News of the Weird M516, February 26, 2017

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M516 (News of the Weird, February 26, 2017)
by Chuck Shepherd
    

Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Lead Story                                  
              
* U-S-A!  U-S-A!:  Although discouraging marriage of children in
developing nations has been U.S. foreign policy for years, a data-
collecting watchdog group in America disclosed in February that 27
U.S. states, as well, have no minimum marriage ages and estimates
that an average of almost 25,000 children age 15 and under are
permitted to marry every year ("estimates" because some states do
not keep records by age).  Child marriage is often allowed in the
U.S. if parents approve, although no such exemption is made in
foreign policy, largely to curb  developing nations' "family honor"
marriages--which often wreck girls' chances for self-actualizing.
(However, "family honor" is still in some states the basis for
allowing U.S. child marriages, such as with "shotgun" weddings.)
[Unchained At Last via Washington Post, 2-10-2017]

Compelling Explanations

* Creative:  (1) Glenn Schloeffel, vice president of the Central
Bucks school board in a Philadelphia suburb, recommended that
science books be viewed skeptically on "climate change" because
teenage "depression" rates have been increasing.  Surely, he said,
one factor depressing students is reading all that alarming climate-
change data.  (2) Seattle's Real Estate Services rental agency has
informed the family of the late Dennis Hanel that it would not
return Hanel's security deposit following his January death because
Hanel had not given the lease-required "notice" giving up his
apartment.  (He had cancer but died of a heart attack.  Washington
state law requires only that the landlord provide an explanation why
it is keeping the deposit.) [Philadelphia Magazine, 2-14-2017]
[Crosscut Public Media (Seattle), 2-15-2017]

Runaway Math

* John Haskew, who told investigators that he was "self-taught on
the banking industry," evidently thought he might succeed making
bogus wire transfers to himself from a large (unidentified) national
bank, in the amount of $7 billion.  He pleaded guilty in February in
Lakeland, Fla.  (He said he thought he "deserved" the money.)  (2)
Katherine Kempson, 49, deciding to pay "cash" for a $1.2 million
home, forged (according to York County, Pa., deputies) a "proof of
funds" letter from the Members 1st credit union. Home sales are, of
course, highly-regulated formalities, and several attempted
"closings" were halted when her money kept not showing up.  One
deputy told a reporter, "I'm guessing she probably didn't think it
through." [WFTV (Orlando), 2-3-2017] [York Daily Record, 2-3-
2017]

* The highest bail amount ever ordered in America--$4 billion for
murder suspect Antonio Willis--was briefly in play in Killeen, Tex.,
in February, set by Bell County's elected Justice of the Peace
Claudia Brown.  Bail was reduced 10 days later, to $150,000, by a
district court judge, prompting Brown to acknowledge that she set
the "$4 billion" to call attention to Texas's lack of bail standards,
which especially punishes indigent arrestees with little hope of
raising even modest amounts when accused of minor crimes. [Fox
News, 2-13-2017]

Wait, What?

* Researchers including Rice University biochemist John Olson
revealed in a February journal article that one reason why a man
avoided anemia even though he had a gene mutation that weakened
his hemoglobin was because he has been a tobacco smoker--that the
carbon monoxide from smoke had been therapeutic.  His daughter,
with the same gene mutation, did develop anemia since she never
smoked (although Olson suggested other ways besides smoking to
strengthen hemoglobin, such as by massive vitamin C).  [Rice
University via New York Post, 2-16-2017]

* Several death-penalty states continue to be frustrated by whether
their lethal-injection "cocktails" make death so painful as to be
unconstitutionally "cruel," and Arizona's latest "solution,"
announced as a Department of Corrections protocol, is for the
condemned to supply their own (presumably less unpleasant) drugs.
(There was immediate objection, noting that such drugs might only
be available by black market--and questioning whether the
government can legally force someone to kill himself.)  [The
Guardian (London), 2-15-2017]

People With Underdeveloped Consciences

* (1) Just before Christmas, Tammy Strickland, 38, was arrested in
Polk County, Fla., and charged with stealing 100 toys from a Toys
For Tots collection box.  (2) In February, thieves unbolted and stole
a PlayStation from the children's cancer ward at Wellington
Hospital in New Zealand.  (3) Judith Permar, 56, who was found
dead, stuck in a clothing-donation drop-off box in Mount Carmel,
Pa., in February (a result, police said, of trying to "steal" items), had
driven to the box in her Hummer. [Bay News 9 (St. Petersburg), 12-
20-2016] [New Zealand Herald, 2-10-2017] [Philly.com, 2-7-2017]

Recent Alarming Headlines

* "America's Top Fortune Cookie Writer Is Quitting Because of
Writer's Block" (Time magazine, 2-3-2017). "Vaginal Pain Helps
Exonerate Man Accused of Murder" (Miami Herald, 2-8-2017)
(emergency medical technicians treating his sister corroborated his
alibi). "Dresden Protest Against Anti-Islam Pegida Group Banned
Over Snowball Fight Fears" (The Independent (London), 1-24-
2017) (previously in Dresden, Germany, religious-freedom
demonstrators chose "tossing snowballs" as appropriate for
ridiculing Pegida). 

Phallic News From Overseas

* (1) Earlier, He Would Have Been Worshiped:  In February,
doctors at Narayana Health City in Bangalore, India, were
successful in five-hour, 20-specialist surgery in normalizing the
infant born with the chromosomal abnormality "polymelia"--which
resulted in four legs and two penises.  Doctors praised the parents,
from rural Puladinni village, for recognizing the issue as "medical"
and not as "superstition."  (2)  In February, police in southern
Bangladesh arrested a family that used a fake penis to convince
neighbors that the family had the powers of genies ("djinns").  The
villagers had known the family had a girl, but overnight the genies
had "changed" her into a "boy," thus frightening the villagers into
making offerings to the family.  [CNN, 2-10-2017] [Agence France-
Presse via Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2-8-2017 ]

Undignified Deaths

* (1) Unhappy Ending:  Clifford Jones, 58, was killed in a one-
vehicle crash in Detroit in January, having lost control of his car
because (according to Michigan State Police) he was distracted by
watching pornography on his cell phone.  He was also not wearing
pants.  (2) Leslie Ray Charping, 75, of Galveston, Tex., lived "much
longer than he deserved" (according to his daughter, in a widely-
shared obituary in February) in a life that "served no obvious
purpose."  The death notice referenced his "bad parenting" and
"being generally offensive," and closed with "Leslie's passing
proves that evil does in fact die."  [The Smoking Gun, 1-26-2017]
[KTRK-TV (Houston), 2-10-2017]
 
Least Competent Criminals

* Willie Anthony, 20, and Jamarqua Davis, 16, were arrested in
Kannapolis, N.C., in February after, police said, they broke into a
Rent-a-Center at 2 a.m. and stole a big-screen TV.  After loading
the set into one car, they drove off in separate vehicles, but in their
haste smashed into each other in the parking lot.  Both men
subsequently drove the wrong way down South Cannon Boulevard,
and both then accidentally crashed separately into other vehicles,
allowing police to catch up.  [WCNC-TV (Charlotte), 2-8-2017]

The Passing Parade

* (1) Nelson Foyle, 93, is believed to be Britain's longest-time
patron of the same pub (the Dog & Gun in Salisbury, England), and
fellow drinkers recently bought him an honorary "lordship" title to
mark his 80th year on the establishment's barstools.  (2) An art
collective in a Los Angeles storefront re-created (for a two-week
run in January) a retro video store which featured only boxed VHS
editions of the movie "Jerry Maguire"--about 14,000 copies.  [NPR,
2-14-2017] [LA Weekly, 1-14-2017]

A News of the Weird Classic (May 2013)
                                  
* The beauty pageant each April at the Rattlesnake Roundup in
Sweetwater, Tex., requires traditional abilities (interview poise,
evening-gown fashion, talent) but also some skill and inclination to
milk and skin rattlers.  High school senior Kyndra Vaught won this
year's [2013] Miss Snake Charmer, wearing jeweled boots one night
for her country-western ballad, then Kevlar boots and camouflage
chaps the next as she took on dozens of rattlers in the wooden snake
pit.  Vaught expertly held up one snake, offered its tail-end rattles
for a baby to touch, then helped measure, milk, and skin the
buzzing, slithery serpent. [Los Angeles Times, 4-12-2013]

     Thanks This Week to Stan Kaplan, Vernon Balbert, and
Harry Thompson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial
Advisors.
                     ****
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