News of the Weird, July 4, 2010
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
[NOTE: In the 7th item, both of the sources cited represented the
word in question as "F***". I don't normally write that real word out
because of some companies' e-mail filters.]
Lead Story
* In the midst of World Cup fever, readers might have missed
Germany's win over host Barbados in June for the Woz Challenge
Cup, following an eight-team polo tournament with players not on
horses but Segways. The sport is said to have been created by
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, whose Silicon Valley
Aftershocks competed again this year in Barbados (but last won the
Cup in 2007). Wozniak told ESPN.com that his own polo skills are
fading, but the San Jose Mercury News reported in May that Woz's
fearlessness on the Segway seems hardly diminished. (The Mercury
News report, on the Aftershocks' local, nerd-populated league,
described the players as "the pudgy and the pale" and "geek chic.")
[San Jose Mercury News, 5-18-10; ESPN.com, 6-18-10]
The Continuing Crisis
* Stories of epic sportsmanship warm the public's heart, but there is
also epic "cut-throat," such as by Monrovia (Calif.) High School
girls' track coach Mike Knowles. Knowles's team had just been
defeated for first place in the last event of the April league
championship meet by a record-setting pole vault by South
Pasadena High School's Robin Laird, edging her team over
Monrovia, 66-61. But then Knowles noticed that Laird was wearing
a flimsy, string "friendship" bracelet, thus violating a national high
school athletics' "jewelry" rule. He notified officials, who were
forced to disqualify Laird and declare Monrovia the champion, 65-
62. "This is my 30th year coaching track," Knowles said later. "I
know a lot of rules and regulations." [SI.com (Sports Illustrated), 5-
11-10]
* Universal health insurance cannot come soon enough for
uninsured Kathy Myers, 41, of Niles, Mich., who, suffering an
increasingly painful shoulder injury, has been continually turned
away from emergency rooms because the condition was not life-
threatening. In June, as a last resort, she took a gun and shot herself
in the shoulder, hoping for a wound serious enough for ER
treatment. Alas, she missed major arteries and bones and was again
sent home, except with even more pain. [WSBT-TV (South Bend,
Ind.), 6-14-10]
* Britain's Countess of Wemyss and March, now 67, is a hands-on
manager-fundraiser for the Beckley Trust--UK's leading advocacy
organization for legalizing marijuana, according to an April profile
by the Daily Mail. However, she has not forsaken an earlier
psychotropic-promoting campaign. In her early 20s, when she was
Amanda Feilding, she extolled the virtues of trepanation (to produce
clarity of thought by increasing the oxygen in the brain, directly,
by drilling a hole in one's head). Feilding's first boyfriend wrote the
book on the process ("Bore Hole"), and her husband, the flamboyant
13th Earl of Wemyss, has also been trepanned. The Countess still
expresses hope that the National Health Service will eventually
cover trepanning. [Daily Mail, 4-10-10]
Great Expectorations
* People who live or work in New York City believe themselves to
be among the world's toughest and hardiest, but at least 51 of them
are apparently legendarily soft: the 51 city bus drivers who between
them took 3,200 days of paid leave last year to "heal" over the
single workplace "injury" of being spit on by passengers. (Thirty-
two other spit-upon drivers did not request leave.) An official with
the Transport Workers Union called spitting "physically and
psychologically traumatic" and requiring "recuperat[ion]." [New
York Times, 5-25-10]
* The prominent Howrah bridge in Calcutta, India, has become a
serious safety risk, according to a May report for the Calcutta Port
Trust, because the steel hoods protecting the pillars holding up the
bridge have been thinned by 50 percent in recent years. Engineers
believe the corrosion has been caused almost entirely by the
chemicals in gutkha, the popular chewing tobacco/herb concoction,
which produces expectorants routinely hocked onto the bridge by
the 500,000 pedestrians who cross it every day. [The Telegraph
(Calcutta), 5-24-10]
Politicians Who Need to Wash Their Mouths Out With Soap
* (1) At a public meeting of the Dixon, Calif., City Council in May,
Councilman Michael Ceremello refused to yield the floor to a
colleague ("[Y]ou don't have the floor. Please sit back and shut the
[F word] up"). (2) Paul Gogarty, a Member of Ireland's Parliament,
during a public session in May, answering the criticism of an
opponent ("With all due respect . . . [F word] you, Deputy Stagg, [F
word] you."). [KOVR-TV (Sacramento), 6-3-10] [Sky News
(Isleworth, England), 5-25-10]
Fine Points of the Law
* Inventor Jiro Takashima, 75, maintains that his Pro-State
massager is a serious medical device (retailing for about $80), but
his daughter-partner Amy Sung, 35, simultaneously markets it as a
prostate sex-play toy called the Aneros at adult novelty stores
(retailing for about $50). According to a June Houston Chronicle
report, Takashima's booth at medical conventions is popular, but at
sex expos, he and his daughter are "rock stars." However, since the
Pro-State/Aneros was intended as a medical device, competing sex-
toy makers have felt free to copy Aneros's design, and Takashima's
lawsuit to stop them is now before a federal court in Houston.
[Houston Chronicle, 6-5-10]
The District(s) of Calamity
* Washington, D.C., Attorney General Peter Nickles ordered an
investigation in June after learning that the city's payroll office had,
over a seven-year period, failed to remit the life-insurance
premiums deducted from the paychecks of at least 1,400 employees.
Already, one employee had been told that her policy had been
canceled because of the unremitted premiums. (Until the
investigation is finished, it is impossible to say which of the two
usual explanations of chronic D.C. bureaucratic dysfunction--theft
or "large-scale human error"--is applicable.) [Washington Post, 6-
16-10]
* Vying in recent years with Washington, D.C., as the nation's
"district of calamity" is Detroit, whose previous mayor, Kwame
Kirkpatrick, was in May ordered to prison to serve 1-1/2 to 5 years
after violating his probation on his conviction for lying under oath.
In June, Detroit's school board president Otis Mathis resigned under
fire, then tried to un-resign by offering to cure himself of the
behavior that started his downfall, specifically, Mathis's touching
and fondling himself during several one-on-one meetings with the
school system's General Superintendent, Theresa Gueyser. [Detroit
Free Press, 5-25-10] [WXYZ-TV (Detroit), 6-17-10]
The Aristocrats!
* In the space of about 30 minutes on a June morning, according to
a Dayton Daily News report, Brian Horst, 35, shoplifted several
packages of meat and a jug of Mad Dog 20/20 wine from a store,
inexplicably rolled a stainless-steel tank of carbon dioxide on
wheels away from a restaurant, and disabled an ATM by pounding
it with a rock (after several witnesses spotted him in conversation
with the screen, apparently trying to reason with the machine or
possibly with an imaginary employee inside it). [Dayton Daily
News, 6-14-10]
The Jesus and Mary World Tour (all-new)
* Recent Playdates: (1) Old Forge, Pa., February (Jesus appearing
in a bucket of sauce at Brownie's Famous Pizzeria). (2) Lockport,
N.Y., December (joint appearance of Jesus and Mary in an orange,
sliced open on Christmas morning). (3) Rockford, Ill., April (Jesus
appearing in the MRI of a thoracic spine examination). (4)
Brownsville, Tex., May (Mary appearing on bark from a tree
toppled during a storm). (5) Salford, England, February (Jesus
appearing on a frying pan following the burning of a pancake). (6)
Old Hatfield, England, February (Jesus appearing on a partially
burned log in a fireplace).
[Times-Tribune (Scranton), 2-25-10]
[WGRZ-TV (Buffalo), 1-12-10]
[Improbable.com (Annals of Improbable Research), 4-25-10]
[Houston Chronicle-AP, 5-19-10]
[United Press International-Daily Mail, 3-11-10]
[Welwyn Hatfield Times, 2-17-10]
A News of the Weird Classic (September 2003)
* Tensions were brewing in the family of Zell Kravinsky, 48, and
his psychiatrist-wife Emily over what she believes is his excessive
altruism (according to an August 2003 profile in the New York
Times). Kravinsky is not just a passionate philanthropist (from his
fortune in commercial real estate), but such a strict utilitarian that he
says he would sacrifice his one good kidney (he's already donated
the other one) if it were needed by someone doing more social good
than he. "No one should have two kidneys," he says, "until
everyone has one." He said he cannot value his own kids more than
anyone else's, a point that has angered his parents and caused Emily
to threaten divorce and two friends to abandon him. [New York
Times, 8-17-03]
Thanks This Week to Kathryn Wood, Jan Wolitzky, David
Turley, and Albert Clawson, and to the News of the Weird Senior
Advisors and Board of Editorial Advisors.
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