Pink Justice: In parts of India's Uttar Pradesh state, according to a November BBC News dispatch, women are hopelessly oppressed by poverty, abusive husbands and corrupt officials, but two years ago, Ms. Sampat Pal Devi got fed up. She organized bands of vigilante women (with several hundred members), dressed in pink saris, to protect their sisters using both nonviolence (heaping public shame on wrongdoers) and violence (with axes and the traditional Indian stick, the "lathi"). Said Sampat Devi, "Village society in India ... refuses to educate (women), marries them off too early (age 9, in her case), barters them for money. Village women need to study and become independent to sort it out themselves."

Dr. Paul Schum, 50, the principal of the Catholic Bethlehem High School in Bardstown, Ky., was arrested in October on prostitution-related charges after he was discovered loitering in an alley, dressed as a woman, in leather and fishnet stockings and with fake breasts. A local priest, presumably intending to help Dr. Schum, said dressing as a woman didn't sound like something Schum would be involved in, "(b)ut again, we're in the Halloween season." (Dr. Schum eventually resigned, and the prosecutor chose to drop the charge.)

Simple Explanations: (1) Alex Noel, 16, a finalist in Rhode Island's Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off in October, said his success raising his (1,224-pound) pumpkin was because "You spend all your time with it. No sports. You just come home and be with the pumpkin." (2) Darren Mack, 46, pleading guilty in Las Vegas in November to murdering his wife, and also accepting a judgment for attempting to kill the judge handling his divorce (after first insisting on his innocence): "I do understand ... in my (current) state of mind that shooting at the judiciary is not a proper form of political redress."

A few days after professional skier Stoil Popow was killed while kite-surfing in the rough winter waters off of Connecticut's Long Island Sound in 2004, his widow told the Connecticut Post that she had "begged" her husband not to go out "because it's January." Nonetheless, in November 2007, she filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court, charging that her husband's tragic demise was actually caused by the town of Stratford, Conn., which was negligent in not posting warning signs along the stretch of beach used by Popow (of "hazardous and unsafe conditions") and for not having lifeguards on duty.

-- On Nov. 7, news media reported that New York City's Serendipity 3 restaurant had been noted by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the planet's most expensive dessert (a $25,000 chocolate sundae, featuring, among other delicacies, edible gold flakes). On Nov. 16, the same news media reported that the city's Department of Health had ordered Serendipity 3 closed after inspectors found a live mouse in the kitchen, along with mouse droppings, fruit flies, house flies and more than 100 cockroaches.

-- A 21-year-old man was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver in the early morning hours of Nov. 3, in Suffolk County, N.Y., as he was walking away from his disabled SUV. Police said that the victim was probably the same driver who, a few minutes earlier, had himself rear-ended a sedan and driven off without stopping. (And the day before, in Jacksonville, Fla., a 19-year-old man was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver when he climbed over a barricade after being hit by another hit-and-run driver.)

-- Many of today's environment-friendly new buildings are apparently terrible for birds. According to ornithologist Daniel Klem of Muhlenberg College, between 100 million and 1 billion birds are killed each year colliding with glass, with a big culprit being the generous glass construction on buildings meeting the rigorous energy and environmental standards of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Mr. Sandy Wong, 45, was sentenced in November in Edmonton, Alberta, to 90 days in jail for three counts of indecent exposure, including masturbating with his pants down while sitting on the roof of a BMW at a local agriculture fair. According to a psychiatrist, Wong said he is sexually attracted to the BMW's roof because "it's curved like a woman's body," but he also has been aroused by a 1967 Camaro, a 1965 Chevy Bel Air, a 2005 MiniCooper and a 1991 Buick Century.

Failed to Master the Art of the Getaway: (1) Robert Hickey Jr., running from a Hamilton County (Tenn.) sheriff's deputy in October, dashed into nearby woods, fell into a well and had to be rescued. (2) Rudy Aguas, 25, running from a Reno, Nev., police officer in November after a failed carjacking, ducked into a building but got stuck in a freshly poured concrete floor. (3) A suspect in car break-ins, running from Miccosukee Indian Reservation police near Miami in November, dove into a retention pond but apparently failed to notice a "Live Alligator" sign, and was killed by "Poncho," a gator well-known to locals.

What was an edgy, unconventional treatment of a severe diarrhea when News of the Weird mentioned it in 2000 is now catching on as a remedy for the potentially deadly C. difficile bacteria infection, according to a November report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "Good" bacteria in the stomach are often depleted by the antibiotics that work on (but may not remove entirely) C. difficile, leaving the patient with violent or chronic diarrhea. Some doctors now recommend controlling C. difficile by re-establishing the patient's "good" bacteria via a stool transplant from a close blood relative, who should have similar intestinal conditions. The donated stool (providing that a loving, straight-faced relative is found) is mixed with saline and administered by enema.

(1) A 32-year-old man was found dead, stuck in the cat door of his girlfriend's St. Augustine, Fla., house after she had kicked him out. Said a friend, "(H)is head was caught ... like he was (trying) to reach up and unlock the door ..." (2) A 46-year-old construction worker fell to his death in November in Custer County, S.D., after co-workers had raised him, in a boom, 30 to 40 feet off the ground so that he could try to get cell-phone reception, but the boom's truck tipped over backward.

More people who accidentally shot themselves recently: Opherro Jones, 32, shot himself in the stomach while allegedly pistol-whipping a man (Honolulu, June). A 23-year-old San Francisco police officer accidentally shot himself to death while demonstrating police training techniques to friends at a party (August). A 24-year-old man accidentally shot himself in the foot while aiming at a turtle (Massillon, Ohio, August). A 17-year-old boy, and 19-year-old Patrick Jefferson, accidentally shot themselves while "holstering" handguns in their waistbands (in, respectively, Pittsburgh, September, and Chicago, August). Eric Titov, 22, accidentally shot himself to death while fleeing from police (perhaps caused, they said, by his tripping on his baggy shorts) (Houston, October).

(1) In Bayonne, N.J., in October, Lindsey Millar's car burned up after a squirrel, chewing on an electric line, caught fire, and its flaming carcass fell down beside the car and rolled underneath it. (2) Jacqui Dean, a member of the New Zealand Parliament, apparently became the latest prominent person to publicly fall for the H2O hoax. A constituent, perhaps intending to mock Dean's general alarm about dangerous substances, sought her help in "investigating" the "toxic" "dihydrogen monoxide," and Dean appeared to support an inquiry.

(However, the corps subsequently corrected its correction and now stands by its initial report -- improvement of more than 5 feet.)

(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.)

Great Art! At press time, two major pieces of art at galleries in London and New York City were basically holes in the floors of the buildings, yet were the subjects of glowing reviews. Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth," a large crack in the floor of a hall at London's Tate Modern (on which at least 15 people have suffered minor injuries after tripping) is said to symbolize racial and class divisions in society. Urs Fischer's "You" at New York's Gavin Brown Enterprise is actually just a crater, 38 feet by 30 feet by 8 feet deep, that, according to one reviewer, meshes "themes of transparency, transformation, disruption and destruction."

-- It's Good to Be a British Prisoner (continued): (1) The Portland Young Offenders' Institute in Dorset recently began holding classes, for up to 30 inmates, in pole-vaulting (but reassured critics that even the most athletic inmates would only get about 13 feet high, whereas the prison walls are 20 feet tall, topped by razor wire). (2) Psychologist Susan Young was paid the equivalent of about $1,000 a day to counsel convicted murderer Barry George during his recent retrial in London, and among her duties, she said, was to massage his head periodically so that he could concentrate better, to assist his lawyers.

-- In January, the town of Herouxville, Quebec (pop. 1,300), famously enacted a "code" of expectations for immigrants, seemingly aimed at Islamic laws and rituals (for example, requiring gender equality, permitting alcohol, rejecting special diets for prisoners and reaffirming laws against stoning and female genital mutilation). In October, a town spokesman complained that the code had caused Herouxville residents to be called "(m)orons, liars, xenophobes, fascists ... dictators, Nazis, racists ... idiots ... mentally deficient, intolerant, stupid, retarded." Nonetheless, the town said it would campaign to have the code adopted nationally.

-- The Army Corps of Engineers announced with great fanfare in June that its repairs and upgrades of levees in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans, following Hurricane Katrina, would allow the system to hold back a future storm's flood waters even if the level rose more than 5 feet beyond the Katrina level. However, in November, the corps announced that because of a mistake in calculation (an engineer had used a "minus" sign when a "plus" sign was called for), the expensive levee repairs would actually protect against flooding only 6 inches above the Katrina level.

-- Least Competent Florida Police: (1) Sheriff's deputies arrested Cynthia Hunter, 38, in Brandon, Fla., in October, and she remained in jail for 50 days until a lab finally concluded that the "methamphetamine" in her purse was really dried cat urine that she had legally purchased for her son's science project. (2) Deputies arrested Andrew Johnson, a white man, in Ocoee, Fla., in November, believing he was Anthony Johnson, a black man wanted on a felony drug charge. Andrew Johnson was allowed to post bond while the case was under investigation, but his driver's license was confiscated, and his mother had to drive him to and from work.

-- The New Torture: When three men stole drugs from a dealer in Edwardsville, Ill., the dealer and a partner allegedly snatched one of the men and roughed him up, seeking payment for the drugs. In November, police arrested the alleged dealers after the roughed-up victim reported that he had been held down, paddled, had some hair shaved off, and then deliberately burned on the neck and shoulders by having freshly baked cookies taken straight from an oven and held against his skin.

-- Just Can't Stop: A Wal-Mart customer was arrested for shoplifting after yielding to temptation while walking the aisles of stores in Mukwonago, Wis. The man (reportedly sober for 16 months) impulsively downed seven 12-ounce bottles of Jack Daniel's Lynchburg Lemonade that he saw on a shelf.

-- In January, Jerome Felske was fired as a truck driver for the city of Chicago when investigators learned that he had 22 criminal convictions on his record. Felske appealed, and in September, the city's Human Resources Board reinstated him, noting that Felske had actually disclosed six of them on his original application and, as to the others, the board said, the city had not proved Felske "intentionally" hid them. Felske, his lawyer had argued, had simply forgotten about the other 16 (all of which occurred before 1991): "I challenge anyone ... to recall their grocery list from ... two weeks ago."

-- Recent Alarming Headlines: (1) "Policeman Shot in Butt With Own Gun While Battling Porn Vending Machine Bandits" (Mainichi Daily News [Tokyo], October). (2) "Man Shoots Goat After Wife Wouldn't Bring Him Beer" (The Northwestern [Oshkosh, Wis.], November).

-- Australian Wayne Scullino, 30, quit his telecom job in Sydney in early 2007, and, after convincing his wife, they sold their house and moved to Wisconsin for the sole purpose of rooting for the Green Bay Packers, about which he had enjoyed an almost inexplicable fascination since age 15. Said Scullino, "At some point, you've got to stop living the life you've fallen into, and start living the life you want to," and he feared waiting even one more year, since quarterback Brett Favre might retire after this season. He told the Associated Press in October that the family would probably move back to Australia after the Super Bowl and start all over with a new house and new job.

-- Alexander Smith, 46, was arrested in Wake Forest, N.C., in November after a serial dumping spree alongside rural roads, starting about a block from his own home. He had allegedly pushed off his truck, at different stops, a washing machine, then a dryer, then two stoves and finally a freezer. He was charged with felony littering.

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Francis Rocca, 24, was arrested in Pittsfield, Mass., and charged with robbing a gas station in November after being identified by his victim, who pointed out that Rocca's distinctly pimpled face was easily visible underneath the clear plastic bag he wore as a "disguise." (2) Michael Chatman, 35, and two others were arrested in Augusta, Ga., in November after Chatman, in a Target store, tried to return the laser printer the three had allegedly used for counterfeiting. However, they had accidentally left in the machine not only copies of the counterfeit bills but also the original $20 bill they had used as a model. Said a deputy, "People get wrapped up in the crime, and they forget things."

(1) Twins Jared and Justin Serovich, age 8, of Gables Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio, made it to the finals of a state inventors' competition this year with their special boxer shorts. The twins' knickers used fabric fasteners to hold the seams together thus making it nearly impossible for the wearer to be given a "wedgie." (2) As he crossed a field while walking his dog near his home in Brighton, England, in October, police Inspector Chris Poole, 50, was attacked by about 50 cows. He spent 11 days in the hospital, recovering from the butting and stomping, which cost him four broken bones, a severed artery and a punctured lung.

(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.)

Small-Town Mayors: (1) Mayor Ken Williams resigned in Centerton, Ark. (pop. 2,146), in November and revealed that he is actually Don LaRose, an Indiana preacher who abruptly abandoned his family in 1980 because, he said, satanists had abducted and threatened him, and brainwashed him to rub out details of a murder he supposedly knew about. He said his memory returned only recently, thanks to truth serum. (2) Mayor Lino Donato of Poteet, Texas (pop. 3,500), said in November that he would remain in office despite his inability to set foot in city hall. That building is less than 1,000 feet from a youth recreation center and therefore off-limits to Donato, who was adjudicated a sex offender in October.

-- The Texas Board of Education announced in November that it had made its selections of approved math textbooks for the next school year, even though the group of chosen books contained a total of 109,263 errors. Books of the industry giant Houghton Mifflin accounted for about 86,000. All publishers have guaranteed to correct the errors by the time the books are shipped.

-- In October, rescue crews in Pittsburgh freed a woman who had become stuck underneath an SUV in front of another woman's house. She told police that she suspected her husband was having an affair with the woman and had crawled around to get a better vantage point for spying. She said she inadvertently fell asleep and, when she awoke, could not crawl out.

-- Spectacular Errors: (1) In November, a 77-year-old man in Jacksonville, Fla., intending to help his daughter by riding his bicycle to Long Branch Elementary School to pick up her 4-year-old son (his grandson), arrived back home with a kid on the bike but did not realize that he had picked up the wrong boy. Said the picked-up kid's frantic mother, "(The two boys) don't even look alike." (2) The Rhode Island Department of Health fined Rhode Island Hospital $50,000 in November because three doctors so far this year have performed neurosurgery on the wrong side of the patients' brains. (Two patients survived.)

-- In November the Food and Drug Administration told Smiling Hill Farm of Westbrook, Maine, that it would have to recall all of its egg nog because it did not list "egg" as an ingredient on the label. Federal law requires the listing to protect people with egg allergies from inadvertently consuming foods that they might not have realized contain egg (even products called "egg nog").

-- Jesse Rodriguez, 33, was scheduled to testify in December in Redwood City, Calif., against the man who ordered him to shoot another to death in 1989, even though triggerman Rodriguez has been, and is, exempt from any prison time. Rodriguez was 14 when he killed the man, and state law at the time prohibited authorities from holding him beyond his 25th birthday. Since Rodriguez went on the lam after the crime and did not surface until he was 31, the state would have to let him go even if he were tried and convicted.

-- The existence of the 50-year-old, ultra-secure computer protocol required for a U.S. president to launch nuclear weapons is well-known, through newspapers, books and Hollywood films, but according to papers released by Britain's National Archive in November, a similarly complex protocol has been in place in that country only since 1998. Before that, a person could arm a nuclear bomb simply by removing two ordinary screws and (according to BBC News) using "an Allen key to select high yield or low yield, air burst or groundburst and other parameters."

-- Yikes! (1) The China Daily newspaper reported in November that local markets and beauty salons in Guangdong province were selling low-priced hair bands made from used condoms. (2) "Fires during surgeries a bigger risk than thought," headlined a November Boston Globe article, citing data from hospitals in Pennsylvania (28 operating-room fires a year for the last three years) and Massachusetts.

-- People Who Have a Way With Words: (1) Washington state Rep. Jim Dunn, responding in October to a reprimand by colleagues about unwanted sexual remarks made to a female staff member, said he couldn't recall exactly what he told her, but that he was "sure it was very inappropriate, because I do that kind of thing." (2) Russia's checkerboard serial killer (who said he aimed to commit 64 murders even though only charged with 49), explained in court in October how he got started, at age 18, by killing a classmate: "A first killing is like your first love. You never forget it."

Mesa, Ariz., police arrested Sebastian Mancilla, 41, in November after a security camera at Mervyn's department store caught him being not too subtle in looking up the skirt of a female shopper. According to an Arizona Republic reporter, citing a police source: "At one time Mancilla approached the woman from behind and laid down on the floor to look up her skirt. He then got back to his feet and continued to act as if he was shopping." Mancilla allegedly tried again with the same woman, dropping to his knees, but to no avail, as the woman walked away.

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) A man in a werewolf mask tried to rob a Subway sandwich shop in Pittsburgh in October, but came away empty as the two employees on duty refused to give up money even though he implied that he had a gun (covered with a paper bag). The employees said the man argued a bit and then in frustration removed his mask and fled, saying, "I can't believe you won't listen to a man with a mask and a gun." (2) Gregory Holley was arrested in Largo, Fla., in November and charged with robbing three stores and a bank. He was picked up the day after the bank robbery, carrying cash from the bank and wearing the same clothes that the robber wore, with stains from the bank's chemical dye pack.

(1) A court in Preston, England, convicted Akinwale Arobieke, 46, of violating an earlier court order (reported in News of the Weird in 2006) by doing the same prohibited behavior: He accosted a man in public at a mall and fondled his bicep. (2) In October, the singer Donovan, 61, announced plans to open the Invincible Donovan University in his native Scotland to advance Transcendental Meditation teachings, which assert (as mentioned in News of the Weird in 1999 and 2005) that a critical mass of practitioners, concentrating in unison, can cause society to reduce its crime, violence and stress (and, he said, the critical mass for improving a small country like Scotland would be only 250 meditators).

Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation: (85) The errant animal (often a squirrel) that wanders into an electrical line or substation, kills itself, and thereby plunges a wide neighborhood area into darkness, as in Ashland, Wis., and Auburn, Calif., in November. And (86) the parent who decides to commit a crime (often, shoplifting) with his or her toddler in tow, only to irrationally decide, when spotted by police, to abandon the child and run away, as a panicked Suzette Gruber, 39, did in October, leaving her baby in his stroller after being caught in a T.J. Maxx store in Hartsdale, N.Y.

(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.)