WEIRDNUZ.506 (News of the Weird, October 17, 1997) by Chuck Shepherd
(As usual, commentary added).
LEAD STORIES
* In May, at a National Organization for Women's gathering in Utah, Elizabeth Joseph, an attorney, and Ellen George, secretary of the NOW Utah office, praised multi-wife polygamy as an alternative for feminists, an idea that was a few years ago denounced by NOW as slavery. Joseph lives informally in such an arrangement with her husband, six co-wives, and 20 children; some wives stay home, and others work. Said George, "We fight for lesbian families and single-parent families. I don't know why we wouldn't support this."
Should we be happy or sorry for the husband?
* The University of Minnesota was seeking more "specialists" to work on its three-year, $390,000 program to set an "odor emissions rating system" for regulating the state's 35,000 animal feedlots, according to an August Minneapolis Star Tribune story. Having judges, or government officials, go sniff the feedlot apparently would give insufficient due process of law; rather, a panel of sniffers will develop objective standards on the types of odors and their strength. Already 35 people are employed and have begun sniffing the nearly-200 chemical components of cow and pig manure in order to categorize them for the formal state stench test.
Those must be the same people in the commercials that truly love the smell of Folgers brewing in the morning.
* In a study released in September and using United Nations statistics, University of Pennsylvania professor Richard J. Estes concluded that the U. S. enjoys only the 27th most favorable social conditions among 160 nations of the world, ranking behind such paradises as Bulgaria. According to Estes, the social situation in Bulgaria is "miserable," but the country responds to basic human needs (literacy, basic health care, housing, retirement income) better than the U. S. (In the U. N.'s own data analysis, the U. S. is 4th in the world.)
Where you stand depends upon where you sit, I guess.
I'VE GOT MY RIGHTS
* Bathroom Rights in Alabama: In January, the U. S. Supreme Court put to rest Luverne High School student Jerry Boyett's 1993 lawsuit over whether a public-school student has a right, if he needs it, to a restroom break during class. Answer: No. And in April, a jury in Columbiana, Ala., told Clara Kizer the same thing about her dog. She had filed a lawsuit against her neighbors for complaining about her dogs' poop. She said dogs should have the right to poop within 11 feet of a street because that is public land even if it appears to be private property.
Where you shit depends upon where you stand, I guess.
* In August, Scott and Sonya Rutherford filed a $40,000 lawsuit against a Houston, Tex., school district because the baseball coaches at Cypress Falls High School failed to use their son enough as a pitcher to give him a chance at a college athletic scholarship. The Rutherfords say, also, that they have been humiliated around town by the coaches' failure to play their son. According to the Rutherfords' lawyer, the coaches' decision violates the U. S. constitution.
They want their son to get the education they obviously never had.
* "Civilized gentlemen do not wear short-sleeve dress shirts," said Derrill Osborn, director of men's clothing for Neiman Marcus, apparently speaking for many managers in a July Wall Street Journal article. The few who spoke up for the comfort of those shirts, especially in the summer, accused Osborn and others of a brand-new political incorrectness: "sleevism."
Thank goodness that's been cleared up once and for all.
* In February, members of the West Palm Beach, Fla., Pit Bull Terrier Club received notices that some insurance companies would not renew their homeowner policies because that breed of dog was responsible for an increasing number of liability claims. Club officer Linda Kender termed such insurance company stereotyping "dog racism."
In a similar case, saveral instances of muffed parachutes deployments caused many insurers to cancel their skydiving customers. They were accused of being "anti-muff divers".
* The Dutch Federation for Military Personnel union (which 20 years ago won the right for soldiers to wear their hair long) announced in April it would back a female recruit's desire to wear a tongue ring. The code of conduct, the union said, bans jewelry "on the head," not "in the head."
I caught some show this past weekend (MTV?) where the camera followed this girl in to watch her get her tongue pierced. After much grunting and groaning, she exclaims "that hurt!" DUH! Then the camera follows her home where she surprises her boyfriend with her new, uh, attachment. His comment? "I like my chicks dumb, but not that dumb!"
CLICHES COME TO LIFE
* In May, Kent, Wash., elementary school teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau, 35, gave birth to a baby girl, the father of whom is one of her sixth-graders. LeTourneau is the daughter of ex-U.S. Rep. John Schmitz, an intense right-wing Republican who was so notoriously opposed to sex education in schools that he would move little Mary out of any school contemplating such a program. In August, she pleaded guilty to child rape. (Unofficially, though, she admires the boy: "There was a respect, an insight, a spirit, an understanding between us that grew over time." They met when he was in second grade.)
It's safe to assume that something other than "understanding" grew between them.
* Reasons College Men Fight in 1997: In Ithaca, N.Y., in May, a 21-year-old college student was arrested for beating up a guy in a bar fight over who had the better-looking goatee.
Better looking than what?
* Life Imitates TV: (1) A Bangkok hotel worker was convicted in July of stealing from guests' safe-deposit boxes by rubbing his nose oil onto the buttons so he could check later to see which buttons had been pushed by the guest to open the safe. He said he learned the trick from watching the TV show "MacGyver." (2) A 27-year-old man driving a stolen truck was caught by sheriff's deputies in Salt Lake City in August but not before he eluded one deputy by vaulting over a backyard swimming pool while the squad car went straight in, lights flashing, reminiscent of "The Dukes of Hazzard."
I'm not sure I want to know, but what exactly is nose oil?"
* Psychologist Sandy Wolfson told The Times of London in June that her research on fans of "Star Trek" reveals as many as 10 percent to meet the clinical definition of addicts, especially when they go through physical withdrawal during their show's absence. Further, like classic drug addicts, they seem to require ever-increasing doses to overcome their tolerance levels.
.............He's dead, Jim.
COLLECTORS
* News of the Weird reported in 1994 on the controversy over who owned the world's largest cow hairball, but it now appears that an also-ran at that time, Mike Canchola of Sterling, Colo., is now number one. In 1994 a Garden City, Kan., historical society had a 37-incher, but Canchola has since come across one measuring 43.3 inches around. In the course of his work at a local beef plant, Canchola plucks out the non-championship hairballs, dries them, has colleague Frank Alcala paint faces or scenery on them, and sells them for $50 each.
Hummmmm. An alternative to holiday wreaths? My, what a lovely hairball!
* United Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., announced in May that it was looking for someone to take over curating its collection of more than 14,000 human hearts, each stored in a plastic bag and the collection featuring specimens of nearly every kind of heart disease. Dr. Jesse Edwards, who started the collection and is now 85 years old, is retiring, and says maintenance of the hearts by a staff of five costs $650,000 a year.
All those brokern hearts. I feel a C&W song coming on.
* In a June Associated Press feature, Dr. Charles Emerick, 67, a retired ear, nose, and throat specialist in Portland, Ore., described his 450-item collection of things that he has personally removed from patients. Among the most prominent: a bag of decomposed bees (a kid ran into a swarm of them); an eraser that a kid put up his nose that stayed for 15 years until the boy, then in the Navy, had trouble breathing; and a plastic whistle from a boy ("His parents said he whistled every time he took a breath"). And Dr. James A. Downing's collection of 300 similarly-gathered items remains on exhibit through October 27 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate. |
