News of the Weird, July 26, 2009
Chuck Shepherd
by Chuck Shepherd
Copyright 2009 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
* Unconventional Medicine: British construction worker Martin
Jones, 42, who lost one eye and was blinded in the other in a 1997
explosion, regained his sight this year as a result of surgery in
which part of his tooth was implanted in the eye. Dr. Christopher
Liu of the Sussex Eye Clinic used a piece of tooth because a
"living" "anchor" was necessary hold a patch of Jones's skin
underneath his eyelid, to generate blood supply while a new lens
formed. When the lens was healthy enough, Dr. Liu made a hole
in the cornea for light to pass, and Jones feasted his eye on his
wife, whom he had married four years ago, sight unseen. [Daily
Mail (London), 7-4-09]
Can't Possibly Be True
* Until Mayor Sharon McShurley changed the protocol this year,
fire stations in Muncie, Ind., had been delivering reports to
department headquarters downtown by dropping each one off in
fire engines. McShurley ordered the department to learn how to
send reports by e-mail. [Star Press (Muncie), 6-25-09]
* In June, New York Police Department spent $99,000 on a
typewriter repair contract, which will take on increasing
importance since last year NYPD bought thousands of new
typewriters, manual and electric, costing the city almost $1 million.
NYPD still is not even close to computerizing some of its daily-use
forms, such as property and evidence reports. [New York Post, 7-
13-09]
* Hundreds of Los Angeles's down-and-out live not just
underneath local freeways but inside their concrete structures,
according to a June Los Angeles Times report. The largest "home"
is a double-gymnasium-sized cavern under the Interstate 10
freeway in the suburb of Baldwin Park. That space is nearly
inaccessible, requiring squeezing through a rusty grating,
traversing a narrow ledge, and descending a ladder, to reach "a
vast, vault-like netherworld, strewn with garbage and syringes,"
with toys and rattles and a cat carcass visible on an upper platform
marginally harder for rats to reach. Authorities shy away from the
area, out of fear, but every few years, state officials try to seal the
entrance (which the homeless quickly unseal as soon as the
officials leave). [Los Angeles Times, 5-29-09]
* New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was livid in June
when he learned that inmate Tuvia Stern, housed in the city's
notorious lockup The Tombs, had arranged a privately-catered, 50-
guest bar mitzvah for his son inside the facility's gym, officiated by
a prominent rabbi and assisted by five jail guards. The caterers
were even allowed to bring in knives for food preparation and
dining. It was not surprising that it was Stern who pulled it off,
because at the time he was awaiting sentencing for running two
slick business scams. [New York Post, 6-11-09]
Inexplicable
* According to the Pentagon, there are only 566 surviving U.S.
prisoners of war from the Vietnam era and 21 from the first Gulf
War, but the Veterans Administration has been paying POW-
labeled disability benefits to 966 and 286 people, respectively,
according to an April Associated Press investigation. The AP
found that, even though the Pentagon POW list is posted online,
the VA does not routinely check it when a veteran applies for POW
status. (POW claimants go to the front of the VA disability-
application process and received various other privileges.) .
[MSNBC-AP, 4-12-09]
Family Values
* (1) Thomas Stites, 25, was charged with first-degree sexual
assault of a child in Manitowoc, Wis., in June, thus becoming the
fourth Stites brother to face sex charges recently. (In addition,
brother Michael Stites's wife and their son have also been charged
with sexual assault.) (2) Mykal Carberry, 13, was arrested in
Hyannis, Mass., in March and charged with arranging for the
murder of his 16-year-old half-brother Jordan, so that, according to
police, he could take Jordan's place atop the family's prosperous
Cape Cod cocaine distribution ring. (The boss's job was open
following the boys' father's recent imprisonment.) [Herald Times
Reporter (Manitowoc), 6-2-09] [Tampa Tribune-AP, 3-2-09]
More Sci-Fi Movie Ideas
* (1) Researchers in Japan and Spain found recently that Argentine
ants, normally highly aggressive and territorial, are actually one
huge global colony with three expanding centers: a 3,700-mile
long stretch in Europe, a 560-mile strip in California, and a swath
of Japan's west coast. Researchers hypothesized the kinship
because, when members from those groups were thrown together,
they became docile. (2) A June article in the journal Emerging
Infectious Diseases reported the worldwide reach of incidents of
tapeworms that grow inside humans to nearly 40 feet in length.
The most serious carrier, according to a Scientific American
summary, is salmon sashimi. (Anthony Franz's 2008 lawsuit
against a Chicago sushi restaurant, for a nine-foot-long tapeworm,
is still pending.) [BBC News, 7-1-09] [ScientificAmerican.com, 6-
11-09]
Fetishes on Parade
* Former elementary school principal John Stelmack, 62, was
sentenced in July in Bartow, Fla., to five years in prison for a
collection of child pornography, even though no child was directly
involved. Without the aid of computer software but, rather, using
scissors and paste, Stelmack had meticulously placed photos of the
faces of young girls over the faces of adult women in sexual poses.
[The Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.), 6-11-09]
Least Competent Criminals
* Questionable Judgments: (1) Christopher Lister, 21, pleaded
guilty to a home burglary in June in Leeds (England) Crown Court.
He and two pals had attempted to steal a plasma TV in broad
daylight last year, but witnesses easily identified Lister. He is 7-
feet tall and lives only a few doors down from the crime scene. (2)
Markeith Webb, who was wanted by police for a bank robbery in
Easton, Pa., in June, left a string of indignant phone messages at a
police station, angry that cops had released his photograph to the
media. Just for that, he said, he would make sure they never
caught him. He was captured six days later. [Daily Express
(London), 6-12-09] [Express-Times (Easton, Pa.), 6-15-09]
Update
* News of the Weird reported in 2003 on San Francisco artist
Jonathon Keats's project to sell "futures contracts" on his brain
cells (provided science discovers how to keep them alive after he
dies), with $10 buying a million of Keats's radically imaginative
neurons. In a new recent project, which critiques today's
hyperactive media, Keats has published a story in print that will
take almost 1,000 years to read beginning to end. Actually, it is
only nine words long (published in the interactive multimedia print
magazine Opium) and, according to the instructions, the ink will
reveal itself, ever so slowly as it is exposed to air and light, taking
about one century per word. [Wired.com, 6-17-09]
It's Good to Be a British Prisoner (continued)
* (1) A British prison research organization revealed in July that,
over the last 10 years, the country's notoriously generous inmate
furlough program has seen almost 1,000 of its prisoners escape,
including 19 convicted murderers. (The government said the rate
of "non-return" is less than it used to be.) (2) The East Anglican
Daily Times reported in July that its Freedom of Information Act
request, for the names of recent escapees from the Hollesley Bay
prison, had only been partially fulfilled by the government. A list
of the crimes represented by the 39 escapees was handed over, but
not their names, because prison officials said that would violate the
escapees' right of privacy. [BBC News, 7-6-09] [East Anglican
Daily Times, 7-3-09]
A News of the Weird Classic (February 2005)
* Michael Warner, 58, passed away in May 2004 of acute alcohol
poisoning (with a 0.47 blood-alcohol level) in Lake Jackson, Tex.,
from ingesting three liters of sherry wine, which entered his body
by enema. His widow Tammy told authorities that he had been
addicted to taking them since childhood and even had favorite
recipes, such as enemas by coffee, by "Castile" soap, by "Ivory"
soap. Said Tammy, "I'm sure that's the way he wanted to go out
because he loved his enemas." Tammy was originally charged
with negligent homicide for helping prepare Michael's fatal wine
dose, but the prosecutor dropped the charge. [Houston Chronicle,
2-10-05]
Thanks This Week to Bruce Alter, John Trester, Christine
Van Lenten, Joan Knappenberger, and Graham Wilson, and to the
News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di
Filippo, Geoffrey Egan, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul,
Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and the News of the
Weird Editorial Advisors (Paul Blumstein, John Cieciel, Harry
Farkas, Fritz Gritzner, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill,
Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry
Ellis Reed, Rob Snyder, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).
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