The periodic Christian Nudist Convocation took place in July at the Cherokee Lodge nudist camp in Tennessee, and according to a dispatch in Nashville Scene, the group evokes skepticism not only from most Christians (who dislike the flaunting of naked bodies, even if innocently done) but from most Cherokee Lodge members, who see them as too intense for naturism's laid-back attitude. One CNC attendee acknowledged that many Christians would not approve of Cherokee Lodge, but to him "(I)t's Jerusalem." Another compared his work at nudist camps to missionary work: "(S)ome people get sent to Africa, some people get sent to South America and the Lord was like, 'I want you to go to nudist resorts.' And I'm like, 'Wow, what an assignment.'"

(1) In July, National Hockey League player Derek Boogaard, an "enforcer" known for his willingness to brawl, opened the Derek and Aaron Boogaard Fighting Camp in Regina, Saskatchewan, to train teenage hockey players in that highly essential skill. (2) Iran's state-sponsored news agency IRNA announced in July that its agents had broken up a Western countries' "spy ring" that employed more than a dozen squirrels trying to bring "spy gear" of foreign agencies into the country.

-- Modernizations: (1) Congregants of Rev. Tom Ambrose, of St. Mary and St. Michael Church in Trumpington, England, met in September to complain of several things about their vicar, most notably that he delivered the Christmas sermon last year (and several since then) using Microsoft PowerPoint. (2) George Zokos is a professional shepherd in Tyrnavos, Greece, but due to health problems three years ago (according to an August Agence France-Presse dispatch), he now herds the sheep from his car.

-- One priority of President Vladimir Putin's Nashi national youth movement is procreation to build up Russia's declining population, according to a July report in London's Daily Mail (which also charged the Nashi with inculcating authoritarianism). Its two-week convention in July (with 10,000 in attendance) featured on-site sexual encouragements with not a condom in sight. And in Russia's Ulyanovsk province, the government again this year promoted Sept. 12 as a patriotic conception day, featuring SUVs and other prizes to couples who manage to time their blessed events for June 12, which is Russia's Constitution Day.

-- Sweden's English-language Internet news site, The Local, reported in August that a couple in Kinda Municipality had just been denied generous welfare benefits because they object to the government's work requirements. The husband wanted the payments even though, he wrote, "Conventional work is out of the question for me, both in terms of my conscience and on an intellectual level, as it seems objectionable with regard to both my personal well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. Emotionally, too, (conventional work) creates unbearable pain and dejection."

-- Video Nation: (1) A 38-year-old man drowned off Ocean City, Md., in July, trying to save his two sons from a rip current. Two men from a nearby parasailing boat had jumped in to help and could have used more assistance, one said, except that the boat's passengers declined, with several more concerned with video-recording the drowning. (2) As a 27-year-old woman lay dying from a stab wound incurred at a Wichita, Kan., convenience store, in June, at least five customers stepped over her to enter the store, including one who stopped to photograph her on a cell phone camera.

(1) In August, employees at the bar Changes, in Seattle, had to break up a karaoke-night attack by a woman on a man who was singing the Coldplay song "Yellow." The woman had shouted, "Oh, no, not that song. I can't stand that song." She charged the stage, screamed at the man and shoved him (and it eventually took four men to hold her for police). (2) Megan Conroy, 18, pleaded guilty in Brisbane, Australia, in September, to assaulting a 40-year-old man in May (by kicking him in the testicles) because he had mispronounced her first name. (And if you ever meet her, it's "mee-gan," not "may-gun.")

-- Quinton Thomas, 22, inadvertently strengthened the murder charge against him in April when he mailed a letter from the jail in Rockville, Md., believing that the contents would not be read by jail officials. However, Thomas had gotten the recipient's address wrong, causing the post office to "return to sender," and, as longstanding policy, officials inspect all incoming mail (for contraband). According to an August Washington Post report, Thomas characterized his emerging alibis and also wrote about a witness, "This white (expletive) can't make it to court on May 7 through May 12, ya feel me. I don't care what you gotta do, you don't even gotta stink the cracker, he just cant make it to Rockville that whole week, Homie."

-- Bad Judgments: (1) In Huntsville, Ala., in June, Dwight Clark, running his finger inside the rim of his car's gas tank to clear some gunk, got it stuck past the first knuckle, and it took doctors at Huntsville Hospital, plus a Sawzall tool, about two hours to free him. (2) Jenny Robertson, purchasing a house on a golf course in Maricopa, Ariz., had the home scrutinized according to "feng shui" principles to assure open spaces and the correct placement of doors and windows, according to a June New York Times story, but to her consternation, apparently nowhere in feng shui teaching is the concept of "bad golfers." Said Robertson, "When I go outside, it's like dodgeball out there."

News of the Weird reported in February that Estrella Benavides had been sued by the city of San Mateo, Calif., for refusing to clean off the words that she had written in big lettering all over the outside of her house, even though she said those messages had been dictated by God. In August, she similarly wrote all over a second home she owns, in Belmont, Calif. (For those readers seeking the word of God: "Help worse crime ever; evil + out of mind: from Bush to neighbors using witchcraft + technology against people not belong to their religious group.")

-- Australian rugby league player Ben Czislowski, 24, complaining of an eye infection and pain in July, was found by doctors to have, embedded in his head, a tooth belonging to opponent Matt Austin, with whom he had violently collided in an April match. Austin also lost several other teeth in the collision.

-- A Solution More Disturbing Than the Problem: David Armour, then 13, "wheezed all the time and could not do any exercise," said his mother, of Glasgow, Scotland, speaking about her son's severe asthma. His complete recovery, according to a July report in the Scottish Daily Record, is attributed to two years of dedication in learning to play the bagpipes.

(1) A Lake Charles, La., man was killed in August by a single gunshot, which was explained by Sheriff Tony Mancuso: "(The man and his girlfriend) were engaged in consensual sexual behavior involving a firearm when the firearm was discharged, resulting in his death." (2) A 60-year-old female rancher was killed in August in Mitchell, Australia, when a 10-month-old male camel (recently arrived as a birthday gift for the woman) apparently mistook her for a female camel, knocked her to the ground, and lay on top of her in what one camel expert said "no doubt" was "sexual" behavior, crushing her with his 330 pounds.

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

Brian Blair, now a county commissioner in Tampa, Fla., asserted in a 2002 lawsuit that he had been forced into retirement from his previous career as a professional wrestler after he tripped over a tray of dishes and hurt himself at a Carrabba's restaurant. Blair announced in August 2007 that a settlement had been reached with Carrabba's, and thus he would not explain (according to a deposition cited by Carrabba's attorneys) how the "career-ending" injury allowed him to keep lucrative wrestling dates in Japan months after he fell, or how he registered a .089 blood-alcohol reading that evening even though he admitted to only one sip of wine, or how a sober professional wrestler accustomed to being thrown across a ring could be hurt so badly by a simple fall, or how a politician who generally abides a pro-business, anti-lawsuit philosophy could have initiated such litigation.

-- (1) In July, the Houston School District, citing student privacy laws, declined to release last season's Bellaire High School baseball statistics (such as batting averages), even though requested by a player's parent. (2) The Perth, Australia, construction materials company GMA Garnet recently closed a deal to sell sand to Saudi Arabia, and shipments began in June. (Actually, it's a hard-grade sand better suited for sandblasting than that found in the Saudi desert.)

-- Army officer Bryan Hilferty, a volunteer Little League umpire in Alexandria, Va., complained to The Washington Post in July that when he requested a copy of the League rulebook (to help him be a better umpire), he was turned down. Hilferty, who has access to classified information in his job at the Pentagon, was told that the Little League restricts its rulebooks, on a "need to know" basis, so as not to invite litigation, and that Hilferty did not qualify.

-- Norwegian Correctional Services revealed in August that 20 percent of convicted criminals who are given reporting dates to begin their sentences (a total of 1,799 last year) simply do not show up. The problem is compounded by the fact that Norway has no separate law requiring them to report. Said a regional prison director, "It's difficult to make plans for the prison terms when we have no idea who will show up and who won't."

-- The Federal Communications Commission famously imposed heavy fines for "indecency" against CBS for the brief, inadvertent glimpse it offered of Janet Jackson's right breast during the 2004 Super Bowl. The same "indecency"-concerned agency, however, issued a routine official notice in July listing call letters of TV stations it had recently approved, including, for a proposed station in Honolulu, KUNT. (The applicant, headquartered in Skokie, Ill., withdrew the requested letters when the Star Bulletin of Honolulu publicized the FCC's notice.)

-- Serena Yen, a member of the 24 Hour Fitness gym in Houston complained to KTRK-TV in July that she had been inadvertently shut inside recently at about midnight while using an upstairs exercise machine, when employees locked up for the night. A spokesman at the company's headquarters said that "24 Hour" does not refer to the hours of operation.

-- The government of China, which claims control of Tibet despite the region's vigorous culture of independence, announced in August that it would henceforth require Tibet's "living Buddhas" (special clergy believed to be continuously reincarnated) to get permission from China's religious affairs officials before submitting their souls to be embodied in the future. The government acted, it said, because the reincarnation process needed to be managed better.

-- As urban sprawl gobbles up land that previously surrounded farms and ranches, some new homeowners are getting feistier about rural noises and smells that disturb their enjoyment of country life. Kimber Johnson paid an extra $80,000 to get the premium view for her land near Phoenix, but complained in July about a farm's routine summer buildup of manure 300 feet away, lasting until the corn crop is picked. The problem also exists in the French village of Cesny-aux-Vignes, where in August the mayor simply banned all complaints from urban newcomers about braying donkeys and loud farm equipment. (Occasionally, the newcomers win, as in Washington County, Minn., in June when the sheriff cited farmer Karyl Hylle for having a cow guilty of "excessive mooing.")

Just before Patricia Nilsen committed suicide last year, she cashed out her estate and left the money (about $300,000 in CDs) to famous 1960s singer Connie Francis, a move that was, said Nilsen's relatives, an abrupt departure from her previous plans. The relatives accuse Francis of manipulating Nilsen, but Francis said she hardly ever spoke to or wrote her. Francis described Nilsen as a huge fan who wrote to her frequently, perhaps giving Nilsen, said a relative, "the insane delusion" that Francis was her best friend (though there was no formal evidence of mental illness). Francis offered to split the proceeds with the family and to donate to Nilsen's favorite charity, but the family said no, and Francis recently filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach, Fla., to prevent the family from holding up her money.

Verle Dills, 60, was arrested in Sioux Falls, S.D., in July after police found numerous homemade videos of Dills having sex in public with "traffic signs." And Jeff Doland of Uniontown, Ohio, was arrested in July, caught in an Internet sting after he flew to Miami thinking he had arranged to pay a "mother" to let him photograph her two adolescent daughters while she periodically pushed them underwater (because he "liked watching the bubbles").

Jazmine Roberts, 19, was apprehended by a Neiman Marcus security guard in White Plains, N.Y., in August and held for police after she allegedly walked out of the store with a $250 pair of jeans and raged against the guard. According to a police report, Roberts was under the impression that once she walked out the door, she was immune from arrest, telling the guard, "It's too late. I already left the store."

Occasionally, motorists who are involved in collisions (especially inebriated ones) continue to drive on, claiming not to have realized for a while that their victim is dead and stuck in the car's windshield. In July in Green Bay, Wis., Steve Warrichaiet, 50, was arrested on several charges in the injuring of one pedestrian (found on the street) and the death of another (lodged in the windshield as Warrichaiet drove home). In August, Tony Martinez, 54, was arrested in Perris, Calif., on several charges in connection with the death of a motorcyclist, whose body was lodged in Martinez's rear window as he drove home.

Arrested recently for murder and awaiting trial: Earl Wayne Reynolds (Spotsylvania County, Va., August); Donald Wayne Booth (Austin, Texas, August); Dustin Wayne Nall (Arlington, Texas, August); Christopher Wayne Hudson (Melbourne, Australia, June); Earl Wayne Flowers (Taylorsville, N.C., April); Randall Wayne Mays (Payne Springs, Texas, May). Suspected by police of murder but still on the loose at press time: David Wayne French (Portland, Ore., May). Convicted of murder: Randy Wayne Seal (Florahome, Fla., May). Sentenced for murder: Patrick Wayne Schroeder (Pawnee City, Neb., August).

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

Until a July Florida appeals court ruling, Mark O'Hara, 45, had been in prison for two years of a 25-year mandatory-minimum for trafficking in hydrocodone, based solely on the 58 tablets found in his possession in 2004, even though his supply had been lawfully prescribed by a physician. The state attorney in Tampa had pointed out that Florida law did not mention a "prescription" defense to trafficking, and even though O'Hara had lined up a doctor and a pharmacist to testify, the jury wasn't allowed to consider the issue. After the appeals court called the case "absurd" and ordered a new trial with the prescription evidence allowed, the state attorney still refused to drop the case.

-- Sweden's army turned down 600 draftees in July, claiming that it did not have enough officers to supervise them, but about 350 of the conscripts launched a formal protest, demanding to serve. Said one, "I was upset. What was I going to do for a year?" The National Service Administration arranged for 100 of the draftees to get into the army anyway, with 160 others re-registering for the next round.

-- The 14 branches of the Tari Bunia Bank in the South Pacific island of Vanuatu act as traditional banks (checking accounts, loans, mortgages), but also accommodate local tribesmen by accepting tusks, woven mats, shells, giant rocks and other items for deposit into individual accounts at traditional bartered rates. An additional benefit of taking in the items, according to a July BBC News dispatch, is that bank robberies are rare, thanks to the "spirits and snakes" guarding the artifacts.

-- Inexplicable: (1) Annual "crying sumo" events are held in several Japanese cities every year (the most recent in Tokyo in April), featuring sumo wrestlers holding specially dressed toddlers out in front of them and coaxing them to cry, with the first bawler declared the winner. (2) No industrialized country has more national holidays than Italy (12), but a group of legislators recently proposed to inadvertently challenge industrial growth by adding seven more, according to a June Reuters dispatch, mostly marking Christian events.

-- God Is Love: (1) Charles Flowers, the director of the no-nonsense Christian camp Love Demonstrated Ministries, was arrested in August and charged with dragging a 15-year-old camper on her stomach behind a van after she either could not or would not keep pace on a morning run. (2) In August, Buena Park, Calif., Baptist pastor Wiley Drake acknowledged asking his congregation to pray for the deaths of two leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State because they had been calling for an IRS investigation of Drake for endorsing a presidential candidate (former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee). Said Drake: "The Bible says that if anybody attacks God's people ... children will become orphans and wives will become widows."

-- About a dozen Islamic punk-rock bands toured the United States this summer, according to a June Newsweek report, with most using their music as a loud protest of both U.S. treatment of Muslims and the corruption of Islam by violent fundamentalists. Bands such as Diacritical, Vote Hezbollah and the Kominas (Punjabi for "bastards") describe their music with the term (loosely translated) "hard-core piety."

-- Some radio stations in Israel have banned male singer Eliyahu Faizkov, 20, supposedly because he sings in a falsetto voice. According to some rabbinical scholars, Jewish law forbids men to listen to females' voices, or female-sounding voices, just as it forbids men from seeing certain uncovered parts of women's bodies.

The medical association in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu reprimanded Dr. K. Murugesan in June after his arrest for unremorsefully allowing his 15-year-old son to perform a Caesarean section on one of his patients, for the sole purpose of qualifying the boy for a world record in the Guinness Book. The baby was born with a fatal congenital defect said to be unrelated to the surgery, but Tamil Nadu's health minister termed Murugesan's office a "butcher's shop."

In July, Maryland county judge Katherine Savage dismissed, permanently, a 2004 child-rape charge against a Liberian immigrant after finding that he speaks a rare tribal language for which no translators were available in time to meet the state's speedy-trial requirement. Nonetheless, according to a Washington Post report, the defendant's demand for a native speaker might have been a ruse because he speaks English well enough to have attended high school and community college here and to have argued his innocence to arresting officers. The court actually found three translators (with a fourth in waiting), but each claimed unavailability. The Post reporter, also, found other translators who could have worked the case.

-- In June, addiction experts at an American Medical Association meeting discussed whether to consider "video game addiction" as a distinct mental illness (ultimately deciding to await further study), but one month later, in Reno, Nev., a couple in their early 20s were arrested and charged with abusing their two toddlers by ignoring them for long stretches of time while playing the game Dungeons & Dragons. According to prosecutors, Michael and Iana Straw had plenty of food in their house, but both babies were found severely malnourished and ill in a home marked by squalor except for the expensive computer equipment that occupied the couple nearly all their waking moments.

-- Prolific Fetishists: Maeyasu Kawamura, 60, indicted in Osaka, Japan, in June (8,000 stolen pieces of women's clothing); Shigeo Kodama, 54, arrested in Hiroshima in February (3,977 panties, 355 bras); a 27-year-old man, accused by police in Waukesha, Wis., in May (1,500 pairs of teenage girls' shoes); Chih Hsien Wu, 43, charged in Fort Collins, Colo., in May (1,300 undergarments belonging to Colorado State University women); Garth Flaherty, 24, charged in Pullman, Wash., in March (1,500 women's undergarments, weighing 93 pounds); Kevin Parrett, 51, sentenced in Faulkton, S.D., in May (800 women's undergarments); Dan Trompke, 37, sentenced in Kearney, Neb., in August (more than 500 women's undergarments).

Some environmental groups continue to slight the environment when establishing exhibits to increase environmental awareness. The town council of Stoke-on-Trent, England, approved plans in July for a 21-foot-tall metal-sculpted tree to highlight the virtues of its public nature park, but first, 20 real trees would have to be cleared away, and then, to prevent injuries in the darkness, 38 powerful lights would illuminate the structure. And in August, organizers of an environmental awareness festival on Magic Island near Honolulu proposed to the city to relocate about 15 shade trees to accommodate the brief surge of visitors expected, leaving, according to a civic group, a "hot, shadeless area" uncomfortable for future parkgoers.

(1) Alexander Ocampo, 27, was arrested in Hilton Head Island, S.C., in July for DUI and for continuing to drive on even after his car had briefly spun out of control, oblivious of the fact that his passenger had been ejected through his open window. (The passenger survived, but with serious injuries.) (2) WKMG-TV reported in August the arrest of a man in Orlando "suspected" of drunk driving and who was pursued by police until he decided to get out and run for it. When police overtook him, he was still clutching a Corona beer from the 12-pack in the front seat of his car.

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)