News of the Weird, May 23, 2010
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Chuck Shepherd
May 23, 2010, 11:01:54 AM5/23/10
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WEIRDNUZ.M163 (News of the Weird, May 23, 2010)
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Briton Robert Dee, feeling humiliated at being called the "world's
worst tennis pro" by London's Daily Telegraph (and other news
organizations) sued the newspaper for libel last year. After taking
testimony in February 2010, the judge tossed out the lawsuit in
April, persuaded by Dee's having lost 54 consecutive international
tour matches (all in straight sets). Fearful of an opposite result,
thirty other news organizations had already apologized to Dee for
disparaging him, and some even paid him money in repentance, but
the Telegraph had stood its ground (and was, of course, humble in
victory, titling its story on the outcome, "'World's Worst' Tennis
Player Loses Again.") [The Guardian (London), 4-28-10]
The Continuing Crisis
* Mexican police, raiding a suspected hideout of drug kingpin Oscar
Nava Valencia in the city of Zapopan in December, found the
expected items (weapons, drugs, cash) but also 38 gold- or silver-
plated guns emblazoned with ornate designs and studded with
diamonds, which it placed on public display in May. Included were
seven bejeweled assault weapons. [Guadalajara Reporter, 5-4-10;
Luxist.com (America Online), 5-5-10]
* In war-torn Gaza, with little relief from the tedium of destruction
and poverty, the Mediterranean Sea offers some relief, especially for
about 40 people who belong to the Gaza Surf Club, riding waves on
second-hand, beaten-down boards. While the waves might not be
as challenging as those in Huntington Beach, Calif., the surfers
nonetheless must be skilled enough to avoid the estimated 60
million liters of raw sewage that Gaza city, with no practical
alternative, has routinely emptied into the Sea. [BBC News, 4-22-
10]
* An April ABC News TV report featured a Westford, Mass.,
couple as the face of the "radical unschooling" philosophy. which
challenges both the formal classroom system and "home schooling."
Typically, "home-schooling" parents believe they can organize their
kids' educations better than schools can, but "unschoolers" simply
put kids on their own, free to decide by themselves what, or
whether, to learn any of the traditional school subjects. There is no
punishment, no judgment, no discipline. The key, said parent
Christine Yablonski, "is that you've got to trust your kids." For
example, "If they [decide that they] need formal algebra
understanding . . . they'll find that information." [ABC News, 4-19-
10]
* Bolinas, Calif., north of San Francisco, is famously reclusive,
even to the point of residents' removing state highway signs
pointing to the town, hoping that outsiders will get lost enroute and
give up the quest. It limits population to about 1,500 by officially
fixing the number of municipal water hookups at 580, but in April,
one of the meters became available when the city purchased a
residential lot to convert to a park. The meter was to be sold at a
May auction, with a minimum bid of $300,000. [New York Times,
4-14-10]
Uh-Oh!
* A recent French documentary in the form of a TV show called
"Game of Death" mimics the notorious 1950s human-torture
experiments of Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, who would
coax test subjects to administer increasingly painful jolts of
electricity to strangers to assess their obedience to an "authority
figure," even if contrary to their own moral codes. As in Milgram's
experiments, the Game of Death "victims" were actors, unharmed
but paid to scream louder with each successive "shock." According
to a BBC News report, 82 percent of the game's players were
willing torturers--a higher percentage than Milgram found--but the
TV show's subjects had greater encouragement, cheered on by a
raucous studio audience and a glamorous hostess. [BBC News, 3-
18-10]
* According to an April lawsuit filed by an employee of the five-
star Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., the hotel complied with a
February request by a wealthy British traveler that, during their stay,
his family not be served by "people of colour" or anyone who spoke
with a "foreign accent." The hotel has apologized to the employee,
but denied that it had complied with the traveler's request. (Lawyers
for the employee told the Associated Press that nine witnesses and a
copy of a computer entry prove their claim.) [The Times (London),
4-23-10; Miami Herald-AP, 4-29-10]
* Good News / Bad News: Based on April federal indictments of
organized crime members in New York and New Jersey, it appears
that any "glass ceiling" to management in the exclusively-male
Gambino family has been cracked in that at least one woman,
Suzanne Porcelli, 43, was indicted among the 14 family members
and associates. However, the Gambino "farm system" is apparently
weak, in that with the imprisonment of the Gottis and other
experienced capos, the organization appears headed in historically
unfamiliar directions, most notably in child prostitution. Until now,
even the most vicious of Mafiosi historically, heroically, protected
women and children from the families' "business." [CNN, 4-21-10]
Oops!
* Spectacular Errors: (1) Milton High School beat Westlake, 56-46,
for the Georgia 5A boys' basketball championship in March.
Westlake's chances evaporated during the pre-game warm-ups,
when their Georgia-player-of-the-year candidate Marcus Thornton
was forced to sit after spraining his ankle leaping to ceremonially
hip-bump a teammate. (2) Two North Carolina surgeons were
issued official "Letters of Concern" in January for a 2008 incident in
which they performed a C-section on a woman who was not
pregnant. (They relied on an intern's confused diagnosis and
following an ultrasound with no heartbeat and several obviously
failed attempts to induce labor.) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3-
12-10] [WTVD-TV (Raleigh-Durham), 4-1-10]
Bright Ideas
* Frustrated customers frequently challenge bills, and occasionally,
"rescission" of the original deal is a suitable remedy. However, it's
not suitable for some services. Deborah Dillow was late with the
$150 she allegedly owed to The Bomb Squad dog waste pick-up
service in Bend, Ore., in April, and appeared to be avoiding calls at
her home. The Bomb Squad owner, frustrated by the delays, simply
returned all the work it had done to that point on Dillow's
property--in one big pile, in her front yard. [KTVZ-TV (Bend), 4-
28-10]
Alcohol Was Involved
* The Wonder Drug: (1) Donald Wolfe, 55, was charged with
public drunkenness in March in Brookville, Pa., after neighbors
spotted him giving, as he described it, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
to a roadkill possum along Route 36. (2) A 62-year-old man
suffered second-degree burns after launching himself on a
makeshift, rocket-powered sled in Independence Township, Mich.,
in January. Witnesses said he put on a helmet, then strapped a
contraption consisting of a motorcycle muffler, a pipe, gunpowder,
match heads, and gasoline on his back, and had someone light the
wick to send him blasting through the snow. [Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette, 3-26-10] [WDIV-TV (Detroit), 2-1-10]
Least Competent Criminals
* Overconfident "Artists": (1) Clair Arthur Smith, 42, of Cape
Coral, Fla., was charged with forgery in May after he allegedly tried
to doctor the amount of a check he had received from Bank of
America. Converting the "$10.00" check to $100, or even
$100,000, would seem plausible, but Smith tried to deposit the
check into his account after he had marked it up to "$269,951.00."
(2) A 17-year-old was arrested in College Station, Tex., in January
and charged with trying to pass a homemade $5 bill at a restaurant.
Police said the bill's front and back had been computer-scanned and
then pasted together but that the front of the bill was longer than the
back. [Fort Myers News-Press, 5-4-10] [KHOU-TV-AP (Houston),
2-1-10]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 2000)
* Among the ill-fated public relations moves by the Brown &
Williamson tobacco company to counteract the industry's cascading
legal problems in the year 2000 were these automated telephone
announcements for 800-number callers (according to an April 2000
New York Times story): (1) a male chorus serenading callers with
"Oooh, the tobacco plant is a lovely plant / Its leaves so broad and
green / But you shouldn't think about the tobacco plant / If you're
still a teen" and (2) an earlier message featuring a sexy male voice
intoning, "Brown & Williamson Tobacco is in love. We're a giant
corporation, and you make us feel like a little kitten." "Thank you,
lover." [New York Times, 4-26-00]
Thanks This Week to Peter Smagorinsky, David Abdoo, Jim
Siverts, and Ron Corby, and to many finders of the possum-
resuscitation story, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors
and Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Are you ready for News of the Weird / Pro Edition? See it every
Monday at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com. Other handy
addresses: WeirdNews at earthlink dot net,
http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com, and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL
33679.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NewsoftheWeird" group.
To post to this group, send email to newsoft...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to newsoftheweir...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/newsoftheweird?hl=en.
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Briton Robert Dee, feeling humiliated at being called the "world's
worst tennis pro" by London's Daily Telegraph (and other news
organizations) sued the newspaper for libel last year. After taking
testimony in February 2010, the judge tossed out the lawsuit in
April, persuaded by Dee's having lost 54 consecutive international
tour matches (all in straight sets). Fearful of an opposite result,
thirty other news organizations had already apologized to Dee for
disparaging him, and some even paid him money in repentance, but
the Telegraph had stood its ground (and was, of course, humble in
victory, titling its story on the outcome, "'World's Worst' Tennis
Player Loses Again.") [The Guardian (London), 4-28-10]
The Continuing Crisis
* Mexican police, raiding a suspected hideout of drug kingpin Oscar
Nava Valencia in the city of Zapopan in December, found the
expected items (weapons, drugs, cash) but also 38 gold- or silver-
plated guns emblazoned with ornate designs and studded with
diamonds, which it placed on public display in May. Included were
seven bejeweled assault weapons. [Guadalajara Reporter, 5-4-10;
Luxist.com (America Online), 5-5-10]
* In war-torn Gaza, with little relief from the tedium of destruction
and poverty, the Mediterranean Sea offers some relief, especially for
about 40 people who belong to the Gaza Surf Club, riding waves on
second-hand, beaten-down boards. While the waves might not be
as challenging as those in Huntington Beach, Calif., the surfers
nonetheless must be skilled enough to avoid the estimated 60
million liters of raw sewage that Gaza city, with no practical
alternative, has routinely emptied into the Sea. [BBC News, 4-22-
10]
* An April ABC News TV report featured a Westford, Mass.,
couple as the face of the "radical unschooling" philosophy. which
challenges both the formal classroom system and "home schooling."
Typically, "home-schooling" parents believe they can organize their
kids' educations better than schools can, but "unschoolers" simply
put kids on their own, free to decide by themselves what, or
whether, to learn any of the traditional school subjects. There is no
punishment, no judgment, no discipline. The key, said parent
Christine Yablonski, "is that you've got to trust your kids." For
example, "If they [decide that they] need formal algebra
understanding . . . they'll find that information." [ABC News, 4-19-
10]
* Bolinas, Calif., north of San Francisco, is famously reclusive,
even to the point of residents' removing state highway signs
pointing to the town, hoping that outsiders will get lost enroute and
give up the quest. It limits population to about 1,500 by officially
fixing the number of municipal water hookups at 580, but in April,
one of the meters became available when the city purchased a
residential lot to convert to a park. The meter was to be sold at a
May auction, with a minimum bid of $300,000. [New York Times,
4-14-10]
Uh-Oh!
* A recent French documentary in the form of a TV show called
"Game of Death" mimics the notorious 1950s human-torture
experiments of Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, who would
coax test subjects to administer increasingly painful jolts of
electricity to strangers to assess their obedience to an "authority
figure," even if contrary to their own moral codes. As in Milgram's
experiments, the Game of Death "victims" were actors, unharmed
but paid to scream louder with each successive "shock." According
to a BBC News report, 82 percent of the game's players were
willing torturers--a higher percentage than Milgram found--but the
TV show's subjects had greater encouragement, cheered on by a
raucous studio audience and a glamorous hostess. [BBC News, 3-
18-10]
* According to an April lawsuit filed by an employee of the five-
star Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., the hotel complied with a
February request by a wealthy British traveler that, during their stay,
his family not be served by "people of colour" or anyone who spoke
with a "foreign accent." The hotel has apologized to the employee,
but denied that it had complied with the traveler's request. (Lawyers
for the employee told the Associated Press that nine witnesses and a
copy of a computer entry prove their claim.) [The Times (London),
4-23-10; Miami Herald-AP, 4-29-10]
* Good News / Bad News: Based on April federal indictments of
organized crime members in New York and New Jersey, it appears
that any "glass ceiling" to management in the exclusively-male
Gambino family has been cracked in that at least one woman,
Suzanne Porcelli, 43, was indicted among the 14 family members
and associates. However, the Gambino "farm system" is apparently
weak, in that with the imprisonment of the Gottis and other
experienced capos, the organization appears headed in historically
unfamiliar directions, most notably in child prostitution. Until now,
even the most vicious of Mafiosi historically, heroically, protected
women and children from the families' "business." [CNN, 4-21-10]
Oops!
* Spectacular Errors: (1) Milton High School beat Westlake, 56-46,
for the Georgia 5A boys' basketball championship in March.
Westlake's chances evaporated during the pre-game warm-ups,
when their Georgia-player-of-the-year candidate Marcus Thornton
was forced to sit after spraining his ankle leaping to ceremonially
hip-bump a teammate. (2) Two North Carolina surgeons were
issued official "Letters of Concern" in January for a 2008 incident in
which they performed a C-section on a woman who was not
pregnant. (They relied on an intern's confused diagnosis and
following an ultrasound with no heartbeat and several obviously
failed attempts to induce labor.) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3-
12-10] [WTVD-TV (Raleigh-Durham), 4-1-10]
Bright Ideas
* Frustrated customers frequently challenge bills, and occasionally,
"rescission" of the original deal is a suitable remedy. However, it's
not suitable for some services. Deborah Dillow was late with the
$150 she allegedly owed to The Bomb Squad dog waste pick-up
service in Bend, Ore., in April, and appeared to be avoiding calls at
her home. The Bomb Squad owner, frustrated by the delays, simply
returned all the work it had done to that point on Dillow's
property--in one big pile, in her front yard. [KTVZ-TV (Bend), 4-
28-10]
Alcohol Was Involved
* The Wonder Drug: (1) Donald Wolfe, 55, was charged with
public drunkenness in March in Brookville, Pa., after neighbors
spotted him giving, as he described it, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
to a roadkill possum along Route 36. (2) A 62-year-old man
suffered second-degree burns after launching himself on a
makeshift, rocket-powered sled in Independence Township, Mich.,
in January. Witnesses said he put on a helmet, then strapped a
contraption consisting of a motorcycle muffler, a pipe, gunpowder,
match heads, and gasoline on his back, and had someone light the
wick to send him blasting through the snow. [Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette, 3-26-10] [WDIV-TV (Detroit), 2-1-10]
Least Competent Criminals
* Overconfident "Artists": (1) Clair Arthur Smith, 42, of Cape
Coral, Fla., was charged with forgery in May after he allegedly tried
to doctor the amount of a check he had received from Bank of
America. Converting the "$10.00" check to $100, or even
$100,000, would seem plausible, but Smith tried to deposit the
check into his account after he had marked it up to "$269,951.00."
(2) A 17-year-old was arrested in College Station, Tex., in January
and charged with trying to pass a homemade $5 bill at a restaurant.
Police said the bill's front and back had been computer-scanned and
then pasted together but that the front of the bill was longer than the
back. [Fort Myers News-Press, 5-4-10] [KHOU-TV-AP (Houston),
2-1-10]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 2000)
* Among the ill-fated public relations moves by the Brown &
Williamson tobacco company to counteract the industry's cascading
legal problems in the year 2000 were these automated telephone
announcements for 800-number callers (according to an April 2000
New York Times story): (1) a male chorus serenading callers with
"Oooh, the tobacco plant is a lovely plant / Its leaves so broad and
green / But you shouldn't think about the tobacco plant / If you're
still a teen" and (2) an earlier message featuring a sexy male voice
intoning, "Brown & Williamson Tobacco is in love. We're a giant
corporation, and you make us feel like a little kitten." "Thank you,
lover." [New York Times, 4-26-00]
Thanks This Week to Peter Smagorinsky, David Abdoo, Jim
Siverts, and Ron Corby, and to many finders of the possum-
resuscitation story, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors
and Board of Editorial Advisors.
* * * * *
Are you ready for News of the Weird / Pro Edition? See it every
Monday at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com. Other handy
addresses: WeirdNews at earthlink dot net,
http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com, and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL
33679.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NewsoftheWeird" group.
To post to this group, send email to newsoft...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to newsoftheweir...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/newsoftheweird?hl=en.
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