Good News for Men: New York University researchers writing in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that sex-abstaining women and women whose partners wear condoms were more frequently depressed and concluded that hormones in semen may enter the bloodstream and pep women up (May). And Concordia University (Montreal) researchers reported that their PT141 drug seems to encourage female rats to solicit sex from males three times as often as they otherwise would and are scheduling human trials (May). And Hebrew Rehabilitation Center (Boston) researchers found that the grain in beer (which men consume far more than women) must be a major reason why men suffer less osteoporosis (July).
Error in your favor: Serial killer Coral Eugene Watts, 52, thought to have been put away for life by a Houston judge in 1982, is now scheduled to be released in 2006 because of a drafting error in his plea bargain. (Because of a paucity of evidence about the 13 murders to which Watts confessed, he was allowed to plead to “aggravated” attempted murder and be sentenced to 60 years without parole, but the prosecutor neglected to specify any “aggravated”-type weapon, and an appeals court ruled that only “aggravated” crimes justify no parole; consequently, Watts has been amassing “good time” requiring early release.)
Compelling Explanations: Prosecutors in Pottstown, Pa., said in May that they thought that some of rap singer Karim Ali Howard’s lyrics might be used against him in his upcoming trial for cocaine trafficking. (A sample: “I’m going to sell coke until you call me pope, do dirt until the lord tries to stop me, it’s gonna take hundreds of bullets just to drop me.”)
Sticking to their guns: Eleven alleged members of San Francisco’s Big Block street gang claimed in a court filing in June that they have a constitutional right to carry guns, pointing to a declaration last year by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft that changed the law. Previously, the Justice Department had thought that Second Amendment rights applied only to state militias, but Ashcroft declared in May 2001 that henceforth, the Second Amendment would be regarded as giving fundamental gun-toting rights to individuals. Nonetheless, in July, the federal judge trying the Big Block gang declined to dismiss the gun charges.
Bad word choice: Claudia Huntey, 38, who has suffered from Tourette Syndrome since age 9, filed a federal lawsuit in Denver in April after she was evicted from Torrey Pines apartment complex because her frequent screams during the night disturbed her neighbors. Huntey, whose most frequent symptom is to yell “Fire!” at the top of her lungs, claimed that since those are “involuntary vocalizations” protected under federal disability law, her neighbors would just have to get used to them.
Potty appraisal: From time to time News of the Weird has reported on the fluctuating value of the late Italian artist Piero Manzoni’s personal feces, which he canned in 1961, 30 grams at a time in 90 tins, as art objects (though, over the years, 45 have reportedly exploded). Their price to collectors has varied from about $28,000 for a tin in 1998 to $75,000 in 1993. In June 2002, the Tate Gallery in London excitedly announced it had purchased tin No. 004 for about $38,000. (The price of 30 grams of gold at press time was a little over $300.)
Least Competent Criminals: Police in Edwardsville, Pa., on the lookout for a stolen white car, arrested two men who were busily painting the stolen white car black in the middle of a shopping center parking lot on the town’s main street (June). And in Martinsburg, W.Va., following a bank robbery, law enforcement saturated the area looking for the getaway vehicle, a red Jeep Wrangler; the next day, the vehicle was spotted, with a “For Sale” sign on it, in the front yard of a 39-year-old local woman, who police say then readily confessed to the crime (May).
Also, in the Last Month: When a car full of suspected thieves crashed after a high-speed police chase, the one person inside who was well enough to flee on foot did, but made it only a short ways before his prosthetic leg fell off (Englewood, Ohio). Three obese and unhealthy people filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and KFC for addicting them to unhealthful food (New York City).
2002 CHUCK SHEPHERD
This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2002.
