[958] in Humor
HUMOR: WEIRDNUZ.384 (News of the Weird, June 16, 1995)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Wed Jul 5 09:51:14 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 1995 09:45:01 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 1995 20:13:59 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.384 (News of the Weird, June 16, 1995)
by Chuck Shepherd
LEAD STORY
* In May police in Prince William County, Va., and Clearwater, Fla.,
dejectedly perused law books to find crimes with which to charge men whom
they believed to be peeping Toms. Police in Virginia said James Harrison
Burdick, 23, had rigged a ladder to look into a high school girls' locker
room, but state law makes it illegal only to peep into a dwelling, not a
public building. Police in Florida said that Fred J. Dohring, 50, held
a video camera under a stall in a coed beach changing room but that the
only surreptitious taping that is illegal is audiotaping. [Washington
Post, 5-17-95; St. Petersburg Times, 6-1-95]
LEAST COMPETENT PEOPLE
* One of China's most-discussed stories of 1994, according to a November
New York Times report, was an account originally in the official Legal
Daily paper about a couple who had failed for months to conceive a child.
A doctor examining the woman found her still to be a virgin and possessing
the belief that a couple's merely sleeping in the same bed constituted a
reproductive act. [N. Y. Times, 11-27-94]
* A May Associated Press story summarized several schemes in which
scoundrels managed to take advantage of rabid anti-government and militia
types with fraudulent fund-raising pitches. Perhaps the most gullible
victims were those of Scott Hildebrand and three others, who were
convicted in Michigan after somehow convincing several people to pay a
$300 filing fee so that they could share in the pot of "$600 trillion"
Hildebrand claimed he had just won in his lawsuit against the federal
government for abandoning the gold standard in 1933. [Austin
American-Statesman-AP, 5-12-95]
* Time magazine reported in March that, four months after he lost the
election and two months after he left office, former Illinois congressman
Dan Rostenkowski was still getting phone calls at his Chicago office from
constituents demanding that he do them the usual favors. A former aide
speculated that voters only wanted to scare Rostenkowski in November: "I
don't think anyone thought he'd really lose." [Time, 3-13-95]
* Jormel F. Williams, 20, was arrested in St. Louis, Mo., in April on
several charges, including using a stolen credit card. Williams was
detected when, after using a Dillard's card belonging to John Einspanier,
he was asked what his last name was. According to police, Williams did
not even come close, either to pronouncing "Einspanier" or spelling it.
[St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4-12-95]
* In incidents in February in Virginia Beach, Va., and Springfield, Mo.,
bank robbers had their capers foiled because, in each case, the robber
had visited the respective bank only minutes before and filled out
paperwork using his own name and address, in one case for a loan and in
the other for a bank credit card. [Newport News Daily Press-AP, 2-4-95]
* In Toronto, Ontario, in December, two men were arrested for burglary by
officers responding to a 911 call. The suspects' getaway ended abruptly
when, as they leaped off of a porch, the 17-year-old landed on top of the
22-year-old and suffered a badly sprained ankle, while leaving his
colleague with a fractured skull, broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and
a collapsed lung. [Sault Star-CP, 12-21-94]
* Jorge Rodriguez, 22, went before a Kenosha, Wis., municipal judge in
November on a charge that he had hit a parked car while driving drunk.
Rodriguez earnestly handed the judge a Monopoly-like "Get out of jail
free" card that had been distributed by a candidate for sheriff as a
gimmick during the just-ended campaign. Said the prosecutor, "Clearly,
the defendant had the impression it was legitimate." Rodriguez received
a fine and probation. [Tampa Tribune-AP, 11-11-94]
* William Edward Woods, 49, was arrested in Tampa, Fla., in May on fraud
charges after he had gone to a Paine Webber office and asked for a $50
billion line of credit. As collateral, Woods offered the brokerage firm
a $1 billion bond allegedly issued by the city of Moscow, Russia, and a
$625 million certificate of deposit allegedly issued by a bank in Croatia,
plus a receipt for $66 million in gold that was supposedly waiting for
him in the warehouse of treasure hunter Mel Fisher. A state official
called Woods's alleged scheme "the preposterous, raised to the 10th
power." "[I'm] amazed [the Paine Webber people] didn't break out
laughing." [St. Petersburg Times, 5-24-95]
* Inmate Frederick McGowan, 26, who had walked away from the Blue Ridge
Community work-release facility in Taylors, S. Car., on March 10, was
recaptured a week later when he returned to the center to pick up his
paycheck. (Officials, aware of the way Mr. McGowan's mind works, were
waiting for him.) [Augusta Chronicle, 3-18-95]
* Police in Howland, Ohio, arrested a 17-year-old man in January and
charged him with breaking into Gilmore's Greenhouse Florist and carrying
out seven hanging plants. Police arrived at the man's home by following
a trail of petals. [Youngstown Vindicator, Jan95]
* In January, police in Edmonton, Alberta, charged Kevin Krishna Niranjan,
30, with mischief after they tracked him down from a failed bank robbery.
Police said Niranjan, unarmed, entered the Bank of Nova Scotia and yelled,
"Freeze! This is a holdup!" However, because he remained in the doorway
and gave no other instruction, people in the bank merely stared at him,
bewildered. According to the bank manager, Niranjan finally yelled
something to the effect that he didn't think the staring was funny and
ran out of the bank. [Edmonton Sun, 1-19-95]
* In February, Mayor Burhanettin Ozfatura of Izmir, Turkey, who was upset
at an attempt by Sen. Bob Dole to block U. S. aid to Turkey, banned the
sale of Dole bananas in his city. (Sen. Dole has no connection to Dole
bananas.) [Chicago Sun-Times, 2-27-95]
UNDIGNIFIED DEATHS
* In April, a woman and her brother died in Libertyville, Ill., when their
car slammed into a tree at the Ascension Cemetery. And in March, a Wall
Street analyst in his 20s leaped to his death from the 22nd floor of 71
Broadway, landing in the graveyard of Trinity Church, where Alexander
Hamilton is buried. [Chicago Tribune, 4-24-95; Syracuse Herald-Tribune-AP,
3-30-95]
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.
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