News of the Weird, June 7, 2009
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Chuck Shepherd
Jun 7, 2009, 11:10:17 AM6/7/09
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WEIRDNUZ.M113 (News of the Weird, June 7, 2009)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
NOTE TO READERS: In addition to this-here weekly News of
the Weird column that has been goin' on for 21 yrs, I am now web-
publishing News of the Weird/Pro Edition weekly, covering only
stories from the previous 7 days, all with links to the original
sources. (Pro Edition replaces News of the Weird Daily
[Hallelujah!].) Pro Edition is posted every Monday morning on
www.WeirdUniverse.net and on
http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com, and/or you can have the
same edition e-mailed to you every Tuesday morning via Google
Groups. (For the links to come through, your e-mail program must
be set to accept html messages.) Sign up for the group ProWeird at
http://groups.google.com/group/ProWeird?lnk=srg
Lead Story
* As Denver's newsweekly Westword asked in a May 2009 story,
"Where would you take a $100,000 check that is also a suicide
note to the cops or to the bank?" In July 2008, John Francis
Beech, a retired executive in Denver, Colo., sent a check for
$100,000 to a local charity, postdated to August 1st, accompanied
by a sealed envelope reading "wait until you hear from coroner"
and "everything is OK." The charity's director, Annie Green,
opened the envelope, anyway, on July 21st, to find Beech's Last
Will and Testament, leaving his entire estate to Green's
organization for children with developmental disabilities. Green's
choice: put everything into the school's safe and await August 1st
(but she claimed to have left two voice-mail messages for Beech).
On July 29th, based on longstanding plans, Beech committed
suicide. [Westword, 5-14-09]
Cultural Diversity
* Over a 10-week period this summer, nearly 200 young Saudi
women are auditioning for a beauty pageant, but one called "Miss
Beautiful Morals," in which physical attractiveness is irrelevant,
replaced by judging of the ladies' observance of traditional Saudi
values, especially the honoring of their mothers. Saudi Arabia
does have pageants devoted to physical beauty, as reported in
News of the Weird in 2007 and 2008, but those are contests for
camels and goats, based on such criteria as (according to one camel
breeder) "big eyes, long lashes, and a long neck." [Indianapolis
Star-AP, 5-7-09]
* Kailash Singh, 63, who lives in a village near the holy city of
Varanasi, India, told reporters in May that he had not bathed in the
last 35 years but for a good reason: remaining water-free would
improve his chances of fathering a male instead of a female. (It
hasn't worked, and he has moved on to a new cause, shunning
baths until India's social problems are resolved.) Singh previously
owned a shop, but became a farmer because customers increasingly
declined to approach him. [Agence France-Presse, 5-12-09]
* Recurring Theme: According to a March dispatch in London's
Observer, activists in Mauritania have protested the new military
government's support for an African tribal tradition of forcibly
fattening up adolescent girls to make them appear "healthier" for
early marriage (traditional in, among other countries, Nigeria,
mentioned in News of the Weird in 1998). In the custom of
"leblouh," the size of the female indicates "the size of her place in
her man's heart." [The Guardian (London), 3-1-09]
Latest Religious Messages
* Ms. Nour Hadad, 26, was arrested in Orland Park, Ill., in April
and charged with (and, according to police, confessed to) beating
her two-year-old niece to death while babysitting, and, as usual,
police publicly released her booking photograph. However,
Hadad's husband Alaeddin immediately complained that her photo,
without her head scarf, was an "insult" to Islam. Said a Muslim
activist, "They should respect the modesty of the accused."
[Southtown Star (Chicago), 4-10-09]
Sci-Fi Movies Come to Life
* (1) Entomologists in San Antonio, Tex., said in May that the
"Raspberry ant" (whose colonies produce billions and cover
everything in sight) had migrated to north to within 75 miles of the
city and would arrive by year's end, posing, said one, a "potential
ecological disaster." (2) A University of Florida researcher found,
for a recent journal article, that mockingbirds, among all animals,
are skilled at identifying particular humans who have displeased
them and whom they wish to attack. [KENS-TV (San Antonio), 5-
18-09] [USA Today, 5-19-09]
World's Greatest Lawyer
* Defense attorney John Garcia convinced a jury in Merced, Calif.,
in May that his client was not guilty of the "forcible rape with great
bodily injury" of an 18-year-old woman in 2004, despite the fact
that only his client's DNA-identified semen was present, mixed
with the victim's blood, on the shorts she wore at the crime scene.
Client Daniel Saldana's story was that he had previously had sex
with his own girlfriend in the house where the rape occurred and
that the girlfriend might have left her shorts on the floor and that
the rape victim might have mistakenly put them on after the "other"
man raped her. [Merced Sun-Star, 5-6-09]
People Different From Us
* Nelson Blewett, 22, was treated for serious burns in Port
Angeles, Wash., on May 18th after playing a game with of TAG-
tag with pals. They were spritzing each other with TAG body
spray and then striking matches, creating mostly lower-risk flames.
Then, perhaps inspired by too much beer, one friend added lighter
fluid to the game. Blewett was afire for 30-45 seconds until he
leaped from a second-story porch and rolled on the ground. (He
survived but with "excruciating" second- and third-degree burns.)
[Peninsula Daily News, 5-21-09]
* The Aristocrats! (1) Charles Williams, 37, and his wife,
Gretchen, 33, were arrested in Greenville, S.C., in April after a
domestic dispute, culminating in a gunfight in which both were
wounded. (2) Two fathers (Enrique Gonzalez, 26, in Fresno,
Calif., in April and Eugene Ashley, 24, in Floyd County, Ga., in
May) were charged with forcibly tattooing their young sons.
Gonzalez allegedly held down his 7-year-old while a tattooist inked
a gang symbol, and Ashley allegedly inked "DB" (for Daddy's Boy)
personally on his 3-year-old's shoulder. [Greenville News, 4-1-09]
[Fresno Bee-AP, 4-22-09] [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5-26-09]
Least Competent Criminals
* The Right to Remain Silent: Timothy Williams's lawyer had a
good defense worked out in Williams's May murder trial in
Pittsburgh, Pa.: When Williams fatally shot the "other" man in the
love triangle with Williams's girlfriend, it was a "crime of passion,"
said the lawyer, befitting manslaughter rather than first-degree
murder. But Williams insisted on taking the stand, and by the time
he was done, he had openly bragged that he was a "swinger" with
many girlfriends, that this particular woman meant "nothing" to
him, and that, though he killed the man, police had somehow
"sabotaged" the surveillance video of the shooting. Verdict: first-
degree murder. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5-2-09]
Update
* The long-running battle between Alan Davis, 53, and officials in
Altamonte Springs, Fla., began anew in May, upon Davis's release
from prison after serving a year for his latest defiance of court
orders to clear the "junk" out of his yard ("felony littering"). It was
his third prison stretch in five years, and he said he is not done yet.
Just before his latest stretch, he had placed a giant sculpted derriere
in front of the Seminole County Courthouse. In May, he told
reporters that he would rejoin the battle by ringing his yard with 42
smaller, similar sculptures. [Orlando Sentinel, 5-21-09]
Readers' Choice
* (1) When retired NYPD officer John Comparetto was
approached at gunpoint in a men's room of a Holiday Inn near
Harrisburg, Pa., in March, he quietly handed over his wallet, but
when the robber left, Comparetto pulled his own gun and gave
chase. He also summoned some of the other 300 narcotics officers
attending a convention in the hotel and quickly captured the man,
who, said Comparetto, is "probably the dumbest criminal in
Pennsylvania." (2) A 27-year-old woman in Lexington Park, Md.,
was injured in March during apparently-consensual sex play. Her
partner placed a "sex toy" over a saber saw blade, apparently to act
as a souped-up vibrator, but the blade cut through the toy and
caused serious lacerations, requiring her to be med-evac'ed to
Prince George's Hospital Center. [WUSA-TV, 3-10-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (June 1997)]
* In 1993 India Scott dated both Darryl Fletcher and Brandon
Ventimeglia when she lived in Detroit and moved in with Fletcher
in 1994 when she was about to give birth. Neither knew about the
other, and she had told each man he was the father. For two
difficult years, Scott somehow managed to juggle the men's
visitations, but in March 1997 when she announced she was
leaving the area, both Fletcher and Ventimeglia separately filed for
custody of "his" son. Only then did Ventimeglia and Fletcher find
out about each other. They took blood tests to determine which
was the real father of the boy they had caring for for more than two
years, and in May 1997 the blood test revealed that neither was.
[St. Petersburg Times, 5-14-97]
Thanks This Week to Ben Hestir, Bruce Alter, and Richard
Schneider, and to many, many finders of the Readers' Choice
stories, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net (or www.NewsoftheWeird.com) or
mail Weir...@earthlink.net / P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL
33629.
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
NOTE TO READERS: In addition to this-here weekly News of
the Weird column that has been goin' on for 21 yrs, I am now web-
publishing News of the Weird/Pro Edition weekly, covering only
stories from the previous 7 days, all with links to the original
sources. (Pro Edition replaces News of the Weird Daily
[Hallelujah!].) Pro Edition is posted every Monday morning on
www.WeirdUniverse.net and on
http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com, and/or you can have the
same edition e-mailed to you every Tuesday morning via Google
Groups. (For the links to come through, your e-mail program must
be set to accept html messages.) Sign up for the group ProWeird at
http://groups.google.com/group/ProWeird?lnk=srg
Lead Story
* As Denver's newsweekly Westword asked in a May 2009 story,
"Where would you take a $100,000 check that is also a suicide
note to the cops or to the bank?" In July 2008, John Francis
Beech, a retired executive in Denver, Colo., sent a check for
$100,000 to a local charity, postdated to August 1st, accompanied
by a sealed envelope reading "wait until you hear from coroner"
and "everything is OK." The charity's director, Annie Green,
opened the envelope, anyway, on July 21st, to find Beech's Last
Will and Testament, leaving his entire estate to Green's
organization for children with developmental disabilities. Green's
choice: put everything into the school's safe and await August 1st
(but she claimed to have left two voice-mail messages for Beech).
On July 29th, based on longstanding plans, Beech committed
suicide. [Westword, 5-14-09]
Cultural Diversity
* Over a 10-week period this summer, nearly 200 young Saudi
women are auditioning for a beauty pageant, but one called "Miss
Beautiful Morals," in which physical attractiveness is irrelevant,
replaced by judging of the ladies' observance of traditional Saudi
values, especially the honoring of their mothers. Saudi Arabia
does have pageants devoted to physical beauty, as reported in
News of the Weird in 2007 and 2008, but those are contests for
camels and goats, based on such criteria as (according to one camel
breeder) "big eyes, long lashes, and a long neck." [Indianapolis
Star-AP, 5-7-09]
* Kailash Singh, 63, who lives in a village near the holy city of
Varanasi, India, told reporters in May that he had not bathed in the
last 35 years but for a good reason: remaining water-free would
improve his chances of fathering a male instead of a female. (It
hasn't worked, and he has moved on to a new cause, shunning
baths until India's social problems are resolved.) Singh previously
owned a shop, but became a farmer because customers increasingly
declined to approach him. [Agence France-Presse, 5-12-09]
* Recurring Theme: According to a March dispatch in London's
Observer, activists in Mauritania have protested the new military
government's support for an African tribal tradition of forcibly
fattening up adolescent girls to make them appear "healthier" for
early marriage (traditional in, among other countries, Nigeria,
mentioned in News of the Weird in 1998). In the custom of
"leblouh," the size of the female indicates "the size of her place in
her man's heart." [The Guardian (London), 3-1-09]
Latest Religious Messages
* Ms. Nour Hadad, 26, was arrested in Orland Park, Ill., in April
and charged with (and, according to police, confessed to) beating
her two-year-old niece to death while babysitting, and, as usual,
police publicly released her booking photograph. However,
Hadad's husband Alaeddin immediately complained that her photo,
without her head scarf, was an "insult" to Islam. Said a Muslim
activist, "They should respect the modesty of the accused."
[Southtown Star (Chicago), 4-10-09]
Sci-Fi Movies Come to Life
* (1) Entomologists in San Antonio, Tex., said in May that the
"Raspberry ant" (whose colonies produce billions and cover
everything in sight) had migrated to north to within 75 miles of the
city and would arrive by year's end, posing, said one, a "potential
ecological disaster." (2) A University of Florida researcher found,
for a recent journal article, that mockingbirds, among all animals,
are skilled at identifying particular humans who have displeased
them and whom they wish to attack. [KENS-TV (San Antonio), 5-
18-09] [USA Today, 5-19-09]
World's Greatest Lawyer
* Defense attorney John Garcia convinced a jury in Merced, Calif.,
in May that his client was not guilty of the "forcible rape with great
bodily injury" of an 18-year-old woman in 2004, despite the fact
that only his client's DNA-identified semen was present, mixed
with the victim's blood, on the shorts she wore at the crime scene.
Client Daniel Saldana's story was that he had previously had sex
with his own girlfriend in the house where the rape occurred and
that the girlfriend might have left her shorts on the floor and that
the rape victim might have mistakenly put them on after the "other"
man raped her. [Merced Sun-Star, 5-6-09]
People Different From Us
* Nelson Blewett, 22, was treated for serious burns in Port
Angeles, Wash., on May 18th after playing a game with of TAG-
tag with pals. They were spritzing each other with TAG body
spray and then striking matches, creating mostly lower-risk flames.
Then, perhaps inspired by too much beer, one friend added lighter
fluid to the game. Blewett was afire for 30-45 seconds until he
leaped from a second-story porch and rolled on the ground. (He
survived but with "excruciating" second- and third-degree burns.)
[Peninsula Daily News, 5-21-09]
* The Aristocrats! (1) Charles Williams, 37, and his wife,
Gretchen, 33, were arrested in Greenville, S.C., in April after a
domestic dispute, culminating in a gunfight in which both were
wounded. (2) Two fathers (Enrique Gonzalez, 26, in Fresno,
Calif., in April and Eugene Ashley, 24, in Floyd County, Ga., in
May) were charged with forcibly tattooing their young sons.
Gonzalez allegedly held down his 7-year-old while a tattooist inked
a gang symbol, and Ashley allegedly inked "DB" (for Daddy's Boy)
personally on his 3-year-old's shoulder. [Greenville News, 4-1-09]
[Fresno Bee-AP, 4-22-09] [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5-26-09]
Least Competent Criminals
* The Right to Remain Silent: Timothy Williams's lawyer had a
good defense worked out in Williams's May murder trial in
Pittsburgh, Pa.: When Williams fatally shot the "other" man in the
love triangle with Williams's girlfriend, it was a "crime of passion,"
said the lawyer, befitting manslaughter rather than first-degree
murder. But Williams insisted on taking the stand, and by the time
he was done, he had openly bragged that he was a "swinger" with
many girlfriends, that this particular woman meant "nothing" to
him, and that, though he killed the man, police had somehow
"sabotaged" the surveillance video of the shooting. Verdict: first-
degree murder. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5-2-09]
Update
* The long-running battle between Alan Davis, 53, and officials in
Altamonte Springs, Fla., began anew in May, upon Davis's release
from prison after serving a year for his latest defiance of court
orders to clear the "junk" out of his yard ("felony littering"). It was
his third prison stretch in five years, and he said he is not done yet.
Just before his latest stretch, he had placed a giant sculpted derriere
in front of the Seminole County Courthouse. In May, he told
reporters that he would rejoin the battle by ringing his yard with 42
smaller, similar sculptures. [Orlando Sentinel, 5-21-09]
Readers' Choice
* (1) When retired NYPD officer John Comparetto was
approached at gunpoint in a men's room of a Holiday Inn near
Harrisburg, Pa., in March, he quietly handed over his wallet, but
when the robber left, Comparetto pulled his own gun and gave
chase. He also summoned some of the other 300 narcotics officers
attending a convention in the hotel and quickly captured the man,
who, said Comparetto, is "probably the dumbest criminal in
Pennsylvania." (2) A 27-year-old woman in Lexington Park, Md.,
was injured in March during apparently-consensual sex play. Her
partner placed a "sex toy" over a saber saw blade, apparently to act
as a souped-up vibrator, but the blade cut through the toy and
caused serious lacerations, requiring her to be med-evac'ed to
Prince George's Hospital Center. [WUSA-TV, 3-10-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (June 1997)]
* In 1993 India Scott dated both Darryl Fletcher and Brandon
Ventimeglia when she lived in Detroit and moved in with Fletcher
in 1994 when she was about to give birth. Neither knew about the
other, and she had told each man he was the father. For two
difficult years, Scott somehow managed to juggle the men's
visitations, but in March 1997 when she announced she was
leaving the area, both Fletcher and Ventimeglia separately filed for
custody of "his" son. Only then did Ventimeglia and Fletcher find
out about each other. They took blood tests to determine which
was the real father of the boy they had caring for for more than two
years, and in May 1997 the blood test revealed that neither was.
[St. Petersburg Times, 5-14-97]
Thanks This Week to Ben Hestir, Bruce Alter, and Richard
Schneider, and to many, many finders of the Readers' Choice
stories, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net (or www.NewsoftheWeird.com) or
mail Weir...@earthlink.net / P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL
33629.
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