News of the weird
February 29th, 2008, 8:54 pm Hobbies And Interests
QUESTIONABLE JUDGMENTS In December, even after the widely reported tiger attack on a visitor at the San Francisco Zoo, the Houston Zoo was still allowing its visitors to play tug of war with its own lions and tigers. A 20-pound slab of meat, attached to a long rope, is tossed into the enclosure, and visitors are encouraged to toy with the cats by yanking on it as the animal lunges for it. A Houston zookeeper said the game keeps the animals from getting bored. Besides, a zoo official said, “(The lion or tiger) kind of lets us know when he wants to play, and we go along with that.” Two counselors in the Denver school system proposed in December that the school board give high school girls who get pregnant at least four weeks of maternity leave, without academic penalty, so they can bond with their newborns. The counselors said the policy would encourage teen mothers to stay in school. (Meanwhile, the Department of Education of the Australian Capital Territory in Canberra granted permission for a 16-year-old student at Stromlo High School to take smoking breaks, based on a doctor’s finding that she is so “clinically addicted” to nicotine that her work suffers without it.) A teacher at Yamata Elementary School in Yokohama, Japan, was disciplined in January after a finding that she improperly punished her class because a few students would not come to order. Officials said she lined up all students and walked down the row, slapping each one in the face.FAMILY VALUES(1) Geraldine Magda, 44, was arrested in Austin, Minn., in January, following a nursing-home visit to hold the hand of her dying sister in her final hours. Magda was charged with stealing the wedding ring from her sister’s finger during the hand-holding. (2) A Chicago man traveled to Sheboygan, Wis., in December to finally meet the 18-year-old woman who was his biological daughter, but during the visit, he was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting her while she was sleeping.LATEST RELIGIOUS MESSAGESLord Balaji was a locally popular Hindu god in Hyderabad, India, until a few years ago when a priest noticed that more of his worshippers were complaining that valuable U.S. professional “H-1B” visas were harder to get. Overnight, Balaji was transformed from a purveyor of general prosperity to the “visa god,” specializing in lucky H-1Bs, and the temple now draws 100,000 visitors a week. Said one, to a Wall Street Journal reporter in December, “I’ve never heard of anyone who’s gone to the temple whose visa (application) got rejected.” (Typical advice from priest C.S. Gopala Krishna is simply to walk around the temple 11 times.)LEAST JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDESDavid Thomson, 49, was convicted in Edinburgh, Scotland, of smothering his mom to death after she had taunted him for his inept suicide attempt several weeks before (October). In Sydney, Australia, a man was charged with beating a neighbor to death because the neighbor was watering his lawn in violation of the city’s water restrictions (October). The boss of a factory in North Korea was executed by firing squad before 150,000 people in a South Pyongan province stadium after he was convicted of the crime of making out-of-country telephone calls (November).LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALSDavid Holland, 46, gave a DNA sample last year to police in San Jose, Calif., to help resolve murder charges against his brother, but was arrested for an until-then-unsolved 2001 rape when his DNA sample matched that left behind by the rapist.Send news to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com.
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