Weird Universe Archive

May 2014

May 5, 2014

Clitoris Awareness Week

May 5th through the 11th is Clitoris Awareness Week.

Posted By: Alex - Mon May 05, 2014 - Comments (6)
Category:

Iris Schieferstein’s Hoof Shoes






Made from actual animal hooves. Buying a pair will set you back around $5500. Check out the artist's website for more info.

Posted By: Alex - Mon May 05, 2014 - Comments (15)
Category: Shoes

The Devil’s Daughter




Full film follows.


Posted By: Paul - Mon May 05, 2014 - Comments (4)
Category: Family, Horror, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Superstition, 1970s

May 4, 2014

Hook Up Truck

Bringing safe sex to the Bay area, its the Hook Up Truck!

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 04, 2014 - Comments (8)
Category:

Beautiful Stained Glass

image
You do not have to be religious to appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of these stained glass windows from around the world. 'Glory Window' pictured above resides in The Chapel of Thanksgiving in Dallas, Texas.

Picture above from Yahoo images.

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 04, 2014 - Comments (4)
Category: Art

News of the Weird (May 4, 2014)

News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M369, May 4, 2014
Copyright 2014 by Chuck Shepherd

Lead Story

“Oooooo! Aaaaahhh! Eh?” The Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission in March reprimanded three pornography broadcast stations--not for excessively erotic fare but for violating Canada’s protectionist, patriotic rules requiring that at least 35 percent of all content be of Canadian origin. According to its notice, the 24-hour AOV Adult Movie Channel, XXX Action Clips, and Maleflixxx, were falling short of the 8.5 hours a day of north-of-the-border sex action (and, in an additional charge, were failing to provide enough closed captioning to accompany the “Yeah!”’s and “Oh, baby”’s). [National Post, 3-5-2014]

Compelling Explanations

Drunk Logic: Wendy Simpson, 25, explaining her DUI arrest during a March incident in Almondbury, England, pointed out that she had just minutes earlier walked to a McDonald’s for a late-night meal because she knew she was too inebriated to drive. However, the dining room was closed, and she was refused service at the drive-thru window because she was on foot, and, she said, the only option left for her was to go home, get her car, and return to the drive-thru. On the way back, she was arrested. [Daily Mail (London), 3-20-2014]

Efren Carrillo, a member of the Board of Supervisors of California’s Sonoma County, was charged with misdemeanor “peeking” last year in Santa Rosa after he, returning home from a club late at night, saw his female neighbor’s light on and decided to drop in on her (though he did not even know her name). He had knocked at her back patio door, carrying beers, but was dressed awkwardly, leading the woman to call 911. “In retrospect,” the County Supervisor told police afterward, “I should have had my pants on” (instead of just his socks and underwear). (His trial was underway at press time.) [Press and Democrat, 4-18-2014]

Among the arguments offered in March by Darrious Mathis’s lawyers for his jury trial in Cobb County, Ga. (for assault, kidnaping, and carjacking) was the assertion that Mathis needed no force in order to have sex with the female victim on the night in question--because Mathis is such a good-looking man. (However, the jury was not so dazzled and convicted him on all charges.) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3-25-2014]

Ironies

England’s Stockport magistrates’ court levied an equivalent-$13,000 fine in March against Lorraine White, 41, who runs a part-time service as a dominatrix (chaining up and whipping “bad” men) in a “sex dungeon.” Her business is apparently perfectly legal; the citation was for violating fire codes because inspectors could not see how a client, being properly disciplined (handcuffed and chained), might escape the dungeon in the event of fire. [Manchester Evening News, 3-13-2014]

Sounds Like a Joke: The Food and Drug Administration has had run-ins with “homeopathic” products that subtly market themselves as health remedies without ever having sought the required FDA approval. However, in March a different problem arose, requiring the agency to order a recall of 56 different batches of homeopathic remedies made by the Ferndale, Wash., company Terra-Medica--because they may have (accidentally) been genuine medicine. A variety of the firm’s capsules, tablets, and suppositories, said the FDA, might have contained actual penicillin, inadvertently produced as a by-product of fermentation. [The Independent (London), 3-26-2014]

Tiffany Austin called a KTVU reporter in March after being dismissed as a member of the Planet Fitness Gym in Richmond, Calif., after only one 15-minute workout--because she was “too fit” and therefore making other members uncomfortable. Planet Fitness apparently takes seriously its its business slogan guaranteeing “No Gymtimidation,” designed to keep out-of-shape women from feeling bad about themselves. Said another member, to the reporter, “It’s unfair to show off your body.” [KTVU (Oakland, Calif.), 3-19-2014]

The Litigious Society

A columnist for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Yawm Al-Sabi proposed in March that Egypt sue Israel in international court for reparations for the 10 Biblical plagues cast from Hebrew curses, including boils, lice, locusts, and turning the Nile River into blood. Ahmad al-Gamal asserted that Israelites swiped gold, silver, and other precious items as they began their legendary desert-wandering. Al-Gamal also wants reparations from Turkey (for the 16th century Ottoman invasion), France (for Napoleon’s invasion in 1798), and Britain (for 72 years of occupation). [Jerusalem Online, 3-30-2014]

A California model, Elizabeth Dickson, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles in March against Playboy Enterprises for an injury she suffered as a guest on a Playboy Channel cable TV show in 2012 when she allowed host Kevin Klein to tee a golf ball off of her rear end. According to the $500,000 lawsuit, Klein took a swing at the ball that was perched between her cheeks, missed, and struck her buttocks hard, causing her “pain, suffering, worrying, and anxiety.” [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 3-13-2014]

Latest Human Rights

Rehabilitated: Cook County, Ill., judge Cynthia Brim is awaiting the Illinois Courts Commission’s decision as she seeks to be reinstated following her suspension in 2012 for mental health issues. Brim has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, has been hospitalized “several” times since 1993 (according to a Chicago Sun-Times report), and now claims to be fine, provided that she takes her meds on schedule--which her doctor said she will need to do for the rest of her life. Her suspension came after a manic courtroom outburst lauding her heroic “testicles” and which preceded a scuffle with sheriff’s deputies outside a county judicial building. [Chicago Sun-Times, 3-28-2014] [WLS Radio, 2-5-2013]

Least Competent Criminals

Genres That Never Get Old: (1) Evelyn Hamilton, 37, was arrested in Lufkin, Tex., in April as merely the most recent person to complain to police that in a street transaction, she had been sold inferior marijuana. “Seeds and residue,” she whined to the nearest officer, as she pulled a stash from her bra. (2) Though many people are remorseful about their first tattoos, Jeffrey Chapman is apparently more so. His ultra-cool inking (the word “murder” on his neck in reverse image, clearly readable only in a mirror) is now awkward as he prepares, at press time, to stand trial for first-degree murder for a 2011 killing in Great Bend, Kan. [Associated Press via Athens Banner-Herald, 4-7-2014] [Associated Press via Kansas.com, 4-23-2014]

Update

Jerry Hartsfield lost again. In the Texas case mentioned in News of the Weird in March, the illiterate, borderline-incompetent black man sought release from prison because his constitutional “speedy trial” right was violated. (He had been sentenced to death row in 1977 for murder, but his conviction was overturned in 1983, and the then-governor quickly “commuted” the sentence to life in prison. Hartsfield languished behind bars for 23 more years before realizing that there was no “sentence” in effect in 1983 to “commute” and petitioned to be freed since Texas was, basically, mocking his speedy-trial right.) However, in April, district judge Craig Estinbaum once again turned him down, hinting that Hartsfield must have consciously ignored his speedy-trial right for 23 years because he was content to be imprisoned (and might even have been purposely lingering in lockup to make his eventual speedy-trial claim stronger). Obviously, Hartsfield’s lawyers will appeal further. [The Week via Yahoo News, 4-17-2014]

Armed and Clumsy (all-new!)

Americans (mostly men) continue to accidentally shoot themselves. Several men from law enforcement did: a cop in Bridgeport, Conn., in the leg at a bagel shop (December); a former police officer and firearms instructor in Glenwood, Neb. (January); a sheriff’s deputy, in the leg while defending himself against an aggressive dog in Riverside, Calif. (April); and the police chief in Connersville, Ind., in the leg (January) (but--over 14 years had passed since the previous time he accidentally shot himself!). Some familiar (recurring) incidents: the accidental testicle shot (holstering his weapon into his pants, Portland, Ore., January); the motorist looking to intimidate in a road rage incident (but shooting his own leg, Orlando, January); the man demonstrating gun safety to his girlfriend by pointing the “unloaded” gun to his head and firing (fatally) (Oakland County, Mich., February); and the butt shot, while reaching for his wallet at a Home Depot (Brighton, Mich., December).
Bridgeport: [News 12 Connecticut (Norwalk), 12-24-2013]
Glenwood: [Omaha World Herald, 1-25-2014]
Riverside: [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 4-18-2014]
Connersville: [Palladium-Item (Richmond, Ind.), 1-20-2014]
Portland: [The Oregonian, 1-29-2014]
Orlando: [WKMG-TV (Orlando), 1-20-2014]
Oakland County: [Detroit Free Press, 2-24-2014]
Brighton: [Daily Press & Argus (Livingston, Mich.), 12-30-2013]

Thanks This Week to Mark Stevens, Al Strauss, and Clayton Melanson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Posted By: Chuck - Sun May 04, 2014 - Comments (9)
Category:

Eva the Kitler Cat, 1951

Kitler cats (aka cats that look like Hitler) are very popular on the Internet. But people were noticing that some cats look like Hitler long before the Internet ever existed.

A case in point is Eva here, who received national attention back in 1951. The image and brief text are from Newsweek - Oct 1, 1951.


"Offered for adoption on a Chicago television show, Eva found no takers because of an unfortunate resemblance. The Animal Welfare League gave her a job, however, chasing mice in the kennels."

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 04, 2014 - Comments (8)
Category: Animals, 1950s

Pearl Bryan and Bobby Mackey’s Music World



A haunted country-music club? Just visit Bobby Mackey's Music World in Wilder, Kentucky.

Fittingly, the most famous ghost, Pearl Bryan, has her own ballad.




Posted By: Paul - Sun May 04, 2014 - Comments (2)
Category: Death, Horror, Music, Regionalism, Superstition, Nineteenth Century

May 3, 2014

Hypnotised Driver


‘Hypnotist Henry Blythe, gives his daughter Sally, 17, advice before she starts a driving lesson at Torquay, England, Jan 15, 1960. Blythe says he hypnotizes her as he has some 40 other new drivers, all of whom have passed their test. Sally has not yet taken her test.’ [via Retronaut]


Sydney Morning Herald - May 5, 1960

Posted By: Alex - Sat May 03, 2014 - Comments (8)
Category: Hypnotism, Mesmerism and Mind Control, 1960s, Cars

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Who We Are
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid.

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

Chuck Shepherd
Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre.

Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott.

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