Fun_People Archive
16 Dec
Weirdness [356] - 2 Dec 1994

Date: Fri, 16 Dec 94 14:46:29 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [356] - 2 Dec 1994

[Sorry about the snide little comments in brackets, I can usually restrain
myself...  -psl]

From: WEIRDNUZ.356 (News of the Weird, December 2, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd

	[And you thought migraine was hard to cure...]
* In a July article, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer described celebrated
local artist Matthew Geraci, 35, whose show of "colorful, abstract" fish
opened in a gallery in South Bend, Wash., recently.  Geraci suffered "severe
brain damage" in a 1989 automobile accident, from which he has largely
recovered except for two conditions:  (1) He sometimes stares aimlessly at
things for hours at a time, and (2) he has suddenly acquired an artistic
sense after a lifelong passion for nonartistic endeavors such as math.
Recalled Geraci, of his first flash of artistic insight, during a 1992
therapy class:  "I had eight colored pencils, and I just started to draw.
. . . what I saw in my mind."  A University of Washington neuropsychiatrist
said there is "nothing in the [medical] literature" to explain Geraci's
condition. [Dayton Daily News-Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7-14-94]

* After a state legislative candidates' forum in Wentworth, N. C., in
October, the wife of the Republican challenger tore into the incumbent, Rep.
Bertha "B" Holt, after accusing Holt of "smiling and making fun of my
husband" during his speech.  Said the wife, Cathy Miller:  "I'd like to pull
every white hair out of that [deleted in original story] head."  Said
candidate Ken Miller:  "I think my wife is like any other female in a
similar situation.  She was defending her own." [Greensboro News Record,
Oct94]

* In September, after six losing quixotic campaigns for parliament in
Denmark, standup comedian Jacob Haugaard actually got elected.  Among his
campaign promises this time were good weather, better Christmas presents,
guaranteed tail winds for all cyclists, and standard-size dust bags in
vacuum cleaners. [Wall St.  Journal, 10-6-94; Chicago Sun-Times-Reuters,
9-23-94]

* A former municipal morgue attendant in Brisbane, Australia, told reporters
in July that the morgue routinely made available for researchers a variety
of organs from corpses without permission from the families of the deceased.
In particular, he said the morgue sold pituitary glands collected during
the late- 1980s for about 50 cents each in order to fund a staff Christmas
party last year.  [The Sunday Mail (Queensland), 7-10-94]

	[If only Joycelyn Elders had known about this...]
* As of early 1994, according to the National Catholic Reporter, a machine
was available to gather sperm for medical purposes that would sidestep the
Church's two objections to masturbation (direct stimulation of the penis
and presence of erotic thoughts).  Experimenting with a machine that
attaches to and vibrates the testicles, researchers at the University of
the Sacred Heart in Rome okayed the device for further tests and eventual
commercial use. [In These Times-National Catholic Reporter, 3-1-94]

	[And now for the really scary part...]
* According to doctors in Pittsburgh, Pa., in June, Sherri Lynn Rossi was
hit in the head more than 20 times with a blunt object and left covered in
blood and in a coma on the side of a road.  When she came out of the coma,
she identified her attacker as her husband, Richard A. Rossi, Jr., pastor
of the local, independent, charismatic First Love Church, telling police
that Rev. Rossi had alighted from his own car, "started acting weird," taken
the wheel of her car with her inside, driven to a rural area, and beat her.
Rev. Rossi immediately denied the charge, insisting that the hijacker must
have been a man who looked like him and had a car like his, and that it was
"very possible, oh, yes" that his wife's attacker was satan in human form.
In October, Sherri Lynn Rossi abruptly withdrew her accusation, said she
was looking forward to resuming their family life, and concurred that her
attacker might have been a demon in human form. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
10-15-94]

Copyright 1994, 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.

© 1994 Peter Langston