News of the Weird, April 7, 2013

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M313 (News of the Weird, April 7, 2013)
by Chuck Shepherd       

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* Wait . . . What?  A startup company in Austin, Tex., also serving
San Francisco, promises to take its customers' incoming U.S. Mail
three times a week, photograph it, and deliver it back to the
customers via mobile phone app, for $4.99 a month.  The company,
Outbox, provides some value-added, removing the customer from
junk-mail lists and paying bills.  Still, Outbox's unorthodox
business model assumes that a growing number of people absolutely
hate opening, filing, or discarding pieces of paper.  Co-founder Will
Davis told CNN in February that at least he does not fear
competition:  "No one is crazy enough to do what we're doing."
[CNN, 2-26-2013]

Oops!

* College basketball player Shanteona Keys makes free throws at a
78-percent rate for her career, but on February 16th, she weakly
shanked one of those 15-foot shots, causing it to thud to the floor
about eight feet short of the rim--the worst collegiate free-throw
attempt of all time, according to several sports commentators who
viewed the video.  Keys explained to Deadspin.com that she always
brings the ball close to her face when she shoots, "[a]nd my
fingernail got caught on my nose, so I couldn't follow through
correctly."  Her Georgia College (Milledgeville, Ga.) team lost to
rival Columbus State, 70-60. [Deadspin.com, 2-21-2013]

* Research Hurts:  Between 2002 and 2010, according to the March
BJU International (formerly, British Journal of Urology), an
estimated 17,600 patients came to U.S. hospital emergency rooms
reporting genital injuries from trouser zippers (presumably by
accident, but researchers took no position on that).  Seven authors
(six from University of California, San Francisco) took credit for
the report, funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, and
found that "zip" wounds were only about one-fifth of emergency
penile injuries. [BJUI, 3-13-2013]

Family Values

* Rachel Hope and Parker Williams, both apparently intelligent and
attractive, decided to procreate and fully raise a child together--even
though neither has romantic intentions toward the other.  Their
relationship is likened to a business one, according to a February
New York Times profile, in which they do their respective
biological duties, separately, and then each basically outsources half
the subsequent child-rearing to the other.  Said another parent in a
similar relationship, "When you think about the concept of the
village, and how the village was part of child rearing for so many
cultures . . . it makes total sense." [New York Times, 2-16-2013]

* Robert Burton, 30, got a 15-year prison sentence in February for
forcing women into prostitution, with evidence including a police
report quoting Burton's 7-year-old son, who was in the car with
Burton and two women when Miami, Fla., police stopped them.
The kid had earnestly identified the women:  "[T]hose are my
daddy's ho's."  [Associated Press via WFTV (Orlando), 2-27-2013]

The Continuing Crisis

* Professor Peter Frohlich, who teaches computer science classes at
the highly competitive Johns Hopkins University, contractually
grades "on a curve," automatically marking the highest grade an
"A," with other grades trailing based on their proximity to the
class's best.  One clever student tried to organize the entire class for
December's final exam, to persuade everyone to do no work at all--
thus rendering the "highest" grade a zero, meaning an "A" for
everyone.  (Of course, if a single student broke ranks, everyone
except that student would receive an absolute zero.)  Fortunately for
the students, according to InsideHigherEd.com, the class held
together, and a shocked Prof. Frohlich nonetheless honored his
contract, giving everyone an "A" (but subsequently closing the
loophole).  [Inside Higher Education, 2-12-2013]

* Thieves broke in to the home of Earlie Johnson in Muskegon,
Mich., in February and made off with his three flat-screen TVs, but
what really irked him was that they also stole his entire DVD
pornography collection, consisting, he said, of the films of every
African-American porn star since the 1970s.  ("I'm not no scum bag
guy, pervert, or nothing like that," he told WZZM-TV.  "I just
thought it was cool to own my own porn collection.  It keeps my
relationship [with my fiance‚] fresh and tight.")  As soon as the
news of Johnson's misfortune spread, several "adult video"
companies donated DVDs to help restore the collection.  [WZZM-
TV (Grand Rapids, Mich.), 2-22-2013]

* Sex Is Dangerous:  (1) Officers from the Zimbabwe Parks and
Wildlife Management Authority reported in March that a lion had
attacked a couple having sex in the bush, killing the woman and
sending the man dashing down a road wearing nothing but his
condom (which reduced his chances of receiving help from
motorists).  (2) Near Daytona Beach, Fla., in February, Ms. Asia
Walker, 30, driving her boyfriend around, could not resist his
amorous advances and soon lost control of the car.  It left the road
and plowed completely through a vacant house.  She was briefly
hospitalized, but her boyfriend was not hurt.  [International
Business Times (London), 3-6-2013] [WESH-TV (Orlando), 2-15-
2013]

Fine Points of the Law

* Even though the British government refused to grant trademark
protection to the Italian maker of "Jesus Jeans" because it would be
"morally offensive to the public," the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office had no such qualms and approved the application in 2007.
Since then, according to a February Wall Street Journal story, the
company has prevented a dozen other companies from using such
clothing names as "Jesus First," "Sweet Jesus," "Jesus Couture,"
and, most recently, "Jesus Surfed."  [Wall Street Journal, 2-24-
2013]

People Different From Us

* A persevering Brooklyn, N.Y., high school teacher, Ronald
Grassel, finally relented and submitted himself to a psychiatric
evaluation that had originally been ordered in 1997 after he angrily
and over-enthusiastically dumped teachers' union literature in his
principal's office.  Grassel had refused the exam and been benched,
and for 14 years was neither fired nor paid while he filed a series of
unsuccessful legal actions to overturn the decision.  According to a
March New York Post report, when he finally submitted to an exam
in 2011, he was declared fit (his world-class obstinacy apparently
not counting against him) and in September 2012 was back on the
job.  [New York Post, 3-4-2013]

Perspective

* Humans' belief that fragrances improve their allure can seemingly
never be overestimated.  Dutch-based artists Lerner Engelberts and
Sander Plug told the New York Times in March that they recently
created a concoction to call attention to our neediness for artificial
scent.  Noting the deluge of new industry creations in 2012,
Engelberts explained, "Our point is, why do you need nearly 1,400
new scents in one year?"  The pair created "Everything," which they
claim contains a bit of every one of the year's fragrances they were
able to obtain (including "Fame by Lady Gaga" and "Justin Bieber
Girlfriend"), dumped into one bottle and left to marinate--and they
offered it for sale for the equivalent of about $39,000.  [New York
Times, 3-7-2013]

Least Competent Criminals

* Not Ready for Prime Time:  (1) Paul Masters, 47, was charged
with a roof-entry burglary of a Roses department store in Lexington,
Ky., in March.  Those burglaries are common but almost always
nighttime jobs, when no one else is on the premises.  Masters,
though, dropped in just after lunchtime.  After police swarmed the
store, Masters eventually fell through a drop-ceiling and was
arrested.  (2) Jared Carr, 37, was arrested in Chippewa County,
Wis., in March after he persisted in demanding a refund for the
computer printer he said he had bought at a Walmart (though he
lacked a receipt).  While examining the printer, the Walmart
employee noticed a sheet of paper still inside--showing two
counterfeit $100 bills--and called police, who arrived while Carr
was still haggling for a refund. [Lexington Herald-Leader, 3-20-
2013] [Chippewa Herald, 3-8-2013]

Readers Choice

* (1) A judge in Racine, Wis., granted bail for Tyree Carter, 20, for
his March arrest for "lewd and lascivious conduct" in the Racine
Public Library, but among the conditions of his release was that,
until trial, Carter "stay out of all the libraries on the face of the
Earth."  (2) In a ruling that lasted less than a week, England's Mid
Devon District Council had decreed in March that henceforth, no
street name could contain an apostrophe, e.g., St. George's would
be St. Georges.  Outraged punctuationists swung into action causing
the Council to quickly reverse itself.  [Journal Times (Racine), 3-
14-2013] [BBC News, 3-15-2013]

     Thanks This Week to Steve Dunn, Sandy Pearlman, Dale
Wilke, Gary DaSilva, and Jay Brawley, and to the News of the
Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
              
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WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
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