Lead Stories
* University of Toronto professor Steve Mann, 39, has for 20 years worn computer components on his body for ongoing research and even calls himself a cyborg, and carries enough documentation that he had never (even after September 11) caused problems with airport security. (He wears computerized glasses and headgear and an electronic body suit; is constantly connected to the Internet; can see behind him; and can “feel” items across a room.) However, on February 18, officials at St. John’s, Newfoundland, airport would not let him board for two days while searching and testing him and making background checks. When they OK’d him on February 20, about $50,000 worth of his equipment had been broken, and he was bleeding from having his chest electrodes removed. Two weeks later, Mann filed a lawsuit against Air Canada and Canada’s transportation authority.
* As a longstanding part of his lecture on “assault and battery,” University of Virginia torts professor Kenneth Abraham said he gently taps the shoulder of a student at random in his class to illustrate the principle that even negligible unwanted contact can be costly if the victim is uniquely vulnerable in ways that no one could have expected. Indeed, Abraham did not know that a student he tapped recently, Marta Sanchez, had been raped a while back and that the tap apparently triggered fear and stress. In March, Sanchez filed a $35,000 lawsuit against Abraham, claiming that the tap constituted assault and battery.
Insurance Industry Blues
The Swiss Re reinsurance company told financial analysts in February that it would likely post its first yearly loss since 1866 unless a court agrees with it that the two September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center (18 minutes apart) were just one big event, thus saving it at least $3.5 billion. And the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in March that two widows can collect on their husbands’ life insurance policies even though the men died while committing crimes (one while attempting murder; the other when cocaine-filled balloons burst in his stomach).
Government in Action
* In March, Jefferson County, CO, Sheriff John Stone informed the Denver Rocky Mountain News (with which he has been feuding over allegedly covered-up evidence regarding the shootings at Columbine High School) that his e-mails and letters about the case might be released under the state’s public-records law, but that he could not be sure unless the newspaper first paid the cost for gathering up his correspondence files so that his lawyers could inspect them. The sheriff’s office calculated that the retrieval cost would be, at a minimum, $1,072,200. . .A 2002 Oregon law makes owners of partly electric cars pay $15 more to register them than owners of gas-guzzlers pay to register theirs, in order to replace the gasoline taxes the environment-conscious motorists are saving by driving fuel-efficient cars. . .Arizona state Rep. Linda Binder’s proposed law would prohibit allowing unrestrained dogs to ride in the back of pickup trucks, although for the past 18 years, Arizona legislators have tried but failed to enact a similar provision for kids in the back of pickups.
Civilization in Decline
The letter in which Texas gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez thanked the Texas State Teachers Association for its endorsement contained run-on sentences, a dangling modifier, a subject-verb disagreement, and the word “gonernor.”. . .The Rhino Management Group in Africa criticized “green hunting” (hunting with tranquilizer guns) because of evidence that animals hit more than once are permanently damaged. . .A 27-year-old woman told reporters in January that when she called Camarillo, CA police on Saturday, December 22 to report a sexual assault, she was told that the staff is limited on weekends and that she should call back Monday morning (and when she did that, detectives counseled her to report for a medical exam).
And, In the Last Month. . .
Thierry Meyssan’s book The Frightening Fraud became a bestseller in France with its thesis that the US government staged the attack on the Pentagon on September 11. . .Two people commandeered a Krispy Kreme truck with its back door open and led police on a chase that created a 15-mile-long trail of scattered doughnuts (Slidell, LA). . .A nursing home complained that the unionizing vote by its workers should be overturned since someone put a series of voodoo signs around the workplace, thus frightening the home’s large Haitian-American work force (Miami). . .The annual April Fool’s ice cream flavor this year at the Wahlburger restaurant was vanilla diced with hamburger sandwiches (bun, lettuce, meat); last year, french fries were used (Avon, NY).
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, PO Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679 or Newsweird@aol.com, or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com/.)
This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2002.
