Thursday, December 4, 2008
Charges Dropped Against 9/11 Rescue Worker due to Hero Status
A Long Island judge has dismissed charges of driving under the influence and illegally possessing a weapon against a 9/11 rescue worker, citing the man's status as an "American hero."
Rex Troxell has this dream.
"I can't get my clothes off," he says. "You're trying to get them off, and you can't."
For most of us, being unable to get naked in public is hardly a nightmare. But Troxell is an art model. And posing in the nude, something he has done for 30 years, is key to bringing home a paycheck.
With its plethora of art schools, college art classes, art leagues and private artists, Chicago and the suburbs are home to an estimated 50 to 150 working art models at any given time, according to those in the business. It's a group that comes in all shapes, ages, sizes and backgrounds.
"We couldn't teach classes without professional models," said Duncan Webb, the academic dean at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and an artist himself. "They are essential,"
A Long Island judge has dismissed charges of driving under the influence and illegally possessing a weapon against a 9/11 rescue worker, citing the man's status as an "American hero."
Rex Troxell has this dream.
"I can't get my clothes off," he says. "You're trying to get them off, and you can't."
For most of us, being unable to get naked in public is hardly a nightmare. But Troxell is an art model. And posing in the nude, something he has done for 30 years, is key to bringing home a paycheck.
With its plethora of art schools, college art classes, art leagues and private artists, Chicago and the suburbs are home to an estimated 50 to 150 working art models at any given time, according to those in the business. It's a group that comes in all shapes, ages, sizes and backgrounds.
"We couldn't teach classes without professional models," said Duncan Webb, the academic dean at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and an artist himself. "They are essential,"
However, in September, a federal jury in Baltimore rejected the claim by a 64-year-old West Virginia man that a Frederick, Md., surgeon had stapled his rectum shut during an operation. The jury accepted the doctor's explanation that it was the man's longtime, heavy smoking that caused his rectum to become swollen and shut for 17 days. [Daily Record (Baltimore), 9-29-08]
Another anti-terror lingerie product may also surface someday, based on a 2007 U.S.
patent, issued to a Plainfield, Ill., company for a bra whose cups could also function as air-filtration systems in case of chemical attacks. [U.S. Patent 7255627 (8-14-07)]
Gary Arthur Medrow, then 44, first made News of the Weird in our inaugural year, 1988, but his criminal record (mostly for impersonating police officers) goes back at least 10 years before that. Medrow's periodic compulsion is to call someone on the telephone (usually a woman), pretend to be a law enforcement investigator, ask her to lift another person in her home, carry that person into another room, and then describe the results to Medrow. News of the Weird reported Medrow's relapses in 1991, 1997 and most recently, in 2004, when he was charged in New Berlin, Wis. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9-20-04]
Two high school boys in Markesan, Wis., were hospitalized in September with broken pelvises after a "prank" went bad and a classmate inadvertently drove over them as they lay in the road in front of her car. [WISC-TV (Madison, Wis.)-AP, 9-23-08]
Facing a state budget crisis in July, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fired about 10,000 temporary and part-time workers and ordered the 200,000 permanent employees to be paid only the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until the legislature passed a crisis-solving budget. However, a week later the State Controller John Chiang pointed out that state payroll records could not be changed to accommodate the cut because they were written in the antiquated COBOL computer language, and virtually the only state employees who knew the code were some of the part-timers Schwarzenegger had just fired. [Sacramento Bee, 8-5-08]
A restaurant owner in Rutino, Italy (near Salerno), told police in November that as he was negotiating over the building's lease with his landlords, one hit him in the head with a chair and two others kicked him repeatedly in the stomach. The landlords were not from La Cosa Nostra but were a priest and two nuns
In the village of Pumaorcco, Peru, in September, a bus containing 14 British sightseers on holiday was held hostage for five hours by 50 natives wielding pickaxes and metal bars, who mistook them for personnel from a mining company that they believed were exploiting their land. The Peruvian guide finally negotiated their freedom but had to call for another bus, since the villagers completely destroyed the original. [Daily Mail (London), 9-13-08]
Just Couldn't Stop Himself
Bridgeport, Conn., police arrested Michael Smith, 47, in October for breaking into Holy Ghost Deliverance Church. Smith explained that he was passing the church, spotted a drum set through a window, and could not restrain himself from trying it out. According to a Boston Globe report, officers found Smith "in a spirited solo after the church's alarm system went off." [Boston Globe, 10-22-08]
Merle Sorenson, 48, had to be rescued from the Columbia River near Quincy, Wash., in October, where he nearly drowned after driving his Humvee off of a boat launch. He told the rescuers that he was trying to clean his tires and wanted to see how far he could drive the vehicle into the water but still be able to back out. [Seattle Times-AP, 10-31-08]
In October in Vancouver, Wash., a 74-year-old man actually succeeded in his mission to unclog, with his hands, the garbage chute from his 10th floor apartment, but then he pushed too far. When rescue workers arrived, only the man's feet and lower legs were visible, with his wife holding on for dear life. [Seattle Times-The Columbian (Vancouver), 10-20-08]
People whose special land-use and zoning requests are turned down by the government or neighborhood associations sometimes retaliate defiantly, as News of the Weird has reported. In July in Bucks County, Pa., two men who were denied the right to tear down a house decided to paint it purple and pink, just to annoy the neighbors. [WCAU-TV (Philadelphia), 7-7-08]
When a four-bedroom house inhabited by 50 tenants partially collapsed in October in Honolulu, at least 10 of the residents said they had been pressured to let the property manager give them experimental "stem-cell" injections. Manager Daniel Cunningham, 56 and a de-licensed chiropractor, said he has been injecting the substance, phenol, into himself for years, to treat gnarled hands (though the hands appeared to a Honolulu Advertiser reporter to be deteriorating to the point where Cunningham wears socks over them). One man said Cunningham injected him directly into the eye, and others complained of various side effects. Cunningham ran for mayor of Honolulu this year and in the September primary received 737 votes on a platform of complaining about government's meddling into health care. [Honolulu Advertiser, 10-29-08, 11-4-08; KGMB-TV (Honolulu), 11-2-08]
Deceitful mating strategies may be rife in the animal kingdom (especially among humans), but Australian researchers recently documented the sexual guile of a group of orchids that basically trick male wasps into pollinating them by resembling the look and smell of female wasps. Writing in The American Naturalist, the authors noted that female wasps reproduce both with and without sperm, with the latter creating male offspring. Consequently, the researchers hypothesized, when orchids commandeer sperm, it indirectly leads to the birth of more future pollinators. (Charles Darwin's subsequent book, after "The Origin of Species," was "The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects.") [New York Times, 7-15-08]
Deceitful mating strategies may be rife in the animal kingdom (especially among humans), but Australian researchers recently documented the sexual guile of a group of orchids that basically trick male wasps into pollinating them by resembling the look and smell of female wasps. Writing in The American Naturalist, the authors noted that female wasps reproduce both with and without sperm, with the latter creating male offspring. Consequently, the researchers hypothesized, when orchids commandeer sperm, it indirectly leads to the birth of more future pollinators. (Charles Darwin's subsequent book, after "The Origin of Species," was "The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects.") [New York Times, 7-15-08]
In November, the Bombay high court expunged the arranged-marriage records of an Indian couple who had separated immediately after their 1998 honeymoon when the husband complained that he had been unable to consummate because the bride had large boils on her face.
Many people believe Israelis have more important things to worry about these days, but the city government of Petah Tikva (a Tel Aviv suburb) became the latest municipality to implement a registry of dog DNA, to encourage owners to pick up after their pets in the city's streets and parks. Abandoned droppings will be analyzed and those dogs' owners punished. [Reuters, 9-16-08]
In August, a woman filed a lawsuit in Orange, Texas, against the manufacturer of the Sea-Doo personal water vehicle, claiming negligent design, after she fell off the back end and directly into the powerful jet stream from the vehicle's water pump. According to the lawsuit, "The high-pressure stream ... penetrated her orifices, causing massive, mutilating injuries." [Southeast Texas Record, 8-6-08]
Another anti-terror lingerie product may also surface someday, based on a 2007 U.S.
patent, issued to a Plainfield, Ill., company for a bra whose cups could also function as air-filtration systems in case of chemical attacks. [U.S. Patent 7255627 (8-14-07)]
Gary Arthur Medrow, then 44, first made News of the Weird in our inaugural year, 1988, but his criminal record (mostly for impersonating police officers) goes back at least 10 years before that. Medrow's periodic compulsion is to call someone on the telephone (usually a woman), pretend to be a law enforcement investigator, ask her to lift another person in her home, carry that person into another room, and then describe the results to Medrow. News of the Weird reported Medrow's relapses in 1991, 1997 and most recently, in 2004, when he was charged in New Berlin, Wis. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9-20-04]
Two high school boys in Markesan, Wis., were hospitalized in September with broken pelvises after a "prank" went bad and a classmate inadvertently drove over them as they lay in the road in front of her car. [WISC-TV (Madison, Wis.)-AP, 9-23-08]
Facing a state budget crisis in July, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fired about 10,000 temporary and part-time workers and ordered the 200,000 permanent employees to be paid only the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until the legislature passed a crisis-solving budget. However, a week later the State Controller John Chiang pointed out that state payroll records could not be changed to accommodate the cut because they were written in the antiquated COBOL computer language, and virtually the only state employees who knew the code were some of the part-timers Schwarzenegger had just fired. [Sacramento Bee, 8-5-08]
A restaurant owner in Rutino, Italy (near Salerno), told police in November that as he was negotiating over the building's lease with his landlords, one hit him in the head with a chair and two others kicked him repeatedly in the stomach. The landlords were not from La Cosa Nostra but were a priest and two nuns
In the village of Pumaorcco, Peru, in September, a bus containing 14 British sightseers on holiday was held hostage for five hours by 50 natives wielding pickaxes and metal bars, who mistook them for personnel from a mining company that they believed were exploiting their land. The Peruvian guide finally negotiated their freedom but had to call for another bus, since the villagers completely destroyed the original. [Daily Mail (London), 9-13-08]
Just Couldn't Stop Himself
Bridgeport, Conn., police arrested Michael Smith, 47, in October for breaking into Holy Ghost Deliverance Church. Smith explained that he was passing the church, spotted a drum set through a window, and could not restrain himself from trying it out. According to a Boston Globe report, officers found Smith "in a spirited solo after the church's alarm system went off." [Boston Globe, 10-22-08]
Merle Sorenson, 48, had to be rescued from the Columbia River near Quincy, Wash., in October, where he nearly drowned after driving his Humvee off of a boat launch. He told the rescuers that he was trying to clean his tires and wanted to see how far he could drive the vehicle into the water but still be able to back out. [Seattle Times-AP, 10-31-08]
In October in Vancouver, Wash., a 74-year-old man actually succeeded in his mission to unclog, with his hands, the garbage chute from his 10th floor apartment, but then he pushed too far. When rescue workers arrived, only the man's feet and lower legs were visible, with his wife holding on for dear life. [Seattle Times-The Columbian (Vancouver), 10-20-08]
People whose special land-use and zoning requests are turned down by the government or neighborhood associations sometimes retaliate defiantly, as News of the Weird has reported. In July in Bucks County, Pa., two men who were denied the right to tear down a house decided to paint it purple and pink, just to annoy the neighbors. [WCAU-TV (Philadelphia), 7-7-08]
When a four-bedroom house inhabited by 50 tenants partially collapsed in October in Honolulu, at least 10 of the residents said they had been pressured to let the property manager give them experimental "stem-cell" injections. Manager Daniel Cunningham, 56 and a de-licensed chiropractor, said he has been injecting the substance, phenol, into himself for years, to treat gnarled hands (though the hands appeared to a Honolulu Advertiser reporter to be deteriorating to the point where Cunningham wears socks over them). One man said Cunningham injected him directly into the eye, and others complained of various side effects. Cunningham ran for mayor of Honolulu this year and in the September primary received 737 votes on a platform of complaining about government's meddling into health care. [Honolulu Advertiser, 10-29-08, 11-4-08; KGMB-TV (Honolulu), 11-2-08]
Deceitful mating strategies may be rife in the animal kingdom (especially among humans), but Australian researchers recently documented the sexual guile of a group of orchids that basically trick male wasps into pollinating them by resembling the look and smell of female wasps. Writing in The American Naturalist, the authors noted that female wasps reproduce both with and without sperm, with the latter creating male offspring. Consequently, the researchers hypothesized, when orchids commandeer sperm, it indirectly leads to the birth of more future pollinators. (Charles Darwin's subsequent book, after "The Origin of Species," was "The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects.") [New York Times, 7-15-08]
Deceitful mating strategies may be rife in the animal kingdom (especially among humans), but Australian researchers recently documented the sexual guile of a group of orchids that basically trick male wasps into pollinating them by resembling the look and smell of female wasps. Writing in The American Naturalist, the authors noted that female wasps reproduce both with and without sperm, with the latter creating male offspring. Consequently, the researchers hypothesized, when orchids commandeer sperm, it indirectly leads to the birth of more future pollinators. (Charles Darwin's subsequent book, after "The Origin of Species," was "The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects.") [New York Times, 7-15-08]
In November, the Bombay high court expunged the arranged-marriage records of an Indian couple who had separated immediately after their 1998 honeymoon when the husband complained that he had been unable to consummate because the bride had large boils on her face.
Many people believe Israelis have more important things to worry about these days, but the city government of Petah Tikva (a Tel Aviv suburb) became the latest municipality to implement a registry of dog DNA, to encourage owners to pick up after their pets in the city's streets and parks. Abandoned droppings will be analyzed and those dogs' owners punished. [Reuters, 9-16-08]
In August, a woman filed a lawsuit in Orange, Texas, against the manufacturer of the Sea-Doo personal water vehicle, claiming negligent design, after she fell off the back end and directly into the powerful jet stream from the vehicle's water pump. According to the lawsuit, "The high-pressure stream ... penetrated her orifices, causing massive, mutilating injuries." [Southeast Texas Record, 8-6-08]
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