WEEK OF JULY 20, 2003: Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird

Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird (.806)

WEEK OF JULY 20, 2003

LEAD STORIES

British shock artist Damien Hirst, chronicled several times in News of the Weird (e.g., skinned dead cattle in copulating positions), told The Guardian newspaper in June that he had discovered a new refinement after giving up drinking. Said Hirst: "I can drink, I can take drugs, and I can produce art. But the art starts looking stupid." Once, he said, he wanted to cover a pig in vibrators to look like a hedgehog and call it Pork-u-Pine. His new installation, set for London in the fall, features Jesus and the apostles as 13 Ping-Pong balls bobbing on fountains of red wine, and another piece on the disciples features several pickled bull's heads. [The Guardian, 6-11-03]

On June 28, as Orange County (Calif.) sheriff's deputy Owen Hall was standing beside a car he had stopped, he was shot in the leg with an arrow. After Hall pulled the arrow out and reported to a hospital, deputies combed the neighborhood and finally located archer Tri Thanh Lam, who had apparently been practicing in his back yard when an arrow got away from him. Lam was arrested, but he went free two days later when authorities realized that he had committed no crime, since the state's negligent-shooting law applies only to guns. [Los Angeles Times, 7-2-03]

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Things People Believe

Business is apparently good for "pet psychics" and "communicators" who not only claim to understand animals' emotions in human terms but work with a client base that has included spiders, an iguana, a snake, a skunk, a hawk, a camel and cockroaches, and can do most of their work remotely by having the pet stand close to the telephone (at about $25 for 15 minutes). The Animal Planet channel has a weekly program, "Pet Psychic," and newspapers recently profiled practitioners in Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. (Revelations: Spiders mostly express interest in not being killed, and one French poodle's issue was supposedly the dog's having imaged everything in French instead of English.) [Hartford Courant, 3-19-03; Miami Herald, 10-3-02; York (Pa.) Daily Record, 4-24-03; Palm Beach Post, 6-3-03]

God's Been Busy: Christian Broadcasting Network reported in June that it was no coincidence that the Bush administration's April and May announcements to support a separate Palestinian state were followed by "the worst months of tornadoes in American history" (375 twisters in eight days) and other meteorological disasters; God is punishing the United States, CBN said, for supporting the biblically unthinkable division of Israel. And in May in Brunswick, Ga., after Mary Burgess inherited a cockapoo dog named Cindy and $10,000 to care for her, she told a probate court that God had recently told her she would actually need "$50,000" for Cindy; Burgess had figured expenses (e.g., $225 a month for haircuts) as even more, but said she'd accept the Lord's number. [Christian Broadcasting Network, 6-26-03] [Atlanta Journal Constitution, 6-1-03]

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Government in Action

According to a New York Times report, a 1985 New York law, passed to make sure medical-malpractice victims are adequately compensated from the date of their injury, requires judges to add mandatory interest payments to all awards, while other New York laws require the jury also to impose interest payments over the same period; that meant that in a 1990 case against New York-Presbyterian Hospital, finally approved by the state's highest court in April 2003, the jury's $40 million, interest-included judgment was automatically increased to $140 million. [New York Times, 6-3-03]

D'Oh: When a pair of bald eagles at Kentucky's game farm in Frankfort produced an extremely rare (for in-captivity eagles) egg in April, officials destroyed it because to allow it to hatch would have violated their federal permit; a federal official said the Kentucky officials should have just shipped it to them. And in May, Laurie Hanniford, of Carlisle, Pa., was fined $352 for failure to file a state tax return in 2000, when she was 14, on total earnings of $316, for which no tax was due, anyway. [Louisville Courier-Journal, 6-2-03] [Las Vegas Sun-AP, 6-6-03]

California's Got Issues: According to an April New York Times report, California has spent $13 million in education money since 2001 defending its deteriorating school facilities against a class-action lawsuit; the state argues that it is providing as best it can on a shrinking budget (which of course has shrunk by $13 million just on this lawsuit). And a California Senate committee revealed in May that misconduct investigations of prison employees proceed so slowly that an accused worker could be on paid leave for more than two years before ultimately being fired when the charges prove true. [New York Times, 4-18-03] [Sacramento Bee-AP, 5-8-03]

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Democracy in Action

Among the memorable recent local government meetings: In Shutesbury, Mass., seating at the town meeting was divided into those wearing perfume or aftershave, those who never do, and those who never do but forgot and wore some that day (May). In Chelmsford, Mass., the town council was split on whether to open the meeting with a Pledge of Allegiance and spent nearly an hour debating such issues as whether the meeting might already be "open" and thus could not "open" with the Pledge (April). And in Hutto, Texas, the council debated whether the mayor could use an economic development grant to buy a huge steel and fiberglass hippopotamus as a town business mascot (June). [Arizona Republic-AP, 4-28-03, 5-3-03] [Lowell Sun, 4-29-03] [Austin American-Statesman, 6-22-03]

The Speaker of the New Zealand House ruled in May that, though laptop computers are forbidden in the chamber, one member could bring in his carburetor and work on it, as long he didn't make noise. And the Green Party in Granada, Spain, for the country's May elections, offered a comprehensive platform that included issuing "sex vouchers" to give adults under age 25 local hotel-room discounts to encourage couples' intimacy (and safe sex and contraception) because most people that age still live with their parents. [Stuff.co.nz (Fairfax newspaper consortium), 5-21-03] [BBC News, 5-11-03]

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People With Issues

In Easton, Pa., in June, Richard James Clader, 38, was sentenced to at least seven months in prison for a series of episodes on state roads 22 and 33 in which eventually 27 people contacted authorities to report that a motorist (identified as Clader) had driven nude, with the horn blasting, while vigorously masturbating. Clader told the judge that he believes his behavior stemmed from feeling neglected as a child and later by his wife, but said he is making substantial progress. [Easton Express-Times, 6-4-03]

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Least Competent People

In Racine, Wis., in January, city and state officials knocked on Angie Anderson's door to inform her that they were about to capture a sickly owl in a tree in her yard, but she explained that the reason it appeared immobile was that it was a fake owl, purchased two years earlier from Wal-Mart for $14.99. And a consciousness-raising stunt by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals hit a snag in March at the Palm Springs Middle School in Hialeah, Fla., when PETA was informed that its sign in Spanish on its life-size cow prop, reading "Echar la Leche" (translation of their slogan, "Dump Dairy") was also slang for "ejaculate." [Newsday-AP, 1-20-03] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 3-31-03]

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Recurring Themes

In 1996, U.S. Republican political strategist Roger Stone was forced to leave Bob Dole's presidential campaign when a magazine revealed that Stone and his wife had placed ads, with kinky photos of themselves, in swingers' magazines. In June 2003, British Conservative Party think tank executive Dougie Smith was revealed to be the founder and coordinator of the 5-year-old Fever Parties, which are upscale orgies held periodically in fashionable townhouses and country mansions, costing couples the equivalent of US$125 to attend. (However, Smith appears to be secure in his job.) [News.com.au (Sunday Times of London), 6-24-03]

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Undignified Deaths

A 36-year-old woman drowned in a fast-moving river after jumping in to rescue her golden retriever, which paddled ashore with relative ease while rescue efforts for the woman were under way (Kyoto, Japan, June). A 26-year-old man was killed after he asked his uncle to stab him in the chest to see if a bulletproof vest would protect him (Lakewood, Colo., June). A veteran skydiver accidentally crashed into a veteran hangglider at about 4,000 feet, killing both men (Brackley, England, June). [Mainichi Daily News, 6-25-03] [Denver Post, 6-24-03] [The Sun, 6-13-03]

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Also, in the Last Month

A 67-year-old woman, outraged that Guinness recognized only an 831-gallstone-removal surgery as the world's record, said she would submit her 3,110 stones (from a 1981 surgery), which fortunately she has saved (Neustrelitz, Germany). In land-scarce Japan, the Tokyo city government started selling small cemetery plots for the first time since 1960, at prices ranging from US$30,000 to US$86,000. And career criminal Gary Cowan, whose latest sentence was up, confessed to three more crimes with the hope he would be allowed to stay in prison to finish a restaurant management course (Cambridge, England). [CNN-Reuters, 7-3-03] [Associated Press, 7-2-03] [Daily Telegraph (London), 7-1-03]

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