News of the Weird, July 29, 2012

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M277 (News of the Weird, July 29, 2012)
by Chuck Shepherd

Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* Urinal Technology: (1) Two Brazilian firms collaborated recently
to test a whimsical device that could perhaps lessen splashing on
men's room floors: a urinal containing a fretboard that makes
musical sounds as liquid hits it (if the stream is strong enough).
According to a May report in the Brazilian edition of Billboard
magazine, versions were set up in several Sao Paulo bars to see if
men's aims improved. (Flushing produces an online address from
which a sound recording of the user's "music" can be retrieved.)
(2) In a project that has already gone live in 200 Michigan bars and
restaurants, the state's Office of Highway Safety Planning has
installed "talking" urinal cakes featuring a female announcer urging
inebriated patrons to call a taxi. [Billboard-Brazil via The Atlantic,
7-1-2012] [WZZM-TV (Grand Rapids), 7-2-2012]

Latest Religious Messages

* Recurring Theme: From time to time, Buddhist groups attempt to
improve their "karmic balance" by doing good deeds for Earth's
animal cohabitants. (Previously, News of the Weird mentioned a
California group's "freeing" fish by buying out a pet shop's
inventory and liberating the "lucky" fish into the Pacific Ocean--
where they were undoubtedly eaten almost immediately by larger
fish.) In June, about 50 members of the "Let Blessings and Wisdom
Grow" Buddhist group in Beijing bought at least 200 snakes, took
them into a rural area of Hebei province, and, chanting, released
them. Almost immediately, the snakes infested the nearby village
of Miao Erdong, horrifying the villagers, who were able to club to
death some of the snakes but who remained on edge. [Daily
Telegraph (London), 6-5-2012]

* Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly Morbidity
and Mortality newsletter reported in June that, officially, 11
newborn Jewish males in New York City between the years 2000-
2011 were diagnosed with Herpes Simplex Virus that had been
passed on by a circumcision technique in which the "mohel"
(circumcisor) contains bleeding by sucking blood directly from the
wound. [Morbodity and Mortality Weekly, 6-8-2012]

* Prominent filmmakers Daniel Junge (an Academy Award winner)
and Bryan Storkel have been raising money for their documentary,
"Fight Church," featuring devout Christian mixed-martial-artists
viciously pummeling each other--but only after the brawlers begin
the match with a prayer and commitment to serve Jesus Christ.
Among those featured is Pastor Paul Burress of Rochester, N.Y.,
who says he "loves to fight" and sees no problem with MMA's
barbaric nature. "These [techniques of fighting savagely] are the
gifts and the skills God has given me." [Christian Post, 6-19-2012]

* Scottish officials were reportedly optimistic about a recent
decision of the legislature of Louisiana. State officials this year
broadened a voucher program to allow parents to choose private
schools with Christian fundamentalist curricula. One prominent
textbook for that curriculum (offered by the Accelerated Christian
Education program) touted sightings of Scotland's Loch Ness
monster as "evidence" that humans and dinosaurs walked the Earth
at the same time, thus undermining the widely accepted scientific
theory of evolution. Officials now anticipate an influx of tourists to
Loch Ness, near Inverness. [The Herald (Glasgow), 6-24-2012]

Cultural Diversity

* Television ads appeared recently in India exploiting women's
obsession about lightening their skin--a fascination already
responsible for a rich market in facial bleaching. Now, ads for
"Clean & Dry Intimate Wash" promise to "refresh" a woman's
private parts by making them fairer. Female columnist Amrit
Dhillon, viewing an ad of a disinterested husband ignoring his too-
brown wife, denounced the product as catering to "self-hatred, of
race and gender" and urged the banning of the ads. [The Age
(Melbourne, Australia), 5-23-2012]

* In May, the Beijing Municipal Commission of City
Administration and Environment issued a formal rule to crack down
on unhygienic public restrooms. The toilets' attendants will be
ordered to take corrective action any time they count a number of
flies equal to two times the number of stalls in the restroom. The
city official in charge downplayed the likelihood of inspectors,
themselves, counting flies. "The regulation is specific . . . but the
inspection methodology will be flexible." [Fox NewsCore via
WTTG-TV (Washington, D.C.), 5-23-2012]

Questionable Judgments

* Adriana Villareal of Dos de Mayo, Argentina, lost her husband
two years ago but now makes it a point to visit his tomb about four
times a year, and not just briefly. Villareal brings bedding, an
Internet connection, and a small stove so that she can remain three
or four days at each visit. Said Villareal, according to a June
Agence France-Presse dispatch, "When you love someone, you do
all sorts of things." [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 6-15-
2012]

* The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling in June
in which Marshall Hollins was sentenced to eight years in prison for
taking cell-phone photographs of a 17-year-old girl with whom he
was having sex. That sex was voluntary and, since Illinois's age of
consent is 16, legal. However, the Court ruled, it is still illegal in
Illinois to take sexual pictures of a child, and that particular law
defines underage as under 18. (Hollins had claimed, unsuccessfully,
that he surely ought to be able to take pictures of a legal event.)
[Associated Press via Springfield Journal-Register, 6-21-2012]


* British soccer player John Terry was acquitted in July of hurling
racial abuse at opponent Anton Ferdinand, even though Terry's
three-word phrase was acknowledged by the judge to contain the
word "black" and two words that are commonly censored in family
newspapers. According to a New York Times dispatch before the
verdict, there was much testimony about the "paint-peeling
profanities" that soccer opponents routinely use on the pitch (in
particular, referencing each other's mothers' sex lives). In handing
down the verdict, the Westminster Magistrates' Court judge said he
was not certain that Terry was not simply repeating a slur that he
had heard moments earlier. [The Sun (London), 7-14-2012; New
York Times, 7-13-2012]

Least Competent Criminals

* Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) On June 8th, sheriff's deputies
near Tampa, Fla., charged Robert Suggs, 36, and David Hall, 28,
with taking a front-end loader and a dump truck from a construction
site and using them to steal an ATM from a Bank of America drive-
thru. The theft took place at 5 a.m., and deputies arrested the pair
that afternoon when they were found near the bank, still trying to
get the ATM open. (2) On the same day, in Albuquerque, Thomas
Molina, 38, was arrested in the act of fleeing a burglary at Central
New Mexico Community College. As he tried to climb out a
window, his getaway was hampered by having gotten his foot
caught in the blinds. [KQRE-TV (Albuquerque), 7-10-2012]

No Longer Weird

* Some events, no matter how "weird" they first seemed, now occur
with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation.
Surely there are now too many instances in which a worker drawing
disability benefits cheats by taking on strenuous pastimes or even
second jobs while claiming to be unable to function normally at
work. One of the most recent involved letter-carrier Jacquelyn
Myers of Tallahassee, Fla., who was put on "light duty," with
worker compensation benefits, because of a back injury from heavy
lifting. Over a several-month period after her May 2009 injury,
investigators found that she had entered more than 80 long-distance
races, including the Boston Marathon. Investigators also noted that
her race times improved after her "injury." [Associated Press via
Northwest Florida Daily News, 5-16-2012]

Readers' Choice

* The Role of Alcohol in Parenting: (1) Police in Fort Wayne, Ind.,
arrested an intoxicated man and woman on May 7th after witnesses
reported that the couple was seen leaving Belmont Beverage with
four children strapped to the hood of their car. The children (ages 4,
5, 6, and 7) were not hurt. (2) In April, Paul Berloni, 49, was
arrested in Sarasota County, Fla., when police spotted him driving
an SUV with his seven-year-old granddaughter in a toy "Hot
Wheels" car behind him, attached to the SUV with two dog leashes.
The SUV was traveling 5 to 10 mph, witnesses said, and Berloni,
who smelled of alcohol, admitted that his license had been
suspended following his last DUI. [WANE-TV (Fort Wayne), 5-8-
2012] [The Smoking Gun, 4-30-2012]

Thanks This Week to Sam Dillon, Mike Wolcott, Tim
Allen, Peter Smagorinsky, Eric Ivers, Roy Henock, Tom Sullivan,
John Ellwood, and Craig Cryer, and to the News of the Weird Board
of Editorial Advisors.

* * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
(almost daily), and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.