"Tall, slim, facial symmetry," "good teeth," along with classic makeup and dress and graceful movement, might comprise the inventory list for any beauty contest winner, and they are also the criteria for victors in Niger's traditional "Gerewol" festival -- except that the contestants are all males and the judges all females. Cosmetics are especially crucial, with symbolic black, yellow and white patterns and stripes (with white being the color of "loss" and "death"). A special feature of the pageants, according to a January BBC television report, is that when the female judges each select their winners, they are allowed to marry them (or have flings), irrespective of any pre-existing marriage by either party.

-- It was a prestigious hospital on a worthy mission (to recruit hard-to-match bone marrow donors to beef up dwindling supplies), but UMass Memorial Medical Center (Worcester, Mass.) went hardcore: hiring young female models in short skirts to flirt with men at New Hampshire shopping centers to entice them to give DNA swabs for possible matches. Complaints piled up because state law requires insurance providers to cover the tests, at $4,000 for each swab submitted by the love-struck flirtees, and the hospital recently dropped the program, according to a December New York Times report.

-- In December, McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, Pa., established a dynamic new program to improve their students' educational outcomes: racial segregation. At least three of the 11 junior class homerooms were designated as black-only with black girls "mentored" during homeroom period by black female teachers and black boys mentored by black male teachers (on the theory that kids will learn more from people who look like them).

-- Vietnam veteran Ronald Flanagan, in the midst of expensive treatment for bone cancer, had his medical insurance canceled in January because his wife mistakenly keyed in a "7" instead of a "9" in the "cents" space while paying the couple's regular premium online, leaving the Flanagans 2 cents short. Said the administrator, Ceridian COBRA Services, that remittance "fit into the definition in the regulations of 'insufficient payment'" and allows termination. (Ceridian said it warned the Flanagans before cancellation, but Ron Flanagan said the "warning" was just an ordinary billing statement that did not draw his attention.)

-- From a December memo to paramedics in Edmonton, Alberta, by Alberta Health Services: Drivers should "respond within the posted speed limits even when responding with lights and siren." "Our job is to save lives," AHS wrote, "not put them in jeopardy." According to drivers interviewed by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News, police have been issuing tickets to drivers on emergencies if they speed or go through red lights.

-- In January, Thalia Surf Shop of Laguna Beach, Calif. (named by OC Weekly in 2009 as Orange County's best), ran a special Martin Luther King Jr. promotion featuring "20 Percent Off All Black Products," illustrated with a doctored photograph of Dr. King, himself, in one of the shop's finest wet suits (black, of course). (Following some quick, bad publicity, the shop's management apologized.)

-- Questionable State Regulation: (1) William MacDonald, restricted by state law wherever he and his wife relocate to because he is a "registered sex offender," told The New York Times in January that his case is particularly "galling," in that his only crime was violating Virginia law by having oral sex with consenting adults, which most legal scholars believe is not a crime (following a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision). (Virginia still believes that its law is valid.) (2) Tennessee, the "second-fattest" state, according to a recent foundation report, continues to pay for obese Medicaid recipients to have bariatric surgery (at an average cost of about $2,000), but to deny coverage for an overweight person to consult, even once, with a dietitian.

(1) Johni Rice, 35, eating at a Waffle House restaurant in Spartanburg, S.C., was charged in January with beating up two diners at another table over the quality of their conversation -- a man and a woman who were discussing "women with hairy armpits." Rice was assisted in the pummeling by two other diners, and weaponized food was involved. (2) Among the annual events marking the New Year (similar to the ball-dropping at New York's Times Square), according to a CBS News report: a pickle dropped into a barrel in a North Carolina town, a dropped bologna in Pennsylvania, a dropped frozen carp in Wisconsin, and, in Brasstown, N.C., the dropping of the opossum. (However, according to Clay Logan, founder of the event, the opossum is merely lowered, not dropped.)

-- As of early November, 150 people had been killed by the 2-week-old, erupting Mount Merapi volcano in Central Java, Indonesia, and the government had created shelters in stadiums and public halls for 300,000 jammed-together evacuees. By that time, however, some had petitioned authorities to open up private shelter locations so that the displaced could attend to certain romantic, biological needs. Apparently some evacuees had become so frisky that they had left the shelter and returned to their homes in the danger zone just so they could have sex.

-- Jerrold Winiecki, 56, was lifted into an ambulance on Dec. 8 for the 25-minute ride to a hospital in a Minneapolis suburb, after paramedics were unable to keep his airway fully open because of infection. Minutes later, the struggling-to-breathe Winiecki noticed the ambulance stopping at a familiar location enroute -- a Subway sandwich shop near his home, thus increasing his distress. The stop was brief; Winiecki later recovered; and doctors said the ambulance ride was not life-threatening. The ambulance company said proper protocols were met, in that the driver did not stop for food but to use a restroom because of diarrhea.

Three men and two juveniles were charged with burglary in Silver Springs Shores, Fla., in January following a December break-in that netted them electronics and jewelry and what they thought was a stash of cocaine. The men told police they had snorted some of the powder. The police report identified the powder as the ashes of the resident's late father and of two Great Danes. (Some of the ashes were later recovered.)

Respect for All Cultures: (1) In January, in Village One in Cambodia (about 12 miles from Phnom Penh), local residents alarmed by a spirit-possessed boy gathered, about 1,000 strong, for a good-luck wedding ceremony marrying two pythons -- "magic" animals that have the power to bring fortune and happiness. (2) Customs and Border Protection officers at Washington, D.C.'s Dulles Airport often receive international passengers carrying reminders of home -- such as the visitor from Ghana who, according to a Baltimore Sun report, landed on Dec. 3 carrying a hedgehog, elephant tails, chameleons, skins from cat-like "genets," sheets soaked in the blood of sacrificed chickens, and a package of dirt.

Broward County, Fla., judge Paul Marko, in a July (1990) divorce case, awarded Marianne Price, 33, possession of the marital house but prohibited her from having boyfriends over, adding that her husband could have the "entire (Miami) Dolphins cheerleading squad running through his apartment naked" if he wanted to, because that apartment was his. Marko then advised Price to start visiting singles bars: "I've been (in them). I'm a single man. There are all kinds of bimbos ... and ... guys running around in open shirts with eagles on their chests. There are great guys out there." Marko said he would order Price's house sold if she allowed a male to live there: "I don't want (you) all of a sudden taking up with some nice, sweet, little blond from Norway." Marko later apologized.

Those Ingenious Western Spies! In January, Saudi officials detained a vulture from Tel Aviv University (part of endangered-species research), calling it a spy and alarming its Israeli handlers that the bird might face a gruesome execution as an espionage agent. Then, a day later, Iran reportedly detained an Arab-American woman crossing its border from Armenia -- after discovering a "spy microphone" in her teeth. (A week later, she was allowed to travel to Turkey.) In December, after an Egyptian woman was killed by a shark at a Red Sea resort, the local governor in Egypt accused Israel's spy agency, Mossad, of releasing "attack sharks" in order to stifle tourism.

-- A supposedly centuries-old Korean health treatment -- the vaginal steam bath -- has become a popular fad recently in Southern California, according to a December Los Angeles Times report. As the client squats on an open-seated stool, vapors of herbs such as wormwood supposedly fight stress, infections, hemorrhoids, infertility and irregular menstrual periods. Thirty minutes' treatment runs $20 to $50, and according to a prominent Beverly Hills gynecologist, the procedure actually could be beneficial.

-- Among the don't-miss tourist attractions in Thailand, according to author Jim Algie's recent guide ("Bizarre Thailand"): the monkey hospital in Lopbun, where terminal patients are treated with utmost respect (pending, of course, their imminent reincarnation); "Tortoise Town" in Khon Kaen province, where those critters outnumber humans by 4-to-1 and dominate the streets with shell-butting mating-rights competitions; and the Buffalo Head Temple near Bangkok, where the abbot's pagoda, for some reason, is made of 6,000 water buffalo skulls.

-- Every Dec. 24 in Sweden, at 3 p.m., a third to a half of all Swedes sit down to watch the same traditional television program that has marked Christmas for the last 50 years: a lineup of historic Donald Duck cartoons. According to a December report on Slate.com, the show is insinuated in the national psyche because it was the first big holiday program when Swedes began to acquire television sets in 1959. Entire families still watch together, repeating their favorite lines.

The General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) announced in December that it issued 350,000 "fatwas" in 2010 -- not the "death to" fatwas, but rather, Quranic interpretations governing everyday life. (The Authority ruled last year, for example, that car raffles are bad; that vuvuzelas are acceptable if kept under 100 decibels; that afternoon naps are prohibited because time should be better spent; and that half-sisters may shake hands with their brothers, even if their mother is Christian.)

(1) Georgia Tech scientists tested (for an October publication) the "oscillatory shaking" they witnessed by wet mice and various-sized wet dogs as they shook water off -- finding an inverse ratio between size and speed, from 27 cycles per second by a mouse to 5.8 by a mid-sized dog. Their original hypothesis was that speed would decrease according to "torso radius," but they forgot to factor in the length of the animals' fur. (2) Israeli researchers, writing in the journal Fertility and Sterility, found that women undergoing in-vitro fertilization were almost twice as likely to conceive if they had been made to laugh by a hospital "clown" entertaining them as soon as their embryos were implanted.

(1) When longtime Orange County, Calif., inmate Malcolm King demanded kosher meals and double helpings, jailers resisted, and King went to court. Judge Derek Johnson asked King if his demands were religion-based, and King said yes -- citing "Festivus" (a joke religion popularized on the "Seinfeld" TV show). According to a December Orange County Register report, Judge Johnson approved King's demands. (2) A 2010 Chicago Tribune public-records examination of suburban Chicago traffic-stop drug searches found that sniffer dogs are usually wrong -- that 56 percent of all "positive" signals by dogs yielded no contraband (73 percent failure if the driver was Hispanic).

A perp wanted on an arrest warrant has a powerful incentive to lie about his ID if subsequently stopped by police, and sometimes bluffing with a bogus name works. However, twice in January, in Dallas and in Great Falls, Mont., perps gave other names, only to learn that people with those names were in as much trouble as they were. Mario Miramontes, 22, wanted for parole violation, told an officer in Dallas that he was his cousin, without knowing that the cousin was wanted for sex abuse of a minor. Jonothan Gonsalez told police in Great Falls that he was really Timothy Koop Jr., but Koop was also a wanted man.

(1) Which Branch Is Best? Dustin Jakes, 27, an Army soldier, was arrested for shooting drinking buddy David Provost, 24, a Navy sailor, in Florence, Ariz., on Christmas Day. They argued over which service was better (and since Jakes had the gun, the answer was "Army"). (2) Mark Richardson, 21, of Oklahoma City is the most recent con man to seek caregivers to attend to him intimately as he dresses in a diaper, feigns autism and claims to require constant care. Richardson's mother admitted to The Oklahoman newspaper that her son is "not your average, everyday, walking-the-street citizen."

-- "Ashley," attacked at age 15 by a counselor in a New York City lockup, finally received justice in September when the counselor pleaded guilty to that assault and two others. (Ashley had been in the lockup for lying on a police report and served one year in juvenile detention.) The counselor's guilty pleas came in a deal with the prosecutor, for which he was "punished" by a probation-only sentence, according to an October New York Daily News story. Thus, Ashley was locked up after the rape; the rapist remains forever free.

-- "H.S.," a high school cheerleader in Silsbee, Texas, claimed sexual assault in October 2008 by a classmate-athlete, who a year later was indicted (and pleaded guilty to simple assault, receiving a suspended sentence). In February 2009, while the attacker was still denying culpability, H.S., though cheering for the team at a basketball game, refused to specifically cheer for her attacker and was kicked off the squad. A federal judge and appeals court subsequently ruled that H.S. had no right to withhold her cheering (though the attacker's right to falsely claim innocence remained inviolate).

The epicenter of California's January (1994) "Northridge" earthquake was five miles from the United States's then-largest egg farm, where hens had produced their usual 1 million eggs in the hours before the quake hit. The damage to the farm was a snapped water line, toppled empty egg pallets and a total of one broken egg. Said manager Robert Wagner to his employees, "We had a 6.6 earthquake that broke less eggs than you guys do when we're working."

Two weeks ago, News of the Weird reported that Charles Clements of Chicago received a sentence of only four months' probation for fatally shooting a neighbor after the neighbor's dog had urinated on his manicured lawn. Actually, Clements was sentenced to four years' probation. I apologize for the error.

Thanks This Week to Gerald Sacks, Kim Hayes, J.B. Sherrick, Glen Eichenblatt, Gary Locke, Bruce Leiserowitz, Carl Reine, Jonathan Cole, Josh Mauthe, and Carl Fink, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).

Do Ask, Must Tell (and Show): The Turkish military's legendary homophobia (rare among NATO countries) comprises both zero-tolerance for homosexuality by service personnel and the requirement of rigorous proof by anyone applying for exemption from service by claiming to be gay. (Homosexuality is the only disqualifier from compulsory service for able-bodied men.) In personal experiences recounted for Foreign Policy magazine in December, some gay men seeking exemptions were ordered to verify their claims by producing witnesses to their homosexual acts, or by photographing themselves fully engaged -- and to be persuasive to authorities, the conscript had to be depicted in the "receiving" position in sexual intercourse.

-- Daring New Products: (1) Introduced at a New York food fair in January (and planned for U.S. distribution later this year): Great Scot International's potato-like chips in the "flavor" of Scotland's "national delicacy" (yes -- haggis chips!). (2) Burger King U.K.'s Christmas-season special this year (available briefly in December): a regular Whopper, garnished with a generous helping of brussels sprouts.

-- The notoriously isolated North Korean economy only permits new products to be sold as needs arise, and in December (according to a report by Agence France-Presse), the ministries began allowing Western-style "skinny jeans" (having relaxed the rule requiring female workers to wear skirts). Also recently for sale: human fertilizer (owing to the attrition of the animals that previously produced manure for family gardens).

-- The SEGA video company's Japan division began test-marketing its new Toylets game in January, designed for men's urinals. With sensors in the basin and a video screen at eye level, men score points based on the strength and accuracy of their streams. Among the suite of games: sumo wrestling (squirt the opponent out of the circle), graffiti-erasure (strong streams wipe out more graffiti), and skirt-raising (the stronger the stream, the higher a woman's skirt is "blown" upward).

(1) In a December incident near Orlando, a former Ku Klux Klan "Cyclops," George Hixon, 73, and his son, Troy, 45, and Troy's girlfriend fought, resulting in Troy's allegedly firing gunshots toward the woman's feet and the subsequent arrests of the two men. According to Osceola County deputies, the altercation was precipitated by the girlfriend's unhappiness that she got the "cheap beer" while the men kept the "good beer" (Budweiser) for themselves. (2) The County Commission in Jackson, Ga., delayed a vote in December on new cell-phone towers at the request of one official with questions about the county's contract -- Commissioner Gator Hodges.

-- Good to Know: Perhaps too many late nights at Japan's National Institute for Materials Science led to the recent quixotic "testing" of superconductor metals by submersion in alcoholic beverages. Yoshihiko Takano and his colleagues developed experiments to soak the metals to see if resistance to electricity is decreased (and, thus, conductivity increased). They found success with whiskey, sake, beer and the vodka-like shochu, but red wine worked best, improving conductivity by 62 percent.

-- Flip a Coin: Among human procreation technologies soft-pedaled to tamp down controversy is surgeons' ability to selectively abort some, but not all, fetuses in a womb in cases where in vitro fertilization (IVF) has overproduced (usually involving mothers expecting triplets or greater, which pose serious health risks). More controversially, according to a December National Post report, a Toronto-area couple told their physician that IVF-created "twins" would be too much for them to care for and that the doctor should terminate one fetus (randomly chosen?) and leave the other.

British researchers, writing in the journal Evolution in November, described a species of birds in Africa's Kalahari Desert that appear to acquire food by running a "protection racket" for other birds. The biologists hypothesize that because drongo birds hang out at certain nests and squawk loudly when predators approach, the nest's residents grow more confident about security and thus can roam farther away when they search for food -- but with the hunters gone, the drongos scoop up any food left behind. (The researchers also found that drongos are not above staging false alarms to trick birds into leaving their food unguarded.)

Extreme: (1) The North Dakota Supreme Court ruled in September that the overdraft fee charged by Quality Bank of Fingal, N.D., to customer Lynette Cavett, of nearly $12,000, was nonetheless legal. The court found that the fee, which reached $100 a day, was disclosed to Cavett in advance. (2) Automaker BMW of Germany announced testing in December of a new technology ("flash projection") in which an ultra-bright light sears the company logo into a viewer's vision, where it lingers even if the viewer subsequently closes his eyelids tightly.

(1) A Roman Catholic church tribunal in Modena, Italy, ruled in November that a marriage should be annulled on the grounds of the wife's adultery even though she apparently only "thought about" having an affair. Her now-ex-husband believes she never actually followed through on her desires for an "open marriage." (2) Because two different laws operate, New York state prisoners, when they win lawsuits against guards who have injured them, keep the entire amount of the award, but when New York state mental patients win similar lawsuits, the hospitals can claim a large portion of the money back, as repayment for the daily cost of providing "care." The New York Times reported in December that the dual system is unique to the state.

Questionable Judgments: (1) A 26-year-old man was arrested in San Pablo, Calif., in December and accused of stealing a taxi after tricking the driver into momentarily exiting the cab. The man then drove to a Department of Motor Vehicles office, where he attempted to register ownership of the car. (2) Kyndric Wilson, 19, was being booked into jail in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., in December on a misdemeanor charge when a routine search revealed a bag of cocaine. As deputies then began processing the more serious drug-possession charge, Wilson was heard saying, "(Expletive), I knew I shouldn't (have) brought that in ... (expletive)."

"Sovereign" citizens (militia types) continue to insist that their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution is superior to that of virtually every American historian, judge, legislator, governor and law professor who ever studied it. For example, Schaeffer Cox (head of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia), in District Court in Fairbanks, Alaska, in December on a misdemeanor gun charge, commenced a series of "constitutional" claims. Asserting that he is "chairman of the joint chiefs of staff" of the "de jure republic" of America, as empowered by the real Constitution (and not the one in popular use, which is a bogus document that Abraham Lincoln secretly sneaked in), Cox claimed that all Americans are kings and queens and that no one is required to obey laws unless necessary to avoid harming other "sovereigns" (citizens). Cox attempted to serve papers on the district court judge, but was rebuffed by state troopers.

Bennie Casson filed a $100,000 lawsuit in Belleville, Ill., in July (1997) against PT's Show Club in nearby Sauget for its negligence in allowing a stripper to "slam" her breasts into his "neck and head region" without consent as he watched her perform. Dancer Susan Sykes (aka "Busty Heart") claims show business's biggest chest (88 inches), which Mr. Casson said was responsible for his "bruised, contused, lacerated" neck. (Mr. Casson's case ended even more tragically two years later when, still in pain and in despair over failing to obtain legal representation for the lawsuit, he took his own life.)