[1086] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.390 (News of the Weird, July 28, 1995)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Fri Sep 22 09:36:45 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 09:34:17 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 22:24:32 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
From: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.390 (News of the Weird, July 28, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
* In May, the immigration office at Pearson International Airport in
Toronto announced that one of its employees had been disciplined because
of complaints that, under the pretense of official policy, he had ordered
people entering Canada to remove their shoes and socks so that he could
photograph their feet. According to officials, the man had already been
counseled four times about his habit. [Sault Star-CP, 5-3-95]
COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE TRUE
* In December, the Air Force Times reported that Army soldier Joseph
Cannon had recently ended his six-year career having not received a single
military paycheck after boot camp. Officials said Cannon's records were
lost at his first duty station, but that he had never complained, though
he missed 144 paychecks totaling over $103,000. Apparently, Cannon lived
in the barracks, ate only in the mess halls, and borrowed money from
relatives whenever he had special needs. [Air Force Times, 12-5-94]
* According to records released in March of the November 1994 autopsy of
serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, officials kept Dahmer's body shackled at
the feet during the entire procedure, "such was the fear of this man,"
according to pathologist Robert Huntington. [Milwaukee Journal-AP,
3-17-95]
* In February, a fishing boat sank in rough, cold waters off Vancouver
Island, leaving two men in a life raft that was tied to the sinking boat
by a nylon rope. Neither had a knife to cut the rope, and had the ship
sunk, it would have pulled the boat and the men down with it. For an
hour, the two men alternated chewing the rope, with one man losing a tooth
in the process, and, minutes before the ship sank, the men finally chewed
through the rope and survived. [Vancouver Sun, 2-13-95]
* According to two colleagues, the pilot of the American Eagle airlines
plane that crashed near Morrisville, N. C., in December told them and
others that he was not qualified to pilot that particular aircraft and
that he accepted a captain's assignment only when American Eagle told him
to accept it or resign. The pilot, who had been forced out of his
previous job because of poor skill performance and who had had difficulty
during American Eagle's training, was said by colleagues interviewed by
the Associated Press to have poor emergency decision-making ability and
not to be "captain material." [Greensboro News-Record-AP, Apr95]
* According to a New York Times story in May, as many as 20 Orthodox
Jewish fathers in New York City who are involved in bitter divorce fights
may be improving their leverage by resorting to an obscure passage in the
Torah. A father is permitted to arrange his daughter's marriage while
she is still a minor (under age 13); the daughter can then marry no one
else without the father's permission. Because a mother so fears for her
daughter's well-being, she may relent to divorce demands of the husband
if he will drop the arrangement. The Times interviewed rabbis who called
the practice disgusting and abhorrent, but valid. [N. Y. Times, 5-27-95]
* In July, a judge in Denver, Colo., ruled that a mother and her current
boyfriend could have temporary custody of her 8-month-old twin girls,
even though DNA tests revealed that the boyfriend and the woman's
estranged husband each fathered one, but not both, of the girls. The
woman must have ovulated twice during a single cycle and had intercourse
with both men during that cycle. [Albuquerque Journal-AP, 5-18-95]
* According to a May story by Reuters columnist Sherwood Ross, psychic
advisors Phyllis Schwartz and Hy Kaplan of Cherry Hill, N.J., have been
retained by nearly 100 firms, including several of the Fortune 500, to
"read" the vibes of applicants for employment. According to Kaplan, they
need to know nothing more than name and position applied for, but they
also note age, gender, and residence so they won't "read" the wrong person
of the same name. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4-17-95]
* In April in Los Angeles, Ruth Walston filed for divorce from her
husband, actor Ray Walston. She's 79, he's 80, they've been married 51
years, and she charged "irreconcilable differences." [People, 5-8-95]
NAMES IN THE NEWS
* Names that showed up recently on police blotters: Pleading guilty to
rape in Denver, William Freelove; sentenced for assault in St. Joseph,
Mo., Jesse James; cited for speeding in Parma, Ohio, Amelia A. Earhart;
charged with assault and burglary in Moorhead, Minn., was a man who would
not give his name and is thus listed on the rolls as Mr. Fnu Mnu Lnu
(derived from "first name unknown," etc.); and jailed in Des Moines, Iowa,
was Shannon Cooper, who police said went out bar-hopping, temporarily
abandoning her children, Champaigne, 2, Chardonay, 1, and Chablea, 3
months. [Rocky Mountain News, 4-22-95] [Franklin County Watchman-AP,
2-20-95] [Columbus Dispatch-AP, Dec94] [Fargo Forum, Dec94] [Des Moines
Register, 11-18-94]
* Notable announcements in the news recently included the hiring by a
medical clinic in Koloa, Hawaii, of Dr. Michael Cholera; the success of
a new tooth decay preventive by Dutch professor Taco Pilot; the
appointment as county coroner in Spokane, Wash., of Pat Mummey; and the
revelation of fraud uncovered in a United Nations office in Kenya, as
announced by office spokeswoman, Shamp Poo. [The Garden Island, May95]
[Nashville Tennessean-AP, 4-8-94] [Spokane Spokesman-Review, 10-22-94]
[New York Times-Reuters, 3-3-95]
* California Names: In Newport Beach, Miss Truly Gold recently married
Cary S. Boring. The Los Angeles Times reported that 16 people named Jesus
Christ have California drivers licenses. The chair of the Polish American
Congress, Anti-Defamation Committee of California, Inc., as of last year
was Teodor Polak. [Albuquerque Journal-AP, 10-10-94] [Los Angeles Times,
5-2-95] [Los Angeles Times, 1-9-94]
LEAST COMPETENT PERSON
* In May, police in Halifax, Mass., charged Robert Brinson, 28, with
assembling an Oklahoma City-style fertilizer bomb to blow up his
ex-girlfriend and her family. Police said one bomb was found in the
woman's bathroom and another in a doghouse outside, both consisting of
turpentine and nails in cans with a battery and timer. However, police
said the bombs were not explosive -- since Brinson had mistakenly used
potting soil instead of fertilizer. [Boston Herald, 5-23-95]
Copyright 1995, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.
Released only for entertainment of readers. No commercial use
may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.
