From
www.newsoftheweird.com
WEEK OF JULY 6, 2003
LEAD STORIES
Retailers in Los Angeles, New York and Miami say more and more young, urban, heterosexual men are choosing to dress in women's tight, low-slung jeans and to use stylish lotions, fragrances and hair-care colors and products, according to June reports in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Some marketers call men who are eager to embrace their feminine sides "Metrosexuals" and point to English soccer star David Beckham (who braids his hair and paints his fingernails) as an icon. On July 15, the Bravo cable channel will air a makeover show, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." [Los Angeles Times, 6-21-03; New York Times, 6-23-03]
A man who was hit by lightning at a Cincinnati amusement park two years ago (who survived, but with brain damage) filed a lawsuit in June against the park. According to the man's lawyer, Drake Ebner, the man somehow did not already know enough about how serious lightning storms are and the park management was negligent in not warning him against heading for his car, where he was struck. [Cincinnati Post, 6-17-03]
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News That Sounds Like a Joke
(1) To publicize an April 1 town festival near Cedar City, Utah, the mayor dreamed up a fanciful narrative: that a 10th-century, Viking-discovered island had been carried ashore by a Pacific Ocean volcano, to a point near what is now Cedar City, and by a 19th-century treaty, the U.S. had swindled the Vikings out of ownership of the island's artifacts, allowing Vikings only the privilege of the April festival. Everyone took the story in good spirit until several residents of nearby St. George grimly wrote the mayor claiming to be Viking descendants and demanding "their" artifacts back. When the mayor told them it was a joke, the claimants accused the mayor of a coverup. (2) And elected as sheriff of Aiken County, S.C., in May was a fellow named Mike Hunt, whose campaign slogan was "Mike Hunt / Accessible for You." [Denver Post, 6-23-03; Salt Lake Tribune, 5-26-03] [Augusta Chronicle, 5-14-03]
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People Different From Us
Anthony Scott Ward, 40, and Melissa Coleman, 27, were arrested in Prestonburg, Ky., following a Memorial Day incident at a playground (with kids nearby), in which Coleman was bound face down on a picnic table, being paddled by Ward with a boat oar, in what authorities described as consensual "foreplay." Police recovered a cache of bondage items from the couple, including ceremonial hoods, handcuffs, prosthetic sexual tools, ropes, chains, collars, clamps, vibrating devices, lubricants and a cattle prod. [Floyd County Times, 5-30-03]
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The Continuing Crisis
In May, battered wife Elizabeth Rudavsky stabbed to death her severely abusive husband of seven months, Angelo Heddington, in Thedford, Ont., but to Rudavsky's shock, Heddington was soon identified as a woman (who had long ago adopted male mannerisms and dress). A former Heddington girlfriend, who had discovered the secret earlier, told a reporter, "(Heddington) had soft hands, but she spit like a guy. The whole time you were talking to her, she'd have her hands in her pockets playing with herself like she was a guy." [London Free Press, 5-17-03]
London's Daily Mirror revealed in May that "Dr. Death" Harold Shipman, serving a life sentence for killing 15 older patients (and perhaps as many as 200 more), had somehow been allowed to assist sick prisoners in the hospital wing of England's Frankland jail in Durham County. Said one prison source, "This man has spent his career secretly killing (people). Just imagine some poor guy's face when he looks up from his wheelchair and sees Dr. Death is pushing it." [Daily Mirror, 5-15-03]
In May the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an Iowa Supreme Court order that the Interstate Power Co. should pay a family $700,000 because stray voltage had been juicing up their farm's cows. Daniel and Coleen Martins said that, because of a nearby power substation, their cows had been kicking off their milkers, swinging from side to side, and "dancing," to the detriment of their milk production. [USA Today, 5-5-03; Des Moines Register, 10-30-02]
One beneficiary of Oregon's budget woes, according to an April report in the Salem Statesman Journal, is Jose Leonidas Selva Jr., who had just been arrested behind the wheel of a stolen car, his third arrest in two months. As in the previous arrests, Selva was summarily released two days later because Oregon had no money to pay a public defender to represent him. The limited defense funds were to be used for suspects in violent crimes, and by his third arrest, Selva knew that: "I figured, they're just going to release me. They're not going to hold me. I'm just going to keep doing it." Selva was ordered to return after July 1, when new budget money is supposedly available. [Salem Statesman Journal, 4-19-03]
According to a May lawsuit filed against the all-girls Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, Conn., Catholic Sister Linda Cusano repeatedly wrestled a student to the floor in a secluded office in incidents in 1991 and 1992, for sexual purposes and to impress upon the student that she needed to join the convent upon graduation and submit herself to God. Cusano was known by students as "the recruiter" because of her aggressive (but more mainstream) encouragement toward sisterhood. [Hartford Courant, 5-24-03]
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Least Competent Criminals
Police in Scotia, N.Y., arrested Malinda Kelly in March on several charges but only after they had scurried around for several hours trying to find her "stolen" car and her 3-month-old son, who was inside. The next day, Kelly's story fell apart. Actually, said police, she had forgotten where she had left the car, which was idling, with the child inside, while she ran down the street to burglarize her uncle's home. (She came away with some money, but meanwhile lost her own money when a stranger took her purse from the idling car.) [Albany Times Union, 3-23-03, 3-25-03]
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Updates
Illinois became the latest state to propose a ban on having one's tongue aesthetically split, reptile-like (unless done by a doctor or dentist). But the move is unpopular among devotees. "When I first saw it, I thought tongue-splitting was the most beautiful thing I've seen in my life," said satisfied splittee James Keen, who spoke to an Associated Press reporter, who observed that Keen "now speaks with a slight lisp." Said another splitee, who said he could now do party tricks like picking up a pencil with the two halves, "It's done to better yourself." [Newsday-AP, 5-13-03; Associated Press, 6-20-03]
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Awesome!
Jessica Parks graduated from high school in Oakland County, Mich., in May, with high grades, a varsity letter in cheerleading, and other entirely typical achievements of high-performing teens, all done without benefit of arms, which she has been without since birth. Among her special skills: putting her contact lenses in with her toes, and driving her car with no special equipment, just one foot on the gas and one on the steering wheel. And in June, NewsChannel 4 in Oklahoma City featured Laura Stringfellow's dog Faith, whose front legs failed to develop and so now, at age seven months, has learned to walk and chase cats while on her hind legs. [Detroit Free Press, 6-7-03] [KFOR-TV (Oklahoma City), 6-24-03]
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Homeland Security Blues
(1) CBS News reported in May that while 90 percent of gun purchasers go through instant criminal background checks on an FBI database, the State Department's list of known foreign terrorists is not yet on the database. (2) At Pittsburgh International Airport in May, a 21-year-old mental patient almost effortlessly penetrated several security barriers until he was able to board an empty passenger jet on the runway. (3) A June General Accounting Office report found that as many as 30 suspected terrorists whose visas have been revoked may still be in the United States because of the State Department's laxness in notifying Justice Department agencies. [CBS News, 5-30-03] [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5-28-03] [Fox News-AP, 6-18-03]
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