[438] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.341 (News of the Weird, August 19, 1994)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Tue Sep 6 09:59:27 1994
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 1994 09:54:21 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 1994 15:22:26 -0600 (MDT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN%ARIES@VAXF.Colorado.EDU>
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.341 (News of the Weird, August 19, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* In July, after Willoughby, Ohio, police arrested Jamie V. Bradshaw,
23, for breaking and entering, they confiscated more than 450 items of
women's underwear from his car and home, all stolen, according to police,
from the laundry rooms at ten apartment complexes over the past two years.
Bradshaw is from nearby Painesville, population 15,000, where two years
ago another man was convicted of stealing men's underwear, including at
least one instance of cutting the briefs off of a sleeping man.
[Youngstown Vindicator-AP, 7-7-94]
Courtroom Antics
* The lawsuit Irene Geschke, then age 55, filed against a mortgage company
in 1979 in Chicago just passed its 15th anniversary without coming to
trial. There have been more than 530 motions and orders, and nine dates
for trial have come and gone. Geschke claims the mortgage company caused
her to go out of business when it wrongly foreclosed on a loan and is now
acting as her own lawyer, managing the one ton of legal documents involved
in the case. [Wall Street Journal, 3-24-94]
* In June in London, lawyers for convicted murderer Stephen Young filed
an appeal after learning from one juror that three other jurors had
conducted a Ouija board seance during jury deliberations and "contacted"
the dead man, who named Young as his killer. [Houston Post-Reuter,
6-21-94]
* In April Rodney Williams, 21, appeared in the courtroom of Judge Robert
Altenhof in Kelso, Wash., to explain why he had missed a previous court
date on an assault charge. Fearing that the judge might not believe his
excuse--his mother's recent fatal illness--Williams held up his mother's
ashes, in a plastic box, and offered them for the judge to examine. Said
Altenhof, "You think you've heard it all, but somebody always comes up
with something new." [Chicago Tribune-AP, 4-30-94]
* Late last year in Bangladesh, Falu Mia, 60, was released from prison
after 21 years. He had been locked up until his trial for theft in 1972,
then found not guilty, but a lethargic bureaucracy failed to release him.
He recently filed a lawsuit against the government for 21 years' back
wages (about $26,000). [Boston Sunday Herald, 4-3-94]
* In June, a judge in Thousand Oaks, Calif., dismissed neighbors' request
for an injunction against Kathleen Adams, who the neighbors said lures
squirrels to her home with food and thus creates a nuisance. Adams claims
the area is populated with squirrels, anyway, and that she does not need
to lure them. Neighbors' evidence included the fact that Adams posts
"Squirrels Welcome" signs in her yard, but the judge said he found the
signs unpersuasive in that he doubted that squirrels could read them. [Los
Angeles times, Jun94]
* In December, a federal court in San Francisco ruled against former
Doobie Brothers drummer John Hartman in his employment discrimination
lawsuit over his firing from the Petaluma, Calif., police force. Hartman
claimed that his drug use in the early 1970s made him "disabled" under
the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the judge ruled that Hartman had
not proved that he had done enough drugs to be disabled. [San Francisco
Chronicle, 1-2-94]
* Apparently weary of interfamily bickering in the federal bankruptcy case
of Judith Herskowitz of Florida, Judge Jay Cristol ordered Herskowitz in
March to "obtain and mail to" her sister Susan Charney, at least five days
before Susan's next birthday, a card which reads "Happy Birthday Sister"
and contains the signature of Ms. Herskowitz. Further, Cristol ordered
that "the card shall not contain any negative, inflammatory, or unkind
remarks." [Fla. Law Weekly, order issued 3-7-94]
* In July, Ontario judge Lee Ferrier upheld the 1991 firing of Sharon
Bagnall, 52, by Calvin Klein Canada, where she worked as a cologne
demonstrator. The judge said he was persuaded by the company's witnesses,
who testified that Bagnall had a "personal hygiene problem" and smelled
like an "armpit." [Montreal Gazette, 7-5-94]
People Unclear on the Concept
* In July, University of California at San Francisco clinical psychiatrist
Dean Freeman, 35, was arrested and charged with attempted murder after he
reportedly attacked a patient with a knife and an ax, inflicting at least
ten wounds. [San Francisco Chronicle, 7-28-94]
* The Massachusetts Division of Medical Assistance revealed in March that
it had spent almost $50,000 in 1993 on fertility drugs for 260 people,
including about 80 welfare mothers, two of whom already had eight children
each. [Insight, 4-25-94]
* In a $20 million advertising campaign to shore up its tarnished image
as a "straight-talking" company, Prudential Securities, Inc., began
running print media ads praising its agents' integrity, featuring its
Beverly Hills broker Susan B. Gooding, who proclaims that her own father
is a client. According to a news story in the Chicago Sun-Times in March,
Gooding's father, who died in 1991, was never her client. [Chicago
Sun-Times, 3-22-94]
* The Chicago Tribune reported in June on a local sex therapist, Robert
Herd, who works exclusively helping animals to mate. He says a surprising
number of dogs and horses exhibit sexual dysfunction. [London Free
Press-Chicago Tribune, Jun94]
* In July, Lisa Evans, 26, told reporters she had been fired from an adult
entertainment club where she worked at a nude peep show "fantasy booth"
in Edmonton, Alberta, and that she planned to file a complaint with the
Human Rights Commission. Evans weighs 270 lbs., and management said
customers had complained that she was difficult to fantasize over.
[Edmonton Journal, 7-7-94]
* According to police in Calgary, Alberta, a local pizzaria contains a
dungeonlike "trick pad" where teenage girls are forced to work as
prostitutes and whose catacomb of rooms is littered with sex magazines,
liquor bottles, and used condoms. However, health officials who inspected
it in December refused to close it down, with Dr. Paul Hasselback saying,
"There is no reason to be concerned about the food being served."
According to Hasselback, police business and health business are separate
matters. [Edmonton Journal-CP, 1-3-94]
Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights
reserved. Released for the personal use of readers.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the
name News of the Weird.
