In Gloucester, England, Jamie Sharp, 25, stole a Porsche. He was telephoning friends to brag when he crashed, pinning himself inside the vehicle until rescuers and police arrived. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
Stop The Show While I Charge My Phone
When Nick Silvestri, 19, of Seaford, L.I., was seated in the orchestra section of the Broadway comedy Hand to God, he left his seat to plug his iPhone into an electrical outlet on the stage set. Actors, patrons, and management went nuts. But Silvestri ultimately was allowed to stay, and the show resumed. The set designer Beowulf Boritt said later he was proud that he had created a stage set so realistic that the electrical outlet (which was attached to nothing) looked so authentic.
Drugs Can Do Anything
Brandon Terry and Casey Fowler were detained after they called 9-1-1 five times to report opossums jumping out of their refrigerator and microwave, worms coming from their floor and midgets parading around in camouflage. They denied they had taken any drugs. Police said the culprit was likely bath salts (Spartanburg, S.C., November).
Are We Safe?
A U.S. congressman revealed in December that, based on a congressional staff investigation, 72 Dept. of Homeland Security employees appear on the FBI’s terrorist watch list. He admitted to Boston Public Radio that DHS’s record makes him squeamish about our ability to vet Syrian refugees. Being on the FBI list does not prevent a person from buying a gun in the U.S. In fact, the Government Accountability Office reported that 91 percent of the people on the list who tried to purchase guns in the last 10 years succeeded.
The Continuing Crisis
The vice president of human resources at the Washington Post issued a memo to reassure female employees in the new office building that people in the seventh floor’s central “hub” could not see up their skirts as they walked on the indoor eighth-floor balcony overhang with its clear glass components. The memo said HR had looked at the overhang from “multiple” angles and concluded that the women are safe from voyeurs. Nonetheless, the memo encouraged all employees not to look up when they’re in the seventh floor hub.
Leading Economic Indicators
— Raymond Schinazi was a federal government employee when he led the team that discovered sofosbuvir, which cures hepatitis C patients with an 84-pill regimen. He recently told CBS News that he only works for the government “7/8th’s” of the time and that it was during the other 1/8th that he found sofosbuvir. He admits he made $400 million selling his sofosbuvir company to Gilead Sciences, which set sofosbuvir’s price for 84 pills at $84,000. In a 2013 medical journal, Schinazi revealed that sofosbuvir could be manufactured for $17 a pill.
— No central characters in big banks went to jail for crashing the economy and causing thousands to lose their homes and jobs in 2008. But the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission at least pressured several banks to pay the government billions of dollars in civil-case settlements. However, the activist group U.S. PIRG revealed in December that of the 10 largest such federal settlements, in which banks and corporations paid a total of $80 billion, more than half the payments were characterized as tax-deductible. In addition, of course, all the $80 billion was ultimately paid by the banks’ and corporations’ stockholders rather than by the wrongdoing employees.
Questionable Judgments
“It may be the most confusing traffic light you’ve ever seen,” wrote The Boston Globe in December. Reporters were describing a pedestrian crossing in Cambridge, Mass. If the three clusters of three lights are all dark, drivers proceed. If a pedestrian comes along, one light will blink yellow, then solid yellow, then two solid yellows, then two reds, until two flashing red lights in each cluster appear. And in Cambridge (and only Cambridge), flashing red lights mean go (unless pedestrians are present). The city has prepared a 12-diagram pamphlet to explain the whole thing. Officials say they have statistical proof from tests that the system enhances safety.
Cliche Come To Life
The Angelina County Sheriff’s Office (in Lufkin, Texas) responded to a 911 call about shots fired at a home on Nov. 8, but made no arrest. The male resident was sitting in his pick-up, drunk, and listening to a sad song on his favorite station. At some point, he took his .22-caliber pistol and shot the radio. According to the report, “Suspect’s wife took possession of the handgun and suspect.”
Ironies
— As deputy leader of Scotland’s South Lanarkshire Council, Jackie Burns was instrumental in closing all 24 public toilets in the area in a budget-cutting effort. In November, Burns was fined $60 after he urinated in the street.
— Hector Segura, 29, who was in town for a Washington, D.C., conference on drug policy reform was found by police naked in a flower bed in a neighborhood near his hotel in Arlington, Va. He had allegedly been indulging in bath salts. It required two Taser shots to subdue him when he started pounding on a squad car with his fists.
Least Competent Criminals
— Kenneth Rogers, 45, was charged with breaking into a home in Cape San Blas in the Florida panhandle. A burglar alarm notified police, who found Rogers in the house because he had accidentally locked himself in a room.
— Damon Matthews, 19, surrendered to police in Bay City, Mich., and confessed to robbing a 7-Eleven. His sister had convinced Matthews that police would soon arrive to apprehend him because even though he wore a ski-mask, he stands 7 feet, 4 inches and is known by the store clerk.
A News Of The Weird Classic • March 2010
Facial symmetry and good teeth along with graceful movement are on the inventory list for any beauty contest winner. They indeed are also the criteria of the victors in Niger’s traditional “Gerewol” festival, in which the contestants are males and all judges are females. A side benefit for the judges is that a judge can marry any contestant she selects regardless of any pre-existing marriage on the part of either party.
Pimp In A Nursing Home
In November, lawyer Michael Petersen of Appleton, Wisc., was found guilty of contempt of court by county judge Philip Kirk and was ordered to inform every client he acquired in the following 12 months that he is a “crook,” “cheat,” “thief” and “liar.” Kirk concluded that Peterson had lied about a plea deal with the prosecutor and created phony documents for evidence. This fraud led a client to plead guilty to armed robbery. According to the Appleton Post Crescent, after the judge dressed down Petersen in colorful language, he told him, “I want you to have as much business as a pimp in a nursing home.”
Can’t Possibly Be True
Pastor Thom Miller, 60 (of the United Christian Ministries International in Mansfield, Ohio), told an international news crew that he had “married” his 19-year-old pregnant girlfriend (Reba Kerfoot), but that some in his congregation disapprove because Miller is already married. His incumbent wife, Belinda, 44, says she does approve of the second marriage. Said Belinda, “Thom is the love of my life and Reba is the blessing of my life, so it all works.” Said Miller, “Sexually I have no preference and look forward to my time alone with both wives.” Here are two bonuses to the story: (1) Miller was an enforcer for organized crime in Cleveland until he “found God” in prison. (2) He is annoyed that Ohio recognizes same-sex marriage but not polygamy.
Finer Points Of The Law
Federal judge Cathy Seibel ordered the town of Liberty, N.Y. (100 miles from New York City), to stand trial for failure to teach police and prosecutors proper free-speech law. This pleased plaintiff Willian Barboza, who had been arrested for writing a “crude” message on a speeding ticket he paid three years ago. Seibel ruled that Barboza’s phrase posed no “imminent threat,” and was obviously just a complaint about government services. Seibel also raised the possibility that monetary damages should be paid from the prosecutor’s pocket.
Recurring Themes
— Once again, someone minding his own business in North America became royalty elsewhere. This time, it was a 32-year-old Vancouver, B.C., man with a wife and baby, who was working as a gardener until he learned that a 6,000-person tribe in Ghana wanted him for their king. Eric Manu, a nephew of the king who died in 2013, was asked in July, 2015, to come take over. By tradition, Manu’s Canadian wife will join him as queen. Manu said the couple will do whatever they can to improve lives in the village.
— Achan Agit is suing the Iowa Board of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences for placing excessive burdens on her right to make a living. Forbes.com reported in October that Achan was a war refugee from South Sudan, and is now a permanent resident of the U.S. She is skilled in braiding hair, which she learned from elders when she was five. However, a licensed braider in Iowa needs a high school diploma or equivalent and 2,100 hours of cosmetology coursework. That is more than the combined training required for dental assistants, bus drivers, EMTs, child care workers and security guards. For this training, one of Iowa’s 27 cosmetology “schools” may charge up to $22,000. The maximum penalty for braiding in Iowa without a license is a prison term and a $10,000 fine.
— On Dec. 2, a 48-year-old woman in Alicante, Spain, who suffered from depression, leaped from her seventh-floor balcony but failed to die. She was hospitalized in stable condition after she landed on an elderly gentleman sitting on a bench. That gentleman did not survive the collision.
Scientists Just Wanna Have Fun
A team of researchers at the University of Osaka Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences has produced a strain of mice prone to “miscopying” DNA. This tendency makes the mice susceptible to unexpected mutations, such a mouse that tweets like a bird. The team has produced a mouse with very short limbs that resembles a very small dachshund.
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