News of the Weird, March 8, 2015
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M413, March 8, 2015
Copyright 2015 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Shooting “upskirt” photos of a 13-year-old girl is not illegal in Oregon, declared Judge Eric Butterfield in February, thus acquitting Patrick Buono, 61, of the crimes of invasion of privacy and “encouraging child sexual abuse.” Buono’s behavior was “appalling,” Judge Butterfield noted, but since the girl was in a public place (a Target store) and no nudity was involved (she wore underpants), the specifics of Oregon statutes were not violated. Said Buono’s lawyer, “It’s incumbent on us as citizens to cover up whatever we don’t want filmed in public places.” [The Oregonian, 2-6-2015]
Is This a Great Country, or What?
Felons, and those convicted of domestic assault, and those with a mental-illness history, cannot by federal law buy firearms or explosive devices, but Americans on the National Counterterrorism Center’s consolidated watchlist can--and may possess an unlimited quantity. (In 2013 and 2014, 455 of 486 prospective purchasers on the list passed the background check, and going back to 2004, 2,043 of 2,233, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.) Legislation to add watch listees as a banned category was introduced again this year but has failed several times in the past. [New York Times, 2-26-2015; press release of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 2-24-2015]
The annual National Basketball Association All-Star game in February provided a windfall for the co-host arena’s proprietor, James L. Dolan, whose family owns not only Madison Square Garden but also the NBA’s richest franchise (the Knicks); hockey’s second-richest (the Rangers); and the New York region’s telecom juggernaut, Cablevision. Among the government handouts Dolan receives is the 33-year (and counting) exemption from property taxes for the Garden’s four square blocks (“among the most valuable [plots of land] on earth,” according to New York City Mayor DeBlasio)--a government gift, in 2014 alone, worth $54 million. [New York Times, 2-14-2015] [New York Daily News, 5-29-2014]
Great Art!
The three-week February exhibition of Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera consisted of a blank wall in Chicago’s West Loop gallery--with the artist present only in the sense that he was residing in a narrow, 10-foot crawl space behind the wall with only a single sign alerting patrons (“I am here, but you will not see me”). Diaz-Perera’s “In the Absence of a Body” was designed, he said, to explore the boundary between presence and absence. [Huffington Post, 2-18-2015]
Owlfest
(1) A motorist smashed into a power pole at 2 a.m. on February 25th in Tukwila, Wash., because, he explained, he was “chasing an owl.” (Police somehow found him to be sober and did not charge him.) (2) Officials in Salem, Ore., posted signs in February to warn joggers on a popular running path that they might be attacked by a rogue owl or owls, after four people were aggressively pecked at by dive-bombers. (One design for the sign came from cable TV personality Rachel Maddow.) (3) A bar called Annie The Owl was scheduled for a special one-week event in London in March, for patrons to sip drinks while domesticated owls perch on their shoulders. Interest was so keen that a lottery was required for space-available tickets. [KIRO-TV (Seattle), 2-25-2015] [KGW-TV (Portland), 2-12-2015] [CNBC.com, 2-24-2015]
The Continuing Crisis
America’s Least Interesting Couple: Bill Bresnan, 74, of Toms River, N.J., has written a love letter to his wife, Kirsten, also 74, every day for nearly 40 years--more than 10,000 in number--and continuing, according to a February ABC News report. “We’ve never had a fight,” he said. Their romance continues over, for example, playing “Boggle” at breakfast or having candlelit dinners with wine. (Bonus: Kirsten has hoarded all of the letters, filed by date, in 25 boxes.) [ABC News via WHAS-TV (Louisville), 2-12-2015]
Latest Religious Messages
Margurite Haragan, 58, was charged with two harassment counts against a Jewish woman in Boise, Id., in February after the victim complained of being screamed at and roughed up by Haragan, who was trying to pressure her to acknowledge a belief in Jesus Christ. After Haragan allegedly stepped on the woman’s head and pulled her hair upward, the victim promised to become a Christian. Haragan then departed but returned two days later to continue the alleged harassment. (The genesis of the women’s relationship was unclear from news reports.) [KTVB-TV (Boise), 2-16-2015]
Perspective
The "Pedophile Loophole": The Mississippi Department of Education reported recently that federal student privacy law bars local schools from alerting the MDE about college-age student
teachers who might be having inappropriate relationships with the students they teach. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act apparently controls regulation of the student teachers during on-the-job classroom training (or, as a reporter for the Carion-Ledger of Jackson wrote, "What happens in college, apparently, stays in college"). The MDE, which issues educator licenses, thus may never learn of the inappropriate behavior of the student teacher. [Clarion-Ledger, 2-21-2015]
People With Issues
“Mummy Maxine” and her husband Derek Ventham have run adult baby nurseries (the current one, in North Liverpool, England), charging men the equivalent of $115 an hour to lounge in their cribs, in man-sized infant clothing, while being fawned over as if they were helpless pre-toddlers. (No sex play is allowed, but diaper-changing costs about $40 extra.) (Even tamer is the “adult preschool” in New York City that Michelle Lapidos and a partner intend to start soon. A month-long course will allow grownups to “relive their pre-K days” with finger-painting, show-and-tell, and nap time, she told the Village Voice in January, all while dressing in “your 4-year-old best.”) [Liverpool Echo, 2-3-2015] [Village Voice, 1-30-2015]
Least Competent Criminals
Embarrassing: Surveillance video released in February by the Irish Independent showed a small-time burglar trying to break into a car at 1 a.m. in front of the Pheasant bar in Drogheda, Ireland, by smashing a window with a brick--but also showed that the brick rebounded and knocked the man out, bloodying him. Gerry Brady, owner of the bar, was just closing up and found the burglar dazed, but the man departed before police arrived. Only when Brady later viewed video of the front of his bar did he realize what the man had been up to. [Irish Independent, 2-21-2015]
Least Industrious Criminals: (1) Deputies in Santa Rosa County, Fla., arrested Kevin Barbour, 37, after he fled, on foot, from a recent traffic stop. Deputies chased him a while, then called for K-9 backup, and by the time the dogs arrived, a sound resembling a “snorting wild boar” saturated the area. A snoring Barbour was found asleep under a tree and arrested. (2) Michael Cassano, 38, was arrested in Lodi, N.J., in February, after allegedly robbing the Hudson City Savings Bank of about $4,000. He was spotted minutes later, a block away at a Dunkin Donuts, sipping coffee. [Pensacola News Journal, 2-2-2015] [Associated Press via The Record (Woodland Park, N.J.), 2-24-2015]
Recurring Themes
News of the Weird has reported on joyous “fertility” festivals in South Korea and Japan in which uninhibited celebrants brandish artistic “penises” (from parade floats to souvenir phalluses as jewelry, flower pots, food, etc.--serving adults and little kids alike). It turns out that Greece, too, has such an annual spectacle, “Bourani,” in the town of Timavos, beginning the first day of Lent, lasting 40 days, with historic roots based on inspiring fertile crops as well as human fertility. Wrote Vice.com in its dispatch, “People keep kissing [the penises], taking selfies with them, and wearing them as earrings.” [Vice.com, 2-26-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (August 2010)
Mark Seamands, 39, went to trial in May [2010] in Port Angeles, Wash., accused of second-degree assault and two lesser charges for the hot-iron branding of his three children, aged 13, 15, and 18. Each of the kids bore the mark "SK," for "Seamands' Kids." At trial, however, the kids testified that they not only consented to the branding but thought it was cool (despite the second-degree burns), and as a result, the jury dismissed the assault charge and deadlocked on the two lesser ones. [Associated Press via KIRO-TV (Seattle), 5-14-2010]
Thanks This Week to Jan Linders and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M413, March 8, 2015
Copyright 2015 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Shooting “upskirt” photos of a 13-year-old girl is not illegal in Oregon, declared Judge Eric Butterfield in February, thus acquitting Patrick Buono, 61, of the crimes of invasion of privacy and “encouraging child sexual abuse.” Buono’s behavior was “appalling,” Judge Butterfield noted, but since the girl was in a public place (a Target store) and no nudity was involved (she wore underpants), the specifics of Oregon statutes were not violated. Said Buono’s lawyer, “It’s incumbent on us as citizens to cover up whatever we don’t want filmed in public places.” [The Oregonian, 2-6-2015]
Is This a Great Country, or What?
Felons, and those convicted of domestic assault, and those with a mental-illness history, cannot by federal law buy firearms or explosive devices, but Americans on the National Counterterrorism Center’s consolidated watchlist can--and may possess an unlimited quantity. (In 2013 and 2014, 455 of 486 prospective purchasers on the list passed the background check, and going back to 2004, 2,043 of 2,233, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.) Legislation to add watch listees as a banned category was introduced again this year but has failed several times in the past. [New York Times, 2-26-2015; press release of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 2-24-2015]
The annual National Basketball Association All-Star game in February provided a windfall for the co-host arena’s proprietor, James L. Dolan, whose family owns not only Madison Square Garden but also the NBA’s richest franchise (the Knicks); hockey’s second-richest (the Rangers); and the New York region’s telecom juggernaut, Cablevision. Among the government handouts Dolan receives is the 33-year (and counting) exemption from property taxes for the Garden’s four square blocks (“among the most valuable [plots of land] on earth,” according to New York City Mayor DeBlasio)--a government gift, in 2014 alone, worth $54 million. [New York Times, 2-14-2015] [New York Daily News, 5-29-2014]
Great Art!
The three-week February exhibition of Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera consisted of a blank wall in Chicago’s West Loop gallery--with the artist present only in the sense that he was residing in a narrow, 10-foot crawl space behind the wall with only a single sign alerting patrons (“I am here, but you will not see me”). Diaz-Perera’s “In the Absence of a Body” was designed, he said, to explore the boundary between presence and absence. [Huffington Post, 2-18-2015]
Owlfest
(1) A motorist smashed into a power pole at 2 a.m. on February 25th in Tukwila, Wash., because, he explained, he was “chasing an owl.” (Police somehow found him to be sober and did not charge him.) (2) Officials in Salem, Ore., posted signs in February to warn joggers on a popular running path that they might be attacked by a rogue owl or owls, after four people were aggressively pecked at by dive-bombers. (One design for the sign came from cable TV personality Rachel Maddow.) (3) A bar called Annie The Owl was scheduled for a special one-week event in London in March, for patrons to sip drinks while domesticated owls perch on their shoulders. Interest was so keen that a lottery was required for space-available tickets. [KIRO-TV (Seattle), 2-25-2015] [KGW-TV (Portland), 2-12-2015] [CNBC.com, 2-24-2015]
The Continuing Crisis
America’s Least Interesting Couple: Bill Bresnan, 74, of Toms River, N.J., has written a love letter to his wife, Kirsten, also 74, every day for nearly 40 years--more than 10,000 in number--and continuing, according to a February ABC News report. “We’ve never had a fight,” he said. Their romance continues over, for example, playing “Boggle” at breakfast or having candlelit dinners with wine. (Bonus: Kirsten has hoarded all of the letters, filed by date, in 25 boxes.) [ABC News via WHAS-TV (Louisville), 2-12-2015]
Latest Religious Messages
Margurite Haragan, 58, was charged with two harassment counts against a Jewish woman in Boise, Id., in February after the victim complained of being screamed at and roughed up by Haragan, who was trying to pressure her to acknowledge a belief in Jesus Christ. After Haragan allegedly stepped on the woman’s head and pulled her hair upward, the victim promised to become a Christian. Haragan then departed but returned two days later to continue the alleged harassment. (The genesis of the women’s relationship was unclear from news reports.) [KTVB-TV (Boise), 2-16-2015]
Perspective
The "Pedophile Loophole": The Mississippi Department of Education reported recently that federal student privacy law bars local schools from alerting the MDE about college-age student
teachers who might be having inappropriate relationships with the students they teach. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act apparently controls regulation of the student teachers during on-the-job classroom training (or, as a reporter for the Carion-Ledger of Jackson wrote, "What happens in college, apparently, stays in college"). The MDE, which issues educator licenses, thus may never learn of the inappropriate behavior of the student teacher. [Clarion-Ledger, 2-21-2015]
People With Issues
“Mummy Maxine” and her husband Derek Ventham have run adult baby nurseries (the current one, in North Liverpool, England), charging men the equivalent of $115 an hour to lounge in their cribs, in man-sized infant clothing, while being fawned over as if they were helpless pre-toddlers. (No sex play is allowed, but diaper-changing costs about $40 extra.) (Even tamer is the “adult preschool” in New York City that Michelle Lapidos and a partner intend to start soon. A month-long course will allow grownups to “relive their pre-K days” with finger-painting, show-and-tell, and nap time, she told the Village Voice in January, all while dressing in “your 4-year-old best.”) [Liverpool Echo, 2-3-2015] [Village Voice, 1-30-2015]
Least Competent Criminals
Embarrassing: Surveillance video released in February by the Irish Independent showed a small-time burglar trying to break into a car at 1 a.m. in front of the Pheasant bar in Drogheda, Ireland, by smashing a window with a brick--but also showed that the brick rebounded and knocked the man out, bloodying him. Gerry Brady, owner of the bar, was just closing up and found the burglar dazed, but the man departed before police arrived. Only when Brady later viewed video of the front of his bar did he realize what the man had been up to. [Irish Independent, 2-21-2015]
Least Industrious Criminals: (1) Deputies in Santa Rosa County, Fla., arrested Kevin Barbour, 37, after he fled, on foot, from a recent traffic stop. Deputies chased him a while, then called for K-9 backup, and by the time the dogs arrived, a sound resembling a “snorting wild boar” saturated the area. A snoring Barbour was found asleep under a tree and arrested. (2) Michael Cassano, 38, was arrested in Lodi, N.J., in February, after allegedly robbing the Hudson City Savings Bank of about $4,000. He was spotted minutes later, a block away at a Dunkin Donuts, sipping coffee. [Pensacola News Journal, 2-2-2015] [Associated Press via The Record (Woodland Park, N.J.), 2-24-2015]
Recurring Themes
News of the Weird has reported on joyous “fertility” festivals in South Korea and Japan in which uninhibited celebrants brandish artistic “penises” (from parade floats to souvenir phalluses as jewelry, flower pots, food, etc.--serving adults and little kids alike). It turns out that Greece, too, has such an annual spectacle, “Bourani,” in the town of Timavos, beginning the first day of Lent, lasting 40 days, with historic roots based on inspiring fertile crops as well as human fertility. Wrote Vice.com in its dispatch, “People keep kissing [the penises], taking selfies with them, and wearing them as earrings.” [Vice.com, 2-26-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (August 2010)
Mark Seamands, 39, went to trial in May [2010] in Port Angeles, Wash., accused of second-degree assault and two lesser charges for the hot-iron branding of his three children, aged 13, 15, and 18. Each of the kids bore the mark "SK," for "Seamands' Kids." At trial, however, the kids testified that they not only consented to the branding but thought it was cool (despite the second-degree burns), and as a result, the jury dismissed the assault charge and deadlocked on the two lesser ones. [Associated Press via KIRO-TV (Seattle), 5-14-2010]
Thanks This Week to Jan Linders and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
Oregon Upskirt Either the judge needs to be shot or the lawyers that made the law that holey.
US Gun Law Make guns illegal and only illegals will have guns.
Tax Exempt Gardens DISCLAIMER: No politician was bought during the decision making process for this one (either).
Diaz-Perera Now, if he'd've stayed there for 6 months with no food or water... I'd go see it. (Naw... not really.)
Salem Owl There was a quicker, safer, and more permanent solution to the problem.
The Bresnan Kudos! But, did he remember International Women's Day?
Boise, Id. Since when were Jews allowed in Idaho? Just askin'.
Pedophile Loophole Lawyers crossed over to the legislative branches of governments cause stupidity like this.
Adult Babies This goes so far beyond the old saw; The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
Drogheda, Ireland Booze may have been involved.
Branded Kids Think just how close to the tree those 3 apples fell.
US Gun Law Make guns illegal and only illegals will have guns.
Tax Exempt Gardens DISCLAIMER: No politician was bought during the decision making process for this one (either).
Diaz-Perera Now, if he'd've stayed there for 6 months with no food or water... I'd go see it. (Naw... not really.)
Salem Owl There was a quicker, safer, and more permanent solution to the problem.
The Bresnan Kudos! But, did he remember International Women's Day?
Boise, Id. Since when were Jews allowed in Idaho? Just askin'.
Pedophile Loophole Lawyers crossed over to the legislative branches of governments cause stupidity like this.
Adult Babies This goes so far beyond the old saw; The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
Drogheda, Ireland Booze may have been involved.
Branded Kids Think just how close to the tree those 3 apples fell.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 03/09/15 at 10:42 AM
Unfortunate that you have taken Feinstein's press release as fact, and not considered the ramification of using a secret list with no provisions for redress to strip a constitutional right.
The "National Counterterrorism Center’s consolidated watchlist" is NOT a list of people convicted of any crime, it is a confidential list of hundreds of thousands of names of people suspected of a connection to terrorism. There is intentionally no way for a suspect to know if they are added to the watchlist, and no mechanism to request your name to be removed. Compare this to the "No Fly" list, with only about 21,000 names, and a mechanism (if a difficult one) for redress
Would it really be appropriate to use a secret list of "supects" to deny firearms and ammo purchases? If nothing else, this would provide suspects with simple a way to learn they are on the secret list.
The "National Counterterrorism Center’s consolidated watchlist" is NOT a list of people convicted of any crime, it is a confidential list of hundreds of thousands of names of people suspected of a connection to terrorism. There is intentionally no way for a suspect to know if they are added to the watchlist, and no mechanism to request your name to be removed. Compare this to the "No Fly" list, with only about 21,000 names, and a mechanism (if a difficult one) for redress
Would it really be appropriate to use a secret list of "supects" to deny firearms and ammo purchases? If nothing else, this would provide suspects with simple a way to learn they are on the secret list.
Posted by Kevin on 03/09/15 at 01:42 PM
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