News of the Weird, April 4, 2010
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* More Texas Justice: In March, juries in Smith County and
Matagorda County sentenced Henry Wooten and Melvin Johnson III
to 35 years and 60 years in prison, respectively, for possessing
small amounts of drugs (but enough under Texas law to allow jurors
to infer an intent to distribute). Wooten, 54, had 4.6 ounces of
marijuana (same penalty as for 5 pounds), and Johnson had 1.3
grams of crack cocaine (about half the weight of a U.S. dime).
(Wooten's prosecutor actually had asked the jury for a sentence of
99 years.) [Tyler Morning News, 3-5-10] [Houston Press, 3-11-10]
Can't Possibly Be True
* In February, the undergraduate dean's office at Yale University
disclosed that it was formally soliciting anonymous, first-person
reports of student sexual experiences to publish on a school website,
as "strategies for creatively navigating Yale's sexual culture,"
according to an advisor. "There is a real need for students to have
space to think about what happens to them and what they want to
have happen," she said. "Sex@Yale" would contain "70 to 80"
specific perspectives, she said, but critics suggested the anthology
might grow to resemble Penthouse magazine's often-ridiculed
"Forum" section of lascivious fantasies. [Yale Daily News, 2-26-
10]
* It's Good to Be a British Welfare Mother: Under the
government's Local Housing Authority, Essma Marjam, age 34,
unemployed and the mother of six, is entitled to rental assistance for
a five-bedroom home, and the only suitable one she could find is in
an exclusive London suburb in which her neighbor is Sir Paul
McCartney. Luckily, the generous allowance (equivalent of more
than $9,000 a month) covers the rent on the nearly-$3 million (U.S.
equivalent) mansion. (Additionally, according to the Daily Mail,
Marjam's non-housing government benefits total the equivalent of
about $22,000 a year.) [Daily Mail, 2-15-10]
* Alan Rosenfeld, 64, a New York City lawyer and real estate
entrepreneur, is also a full-time schoolteacher, although he has been
prohibited from teaching since 2002 because of accusations of
leering at female students. He is thus a "rubber room" teacher
whose union contract requires full salary and benefits even though
the Schools Chancellor has barred him from the classroom as a
"danger" to students. The Department of Education pays him
$100,000 a year plus health care (plus retirement benefits worth at
least $82,000 a year). The New York Post reported that Rosenfeld
reports to "the room" each day but works exclusively on his
business affairs. [New York Post, 1-31-10]
Inexplicable
* In January, Aretha Brown, 66, who has lived in the same house in
Callahan, Fla. (pop. 962) for 30 years, suddenly became unable to
leave her yard unless she crawled between CSX railroad cars
blocking her access to the road. Tracks had always been in place,
but the railway only began storing train cars on them this year. CSX
told the Florida Times-Union that it would soon build Brown an
access road to the street. [Florida Times-Union, 2-6-10]
* The entertainment manager at Thorpe Park in Surrey, England,
announced in February a contest seeking foul-smelling urine. The
park has introduced a live action horror maze based on scenes from
the "Saw" movie series and decided that it was missing a "signature
stench" to "really push the boundaries" of disgustingness. Manager
Laura Sinclair suggested that submissions' pungency would be
enhanced after consumption of such foods as garlic and asparagus
and offered a prize of the equivalent of about $750 for the winning
urine. [Daily Mail, 2-25-10]
* The Times of London reported in February that at least six local
government councils have been so avid about enforcing street-
parking rules that they have issued tickets to vehicles registered to
their own governments. In at least two recent incidents (involving
Islington and Kingston), the councils pursued collection all the way
to traffic court (though only in the latter case did the adjudicator
actually require the council to hand over a fine to itself). [The
Times, 2-19-10]
Sub-"Zero Tolerance"
* Seventh-grader Rachael Greer was suspended from River Valley
Middle School in Jefferson, Ind., in February, even though she
apparently did exactly what her parents and the school want kids to
do ("just say 'no'" to drugs). When a classmate handed her a
prescription pill in gym class, she immediately handed it right back.
Nonetheless, an assistant principal, after investigating the incident,
suspended her for five days because she had touched the pill. (He
expressed regret but said it is school policy.) [WAVE-TV
(Louisville, Ky.), 2-25-10]
Questionable Judgments
* A recent epiphany caused millionaire Austrian businessman Karl
Rabeder, 47, to be depressed about his wealth, and by February, he
was in the process of giving it away--an estate worth the equivalent
of about $5 million. Two luxury properties are for sale, with
proceeds going to charities he established in Central and South
America, and he plans to move into a small hut in Innsbruck.
"Money is counterproductive," he told a reporter. "I had the feeling
I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish or need."
(According to London's Daily Telegraph, Rabeder's wife was with
him at the time of the epiphany, but the story curiously is silent
about her view of his decision.) [Daily Telegraph (London), 2-8-10]
Least Competent Police
* Embarrassing: (1) In March, on duty on opening day of the jail at
the new Adair County judicial center in Columbia, Ky., sheriff's
deputy Charles Wright accidentally locked himself in a cell and was
fired after he tried to shoot open the lock. (2) A Collier County,
Fla., sheriff's deputy suffered a broken ankle when he and a
colleague accidentally locked wheels while patrolling in Naples on
their Segways. [WKYT-TV (Lexington), 3-3-10] [Naples Daily
News, 2-23-10]
* It wasn't pretty, but sheriff's deputies in Montcalm County, Mich.,
got their man on March 3rd. Mark McCuaig, in court on an earlier
charge, became unruly and escaped from two different sets of
officers (despite a Tasering). Another court officer tried to stop him
outside, but McCuaig got loose (despite being maced). He locked
himself inside a van, but officers surrounded it, broke a window,
and Tasered him again, yet couldn't stop McCuaig from driving off.
After a high-speed chase, state troopers disabled his tires with "stop
sticks" but couldn't apprehend him before he reached his home,
where he barricaded himself. Officers surrounded the house, and
four of them (plus a police dog) entered, but McCuaig escaped and
got into another vehicle. Finally, after another chase, he was forced
off the road, Tasered a third time, and subdued. [WWMT-TV
(Grand Rapids), 3-3-10, WZZM-TV (Grand Rapids), 3-3-10]
Update
* Robert "Prince Mongo" Hodges had been disturbing people, and
sometimes running for office, for 10 years before he came to News
of the Weird's attention in September 1992 by attracting nearly
3,000 votes in a campaign for mayor of Memphis. Since then, the
perpetual performance artist (always "333" years old, always from
the planet "Zambodia") has been annoying his neighbors in
Memphis, and in Fort Lauderdale and Volusia County, Fla., usually
as revenge for their complaints about his quixotic property
maintenance. Last year, he built a deck on his Volusia home,
without a permit, and neighbors complained, thus provoking
Hodges recently to dump a mountain of sand in his front yard and to
install clotheslines covered with women's panties. Currently, he
faces various county code violations. [WFTV (Orlando), 3-5-10;
New Times Broward-Palm Beach, 1-19-06]
A News of the Weird Classic (January 2001)
* Once oddities but now increasingly common are reports of
prisoners storing larger and larger inventories of valuables in their
rectums. However, one accounting from a jail in Amarillo, Tex.,
might still be a record. A man was arrested in November 2000 with
$12,300 inside (eighty $100 bills, two $50's, and money orders
worth $4,200). The cash record before that was believed to be a
Florida State Prison inmate who had only $2,000 (although he also
had room for six handcuff keys and an assortment of razor and
hacksaw blades in a pouch). [Amarillo Globe-News, 11-2-2000]
Thanks This Week to Tracy Hammond, Jan Wolitzky, Scott
Huber, Jim Dukes, Angela Hasty, Lynna Hughes, and Carl
McGlone, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial
Advisors.
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