News of the Weird M507, December 25, 2016

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M507 (News of the Weird, December 25, 2016)
by Chuck Shepherd
    

Copyright 2016 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Lead Story                                  

* The rebellion against the absurdities of "Black Friday" this year
by the organization Cards Against Humanity came in the form of
raising money to dig a pointless hole in the ground.  During the last
week of November, people "contributed" $100,573, sending Cards
digging initially for 5.5 seconds per donated dollar.  In 2015,
according to an NPR report, Cards raised $71,145 by promising to
"do absolutely nothing" with it, and the year before, $180,000 by
selling bits of bull feces.  (Asked why Cards doesn't just give the
money to charity, a spokesperson asked why donors themselves
don't give it to charity.  "It's [their] money.")  [NPR via KUOW
Radio (Turnwater, Wash.), 11-27-2016]

Government in Action

* New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation has
completed its two-year project of assigning ID numbers (with
arboreal characteristics) to every one of the 685,781 trees in the
city's five boroughs.  More than 2,300 volunteers walked the
streets, then posted each tree's location, measurements, Google
Street View image, and ecological benefits for the surrounding
neighborhoods ( rainwater retained, air pollution reduced).
(Privacy activists hope the National Security Agency is not
inspired by this.)  [Architecture Daily, 11-28-2016]

The Continuing Crisis

* A note in the New York Times in October mentioned a website
that comprehensively covers everything worth knowing and
wondering--about shoelaces.  Ian's Shoelace Site shows and
discusses (and rates) lacing methods, how to mix lace colors, how
to tie (comparing methods, variations, and, again, ratings), lengths
of laces (how to calculate, which formulas to use, what to do with
excess lengths), "granny knots," aglet repair, and much more--
neatly laid out in dozens of foolproof drawings for the shoelace-
challenged (because no one wants to be caught in a shoelace faux
pas).  [Ian's Shoelace Site, http://bit.ly/1mVIpDO]

* Though the Presidential election of 2016 was certainly more
volatile than usual, one reaction to the outcome was the apparent
ease with which some in America's next generation of college-
trained leaders were sidelined by self-described emotional pain.
The Wall Street Journal reported that special attention was given
by administrators at Tufts University, the University of Kansas,
and Ivy League Cornell, among other places, where their young
adults could "grieve" over the election and seek emotional support,
such as use of Kansas's "therapy dogs" and, at University of
Michigan, the availability of Play-Doh and coloring books for
distraction.  [Wall Street Journal, 11-9-2016]

Ironies

* (1) The County Executive in Cleveland, Ohio, complained in
November of lack of funds (because the county's credit is "maxed
out") for necessary renovations to its well-known sports and
concert venue, the Quicken Loans Arena.  (2) In November, after a
companion asked Victoria Vanatter, 19, what blood-sucking was
like, she let him slice her arm with a razor and taste, but the two
then argued, and Vanatter allegedly grabbed a knife and slashed
him for real.  Police in Springfield, Mo., arrested her after both
people were stitched up at a hospital.  [Cleveland Scene, 11-30-
2016] [Springfield News Leader, 11-18-2016]

* Recurring:  The most recent city to schedule a civic-minded
conference with community leaders to discuss options for
affordable, accessible housing--in a meeting place that was highly
unfriendly to the non-ambulatory--was Toronto, in November.  The
first proposed site required a seven-step walk-up, but following
complaints, officials re-located it--to a building whose only rest
room was in the elevator-free basement. [Toronto Star, 12-7-2016]

Questionable Judgments
                                       
* The Space World theme park in Kitakyushu, Japan, opened a
popular (with visitors) ice-skating rink in November but was
forced to close it two weeks later for being hugely unpopular (with
social media critics).  The park had placed 5,000 fish and other sea
animals in the ice deck of Its "Freezing Port" rink so that skaters
could look down as they glided along, gazing at marvels of nature
(all dead in advance, of course, purchased from a fish market).
Nonetheless, the park manager apologized for grossing out so
many people and closed the exhibit (melting the ice and conducting
an "appropriate religious service" for the fishes'  souls).  [CNN, 11-
28-2016]

* The government-run TV Channel 2M in Morocco apologized for
a segment of its daily program "Sabahiyat" that featured a makeup
artist demonstrating techniques for obscuring blemishes on women
subjected to domestic violence.  The model being worked on had
been made up with swollen face and faked bruises.  Said the host,
"We hope these beauty tips will help [victims] carry on with your
daily life."  (Bonus:  The program aired November 23rd--two days
before International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against
Women.)  [The Guardian (London), 11-27-2016]

* Cunning Strategies:  (1) Shogo Takeda, 24, said he desperately
needed a job at the elevator maintenance company in Yokohama at
which he was interviewing (with the president) on November 10th,
but somehow could not resist taking the man's wallet from a bag
when the president briefly left the room.  (Takeda had dropped off
his resume beforehand and thus was quickly apprehended.)  (2)
Mark Revill, 49, pleaded guilty in November to stalking the actor
Keira Knightley.  He said he had become frustrated that his flood
of love letters was being ignored and so approached the front door
of Knightley's London home and "meowed" through the letterbox.
[Japan Times, 11-21-2016] [London Evening Standard, 11-21-
2016]

Wait--You Mean This Is Illegal?

* (1) A substitute teacher at Sandhills Middle School in Gaston,
S.C., was charged with cruelty to children in December after she,
exasperated, taped two kids to their desk chairs for misbehaving.
(2) A second-grade teacher at Landis Elementary in Houston, Tex.,
was charged with felony cruelty after video showed her punching a
serial troublemaker in the head as he fought her while she walked
him to the principal's office.  (3) A high-school teacher in
Glasgow, Scotland, got in trouble in November for proposing in a
journal that teachers be allowed to cuss back at students who cuss
them.  He wrote that limiting teachers to "Don't call me that" sends
the wrong message.  [The State (Columbia, S.C.), 12-3-2016]
[KTRK-TV (Houston), 11-2-2016] [The Scottish Sun (Glasgow),
11-19-2016]

Recurring Themes

* (1) Add goat horns to the "religious covering" items permitted to
be worn in government identification cards.  It took Mr. Phelan
MoonSong of Millinocket, Maine, two trips to the DMV, but his
ID, after his name change, was finally approved in December,
based on his "Paganism" religion.  (2) In December, a 21-year-old
man became the most recent to fall to his death during a roadside
"pit stop."  Four passengers alighted from a car on the side of
Interstate 15 near Escondido, Calif.; two urinators returned without
incident, and a third also fell about 40 feet but survived.  [WGME-
TV (Portland), 12-6-2016] [San Diego Union-Tribune, 12-7-2016]

The Passing Parade

* (1) In November, an arranged custody swap of a child, from one
grandmother to another in a Walmart parking lot near Dallas, Tex.,
ended when both ladies pulled guns and started firing.  One granny
was hit in the neck and the other arrested after she also fired at an
off-duty officer trying to calm things down.  (2) A 22-year-old man
pedaling a vending cart through downtown Victoria, British
Columbia, in November with large-lettered "420 delivery" on the
carrier was stopped by police and found with a stash of marijuana.
(Selling recreational cannabis is illegal, even though the man had
conscientiously printed, underneath "delivery," "NO MINORS.")
[KDFW-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth), 11-30-2016] [Victoria Police
Department release, 11-10-2016]

A News of the Weird Classic (February 2013)
                                  
* Officials at Seaford, England's, 12th-century St. Peter's Church,
which is renowned for its eerie quietness, created a 30-minute CD
[in 2013] of "total silence," first as a small-scale fund-raising
project but later for general sales (since word-of-mouth had
attracted orders from the noise-annoyed as far away as Ghana).
Those who have heard it said they could make out only the
occasional squeaking of footsteps on the wooden floor and the very
distant hum of a passing car.  Said one admiring parishioner,
"People sometimes like to sit down and just have a bit of peace and
quiet." [Daily Mail (London), 1-27-2013]
  
     Thanks This Week to Mark Hiester, Jay Sokolow, Damon
Diehl, Mel Birge, and Randy Baker, and to the News of the Weird
Board of Editorial Advisors. 
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