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Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 05:43:59 +0800
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Subject: News of the Wired
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Subject: 
             News of the Weird [486] - 30May97
by Chuck Shepherd

LEAD STORIES

* Ms. Courtney Mann, the head of the Philadelphia chapter of the
National Association for the Advancement of White People, who is
a tax preparer and single mother, was rebuffed in an attempt to join
a Ku Klux Klan-sponsored march in Pittsburgh in April, according
to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Though she has been in the
NAAWP for at least four years, the Pennsylvania KKK Grand
Dragon turned her down because Mann is black.  "She wanted me
to send transportation [for the rally]," said the Grand Dragon. "She
wanted to stay at my house [during rally weekend].  She's all
confused, man.  I don't think she knows she's a black."  

  And we have Kent Crispin. When's the trading deadline?

* April's annual religious fertility celebration in Nagoya, Japan,
designed to improve the rice harvest, featured as usual a 12-foot-
long, bright pink, plastic penis, carried through the street, followed
by displays of smaller organs and a giant banner of a blood-
vesseled penis, testicles, and pubic hair.  Souvenir candy of the
same shape was sold during the event, and at the end of a parade,
the giant organ was placed on the fertility shrine. 

  Don't they do the same thing in North Dakota?

* In mid-April, five weeks before the national elections, the
governing party in Indonesia announced, via "scientific
calculation," according to one leader, that President Suharto had
won re-election with 70.02 percent of the vote. 

  There's a standard joke in Mexico about thieves breaking into
a government office and stealing the results of next year's
election.

COURT DOCKET

* In February, Maryland circuit court judge Thomas Bollinger Sr.
agreed to wipe the record clean of Charles Weiner's spousal battery
charge after he completes probation--for the sole purpose of
helping Weiner join the Chestnut Ridge Country Club, which had
until then rejected him because of his criminal record.  (In 1993,
Bollinger gave a rapist probation for an attack against a drunken
woman, remarking that finding an unconscious woman on a bed
was "the dream of a lot of males, quite honestly.")  Four days later,
Bollinger reversed his decision and removed himself from all
domestic violence and sexual offense cases. 

  Hey! Everyone _knows_ that "snoring" implies consent!

* In Santa Cruz, Calif., in February, Mr. Danis Rivera, 25, rejected
a plea bargain that would have sent him to prison for one year for
having sex with underage girls.  However, at his trial he was in
such a foul mood that he constantly spit at court personnel and
finally had to be outfitted with a Hannibal Lecter-type bonnet over
his face.  He was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison. 
And in a Providence, R. I., courtroom in April, Latin King gangster
George "Animal" Perry, on trial for murder and racketeering and
frustrated at the length of the prosecutor's closing argument, which
denied him a much-needed restroom break, rose from his chair,
unzipped his fly, and took one, anyway. 

  It seems reasonable that if one petitions the court for relief,
and is denied, then the only recourse is to relieve oneself.

SCHEMES

* St. Charles Catholic Church (Picayune, Miss.) and nearby St.
Margaret Mary Church (Slidell, La.) posted security ushers at the
doors in February to make sure that parishioners were not
pocketing communion wafers.  Devil-worshiping ceremonies often
use wafers for symbolic desecration, and when six people were
seen leaving St. Charles in December with their wafers, the
churches' leaders began to fear a local Satanic conspiracy. 

  Nonsense. They were probably just trading them for drugs and
child pornography.

* In April in Houston, Tex., Robert Perry Russell, Jr., 44, was
sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexual assault and diapering of a
14-year-old boy, but police say the number of victims may have
been as many as 10.  According to police, Russell liked to take
boys out in a boat, tell them a tale about a headless killer seeking to
rescue a toddler from the dangerous lake and who kills all other
people, and suggest that putting on the diapers he happens to have
with him would be a good way, should the killer appear, of
convincing him of his toddler status. 

  And, as compensation for their pain and suffering, the victims
accepted the deed to Russel's prime real estate in Florida and
a bridge in the New York area.

DANGEROUS ACTIVITIES

* Dishwashing:  In March, a busboy at a Key West, Fla., Marriott
resort allegedly shot and killed a supervisor who had apparently
made some constructive criticism of the busboy's loading of the
dishwasher.  And in May, police in Helena, Ark., detained a 15-
year-old boy they suspect shot his older sister to death after a
dispute over which one would wash the dishes. 

  I'll wash, you die.

==============================

ADMINISTRATIVE NOTICES
[Except for the last paragraph, giving a new, alternative address
for Chuck Shepherd's CompuServe mailbox, these notices
unchanged since December 27, 1996]

NEWS OF THE WEIRD, founded in 1988, is a nationally syndicated
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COPYRIGHT:  Neither the name News of the Weird nor any
issue of News of the Weird nor any portion of any issue of News
of the Weird may be used for any commercial purpose
whatsoever.  One example of such prohibited use is to use part or
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without prior permission provided that the portion(s) is(are)
accurately quoted and identified on the Web site or message as
from News of the Weird and this copyright notice is affixed at
some point:  Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate.

BOOKS BY CHUCK SHEPHERD:  The Concrete Enema and
Other News of the Weird Classics by Chuck Shepherd (Andrews
and McMeel, 1996, $6.95) is now in bookstores everywhere. 
Or you can order by mail from Atomic Books, 1018 N.
Charles St., Baltimore MD 21201 (add $2 postage for the first
book, $3 for two to the same address, $4 for 3, and $5 for more
than 3) (credit card orders 1-800-778-6246,
http://www.atomicbooks.com).  Or by credit card  from
Andrews and McMeel, 1-800-642-6480 (they bill $2 postage per
book).  Also by Chuck Shepherd and available at only the larger
bookstores in America:  News of the Weird (Plume Books, 1989,
$9), More News of the Weird (Plume, 1990, $9), Beyond News
of the Weird (Plume, 1991, $9), and America's Least Competent
Criminals (HarperPerennial, 1993, $9).  (The 1989, 1990, and
1991 books were co-authored with John J. Kohut and Roland
Sweet.)

HARDCOPIES:  The weekly newspaper columns, as well as
Chuck Shepherd's weird-news 'zine View from the Ledge (now
in its 16th year) are available in hardcopy, but unlike with
cyberspace, they're not free.  Send a buck for sample copies to
P. O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg FL 33738.

AUTHENTICITY:  All news stories mentioned in News of the
Weird are from news stories appearing in daily newspapers in the
U. S. and Canada (or occasionally, reputable daily newspapers in
other countries or other reputable magazines and journals).  No
so-called supermarket tabloid, and no story that was not intended
to be "news," is ever the source of a News of the Weird story. 

ADDRESSES:  To send mail and messages to Chuck Shepherd,
write Weird@CompuServe.com or P. O. Box 8306, St.
Petersburg FL 33738.