News of the Weird, November 1, 2009
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Recent Precision-Tuning of the Fruitfly Brain: (1) Scientists at
England's University of Oxford know how to make fruitflies scared
of things they weren't scared of previously by implanting
artificial memories in their brains after somehow locating and
managing the precise 12 neurons that enable the flies to learn
things. The implanted "danger" (the smell of sweat-soaked athletic
shoes) causes the flies to scatter at the first whiff. (2) Scientists at
the University of Toronto know how to make fruitflies sexually
attractive to flies of both sexes, and to different fly species by
removing the specific hydrocarbon brain cells that produce the
pheromones thought to attract sex-specific mates. (Only the choice
of partners was modified and not horniness level.) [New York
Times, 10-20-09] [BBC News, 10-14-09]
Government in Action
* Small-Town Mayors: (1) For three weeks in September, budget-
conscious Mayor Sallie Peake of Wellford, S.C., barred the police
from chasing perpetrators of crimes in progress, even if officers
drove at the speed limit. Officers were instructed, instead, to arrest
suspects later in their homes. (The mayor, under siege, rescinded
the policy on September 24th.) (2) Mayor Stu Rasmussen, 61, of
Silverton, Ore., elected last year even though he dresses openly as a
woman, drew criticism from officials of a community group in July
when he addressed students while wearing a miniskirt and a
swimsuit top. Critics suggested he should dress at least in
"professional" women's clothes when speaking to youth groups.
[WSPA-TV (Spartanburg), 9-20-09, 9-24-09] [KATU-TV
(Portland), 7-23-09]
* New York City, which is sued more than 1,000 times a year, has
a policy of settling some lawsuits quickly to avoid the risk of
expensive judgments. The New York Daily News reported in
October that more than 20 lawsuits, going back several years, were
filed by members of the East 21st Street Crew (a well-known
Brooklyn gang notorious for selling crack cocaine), and that the
city has settled every time, paying out more than $500,000. The
"civil rights" lawsuits were over possibly-illegal searches and for
criminal charges that the city later dismissed. [New York Daily
News, 10-11-09]
Great Art!
* Worth Every Dollar: (1) New Zealand's Waikato National
Contemporary Art Award in September (worth the equivalent of
US$11,000) went to Dane Mitchell, whose entry consisted merely
of discarded packaging materials from all the other exhibits vying
for the prize. Mitchell called his pile "Collateral." (Announcement
of the winner was poorly received by the other contestants.) (2) At
a Christie's auction in September in New York City, London artist
Gavin Turk's empty, nondescript cardboard box (the size of an
ordinary moving-company box) sold for $16,000. (Actually, it was
a sculpture designed to look exactly like an empty, nondescript
cardboard box.) [Waikato Times, 9-8-09] [New York Post, 9-2-09]
* Britain's Clumsiest Art Patron: On the opening day of a Tate
Modern gallery exhibit in London on October 14th, 12,500 visitors
examined Polish artist Miroslaw Balka's installation of a 100-foot
by 42-foot by 32-foot box that is pitch black inside, lined with
light-absorbing material. However, only one of the patrons
managed to bump hard enough into a wall of the container to draw
blood. [Agence France-Presse, 10-14-09]
Police Report
* Sensitive! (1) St. Paul, Minn., police were called to the 1300
block of Desoto Street in July by a 43-year-old man, who
demanded that a report be filed because he had found a slice of
half-eaten pizza near his fence and thought it represented
someone's intent to "harass" him. (2) A 56-year-old man was cited
by police in Carlisle, Pa., in September after a complaint from
neighbor Brian Taylor, 43, who swore that the man had flicked a
toothpick onto the sidewalk in front of Taylor's home just to
"annoy" him. [Pioneer Press (St. Paul), 7-30-09] [Patriot-News
(Harrisburg), 9-22-09]
* A nine-hour, 16-officer search of the home of alleged drug
kingpin Michael Difalco, near Lakeland, Fla., in March, apparently
was not exciting enough. Surveillance video (from Difalco's
security system) released by police in September showed that the
easily-distracted officers also took time out to play spirited frames
of bowling on Difalco's Wii game. Since the detectives were
unaware of the camera, they uninhibitedly pumped their fists and
shouted gleefully with every strike. Police supervisors
acknowledged the unprofessional behavior but said the search
nonetheless was productive. [Tampa Tribune, 9-21-09]
Things You Thought Didn't Happen Anymore
* Bombastic financier R. Allen Stanford was able to maintain
secrecy in the multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme he allegedly
operated for years out of a bank in Antigua because he and
Antigua's chief bank regulator had met in secret in 2003 and taken
an actual "blood oath" of loyalty. The hematic bonding was
revealed by Stanford's number-two executive, James Davis, who
pleaded guilty in August in federal court in Houston, Tex. [New
York Times, 8-28-09]
Fetishes on Parade
* In September in Truro, England, David Truscott, 40, was
sentenced to four months in jail for repeatedly trespassing on the
farm of Clive Roth by playing in the farm's manure-spreader while
wearing only his underwear (and, curiously, rubber gloves).
Truscott told the court that he had a sexual fetish for manure.
Three weeks earlier, Gary Moody, 49, was charged in federal court
in Portland, Maine, with lingering inside a pit toilet in the White
Mountain National Forest. He admitted to having "an outhouse
problem." Moody was not caught in the act, but because he had
pleaded no contest to a similar incident in 2005, he was a prime
suspect and eventually confessed. [Falmouth Packet, 9-9-09]
[Portland Press-Herald, 9-1-09]
Least Competent Criminals
* Daniel Taylor Jr., 33, was arrested in Elizabethton, Tenn., in
September following a domestic disturbance complaint against a
neighbor. A sheriff's deputy had gone to Taylor's house by
mistake, wrongly thinking it was the source of the complaint, but
Taylor immediately surrendered to the deputy, anyway, and turned
around to be handcuffed. When the deputy inquired why Taylor
thought he should be arrested, Taylor said he assumed the deputy
had come to arrest him for violating probation on earlier charges.
The deputy took Taylor to the station before resuming the domestic
disturbance call. [Johnson City Press, 9-14-09]
Recurring Themes
* Another Driver Poor at Multitasking: A German truck driver in
his 30s crashed his 18-wheeler near Boras, Sweden, in September,
and though not seriously hurt, was pinned, immobile, in the
wreckage. When rescuers and police first saw him, they noted that
the trapped driver's genitals were exposed and that his hand was
clasped in his genital area. [The Local (Stockholm), 9-24-09]
* Embarrassing: (1) Zach Schultz of Denver, Colo., became the
most recent victim of wind, costing him his car. While driving
down Colorado Boulevard in July, he tossed a lit cigarette out the
window, but it landed in the back seat and set the car on fire, and
he was not able to save it. (2) Sylvester Jiles, 24, became the most
recent casualty among former inmates who try to break back into
prisons (in Jiles's case, to seek "protection" from threats to his life
on the outside). In August in Brevard County, Fla., Jiles was
hospitalized for a heavy loss of blood that resulted when he fell
into the razor wire inside the wall. [KMGH-TV (Denver), 7-16-09]
[WJXT-TV (Jacksonville), 9-1-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (November 2004)
* "Anal-wart researcher" (visual inspection being the only way to
detect anal cancer from the human papillomavirus) heads Popular
Science magazine's second annual November list, in 2004, of the
worst jobs in science. However, "worm parasitologist" can be just
as challenging, especially for anyone studying the Dracunculus
medinensis (which can settle in humans to a length of three feet
and then must be removed carefully after its thousands of offspring
burst through the skin). Other contenders: "tampon squeezer" for
the study of vaginal infections; a Lyme-disease "tick attractor"
(who must sing, to keep bears away, while trolling in the woods);
and "monitors" at warm-climate landfills (where garbage has been
reduced to steamy, liquid condensates). [Popular Science,
November 2004]
Thanks This Week to Sam Gaines, Dave Shepardson,
William Britenbach, Matthew Marek, John Martin, Jeff Morin,
Heather Barrett, and Hal Dunham, and to the News of the Weird
Board of Editorial Advisors.
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