News of the Weird, April 22, 2012
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Fast-Food Culture Shock: Since December, the White Castle
restaurant in Lafayette, Ind., has provided diners with a stylish
experience that includes table service and a wine selection to go
with its iconic "slider" hamburgers. A state wine industry expert
told the Wall Street Journal in February, after a tasting, that she
would recommend the Merlot, although the Moscato was "fun" and
the Chardonnay passable (though all wines come in $4.50, screw-
off-top bottles, and is served in clear plastic glasses). (As for the
sliders, said the wine expert, eyeing the burgers on her plate, "At
some point, that was a cow, I guess.") [Wall Street Journal, 2-22-
2012]
Leading Economic Indicators
* When workers at the Carlsberg Beer plant in Vilnius, Lithuania,
decided to walk out over poor pay and conditions, the company
went to court to block them, and in March, a judge ruled for the
company, temporarily halting a strike as not in the national interest
because Carlsberg Beer is "vitally essential," thus placing the brew
in the same legal category as medical supplies. (Said a British labor
union official, "This is probably the most ridiculous decision in the
world.") [Daily Telegraph, 3-5-2012]
* Recurring Theme: In March, a new peak was reached in New
York City's ongoing search for the most preposterously underpriced
(because of rent-control) apartment in the city. The Gothamist
website identified a one-bedroom apartment at 5 Spring Street in
Manhattan's SoHo district renting for $55 a month even though,
according to a real estate agent, it should be drawing $2,500. The
tenant's parents moved in upon immigrating from Italy in the 1940s,
and since the tenant, now in his 70s, has a much younger wife, the
apartment could remain under rent control for decades. (New York
City rent controls were imposed to meet an "emergency" in housing
during World War II, but the law gets routinely renewed.)
[Gothamist, 3-18-2012]
Trail-Blazing Science
* The Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia recently won
a $36,000 grant to study the genetic basis of Trimethylaminuria,
otherwise known as the disorder that causes sufferers to smell like
dead fish. The first case reported in medical literature was in the
1970s, but according to a Science News report, "an ancient Hindu
tale describes a maiden who 'grew to be comely and fair, but a fishy
odor ever clung to her.'" [ABC News via WLS Radio (Chicago), 3-
6-2012; Science News, 3-15-1999]
Animal Tales
* Eight to Go: (1) After the year-old housecat Sugar survived a 19-
floor fall at a Boston high-rise in March, an Animal Rescue League
official explained to MSNBC that extra fur where the legs attach to
the body enables cats to "glide" and partially "control" their landing.
Research suggests that steep falls are thus easier to survive, as cats
have time to spread themselves out. (2) The 5-year-old cat Demi
survived a 40-minute tumble-dry (temperature up to 104(F)) in
Whitchurch, England, in March (although she needed oxygen,
fluids, and steroids to recover). Jennifer Parker, 45, had tossed a
load of clothes in, unaware that Demi was in the pile. [Time, 3-22-
2012] [The Sun, 3-21-20121]
* Something Else to Worry About: A computer science professor
working with the Bonobo Hope Great Ape Trust Sanctuary in Des
Moines, Iowa, has developed a bonobo robot that can be controlled
by live bonobos. Among the first applications of the robot, said Dr.
Ken Schweller in March, is a water cannon that bonobos will be
taught to operate via an iPad "app" in order to "play chase games"
with each other--"or to squirt guests." [IEEE Spectrum (Institute of
Electrical and Electronic Engineers), 3-29-2012]
* In January, Kentucky state Sen. Katie Stine, presiding over a
ceremony in the state Capitol honoring the Newport Aquarium,
posed with Aquarium officials and with Paula, a blackfooted
penguin brought in for the warm-and-cuddly photo opportunity. It
fell to Senate President David Williams to gently interrupt Stine's
speech and inform her that Paula was in the process of soiling the
floor of the august chamber. [Herald-Leader (Lexington), 1-24-
2012]
The Continuing Crisis
* Drive-By Etiquette: In February, Kendall Reid, 36, was extradited
from New Jersey back to LaPlace, La., where he had been sought
for allegedly shooting at a car on Interstate 10 on Christmas Eve.
According to police, Reid failed to hit the car he was aiming at,
instead inadvertently shooting out the back window of a car in
which two women were riding. However, as the damaged car
stopped on the side of the road, Reid pulled his Corvette over, too,
walked up to the women, and apologized ("Sorry, wrong car")--
before resuming his pursuit of his intended target. [Times-Picayune,
2-13-2012]
The Redneck Chronicles
* A 41-year-old man was treated with anti-venom at the USA
Medical Center in Mobile, Ala., in March after he was bitten by a
cottonmouth moccasin. The man had seen the snake at an
encampment, beaten it to death with a stick, and decapitated it. At
that point, according to the man's friend, he for some reason started
to "play with" the head. (The dead snake's teeth still contained
venom.) [WALA-TV (Mobile), 3-28-2012]
* James Davis of Stevenson, Ala., vowed in April that he
would forever resist a judge's order that he dig up his late wife's
body from his front yard and rebury it in a cemetery. "I'm in it for
the long haul," he said, promising to wait out the authorities. "I
don't have much to do but sit around [and] think about what's going
on." [WAFF-TV (Huntsville, Ala.), 4-2-2012]
Least Competent Criminals
* Thought of Almost Everything: Mishelle Salzgeber, 20, was
arrested in March in New Port Richey, Fla., after failing a drug test,
which was a condition of her probation for an undisclosed crime.
Apparently, Salzgeber knew that she would probably fail on her
own and had gone to the trouble of inserting a small tube of
someone else's urine into her vagina. Unfortunately for her, a pre-
test body-scan revealed the tube. (Besides, authorities tested the
urine in the tube and found that it also failed.) [WTSP-TV (St.
Petersburg), 3-20-2012]
Update
* Bill Dillon, released from a Florida prison in 2009 after 27 years'
wrongful incarceration, received a public apology in March from
Gov. Rick Scott (and will get $50,000 from the state for each year
of lockup). Dillon is one of the first inmates to have received
justice among as many as an estimated 60 who were convicted with
the help of the now-deceased dog trainer John Preston, whose
supposedly heroic-nosed German shepherds could somehow track
smells through water and pick out lone scents among highly
contaminated crime scenes--thus magically confirming speculative
parts of prosecutors' cases when no other evidence was available.
Pushover judges allowed Preston a free hand until one thought to
subject the dog to a simple courtroom smell test, which the dog
totally failed. Though satisfied with his own outcome, Dillon
begged authorities to open other cases involving Preston's dogs.
[Orlando Sentinel, 3-3-2012]
The Weirdo-American Community
* In March, authorities in Davis, Okla., after viewing surveillance
video, charged Jimmy "Hawkeye" Jeter, 77, with a "detestable and
abominable crime against nature" for "violating" a show pig at a
barn on the property of the local school system. According to a
KFOR-TV report, Jeter told investigators (in farm language,
apparently) that he "poured corn out to hold the gilt still" and then
"stuck my finger up her private." Nonetheless, he assured them that
he was "not trying to poison the gilt" and that he had done this "in
the early 70s." Later, he acknowledged that he was acting for
sexual gratification. [KFOR-TV, 3-9-2012]
Thanks This Week to Josh Levin and to the News of the
Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com,
and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.