Chuck's Weekly Cite-Seeing Tour
The Crème de la Crème, Every Monday

January 30, 2012
(datelines from January 20 or later) (links correct as of January 30)
© 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Port au Prince: If you donated money to Haitian relief, it's fortunate if even a quarter of your dollar has ever found its way to the poor . . two years later. The only exception: the sainted Doctors Without Borders. (Best jobs to have in Haiti: U.S. contractor, Haitian SUV dealer.) World's Greatest Newspaper

South Carolina: In the town of Norway, a trooper pulled over a speeder, who happened to be the mayor, who happened to disagree with the trooper, so when the trooper drove off, the mayor turned on his own blue light, and pulled the trooper over. Nyah- nyha-nyah-nyah-nyah. Associated Press via WIS-TV (Columbia, S.C.)

London: Can't Possibly Be True (I): If the eBay auction holds (he'll know today), Christopher Herbert will be £2051 ($3,225) richer because he offered (as a goof) a blob of dried glue that sorta resembles Homer Simpson. Daily Telegraph

Frankfort, Ky.: The president of the Kentucky Senate, making a big political (photo-op!) deal out of honoring the Newport Aquarium with a ceremony in the Senate chamber, was then faced with the problem of what to do when the on-loan penguin crapped on the floor. Leadership! Lexington Herald-Leader

Shelby, N.C.: Misty Kullman, 25, was busted for prostitution . . in which she supposedly performed some unnamed act for a guy for . . six bucks. (Bonus: He paid with 3 $1s, a $2, and some coins.) Shelby Star

Suriname: A long research project by Conservation International, in a pristine South American area, yielded among other new species a "great-horned beetle (Coprophanaeus lancifer" . . which is a dung beetle the size of a tangerine, with evolved horns because . . apparently ya got to fight for your fair share of dung. LiveScience via Yahoo News

Colombo, Sri Lanka: There's a Sri Lankan Eye Donation Society that supplies many of the world's transplant eyeballs. EDS is glad to have eyeballs upon death, but it also gathers some from the living, from people who believe that giving up their spare eye (who needs two?) will ensure a good afterlife. What a country! World's Greatest Newspaper

Hong Kong: Hotshot Chinese army special forces showed off in public their patented training drill of passing a live explosive from man to man, counting down until detonation, with the unlucky last-man-catching responsible for tossing it into a nearby hole just as everyone dives for cover. This time, everyone survived. Daily Telegraph (London)

Oklahoma City: State Sen. Ralph Shortey introduced a bill to stop that awful practice that food companies have, y'know, using human fetuses to flavor up their foods. Well, just because no company actually does it is not really the point. They might, Shortey seriously explained, because that's what it said on the Internet. Associated Press via Wichita Eagle

Los Angeles: "LAPD Cracks Down on Drone Aircraft Use by Real Estate Agents" and so . . wait, what? Los Angeles Times

Lynn, Mass.: Tina Cafarelli admitted she bought $64 worth of soda, then immediately fed the cans into a nickel-a-can redemption machine at a supermarket, just to get the cash. (OK, she stole the welfare card to buy the soda, but, still . . ..) Associated Press via Fox News

Winter Garden, Fla.: Can't Possibly Be True (II): A mentally-challenged, totally unsophisticated college-educated mother of two who owns a business wound up paying $135,000 in cash, jewelry, and gift cards to a psychic because the psychic said the lady had a curse that needed to be removed. (Note to Federal Trade Commission: Explore ways of bringing down the cost of curse-removal.) Orlando Sentinel

New York City: A judge (male . . he should know better) declared it common knowledge, as a matter of law, that circumcised and uncircumcised organs look the same when erect (and thus, the fired flasher-cop remains fired even though he's cut, and the alleged flasher wasn't). New York Daily News

Your Weekly Jury Duty [In America, you're presumed innocent . . until the mug shot is released]:

In Wheaton, Ill., Robert Lyons, 39, convicted of murder, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but there's always the appeals court. Rodney Cook, 58, presumed innocent of purse-snatching in Austin, Tex. WLS-TV (Chicago) /// KTBC-TV (Austin)

Thanks to Sandy Pearlman, Marty Braun, Perry Levin, and MaryAnne Anderegg, and the mighty NOTW Board of Editorial Advisors.

Chuck's Weekly Cite-Seeing Tour
The Crème de la Crème, Every Monday

January 23, 2012
(datelines from January 13 or later) (links correct as of January 23)
© 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Seattle: Michael Bertsch is nuts certain that Rupert Murdoch is stalking him. Sample evidence: In the Fox film Donnie Darko, Donnie's sister is Elizabeth, same as Michael's. The X Files go-to number is 1013; the first three, and the last four, digits of Michael's SSN total "10" and "13." And so forth. Case closed. Hollywood Reporter

Winter Haven, Fla.: He shot the laundromat's change machine four times with his semi-automatic, but the brave, stoic machine still would not give up the cash. Winter Haven News Chief

Buffalo, N.Y.: Why Does Buffalo Pay for Its Teachers to Have Plastic Surgery? Actually, even the union wants that benefit to be killed, but the way collective bargaining works, it just keeps hanging around. Last year, 500 teachers exploited it. The Atlantic

Atmore, Ala.: U.S. Supreme Court justices Scalia and Thomas, dissenting to their colleagues' sympathy for a death-row inmate whose appeal got lost in the system, renewed their deeply-held belief that, under the Constitution, "actual" innocence in the face of conviction is irrelevant--even if the actually-innocent person is facing the needle. Wall Street Journal

Meghalaya, India: Women rule, at least in inheritances; men are left to become alcoholics. Now, the ones whose testicles haven't yet been bred out are demanding equality. BBC News

Seoul: Eight smugglers were arrested for a 2010 scheme to avoid paying import taxes in Japan. Their bright idea: hide the gold in their rectums. Associated Press via Yahoo News

Hudson, Fla.: David Belniak, slam-dunk-convicted of DUI manslaughter in 2007 and serving 12 yrs, belatedly has figured out that it was the victim's fault for getting run into from behind. Lawsuit! Tampa Bay Times

Monterey, Calif.: Licensed California marine biologist Nancy Black was indicted for violating the 1972 Marine Mammal Preservation Act, i.e., taking glorious, one-of-a-kind pictures of whales feeding. Max penalty: 20 yrs in prison and a half-million dollar fine. (Your government knows best.) The Economist

Waynesboro, Va.: Pathetic (I): Keith Brown, 54, fleeing police for the second time in six weeks, crashed his car and tried to make a run for it . . and by "run," I mean scurrying as fast as his walker would take him. News Leader (Staunton, Va.)

Albuquerque: Pathetic (II): Two alleged home burglars were arrested fleeing in their getaway car . . shopping cart. KOAT-TV

San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain: Every January 16th (with roots back to the Eighth Century) villagers have ridden their horses through ceremonial street fires, to purify the animals and bring fertility and good health. A Christian priest supervises. ABC News (photos!)

Chicago: Equity Lifestyle Properties Inc. fired receptionist Sharon Smiley because she took too long on her lunch break continued to work during her lunch break (in violation of office rules). ABC News via Yahoo News

Your Weekly Jury Duty [In America, you're presumed innocent . . until the mug shot is released]: (1) Jerad Arnold, Boone, N.C. (Either buy a magazine subscription from me or do drugs or sex with me--your choice). (2) David Peters, Streetsboro, Ore. (oh, yes, child porn). (3) Roger Rouland, Waco, Tex. (oh, yes, yes, yes, child porn).

Thanks to Gerald Sacks, Kathryn Wood, Daniel Raymond, Dave Shepardson, Peter Smagorinsky, Perry Levin, and the mighty NOTW Board of Editorial Advisors.

Chuck's Weekly Cite-Seeing Tour
The Crème de la Crème, Every Monday

January 16, 2012
(datelines from January 6 or later) (links correct as of January 16)

Karnataka state, India: The December food-rolling ritual was once again panned by religious leaders. (By century-old tradition, lower-caste people wrap themselves in leftover food from upper-caste people and roll around in it . . to improve the skin. Charming. BBC News

Calabasas, Calif.: The state-of-the-art fertility company PlanetHospital was revealed to have a package for wannabe mothers who are really, really impatient. For an extra fee, they'll up your odds of conception by implanting your eggs into two Indian women at the same time. Downside: Both may work, and it's rude to abort. Slate.com

Athens, Greece: The Labor Ministry beefed up official disability-benefit categories . . to include luckless unfortunates such as kleptomaniacs, exhibitionists, and pedophiles.   Associated Press via Washington Post

Texas City, Tex.:  An auto accident victim spent 4 hours in the Mainland Medical Center's ER (exam, diagnostic tests) before being released, with the probable bill of $4,850, which is obviously ridiculous but expected.  That was before the hospital found out that there would be litigation associated with the accident. New bill: $20,211. Galveston Daily News

Jerusalem:  At a big-time world gynecology conference last week, all female doctors had to sit together on one side, and only males were allowed to address the audience (because there's that ultra-Orthodox thingy going on).    The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Kermanshah, Iran:  A 21-yr-old man got a bad tattoo on his penis (the inker pricked too deep) and now has a permanent semi-hard.  (Doctors tried a shunt to drain excess blood, but it didn't work.  "[T]he patient has declined to undergo further therapies and lives with his condition.")  Journal of Sexual Medicine via ABC News

eBay:  [Not clear whether it's a sale or an auction, but] A seller is offering an 8-oz. bottle of swimming pool water swum in by Tom Cruise and family on 7-16-2011 in Miami Beach.   Around $100.  Jonathan Turley blog

Las Vegas:  NOTW readers know about teledildonics (remote sensoring of your woman's vibrator as if you were right there), and now one TD firm is giving away 1,000 kits to wives of deployed U.S. military.  PC Magazine

Washington, D.C. (Why voters love government!):  All motor fuel companies will pay a big-bucks statutory penalty this year, and next, because they failed to add a certain mandated biofuel to their gasoline . . even though said mandated biofuel does not yet exist.  (That's interesting, said EPA, but irrelevant.)   New York Times

Coventry, England:  An aggressive, malignant mouth tumor was removed by surgery the patient's coughing it out of her mouth. She's now cancer-free. (Such a result, said her doctor, is "uncommon.") World's Greatest Newspaper

Dayton, Ohio:  Bullets are valid holdup weapons only if they're inside a gun.  Dayton Daily News

Southwark, England:  British justice lowered the boom on a guy with 1,000,000 child porn images. He got one year (suspended), plus treatment and registration as a sex offender. [F State punishment for a million images would include razoring out his eyeballs followed by death in a fire.] World's Greatest Newspaper

Jacksonville, N.C.:  [ed.: not sure about this one] Police in Jacksonville, N.C., say the suspect must've smuggled the .22-caliber pistol into jail inside his wazoo (since, after all, we strip-searched him). However, the gun is 10 inches long, and his wazoo wasn't particularly torn up. He said he found the gun in a cell, which, along with "poor strip-search," would be things cops would rather not cop to. Jacksonville Daily News

Osaka, Japan:  Trouble ensued when The Galerie shop tried to play around with the Japanese word for "lucky bags" ("fukubukuro," designating the country's after-New Year's sales), designing posters for its English-speaking customers. Hilarity ensued! World's Greatest Newspaper

Grants Pass, Ore.:  After the slightly-smaller Roseburg, Ore., installed locally-funded bus shelters for $11k each.  Grants Pass installed five, but because it used federal and state funds, with the usual strings attached (for labor, environmental, due-process, etc., mandates), it will pay $106k each. The Oregonian

Thanks to Geoff Egan, Judith Hicks, Gerald Sacks, and the mighty NOTW Board of Editorial Advisors.

Yo, Weirdos and Weirdettes,
Something has come up.  Nothing really serious.  It's just that I have to end Pro Edition.  I'll still be publishing, but the scope for Pro Edition requires too much from me.  The News of the Weird column is about all that I can handle, and it will continue.  (The last time the world was without a News of the Weird column, Ronald Reagan was President.) 
However, I believe I can manage to write up a list of my favorite 12-15 news links every Monday, unstructured, without much ado.  I'll try that tomorrow morning.  We'll see what happens.
I'll soon be getting around to cleansing all my promotional materials so that you won't see Pro Edition referred to anymore (except those of you who have signed up for the Google Group "ProWeird," which will continue to be the name of the group that gets my Monday morning hit parade).
You might even prefer the hit parade to Pro Edition.  I know I will.
Cheers.