News of the Weird, November 4, 2007
Minister Chuck
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2007 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Crime-fearing female pedestrians in Tokyo can soon protect
themselves with fashion designer Aya Tsukioka's skirt that opens
into a realistic-looking (except made of fabric), full-size vending
machine that she hopes thugs will pass right by. It's one of several
fanciful crime-avoiding creations of the genre that Japanese
inventors are noted for, according to an October New York Times
dispatch. Another, the "manhole bag," resembles a sewer covering
when laid on the ground but can hold a person's valuables, again
provided that the thug passes it up. Yet another is women's
wraparound sunglasses that are extra-dark so that even shy, eye-
contact-avoiding females can stare unobserved at potential perverts
in trains to guard against the ubiquitous groping. [New York
Times, 10-20-07]
More Things to Worry About
* As several sightings were made around Washington, D.C., of
dragonfly-looking bugs hovering in the air at political events,
government agencies were denying that they had released any tiny
surveillance robots, according to an October Washington Post
investigation. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?'"
asked a college student at an antiwar rally in Washington. "They
looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But . . . those
are not insects." Several agencies and private entities admitted to
the Post that they were trying to develop such devices, but no one
took credit for having them in the air yet. [Washington Post, 10-9-
07]
* Air Safety: (1) Nepal Airlines, which was having technical
trouble with one of its two Boeing 757s in August, announced that
it had fixed the problem by sacrificing two goats, to appease the
Hindu sky god Akash Bhairab. (2) As passengers boarded a
Vueling Airlines flight from Madrid, Spain, in June, they noticed
that 29 of the 32 rows of seats on one side were out of service, but
they could hardly have been comforted by the captain's
announcement that "[W]e have a safety problem with the door at
the front. Don't worry, it's only a safety problem." (No incidents
were reported on the flight.) [Reuters, 9-4-07] [Reuters, 6-11-07]
* School Security: (1) MJ Safety Solutions of Danvers, Mass., has
developed a $195 bullet-proof backpack for students, using a
lightweight, police-equipment-quality panel, and is seeking
approvals from school boards to promote them, according to an
August Boston Herald report. (2) Britain's Bladerunner company
has developed student jumpers and blazers lined with knife-
resistant Kevlar, starting at the equivalent of about $260, according
to an August BBC News story. [Boston Herald, 8-9-07] [BBC
News, 8-14-07]
* In August, representatives of New East Britain province in Papua
New Guinea formally begged the forgiveness of the Fiji High
Commissioner for incidents in 1875 when PNG tribes killed and
ate Fijian missionaries who had come to spread Christianity. (In
fact, the PNG spokespersons pointed out that "forgiveness" was a
major tenet of the Christianity that PNG came to accept from the
missionaries.) [Fuji Times, 8-17-07]
* Medical student Wes Pemberton was scheduled to be officially
measured in October in Tyler, Tex., for his upcoming spot in the
Guinness Book of World Records. He told KLTV that he has a leg
hair 5.0 inches long, surpassing the incumbent record of 4.88
inches. Pemberton said that his prize hair is growing amidst other
normal-length hair and that he has been treating it with conditioner
to keep it strong for the measuring. [KLTV (Tyler, Tex.), 10-9-07]
Leading Economic Indicators
* A new condominium development in New York City, near 11th
Avenue and West 24th Street (with prices starting at $6.25
million), features in-unit garages, allowing the resident to drive
into the En-Suite Sky Garage System at street level and be lifted to
his own unit. Guests, and residents who don't own cars, will just
have to use the ordinary elevators. [New York Post, 10-7-07]
Oops!
* Spectacular Errors: (1) The Kuala Lumpur phone company
Telekom Malaysia acknowledged in April that it mistakenly sent a
bill for the equivalent of $218 trillion (that's 218 followed by 12
zeroes), or 806.4 trillion ringgit. The account was for the late
father of Yahaya Wahab, whose final bill should have been the
equivalent of $23. (2) Jayantibhai Patel, 57, was arrested in Foster
City, Calif., in October after admitting that he smacked his father
in the head with a hammer, requiring his hospitalization. Patel told
police that he wanted the father to be put in a nursing home but
was under the impression that only a hospital could assign him to
one, and thus, he needed to get him into a hospital. [MSNBC-AP,
4-10-07] [San Francisco Chronicle, 10-16-07]
News that Sounds Like a Joke
* (1) After some mild bickering during a delivery at a Wal-Mart in
October in Indiana County, Pa., according to police, a Pepsi Cola
route man allegedly repeatedly punched a Coca-Cola route man in
the face. (2) Reuters reported in September that a 50-year-old man
who bought two large sausages at a butcher shop in Mannheim,
Germany, returned shortly afterward to have them wrapped for a
flight to Dubai. On inspection, the butcher found that the man had
stuffed each sausage with an anatomically-correct latex dildo, for
smuggling into Dubai. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10-12-07]
[Reuters, 9-19-07]
People Different From Us
* In September, Matt Wilkinson admitted to KGW-TV of Portland,
Ore., that he had been in a coma for three days recently and nearly
died after he decided to stick his pet Eastern diamondback
rattlesnake into his mouth while drinking with some buddies:
"Me, being me, I put his head in my mouth." A doctor told the
station that Wilkinson barely made it to the hospital in time
because his airway had nearly swollen shut from the venomous
bites. Wilkinson said that the incident was "kind of" his "own
stupid fault." [KGW-TV (Portland, Ore.), 9-18-07]
Least Competent People
* (1) Coast Guard officials said they rescued Louis Pasquale, 35,
near Freeport, N.Y., in September as he was towing his disabled
35-foot fishing boat back to port 20 miles away by dragging it
behind an inflatable boat he was paddling against the current. (He
had covered about 100 yards in three hours.) (2) In August in
Middlesex Township, Pa., two men from Virginia, who were on
the job for a moving company, were detained by police for public
intoxication in a motel parking lot, fighting over the question of
whether Virginia is north, or south, of Pennsylvania. [Newsday, 9-
20-07] [Harrisburg Patriot-News, 8-11-07]
* Don't Criminals Need to Keep a Low Profile? (1) Community
activist Steven Myrick, 41, was convicted in October of a rape in
Torrance, Calif., that had gone unsolved for seven years. Myrick
had called attention to himself during a public housing
demonstration in which he mooned police officers and was arrested
(and a subsequent DNA test tied him to the rape). (2) Vincent
Scheffner, 63, a municipal parking-meter worker in St. Paul,
Minn., was under investigation at press time on suspicion of theft
after a local credit union reported that he had been regularly
depositing, for the last year, enormous amounts of coins into his
account. [KFWB Radio (Los Angeles), 10-3-07] [St. Paul Pioneer
Press, 10-10-07]
Perfect Logic
* Mandy Bailey, who lives in a suburb of Phoenix, Ariz., is the
mother of conjoined one-year-old girls and wanted to take them to
a family reunion in Maryland. She called Delta Air Lines to make
sure the girls could ride for free on her ticket. No, said Delta,
because even though a child under two can ride for free, each
infant would need an oxygen mask in case of emergency, and thus,
a separate ticket was needed. Bailey kept complaining (giving the
story international reach) until a Delta higher-up compromised for
the flight: Bailey's sister-in-law, who had been assigned to another
row on the flight, was put next to Bailey so she could share her
oxygen with the second twin. [Arizona Republic, 10-3-07; WSMB-
TV (Tucson)-AP, 10-4-07]
Thanks This Week to Bob Pert, Rick Spivey, Jon Doughtie,
Terry Raterman, Bea Westrate, Eli Christman, David Reside,
Richard Gaitens, Lisa Flowers, Jonathan Goldsmith, Jim Trageser,
Steve Dunn, Brian Doherty, Paul Vogt, and Rachel Kuhr, and to
the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di
Filippo, Geoffrey Egan, Ginger Katz, Ivan Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt
Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and to the
the News of the Weird Editorial Advisors (Paul Blumstein, John
Cieciel, Lance E. Ellisor, Harry Farkas, Leslie Goodman-
Malamuth, Fritz Gritzner, Herb Jue, Scott Langill, Victor
McDonald, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Joel O'Brien, Larry
Ellis Reed, Lee Sechrest, Tom Slone, Rob Snyder, Bruce Townley,
Barbara Tyger, and Jerry Whittle).
* * * * *
Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at
http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com (or
www.NewsoftheWeird.com / WeirdN...@Yahoo.com / P.O.
Box 18737, Tampa FL 33629).