News of the Weird, November 20, 2011
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2011 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* At press time, Melinda Arnold, 34, was waiting to hear whether
her mother would be accepted as an organ donor for her daughter--
with the organ being the mom's womb. Melinda (a nurse from
Melbourne, Australia) was born without one (though with healthy
ovaries and eggs), and if the transplant by Swedish surgeon Mats
Brannstrom of Gothenburg University is successful, and Melinda
later conceives, her baby will be nurtured in the very same uterus in
which Melinda, herself, was nurtured. (Womb transplants have
been performed in rats and, with limited success, from a deceased
human donor.) [Daily Mail (London, 10-18-2011]
Government in Action
* A British manufacturer, BCB International, is flourishing, buoyed
by sales of its Kevlar underwear, at $65 a pair, to U.S. military
personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, soldiers and Marines
must buy them directly; the "Bomb Boxers" are not supplied by the
Pentagon even though nearly 10 percent of battlefield explosive-
device injuries result in sometimes-catastrophic genital and rectal
damage. According to an October report in Talking Points Memo,
the Pentagon's currently issued protection is inferior to BCB's but is
less expensive. (Although the Pentagon fully funds post-injury
prostheses and colostomies, it could purchase about 7,700 Boxers
for the price of a single Tomahawk missile.) [Talking Points
Memo, 10-18-2011]
* In what a cement company executive said is "one of those
bureaucratic things that doesn't make any sense," the city of Detroit
recently built wheelchair ramps at 13 intersections along Grandy
Street, despite knowing that those ramps are either not connected to
sidewalks or connected to seldom-used, badly-crumbling sidewalks.
The ramps were required by a 2006 lawsuit settlement in which
Detroit pledged to build ramps on any street that gets re-paved, as
Grandy was. (No one in city government thought, apparently, to
attempt a trade of these 13 intersections for paving 13 more-widely-
used ones in the city.) [Detroit News, 10-28-2011]
* A Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV investigation revealed in September
and October the astonishing result that Illinois laws passed in 1997
and 2007 at the behest of organized labor have given at least three
former union leaders lifetime government pensions as if they had
been city or state employees, totaling an estimated drain on public
budgets of about $7 million. Two teachers' union officials were
allowed to teach exactly one day to qualify, and an engineers' union
official was hired for exactly one day, with the remainder of the
service of the three having been on the payroll of the respective
unions. A September Tribune report estimated that perhaps 20
other union officials might have been eligible under similar
provisions. [Chicago Tribune, 9-21-2011, 10-22-2011]
Great Art!
* It was haute couture meeting haute cuisine at the Communication
Museum in Berlin in November, as prominent German chef Roland
Trettl introduced his fashions (displayed on live models) made from
food, including a tunic of octopus, a miniskirt of seaweed, a trouser
suit made with lean bacon, a scarf of squid ink pasta, and a hat
woven from lettuce. The museum director (presumably without
irony) said the items were "provocative" and "raise[d] questions."
[Agence France-Presse, 11-1-2011]
* Veteran New York City performance artist Marni Kotak, 36, gave
birth to her first child, Ajax, on October 25th--and that was her
"art," as the birth took place at the Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn,
N.Y., after Kotak had moved into the space two weeks earlier to
interact with visitors. Previously, Kotak had "re-enacted," as her
"art," both her own birth and the loss of her virginity in the back
seat of a car. (A New York Times report suggested that Kotak may
not be the most extreme performer in her family. Her artist-
husband, Jason Martin, makes videos in which he dresses as a wolf
or dog and "conducts seance-like rituals intended to contact the
half-animal, half-human creatures that visited him in dreams as a
child.") [New York Post, 10-8-2011; New York Times, 10-30-2011]
Police Report
* Cutting-Edge Policing: Officials in Prince George's County, Md.,
reported that crime had fallen as much as 23 percent during the first
nine months of 2011--the result, they said, of holding meetings with
67 of the most likely recidivist offenders in five neighborhoods and
sweet-talking them. The 67 were offered help in applying for
various government and volunteer programs but were told they
would be watched more closely by patrols. [WUSA-TV
(Washington, D.C.), 9-28-2011]
* Milestone: Joseph Wilson, 50, was chased by police and arrested
in Port St. Lucie, Fla., in October and charged with shoplifting from
a Beall's department store. It was his 100th arrest--although
prosecutors are batting only .353 against him (35-for-99). (Wilson's
getaway was delayed when he jumped into the passenger seat of an
idling SUV and ordered the driver to "Take off!" but the driver did
not.) [WPBF-TV (Palm Beach) via MSNBC, 10-7-2011]
* Points for Style: (1) Police in Corpus Christi, Tex., looked to the
public for help in October to find the man who, according to
surveillance video of a city agency building, stole three surveillance
cameras (not the recording units, just the cameras) by lassoing them
from their perches near the ceiling. (2) Theresa Mejia, held in the
Burlington, Wash., police station on kidnaping charges, climbed
through a ceiling vent in a dramatic escape attempt, traversing the
entire length of the building before officers knew where she was.
(However, that put her directly over the police chief's office, and she
crashed through to the floor.) [Seattle Weekly, 10-19-2011]
The Aristocrats!
* (1) Owen Kato, 23, was arrested following a police report in Port
Charlotte, Fla., of a man grossing out customers by standing beside
the entrance to a McDonald's for about 10 minutes, popping his
pimples with his fingers. (2) A man unnamed in a news story was
charged on July 24th with resisting arrest (for trespassing) by failing
to put his hands behind his back. According to the Destin, Fla.,
police report, the man explained, "I can't put my hands behind my
back because I'm making a bowel movement [in my pants]."
(According to the report, that was true.) [Fort Myers News-Press,
8-9-2011] [Northwest Florida Daily News, 8-10-2011]
Least Competent Criminals
* Brent Morgan, 20, was arrested in Prince George, British
Columbia, in October on three counts related to the attempted theft
of a Corvette. Morgan had seen the car in a driveway, jumped in,
and locked the doors. However, the owner had been in the process
of charging the battery, which was still too weak for the car to start
and for the door locks to continue working. Feeling trapped and
sensing that the owner had called the police, Morgan panicked and
began using any available tool inside the car to smash the window.
According to the police report, officers arrived just as Morgan had
broken open the driver's side window but too late for Morgan to
realize that he could have exited the car by manually lifting the door
lock with his fingers. [The Citizen (Prince George), 10-24-2011]
Recent Alarming Headlines
* "Maine Woman Loses Lawsuit Over Removal of Husband's
Brain" (Bangor Daily News, 9-26-2011). "Condoms Rushed to
Thai Flood Victims" (Agence France-Presse, 10-5-2011). "Killer
Sharks Invade Golf Course in Australia" (Sky News [London], 10-
9-2011). "Lingerie Football League Wants to Start a Youth League"
(King5.com [KING-TV, Seattle], 10-20-2011). "Man
Uncooperative After Being Stabbed in Scrotum with Hypodermic
Needle" (Wichita Eagle, 10-10-2011).
A News of the Weird Classic (May 1991)
* Wanda Webb Holloway, 36, was arrested in January [1991] for
putting out a murder contract on a Channelview, Tex., woman.
Holloway thought killing the mother of her 13-year-old daughter's
arch rival would cause the rival to quit the junior high cheerleader
squad in grief, making way for the Holloway girl's selection.
Reportedly, Holloway imagined the other girl's death, too, but
realized that she could only afford one contract. (Holloway's story
spawned two TV movies. She was convicted of soliciting murder,
but the verdict was overturned, and she eventually pleaded guilty in
exchange for a 10-year sentence, of which she served six months.)
[Reuters, 2-1-1991; Abilene Reporter-News, 3-1-1997 (via
Wikipedia)]
Thanks This Week to Telaraj Webster, Arpad Miklos, John
Connell, Andrew Hastie, Karin Lillis, and Kevin Corwin, and to the
News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
*****
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