FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
CHUCK SHEPHERD'S NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
In December, a jury in Ellsworth, Wis., deliberated for three hours
before ruling against Stewart Blair in his lawsuit against his friend Maurice
Poulin for injuries incurred when Blair tripped over a snowplow blade. Blair
claimed that Poulin caused the fall when he startled Blair by accidentally
passing gas in his face. And in a postscript to the trial, as the jurors
ceremonially exited the courtroom, the foreman accidentally, audibly passed gas
as he walked by the judge.
** ** ** THE
ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
-- In August, police in Sao Paulo, Brazil, arrested master thief Robson
Augusto Araujo and confiscated a stash of his business cards with the firm name
(in Portuguese) "Thefts and Robberies, Ltd." and his job title "Thief." Though
the card's address was fake, the cellular phone number was real, along with the
legend "325 iS," which is the model of BMW he specialized in stealing.
-- And in August, police in Chandler, Ariz., confiscated a videotape
allegedly made by four teen-age boys known as the Insane Skate Posse and
containing inspirational promotional messages of mayhem and destruction designed
Universal Press Syn.UNP-347
to recruit new members for their gang. They are shown having fun by smoking
marijuana, drinking beer, destroying a parked car and making harassing phone
calls.
-- In July the Catholic Church in the Netherlands announced it had
reached an agreement with cellular telephone companies to sell space on church
steeples for the companies' antennas.
-- In October, The New York Times reported that Kimberly-Clark Corp. had
received a patent for chemically realistic, synthetic feces that it regards as
crucial for testing diapers and incontinence garments. Technicians had concluded
that makeshift substances, such as mashed potatoes, peanut butter and canned
pumpkin pie mix were inadequate because they separated into liquids and solids
more quickly than feces does.
-- The People's Insurance Company of China recently began offering a
marriage insurance policy, in which a couple that divorces forfeits all premiums
paid, but a couple that stays together 25, 40, or 50 years stands to gain
substantial dividends.
-- In December, Dr. Henry Abrams of Loveladies, N.J., who was Albert
Einstein's ophthalmologist and who removed Einstein's eyes during his autopsy in
1955 (storing them in a safe-deposit box ever since), announced the eyes were
for sale and said he expected they could bring $5 million.
Universal Press Syn.UNP-349
-- Vermont Business Magazine reported last spring that the
Holstein-Friesian Association, which exports pedigreed dairy cattle and must get
them quickly to their clients in Europe and Saudi Arabia, delivers them by air
in Federal Express planes.
** ** **
OVERREACTIONS
-- Recent Sensitive People: Brenda L. Hunter, 31, Zion, Ill., allegedly
shot her brother because she did not like the kind of cheese he was putting on
their chili dinner; Michael R. Waggoner, 37, Knoxville, Tenn., allegedly shot a
man five times in a bar because he thought the man had asked "Have you got a
light, baby?" when the man actually ended the question with "buddy"; Anthony
Foti, 35, Missasauga, Ontario, was charged with severely punching and kicking an
elementary school principal because one of his teachers was wearing a skirt that
was too short.
-- The Charlotte Observer reported in June that a Sanford, N.C., man
drove to City Hall, wearing only a towel, to complain that his water had just
been shut off in the middle of his shower. After the city pointed out that his
account was overdue and that it had mailed two warnings, the man stood in line,
paid his bill, and drove back home to finish his shower.
-- In June, in Liberty, Ohio, police officer Bradley L. Sebastian, tired
Universal Press Syn.UNP-352
of waiting for his food order at Denny's, stormed into the kitchen, held his
service revolver to the cook's head, and told her he would kill her if she
didn't hurry up. In August, in Oklahoma City, a Hardee's restaurant worker,
angered that a drive-through customer continued to complain about the delay in
his order, stripped off his headset, ran to his car, grabbed his gun out of the
trunk, and threatened the customer before fleeing.
-- Christian-oriented radio station WKID in Vevay, Ind., was burglarized
and set afire in September, probably by the man who became angry earlier in the
day when a DJ refused to play his request. (Editor's Note: The song was "Don't
Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw. DJs seeking to avoid trouble are advised to honor
all requests to play that song.)
** ** **
MISCELLANEOUS ELOQUENCE
-- Oklahoma City prosecutor Pattye Wallace, on a jury's recommendation
that Charles Scott Robinson be sentenced to 5,000 years in prison on each of six
counts of rape of a 3- year-old girl (which the judge ruled were to be served in
sequence, from 1995 until the year 31995): "I don't know if we'll get more
30,000-year sentences or not, but [this one] was deserved."
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg,
Fla. 33738, or
[email protected].)
baxk
I don't recognize that command. Key H for Help !back
Universal Press Syn.UNP-353
afire in September, probably by the man who became angry earlier in the day
when a DJ refused to play his request. (Editor's Note: The song was "Don't Take
the Girl" by Tim McGraw. DJs seeking to avoid trouble are advised to honor all
requests to play that song.)
** ** **
MISCELLANEOUS ELOQUENCE
-- Oklahoma City prosecutor Pattye Wallace, on a jury's recommendation
that Charles Scott Robinson be sentenced to 5,000 years in prison on each of six
counts of rape of a 3- year-old girl (which the judge ruled were to be served in
sequence, from 1995 until the year 31995): "I don't know if we'll get more
30,000-year sentences or not, but [this one] was deserved."
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg,
Fla. 33738, or
[email protected].)
(Chuck Shepherd's new paperback book, "America's Least Competent
Criminals" (HarperPerennial), is available at most bookstores.)
FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
CHUCK SHEPHERD'S NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
In December, a jury in Ellsworth, Wis., deliberated for three hours
before ruling against Stewart Blair in his lawsuit against his friend Maurice
Poulin for injuries incurred when Blair tripped over a snowplow blade. Blair
claimed that Poulin caused the fall when he startled Blair by accidentally
passing gas in his face. And in a postscript to the trial, as the jurors
ceremonially exited the courtroom, the foreman accidentally, audibly passed gas
as he walked by the judge.
** ** ** THE
ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
-- In August, police in Sao Paulo, Brazil, arrested master thief Robson
Augusto Araujo and confiscated a stash of his business cards with the firm name
(in Portuguese) "Thefts and Robberies, Ltd." and his job title "Thief." Though
the card's address was fake, the cellular phone number was real, along with the
legend "325 iS," which is the model of BMW he specialized in stealing.
-- And in August, police in Chandler, Ariz., confiscated a videotape
allegedly made by four teen-age boys known as the Insane Skate Posse and
containing inspirational promotional messages of mayhem and destruction designed
Universal Press Syn.UNP-347
to recruit new members for their gang. They are shown having fun by smoking
marijuana, drinking beer, destroying a parked car and making harassing phone
calls.
-- In July the Catholic Church in the Netherlands announced it had
reached an agreement with cellular telephone companies to sell space on church
steeples for the companies' antennas.
-- In October, The New York Times reported that Kimberly-Clark Corp. had
received a patent for chemically realistic, synthetic feces that it regards as
crucial for testing diapers and incontinence garments. Technicians had concluded
that makeshift substances, such as mashed potatoes, peanut butter and canned
pumpkin pie mix were inadequate because they separated into liquids and solids
more quickly than feces does.
-- The People's Insurance Company of China recently began offering a
marriage insurance policy, in which a couple that divorces forfeits all premiums
paid, but a couple that stays together 25, 40, or 50 years stands to gain
substantial dividends.
-- In December, Dr. Henry Abrams of Loveladies, N.J., who was Albert
Einstein's ophthalmologist and who removed Einstein's eyes during his autopsy in
1955 (storing them in a safe-deposit box ever since), announced the eyes were
for sale and said he expected they could bring $5 million.
Universal Press Syn.UNP-349
-- Vermont Business Magazine reported last spring that the
Holstein-Friesian Association, which exports pedigreed dairy cattle and must get
them quickly to their clients in Europe and Saudi Arabia, delivers them by air
in Federal Express planes.
** ** **
OVERREACTIONS
-- Recent Sensitive People: Brenda L. Hunter, 31, Zion, Ill., allegedly
shot her brother because she did not like the kind of cheese he was putting on
their chili dinner; Michael R. Waggoner, 37, Knoxville, Tenn., allegedly shot a
man five times in a bar because he thought the man had asked "Have you got a
light, baby?" when the man actually ended the question with "buddy"; Anthony
Foti, 35, Missasauga, Ontario, was charged with severely punching and kicking an
elementary school principal because one of his teachers was wearing a skirt that
was too short.
-- The Charlotte Observer reported in June that a Sanford, N.C., man
drove to City Hall, wearing only a towel, to complain that his water had just
been shut off in the middle of his shower. After the city pointed out that his
account was overdue and that it had mailed two warnings, the man stood in line,
paid his bill, and drove back home to finish his shower.
-- In June, in Liberty, Ohio, police officer Bradley L. Sebastian, tired
Universal Press Syn.UNP-352
of waiting for his food order at Denny's, stormed into the kitchen, held his
service revolver to the cook's head, and told her he would kill her if she
didn't hurry up. In August, in Oklahoma City, a Hardee's restaurant worker,
angered that a drive-through customer continued to complain about the delay in
his order, stripped off his headset, ran to his car, grabbed his gun out of the
trunk, and threatened the customer before fleeing.
-- Christian-oriented radio station WKID in Vevay, Ind., was burglarized
and set afire in September, probably by the man who became angry earlier in the
day when a DJ refused to play his request. (Editor's Note: The song was "Don't
Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw. DJs seeking to avoid trouble are advised to honor
all requests to play that song.)
** ** **
MISCELLANEOUS ELOQUENCE
-- Oklahoma City prosecutor Pattye Wallace, on a jury's recommendation
that Charles Scott Robinson be sentenced to 5,000 years in prison on each of six
counts of rape of a 3- year-old girl (which the judge ruled were to be served in
sequence, from 1995 until the year 31995): "I don't know if we'll get more
30,000-year sentences or not, but [this one] was deserved."
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg,
Fla. 33738, or
[email protected].)
Universal Press Syn.UNP-354
(Chuck Shepherd's new paperback book, "America's Least Competent
Criminals" (HarperPerennial), is available at most bookstores.)
COPYRIGHT 1995 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE 4900 Main St., Kansas City, Mo.
FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
CHUCK SHEPHERD'S NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
Among the recent uses of DNA genetic "fingerprinting": Scientists at
Oxford University are using it to determine the gender of the world's rarest
bird, the Brazilian blue Spix macaw, whose males ostensibly completely resemble
females. In Panama City, Fla., prosecutors introduced DNA- matched sperm samples
from Sheriff Al Harrison and his office carpet (even though Harrison had
machine-cleaned it) in his January trial for forcing female inmates to perform
oral sex on him. And authorities in Cocoa, Fla., filed cattle rustling charges
against two men in November after matching the DNA of a calf that was the
offspring of a purebred, slaughtered cow with the DNA in an uncooked slab of pot
roast the men allegedly sold after cutting it from the cow.
-- -- -- THE
CONTINUING CRISIS
-- Gordon Davey, 30, was named in November by a TV show in London as
Britain's most boring man, after he waxed rhapsodic about his extensive
collection of brown paper, which he said has fascinated him ever since he was an
art student. Said Davey, "I shall obviously have to try to be more interesting
and less obsessive."
Universal Press Syn.UNP-324
-- Police in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs
conducted a three-week campaign in November to increase motorist awareness of
traffic signals, including the mass distribution of "I Stop for Red Lights"
bumper stickers.
-- California's January 1994 earthquake officially killed 58 people, but
within six months, the state had received almost 400 requests for the $6,000
burial grants from federal disaster funds, by people claiming their dead
relatives perished because of the quake.
-- In July, Vickye L. Phye, 34, pleaded guilty to lesser charges in
Nashville, Tenn., after having been accused of the rape of a 39-year-old woman.
According to the victim, Phye had demanded to perform oral sex on her and then
had "started rubbing me like a man would." Tennessee law defines rape as "any"
sexual penetration.
-- According to a Thanksgiving press release from the Butterball
company, the highlight of calls to the company's emergency hotline occurred in
1993 when a woman reported that her pet Chihuahua had jumped into the cavity of
the family's turkey and was stuck.
-- In November, Japan's Economic Planning Agency, in an annual report,
called on Japanese husbands to participate more in family activities. Agency
surveys estimated that 85 percent of husbands "never" help their wives with
Universal Press Syn.UNP-326
household chores, and that younger women, knowing this, are increasingly
declining marriage, resulting in a falling birth rate that alarms the agency.
-- In October, William Soule, 71, on probation on DUI charges in
Dubuque, Iowa, turned himself in and said he'd rather go to jail. Said Soule, "I
can't take another year of probation." And in September, Kansas prisoner Joe
Carr, 77, convicted of murder in 1941, passed up his parole-board hearing for
the 15th consecutive time. But another Kansas inmate, murderer Marvin D.
Brockett, 64, is vying for parole. Since age 7, Brockett has been free of
correctional facilities for a total of only three years.
-- -- -- WHAT
GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND
-- In July, Robert Minahan, a chef who specializes in crocodile cuisine
at a resort in the Kakadu National Park in Australia, was attacked by a 6-foot
crocodile while swimming at Barramundi Gorge. Said Minahan, "It feels strange to
be on the other end of the food chain."
-- In Grand Junction, Colo., in September, retired Chicago police
officer Arthur R. Smith, 56, allegedly a hit man who fired several gunshots at
Rita Quam, but missed, had a heart attack and died when police officers arrived
to arrest him.
-- In September, four women, using a chemical spray, allegedly attacked
Universal Press Syn.UNP-329
another woman who had beaten them to a parking space at the Galleria mall in
Glendale, Calif., sending the woman to the hospital. Police went to the parking
lot, looking for the women, and found them having an argument outside their car
because the keys were locked inside. After finding the chemical spray, police
charged the women with assault, then helped open the car -- and found shoplifted
clothing in the back seat.
-- The Chicago Tribune, reporting in July on the trial of a marriage
matchmaker in Guangzhou Province, related the testimony of a barber who agreed
to offer his unwilling wife to the matchmaker for a scam in which they would
sell the woman to a farmer, collect the fee, then immediately retrieve her. The
barber was first cheated out of the promised reward and now faces life in prison
for selling his wife. Furthermore, the wife preferred the farmer, anyway, and
will not be returning to the barber.
-- -- -- I
DON'T THINK SO
-- In November, acting on a tip, Juneau, Alaska, police raided the hotel
room of an Oregon man and found cocaine and $10,000 in cash, which the man later
relinquished in his haste to leave the state before charges were filed. When
police asked him why he had such a large amount of cash, he said it was given to
him by a woman (whose name he could not recall) as a reward for great sex.
Universal Press Syn.UNP-331
-- Ener Arcilla Henson, 34, was arrested in Glendale, Calif., in January
and charged with stealing a "humvee" military vehicle from the local National
Guard armory. Police said Henson was driving the vehicle at night without
lights, refused to acknowledge them when they signaled him to pull over, and
said, when finally stopped, that President Clinton had given him the humvee.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg,
Fla. 33738, or
[email protected].)
(Chuck Shepherd's new paperback book, "America's Least Competent
Criminals" (HarperPerennial), is available at most bookstores.)
COPYRIGHT 1995 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE 4900 Main St., Kansas City, Mo.
FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
CHUCK SHEPHERD'S NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
In Columbia, S.C., in December, Rev. Noel Vande Grift revealed plans to
expand his 20-member [Richard M.] Nixon Memorial Church, a congregation blending
Baptist and Quaker preachings. Vande Grift said the inspiration to name the
church after the former president came during a prayer. He told reporters the
church would be the largest in the South by the year 2010.
-- -- -- THE
DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
-- Non-Whitewater news from Arkansas: In Eureka Springs, alderman
candidate Louise Berry died on Oct. 6, but her supporters continued to run ads
against her opponent. On Nov. 8, because of the effectiveness of the campaign,
Berry pulled out a narrow victory. In September, attorney-general candidate Dan
Ivy won his fight to stay on the ballot despite having been convicted of beating
his wife two months earlier. Mrs. Ivy had helpfully made an audio recording of
the beating; on the tape, Ivy appeared mainly concerned about recovering
valuable coins his wife had put in a safe- deposit box. After Ivy told her he
wanted his coins, she reminded him it was Sunday and that the box was not
accessible; during the remainder of the 30-minute tape, Ivy says "I want my
Universal Press Syn.UNP-257
coins" 76 more times. Ivy lost the election.
-- In August, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Billy Inmon collapsed and had
to be hospitalized after a 27-day hunger strike outside the Capitol in Columbus.
He was trying to get incumbent George Voinovich to debate him, but Voinovich
never did. However, 18 days into the strike, a man protesting Inmon's anti-gay
policies urinated on Inmon's tent, provoking Inmon to point a gun at him.
-- In May, Richard Finney, 34, flunked his driver's license exam in
Topeka, Kan. The next day he returned to the exam office, accompanied by his
mother, Gov. Joan Finney, who, according to a licensing employee "was mad. She
was real mad." After the governor scolded the examiners, Richard Finney was
escorted to the front of the line and administered the exam again, by the
supervisor of the office. He passed.
-- In the April election for city council in Ypsilanti, Mich., incumbent
Geoffrey Rose turned over his voter list to student Frank Houston, 18, who had
offered to help him get out the vote. Armed with the list, Houston went door to
door and then won the election himself as a write-in candidate. He told
reporters afterward that he did not deceive Rose: "All I ever said all along was
that I was going to get people to vote."
-- In Rice, Minn., Virgil Nelson and Mitch Fiedler, who tied 90-90 in
the November election for a city council seat, settled the race by drawing
Universal Press Syn.UNP-259
cards. On the first try, both drew 8's, and on the second, both drew aces. Then
Nelson drew a 7, and Fiedler drew an 8 for the victory.
-- In August, Mascotte, Fla., mayor Josh Thomas was arrested and charged
with stealing nearly $7,000 worth of dirt, over a period of several days, from a
construction site.
-- Marion Barry, re-elected as mayor of Washington, D.C., after serving
six months in prison on a 1991 cocaine possession charge, was assisted by the
75-felon-member Coalition of Ex-Offenders, who went door to door campaigning for
him. According to organizer "Roach" Brown, the coalition members were especially
helpful because they went into the toughest neighborhoods to register D.C.'s
substantial criminal population, most of whom were unaware that a 1976 law gave
them voting rights.
-- -- --
CLICHES COME TO LIFE
-- In April in Grand Junction, Colo., Ed Tucker bought his son a toy
airplane made in Taiwan. When he unpacked it, he found a note in English written
by a man who said he was being held prisoner and subjected to human rights
abuses and begging someone to help him.
-- In December in Pittsburgh, Pa., two inmates escaped from Allegheny
County Jail by tying bedsheets together and making a 200-foot rope, which they
Universal Press Syn.UNP-262
hung out a window and climbed down.
-- In June, Damian Michael Toya, 22, pleaded guilty to voluntary
manslaughter in Albuquerque, N.M., for shooting his father to death. Toya
claimed his father had long ridiculed him for being gay and unmanly. According
to Toya, the father's last words, when Toya pointed the gun at him, were, "You
don't have the guts to do it."
-- Federal law permits victims' lawyers in civil rights cases, if they
win, to have their fees and expenses paid by the losing party. Among the
expenses that Rodney King's lawyers submitted to the City of Los Angeles for
compensation were these: accompanying King to see the film "Malcolm X" ($1,300);
reading a newspaper article about the trial (20 minutes) ($81.25); and attending
King's 1991 birthday party ($650). The total requested was $4.4 million, more
than King himself won in the lawsuit ($3.8 million).
-- A month after Susan Smith said a carjacker made off with her two boys
in Union, S.C., a man in Lubbock, Texas, jumped into Donna Robles' Dodge and
sped off, probably unaware that her son, Ethan, 3, was strapped in the back
seat. The car was found crashed two blocks away, with Ethan unhurt. Police
speculate that Ethan's beginning to cry so startled the thief that he lost
control of the car. He escaped.
-- -- --
Universal Press Syn.UNP-264
MISCELLANEOUS ELOQUENCE
Annette Green, president of an association of perfume and cologne
manufacturers, on why some celebrity-named products sell well but not others:
"As it turns out, people didn't necessarily want to smell like Cher."
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg,
Fla. 33738, or cshepherd(at)igc.apc.org.)
(Chuck Shepherd's new paperback book, "America's Least Competent
Criminals" (HarperPerennial), is available at most bookstores.)
COPYRIGHT 1995 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE 4900 Main St., Kansas City, Mo.
FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
CHUCK SHEPHERD'S NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
In December, a jury in Ellsworth, Wis., deliberated for three hours
before ruling against Stewart Blair in his lawsuit against his friend Maurice
Poulin for injuries incurred when Blair tripped over a snowplow blade. Blair
claimed that Poulin caused the fall when he startled Blair by accidentally
passing gas in his face. And in a postscript to the trial, as the jurors
ceremonially exited the courtroom, the foreman accidentally, audibly passed gas
as he walked by the judge.
** ** ** THE
ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
-- In August, police in Sao Paulo, Brazil, arrested master thief Robson
Augusto Araujo and confiscated a stash of his business cards with the firm name
(in Portuguese) "Thefts and Robberies, Ltd." and his job title "Thief." Though
the card's address was fake, the cellular phone number was real, along with the
legend "325 iS," which is the model of BMW he specialized in stealing.
-- And in August, police in Chandler, Ariz., confiscated a videotape
allegedly made by four teen-age boys known as the Insane Skate Posse and
containing inspirational promotional messages of mayhem and destruction designed
