News of the Weird, March 17, 2013

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M310 (News of the Weird, March 17, 2013)
by Chuck Shepherd

Copyright 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* Leaders of the ice-fishing community, aiming for official
Olympics recognition as a sport, have begun the process by asking
the World Anti-Doping Agency to random-test its "athletes" for
performance-enhancing drugs, according to a February New York
Times report. However, said the chairman of the U.S. Freshwater
Fishing Association, "We do not test for beer," because, he added,
"Everyone would fail." Ice-fishing is a lonely, frigid endeavor
rarely employing strength but mostly requiring guile and strategy, as
competitors who discover advantageous spots in the lake must
surreptitiously upload the hauls lest competitors rush over to drill
their own holes. Urine tests have also been run, in recent years, on
competitors in darts, miniature golf, chess, and tug-of-war, and in
2011, one chess player, two minigolfers, and one tugger tested
positive. [New York Times, 2-24-2013]

Cultural Diversity

* A frequent sight on Soweto, South Africa, streets recently are the
crowds of 12- to 15-year-old boys known as "izikhotane"
("boasters") who hang out in their designer jeans, "shimmering silk
shirts, bright pink and blue shoes, and white-straw, narrow-brimmed
fedoras," according to a February BBC News dispatch. Flashing
wads of cash begged from beleaguered parents, hundreds may
amass, playing loud music and sometimes even trashing their fancy
clothes as if to feign an indifference to wealth. Since many
izikhotane's families are working class survivors of apartheid, they
are mostly ashamed of their kids' behavior. "This isn't what we
struggled for," lamented one parent. But, protested a peer-pressured
boaster, "[Y]ou must dress like this, even if you live in a shack."
[BBC News, 2-1-2013]

* India's annual "Rural Olympics" might be the cultural equivalent
of several southern-U.S. "Redneck Olympics"--but taken somewhat
more seriously, in that this year corporate sponsorships (Nokia and
Suzuki) helped fund the equivalent of about $66,000 in prize money
for such events as competitive pulling using only one's ears, or
teeth. "We do this for money, trophies, fame, and respect," one
ear-puller told the Wall Street Journal in February. This year, in the
four-day event in Punjab state, the 50,000 spectators could watch a
teeth-lifter pull a 110-lb. sack upward for about 8 seconds and an
ear-puller ease a car about 15 feet. [Wall Street Journal, 2-5-2013]


* Weird Japan: (1) A generous local businessman recently graced
the city of Okuizumo with funding for replicas of two Rennaissance
statues (Venus de Milo and Michelangelo's David) for a public
park. Agence France-Presse reported in February that many
residents, receiving little advance warning, expressed shock at the
unveiling of David and demanded that he at least be given
underpants. (2) Fax machines, almost obsolete in the U.S., are still
central to many even-tech-savvy Japanese families and companies
(who bought 1.7 million units last year alone), reported the New
York Times in February. Families prefer faxes' superiority to e-
mail for warmly expressing Japan's complex written language, and
bureaucrats favor faxes' preserving the imperative of paper flow.
[Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 2-6-2013] [New York
Times, 2-13-2013]

Latest Religious Messages

* The 14 guests at a jewelry party in Lake City, Fla., were initially
incredulous that home-invader Derek Lee, 24, meant to rob them,
but when they saw that he was serious (by putting his gun to the
head of one woman), the hostess went into action. "In the name of
Jesus," she shouted, "Get out of my house now!" Then the guests
chanted in unison, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" over and over. Lee,
frightened or bewildered, sprinted out the door empty-handed and
was later arrested. [WJXT-TV (Jacksonville), 1-27-2013]

* The president of the National Black Church Initiative told the
Associated Press in January that its pastors are generally free to
ordain new pastors as they wish and that consequently Bishop
Wayne Jackson of Detroit did nothing wrong in his ordination
ceremony (which was surreptitiously video-recorded and uploaded
to YouTube) even though it consisted of Jackson in robes, praying
while lying on top of the new bishops, who were also praying. (The
AP noted that Bishop Jackson had been the target of that's-so-gay
YouTube comments.) [Associated Press via WJBK-TV (Detroit), 1-
17-2013]

* Yet Another Fatwa: Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, in an
interview in February on al-Majd TV, decreed that female babies
should wear full-face veils (burkas) to help shield them from sexual
advances. (According to a former judge at the Saudi Board of
Grievances, Saudi authorities have issued standards for fatwas, thus
urging people to ignore "unregulated" ones such as Skeikh
Daoud's.) [al-Arabiya, 2-3-2013]

* In January, Lhokseumawe City, Indonesia, drafted new
ordinances, including one that prohibits women from riding
motorcycles with their legs straddling male drivers, since that would
tend to "provoke" them. A proponent said the ban "honor[ed]"
women "because they are delicate creatures." Immediately, some
authorities denounced the legislation, pointing out that riding "side
saddle" is much more dangerous in cases of sudden swerves and
collisions. As of press time, the mayor had not decided whether to
implement that ordinance. [New York Times, 1-15-2013]

Questionable Judgments

* In February an off-duty Tampa police officer and an off-duty
sheriff's detective from nearby Hernando County were awarded the
County's highest-honor Medal of Valor for exemplary bravery in an
October incident in which a 42-year-old naked woman was shot to
death by the officers. The woman was holding a gun and had made
threats, and a 5-year-old boy was inside a truck that she wanted to
steal. However, even though a neighbor had already simply
wrestled the woman down earlier, the officers still thought their
only move was to shoot to kill. Said the woman's brother, "They
shot a mentally disturbed, naked woman. Is that valor?" [Tampa
Bay Times, 2-14-2013]

* In 2011, Julian Pellegrino pleaded guilty to DUI involving serious
bodily injury to Mark Costa in Chicopee, Mass., and was sentenced
to serve 18 months in jail, but that did not deter Pellegrino from
filing a lawsuit in December, demanding $1.1 million for Costa's
somehow "caus[ing]" his car to collide with Pellegrino's. Pellegrino
(with a broken neck) was actually more seriously injured than
Costa, who sued back, asking nearly $200,000. (In 2010, while
Pellegrino was awaiting disposition of the case with Costa, he
pleaded guilty to another DUI.) [Springfield Republican, 2-12-
2013]

Fetishes on Parade

* Paul Jamrozik, 63, was arrested in Upper Darby, Pa., in January
and charged as the man who lured a 12-year-old boy into his home
and, under the guise of pretend-podiatry, spritzed his feet with
athlete's-foot spray and tickled them before performing an exam of
his ears and nose with medical equipment. When the kid asked to
leave, according to the police report, Jamrozik withheld his shoes
until he promised to bring his friends by the next day to be
examined. [Philadelphia Daily News, 1-18-2013]

Least Competent Criminals

* Lee Wildman, 35, and Adrian Stanton, 32, pleaded guilty in
connection with a burglary at Durham (England) University's
Oriental Museum, in which they heisted artwork worth the
equivalent of about $2.7 million and hid it in a field in April 2012.
However, they have been unable to help authorities locate the
bounty (even with the reward of sentence-reduction)--because they
have forgotten exactly where they stashed it. Eventually, hikers
unconnected with the case discovered it and notified police. Said
Judge Christopher Prince, "This is not an offense that can be
described as sophisticated." [BBC News, 2-8-2013]

Readers' Choice

* (1) Two brothers, celebrating a winning lottery ticket in Wichita,
Kan., in February, bought a stash of marijuana, but then, attempting
to light their bong using butane lighter fluid, one accidentally blew
up the family home. That brother was hospitalized with second-
degree burns, and the other was arrested for marijuana possession.
(2) Megan Thode, 27, went to trial in February in Easton, Pa., suing
Lehigh University, accusing a professor of illegally discriminating
against her with a C-plus grade in a class in 2009 in the school's
graduate counseling program, in which a B was the minimum
permitted. Thode demanded $1.3 million for future damage to her
career (but not a tuition refund--as she had matriculated for free
because her father is a Lehigh professor). (Four days after the trial
began, the judge ruled against her.) [Wichita Eagle, 2-16-2013]
[Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), 2-14-2013]

Thanks This Week to Richard Schneider, Harold Gaines,
Don Ball, Joan Rohrbach, and Peter Smagorinsky, and to the News
of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

* * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.