LEAD STORY

The ear has a "G-spot," explained the Santa Clara, Calif., ear-nose-and-throat surgeon, and thus the moans of ecstasy that Vietnamese "ear pickers" reportedly elicit from their clients might well be justified. A San Jose Mercury News reporter, dispatched to Ho Chi Minh City in January to check it out, learned that barber shop technicians could sometimes coax "eargasms" (as they removed wax) by tickling a certain spot next to the ear drum served by multiple nerve endings and paper-thin skin. Said one female client, "Everybody is afraid the first time, but after, it's, 'Oh my God!'" Said one Vietnamese man, returning home after a trip abroad, and who went immediately from the airport to a "hot toc" parlor for a picking, "(This) brings a lot of happiness."

-- Two San Francisco-area counselors recently formed Men of Tears -- a male support group to encourage crying, according to a January San Francisco Chronicle reporter, who observed as nine men recounted touching events in their lives, accompanied by tears that, according to the counselors, make them emotionally stronger and less hostile. One of the counselors praised the recent public cries by Speaker of the House John Boehner and hoped that President Obama (who stopped just short of tears at the memorial service for victims of the recent Tucson, Ariz., shootings) would someday step over that line.

-- Disabled wheelchair user Jim Starr, 36, of Dorchester, England, was recently ordered off of public roads because his "chair" is too big. Authorities told him that his custom-made, motorized chair with caterpillar treads instead of wheels, which moves like a tank, would have to be licensed like one ("Category H" vehicle, one category higher than a "road roller"). Starr said his chair was the only way he could play at the beach with his kids.

-- Beloved Banker: (1) In December, J.P. Morgan Chase abruptly ended a program that had allowed military personnel to defer paying on Chase-owned student loans while on active duty. (2) Three weeks later, NBC News reported that Chase's mortgage division had long been ignoring a federal military protection law by charging 4,000 active-duty personnel higher mortgage-interest rates than permitted (and improperly foreclosing on 14 of them). (3) That same week, Chase was found to be advertising (through an agent) a foreclosed-on, 5-year-old house in Rexburg, Idaho, without adequate notice that it was infested with "thousands" of garter snakes. (In February, Chase reinstated the student-loan deferments and apologized for ignoring the federal law.)

-- Three men visiting Philadelphia in December were charged with a several-store robbery spree, and perhaps luckily for them, they were quickly arrested. The police report noted that one of the victims (who had a gun waved in her face) was Terri Staino, 38, the owner of John Anthony Hair Styling for Men, who is also the husband of Anthony Staino -- reputed to be the No. 2 man in the South Philadelphia mob, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

-- Alex Good, 15, practicing tee shots with his high school golf team on a rainy day underneath a golf course awning, had one of his drives hit the metal pole holding the awning up, causing the ball to ricochet into his eye, resulting in likely permanent damage. Despite the fact that the pole was directly in front of the tee, inches away, Good nonetheless charged the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club (Hillsboro, Ore.) with negligence and filed a $3 million lawsuit in January.

-- How Not to Do a Laser Bronchoscopy: First, according to a case written up in December in the Massachusetts Medical Law Report, do not let the laser set fire to the patient's throat. More importantly, if a spark does ignite, do not use the everyday home remedy for a small flame, i.e., try to blow it out -- because blowing down the "trach" tube might actually extend the fire, as it did here. (The surgeon and hospital were not named; the lawsuit resulting from the patient's death was settled out of court.)

-- Edward Hall III, 24, a Columbia University researcher, was arrested in January for trespassing at JFK airport in New York City after he disobeyed United Airlines personnel and tried an alternative method to board a plane. He told ticket agents he badly needed to be on the flight to San Francisco even though he had forgotten to bring a photo ID. Frustrated, Hall stepped behind the counter and crawled onto the luggage conveyor, where his next stop, minutes later, was the tarmac where bags were being loaded and where he was arrested.

-- A suburban Chicago high school health-class instructor's technique for teaching the names of female reproductive parts caught the ire of the Illinois Family Institute religious organization in January. To some of the kids, teacher Jacqulyn Levin's "game" was nothing more than a mnemonic to facilitate memorizing the anatomy, but others told the institute that Levin's play on words was chantable, could be set to the tune of the "Hokey Pokey," and was referred to by several students as "the vagina dance." Said a complaining parent, "It is disrespectful to women and removes modesty about the reproductive parts."

-- Failed to Think It Through: (1) Kyle Eckman, 22, was charged with theft in Lancaster, Pa., in November after he was stopped leaving a Kohl's department store, mostly still in his own clothes but also wearing the pair of Elle high-heel shoes he was allegedly trying to shoplift. (2) Jimmy Honeycutt, 27, was arrested in Pawtucket, R.I., in October and charged with five recent robberies of liquor stores. Among the items found on Honeycutt was a telephone directory listing of liquor stores, with the ones recently robbed marked off.

-- Recurring Themes: (1) At a traffic stop, once again a passenger climbed into the driver's seat as the officer approached, trying to save a drug-impaired driver from a citation. However, once again it turned out that the passenger was just as drug-impaired as the driver, and both were cited (Gastonia, N.C., December). (2) Once again a woman tried to conceal drugs by stuffing them down her pants into her most private area, and once again, when police found them, the woman immediately denied that the pills were hers (Manatee, Fla., December).

(1) A 26-year-old man died in Chattanooga, Tenn., in January after being accidentally bitten by a copperhead snake. According to police, a friend had caught the snake and taken it to the man's house because, for some reason, he wanted the man to ascertain the snake's gender. (2) A 21-year-old man was stabbed to death at a party in Bristol, Conn., in January (and three others wounded), apparently because they had been making derisive comments about another man's flatulence. The allegedly gaseous Marc Higgins, 21, was charged with the crimes.

Irish director-playwright Paul Walker's production of "Ladies & Gents" opened for a March (2008) run in New York City 29 blocks north of Broadway, in a public restroom. According to an Associated Press report, the entire play takes place among the porcelain in a bathroom in Central Park, portraying "the seedy underside of 1950s Dublin," with the audience of 25 standing beside rows of stalls, near "spiders, foul odors and puddles of questionable origin." Walker proudly admits that he wanted to take his audience "out of their comfort zone." Actor John O'Callaghan recalled that rehearsals were especially difficult: "One man actually came in and had a pee right in front of us."

"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).