For those who care...
>Originally published 10.08.00
>
>News of the Weird(.661)
>
>LEAD STORIES
>
>A New York appeals court ruled in July that a 53-year-old,
>serial-plastic-surgery patient, who became dissatisfied with her
>tucked-and-tightened body after 12 operations over a seven-year-period,
>could
>sue her doctor for malpractice, despite her consent to all surgeries,
>because
>she might suffer from the disorder that causes a person to think his body
>is
>ugly. (Doctors contacted by the New York Observer wondered which, if any,
>of
>their patients are totally free of the disorder.) The complaining patient
>has
>had work done on her nose, eyelids, chin, eyebrows, flanks, thighs, knees,
>breasts and tummy.
>
>Central Illinois farmer Dan Aeschleman recently converted his land to a
>more lucrative use: attracting foxes and then selling their urine in
>pump-spray containers ($11.95 for 16 oz.) to landowners to keep nuisance
>animals away with the "presence" of a predator. According to a September
>report in The Pantagraph newspaper of Bloomington, Ill., Aeschleman says
>the
>tricky part -- getting the non-domestic foxes to urinate in an orderly
>fashion
>and then collecting it all (10,000 gallons a year) -- is a "trade secret."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Revoke Their Parenting Licenses!
>
>According to Martinsville, Ind., prosecutors, Judy Kirby, 31, mother of 10,
>intentionally killed four of them in March after she drove into oncoming
>traffic for more than two miles and struck a minivan (also killing three of
>its occupants); her doctors say they will testify at her upcoming trial
>that
>she suffered from postpartum depression and should not be punished. And
>Jeane
>Newmaker, 46, was charged in Golden, Colo., in September with child abuse
>for
>going along with a "therapy" in which four practitioners squashed her
>10-year-old adopted daughter to death; the "therapists" were "rebirthing"
>the
>child (supposedly to compensate for an abusive biological mother) by
>getting
>her to simulate escaping the womb, but they accidentally suffocated her
>despite her more than 50 pleas for help over a 70-minute session.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>The Continuing Crisis
>
>A highlight of the East Finley Summer Festival in Claysville, Pa., in
>July was the return of the popular "chicken-flying contest" after a 10-year
>hiatus. As explained by the Observer-Reporter newspaper of Washington, Pa.,
>chickens are placed in ordinary mailboxes, which are then abruptly opened
>with
>a toilet plunger, which somehow sends them flying hundreds of feet, with
>the
>longest flight winning first prize. During chicken-flying's hiatus, said
>Festival sponsors, cow-patty bingo was featured but was not nearly as
>exciting.
>
>The Al Salam Mosque Foundation filed a $6.2 million federal lawsuit in
>August against Palos Heights, Ill., which had reneged on a promise to pay
>the
>Muslim group $200,000 to change its mind about buying a local building and
>converting it to a place of worship. The city council had made the cash
>offer,
>reportedly, because some council members preferred not to have such a
>prominent Muslim presence in the town. Then, when the Foundation accepted
>the
>cash offer, the Palos Heights mayor vetoed it, complaining that the offer
>was
>an "insult" to the Muslims.
>
>Relieving the Doctor Shortage: According to an April Los Angeles Times
>report, imposter "Dr." Adam Litwin roamed UCLA Medical Center with impunity
>for six months last year, chatting it up with "colleagues" and keeping
>himself
>busy, being discovered only when a pharmacist reported an irregularity with
>a
>prescription. And "physician's assistant" imposter Gary Lee Stearley
>received
>excellent reviews from several doctors at Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pa.,
>in
>June before being detected; he had previously "worked" hospitals in
>Seattle,
>Richmond and Washington, D.C.
>
>No Substitute for a Loyal Dog: Sevier County (Tenn.) sheriff's dog Kysor
>was praised in a July Knoxville News-Sentinel report as so faithful that he
>withstood a stab wound to the head from a fleeing suspect, hard enough that
>the blade broke off, in order to maintain his grip. However, after the man
>plunged the knife in, he tried to sic his own dog on the weakened Kysor,
>but,
>according to a deputy, "He whistled for him, but his dog wouldn't come."
>
>Forget About Asking Him to Consider a Trigger Lock for His Gun: In June,
>a federal grand jury in Springfield, Mo., indicted Todd Morman Murray, 27,
>on
>charges that he stole 45 pounds of explosives from a chemical plant and
>"hid"
>them in his children's playhouse.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Humans Disrespecting Trains
>
>A young man suffered a broken arm when he was walking so close to railroad
>tracks that a passing train violently knocked his surfboard out of his
>hands
>(San Clemente, Calif., June). And a 25-year-old woman lost the toes on her
>right foot when she crawled under a slow-moving train as a shortcut to the
>correct platform (Mount Prospect, Ill., July). And an inebriated man's life
>was saved by his wife, who pulled him just in time from the path of a
>speeding
>train after he had lingered on the tracks to make an obscene gesture at the
>conductor (Trevor, Wis., June).
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Lesson to Kids: Be a Total Screw-Up, Make Millions!
>
>According to news reports in July and August, Mack W. Metcalf, 42, of
>Florence, Ky., has led a dismal life that included frequent drinking
>binges,
>some DUI and other traffic charges, drug selling, eviction for failure to
>pay
>rent, and a debt of $31,000 in back child support. However, in July, he won
>a
>$34 million lump-sum jackpot in the Kentucky Lottery. (His haplessness
>continues: Shortly after he was paid, he handed a woman $500,000 as a gift,
>but later realized he was drunk and has now sued to get the money back.)
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Recurring Themes
>
>The Classic Middle Name (all-new): Arrested for killing his roommate (San
>Diego, Calif., August): Aryan Wayne Duntley. Arrested for killing a young
>neighbor girl (Oilton, Okla., August): Robert Wayne Rotramel. Sentenced for
>murdering and beheading a 20-year-old woman (Orange, Texas, July):
>Christopher
>Wayne Gregory. Application for DNA testing rejected in a murder case
>against
>him (Illinois, August): Randall Wayne Stevens. Convicted in the murders of
>five people at a car wash (Irving, Texas, September): Robert Wayne Harris.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Least Justifiable Homicides
>
>Killed over Access to Mating: Edward William Heckman, 58, was charged in
>July
>near Jonesboro, Ga., with killing his wife after she refused to have sex
>with
>him. Baby sitter Robert Cooper, 22, was convicted in June in Calgary,
>Alberta,
>of killing two young boys because they hindered his attempted seduction of
>their mother. A man in his 20s allegedly killed 11 people with an Uzi at a
>Bogota, Colombia, nightclub in June after rejection by a woman.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Also, in the Last Month . . .
>
>Singapore's leading newspaper published a how-to guide to
>having sex in cars, in support of the government's campaign to raise the
>birth rate. The mayor of a French resort town, which has no cemetery
>vacancies and a restrictive land-use law, prohibited dying except by people
>with burial space (Le Levandou). The Supreme Court of New Hampshire ruled
>that a candidate for office had the right to parade on the street dressed
>as a penis, because he was commenting on the political system.
>
>Thanks This Time to Jason Bowman, Robert Jacobs, Kerry Flynn, L. Stulz,
>William A. Morgan, Lee Nichols, John Cox, Ritchie Stoner, Greg Lief, Allan
>Morris, Bob Hawley, David Lips, and R.H. Seidman, and to the News of the
>Weird Senior Advisors and Chief Correspondents.
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