News of the Weird, July 11, 2010
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* A severe but underappreciated American drug problem
(sometimes deadly and often expensive) is patients' failure to take
prescribed medications--even to save their own lives (such as with
anti-coagulants or cholesterol-regulating statins). In recent pilot
programs, according to a June New York Times report, compliance
rates have been significantly improved--by giving patients money
($50 to $100 a month, sometimes more) if they remember to take
their drugs. Data show that, indeed, such compliance subsidies
reduce society's overall healthcare costs by preventing expensive
hospital admissions. In the trials, patients must demonstrate their
irresponsibility before being eligible for payments. [New York
Times, 6-13-01]
Government in Action
* The recession-proof labor union contract with New York City
area's severely cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority
last year provided 8,074 blue-collar workers (conductors, engineers,
repairmen, etc.) with six-figure compensation, including about 50
who earned $200,000 or more. Researchers cited by the New York
Times in April found that one Long Island Rail Road conductor
made $239,148, about $4,000 more than the MTA's chief financial
officer and about $48,000 short being the highest-paid person in the
entire system. Included in some of the fat payouts for LIRR
locomotive engineers was special "penalty" pay (about $94,600 in
one case) for engineers who are required to move a train to a
different location from its normal assignment. [New York Times, 6-
3-10]
* Arizona (viewed by some as hard-hearted for its April law
stepping up vigilance for illegal immigrants) showed a soft side
recently, implementing a $1.25 million federal grant that it believes
will save the lives of at least five squirrels a year. The state's 250
endangered Mount Graham red squirrels risk becoming roadkill on
Route 366 near Pima, and the state is building a rope bridge for
them to add to several existing tunnels. [ABC News, 6-17-10]
Great Art!
* At a June concert in Australia's Sydney Opera House, American
musicians Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed performed Anderson's
20-minute, very-high-pitched composition, "Music for Dogs," an
arrangement likely to have been largely unmelodious to humans,
who generally cannot hear such high pitches, but of more interest to
dogs, who can. (Dogs were permitted in the audience, but news
reports were inconclusive about their level of enjoyment.) [New
York Times, 6-3-10]
* Many jihadist recruiting pitches are dry and pious, but in May, the
Somali activist Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, 26 and who was born in
Alabama, began streaming Internet rap "music" videos to encourage
warrior sign-ups. (Sample verse: "It all started out in Afghanistan /
When we wiped the oppressors off the land / The Union crumbled
and tumbled / Humbled, left them mumbled / Made a power
withdraw and cower.") Actually, there was no music but merely al-
Amriki singing, presumably because in the version of Islam favored
by Somali jihadists, "music" is not permitted. [ABC News, 5-18-10]
* West Virginia's Division of Culture and History announced in
June it would hold a state-sponsored art exhibition, showcasing the
state's arts talent. Until now, the state has refused such projects
because the last one, in 1963, turned out badly. The grand prize that
year, supposedly representing the character and tradition of the
state, went to "West Virginia Moon," which was a collection of
broken boards and a screen door. [Charleston Daily Mail, 6-16-10]
A Professional All the Way
* In May, the chief media spokesman of the Nye County, Nev.,
sheriff's office, Det. David Boruchowitz, announced to the press the
arrest of a man charged with burglary and assault. The suspect's
name, he reported, was Det. David Boruchowitz. The chief
investigator on the case, Det. Boruchowitz told reporters, was Det.
David Boruchowitz. (Three days later, the charges were dropped,
but that announcement was made by someone else.) [Las Vegas
Sun, 5-24-10]
Fine Points of the Law
* In Rehoboth Beach, Del., it is illegal for men and women to
publicly reveal their genitals and for women to reveal their breasts,
but Police Chief Keith Banks confronted in June with complaints
about some beachgoers flouting their shapely breasts said there was
nothing he could do. Banks said the offenders were actually
biological males in the midst of hormonal transgendering. As
Banks explained, "[T]hey had male genitalia. Therefore, they were
not guilty of a crime." [News Journal (Wilmington), 6-3-10]
* In April, Prince Edward Island (Canada) judge John Douglas
acquitted minor league hockey player Chris Doyle of assaulting his
former girlfriend, though Doyle had arrived at her home uninvited,
had annoyed and berated her, and would not leave. The girlfriend
was injured when Doyle punched a door, causing it to smash against
her face, but Judge Douglas accepted that Doyle honestly did not
know she was behind the door. Said the judge, "If he was charged
with being a colossal asshole, I would find him guilty. Of 'assault
causing bodily harm,' I find him not guilty." [Canadian Broadcasting
Corp. News, 4-9-10]
In Two Cradles of Bizarre Politics
* Russia: On television in May, the governor of the Russian
republic of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, recounted that he had
been abducted in a spaceship in 1997 and forced to communicate
with aliens telepathically, and later entertained some in his
apartment. One opponent seized the moment and called for an
inquiry into whether Ilyumzhinov had telepathically spilled
government secrets while under the aliens' spell. Then, former
world chess champion Anatoly Karpov announced he would
challenge Ilyumzhinov for the position of head of the World Chess
Federation (which Ilyumzhinov has been since 1993), but yet
another Russian chess icon, Arkady Dvorkovich (who is President
Medvedev's chief economic advisor), said he still backed
Ilyumzhinov because of the latter's superior managerial ability.
[ABC News, 5-5-10; Agence France-Presse, 5-22-10]
* Florida: (1) While still chairman of the Florida Republican Party,
Jim Greer was revealed to have ordered the continuous shuttling of
emergency "notes" to him during a Republican National Committee
meeting, and according to an April Orlando Sentinel profile, the
"notes" were all blank. A Florida RNC official concluded that
Greer was simply trying to make himself appear important to his
colleagues. (In June, Greer was indicted on six felony counts
related to raiding the state party's treasury.) (2) At a forum in May
for county school board aspirants in Orlando, candidate John Mark
Coney took the floor to read passages from the Bible and then to
emphasize his suitability for office by announcing that he, at age 53,
is a virgin. [Orlando Sentinel, 4-17-10] [Orlando Sentinel, 5-19-10]
Update
* In 2007, News of the Weird reported what looked like the bizarre
dreams of an attention-seeking Muslim cleric: that contrary to
popular belief, strict, Wahhabi Islam allows unrelated people of the
opposite sex to meet, unchaperoned, provided that they were both
breastfed by the same woman (thus symbolically making them
"siblings"). In June 2010, two more-prominent Muslim clerics in
Saudi Arabia reintroduced the debate, according to an AOL News
report, by agreeing that the workaround could be used by a
boyfriend and his girlfriend's mother. However, they disagreed on
whether the Quran requires the boy to take the milk directly from
her breast or allows him to feed from her stored milk. [AOL News,
6-5-10]
A News of the Weird Classic (March 2006)
* "Reeking" Is His Business Model: Homeless New Jersey man
Richard Kreimer said in February [2006] that he had settled, on
undisclosed terms, part of his most recent lawsuit, against a transit
company and two drivers, for having denied him rides because of
his foul odor. Kreimer's history includes a $150,000 settlement
with the public library in Morris County, which had tried to keep
him out because of his odor, and, by his count, $80,000 in
additional lawsuit-related income (though some went for legal
expenses). Kreimer filed another foul-odor lawsuit in February,
against a transit company and a train station in Summit. [Press of
Atlantic City, 2-18-06; Newsday-AP, 3-2-06]
Thanks This Week to Geoff Egan and Pete Randall, and to
the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di
Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl
Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom
Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue,
Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller, Mark Neunder, Bob
Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and Jerry
Whittle).
* * * * *
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