in the Netherlands
since 2002, is available to people who suffer "unbearable,
interminable" pain and for which at least two doctors certify there is
"no cure." Panels of doctors, lawyers, and ethicists rule on the
applications.) [Agence France-Presse via Australian Broadcasting
Corporation, 3-1-2012]

Latest Religious Messages

* Two lawsuits filed in Los Angeles recently against the founding
family of the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network allege that
televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch have spent well over $50 million
of worshipers' donations on "personal" expenses, including 13
"mansions," his-and-hers private jets, and a $100,000 mobile home
for Mrs. Crouch's dogs. The jets are necessary, the Crouches'
lawyer told the Los Angeles Times, because the Crouches receive
more death threats than even the President of the United States.
Allegedly, the Crouches keep millions of dollars in cash on hand,
but according to their lawyer, that is merely out of obedience to the
Biblical principle of "ow[ing] no man anything." [Los Angeles
Times, 3-23-2012; Daily Mail (London), 3-23-2012]

* High-ranking Vatican administrator Cardinal Domenico
Calcagno, 68, fired back at critics in April after an Italian website
reported his extensive collection of guns and love of shooting. He
told reporters that he owns only 13 weapons and that, "above all,"
he enjoys "repairing" them rather than shooting them (although, he
admitted, "I used to go to shooting ranges"). [Agence France-Presse
via Ottawa Citizen, 4-12-2012]

Fine Points of Florida Law

* (1) In April, the Tampa Police Department issued preliminary
security guidelines to control areas around August's Republican
National Convention in the city. Although the Secret Service will
control the actual convention arena, Tampa Police are establishing a
zone around the arena in which weapons will be confiscated
(including sticks, rocks, bottles, and slingshots). Police would like
to have banned firearms, too, but state law prevents cities from
restricting the rights of licensed gun-carriers. (2) South Florida
station WPLG-TV reported in March that vendors were openly
selling, for about $30, verbatim driver's license test questions and
answers, on the street in front of DMV offices. However, when told
about it, a DMV official shrugged, pointing out that test-takers still
had to memorize them to pass the closed-book exam. [Tampa Bay
Times, 4-3-2012] [WPLG-TV, 3-30-2012]

Questionable Judgments

* Perp's Remorse: (1) Jason Adkins was charged in March in
Cynthiana, Ky., with stealing electronic equipment from the home
of a friend. According to police, Adkins admitted the break-in but
said he felt guilty the next day and returned the items. However, he
then admitted breaking back into the home two days after that and
re-stealing them. (2) Ivan Barker was sentenced in March in
England's Stoke-on-Trent Magistrates Court for stealing a laptop
computer and cigarettes from the home of a wheelchair-bound man
of his acquaintance. Barker subsequently visited the man and
apologized for the theft, but then, during that visit, Barker stole the
man's new replacement laptop computer and more cigarettes.
[Cynthiana Democrat, 3-23-2012] [ThisIsStaffordshire.com, 3-22-
2012]

* At a March town meeting in Embden, Maine, residents turned
down proposals to rename its most notorious street "Katie Road."
Thus, the name will remain, as it has for decades, "Katie Crotch
Road." Some residents, in addition to being embarrassed by the
name, also noted the cost of constantly replacing the street signs
stolen by giggling visitors. (A Kennebec Journal report noted
uncertainty about the name's origin. It might refer to how the road
splits in two, forming a "Y" shape. On the low side, the name might
refer to an early settler who would sit on her front porch without
underwear.) [Kennebec Journal, 3-10-2012]

* Lumpkin County, Ga., judge David Barrett, apparently frustrated
by an alleged rape victim's reluctant testimony at a trial in February,
blurted out in court that she was "killing her case [against the
accused rapist]," and to dramatize the point, pulled out his own
handgun and offered it to her, explaining that she might as well
shoot her lawyer because the chances for conviction were dropping
rapidly. (Five days later, following news reports, Barrett resigned.)
[Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2-25-2012; Gainesville Times
(Gainesville, Ga.), 3-1-2012]

No Spectators Allowed

* For the first time in years, there was no Easter bunny at Central
City Park in Macon, Ga., this year because the county commissioner
who runs the sponsoring organization said he was tired of violent
parents hogging the Easter egg hunt by "helping" their kids. (Two
years ago, Olney High School in Philadelphia barred players'
parents from its boys' junior varsity basketball games unless they
registered and vowed to obey a code of conduct. In February 2012,
the president of the Egyptian Football Association similarly
announced that the season would continue but without spectators,
because of the probability of violence. Of course, Egypt, unlike
Macon, Ga., and Olney High School, has just been through a bloody
civil war.) [Macon Telegraph, 4-5-2012] [WTXF-TV, 1-12-2010]
[Ahram Online (Cairo), 2-15-2012]

Least Competent Criminals

* Relentless: (1) In the early hours of January 31st, police in
Gaston, N.C., were alerted to five burglaries in a two-block area that
left shattered glass, broken doors, and other damage, but no missing
property. There was also a blood trail leading from one store, likely
from a break-in boo-boo. (2) In March, England's Canterbury
Crown Court heard the evidence against a gang of five who in
August and September 2010 attempted to break into seven ATMs,
using fancy power tools, but came away empty-handed each time.
Brick walls were smashed around three machines, and twice
explosives were used, resulting in fires). In each case, alarms were
triggered, sending the men away prematurely, including once from
an ATM that contained the equivalent of $223,000. [Gaston
Gazette, 1-31-2012] [Daily Mail, 3-28-2012]

Update

* The Japanese delicacy "fugu" (blowfish) must be properly filleted
by trained chefs because of the highly concentrated poison in its
tissue, and indeed, a few deaths are reported every year in Japan
from people who prepare fugu at home, since a single drop can be
fatal. (The additional training, and chef-licensing, partly explains
why Tokyo restaurants charge the equivalent of $120 or more for
the dish.) However, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which is
apparently newly concerned about restaurant competition,
announced recently that it would soon no longer require formal
training of fugu chefs, leaving it to individual restaurants to set their
own standards. Said one 30-year veteran chef, "We licensed chefs
feel this way of thinking is a bit strange." [Reuters, 4-2-2012]

Thanks This Week to Joshua Guthrie and to the News of the
Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

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