Amanda Collins, 28, took beauty pageant mom down to the next level when she entered her daughter Luna in Britain’s UK Princess and Prince International pageant based entirely on the results of Luna’s ultrasound scan at age 20 weeks. Said Collins, “As soon as I saw her image on the screen … I knew she was a stunner.” Contest officials accepted the application. Six weeks after birth, Luna was named runner-up in the Princess and Prince pageant. On top of that, four weeks later, she was named runner-up in Miss Dreams UK. “All she has to do,” said Collins, “is lie in my arms and smile as I stroll down the catwalk.”
Recurring Themes
— At the annual 10-day Phuket Vegetarian Festival in Thailand, dozens of men pierced and sliced their mouths, cheeks and arms in religious devotion in a ritual in which the participants claimed to feel no pain. The display supposedly brings “good health, peace of mind and spiritual cleansing.” It also includes the acts of walking on hot coals and climbing blade-embedded ladders (both barefoot), all to the accompaniment of fireworks and the ear-shattering pounding of drums.
— Brad Culpepper played defensive tackle for nine NFL seasons. He applied for disability when he retired. His medical file listed 14 MRIs, head and knee trauma and neurological and vision problems, all of which resulted in doctors declaring him “89 percent” disabled. The Fairmont Premier insurance company gave him a $175,000 settlement. Fairmont recently sued to get its money back, claiming that Culpepper is, and was, “exquisitely fit.” This, the company says, was evidenced by a September, 2013, Tampa Bay Times feature on his gym workouts, his earning of a martial-arts Black Belt, and his participation for 14 days in the grueling TV series Survivor: Blood vs. Water.
— Angry taxpayers and retail customers sometimes protest their debt by paying the bill with containers of coins (especially pennies). What if a company did that to a customer? A court had ruled that Adriana’s Insurance Services in Rancho Cucamonga, Cal., had unjustifiably ejected and assaulted 74-year-old Andres Carrasco when he complained about a canceled policy and ordered Adriana’s to pay him $21,000. A short time later, the still-irritated company dropped off 16 buckets full of coins at the customer’s lawyer’s office.
— Several News of the Weird stories mentioned body dysmorphic disorder sufferers who seek the amputation of healthy body parts on irrationally aesthetic grounds. The group is led by men who desire castration. Now, 15-year-old Danielle Bradshaw of Tameside, England, wants a useful leg amputated — but not for an irrational reason. Her “developmental dysplasia” caused the amputation of her useless right leg. The resultant stress on the left one has weakened it. And now, having taken up competitive running, she wants Oscar Pistorius-style blades instead of her current prosthesis, which slows her down. However, no hospital has agreed to perform the surgery, considering the leg’s continued functionality and Bradshaw’s young age.
Suitor Doing It Wrong
News of the Weird’s stuck-in-chimney stories usually involve burglaries gone wrong. But when Genoveva Nunez-Figueroa, 30, was rescued by firefighters in a Thousand Oaks, Calif., chimney in October, it appeared that she was trying to visit an ex-boyfriend. The police report diplomatically described her intent as “unclear.”
Update
— News of the Weird first mentioned the breakthrough treatment of “fecal transplants” in 2000. In the procedure, the large-intestine bacteria of a healthy relative is delivered to the patient’s gut so that healthy bacteria kill off germs causing diarrhea. However, the procedure is awkward and inconvenient and requires a colonoscopy. Recently, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital tried an alternative: placing healthy transplant poop into 30 large, stomach-acid-resistant capsules, to be ingested by mouth over two days. The regimen worked remarkably well for 14 of 20 patients.
— Sisters Martine and Louise Fokkens, 71, have finally retired as prostitutes in Amsterdam after 50-year careers. Louise has not worked since 2010. She appeared with Martine in a 2012 documentary. In October, 2014, she reminisced for the Jewish news agency JTA. The industry has changed, Louise said. Amsterdam’s “working girls” are now all foreign and young, and the clients are tourists instead of locals. In the past, she said, “our life in the business was a source of pride.”
Perspective
— The most recent “segregated sidewalks” dispute in a community with a large, strict Orthodox Jewish population occurred in September in the English town of Stamford Hill, when Haredi Jews placed signs on a sidewalk reading, “Women should please walk along this side of the road only.” Sect members are forbidden even to brush against people of the opposite sex except for close relatives. The Hackney council ordered the signs removed because befuddled, sometimes outraged, non-Haredis complained.
— News of the Weird mentioned in 2009 that Alcoa was required to prove it was protecting Iceland’s underground “hidden people” before it was permitted to build a smelting plant. In September of this year, the municipal government of Fljotsdalsherad, Iceland, accepted its own official “truth” commission’s findings that the legendary Icelandic sea monster Lagarfljotsormur actually exists. The monster, about 100 yards long, has been “seen” slithering around as recently as 2012. Government critics accused the council of pandering for tourism business.
— Florida is well-known not just for its “stand your ground” use of deadly force, but for the pro-gun interpretation given to it by some judges and juries. On the other extreme, however, the legislature has enacted an unusually severe penalty for any “aggravated assault” that includes gunfire. This includes a “mandatory minimum” of 20 years in prison. Lee Wollard, now 59, faces a 2028 release date because he fired a warning shot into the wall of his home in 2006 to scare off his 16-year-old daughter’s boyfriend, who was threatening the girl. Judge Donald Jacobsen said in court that he disagreed with his own sentence, but that his oath required him to impose it. In a similar 2012 “warning shot” case, Marissa Alexander, 31, remains in prison with a release date of 2032.
— In the most recent incident in which a driver ran over himself, a man in Aurora, Colo., suffered life-threatening injuries on Oct. 26 when, as he backed out of his driveway, his front driver’s side tire ran over his head. He had jumped out the door to avoid a lit cigarette that had fallen into his jacket. As he fell, he landed underneath the driver’s door as the van continued in reverse.
Readers’ Choice
— Ashley Tull, 30, was arrested in Selbyville, Dela., in October, after her 4-year-old daughter showed up at the Hickory Tree Child Care Center with more than 200 baggies of heroin in her backpack. She innocently shared them with classmates.
— Chula Vista, Calif., police officers rescued a woman and her adult daughter, who had screamed to a 911 operator that they were trapped in the mother’s bedroom and unable to leave because the housecat had “turned bad” and was “guarding” the door. Officers on the scene repeatedly called the cat — Cuppy — by name, until he finally walked away.
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