News of the Weird...

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Hare Krishna.

 

News of the Weird(.661)

 

LEAD STORIES

 

A New York appeals court ruled in July that a 53-year-old,

serial-plastic-surgery patient, who became dissatisfied with her

tucked-and-tightened body after 12 operations over a seven-year-period,

could sue her doctor for malpractice, despite her consent to all surgeries,

because she might suffer from the disorder that causes a person to think his

body is ugly. (Doctors contacted by the New York Observer wondered which, if

any, of their patients are totally free of the disorder.) The complaining

patient has had work done on her nose, eyelids, chin, eyebrows, flanks,

thighs, knees, breasts and tummy.

 

Central Illinois farmer Dan Aeschleman recently converted his land to a more

lucrative use: attracting foxes and then selling their urine in pump-spray

containers ($11.95 for 16 oz.) to landowners to keep nuisance animals away

with the "presence" of a predator. According to a September report in The

Pantagraph newspaper of Bloomington, Ill., Aeschleman says the tricky part

-- getting the non-domestic foxes to urinate in an orderly fashion and then

collecting it all (10,000 gallons a year) -- is a "trade secret."

 

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Revoke Their Parenting Licenses!

 

According to Martinsville, Ind., prosecutors, Judy Kirby, 31, mother of 10,

intentionally killed four of them in March after she drove into oncoming

traffic for more than two miles and struck a minivan (also killing three of

its occupants); her doctors say they will testify at her upcoming trial that

she suffered from postpartum depression and should not be punished. And

Jeane Newmaker, 46, was charged in Golden, Colo., in September with child

abuse for going along with a "therapy" in which four practitioners squashed

her 10-year-old adopted daughter to death; the "therapists" were

"rebirthing" the child (supposedly to compensate for an abusive biological

mother) by getting her to simulate escaping the womb, but they accidentally

suffocated her despite her more than 50 pleas for help over a 70-minute

session.

 

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The Continuing Crisis

 

A highlight of the East Finley Summer Festival in Claysville, Pa., in July

was the return of the popular "chicken-flying contest" after a 10-year

hiatus. As explained by the Observer-Reporter newspaper of Washington, Pa.,

chickens are placed in ordinary mailboxes, which are then abruptly opened

with a toilet plunger, which somehow sends them flying hundreds of feet,

with the longest flight winning first prize. During chicken-flying's hiatus,

said Festival sponsors, cow-patty bingo was featured but was not nearly as

exciting.

 

The Al Salam Mosque Foundation filed a $6.2 million federal lawsuit in

August against Palos Heights, Ill., which had reneged on a promise to pay

the Muslim group $200,000 to change its mind about buying a local building

and converting it to a place of worship. The city council had made the cash

offer, reportedly, because some council members preferred not to have such a

prominent Muslim presence in the town. Then, when the Foundation accepted

the cash offer, the Palos Heights mayor vetoed it, complaining that the

offer was an "insult" to the Muslims.

 

Relieving the Doctor Shortage: According to an April Los Angeles Times

report, imposter "Dr." Adam Litwin roamed UCLA Medical Center with impunity

for six months last year, chatting it up with "colleagues" and keeping

himself busy, being discovered only when a pharmacist reported an

irregularity with a prescription. And "physician's assistant" imposter Gary

Lee Stearley received excellent reviews from several doctors at Mercy

Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pa., in June before being detected; he had previously

"worked" hospitals in Seattle, Richmond and Washington, D.C.

 

No Substitute for a Loyal Dog: Sevier County (Tenn.) sheriff's dog Kysor was

praised in a July Knoxville News-Sentinel report as so faithful that he

withstood a stab wound to the head from a fleeing suspect, hard enough that

the blade broke off, in order to maintain his grip. However, after the man

plunged the knife in, he tried to sic his own dog on the weakened Kysor,

but, according to a deputy, "He whistled for him, but his dog wouldn't

come."

 

Forget About Asking Him to Consider a Trigger Lock for His Gun: In June, a

federal grand jury in Springfield, Mo., indicted Todd Morman Murray, 27, on

charges that he stole 45 pounds of explosives from a chemical plant and

"hid" them in his children's playhouse.

 

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Humans Disrespecting Trains

 

A young man suffered a broken arm when he was walking so close to railroad

tracks that a passing train violently knocked his surfboard out of his hands

(San Clemente, Calif., June). And a 25-year-old woman lost the toes on her

right foot when she crawled under a slow-moving train as a shortcut to the

correct platform (Mount Prospect, Ill., July). And an inebriated man's life

was saved by his wife, who pulled him just in time from the path of a

speeding train after he had lingered on the tracks to make an obscene

gesture at the conductor (Trevor, Wis., June).

 

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Lesson to Kids: Be a Total Screw-Up, Make Millions!

 

According to news reports in July and August, Mack W. Metcalf, 42, of

Florence, Ky., has led a dismal life that included frequent drinking binges,

some DUI and other traffic charges, drug selling, eviction for failure to

pay rent, and a debt of $31,000 in back child support. However, in July, he

won a $34 million lump-sum jackpot in the Kentucky Lottery. (His haplessness

continues: Shortly after he was paid, he handed a woman $500,000 as a gift,

but later realized he was drunk and has now sued to get the money back.)

 

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Recurring Themes

 

The Classic Middle Name (all-new): Arrested for killing his roommate (San

Diego, Calif., August): Aryan Wayne Duntley. Arrested for killing a young

neighbor girl (Oilton, Okla., August): Robert Wayne Rotramel. Sentenced for

murdering and beheading a 20-year-old woman (Orange, Texas, July):

Christopher Wayne Gregory. Application for DNA testing rejected in a murder

case against him (Illinois, August): Randall Wayne Stevens. Convicted in the

murders of five people at a car wash (Irving, Texas, September): Robert

Wayne Harris.

 

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Least Justifiable Homicides

 

Killed over Access to Mating: Edward William Heckman, 58, was charged in

July near Jonesboro, Ga., with killing his wife after she refused to have

sex with him. Baby sitter Robert Cooper, 22, was convicted in June in

Calgary, Alberta, of killing two young boys because they hindered his

attempted seduction of their mother. A man in his 20s allegedly killed 11

people with an Uzi at a Bogota, Colombia, nightclub in June after rejection

by a woman.

 

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Also, in the Last Month . . .

 

Singapore's leading newspaper published a how-to guide to

having sex in cars, in support of the government's campaign to raise the

birth rate. The mayor of a French resort town, which has no cemetery

vacancies and a restrictive land-use law, prohibited dying except by people

with burial space (Le Levandou). The Supreme Court of New Hampshire ruled

that a candidate for office had the right to parade on the street dressed as

a penis, because he was commenting on the political system.

 

Thanks This Time to Jason Bowman, Robert Jacobs, Kerry Flynn, L. Stulz,

William A. Morgan, Lee Nichols, John Cox, Ritchie Stoner, Greg Lief, Allan

Morris, Bob Hawley, David Lips, and R.H. Seidman, and to the News of the

Weird Senior Advisors and Chief Correspondents.

 

 

Hare Krishna --

 

ys, Balarama Dasa