News of the Weird, February 27, 2012
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Part-time Devon, England, vicar Gavin Tyte, who serves churches
in Uplyme and Axmouth, recently produced a rap video of the
Nativity, in which he plays a shepherd, an angel, and the narrator.
Sample lyrics (about Mary placing her baby in a cattle trough, and
angels calming the frightened shepherds): "No hotel motel custom
baby changer / She wrapped the baby up and laid him in a manger"
and "Chill out, my friends, there's no need for trepidation / Got a
message for the world, and it's elation information." [The Guardian,
12-14-2011]
Government in Action!
* Apparently, not only will there be fewer overall resources for
disabled people in Greece (due to government austerity), but the
resources will be spread over a larger number of recipients. The
Labor Ministry in January expanded the category of eligible
"disabled" (with reduced-amount payments) to include
pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists, sadomasochists,
pedophiles, exhibitionists, and kleptomaniacs. The National
Confederation of Disabled People said the changes would inevitably
reduce funds available for the blind and the crippled and other
traditional categories of need. [Associated Press via Washington
Post, 1-9-2012]
* Even at a time of schoolteacher layoffs nationally, the Buffalo,
N.Y., school system continues to cover all costs for cosmetic
surgery for teachers. The benefit was established in the calmer
1970s, and no one, it seems, anticipated the facelift and liposuction
crazes that subsequently developed. The annual expense in recent
years, for about 500 benefit-takers a year, has been from $5 million
to $9 million (equivalent to the average salaries of at least 100
teachers). The teachers' union said it is willing to give up the
benefit in a new collective bargaining agreement, but a quirk in
New York law lessens the incentive of teachers to negotiate such a
contract (in that the current, highly-lucrative contract remains in
force until replaced). [The Atlantic, 1-18-2012]
* In February, Kenneth Gunn, of the UK's Scottish Borders
Council, decried the budget cutbacks that closed down local offices
that had previously posted marriage notices. By making it more
difficult for the public to be aware of specific marriages, Gunn
feared an inevitable increase in incest. "I am aware in my own ward
of brothers sitting beside sisters they do not know in primary
school." (The problem is more serious in Iceland, whose 300,000
people are far more self-contained. However, a new website
containing genealogical data back 1,200 years is expected to help
reduce the risk of incest.) [Scottish Daily Record (Glasgow), 2-3-
2012] [Global Post via Huffington Post, 12-26-2011]
Great Art!
* But, Why? (1) Two British designers (who claim they had the
idea independently and learned of the other only after they finished)
recently produced elegant pieces using parts from a 2012 Ford
Focus. Judy Clark made a dress and a biker jacket adorned with car
keys, radio and dashboard components, seat covers, a speedometer,
and red taillights. Katherine Hawkins created a necklace using
dials, springs, buttons, seat materials, and instrument panel
switches. (2) Swiss artist Christoph Buchel has now secured local
permits to bury a Boeing 727 thirty-eight feet under a patch of
California's Mojave Desert, near Bakersfield. Visitors will take a
tunnel down in order to tour the 153-foot-long plane. [USA Today,
12-27-2011] [Associated Press via AZCentral, 1-26-2012]
* In February, a German court awarded artist Stefan Bohnenberger
the equivalent of about $2,600 from the Munich gallery that had
previously housed his work, Pommes d'Or, which consisted of two
ordinary french fries contrasted with two golden-leafed ones. The
gallery returned the golden-leafed ones but claimed it could not find
the ordinary fries, and, anyway, pointed out that they were nothing
but old french fries. [The Local (Berlin), 2-9-2012]
Police Report
* Police officers are of course generally forbidden to engage in sex
acts in order to gather evidence. Thus, a scandal erupted in the UK
in January when The Guardian revealed that two undercover
officers had fathered children (to enhance their credibility) while
infiltrating protest groups beginning in the 1980s. After the two
women learned in late-2011 who their kids' fathers really were, they
filed lawsuits against the responsible police agencies. (In Sydney,
Australia, a state contractor operated under no such restriction when
it hired, in January, a brothel inspector. Brothels are legal and
regulated in Sydney, and if off-books facilities are providing sex
illegally, the inspector can testify from first-hand knowledge.) [The
Guardian, 1-20-2012] [Ninemsn.com (Sydney), 1-30-2012]
* Mayor Jim Preacher of the town of Norway, S.C., was pulled over
by a state trooper in January for speeding. Preacher was unable to
convince the trooper that his speeding was necessary in the
performance of a mayoral duty, and their encounter apparently
ended bitterly. As soon as the trooper drove off, the mayor turned
on his own blue lights, chased the trooper down, and accused the
trooper of speeding. (Norway disbanded its police department last
year, and a question remains whether the mayor has police powers.)
[Associated Press via WIS-TV (Columbia, S.C.), 1-24-2012]
* The Price Is Right: (1) Ms. Khadijah Baseer was arrested in Los
Angeles in January on suspicion of prostitution. According to
several men, Baseer had opened their car doors in the drive-thru
lane at a McDonald's, offering them oral sex in exchange for
Chicken McNuggets. (2) Misty Kullman, 25, was arrested for
prostitution in Shelby, N.C., in January after police stopped a man
who said Kullman performed an act for the agreed-upon price of $6.
The man said he paid Kullman with a $2 bill, three $1's, and coins.
[Burbank Leader, 1-16-2012] [Shelby Star, 1-25-2012]
Awesome!
* An elite squad of six Chinese soldiers, performing a training ritual
for a public audience in Hong Kong in January, stood in a circle and
passed a satchel of live grenades from man to man, counting down
to the expected moment of explosion. At the last possible second,
the man caught holding the satchel discards it, and all dive into a
hole for protection. At the exhibition, according to Chinese Central
Television, it worked out fine. [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-23-
2012]
Least Competent Criminals
* Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) An unidentified man fled, and is
still at large, after attempting to break into the change machine at
the Busy Bubbles laundromat in Winter Haven, Fla., in January. The
surveillance video showed the man shooting at the machine four
times with a handgun, but no money came out. (2) Two men were
arrested in Albuquerque in January after being caught in the act of a
home burglary by a neighbor, who called the police. The men were
apprehended with various burglarized goodies as they made their
getaway in a grocery store shopping cart. [Winter Haven News
Chief, 1-19-2012] [KOAT-TV (San Antonio, Tex.), 1-18-2012]
Recurring Themes
* When Leona Helmsley's now-deceased dog Troubles inherited
about $12 million from her estate in 2007, it called attention to the
occasional decision by lonely rich people to pass on millions of
dollars to their pets. In December, the former stray cat Tommasino
inherited the equivalent of about $15 million in Italy when his
owner, real estate holder Maria Assunta, died at age 94. The only
pets richer than Tommasino were the German shepherd Gunter
(equivalent of about $140 million in 2000) and the Australian
chimpanzee Kalu (equivalent of about $60 million, though the
estate he inherited was revealed in 2010 to be worthless). [Daily
Mail (London), 12-10-2012, 12-20-2010]
News That Sounds Like a Joke
* (1) Fritz Gall, a self-described failed inventor, opened the
Museum of Nonsense in Herrnbaumgarten, Austria, recently to pay
homage, apparently, to even greater failures than his own. Among
the exhibits are the "portable anonymizer" (a stick holding a black
bar that one holds over his eyes to obscure identity), a transportable
hat rack, a bristleless toothbrush (for people with no teeth), and a
"portable hole" (similar to those that appear in the ground whenever
the Road Runner needs something for Wile E. Coyote to fall into).
(2) Take a Wild Guess: An unidentified man was taken into
custody in Chesapeake, Va., in October after he rushed into the
Regional Medical Center with a machete and a can of gasoline and
demanded to know the "test results." [Huffington Post, 1-18-2012]
[WVEC-TV (Norfolk), 10-21-2011]
Thanks This Week to Dave Shepardson and Craig Cryer 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.