THE BAR IS ALWAYS OPEN

Chuck Shepherd Wednesday, November 20, 2013 Comments Off on THE BAR IS ALWAYS OPEN
THE BAR IS ALWAYS OPEN

A 61-year-old Texas man admitted to a hospital appeared to be falling-down-drunk even though he denied having had a single drink. He was found to be manufacturing beer in his stomach. With “auto-brewery syndrome,” stomach-based yeast automatically ferments all starches passing through, converting them into ethanol. As a rule, natural stomach bacteria control the yeast. But if, for example, antibiotics inadvertently eliminated the bacteria, the yeast would ferment. The case was reported in a recent International Journal of Clinical Medicine.

 

People Different From Us

— Deborah Cipriani, 55, of North Ridgefield, Ohio, runs America’s only rescue center for skunks. She told London’s Daily Mail some of her companions like to sleep with her in bed (which is reportedly fine with partner Kevin).

— In Layton, Utah, Diane Westcott and her husband have four cats and a dog. Since 2003, they have had a goose who sleeps with them. Gladys the goose wears diapers because, as Diane explained, it’s “not possible” to potty train a goose.

 

Great Art

— Writer John Bohannon and the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science has established an annual “Dance Your Ph.D” video competition. Entrant Sarah Wilk used glowing green balls and a flaming Hula-Hoop to help illustrate her “Odd-Z Transactinide Compound Nucleus Reactions Including Discovery of 260-Bh.” Peter Liddicoat used a juggler, a ballerina and others for “Evolution of Nanostructural Architecture in 7000 Series Aluminum Alloys During Strengthening by Age-Hardening and Severe Plastic Deformation.”

— Eager to make a point that his country of residence, France, is more oppressive to artists than his native South Africa, Steven Cohen staged a one-man demonstration at the Eiffel Tower in September. He wore a bird outfit, tights and a garter. Cohen was arrested. His lawyer complained that her client had been kept in custody too long for such a minor charge. “France,” she exclaimed, “is throwing artists in prison.”

 

Police Report

— Abbott Griffin, 57, was arrested in Toledo, Ohio, in August and charged with robbing a Circle K convenience store. He allegedly grabbed the clerk and bashed him repeatedly with a Bible.

— One resident of a shelter in Seattle was charged with assaulting another with a tub of butter-substitute.

 

Government In Action

— As several states debate permitting marijuana use with a doctor’s prescription, Irvin Rosenfeld presented his experience to a packed house at Kentucky’s state capitol. Rosenfeld suffers from painful bone tumors. He began smoking dope in the federal government’s Compassionate Investigational Drug program in 1982. Since then, he has consumed 130,000 government-supplied joints (12 a day, carefully measured). He says they absolutely have prolonged his life. “I didn’t ask for my bone disease,” he said. “All I asked for is the best medicine possible.”

— While Congress struggled to pass a budget or an increase to the national debt limit, one program made it through easily according to a September New York Times report: farm subsidies for inactive “farmers.” The subsidies were renewed, based on a 2008 law. That virtually assured that more than 18,000 in-name-only farmers (who received $24 million last year) would not be cut off. Included, according to a 2012 Government Accountability Office report, were recipients at 2,300 farms that hadn’t grown a single crop in five years.

— The security contractor USIS, which does $2.45 billion worth of background checks for the National Security Agency, gets paid only for completed files. However, full background checks often require months of work. At some point, reported The New York Times in September, when USIS needed cash, it “flushed” still-open files, treating them as if they were completed, and submit them for payment. Subsequent, crucial information has sometimes failed to make it into the flushed files.

 

More Police Reports

— Deaaron Hearn, 22, was arrested in Iowa City, Iowa, after a traffic officer told him to summon a friend to drive his car home. Hearn responded by reaching into his pocket, placing a $20 bill to his ear and attempting a make a phone call.

— In October, Brenda Diaz, 26, allegedly attacked a Shell station’s Slushie machine in the nude while her two children were waiting in the car in Holyoke, Mass. Police tasered, pepper-sprayed and arrested her.

 

Undignified Deaths

—A 68-year-old hiker with a broken ankle was killed in Mansfield, Australia, after he was lifted from the bush by an Ambulance Victoria helicopter. Moments after he was airborne, he fell to his death.

— A 52-year-old man was killed in an explosion in Rowan County, Ky., in July when he lit a cigarette while he was hooked up to an oxygen supply. The man had already survived three explosions under the same circumstances.

 

A News of the Weird Classic (June 2008)   

Bird droppings are collected on 20 islands off the coast of Peru, where 12-inch-thick seabird guano coats the land. In the 19th century, China fought with Peru on the high seas for the right to mine the guano, which, at that time, was 150 feet high in places. Said an official of the Peruvian company that controls guano production, “Before there was oil, there was guano, so of course we fought wars over it.” The exceptionally dry climate means that 15,000 tons of guano are available yearly.

 

Open Sores Bandit

Honesty Keener, 37, was convicted in Gloucester County, N.J., in August of a 2011 break-in during which she demanded money from the female resident. She threated to rub her open sores over the resident’s skin.

 

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