xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Fire officials in Warrnambool, Australia, continue to investigate a Sept. 15 incident in which the carpet of a downtown business burned in several spots, following loud crackling noises, as Frank Clewer, 58, walked on it wearing woolen and nylon clothes. Fire official Henry Barton said the garments tested to over 30,000 volts of static electricity, and a lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University said that, given the weather and indoor temperature, such a buildup was possible, especially if the carpet had been cleaned with flammable substances. Pieces of the carpet, with coin-sized scorches, were sent to the university for further examination.
Debra Field was convicted of violating the Hobart, Ind., nuisance ordinance in July by keeping two 300-pound hogs as pets, after neighbors complained of the smell produced by the pigs’ estimated 35 pounds of waste per day. Fields had testified, apparently seriously, that she personally couldn’t smell her pigs at all.
A RAND Corp. survey released in August revealed that, of 19 public health clinics tested with telephone messages describing symptoms of facial pustules or other well-known indicators of small pox, not one of them told the caller to isolate the patient.
Two former girlfriends of married New York City endocrinologist Khaled Zeitoun have sued him recently, according to a September New York Post story, claiming that they had been tricked for years by his lies. Tiffany Wang said that Dr. Zeitoun had (1) told her on their first date that they had been married in a previous life, that he regretted mistreating her, and that he had been searching for her in this lifetime to make amends; (2) told her that the devil had taken his soul 14 years earlier, that to get it back he had to agree never to marry, and that Wang was the first woman to make him regret the deal; and (3) that when he actually popped the question to Wang in May 2002, he never intended to marry her but wanted merely “to see the look of joy on her face.”
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD
