:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 5.08.2005 ::

:: So Weird ::

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird (.900)

Government in Action

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported in April that last year's hurricane season in Florida caused 123 storm-related deaths, but that 315 families managed to convince the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for their relatives' funerals as storm-related. And in April, the scheduled elections for town offices in Monticello, Wis., never took place because, as Town Clerk Walt Weber told Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel, "We forgot." (According to Weber, none of the incumbents, including himself, would have been challenged anyway.) [Sun-Sentinel, 4-10-05] [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4-18-05]

Are We Safe? (1) Congress' Government Accountability Office reported in March that, mainly because of gun owners' privacy rights, the FBI or state officials were unable to stop 47 of the 58 gun purchases by people who were on the FBI's own terrorist "watch list" (during a nine-month period last year). (2) A February report of the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general accused the agency of intentionally disbursing seaport-security grant money widely across the country instead of greatly increasing inspections at the 10 ports through which nearly 80 percent of trade moves (a practice that resulted in maritime grants for Oklahoma, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Tennessee). [New York Times, 3- 8-05] [New York Times, 2-20-05]

Great Art!

German artist Winfried Witt has invited about 30 people to his latest installation, which will be to observe the late-May birth of his and wife Ramune Gele's first child, in Berlin's DNA-Galerie. Though more than 100 million babies are born every year on Earth, Witt promised that his viewers will participate in "an exceptional experience" in that "man, because he is unique, is an existential object of art." Witt wants to "show living people, perceived at the same time as object and subject, through a kind of magnifying glass and to expose man in the situations of his personal life." [Agence France-Presse, 4-15-05]

To conceal an enormous open-cast mining operation about 10 miles from Newcastle, England, and to reduce the cost of carting away millions of tons of debris, the mining company recently hired artist Charles Jencks to incorporate the waste into a reclining female sculpture, a half-mile long, running along the A1 highway, with breasts forming peaks 100 feet off the ground. The "Goddess of the North" is expected to take three years to finish, will have footpaths over and around it, and be slightly larger than the "Angel of the North" metal sculpture 15 miles to the south. [The Times (London), 3-27-05]

Recurring Themes

News of the Weird has reported several times on the celebratory but bloody Easter week crucifixions practiced in the Philippines, especially in San Pedro Cutud, which has become an international tourist destination for the exhibitions. This year, Pampanga province police officials decided to fold department discipline into the ceremonies by offering 20 wayward officers who had earlier been absent without leave to do penance by carrying wooden crosses in the festival and that officers with more than 120 absent days volunteer to be crucified, after which they would be reinstated. [Manila Times, 3-23-05]

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net

posted by me

:: 11:03:00 PM [+] ::
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