News of the Weird, May 5, 2013

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M317 (News of the Weird, May 5, 2013)
by Chuck Shepherd       

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Editor's Note:  Chuck returns to blogging what's really weird from

the past week.  Mondays, starting tomorrow, May 6th.

http://www.WeirdUniverse.net/

Lead Story

* In March, twin sisters Louise and Martine Fokken, 70, announced
their joint retirement after more than 50 years each on the job--as
Amsterdam prostitutes.  (In February, the minimum age for
prostitutes in the Netherlands was raised to 21, but there is no
maximum.)  The twins estimated they had 355,000 client-visits
between them, and Martine noted that she still has one devoted
regular that she'll have to disappoint.  Louise, though, appeared
happier to hang up her mattress for good, because of arthritis.  The
sisters complained about the legalization of brothels in 2000 (with
east European women and pimps out-hustling the more genteel
Dutch women) and ensuing taxation (which required the women to
take on more clients).  [Daily Telegraph (London), 3-14-2013]

Cultural Diversity

* "Traditional Taiwanese funerals [combine] somber mourning,"
reported BBC News in February, "with louder, up-tempo
entertainment to fire up grieving spirits."  They are tailor-made, in
other words, for Ms. Liu Jun-Lin, 30, and her Filial Daughters Band
with their acrobatic dance routines because Liu, herself, has the
reputation as Taiwan's most famous professional mourner.  After
the musical festivities, Liu dons a white robe and crawls on her
hands and knees to the coffin, where she "performs her signature
wail."  [BBC News, 2-25-2013]

* Norwegian Wood:  A 12-hour TV miniseries shown this winter on
Norway's government channel NRK, "National Firewood Night,"
was conceived as a full series, then cut to "only" 12 hours, eight of
which focused entirely on a live fireplace.  Nearly a million people
tuned in to the series, and at one point 60 text messages came in
complaining about whether the wood in the fireplace should have
been placed with bark up or bark down.  "[F]irewood," said the
show's host, "is the foundation of our lives."  A New York Times
dispatch noted that a best-selling book, "Solid Wood," sold almost
as many copies in Norway, proportional to the population, as a
book's selling 10 million copies in the U.S.  [New York Times, 2-
19-2013]

* Imagine the Person Who First Suggested This:  The newest
beauty-treatment rage in China, according to Chinese media quoted
on the Inquisitr.com website in March, is the "fire facial," in which
alcohol and a "secret elixir" are daubed on the face and set ablaze
for a few seconds, then extinguished.  According to "ancient
Chinese medicine," this will burn off "dull" skin--and also alleviate
the common cold and reduce obesity.  [Inquisitr.com, 3-7-2013]
[CBS News, 12-5-2007]

* Most of Iceland's 320,000 inhabitants are at least distantly related
to each other, leading the country to compile the "Book of
Icelanders" database of family connections dating back 1,200 years.
With "accidental" incest thus a genuine problem, three software
engineers recently created a mobile-phone app that allows strangers
to "bump" phones with each other and know, instantly, whether they
are closely related.  In its first few days of release in April, the
developers said it had already been used almost 4,000 times.
[Associated Press via USA Today, 4-18-2013]

Latest Religious Messages

* New York City Councilman Dan Halloran was charged in April
with aiding state Sen. Malcolm Smith's alleged bribery scheme to
run for mayor--thus bringing Halloran's extraordinary backstory to
light as the first "open" pagan to be elected to office in the U.S.
Halloran converted in the 1980s to medieval Theodish whose outfits
and ceremonies resemble scenes from Dungeons & Dragons--horns.
sacrifices, feasts, duels using spears, and public floggings.  (The
Village Voice reported in 2011 that Halloran was the "First
Atheling" of his own Theodish tribe of 100, called New Normandy,
but Halloran said in April that he is today merely an "elder.")  [New
York Post, 4-6-2013]

* The Lord Works in Strange Ways: At least 11 people were killed
and 36 injured on March 15th in Tlaxcala, Mexico, when a truck
full of fireworks exploded as Catholic celebrants gathered.  Rather
than remain at home in safety, they were moved to honor
Jesus Tepactepec, the patron saint of a village named after him.
[Reuters via NBC News, 3-15-2013]

* Recent Icons:  (1) In March, a vegetable wholesaler in India's
Jharkland state decided that a pumpkin he purchased was so
enormous (about 190 lbs.) that it must be a reincarnation of the god
Shiva--and he began worshiping it.  A priest counseled the man to
continue his fealty until the following Sunday, a holiday, after
which he should carve it into pieces for devotees.  (2) In Buri Ram,
Thailand, in March, a woman sliced open a sausage to find the
distinctive body of a very small kitten, which she took to be a
symbol of some sort deserving to be placed onto an altar.
Neighbors gathered to pray to it, also, and several said they had
considered the woman so fortunate that they played her age (52) in a
local lottery, and won. [Times of India, 3-5-2013] [Bangkok Post, 3-
18-2013]

Questionable Judgments

* An unnamed man was hospitalized in April in Tucson, Ariz., after
firefighters found him unconscious at 3 a.m. pinned under an SUV
parked in his driveway and dragged him to safety.  A police
spokesperson learned that the man was trying "a stunt in which he
was going to put the SUV in reverse, jump out and lay on the
ground behind it, have the vehicle [roll] over him, and then get up
and [get back into] the SUV in time to stop it before it collided with
anything."  [Arizona Daily Star, 4-12-2013]

Perspective

* While "comprehensive immigration reform" winds through the
U.S. political process, a few countries (including the United States)
have already severely bent the nationalistic standards supposedly
regulating entry of foreigners.  The U.S., Britain, Canada, and
Austria allow rich investors who pass background checks to qualify
for an express lane to residence or citizenship, and the line is even
less onerous in the Caribbean nations of Dominica and St. Kitts &
Nevis, which offer quick citizenship for investments of $100,000
and $250,000, respectively--the latter especially valuable, allowing
access to 139 countries including all of Europe.  (The U.S.
minimum is $1 million, or half that for investment in an
"economically depressed" area, but the reward is only a "green
card," with citizenship still five years away.)  [Associated Press via
WNEW-TV (New York City), 2-12-2013]

Weirdo-American Community

* The man who was "citizen of the year" in Waynesville, Ohio, in
2006, businessman Ron Kronenberger, 53, was charged in January
with belt-whipping one of his tenants on his bare buttocks--though
he had a good reason, he said, because the tenant was late again
with the rent.  A magistrate said he intended to drop the charge in
six months if Kronenberger stayed out of trouble, but in March, a
man who worked for Kronenberger filed a lawsuit accusing him of
spanking him on four occasions, using a belt and a paddle.  [Dayton
Daily News, 2-20-2013, WLWT-TV (Cincinnati), 3-29-2013]

Least Competent Criminals

* Questionable Judgment:  The Narcotics Task Force of Jackson
County, Miss., arrested Henry Ha Nguyen, 41, in April as operator
of a large marijuana grow house--a facility that would normally reek
of the distinctive pot fragrance.  However, Nguyen had thought of
that and tried to mask the smell, but chose the alternative scent
produced by bucketfuls of what appeared to be human feces.
[WLOX-TV (Biloxi) via WXIX-TV (Cincinnati), 4-10-2013]

Readers' Choice

* (1) A vendor at the largest bazaar in Buenos Aires has recently
been selling knock-off "toy poodles" that were actually artistically
groomed ferrets raised on steroids.  A news dispatch from June
2012 suggested that such a report might be an "urban legend," but a
Buenos Aires TV investigation exposed the scam in March,
revealing two victims, one of whom paid the equivalent of about
$150 for his "pure-bred."  (2) Wayne Klinkel's golden retriever
Sundance, locked in a car while Klinkel, of Helena, Mont., went to
dinner in December, set about dining himself on whatever he found,
including the five $100 bills Klinkel had stashed.  Klinkel managed
to recover the scraps (in precisely the way you suspect he did),
washed and dried them several times, and as of early April, was still
awaiting word whether the U.S. Treasury would exchange his scraps
for five new bills.  [Huffington Post, 4-8-2013] [Independent
Record (Helena), 4-8-2013]

     Thanks This Week to Lincoln Lancaster, Gary DaSilva,
Bruce Hilpert, Dick Sonier, and Alex Boese, and to the News of the
Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
              
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WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.WeirdUniverse.net, and
P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.