I’ve always enjoyed strange news. Stuff that’s posted that makes you want to say “There is now way that’s real.” Well of course there is a site that posts such news and it’s called News of the Weird.
Here are a couple examples:
At the Nov. 14 meeting of the governing board of Provincetown, Mass., Selectwoman Sarah Peake raised a formal objection to the continued presence of the historical painting that graces the board’s meeting room, though it is of a previously uncontroversial scene of Pilgrims voting on the Mayflower Compact. Peake’s objection (according to a November report in the Boston Globe) is that there are no women in the painting. [Boston Globe, 11-29-05]
In earnest testimony in March, Douglas Dyer explained how it was just bad luck that his married girlfriend got shot twice, fatally, in the middle of her back by the rifle he was holding. Dyer said he had originally intended to kill himself, but when she grabbed at the gun to stop him, it fired into her hand. Then, as she ran out a door, he followed and bumped the door open with the gun, causing it to fire and accidentally hit her flush in the back. As his body flinched from the shot, banging into a wall, the rifle again accidentally fired, putting another bullet in the center of her back. (The Rockland, Maine, jury apparently didn’t believe a word of it and convicted him of murder.) [Bangor Daily News, 3-3-06, 3-4-06]
Unclear on the ConceptMs. Zulima Farber became the New Jersey attorney general in January even though her public record shows 13 speeding tickets, three license suspensions, and two bench warrants (for failure to appear in court regarding the tickets). Farber acknowledged “embarrassment” at the record and joked that it might take “psychoanalysis” to learn why she did those things. (However, a psychoanalyst interviewed by the New York Daily News rejected the suggestion. Farber, said the doctor, just “needs a spanking.”) [New York Daily News, 1-29-06]
Maxcy Dean Filer made News of the Weird in 1989 for his legendary relentlessness in that, after graduating from law school, he failed the California bar exam 46 times, finally passing in 1991. He now practices in Compton, Calif., but last year was put on probation for failing to file a particular document, and was scheduled to take an exam in March on ethics and professional responsibility. Though exams have not been good to Filer, the result of this one has not been reported. [Los Angeles Times, 2-20-06]
Tags: Interesting, Irony, News
