Fun_People Archive
19 Aug
WEIRDNUZ.338

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 94 11:23:01 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: WEIRDNUZ.338

Forwarded-by: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
From: notw-request@nine.org (NotW List Admin)
WEIRDNUZ.338 (News of the Weird, July 29, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd

Lead Story

* After a spirited debate at the Great Midwestern Think-Off on June 26
in New York Mills, Minn., the audience of professional and amateur
philosophers officially affirmed, by 70-54, that life has meaning.
Winning debater and sometime-fisherman Peter Hilts argued that life has
meaning even for a fish, prevailing over beekeeper Charles Carpenter,
who maintained that life simply "is" and that life is beyond such a
bland concept as "meaning."  Each of the four semi-finalists received
a medal of Rodin's "The Thinker" seated on a tractor. [Des Moines
Register, 6-27-94]

Weird Science

* The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June on the allegedly successful
traumatic-memory treatment consisting of vigorously wagging fingers in
the patient's face, similar to the motion made by an angry schoolteacher
or parent.  "Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing" is believed
to put patients in a better mood by inducing rapid eye movement to
"unclog" brain patterns. [Arizona Republic-Philadelphia Inquirer,
7-4-94]

* Writing last summer in the journal Animal Behaviour, two researchers
from England's University of Manchester hypothesized that a man's
between-coitis masturbation improves his chances of inseminating his
mate, even though it reduces the number of sperm that reach an egg.
They found that masturbation after several celibate days releases
"tired" sperm, moving more vigorous sperm up the queue.  In a companion
paper in the same issue, the researchers posited that females use orgasm
to attempt to regulate conception:  More sperm is accepted from a mate
with whom she has an orgasm. [The Medical Post, 1-11-94]

* In March, doctors in England reported that people who grow up in clean
homes may be more likely to become ill later in life.  In clean homes,
inhabitants are robbed of the small doses of bacteria that might
immunize them against many illnesses such as Crohn's disease and
ulcerative colitis. [Baltimore Sun-Reuter, 3-25-94]

* In June, a news agency in India reported that an energy project in
New Delhi had produced street lighting and cooking gas for about 30
families, derived from the waste in about 40 public toilets in the city.
[Globe & Mail, 6-14-94]

Fetishes on Parade

* In November, Lance A. Binkowski, 20, was charged with reckless
endangering in Brookfield, Wis., when he ran from police.  Officers had
been called after Binkowski had pounded on the back door of a daycare
center while dressed in a large sleeper with built-in feet, with a
pacifier in his mouth and clutching a teddy bear and a diaper bag.
According to the police chief, Binkowski intended no harm to the
children but "had his own personal reasons" for being there. [Milwaukee
Sentinel, 11-20-93]

* Thomas A. Dietrich, 31, pleaded guilty to sexual battery on eight
girls in Fairfax, Va., in June after police discovered that he had been
using the demonstrator video camera in the appliance showroom where he
worked to videotape himself fondling the girls.  He had approached them
on the pretense of showing them how the camera worked while their
parents were shopping just a few feet away in the store.  [Washington
Post, 6-9-94]

* Reuters News Service reported in February that a male flasher has been
plaguing Adelaide, Australia, since April 1992 and had recently added
three female victims to bring his total to nearly 50.  The man is
distinguishable by the padlock he always wears around his genitals.
[[Bangkok Post-Reuters, Feb94]]

* Last October, New York City Correction Department doctor Jerzy
Gajewski, at his trial for fondling a woman in a subway station the year
before, was suspended without pay after he allegedly fondled the court
stenographer. [New York Daily News, 10-28-93]

* In April, the Board of Education in Hamden, Conn., met in a private
session to discuss the drunk-driving guilty plea that had been entered
by Superintendent of Schools David W. Shaw two days before.  At the
meeting, Board members reviewing previously-undisclosed police records
learned that in his arrest photo, Shaw is wearing men's pants but blue
eye shadow, a gold lame blouse, a string of black beads, and a ladies'
undergarment.  Shaw blamed the incident on alcohol, which he said caused
him to mistake an adult bookstore for a convenience store when he needed
to buy cigarettes. [New Haven Register, 4-12-94]

Least Competent Person

* In Columbia Heights, Minn., in June, two men, aged 18 and 19, outside
the Tasty Pizza late at night turned their backs to the front window,
dropped their pants, and mooned the patrons.  Apparently upset that they
were not being noticed, they began to jump up and down.  One of the two
lost his balance, fell into the window, breaking it, and cutting his
buttocks and several fingers. [Focus News, 6-14-94]
		       - - - - -
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.

© 1994 Peter Langston