News of the Weird, March 18, 2012
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* An annual spring fertility festival in Vietnam's Phu Tho province
is capped by a symbolic X-rated ceremony rendered G-rated by
wooden stand-ins. At midnight on the 12th day of the lunar new
year, a man holding a wooden phallus-like object stands in total
darkness alongside a woman holding a wooden plank with a hole in
it, and the act is attempted. As the tradition goes, if the man is
successful at penetration, the there will be good crops. Following
the ceremony, villagers are ordered to "go and be free," which,
according to a February report by Thanh Nien News Service, means
uninhibited friskiness during the lights-out period. [Thanh Nien
News (Ho Chi Minh City), 2-9-2012]
Cultural Diversity
* In the remote state of Meghalaya, India, a "matrilineal" system
endows the women with wealth and property rights and relegates
the men to slow-moving campaigns for equality. A men's rights
advocate, interviewed by BBC News in January, lamented even the
language's favoring of women, noting that "useful" nouns seem all
to be female. The system, he said, breeds generations of men "who
feel useless," falling into alcoholism and drug abuse. In maternity
wards, he said, the sound of cheering greets baby girls, and if it's a
boy, the prevailing sentiment is "Whatever God gives us is quite all
right." The husband of one woman interviewed said, meekly, that
he "likes" the current system--or at least that's what his wife's
translation said he said. [BBC News, 1-19-2012]
* Each year, the town of Chumbivilcas, Peru, celebrates the new
year with what to Americans might seem "Festivus"-inspired (from
the Seinfeld TV show) but is actually drawn from Incan tradition.
For "Takanakuy," with a background of singing and dancing, all
townspeople with grudges from the previous 12 months (men,
women, children) settle them with sometimes-bloody fistfights so
that they start the new year clean. Said one villager to a Reuters
reporter, "Everything is solved here, and after[ward] we are all
friends." [Reuters via CBS News, 12-14-2011]
* In a tradition believed to have originated in the Eighth Century,
the village of San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, marks each January
16th with the festival of Saint Anthony, commenced in style by
villagers riding their horses through large fires in the streets ("Las
Luminarias"). As horses jump the flames, according to belief, they
become purified, and demons are destroyed, and fertility and good
health result. (Apparently, no horses are harmed, and an on-the-
scene priest blesses each for its courage.) [ABC News, 1-17-2012]
Latest Religious Messages
* Prophet Warren Jeffs of a breakaway Mormon cult is serving life
(plus 20 years) in a Texas prison for raping two underage
parishioners but insists that his power has not been diminished. He
was disciplined in December for making a phone call to his
congregation announcing several decrees, including barring
marriages from taking place until he can return to "seal" them and
prohibiting everyone from having sex. (Since Jeffs retains his
"messiah" status among many church members, and since the cult is
reclusive, it is difficult for outsiders to assess the level of sexual
frustration in the compound.) [Daily Mail (London), 12-31-2011;
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 12-30-2011]
* Recovering alcoholic Ryan Brown recently moved his licensed
tattoo parlor into The Bridge church in Flint Township, Mich.,
which is one more indicator of Rev. Steve Bentley's non-traditional
belief that mainstream religion had become irrelevant to most
people. Tattooing is a "morally neutral" practice, Bentley said,
although Brown, of course, does not ink tattoos lauding drugs,
gangs, or the devil. (The Bridge has also loaned out its plentiful
floor space in a shopping mall to wrestling, cage fighting, and auto
repair facilities.) [Flint Journal, 1-5-2012]
* In December, Pennsylvania judge Mark Martin dismissed
harassment charges against Muslim Talaag Elbayomi, who had
snatched a "Zombie Mohammad" sign from the neck of atheist
Ernie Perce at last year's Halloween parade in Mechanicsburg, Pa..
(Perce was mockingly dressed as an undead person, in robes and
beard.) In tossing out the charge (even though Elbayomi seemed to
admit to an assault and battery), Martin ruled that Sharia law
actually required Elbayomi to take the sign away from Perce. Judge
Martin later explained that the technical basis for the ruling was (he-
said/he-said) lack of evidence. (The December ruling did not attract
press attention until February.) [WHTM-TV (Harrisburg, Pa.), 2-
21-2012; Carlisle (Pa.) Sentinel, 3-3-2012]
Questionable Judgments
* According to a municipal street sign in front of Lakewood
Elementary School in White Lake, Mich. (filmed in February by
Detroit's WJBK-TV), the speed limit drops to 25 mph on "school
days only," but just from "6:49-7:15 a.m., 7:52-8:22 a.m., 8:37-9:07
a.m., 2:03-2:33 p.m., 3:04-3:34 p.m., [and] 3:59-4:29 p.m."
[WJBK-TV, 2-15-2012]
* Jack Taylor, 18, of Worcester, England, was given a lenient
sentence in January for an August burglary he admitted. He and
another youth had tried to steal a resident's motorcycle but damaged
it in the process. Since he was remorseful, made restitution,
observed a curfew, and did community service, he was released by
the judge when he secured full-time employment. (However, the
employment, the court later learned, was as a slaughterman in
Norway, where he was to take part in the culling of Alaskan baby
seals.) [Worcester News, 1-17-2012]
A Special Place in Hell
* (1) John Morgan, 34, was charged in February in Port St. Lucie,
Fla., with embezzling over $40,000 from a trust fund that had been
established for his daughter, who has special needs because of
cerebral palsy. Since the theft, she is unable to have dental work
necessitated because a care provider failed to lock her wheelchair,
sending her sprawling face-first. (2) Police officer Skeeter Manos,
34, was charged in February in Seattle with embezzling over
$120,000 from a fund for the families of four colleagues who had
been shot to death in the line of duty. Manos's alleged expenditures
included several trips to Las Vegas. [WPTV (West Palm Beach,
Fla.), 2-6-2012] [Associated Press via WHBF-TV (Rock Island,
Ill.), 2-8-2012]
People With Issues
* What Do You Mean, I'm Not Mentally Stable? Ms. Fausat
Ogunbayo, 46, filed a federal lawsuit against New York City's
Administration for Children's Services because it had taken away
her kids (aged 13 and 10 at the time) in 2008 for questions about
Ogunbayo's mental stability. The lawsuit, for "recklessly
disregard[ing]" her "right to family integrity," asks the city to pay
her $900,000,000,000,000 (trillion). [Staten Island Advance, 2-7-
2012]
Least Competent People
* LaDondrell Montgomery, 36, had been sentenced in November in
Houston, Tex., to life in prison for armed robbery despite his
vigorous protestations of innocence, and about a week later, in
December, he was exonerated in fact. Although he had testified at
his trial, he had not mentioned that he had an ironclad alibi--that he
had been in jail during the time the robbery was committed. Once
jail records were reviewed, Montgomery was freed. The prosecutor
hadn't checked the records before trial, and neither had
Montgomery's attorney, but then neither had Montgomery ever
mentioned it (because, he had told his lawyers, he had been in and
out of jail so many times in his life that he just could not remember
if he had been locked up at the time of the armed robbery).
[Houston Chronicle, 12-9-2011]
Update
* Sherwin Shayegan of Bothell, Wash., has apparently been acting
out again. News of the Weird first mentioned, in 2007, an adult
"troll" who hung out at high schools and befriended male students,
especially athletes, ultimately beseeching them for piggyback rides.
In some cases, he jumped on without permission and was arrested
and ordered to get treatment and to stay away from schools. He
reportedly began his piggyback "career" in 2004 with incidents in
Washington and Oregon, and though there were periods of
dormancy, it flared up again recently as he traveled to Montana,
Bismarck, N.D., and Minneapolis (perhaps to outrun restraining
orders). (Fondness for piggyback rides is not a widely-practiced
obsession, though the legendary illustrator R. Crumb liked to
receive them in lieu of sex, according to an ex-girlfriend in the 1994
movie "Crumb.") [Associated Press via KOMO-TV (Seattle), 2-16-
2012]
Thanks This Week to Kathryn Wood, Gerald Sacks, Barbara
McDonald, Kyle Gray, Lance Allen, and Joel Rippel, and to the
News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com,
and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.