xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
The Wood Methodist Church was informed in March by the town council in Dudley, England, that it owed an “advertising fee” of the equivalent of about $130 to put up a cross. (Town regulations specify that a “cross” is an ad for Christianity.)
In March, Apache County, N.M., contracted to pay up to $100,000 to a former Arizona attorney general to investigate Apache’s sheriff, Brian Hounshell, who, after an exhaustive previous investigation (whose cost was not revealed), was accused of misspending $8,000 of taxpayer money.
On Feb. 23, a woman asked a clerk at the Get Go! convenience store in McKeesport, Pa., to “microwave something for me. It’s a life-or-death situation.” The clerk complied, but when she realized that the item might be a severed penis, she called police. The woman later explained that it was a dildo-shaped container of urine because she had to be drug-tested for a job afterward and needed urine heated to “body temperature.” Unexplained still in subsequent press accounts was why she stored the urine in that type of device. She was charged with criminal mischief (for contaminating a microwave food oven).
The publisher Powerhouse Books (and its imprint Rosen Editions) is preparing for the imminent release of photographer Ellen Jong’s “Pees on Earth,” a series of shots of Jong urinating in prominent public spots around the world. Jong is a mainstream professional whose non-urinary work has appeared in Vogue and other publications.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD