[479] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.345 (News of the Weird, September 16, 1994)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Wed Oct 5 11:30:49 1994
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 05 Oct 1994 11:25:52 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 04 Oct 1994 18:10:36 -0600 (MDT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN%ARIES@VAXF.Colorado.EDU>
...
From: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.345 (News of the Weird, September 16, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* Desmond Morris's latest documentary, "The Human Animal: The Biology of
Love," now on TV in England, will appear on U. S. cable TV in January and
picture a human orgasm--from inside the vagina. A tiny camera, similar
to those used for diagnosis of the colon, was placed inside Wendy
Duffield, 31, and another was strapped onto her husband's penis. The
couple reportedly had sex about 60 times to assure sufficient footage.
[Chicago Tribune-Reuters, 8-18-94]
Schemes
* Texas A&M officials were considering charges in July that chemistry
professor John Bockris used unorthodox scientific methods, and improperly
circumvented school funding procedures, for his work in which he claims
gold can be manufactured from other substances. In December, Bockris
expressed surprise at the charges, reminding a campus newspaper reporter
that he is a professor and saying, "What professor would be doing bogus
work?" [USA Today, 7-5-94; Houston Post-AP, 12-24-93; Dallas Morning
News, Dec93]
* Delaware prison officials decided in July to allow condemned murderer
Nelson Shelton to undergo a kidney removal at public expense so that he
can donate the organ to his mother. The state initially refused to pay
but relented when Shelton played his trump card: He threatened to use
all of his legal rights to appeal his sentence, which would cost the state
hundreds of thousands of dollars. [USA Today, 7-28-94]
* In June, South Charleston, W. Va., inmate Robert Dale Shepard, in jail
on robbery charges, escaped from a recreation yard by braiding dental
floss into a rope that he used to scale a fence. To prevent such
occurrences, the state of Maine prohibits inmates from having dental
floss, but in July, Portland inmate Michael Tuck, 31, filed a lawsuit
against the state, claiming that the policy hinders his ability to fight
tooth decay. [New Haven Register-AP, 8-14-94; USA Today, 8-3-94]
* In February a federal court in California dismissed the complaint of
Jogezai Kakar Khan against the director of the FBI and about two dozen
other defendants for harassing him. The other defendants included
President Bush, "the Queen of England," French President Mitterrand, the
San Francisco Chronicle, some college professors, several street gangs in
Hong Kong, "the drug cartel," H. Ross Perot, Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas,
Frank Sinatra, Dennis Hopper, Phil Donahue, "the founders of Israel,"
Oliver North, and a "humanoid alien extra-terrestrial leader speaking
Greek." [Khan vs. Sessions, No. C93-04394, U. S. District Court, Northern
District of California, 2-8-94]
* In June, police in Deventer, Netherlands, arrested six women and a man
they said had been robbing local supermarkets. The women would enter the
market and disrobe down to their underpants to create a distraction, while
the man walked into the manager's office and grabbed money. [Tampa
Tribune-AP, 6-7-94]
* In June, Michael Frazier, the "lifestyle" editor of the daily newspaper
in Oak Ridge, Tenn., was charged with attempted murder of the husband of
a woman he had written about. According to police reports, Frazier and
Lisa Whedbee began an affair shortly after he interviewed her. In a plot
to kill John Whedbee, Frazier was to pose as a robber-intruder and stab
John while Lisa stood by with a baseball bat and pretended to defend John.
According to John, Frazier seemed tentative, causing Lisa to break
character and yell to Frazier, "You've got to do it, just do it now."
[Knoxville News-Sentinel, 6-10-94 and subsequent days]
* In July, Mollie Brusstar, 48, was convicted of two counts of
embezzlement from the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Va., where she had
been employed in administration. According to the prosecutor, Brusstar
put imaginary employees on the rolls and issued their paychecks to
herself. She and a sister went to Utah and, posing as nuns, used the
money to obtain dental work and cosmetic abdomen-reduction surgery.
Brusstar's defense was that a monsignor had approved everything, but he
was unavailable to testify, having committed suicide in the interim after
being accused of molesting a parishioner. [Northern Va. Sun, Jul94]
Feuds
* In August, to climax a feud in Concordia Sagittaria, Italy, a judge
ordered Maria Bruna Bortolussi to keep her talking blackbird away from
neighbor Norina Miorin, after Miorin testified that Bortolussi had taught
the bird to say, in Italian, "Norina, I'm going to kill you." The two
were fussing over a garden. [Edmonton (Alberta) Journal, 8-21-94]
* In Minot, N. D., in June, a woman ran into a police station asking for
protection from her husband, who was chasing her. She was told to be
seated in the waiting area, but before police could get to her case, they
found the couple outside in the parking lot facing off, with each pointing
a chain saw at the other. [Sioux Falls Argus Leader-AP, 6-12-94]
Cries for Help
* In May, a Denver, Colo., judge sentenced Oliver Thomas Oster, 77, to
serve 12 months in prison for four attempted bank robberies. Oster, who
was said to resemble the near-sighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo and who
is unable to walk, attempted the robberies from a car at the banks'
drive-in windows and used a gun so rusted that the cylinder wouldn't turn,
which was irrelevant, said his lawyer, because Oster lacked the physical
strength necessary to pull the trigger, anyway. [Denver Post, 5-7-94]
Least Competent Criminals
* Last fall, in Memphis, Tenn., a Loomis Armored truck guard was robbed
by two men just as he was about to enter a supermarket to make a pickup.
The gunmen fled with the large bag the guard was carrying, which, since
the guard was entering the store at the time, was merely a bag containing
other empty money bags. [Lebanon (Tenn.) Democrat-AP, 10-15-93]
* In November, in St. Joseph, Mo., Michael Gene McCrary, 37, was charged
with attempted robbery of a barber shop. He walked in, reportedly
slightly inebriated, pretending to have a gun in his pocket, and said to
barber Fred Robertson, "Set 'em up." When Robertson requested
clarification, McCrary replied, "You know what I mean." A customer walked
outside and summoned police. [St. Joseph News-Press, 11-6-93]
I Don't Think So
* In a St. John's, Newfoundland, courtroom in August, George Clarke denied
that the bruises and cuts on his girlfriend's body were the result of
domestic assault. He said the back bruises occurred one night when Clarke
was suicidal. He said he tied a noose ineptly to an overhead pipe and
ultimately fell on top of her when she tried to stop him. The bruises
and cuts on her arm came because he is forced to hold her arms tightly
during sex because, he said, "Your Honor, I only got a small penis on me."
[CP wirecopy, 8-19-94]
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.
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