[1004] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.388 (News of the Weird, July 14, 1995)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Tue Aug 8 12:13:25 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 1995 12:10:00 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 19:00:03 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 1995 16:05:08 -0400
From: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.388 (News of the Weird, July 14, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
* An Associated Press dispatch from Thailand in January reported on a
Bangkok mechanic named Somsong Thanopwattana, who ingests quantities of
lube grease, which he first tried five years ago. He prefers 20/50 grade
and says his bowel movements are the best he's ever had. His doctor,
however, has cautioned him against the diet, pointing to grease's
combustibility and warning him against passing gas close to an open flame.
[Asahi Evening News-AP, 1-16-95]
THE WEIRDO-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
* In April, three members of San Francisco's Bay Area Carnivorous Plant
Society pleaded guilty to smuggling over 200 rare plants into the U. S.
from Asia. Said another Society member, who speculated on their motive:
"Carnivorous plants can really give you an obsession. ... I started out
with a Venus's flytrap 35 years ago. ... You get one and you want another
one." [San Francisco Examiner, 4-16-95]
* Phoenix, Ariz., police arrested a Christian school headmaster, Michael
William Wetton, in March and charged him with child abuse. A woman and
her 15-year-old daughter had met with Wetton to consider enrolling the
girl, and, according to police, Wetton demonstrated the school's Christian
discipline by forcing the girl to strip and submit to a paddling while
reciting the Lord's Prayer. [Arizona Republic, 3-22-95, 5-20-95]
* Denver, Colo., police arrested Milton Edward Anderson, 63, in March and
said he was their principal suspect in a wave of about 200 recent
brassiere-slashings (right cup only) at retail stores. Anderson denied
the charge but admitted he was wearing women's underwear at the time he
was arrested. [Rocky Mountain News, 3-28-95]
* In March, librarians in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties in
California were on the lookout for a mystery slasher who had removed the
pages from poetry books in several libraries. Speculated the editor of
a poetry magazine interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle, "The poetry
world attracts people on the fringes. ... Maybe this person thinks these
poems should be in a different style or form, or wants them to rhyme."
[San Francisco Chronicle, 3-25-95]
* In February in East Moline, Ill., Benjy G. Kremenak, 39, pleaded guilty
to having stalked a woman for nearly three years. His hearing had been
postponed from May 1994 because the judge at that time became alarmed when
Kremenak several times during the hearing spontaneously broke out singing
his rendition of "Chapel of Love." [Quad-City Times, Feb95]
* In December, Charles Moody, 34, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., and
charged with killing his mother and brother, wrapping the bodies in
plastic so that some features were visible, and leaving them at curbside
for garbage pickup. He told onlookers quite unconvincingly that they were
only fake bodies. Said a local psychologist interviewed by the Louisville
Courier-Journal, "[Moody's] is a classic example of denial that will be
taught in classrooms for years." [Louisville Courier-Journal, 12-7-94]
* In April in Haddon Heights, N. J., police charged Ms. Leslie Nelson with
the murders of two police officers who had come to her home to serve a
warrant for weapons violations. Nelson resisted arrest and barricaded
herself inside for 14 hours. The 6-foot-2 Nelson, who had recently
undergone a sex-change operation to cease being Mr. Glenn Nelson, was seen
during the standoff at a window in the home holding a rifle while clad in
G-string and halter top. [Houston Chronicle-Phila. Inquirer, 4-21-95]
* In January, months of investigative work by the Warren (Ohio)
Tribune-Chronicle resulted in murder charges being filed against a man
for a 1978 murder that had been officially reported as a suicide by county
coroner Joseph A. Sudimack, who had retired in 1987. Still being
investigated are several other of Sudimack's "suicide" determinations,
including one case of a man who was shot and run over by a bulldozer;
another of a man who was found hanged, on his knees, with toilet paper
stuffed in his mouth; and another of a man who died of carbon monoxide
poisoning from an inoperable lawn mower. [Tuscaloosa News-AP, 2-12-95]
* Danny Strickland, 34, was arrested in Savannah, Ga., in November after
a shoot-out with police, and charged with killing his father. Among the
evidence against Strickland was a to-do list he had made for disposing of
the body (e.g., nail windows closed, repair bullet holes, melt bullets)
and some equipment he had purchased to dispose of the body (e.g., a meat
grinder). [Post & Courier-AP, 11-21-94]
* In January, attorney Lawrence Gottfried, 50, was sentenced to 15 months
in prison for destroying documents during his tenure with the Board of
Veterans' Appeals in Washington, D. C. According to Gottfried's attorney,
Gottfried cracked under domestic and work-related stress. He removed or
tore up files from more than 30 veterans' cases he had been working on in
order to return the cases as "incomplete" so he would not have to work
further on them. [Washington Post, 1-24-95]
I DON'T THINK SO
* In a May story on the racial harassment of Lateef Saibu by his neighbors
in Providence, R. I., one neighbor quoted Saibu's chief antagonist as
saying he opposed the Saibu family's moving there because "it would bring
down [my] property value." According to the Providence Journal-Bulletin,
the neighborhood consists of seven houses and three small industries
"jammed up against a hilly dead-end," with "bare dirt yards," rusted "junk
cars and truck tops," "cracked windows," and facades with "curling
shingles." [Providence Journal-Bulletin, 5-27-95]
* According to Allentown, Pa., district attorney Robert Steinberg, the
skinhead brothers Bryan and David Freeman, who are charged with the brutal
February murders of their parents, don't really believe the skinhead
doctrine of racial hate. Steinberg says they have told others they
acquired their forehead tattoos (e.g., "Berserker") "because it was a good
way of meeting girls." [Columbia Daily Tribune-Knight-Ridder, 4-27-95]
* In a May letter to a California state senator, the Motion Picture
Association of America wrote that Hollywood is not responsible for any
increase in violence in society and that "in fact, the opposite may be
true." According to MPAA executive Vans Stevenson, the sexual revolution
and the civil unrest and rioting on college campuses in the late 1960s
and early 1970s must have been produced by kids' watching "healthy" shows
like "Captain Kangaroo." [San Jose Mercury News, 5-5-95]
Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Released for the entertainment of readers. No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.
