xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Females in tribes in Kenya and other African nations are finally rebelling at the ancient custom of requiring a newly widowed woman to pay to have sex with the village’s “cleanser” to purify her soul sufficiently to be allowed to attend her husband’s funeral, according to an August Washington Post dispatch. Said one particularly vulgar, besotted cleanser in Gangre, “It’s not bad for me since I get to be with the beautiful ladies. The women like it because who else would be with them. They can’t stay alone with the spirits. They need me.” Cleansers are believed to be major HIV conveyers since a condom would not allow the spirits to pass.
Least Competent People In Charleston, S.C., in August, graduate student Mohammed Talha Shekhani, 23, was charged with assault and lewd conduct for what he told police was a sincere, though inept, strategy for meeting women. After a friend told him to just walk up to a woman and start touching her, Shekhani said he initiated four public hugging incidents (with two adults and, almost directly in front of their mothers, two teenage girls). His lawyer said Shekhani’s poor judgment was caused by the stress of an academic program that will earn him both a Ph.D. and an M.D. at Medical University of South Carolina.
In June, British Airways came to the rescue of Billy, the homing pigeon belonging to John and Maria Warren of Bootle, England, and flew him home; he was supposed to have flown home on his own from Fougeres, France, but he got sidetracked (probably on a ship) and wound up in New York City.
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Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD