Lead Story
“Why are you still alive?” is the question doctors ask Ozzy Osbourne, the hard-rock singer and reality-TV star, who says he is now clean and sober after a lifetime of almost unimaginably bad habits. In June, he started two new ventures: undergoing the three-month process of genetic mapping (to help doctors learn why, indeed) and becoming a “health advice” columnist for London’s Sunday Times. At various points in his life, the now-cholesterol-conscious, vegetarian Osbourne said he drank four bottles of cognac a day, smoked cigars like they were cigarettes, took 42 prescribed medications and many more “backstage” drugs that he could not even identify. Osbourne also has a Parkinson’s-like genetic tremor, was once in a medically induced coma after an accident, and endured anti-rabies shots after famously biting into a bat on stage (“I thought it was a rubber toy”).
Ironies
An intense lightning storm on June 14 around Monroe, Ohio, destroyed the iconic 62-foot-high statue of Jesus (the “King of Kings” structure of the Solid Rock Church) alongside Interstate 75. While townspeople mourned, it was also noteworthy what the lightning bolts completely missed: the large billboard, on the other side of the road, advertising the nearby Hustler Hollywood pornography store.
Despite a scary moment in May, Massachusetts state Rep. Mike Moran said he still supports “comprehensive” immigration reform (taken to mean that restrictions on illegal immigrants be tempered with a special “path to citizenship” for those already here). Rep. Moran’s car was rear-ended (though he was not seriously hurt) by illegal immigrant Isaias Naranjo, who was charged with DUI and speeding. According to police, Naranjo, 27, who was dressed in a Mexican party costume, laughed when told of the charges, informing officers that they could do nothing to him since he had already made plans to return to Mexico. (Furthermore, Massachusetts is forbidden by state law from even notifying U.S. Immigration officials of Naranjo’s case.)
Over the years, according to a June Chicago Sun-Times report, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois has freely used “swagger and braggadocio in talking about his 21 years of military service” as qualification for office. When one contrary fact after another about his record was pointed out by reporters, Kirk explained, “I simply misremembered it wrong.” He admitted that, contrary to his numerous public statements, he was not actually “in” the Iraq Desert Storm war; did not actually “command the Pentagon War Room” when he was assigned there as a Navy Reservist; and was not actually once Naval “Intelligence Officer of the Year.”
He is now vying for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Barack Obama.
In May, Douglas Ballard and Joseph Foster were indicted for allegedly selling fraudulent loans in exchange for bribes, while they were vice presidents of the Atlanta-area “faith-based” Integrity Bank. The bank opened in 2000, touting Christian principles, giving Bibles to new customers, and encouraging prayer at employee gatherings. (The bank closed in 2008, thought then merely to be the victim of sour real-estate loans, and in fact the bank’s more-spiritual founder, Steven Skow, had left the bank by 2007.)
Not My Fault
British actor Nicholas Williams, 33, was acquitted of domestic assault in June even though he had, among other things, “waterboarded” his girlfriend by pulling her shirt over her head and holding her under a shower during a two-hour rampage. Williams persuaded the judge that the anti-smoking drug Champix made him unable to control himself or even to remember the events of that evening.
Laith Sharma, 49, admitted in June that he had stalked and fixated upon, “for marriage,” a 14-year-old girl in Windsor, Ontario, but doctors’ testimony won him a sentence of mere house arrest. Sharma, they said, suffers from the popularly known “maple syrup urine disease,” so-called because the excreted scent is a marker for brain damage that prevents impulse control.
Our Litigious Society
“If Google told you to jump off a cliff, would you?” asked a Fortune magazine columnist, describing the lawsuit filed in May by Lauren Rosenberg, asking for damages of more than $100,000 against Google Maps after she was struck by a car. Rosenberg had queried the map service for a “walking route” between points in Park City, Utah, but a short stretch of the suggested route lacked sidewalks. Rosenberg was hit while walking in the street. Though Google and other map services “warn” users against walking in the street, Rosenberg’s route was delivered on her small Blackberry phone screen.
Least Competent People
Jihadists: They blow themselves up by mistake (such as Pakistani terrorist Qari Zafar did in June); they botch airline shoe- and underwear-bombing and buy the wrong fertilizer for urban car bombs; they brag too much; and they watch far too much Internet pornography. Evidence amassed by Daniel Byman and Christine Fair, writing in the July/August issue of The Atlantic, has led them to suggest that America and its allies should treat jihadists as “nitwits” rather than as “savvy and sophisticated killers” (the latter being an image that helps them with recruiting). It is possible, the authors conclude, that there has not been a truly competent jihadist terrorist since Mohammad Atta led the Sept. 11, 2001, missions.
Matadors: Christian Hernandez, 21, making his big-time bullfighting debut at Plaza Mexico in Mexico City in June, ran from the ring trembling in fear at the first sign of his bull. He was then coaxed to return and man-up, but once again fled and immediately submitted his resignation. Though Hernandez was contrite (“I didn’t have the ability. I didn’t have the balls.”), he was arrested for violating his contract and released only after he paid a small fine.
Illustrations by Tom Briscoe. Send your weird news to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or visit www.newsoftheweird.com.
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