Fun_People Archive
16 Aug
Weirdness [442] - 26Jul96

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 10:23:48 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [442] - 26Jul96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.442 (News of the Weird, July 26, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* On the California ballot this year is the question of whether suffering
ill people may be prescribed marijuana as a pain reliever.  The ballot
initiative is a product of members of San Francisco's Cannabis Buyers' Club,
a three-year-old salon run by Dennis Peron, who currently risks arrest to
sell marijuana daily to those who can prove they are ill.  Peron also
supplies entertainment and games and a 12-step program--for those wanting
to leave heroin and cocaine in favor of marijuana.  [Globe and Mail,
6-22-96]

* Research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science in November
suggested a valuable role for an assistant researcher.  A research director
wanted to learn whether small bones found at a dig were from an animal that
died there or from an animal that had been eaten by the animal that died
there.  An assistant was fed a boiled shrew and had his bowel movements
tracked for three days, then boiled and analyzed.  The director concluded
that the human stomach basically mashes up the eaten shrew's bones during
digestion. [Journal of Archaeological Science, November 1995]

* Editor Martha Jette was eased out of her job after 10 years at the weekly
Dundas (Ontario) Review in June after a dispute with the publisher.  She
had run a story accepting the claim of local singer "Danny Boy," who had
convinced her that he is the reincarnation of Jesse Garon Presley, Elvis's
stillborn twin, and that he was given life in order to continue Elvis's
gospel work.  Said Jette, "Who can ignore a miracle?" [Burlington (Ontario)
Spectator, 6-9-96]

* Latest Highway Truck Spills: 500 gallons of hydrochloric acid onto
Interstate 10 near Lake Charles, La., in June; 300 gallons of chicken fat
on U. S. 41 near Robards, Ky., in May; a ton and a half of chicken guts in
Dobson, N. C., in May; several barrels of flea powder in Hopkinsville, Ky.,
in April; 6,000 pounds of margarine on Interstate 35 in Oklahoma City in
May (as The Daily Oklahoman reported, "Margarine Clogs Major Artery"); and
a load of toilets in June near Silverthorne, Colo. [Tyler Morning
Telegraph-AP, 6-17-96][Louisville Courier-Journal, 5- 30-96] [Columbia
Tribune-AP, 5-2-96] [Kentucky New Era, 4- 16-96] [Daily Oklahoman, May96]
[Denver Post, 6-24-96]

* Beginning an occasional list of stories that were formerly weird but which
now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation:
(1) the charity, or the church, or the company (such as NYNEX in northern
Vermont in June) that a grossed-out phone caller is expecting to reach when,
because of an error somewhere, he reaches an adult phone sex line, and (2)
the suspiciously-shaped package in a public place that causes authorities
to call out the bomb squad, who evacuate the area and surround the package
for several hours in full gear, then cautiously dispose of it only to find
that it is a doll, or a personal vibrator, or cans of food, or, in an
incident in Hong Kong harbor in June, a large, floating sausage. [Burlington
Free Press, Jun96] [Reuters wirecopy, 6-12-96]

Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights reserved.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name
News of the Weird.

© 1996 Peter Langston