LEAD STORIES * An ancient fear of penis-shrinking sorcery periodically surfaces in Ghana, the latest instance in December. Mobs beat seven men to death in Accra and injured others in Tema, all on rumors that the men had the power to make others' genitals disappear by a mere touch. Police said the rumors were spread by criminal operatives so that crowds of hysterical men would gather, making it easier for the criminals to pickpocket wallets. * Japanese researchers at Tokyo University and Tsukuba University said they will begin in February testing a project to surgically implant microprocessors and electrode sets, and eventually microcameras, into American cockroaches for a variety of possible missions, including espionage surveillance and searching for victims in earthquake rubble. The equipment, which can also receive remote-control signals to command the cockroach's movements, weighs a tenth of an ounce, twice a typical roach's weight but still only a tenth of what it potentially can carry. * In December, the Idaho High School Activities Association rejected a proposal by the superintendent of public instruction for extracurricular firearms competition in junior high schools. But in January in neighboring Wyoming, a House committee approved a bill that would lower the minimum age for big-game hunters to 12. SEEDS OF OUR DESTRUCTION * The New York Times reported in January that the Taliban movement in Afghanistan is presiding over such a bankrupt economy that a viable career field now has men (women are forbidden to work at all) raiding cemeteries of human bones, which are then sold to dealers in Pakistan as animal bones to be fashioned into cooking oil, soap, chicken feed, and buttons. Skulls must first be broken up to preserve the ruse that only animal bones are involved. * Recent Inappropriate Nudity: In September, dozens of schoolteachers from the state of Bihar stripped in front of the Indian parliament to protest low wages. And the Defense Intelligence Agency, in a memo disclosed by the Washington Post in October, reported the emergence of a Liberian leader known as "General 'Butt Naked,'" "from his propensity for fighting naked," which he "probably believes terrorizes the enemy and brings good luck." And Meaux, France, high school philosophy teacher Bernard Defrance was suspended in January for his pedagogical game in which he removes an article of clothing each time a student stumps him with a riddle (sometimes losing everything). * In a July soccer game in Tripoli, Libya, a team sponsored by the eldest son of Muammar Qaddafi suffered a questionable referee's call and began beating the official and the other team. After spectators jeered, Qaddafi and his bodyguards opened fire on them, and some spectators shot back. The death toll was somewhere between eight and fifty, including the referee, and Muammar Qaddafi declared a period of mourning, the hallmark of which was that Libyan TV was to be in black and white only. * Role Model Gains: In October, Marcia Fann, 37, won the prestigious Bass'n Gal Classic Star XX bass-fishing tournament in Athens, Tex. Fann cheerfully discloses that she was formerly a man, having been surgically changed sometime in the 1980s. * In December, the entire 300-man paramilitary police force of the 83-island, South Pacific nation of Vanuatu was arrested for kidnaping a visiting Australian official in order to increase its leverage in an overtime-pay dispute with the government. The force had been suspended in November for kidnaping Vanautu's deputy prime minister for the same purpose, and in October, several members of the force had kidnaped Vanautu's president and held him for almost a day before releasing him because of the populace's seeming indifference. * A July Wall Street Journal story reported that the city jail (capacity 134) in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Wash., does a brisk business charging petty criminals from around the state $64 a day to serve their sentences of up to 40 days in comfortable settings. Reservations are recommended, and the policy is cash only. * A United Nations spokesman in Sarajevo disclosed in November a recent marital quarrel that escalated out of control "in classic Bosnian style" and reflected the war-saturated quality of life. During an argument, the wife of Pero Toljij fled to a neighbor's home, but Toljij chased her with a bazooka he happened to have on hand, fired at her, missed, and hit the couple's own house. He was arrested. BOTTOM OF THE GENE POOL * In October in Massapequa Park, N. Y., four men, ages 19-21, intending to follow a recipe in the Underground Steroid Handbook, failed to wait patiently until the Drano-like concoction had reached a satisfactory pH level to make it milder. The four were hospitalized with bad internal burns, and the concoction also burned rescuing police officers when the four men vomited on them. * In November in Santa Maria, Tex., Luis Martinez, Jr., 25, was stabbed in the neck with a broken bottle by his uncle, allegedly to punish Martinez for not sharing his bag of Frito's. In October a 20-year-old man was hospitalized in Guthrie, Okla., after encouraging his friend Jason Heck to kill a millipede with a .22- caliber rifle; after two ricochets, Heck's bullet hit the man just above his right eye, fracturing his skull. * Phillip Johnson, 32, was hospitalized in Prestonburg, Ky., in December with a gunshot wound just above his left nipple, which he inflicted upon himself because, as he told paramedics, he wanted to see what it felt like. When the paramedics arrived, said the sheriff, they found him "screaming about the pain, over and over." I DON'T THINK SO * David S. Peterson filed a lawsuit against New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson in August for racketeering, seeking three times the sum of money that Peterson had given his girlfriend to buy him clothes but which she had lost gambling at an Indian tribal casino. Peterson said Gov. Johnson was so much a supporter of the Indian gaming industry that it was his fault Peterson was out the money. NO LONGER WEIRD * Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation: (15) The burglar with poor planning skills who attempts to enter a building after hours through a chimney or vent and gets stuck, as Baltimore, Md., police say Dwayne Terry, 33, did at a convenience store on Christmas morning. And (16) certainly the thousands of times a year (about 50 the past year in Fremont, Calif., alone) that trial-bound defendants and others cheerfully place their belongings on the X-ray machines at the entrances of courthouses, only to have their illegal drugs detected. ============================== LEAD STORY * In March an 18-year-old dockworker at Roadway Express in Dallas, Tex., was arrested at a local Western Union and charged with forgery after improperly trying to cash a check made out to his employer. The man produced a photo ID that gave his name as Mr. "Roadway V. Express." After questioning him, the Western Union manager said, "Okay, Mr. Express, I'll be right back [with the money]," but went into another room and called police. [Houston Chronicle, 3-31-96] THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT * The hog-farming Fox family of Mahaska County, Iowa, which for ten years has been selling vials of boar semen for artificially inseminating sows, recently expanded its operation to include a drive-through window for farmers in a hurry. Said Genette Fox, of the playfulness of customers, "'[O]rder of semen and fries'-- I've heard that a million times." [Des Moines Register, 1-18-96] * Sigma Chemical Company in St. Louis, Mo., gained notoriety in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing for making the artificial scents used to train the dogs that helped find dead bodies amidst the rubble. According to the March Discover magazine, the company makes these smells: Pseudo Corpse I (for a body less than 30 days old), Pseudo Corpse II (more than 30 days old), Pseudo Drowned Victim, and Pseudo Distressed Body (for a person still alive but in shock), with Pseudo Burned Victim in the works. [Discover, March 1996] * According to a Reuters News Service report in February, sales are booming for such businesses as the Baltimore, Md., firm Stocks & Bonds Ltd., which makes special furniture for people who engage in erotic restraint, discipline, sadism, and masochism. A primary reason for the upsurge is the influx of mainstream couples, some of whom even shop while pushing their kids in strollers. Said another erotic furniture maker, "Some people get excited about the fact that they might serve coffee to their parents on a table they used to tie each other to the night before." [Reuter wirecopy, 2-14-96; Paper-San Francisco Chronicle, 4-10-96] * Relatives of victims filed a $60 million lawsuit in December against Quaker Oats Co., which was allegedly a sponsor of 1940s and 1950s experiments to feed oats with radioactive tracers to some mentally handicapped schoolchildren. The children were told that eating the cereal was part of a science club experiment, when in reality it helped Quaker in its competition with rival Cream of Wheat. The radioactive bits, according to the lawsuit, allowed researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to trace the absorption of the oats' calcium and iron into the body. [Edmonton Journal-AP, 12-7-95] * Fremont, Calif., paramedic Paul Schmidt, 29, was fired in March for running a side business. He and a partner were marketing a set of nine photo cards of gruesome accidents and murders--"Cards of Death" for $8.95. [San Francisco Chronicle, 4-2-96] * Late last year, Halle, Germany, tavern owner Bernd Helbig introduced "beersicles" at about $3.50 each. (They're just what you think they are.) [Tampa Tribune-AP, 1-14-96] FAMILY VALUES * In December, New York City welfare authorities took custody of three small children who were discovered, filthy and starving, when the father called police to report that his girlfriend (the kids' mother) was missing. Asked by police why he hadn't fed or cleaned the children himself, father Ahmed Aldaeesheh said, "I don't do that." [Des Moines Register-AP, 1-1-96] * William Harasymow, 25, and his brother James, 22, were sentenced to 90 days in jail in Edmonton, Alberta, in January for cultivating marijuana in their home. According to the brothers, who had never been in trouble with the law before, the elaborate setup of plants in their basement had been their father's all- consuming passion until he died two months before, and the brothers had not yet decided what to do with them. Said William, "You love your dad. But it sucks. He didn't leave us with much." [Edmonton Journal, 1-30-96] * In January in Palm Harbor, Fla., a 41-year-old ex-pastor pleaded guilty to persuading his daughter, then age 6, to touch him sexually while he videotaped her. Reflecting on the community support for the ex-pastor, county Judge Charles Cope rejected the normal three-year prison term for the man and instead sentenced him to house arrest--in the same house where the girl, now 8, continues to live. [Tampa Tribune-AP, 1-15-96] UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT * In the last statement given before his February execution in California for the 1979 sexual mutilation-murders of 14 teenage boys, William George Bonin said the death penalty "sends the wrong message" to America's youth. [Greensboro News Record- AP, 2-24-96] * In February, John Howard opened a Ku Klux Klan museum and apparel store, called The Redneck Shop, in Laurens, S. Car. Asked by a reporter what the reaction was by townspeople, Howard said, "The only people I've had a problem with, who took it as an insult and a racial situation, have been blacks. I didn't know blacks here were so prejudiced." (Shortly after it opened, a man in a pickup truck rammed the storefront, shutting Howard down.) [Louisville Courier-Journal-AP, 3-7-96] * In March, Judge Philip Mangones in Keene, N. H., declared unconstitutional a drug-producing search of the dormitory rooms of two Keene State College students. The students consented to the search, and more than six ounces of marijuana was found, but the judge said that the men were too stoned to know what they were doing when they consented. [Exeter News-Letter, 3-5-96] * According to a March Associated Press story, Multimedia Entertainment, Inc., producer of the "Jerry Springer" show, recently filed a lawsuit against four Toronto, Ontario, comedians who had fooled the show's staff and posed as a couple and their baby-sitter (and her boyfriend) on a show themed around men who sleep with their children's baby-sitter. Multimedia says such hoaxes threaten the integrity of daytime talk shows like Springer's. [San Francisco Chronicle-AP, 4-1-96] LEAD STORIES * Denny Constantine revealed to the San Jose Mercury News in October that he was part of a team that almost got the go-ahead to drop flying-bat bombs on Japan in World War II. The plan: Tiny incendiary devices would be attached to millions of bats, which would be put into egg-carton-like trays in a bombshell. When the bats were released, they would roost in Japan's wood-and-paper buildings, and fires would start all over the country. That would "frighten, demoralize, and excite the prejudices" of the Japanese, according to team member Jack Couffer. President Roosevelt was said to have really liked the idea, but he apparently liked the atom bomb even more. * In October, Ecuadoran President Abdala Bucaram (1) released his first rock and roll CD, "Madman in Love," (2) lunched with one of his most famous countrywomen, the former Mrs. Lorena Bobbitt (and found it an "extremely high honor"), and (3) endured a public outburst by his Energy Minister Alfredo Adum, who said he would like to live naked and prey on women like a caveman, grabbing them by the hair and "devouring" them. * For the last year, Allen Fahden has operated the READundant bookstore in Nicollet mall in Minneapolis, set up like a traditional bookstore (sections on sports, religion, history, etc.) but its 5,000-book inventory consisting of only one title-- Fahden's own management book, Innovation on Demand. Fahden said his store is based on one of his management principles: the use of opposites to generate creative thoughts. The store's in-house best-seller list shows Innovation on Demand occupying each of the ten slots. CAN'T POSSIBLY BE TRUE * The Washington Post reported in September that several self- described members of the Moorish Science Temple in Washington, D. C., had smuggled cocaine and prostitutes into the District's Lorton Correctional Complex and at one point made a 10-minute video of prisoners and women having sex in the prison chapel. The Temple "members" had taken advantage of Lorton's lax procedures for religious visitors. And convicted murderer Claude Robinson freely operates a pornography vending business inside the Edmonton (Alberta) maximum- security prison, according to a September dispatch from the Canadian Press, ordering such magazines as Swank and Gallery from the outside and selling them for about $6 each. * A Spanish man visiting Stockholm on business stood to inherit about a million dollars, according to an October newspaper account in Germany's daily Bild. Eduardo Perez had stopped off to pray at a Roman Catholic church and signed the guest book of a man whose body lay there in a coffin. Perez was later notified that the deceased, real-estate developer Jens Svenson, had died without heirs and had specified that "whoever prays for my soul gets all my belongings." * In July, after arriving at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the daughter in a family of four was refused boarding on American Airlines. Mother, father, and son presented driver's licenses as ID to satisfy new FAA rules, and the daughter presented a student ID from the University of Maryland. However, the American Airlines clerk refused to accept the card, saying that even though it was issued by a state university, it didn't meet the requirement of being issued by a "government." On the basis of this denial, the family meekly gave up their already-arranged vacation in Las Vegas and drove home. NOT MY FAULT * Patrick L. Bark, 59, pleaded guilty in September in Kansas City, Mo., to selling more than 1,300 guns illegally over a two- year period, including many to juveniles and felons. Said Bark at his sentencing, "I blame half of it on the [government] for letting me go as long as they did. How was I to know [the guns] would be used in [crimes]?" * Burglary suspect Wesley Shaffer, 57, said in November that he was temporarily insane the night he allegedly hit a home in West Palm Beach, Fla., because he had just eaten too much cotton candy. And in a Montgomery County, Md., court in October, accused hit- man hirer Charles S. Shapiro said that tranquilizers, plus an entire bottle of extra-strength Tums ingested in the days before his guilty plea, caused impaired judgment and that he should thus be allowed to withdraw the plea. * In August, the Hong Kong High Court referred a 50-year-old man to a psychiatric center for treatment after he was charged with indecent assault on his son's 20-year-old girlfriend. A medical report said the man suffered from a post-concussional disorder, which was blamed on a car accident in 1962. FIRST THINGS FIRST * In July, the New York Post reported that Vivid Video, which produces pornographic movies and which had just signed actor Steven St. Croix to an unprecedented 33-picture deal, became so concerned when St. Croix bought a motorcycle that it purchased a $1 million Lloyd's of London policy insuring St. Croix's genitals. Said a Vivid spokeswoman, "He's an incredible talent and we don't want to lose him--or any part of him." * In May, about 40 eighth-grade students from Hartford, Conn., on a class trip were stranded for a day in Washington, D. C., after their charter-bus driver suddenly disappeared. The kids said that, just before dropping them off at the hotel around 11 p.m., the man had picked up a prostitute in the bus and that the two of them had ridden away into the night. * In August Abilene, Tex., prosecutor Sandy Self abruptly ended the murder trial of Frank Ramos, who had been charged with bludgeoning a woman with a baseball bat, and sought a new indictment against him. Self wanted to protect his case against error and worried that an appeals court would notice that the bat Ramos allegedly used was actually an aluminum softball bat and not a baseball bat. UPDATE * Ray Bell of Tallahassee, Fla., said in October that he holds the patent for a condom which belts onto a man's leg to prevent what Bell believes is the common problem of the condom's unrolling during use. But in 1992, News of the Weird reported that Merlyn Starley of San Francisco said he had the patent for such a device, which he called "condom suspenders." UNDIGNIFIED DEATHS * On the nights of Sept. 12, in St. Louis, Mo., and Nov. 3, in Minneola, Fla., women were accidentally run over by friends and killed as they had gotten out of trucks in order to urinate on the side of the road. Driver Randy G. Phillips in St. Louis was charged with reckless homicide though he said he was merely moving his pickup truck to try to shield his companion from passing traffic. Florida driver Chad Eric Willis said he was playfully trying to discourage his companion from squatting in front of his tractor-trailer instead of at the side. ========================= --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Not So Great Escape In 1975, 75 Mexican convicts began digging a tunnel to take them out of prison. Six months later their work was complete. Sadly the tunnel came up inside a courtroom and as convict emerged from the tunnel, the judge sent him straight back to prison. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm Not Sexist But... A woman playing in a US golf tournament in 1912, took 166 shots and two hours to get her ball in ONE hole. Her first shot landed in a river and she had to hire a boat to attempt to get it out. Finally she did this but the ball then landed in a wood and she had to try and play through the wood. Most of the players reached the hole in four shots. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- It May Not Be Art But He Likes It In 1985 Christo Javacheff created his sculpture called Pont Neuf. He created it by wrapping Pont Neuf bridge in Paris with pink plastic sheeting. This took 41,000sq m (440,000 sq ft) of plastic, enough to cover over 155 tennis courts. As with most 'art' this begs the question, Why? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Waldo Mitty? Ferdinand Waldo Demara spent his entire life pretending to be someone else. He posed as a monk, a prison officer and a teacher. In 1952, despite having no real qualifications or medical knowledge at all, he was taken on as a surgeon in the Canadian Army. His first operation was a complete success. Eventually, a newspaper report about his success led to his exposure as a total fraud. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crazy Fact 1 If all the fluff in the world was rolled up imto a giant ball we would all have empty belly-buttons! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Smart Kid By the time Mozart was ten years old he had given numerous public performances on both the violin and the harpsichord in Austria, Germany, France , Belgium and England and had composed four violin sonatas, two symphonies and more than twenty other works. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who Was The Real Whipping Boy? Royal princes used to have substitutes known as whipping boys, because it was considered improper to chastise the prince himself. When the prince did anything wrong, the other boy was soundly whipped. If the whipping boy was a friend of the prince, the system did perhaps improve the royal behaviour a little. No doubt the whipped friend could expect some special favours in later life when the prince bacame king. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crazy Fact 2 If your instestines were removed from your body and laid-out end to end - you'd be DEAD! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat Where Have You Been?[Image] A French family living in the north of Paris always took their cat with them when they went on their summer holiday and always went to the same rented house near the Mediterranean, some 400 miles to the south. In 1982, just before Christmas, the cat went missing from the family home. They assumed she had been run over, but when they arrived for their holiday the next summer, the cat was there waiting for them in the sun. The neighbours of the family had recognized her and fed her. They said she had arrived just before New Year. This meant that it had taken the cat only a week to find her way on the 400-mile journey. The cat clearly prefered to live in the warmer climate of southern France and had decided to go on holiday early! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Real Pain A woman of forty-two was taken into hospital in Canada in 1927 with a pain in her stomach. The pain was not suprising. The surgeons found inside her 2,533 seperate objects that she had swallowed, including 947 bent pins. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Address The Problem The only wierd thing about the Welsh village of 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch' is it's name (58 letters), which apparently means:- 'Saint Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool of Llandysilio of the red cave. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!! In 1973 a Yugoslav aeroplane exploded in midair. An airhostess, Vesna Vulovic, fell more than 33,000 feet without a parachute. She was in a coma for twenty-seven days and in hospital for sixteen months, but she survived. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crazy Fact 3 Sunderland University in Tyne and Wear, England is the only University in England that is cruel enough to give me an assignment like this! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Food For Thought If you live an average length of time you can expect to eat 50 tons of food and 10,000 gallons of liquid. If you're a student then deduct 12 tons of food and add 7,000 gallons of liquid! (probably) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Pain In The... A French music hall artist, Joseph Pujol, known as Le Petomane, made an unusual career for himself in the 1890's. He learnt how to fart with a large range of different sounds. He could suck air into his intestine and then force it out again imitating a violin, a trombone, tearing fabric even a gunshot. He was very popular with his fans but no-one evr joined him in a confined space. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh Baby! Every second of the day and night, all year round, four babies are born which means that during the time it takes you to read this sentence aloud enough people will have been born to fill a double-decker bus and several of them would even be able to find a seat-typical! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unlucky Or What? Andreas Mihavecz must have thought it was bad enough to be a passenger in a car crash on 1st April 1979 in Austria but there was worse to come. He was put in a room to recover after the crash but then was forgotten. Unfortunatly, the door was locked. Eighteen days later Andreas was discovered barely alive. His only consilation was a place in the Guinness Book Of Records for the longest survival without food or water! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------