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The Weird Stuff!

It's okay we'll edit that bit out later

In a video outtake mistakenly telecast on a Cape Cod (Massachusetts) public-access cable channel on July 31, the organizer of a cat-adoption service was shown being yelled at by her cameraman-husband (who was off-camera) to get the adoptable cat she was offering to stop squirming during the taping. One viewer told the Cape Cod Times, "The (cameraman) must have used the 'F' word 50 times, along with verbal threats to the kitten (to strangle it)."

Obviously had lessons from George Bush on how to spot a live microphone.


All done in the best possible taste

"Rides" called "The Original Shocker" at a Rockville, Md., arcade and "The Electric Chair Game" at various parks in Italy are simulated fatal experiences in a death-row electric chair, from the strapping-in to the controlled dose of electricity (voluntarily administered, enough to cause heavy vibrations) to
the sound of sizzling juice to the cloud of smoke, and capped by a flat line on a heartbeat monitor. "Winning" involves staying in the chair until the machine declares you dead; losers release the electrodes early. And among America's best-selling toys last summer was Death-Row Marv (McFarlane Toys, $24.99), in which a man strapped into an electric chair trash-talks his
"executioner," almost begging to be lit up with more jolts of electricity.


No cover-ups in Russian news shocker!

Rapidly gaining viewers in the competitive Moscow TV market is a program called "The Naked Truth," on an obscure channel, which features straight news delivered by a 26-year-old female anchor, but who appears from time to time topless, or while undressing, or while being fondled on-camera. According to
an October New York Times report, however, the station's policy is that any news of President Putin or other leading officials must be delivered while fully clothed.

President Clinton is allegedly pushing hard for an interview...

It will end in tears

Paralyzed inmate Torrence Johnson filed a lawsuit in July against the Spartanburg (S.C.) County Jail because guards failed to stop him in 1998 when he was whimsically doing backflips off a desk in his cell, the last one of which resulted in a fall and his subsequent paralysis. Johnson claims guards should have been watching him carefully because he had been diagnosed as depressed, although they said he appeared to be vigorous until he landed on his neck.

Raffles again

Sherman Lee Parks, 50, escaped from the Dallas County Jail in Fordyce, Ark., in August, oblivious of the fact that a judge had just ordered his release because he had been locked up too long; he was rearrested the next day, charged with escaping, and jailed. And in September, according to police in Shawnee, Kan., a 19-year-old clerk at a Texaco Starmart reported he had been robbed, but actually he had just looted his own cash register, and to conceal the crime, he had put tape over the store's surveillance cameras. However, he had used transparent tape; said a police lieutenant, "It looks a little fuzzy, but I don't see any robbery in there."

All I can say is - urgh ...

Newcastle, England, body piercer Lorna Larson accidentally hit a vein while working on the tongue of Gemma Danielson, 18, in July and by the time Danielson got to the hospital, she had lost four pints of blood. Said Danielson, "(Doctors) said they had never seen anything like it." Larson said she was mortified: "That's the last tongue I do."

I'll conduct my own defence thank you

The mentally retarded Felipe Rodriguez spent 13 months in jail in SwisherCounty, Texas (near Amarillo), after being accused of a minor theft, largely because his court-appointed defense attorney forgot about him until a Dallas Morning News reporter pestered her about the status of the case. (Rodriguez was released in August.) And a June New York Times report on veteran court-appointed defense lawyer Ronald G. Mock chronicled his career-long, mediocre representation of a series of now-executed men, including June executee Gary Graham, who was convicted based on one fleeting, nighttime eyewitness identification, which Mock neither challenged nor seriously
investigated.

Massage tales from down Under

Australian masseuse Carol Vanderpoel, 52, believing that all she knew how to cure were physical aches and pains, sued her former employer, the Blue Mountains Women's Health Centre in Katoomba, which had required her also to listen to her clients' psychological problems during massages and to counsel them, which she said left her severely depressed. In June, a judge in New South Wales District Court awarded her about $17,000 in damages. (Among the problems that grossed her out were a client's confession of performing euthanasia on her husband and another woman's having been assaulted with a chain saw).

The new Raffles - not

A 17-year-old boy was arrested in Loomis, Calif., in July after he was unsuccessful in what might have been an attempt to emulate the notorious "Rooftop Robber," who had burglarized more than 40 businesses in California and other states by entering through roofs (and who was captured in May). Unlike the original, the 17-year-old crashed through a false ceiling in his first job, broke a sink standing on it trying to climb out, then made it to a false ceiling and crawled to an adjacent store, but fell through that ceiling, too, injuring his ankle, and then finally, on his way out, tripped the burglar alarm and had police waiting for him.

Ironies

Jeff Schmidt was fired in May after 19 years as a staff writer for the magazine Physics Today just after the publication of his book "Disciplined Minds," which argues that a hierarchical organization's structure almost guarantees that its workers cannot devote their full energy to the job. He was canned after a supervisor came across a publicity interview by Schmidt, admitting playfully that he had sometimes worked on the book during office hours at Physics Today.

In July, Genevieve Simenon, a great niece of the late French mystery writer Georges Simenon, confessed to killing her husband and expressed dismay that, but for one detail, she would have gotten away with it, just as the perpetrators in Georges Simenon's stories believe they will. Genevieve had injected her husband with Valium, then beat him to death, scrubbed the crime scene, and convinced the family physician that her husband had merely suffered a heart attack and that the bruises on his face came when he hit his head on a table. However, the funeral director looked under the husband's long hair and noticed that his ear had been beaten off in the attack.

Thinning the Herd

In June, a 16-year-old boy accidentally fatally shot himself in the head while fleeing a sheriff's deputy who had tried to question him; according to the deputy, the boy had clumsily attempted to shoot back by firing over his shoulder on the run. And in August, during a workplace scuffle in Irvine, Calif., one man grabbed another in a headlock, pulled his gun, and shot him in the face, but the bullet passed through the target's cheek and into the shooter's own chest, killing him.

You couldn't make these up

Anti-child-abuse vigilantes vandalized a pediatrician's home, apparently confusing her occupation with the word "pedophile" (Newport, Wales). Workers at a seafood plant found a human head inside a 5-foot-long cod and tentatively identified it as that of a former crew member on the boat that caught the fish (Cairns, Australia). A 26-year-old man charged with driving a stolen Mercedes, asked the judge if he could use the car as collateral for bail (Port Washington, Wis.). A candidate for sheriff left town mysteriously after having been caught spreading sugar on the ground (to draw ants) the day before his opponent's fund-raising picnic (Macclenny, Fla.).

And the other third just wish they were...

As Russia's economy and drive toward democracy falter, consumption of vodka increases, but drinking habits long ago created a public health crisis for the country, according to a June Boston Globe story. Life expectancy is down to 59; average vodka consumption is three bottles a week; and two-thirds of all adult men are in fact drunk when they die.

Names in the News

Arrested in Bologna, Italy, in July and charged with burglarizing a pasta shop: Mr. Stefano Spaghetti. Scratched, as an inappropriately named horse, by Saratoga racetrack officials from the opening-day races in July: a 2-year-old colt named Mufahker (which means "glory" in Arabic). The arresting officer, in an undercover sting operation that charged two 46-year-old men with soliciting sex with other men at Hugh MacRae Park in Wilmington, N.C., in July: Sgt. Bud LaCock. Charged with allowing underage teen-agers to have a keg party in her home near Pittsburgh in March: Susan Beer, 50.

A Dog's Life

The ritzy Barra da Tijuca suburb of Rio de Janeiro is preparing for the October high-society wedding of Pepezinha and Winner, which will be extravagant even though the bride and groom are dogs (shih tzu and cairn terrier). The estate of Pepezinha's owner, Vera Loyola, is just down the road from the notorious Rocinha slum, symbol of Rio's nauseating poverty. Said Loyola (who always serves her pooch on silver platters), "I believe my little Pepezinha is worth every cent."

Hague style politics exported to States?

According to the Massachusetts speaker of the House, the legislature's all-night session on April 13, to vote on the state budget, was more a giant "keg party" than serious deliberation, with members drifting into the chamber from various receptions and some falling asleep at their desks. At one point, according to a Boston Herald story, when the presiding officer asked the members, "Are you leaders or followers?" the members chanted "We lead!" which segued into "Toga! Toga!" One result was the giggling joy with which members voted to fund their favourite obscure projects.

Got It Taped...

In April, in the woods near Tampa, Fla., tourist Gemini Wink went off to photograph alligators, got lost, climbed a tree for safety as night approached, and decided to protect himself against falling out of the tree by duct-taping himself to a branch; rescuers found him several hours later. In March, Massachusetts officials shut down a day-care centre in the town of Hudson following reports that a caretaker duct-taped an infant to a wall for amusement. And a February Associated Press report touted Harrisburg, Ill., artist Keith Drone's line of duct-tape clothing, including baseball caps,
wallets, pants, belts and a bikini; said Drone, the products are "really cool looking," and, he adds, "If it breaks, just put a piece of duct tape on it."

At long last, after huge demand (?) here they are - a selection from the Darwin Awards.  When you're feeling low and have done something stupid, take heart - it couldn't have been as dumb as what this lot got up to.  If you haven't heard of these highly prized awards, they are given to people who have made a huge contribution to the human gene pool - usually by removing themselves from it.  Normally you should die without leaving behind any descendants to qualify for an award, but I think that rule may get bent occasionally.  Some of these are just TOO good to be left out of the running.  So without further ado here they are, some of the stupidest people on the planet; or at least they were.

Dying for your art

The picturesque medieval city of Rothenburg, Germany, was recently the scene of a dramatic artistic effort. A 53-year-old man from Baden-Wuetemberg was posing nude in front of his camera, balanced atop the stone wall, when he lost his balance and fell 16 feet to the ground below. Unlike its erstwhile owner, the camera was still safely settled on the tripod on the wall, and police plan to develop the film for clues to the man’s death. Darwin anticipates that they will find none, and this story will stand as a testament to the self-pruning nature of the tree of life.

Beginner's luck?

(28 February 2000, Texas) A Houston man earned a succinct lesson in gun safety when he played Russian roulette with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Rashaad, nineteen, was visiting friends when he announced his intention to play the deadly game. He apparently did not realize that a semiautomatic pistol, unlike a revolver, automatically inserts a cartridge into the firing chamber when the gun is cocked. His chance of winning a round of Russian roulette was zero, as he quickly discovered. 

Consider that a divorce...

(8 September 2000, Russia) A man who threatened to "deal with" his wife and her lover blew himself up with a home-made bomb on Friday in the far eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk. The bomb exploded when the man tried to attach it to the door of their not-so-secret apartment boudoir.

How not to hijack a plane

(25 May 2000, Philippines) We all enjoy learning from the past. Reflect back to November 24, 1971, aboard a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in Portland. A man who had purchased his ticket under the name of "Dan Cooper" demanded two hundred thousand dollars in cash and four parachutes. The plane made a landing in Seattle to accommodate his requests and disgorge the passengers. Once the plane was back in the air, Cooper asked how to lower the tail stairs, and then ordered the flight attendant out of the cabin. When the plane landed in Reno, the tail stairs were open and Cooper and the money were gone.

For all his cool demeanor, Cooper had the crosshairs of evolution on him when he decided to jump. There was a freezing rainstorm outside, and the wind chill from the plane's velocity dropped the effective temperature to -60 degrees Fahrenheit. To seal his fate, he jumped with no food or survival gear into a heavily wooded forest in winter at night.

The peanuts provided on the plane were just not enough to sustain his life. It is assumed that the man the FBI called D. B. Cooper died in the mountains or hit the Columbia River and drowned. History, then, teaches us that one cannot jump out of an airplane and survive. You would think that a hijacker would know better, but…

We turn to Davao City in the Philippines this year. Augusto was a man with a mission. He boarded a Philippine Air flight to Manila, and donned a ski mask and swim goggles. Then he pulled out a gun and a grenade and announced that he was hijacking the plane. Apparently security is a bit lax at the Davao City airport.

He demanded that the plane return to Davao City, but the pilots convinced him that the aircraft was low on fuel, and they continued on toward Manila. Augusto, undaunted, robbed the passengers of about $25,000 and ordered the pilots to lower the plane to 6,500 feet.

When a lunatic with a gun orders you to descend, you descend. Meanwhile, Augusto strapped a homemade parachute onto his back, and forced the flight attendants to open the door and depressurize the plane.

He probably intended to jump, but the wind was so strong that he had trouble getting out of the plane. Finally one of the flight attendants helpfully pushed him out the door, just as he pulled the pin from the grenade. He threw the pin (oops!) into the cabin, and fell toward the earth carrying the business end of the grenade in his hand.

The impact of Augusto hitting the earth at terminal velocity had little effect on the earth's orbit. All that remained above ground were Augusto's two hands.

So history repeats itself with a new twist.

1. Don't throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane.

2. If you feel compelled to violate Lesson 1, at least don't roll your own... parachute, that is

If you enjoyed those pay a visit to the official Darwin Awards page.

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