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Welcome to
the KOLA morning show online...
Brian Casey and The
Wake-Up Bunch!
Brian
shares some....
Odd Stuff!
You're kidding me, right? Fans of irony will want
to hoist a cold one in memory of Fall City, Washington's
Edward Samuel Monkley. The 61-year-old Monkley stopped his car
on Interstate 90, apparently while trying to get his dog out
of the westbound lanes. Monkley was struck and killed by a
vehicle. A bus. Yes, a Greyhound.
The cure for cancer? Could a cure for
cancer be as close as your grocery store spice isle?
Researchers now say that ginger can kill ovarian cancer cells
while the compound that makes peppers hot can shrink
pancreatic tumors. Before you get your hopes up, the study on
ginger was done using cells in a lab dish. That's a long way
from determining whether it will work on people, but they say
it's promising. A second study found that when the ingredient
that makes chili peppers hot was fed to mice, it caused death
in pancreatic cancer cells. The downside is that many
compounds shown to stop cancer in mice are not nearly as
effective in human cancer patients.
Guess who's coming to dinner? It pays to
get to know your neighbors, especially if you plan to go into
the burglary business. In Japan, one burglar thought he had
hit pay dirt when he found the door to a home unlocked.
However, he soon discovered it wasn't to be his lucky day.
Upon entering the home and searching for loot he encountered a
sumo wrestler, then another and another. It turns out that the
home was occupied by some 20 sumo wrestlers. Said a wrestler
known as Dewanosato, "Without thinking, my body moved. I
caught the guy and bear-hugged him." The burglar later
said, "First I was caught by a massive man. When the
lights turned on, I was surrounded by more than a dozen sumo
wrestlers. I was surprised." He was also arrested.
Are We Safe? In a two-day period in March, alarming reports
revealed that "dirty (radiation) bombs" easily
entered the country in car trunks in tests, that one-third of
U.S. civilian nuclear research reactors were insufficiently
secure, and that concerns were heightened about the 2,000
shoulder-fired missiles said to be unaccounted for in the
world's arsenals. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times
reported that the fishing village of Dillingham, Alaska, at
least, is secure, now that a $200,000 Homeland Security
anti-terrorism grant has paid for 60 "downtown"
surveillance cameras (with 20 more to come). Dillingham (pop.
2,400) is about 300 miles from Anchorage, with no roads
linking it to anywhere. [USA Today, 3-27-06] [USA Today,
3-26-06] [ABC News, 3-27-06] [Los Angeles Times, 3-28-06]
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]
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Brian Blair is now a Republican county commissioner in
Tampa, Fla., but before that was a professional wrestler
for 20 years. He now says it wasn't the dropkicks, pile
drivers or neck breakers that ended his career, but rather
tripping over a tray of dirty dishes at a Carrabba's
Italian Grill in Tampa in 2001, which he said injured his
head, shoulder and knee, and his lawsuit is still pending.
(His previous lawyers resigned in March.) Blair wrestled
for four months after that injury, but said the matches
were the less-strenuous "tag-team" contests.
Also, hospital records show a blood-alcohol reading of
0.089 90 minutes after the incident, though Blair told the
Tampa Tribune he only had a sip. [Tampa Tribune, 3-9-06]
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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]
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Super-Compelling: (1) John Melo's lawsuit demanding
re-sentencing was rejected in March by the Middlesex
County, Mass., Superior Court. Facing a term of "10
years," Melo had complained that a couple of
"Feb. 29's" were included in that time, and
since a "year" is usually 365 days, he should
not be serving 366 days during leap years. (2) According
to the Hartwell (Ga.) Sun, state Sen. Nancy Schaefer,
speaking at an "issues day" event in February,
said one reason illegal immigrants find work in the United
States was because "50 million" abortions have
caused a U.S. labor shortage: "We could have used
those people." [Commonwealth v. John Melo, Docket
04-P-1606, 3-6-06] [Hartwell Sun, 3-1-06]
Unclear on the Concept
Ms. 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]
Ironies
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The Christian Diocese of Mizoram in northeast India,
which was established by Welsh Presbyterian missionaries
who worked the area from 1840 to around 1960, announced in
March that it would send a missionary back to Wales
because it was clear that the Welsh are in serious
spiritual decline. "The Mizos," said Rev. Zosang
Colney, "have a burden to do something for their
Mother Church in Wales," since fewer than 1 in 10
Welsh regularly attend services. [Daily Telegraph
(London), 3-6-06]
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What Goes Around, Comes Around: (1) England's Norwich
Union insurance company reached a settlement in January
with its employee Linda Riley over her workplace injuries.
Riley had tripped over a pile of claim forms in the
office. (2) Protesters filed a lawsuit against New York
City recently, raising familiar complaints about police
behavior: that NYPD harassed peaceful demonstrators during
a 2004 rally, herded participants into pens, and
intimidated speakers and supporters with threats. However,
the plaintiff in this lawsuit is the police officers'
union, whose members were protesting the slow pace of
contract negotiations with the city. [BBC News, 1-25-06]
[New York Times, 2-3-06]
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Not Your Father's Hell's Angels: Police were
investigating the Hell's Angels chapter in Stockholm,
Sweden, in February after 70 members claimed government
benefits for being "depressed." Police said the
gang had largely abandoned its reliance on shootouts and
bomb attacks and moved into crimes like tax fraud.
[Reuters, 2-21-06]
Driving While Nude
Recent drivers who decided, for reasons known only to
them, to get naked before taking the wheel: (1) A woman,
her toddler and her mother (all naked), Norwood, N.Y.,
sitting in a parked car (February). (2) John Persico,
Providence, R.I., smashed into several cars naked
(February). (3) Natalie Peterson, 23, Roy, Utah, shucked
her clothes after an argument with her aunt (March). (4)
Eric Wayne, 57, Pocono Township, Pa. (An officer who knew
him said Wayne "tends to get a little weird"
when he's been without sex) (arraigned in March). (5) A
man and woman, ages 59 and 70, Cologno al Serio, Italy
(joyriding nude) (March). [New York Daily News, 2-13-06]
[WKMG-TV (Orlando)-AP, 2-23-06] [KTVX-TV (Salt Lake City),
3-26-06] [Pocono Record (Stroudsburg), 3-16-06] [Reuters,
3-16-06]
Least Competent Criminals
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Outstanding Police Work: (1) A 40-year-old man in
Cedarburg, Wis., was arrested on suspicion of DUI when
police noticed the severed hose of a gas station pump
sticking out of his car's fuel door. (It belonged to a
Kwik Trip station.) (2) Daniel Nordell, 52, with a history
of DUI, was arrested in March when police saw him driving
through downtown Waupaca, Wis., in reverse (because he
said the other gears wouldn't work). (3) A 44-year-old man
was arrested for DUI in Australia's Northern Territory in
March after he asked a police officer how to get to the
hard-to-miss Uluru (Ayers Rock, the huge, 1,000-foot-high
rock formation that appears red in sunlight), which was
about 300 feet in front of him, illuminated in his
headlights. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2-26-06]
[Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wis.), 3-3-06] [Reuters,
3-29-06]
Updates
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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]
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Crime Really Doesn't Pay: In July 2005, News of the
Weird reported Jared Gipson's extremely bad idea of trying
to rob Blalock's Beauty College in Shreveport, La. The 20
students and teachers inside (almost all women) beat him
to a pulp with curling irons, hair dryers, chairs, a table
leg, and their fists (leaving him with 21 cuts that had to
be stitched). In March 2006, Gipson, 24, was sentenced for
that attempted robbery, and as a recidivist, got 25 years
in prison (and might have received more except that
several of the women asked the judge for leniency).
[Shreveport Times, 3-4-06]
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