News of the Weird, April 11, 2010
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Lax on Perverts: In February, the Minnesota Board of
Chiropractic Examiners re-licensed Scott Fredin even though he is
still registered as a sex offender following a 2003 conviction for
fondling two female patients during "examinations." Released from
jail in 2006, he had re-applied to the Board, which then found him
"rehabilitated." He agreed to several restrictions on his office
practice, but the Board declined to order him to disclose his crime to
patients. (And in March, the Tennessee Board of Medical
Examiners finally expelled Dr. David Livingston, whom it had
licensed in 1992 despite knowledge of his sex-crime-related
expulsions in two states and his being labeled a "violent sex
offender" by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.) [Star Tribune,
2-25-10] [WSMV-TV (Nashville), 1-27-10, 3-17-10]
The Continuing Crisis
* Ralph Conone, 68, was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, in March
after witnesses identified him as the man who several times had
walked up behind young children, punched them on the head when
their parents weren't looking, and walked away as if nothing had
happened. According to police, Conone confessed that he had been
punching children in public since January because he liked the
"excitement" of getting away with something. [Columbus Dispatch,
3-12-10]
* Police who were called to a home in Charleroi, Pa., in February
arrested Linda Newstrom, 49, for allegedly swinging a baseball bat
(reportedly, a genuine Louisville Slugger) at her 21-year-old son,
Jeffrey, because he had come home drunk. (She whiffed on the first
two swings but connected on the third.) Newstrom told police, "I
brought him into this world, and I'll take him out of this world."
[Observer-Reporter (Washington, Pa.), 2-17-10]
* Roberta Feinsmith, 67, who had been fired by the Jewish
Theological Seminary in New York City, filed a wrongful-discharge
lawsuit in February, claiming that, despite glowing job reviews for
12 years, she was terminated because of her age and because she
complained to other workers about her recently-hired supervisor's
"constant barrages of . . . flatulence." [New York Post, 2-7-10]
* In February, a one-armed man swiped a single cufflink from the
CJ Vinten shop in Leigh-on-Sea, England, and in March, a one-
legged man swiped a single Nike trainer shoe from a store in
Barnsley, England. The one-armed man is still loose, but the one-
legged man was arrested. [Daily Telegraph, 2-8-10] [Yorkshire
Post, 3-10-10]
Yikes!
* A popular TV chef in Italy was fired in February after musing on
the air about the historical popularity of gourmet cat meat.
According to Beppe Bigazzi, 77, cat stew is best cooked after
leaving the meat under running water for three days to tenderize it.
"I've eaten it," he said, "many times." Bigazzi later explained that
he was referring only to a tradition in Tuscany in the 1930s and
1940s and never intended to encourage eating cats today, but
apparently his bosses could not endure the public outcry. [Daily
Telegraph (London), 2-16-10]
* Unintelligent Design: (1) China's Yangcheng Evening News
reported in March that a 6-year-old boy in Ha'erbin City, with 15
fingers and 16 toes, had surgery to get down to 10 and 10. (2) In
March, Zhang Ruifang, 101, of Linlou Village in China's Henan
province, was reported to have a "rough patch" of skin on her
forehead that had recently grown to a length of 2-1/2 inches in the
shape of a horn. (However, dermatologists in the U.S. point out that
the condition is not all that rare.) (3) In February, the parents of
Deepak Kumar, 7, of Belhari in India's Bihar state, sought financial
help for surgery to remove the parasitic twin joined at the hip with
the now-eight-limbed boy. (His father told an Agence France-
Presse reporter that he rejected suggestions that Deepak remain as is
so that villagers could worship him as a deity.) [People's Daily
(Beijing), 3-24-10] [Daily Mail (London), 3-9-10] [Agence France-
Presse, 3-10-10]
Bright Ideas
* Supervisors at the Department for Work and Pensions in Carlisle,
England, issued a directive in March to short-handed staff on how
to ease their telephone workload during the busy mid-day period.
Workers were told to pick up the ringing phone, recite a message as
if an answering machine ("Due to the high volume of inquiries we
are currently experiencing, we are unable to take your call. Please
call back later."), and immediately hang up. [News & Star
(Carlisle), 3-9-10]
* The city health office in London, Ontario, created an online sex-
education game that officials hope will appeal to teenagers in that
its messages are delivered by a cast of iconic superheroes.
According to a February report by Canwest News Service, the
players are Captain Condom (who wears a "cap"), Wonder Vag (a
virgin girl), Power Pap ("sexually active"), and Willy the Kid, with
each fighting the villain Sperminator, who wears a red wrestling
mask and has phalluses for arms. The characters answer sex-
knowledge questions and, with correct answers, obtain "protection,"
but a wrong one gets the player squirted with sperm. At press time,
the game was still accessible at www.GetItOnLondon.com/.
[Montreal Gazette-Canwest, 2-12-10]
More Texas Justice
* The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals almost never encounters an
"improper" conviction, but managed to ease up in February by
taking the death penalty off the table for double-murderer Charles
Hood, who had been sentenced to die by a jury in Plano in 1990.
Hood had learned in subsequent years that his prosecutor and his
judge had had a sexual relationship during his trial, but both denied
it, and courts refused to investigate. Finally, by 2008, both had
confessed to the affair, but the Court of Criminal Appeals still
declined to call the trial unfair. In March 2010, several days after a
New York Times report on the case, the Court found a technical,
face-saving ground on which to lessen Hood's sentence (while still
ignoring the issue of the affair). [New York Times, 2-22-10, 2-25-
10]
* Despite Texas's severe pro-conviction history, one man actually
received a full pardon in February. Tim Cole had been convicted of
rape in 1986, though relentlessly proclaiming his innocence, and a
1996 confession to the crime by another man did not move officials
to re-investigate. When a DNA result (ordered in 2008) confirmed
the 1996 confession, Cole's innocence could no longer be ignored.
In March 2010, Gov. Rick Perry issued a full pardon, but Cole
could not enjoy it. He had died in prison in 1999 after wrongfully
serving 13 years the last three despite the fact that the actual rapist
had already tried to turn himself in. [WOAI Radio, 2-28-10]
Least Competent Criminals
* Not Much of a Challenge for Cops: (1) William Edmunds, 32,
was charged with DUI in March when his car weaved up to the
guard gate at the loading dock for the Montgomery County, N.Y.,
jail, and he asked if this was the Canadian border crossing at
Niagara Falls (more than 250 miles away). (2) Travis Neeley, 19,
was arrested in Lake City, Fla., in March for burglarizing a car,
caught red-handed by the owner, who used the remote control to
lock Neeley inside. Neeley tried several times to unlock a door and
exit, but each time, the owner relocked it before Neeley could get
out, and he finally gave up and waited for police. [Leader Herald
(Gloversville, N.Y.), 3-3-10] [UPI, 3-9-10]
A News of the Weird Classic (May 2004)
* In 1990, News of the Weird reported on a "cargo cult" on Tanna,
one of South Sea islands comprising the republic of Vanuatu.
"Cargo" comes from the cults' belief that the food and supplies that
Americans brought to World War II military staging areas arrived
by divine guidance, and they continued to worship the empty cargo
containers long after the war was over, hoping their prayers would
re-stock them. In May 2004, according to a report in the Sydney
Morning Herald, violence broke out on Tanna when breakaway
Christians, calling the cargo business nonsense, fought with
supporters of "John Frum," the iconic American who symbolizes
continued worship of cargo lockers. About 25 people were
hospitalized, and police had to be dispatched from Vanuatu's capital
of Vila. [Sydney Morning Herald-Sun-Herald Magazine, 5-9-04]
.120 .851
Thanks This Week to Hal Dunham, Michael Ravnitzky,
Laurence Polk, and Dwayne Galit, and to the News of the Weird
Board of Editorial Advisors.
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