Rape Prevention & ID
Sonette Ehlers of Kleinmond, South Africa, recently invented a
tampon-like sheath that she says will reduce the disturbing number of
rapes that plague that country, but local anti-violence leaders are
skeptical, as well as alarmed. The device folds around the penis with
microscopic hooks and, once engaged, requires medical intervention to
remove. (It may also incidentally inhibit the transmission of HIV.)
Critics call it impractical (since one must be worn constantly) and
barbaric, and a distraction from other solutions to the rape crisis.
The devices are expected to be available in pharmacies starting in
July, for 1 rand each (about 15 cents).
[The Times (London), 6-8-05]
PRINT THIS STORY | E-MAIL THIS STORY
Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird
By Chuck Shepherd
June 27, 2005
LEAD STORY
Gerardo Flores, 19, was convicted of murder in June in Lufkin, Texas,
in the death of the 5-month-old fetus of his girlfriend, Erica Basoria.
Flores admitted that he had stood on Basoria's stomach several times at
her request to induce a miscarriage, but Basoria had told authorities
that she had also punched herself in the stomach several times. Under
Texas law, killing a fetus is a capital offense, and so Flores
automatically received a life sentence, but Basoria could not be
charged because of her constitutional right to abortion. [Washington
Post-AP, 6-6-05]
Advertisement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Entrepreneurial Spirit
(1) British entrepreneur Colin Dowse recently introduced Sprayonmud
(about US$14 a quart), dirty water chemically treated for greater
stickiness, mainly for urban SUV owners to pass themselves off as
all-terrain adventurers. (2) The maker of Doggles (which for several
years has sold sunglasses for dogs at about $25) now offers
corrective-lens Doggles starting at $75, which veterinary
ophthalmologists can prescribe as alternatives to $2,000
lens-replacement surgery, according to a March report by KMGH-TV in
Denver. [Wired.com, 6-10-05] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 3-3-05]
In the last few years, Taiwan entrepreneurs have opened restaurants
with motifs such as prisons, zombies and Mao Zedong, but the latest is
Eric Wang's "Marton," in Kaohsiung, whose theme is the toilet. All
seats are what you would think, with food served on a glass tabletop
resting on a bathtub, and some of the delicacies are presented in
miniature toilet bowls (among them, curry hot pot, and disturbingly,
chocolate ice cream). [Agence France-Presse, 5-23-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Science on the Cutting Edge
Recent scholarly findings (reduced to their essence in a May Wall
Street Journal column): It's much easier to identify someone if he is
physically near you than if he is up to 450 feet away (Psychonomic
Bulletin & Review, February). People who choose their careers
carefully, rather than on a whim, experience greater job satisfaction
(Journal of Economic Psychology, vol. 26, no.3). College students tend
to drink more alcoholic beverages than they realize (Alcoholism:
Clinical & Experimental Research, April). If patients voluntarily
tell a doctor about a bad side effect of a medicine, they are more
likely to be switched to a safer one than if they don't (Archives of
Internal Medicine, January). [Wall Street Journal, 5-27-05]
According to a study by Professor Martin Gibala and others, published
in the June Journal of Applied Physiology, people can get the health
benefits associated with two hours' cycling in just two minutes. Gibala
said that over a two-week period, two hours daily of moderate-speed
riding made cyclists no healthier than four all-out, to-the-max
30-second bursts daily (with four minutes' rest in between). (However,
all subjects were already at least moderate exercisers.) [Daily
Telegraph (London), 6-5-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leading Economic Indicators
(1) New York state Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, from Manhattan,
introduced a bill in June to require a minimum wage for comedians (at
least $125 per 20-minute show at comedy clubs on weekends and $28 on
weekdays). (2) North Carolina correctional officials began rethinking
inmate manufacturing programs recently when they discovered that, even
though they pay prisoners only $3 a day in their T-shirt-making
concession, suppliers in Bangladesh can make the shirts for 38 percent
less. [New York Daily News, 6-4-05] [Charlotte Observer, 5-22-05]
London's Housing Market: Agence France Presse reported in May that an
agency had just rented out a 54-square-foot apartment in Notting Hill
(loft bed over a kitchenette, closet and shower) for the equivalent of
US$1,065 a month. And in the Haringey Park neighborhood, developer
Andrew Markey proposed to convert the kitchen and hallway of a house he
owns into its own two-story townhouse (producing a living room 21 feet
by 8 feet). Agents said such a house might go for the equivalent of
US$325,000, but in June, the local council rejected his initial plans.
[Agence France-Presse, 5-26-05] [ThisIsLondon.com, 6-6-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Man's Best Friend
In March, Mark Allen Shook, 43, attempting to flee (with his dog)
Mountain Ranch, Calif., police officers who had come to arrest him on a
domestic violence charge, was captured after a chaotic fight during
which the dog bit off part of Shook's ear. And in Eltham, England, in
May, a family's dog, chasing a ball, bumped the ladder on which a man
was standing to trim some bushes with a chainsaw, causing him to fall
and fatally slice the neck of his wife, who was holding the ladder.
[Union Democrat (Sonora), 3-11-05] [Evening Standard (London), 5-5-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More Things to Worry About
(1) Five Buddhist monks in Bangkok were defrocked in May after a street
fight culminating years of hostility between two temples, according to
a Reuters dispatch. Said one (who used brass knuckles), "When an
ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So will
I." (2) In May, a 1,500-pound camel named Poon, roaming around his home
at the Mayle Farm in Shinnston, W.Va., decided to sit down on top of a
woman who was painting a fence. No one could hear her muffled screams,
but she managed to call 911 on her cell phone, and help arrived just as
Poon had begun to bite her. [Reuters, 5-31-05] [WBOY-TV (Clarksburg,
W.Va.), 5-20-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People Different From Us
In March, The Australian newspaper identified an upswing in the
business of some beauticians who have responded to customers' desires
to lighten the skin around their anuses. A beautician in Sydney said
she had long been helping sex workers for that condition but that
lately the clients are civilians trying to please boyfriends who are
taken by how "clean and light" porno actresses seem. Said another
beautician of the ingredient she uses, "I explain that it will give
them eczema and (other problems), but they want it anyway." [The
Australian, 3-23-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Least Competent Criminals
Easy Identifications: (1) Awiey "Chucky" Hernandez, 20, was arrested
when he went to the 90th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, N.Y., to
check on the status of a pal and inadvertently stood directly in front
of his own "wanted" poster (on robbery and drug charges). The
in-custody pal Hernandez had come to inquire about was Huquan "Guns"
Gavin, 18, who appears with him on the poster. (2) Charles Cross Jr.,
was arrested on the street minutes after allegedly robbing a Fifth
Third Bank in Louisville, Ky., in May, because he displayed the effects
of having been looking directly into his stash bag at the moment the
red-dye device exploded. [New York Post, 5-25-05] [WAVE-TV
(Louisville), 5- 26-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update
Even though AIDS continues to spread through sub-Saharan Africa, the
pernicious custom of the village "cleanser" persists in Zambia, Kenya,
Malawi and other countries (mentioned in News of the Weird in 2003).
When a husband dies, the widow traditionally must break the marital
bond by soon having sex again, lest the entire village be spiritually
condemned. The preferred partner is a relative of the husband, but if
none is available, the village leader calls on a professional
"cleanser" who performs the task in exchange for a chicken or other
remuneration. According to a May New York Times dispatch from Malawi,
cleansers believe that wearing a condom will provoke other bad spirits.
[New York Times, 5-11-05]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thinning the Herd
A man fell to his death from an overpass onto Interstate 5 in Seattle,
the loser of a who-can-hang-the-longer game with a friend (May). And a
22-year-old intoxicated man from Aberystwyth, Wales, accidentally fell
through a window and fatally landed on a spiked fence after having
pulled down his trousers and screamed to no one in particular, "Who
wants some of this?" (April). And in Frederick, Md., a judge convicted
Ben Meacham, 23, on two misdemeanor counts for his role in the death of
a 21-year-old pal, who had said he wanted to do something unusual on
his motorcycle because it was about to be repossessed over a loan
default. With Meacham videotaping, the pal, pantsless, did a wheelie
before losing control and accidentally, fatally ramming a parked truck
(June). [Seattle Times, 5-31-05] [Daily Record (Glasgow), 4-15-05] [New
York Post-AP, 6-4-05]