News of the Weird, July 27, 2008
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2008 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
(Read Chuck's breaking weird news daily (Mon-Sat) at
http://www.WeirdUniverse.net)
Lead Story
* The European Union allows fruits and vegetables to be sold only
in prescribed sizes and colors (such as its 35 pages of regulations
governing 250 varieties of the apple, or rules that cucumbers must
be straight and bananas curved). In June, British marketer Tim
Down complained that he was forced to discard 5,000 kiwi fruit
because they were one millimeter in diameter too small and 1/4
ounce too light. (It is illegal even to give them away, as that would
undermine the market price.) "Improvements" in the EU system
continue, according to a July Washington Post dispatch from
Brussels: Despite 10 pages of standards on the onion and 19
amendments, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture recently issued a
report urging further refinements, using 29 pages and 43
photographs. [Washington Post, 7-8-08; Daily Mail (London), 6-
27-08]
Great Art!
* Artist Michael Fernandes's exhibit in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in
June caused a commotion because it was merely a banana, on a
gallery's window sill, and Fernandes had it priced at $2,500 (Cdn)
(down from his original thought, $15,000). Actually, Fernandes
changed bananas every day (eating the old one), placing
progressively greener ones out to demonstrate the banana's
transitoriness. "We [humans] are also temporal, but we live as if
we are not," he wrote. Despite the steep price, two collectors
placed holds on the "work," requiring the gallery's co-owner,
Victoria Page, to get assurance from callers. "It's a banana; you
understand that it's a banana?" [Globe and Mail (Toronto), 7-2-08]
Government in Action!
* In May, the school board in Barrie, Ontario, notified Children's
Aid Society to intervene with mother Colleen Leduc and her
daughter Victoria, 11, because of suspected sexual abuse, angering
the conscientious Leduc, who until that point had taken
extraordinary measures to protect the girl, who is autistic. Upon
investigation, it was revealed that the suspicion came from a
teaching assistant who said her psychic had told her that a girl with
a "V" in her name was being abused by a man aged 23 to 26.
Leduc now refuses to trust Victoria to public schools because "they
might want to take out a Ouija board or hold a seance." [National
Post (Toronto), 6-19-08]
* The June transfer of a prisoner from lockup to Britain's
Northampton Crown Court, just across the street, required
summoning the closest prison van (57 miles away) to come give
him a ride. The prisoner (accused thief Mark Bailey) could not
simply be walked across the street because officials feared that
public, custodial exposure (a "perp walk") would embarrass him, in
violation of his "human rights." [Daily Telegraph (London), 6-6-
08]
* The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has a longstanding
policy of not co-operating with the federal government's
enforcement of immigration laws, but in June that stance abruptly
backfired, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. Illegal
immigrants who are minors and who committed felonies such as
drug-trafficking in San Francisco have not been bound over for
federal deportation but have either been quietly flown home, with
an escort, at city expense, or placed in California group homes. In
June, when San Bernardino County officials realized that one of its
youth group homes contained drug dealers, San Francisco mayor
Gavin Newsom halted the program and promised the city would
improve its relationship with immigration officials. [San Francisco
Chronicle, 6-29-08; Los Angeles Times, 7-2-08]
Police Blotter
* Police, including SWAT officers, were called to an apartment in
Mesa, Ariz., in June after neighbors reported a fight between and
man and woman that included yelling and breaking things inside.
When they arrived, they found only a 21-year-old man, conducting
the fight by himself, alternating a high-pitched voice with a low-
pitched one. He was referred for a medical exam. [Arizona
Republic, 7-1-08]
* Need for Speed: (1) Ontario's recent law against street-racing
snared two noteworthy drivers in April: a 26-year-old man who
was cited when he passed a marked police car while doing 178
km/hr (106 mph) and the driver of a garbage truck, racing at 112
km/hr (double the posted speed limit). (2) A three-year-old girl
was seriously injured in Huntsville, Ala., in May in a collision
caused, said witnesses, by a speeding contest between two men,
both employees of Comcast Corp., driving company vans.
[Canwest News Service (Toronto), 4-24-08] [WAFF-TV
(Huntsville), 5-13-08]
Questionable Judgments
* In March, a jury acquitted the former parking manager for
Fresno, Calif., Bob Madewell, of all misuse-of-funds charges,
including one count for reducing the minor league baseball
Grizzlies' parking fees in exchange for tickets for his brother and
himself and another count in which he paid a female worker $300
in city funds to let him touch her breasts. Juror Trish Riederer, in
an interview with the Fresno Bee, said she and her fellow jurors
believe that Madewell did everything that prosecutors say he did
but that the city did not have clear procedures in place about
Madewell's scope of authority. [Fresno Bee, 3-14-08]
* Teachers Out of Control: (1) Fifth-grade teacher Susan
Romanyszyn, 45, was arrested in Bucks County, Pa., in January
and charged with 17 counts of threatening bombings and gun
violence after she was assigned to teach fourth grade, instead. (2)
Sixth-grade teacher Roshondra Sipp of Jackson, Miss., aroused
parents' ire in May for forcing the class to vote on who among
them would be most likely to die young or get pregnant while still
in school or get HIV or go to jail. Then, Sipp posted the results,
enraging parents whose little charmers made the lists. [Bucks
County Courier Times, 1-31-08] [Clarion-Ledger (Jackson), 5-15-
08]
Creme de la Weird
* "[A] person with a sneeze fetish can find erotic pleasure in those
few seconds," according to the ABC News Medical Unit, in an
April report, when "the eyes close as the body prepares to
forcefully expel air," but "experts are stumped as to why." An
Internet "sneeze fetish forum" allows members to wax rhapsodic
("She has the cutest sneeze ever") and recall pleasurable
experiences (such as the thrill of discovering that one's new college
roommate has allergies and will be sneezing frequently), and many
use language and suggest visions that mimic sexual behaviors.
[ABC News, 4-18-08]
Least Competent Criminals
* Failure to Communicate: (1) The man who tried to rob the Caf‚
Treo in Salt Lake City in April likely told the employee to "fill" the
bag, but when the employee reached over and earnestly started to
"feel" the bag (according to police), the robber said, "You've gotta
be kidding me" and ran out of the store. (2) Another man who
came away empty-handed had tried to rob a Walgreens in Port
Richey, Fla., in July, handing a clerk what appeared to be a holdup
note, except that nothing was written on it. The clerk, sensing the
forgetful robber's cluelessness, boldly dialed 911 right in front of
him, causing the man to flee. [KSL-TV (Salt Lake City), 4-11-08]
[St. Petersburg Times, 7-11-08]
Recurring Themes
* Ronald McDade, charged with raping a teenager in Lansdale, Pa.,
in January, petitioned to be allowed to submit a plaster cast of his
penis to the jury, to demonstrate that, since he is an "extremely
large" man (according to his lawyer), he could not physically have
penetrated the girl without causing genital injury (and no such
injury was found). News of the Weird has reported previously on
rape defendants offering to give the jury either a photograph, or a
live exhibition, to make the same point. [MSNBC-WCAU-TV
(Philadelphia), 6-12-08]
Thinning the Herd
* (1) An 18-year-old man was killed in March while riding in a
shopping cart and holding onto an SUV racing down a Winter
Park, Fla., street, when it hit a speed bump. (2) A 13-year-old
skateboarder was killed in May at a railroad crossing in O'Fallon,
Ill., when (according to police) he was unsuccessful in beating a
train to the crossing. (3) An 18-year-old man was killed in June in
Blaine, Wash., when the steamroller he was taking for a joyride at
a construction site overturned and fell on top of him. [Tampa
Tribune-AP, 3-10-08] [KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 5-4-08] [Seattle
Post-Intelligencer-AP, 6-17-08]
Thanks This Week to Pamela Lee, Diana Lelle, Michael
Roberts, Lara Oswald, Roger Gulbransen, Josh Levin, Kent
Cooper, and Scott Schrier, 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.