xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Michael Machetti, 31, filed a lawsuit in Riverside County, Calif., in April against Bullseye Tattoo and its owner, charging that the tattoo removal he had done on his neck had infected him with the flesh-eating disease necrotizing fasciitis. Machetti said he went for the removal because co-workers had complained about the familiar two-word obscene phrase (the second word: “you”) on his neck, and he wanted it replaced with the apparently more acceptable “666.”
A June Associated Press dispatch from Macha, Bolivia, reported on the most prominent of the annual Tinku festivals that neighboring tribes on the country’s high plains engage in. On a midnight in May, as thousands gathered to drink and dance, the men eventually began to fistfight in a bloody ritual that tribal leaders say is healthy and spiritual, even though some men are beaten badly, and occasionally someone dies (which, legend says, is good for crop fertilization). Villagers say the one-night fighting answers feuds and insults built up over the year and fosters brotherhood. The Bolivian government has tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the violence in recent years.
Weird India: On June 15, according to Dr. Chittaranjan Maity (the medical education director of the state of West Bengal), a 13-year-old boy began producing quarter-inch-long winged beetles in his urine after eggs hatched in his body. And a few days earlier in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, according to a report in the Press Trust of India, a 9-year-old girl was “married” (in a non-binding ceremony) to a stray dog, which tribal custom requires in order to protect a child whose first tooth appears on the upper gum; the marriage had been delayed for several years because of financial considerations.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD