LEAD STORY

A More Reputable Career: Thomas Heathfield was a well-paid banking consultant with a promising career in Maidenhead, England, but gave it up this year to move to South Africa and endure rigorous training as a "sangoma" ("witch doctor"). After five months of studying siSwati language, sleeping in the bush, hunting for animal parts, vomiting up goats' blood and learning native dances, Heathfield, 32, was given a new name, Gogo Mndawe, and is now qualified to read bones and prescribe herbal cures (among the skills expected of sangomas by the roughly 50 percent of South Africa's population that reveres them). He admitted concern about his acceptance as a white man calling out African spirits, "but when (the people) see (me) dance, perhaps those questions go away."

-- "Hundreds" of blondes paraded through Riga, Latvia, on May 28 at the third annual "March of the Blondes" festival designed to lift the country's spirits following a rough stretch for the economy. More than 500 blondes registered, including 15 from New Zealand, seven from Finland and 32 from Lithuania, according to a woman who told Agence France-Presse that she was the head of the Latvian Association of Blondes. Money collected during the event goes to local charities.

-- Snakes on a Train! A clumsy smuggler (who managed to get away) failed to contain the dozens of king cobras and other snakes he was transporting from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to Hanoi (probably to be sold illegally to restaurants). After panic broke out on the train and police were called, the snakes were collected and turned over to a sanctuary. (Upscale restaurants can charge as much as the equivalent of $500 for a meal of king cobra, beginning with the selection of the snake, and having it killed at tableside, on to a serving of a snake's-blood appetizer. In one survey, 84 percent of Hanoi's restaurants were serving illegal wild animals of some sort, including weasel, monitor lizard and porcupine.)

-- The Envy of U.S. Televangelists: In July, after India's Supreme Court ordered an inventory, a Hindu temple in Trivandrum was found to contain at least $22 billion worth of gold, diamonds and jeweled statues given as offerings to the deity by worshippers over several centuries. The wealth was until now believed to be the property of India's royal family, but the Supreme Court ruling turns it over to India's people. Authorities believe the "$22 billion" figure is conservative.

-- The notorious Santa Croce monastery in Rome was closed in May (and converted to an ordinary church) on orders from the Vatican following reports about Sister Anna Nobili, a former lap-dancer who taught other nuns her skills and who was once seen lying spread-eagled before an altar clutching a crucifix. Santa Croce was also an embarrassment for its luxury hotel, which had become a mecca for celebrities visiting Rome.

-- The Talented Mr. Zhou: Zhou Xin, 68, failed to get a callback from the judges for the "China's Got Talent" TV reality show in June, according to a CNN report (after judge Annie Yi screamed in horror at his act). Zhou is a practitioner of one of the "72 Shaolin skills," namely "iron crotch gong," and for his "talent," he stoically whacked himself in the testicles with a weight and then with a hammer.

-- The elegant, expansive, gleaming new glass-and-concrete indoor stairway at the Common Pleas Courthouse in Columbus, Ohio, opened recently, to mostly rave reviews for its sense of space and light, creating the feeling of walking suspended on air. However, as Judge Julie Lynch and other women soon discovered, the glass partitions at each step make it easy for perverts to gawk from underneath at dress-wearing women using the stairs. "(Y)ou're on notice," Judge Lynch warned her sister dress-wearers, "that you might want to take the elevator."

-- Pablo Borgen has apparently been living without neighbors' complaints in Lakeland, Fla., despite general knowledge that he is, according to sheriff's officials, one of the area's major heroin traffickers, bringing in tens of thousands of dollars a month. Following a drug sting in June, however, neighbors discovered another fact about Borgen: that he and some of his gang were each drawing $900 a month in food stamps. Formerly indifferent neighbors were outraged by Borgen's abuse of benefits, according to WTSP-TV. "Hang him by his toes," said one. "I've been out of work since February (2008). I lived for a year on nothing but ... food stamps."

-- Roy Miracle, 80, of Newark, Ohio, passed away in July, and his family honored him and his years of service as a prankster and superfan of the Ohio State Buckeyes with a commemorative photo of three of Miracle's fellow obsessives making contorted-body representations of "O," "H" and "O" for their traditional visual cheer. In the photo, Miracle assumed his usual position as the "I" -- or, rather, his corpse did. (Despite some criticism, most family and friends thought Miracle was properly honored.)

It's good to be an Arizona State University student, where those 21 and older can earn $60 a night by getting drunk. Psychology professor Will Corbin, operating with National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants, conducts studies of drunk students' memories, response times and decision-making processes through extensive questioning -- after he has raised their blood-alcohol level to precisely 0.08 percent (which Arizona regards as presumed-impaired for drivers). Students are served one type of vodka cocktail, three drinks' worth, in a bar-like room on campus, and after 15 minutes to let the alcohol be absorbed, the questioning and testing begin. (At the end of the night, taxis are called for the students.)

Not Ready For Prime Time: Ryan Letchford, 21, and Jeffrey Olson, 22, were arrested in Radnor, Pa., in July after they had broken into a police van for the purpose of taking gag photos of themselves as if they were under arrest. However, the men somehow locked themselves inside the van, and neither they nor a friend they had called to come help could figure out how to open the doors. Finally, they were forced to call 9-1-1. Police arrived, unlocked the van, arrested the men, and locked them back up -- inside a cell.

In June, Eric Carrier, 23, of Hooksett, N.H., became the most recent person arrested for running a scam on a home-healthcare worker by pretending to be disabled and in need of someone to change his adult diapers. Carrier first told the woman that he was the father of a man disabled by a brain injury, but when she reported for work, it was Carrier himself wearing the diaper and who demanded changing and who allegedly indecently exposed himself.

Two undercover policewomen running a prostitution sting in Dothan, Ala., in October (1999) declined to arrest a pickup-truck-driving john, around age 70, despite his three attempts to procure their services. He first offered the women the three squirrels he had just shot, but they ignored him (too much trouble to log in and store the evidence). A few minutes later, he sweetened the offer with the used refrigerator in the back of his truck, but the officers again declined (same reason). On the third trip, he finally offered cash: $6 (but no squirrels or refrigerator). The officers again declined. They later said they had resolved to arrest him if he returned, but he did not.

LEAD STORY

In January, a baby was born to Canadians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, but seven months later, they still have not revealed to family or friends whether little "Storm" is a boy or a girl. The couple are intending to raise Storm free of gender-specific cultural stereotypes (i.e., such things as domesticity, aggressiveness, preferences for arts or mathematics) because society tends to overvalue "boy" norms. On a larger scale, in Stockholm, according to a June Associated Press dispatch, the 33 Swedish preschoolers at the Egalia school socialize in daily environments scrubbed of all gender references. For example, boys and girls alike play with kitchen toys and building materials, and when playing "family," parental roles are interchangeable. Critics say the children will be left unprepared for the "real" world.

-- Who Knew? "The streets of 47th Street are literally paved with gold," said one of New York City's gold wranglers, as he, down on all fours and manipulating tweezers, picked specks of gold, silver and jewels that had fallen off of clothing and jewelry racks as they were rolled from trucks into stores. The man told the New York Post in June that he had recently earned $819 in redemptions for six days' prospecting.

-- New, on the News of the Weird Food Cart: (1) grasshopper tacos (at San Francisco's La Oaxaquena Bakery, but pulled in June by local health authorities, who were concerned that the bakery was importing Mexican insects rather than using American ones); (2) cicada ice cream (at Sparky's Homemade in Columbia, Mo., but also yanked off sale by local health authorities in June); (3) maggot-melt sandwiches (which are just what you suspect -- cheese and dead maggots -- at the California State Fair in July).

-- In June, scientists at China's Agricultural University in Beijing announced that they had produced human breast milk from genetically modified dairy cows and expect supplies to be available in supermarkets within three years. Employing technology once used to produce the sheep "Dolly," researchers created a herd of 300 modified cows, which yielded milk that was reported as "sweeter" and "stronger" than typical cow milk.

-- Growing Up Early: (1) A loaded handgun fell from the pocket of a kindergarten student in Houston in April, firing a single bullet that slightly wounded two classmates and the "shooter." (2) Prosecutors in Grant County, Wis., filed first-degree sexual assault charges recently against a 6-year-old boy, stemming from a game of "doctor" that authorities say he pressured a 5-year-old girl into in 2010. (3) Lakewood, Colo., police, attempting to wrest control of a sharpened stick that a second-grade boy was using to threaten classmates and a teacher, gave him two shots of pepper spray. (The boy had just finished shouting to police, "Get away from me you f---ers.")

-- Tippecanoe County (Ind.) judge Loretta Rush, interviewed by the Journal & Courier of Lafayette, Ind., in June, underscored parental drug use as a major risk factor in a child's drifting into substance abuse. "I had a case where a child was born with drugs in his system," recalled Rush. "Both parents were using. We were looking for (placing the child in any relative's home), but both sets of grandparents were using. So (the) great-grandmother's in the courtroom, and I had asked her if she would pass a drug screen, and she said she would not ...."

-- In June, officials of California's Alvord Unified School District announced that their brand-new, $105 million high school, Hillcrest, would remain unused for the coming school year (and perhaps beyond) -- because the budget-strapped state does not have $3 million to run the school for a year. (In any event, it costs $1 million per year just to maintain the building to prevent its deterioration.)

-- Full-Circle-Outsourcing: A Mumbai, India, company, Aegis Communications, announced in May that it will hire about 10,000 new employees to work in its call centers fielding customer service problems for U.S.-based companies. However, those jobs are not in India. Aegis will outsource those jobs to Americans, at $12 to $14 an hour, at nine call centers in the United States.

-- Self-described Las Vegas "performer" Staysha Randall took 3,200 different piercings in her body during the same sitting on June 7 to break the Guinness world record by 100 prickings. (Veteran Las Vegas piercer Bill "Danger" Robinson did the honors.) Coincidentally, on the very same day in Edinburgh, Scotland, the woman with the most lifetime piercings (6,925) got married. Elaine Davidson, 46, wore a full white ensemble that left bare only her face, which was decorated green and sported 192 piercings. The lucky guy is Davidson's longtime friend Douglas Watson, a balding, 60-something man with no piercings or tattoos.

News of the Weird has mentioned various overseas prisons where crime kingpins serve time in relative comfort (through bribery or fear), but according to a June New York Times dispatch, Venezuela's San Antonio prison (which houses the country's drug traffickers) is in a class of its own. San Antonio's four swimming pools frequently host inmates' families and "guests," who lounge with barbecue meals and liquor. Paid "bodyguards" pass the time shucking oysters for alpha-dog-inmate Teofilo Rodriguez. DirecTV dishes serve the cells. Drug-smuggling via guards is so prevalent that Venezuelan locals actually visit the prison to buy the surplus (which they carry out because guards only "search" them upon entering). Rodriguez's enforcement is backed up by an openly displayed arsenal of guns. Said a Russian drug trafficker-inmate, "This is the strangest place I've ever been."

People Who Accidently Shot Themselves Recently: Sean Murphy, 38, destroyed most of his finger trying to shoot off a wart (South Yorkshire, England, June). A Secret Service agent (assigned to Nancy Reagan) shot himself in the hip holstering his gun (Ventura, Calif., February). A 17-year-old boy, playing with a gun in bed, shot himself in the testicles (Orlando, February). A training officer at the Ohio Peace Officer Academy shot himself in the thigh (December). Sheriff Lorin Nielson of Bannock County, Idaho, shot himself in the hand (December). Johnathan Hartman, 27, holstering his gun in his back pocket (after threatening his girlfriend), shot himself in the butt (Billings, Mont., December). A man trying to scratch his nose with a pellet gun shot himself in the face (Amherst, Mass., November).

(1) A 24-year-old man, riding a party bus for a friend's bachelor night in Detroit in June, was killed on Interstate 94 when he popped open an emergency escape hatch on the bus's roof and peered out at the sights. His head slammed into an overpass. (2) A 59-year-old woman, who had borrowed a steam roller to help with maintenance on a road near her home in Whatcom County, Wash., in June, lost control of the vehicle, sending it into a ditch, where she was thrown and fatally rolled upon.

Cliches Come to Life (Bureaucrats' Edition): (1) In November (2005) in Murfreesboro, Tenn., U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employees Joseph Haymond and Natalie Coker were charged with taking kickbacks on the purchase of 100,000 rolls of red tape (that is, red security tape used on packages of VA medications). (2) According to a November (2005) Washington Post profile of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency has, since 1790, granted about 30,000 patents to people who have submitted unique designs to improve upon, if not reinvent, wheels.

LEAD STORY

The New York Yankees' Derek Jeter achieved his milestone 3,000th major league hit in July, and Steiner Sports Marketing of New Rochelle, N.Y., was ready (in partnership with the Yankees and Major League Baseball). Dozens of items from the game were offered to collectors, including the bases ($7,500 each), 30 balls used during the game ($2,000 each, unsigned), and even Jeter's sweaty socks ($1,000). Steiner had also collected five gallons of dirt (under supervision, to assure authenticity), and uberfans can buy half-ounce containers of clay walked upon by Jeter during the game (from the shortstop area and the right-hand batter's box) -- for a not-dirt-cheap $250 each.

-- Military veteran Joshua Price, 26, was arrested in March after police in a Chicago suburb found child pornography and 1,700 photos of dismembered women on his computer, but at a court hearing in May, Price explained that his photographs were a necessary escape from war-related trauma. In fact, Price told prosecutors that were it not for the distracting photos, his stress disorder would surely have caused him to kill his wife and two daughters. (Prosecutors accepted that Price's crime was a "cry for help," but the judge, less impressed, quadrupled Price's bail, to $1 million.)

-- Unclear on the Concept: (1) The initial explanation by Melvin Jackson, 48, upon his arrest in June for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in Kansas City, Mo., was to deny that he would ever do such a thing. Rather, he said, "I thought the lady was dead." (2) The initial explanation by Thomas O'Neil, 47, upon his arrest in Wausau, Wis., in June for criminal damage to property (breaking into a neighbor's garage and defecating on the floor) was to claim that he thought he was in his own garage.

Emerging democracies typically exhibit growing pains as they develop stability. For example, in July in Afghanistan's parliament, one female legislator attacked another with her shoe (and then dodged the second lady's flying water bottle before colleagues separated them). Older democracies, however, act more maturely -- except perhaps in California, where in June, an Italian-American legislator got into a shoving match with a colleague whom he thought had made a "Sopranos"-type slur about recent legislation. And in the mature democracy of Wisconsin in June, one state Supreme Court justice was accused of roughing up another (though who started it is in dispute) as the justices privately discussed a case.

-- Budget cuts forced the closure of two of the three firehouses in Chillicothe, Ohio (pop. 22,000), and even that station failed a state fire marshal's inspection in March. Because the station's own alarm system was broken, the chief was required, until the new system is installed, to assign one firefighter per shift to be on full-time patrol at the station, walking around the grounds constantly, upstairs, downstairs, looking for fires. -- Run That by Me Again: (1) In New Orleans in July, Thomas Sanders, 53, pleaded guilty to murdering a 12-year-old girl. According to the neighboring state of Mississippi, Sanders has been dead for 17 years (having been ruled deceased in 1994 on petition of his parents, brother and ex-wife). (2) In July, the city of Daytona Beach Shores, Fla., agreed to pay $195,000 to settle a lawsuit in which six people claim they were strip-searched unlawfully by police. Four of the six were strip-searched during a raid at the Biggins Gentleman's Club, where they work as strippers.

-- Norris Sydnor III's $200,000 lawsuit against Rich's Nail Salon of Landover, Md., for "humiliate(ing)" him last December is scheduled for trial as News of the Weird goes to press. Sydnor was upset that males have to pay $10 for a manicure but females only $9.

-- John Luckett filed lawsuits on 11 different complaints earlier this year against the Las Vegas arcade Pinball Hall of Fame, claiming that he was wrongfully barred from the premises for obnoxiously complaining about out-of-service machines, especially "Xenon," which he says he has mastered so well that he can play almost indefinitely on an initial 50 cents. Among the damages requested, Luckett is demanding $300 for each "therapy" session he might have to undergo to overcome the trauma of being ejected. Luckett has filed more than 40 lawsuits in his role of, as he put it, avenging people's attempts to "screw" him.

-- According to a bailiff, convicted car thief Thomas Done, 33, spent almost a half-hour at his June sentencing "shucking and jiving" Ogden, Utah, Judge Michael Lyon before finally finagling probation (instead of 15 years in prison) -- by expressing parental love for his young daughter and blaming his recidivist criminality on his girlfriend's infidelity. However, literally seconds after Judge Lyon announced probation, Done, noticing his girlfriend in the courtroom, made a gun-triggering motion with his thumb and fingers and said, "Boom, bitch." A bailiff reported the gesture to the judge, who declared Done in violation of his brand-new probation and ordered him re-sentenced.

-- Initially, all Jay Rodgers wanted was for the fellow Atlanta gas station customer to say "thank you" when Rodgers held the door for him, but the man remained silent, and Rodgers pressed the issue, confronting him and even following the man out to his car -- where the man pulled a gun and shot Rodgers in the abdomen, sending him to the hospital for nine days. (Interviewed on WSB-TV in May, Rodgers resumed nagging the man, urging him to "do the right thing" by turning himself in.)

It is not the most popular fetish, but a few men do don raincoats and climb down into public outhouse pits. Luke Chrisco, 30, was apprehended by police in June in a portable toilet at the Hanuman Yoga Festival in Boulder, Colo. Chrisco actually "slipped" away from police, but was arrested the next day in nearby Vail. According to his Facebook and YouTube pages (reported by The Smoking Gun), Chrisco offered himself as a male escort (sample rate: $620 for seven days) and recalled in one video that, on the road in April, he once avoided sleeping overnight at a Greyhound Bus station because it "smelled weird."

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has become an increasingly larger and more permanent part of the ocean -- plastic and other floatables, along with concentrations of chemical sludge, estimated to measure from 0.4 percent to 8 percent of the entire Pacific and responsible for disruptions of the food chain affecting various species of aquatic life. Now, thanks to the March tsunami near Japan, the estimated 25 million tons of debris from cars, homes, appliances, shipping containers, chemicals, etc., from coastal Fukushima that washed back out to sea will soon be caught in the same Pacific swirls, in what a French environmental group forecast would be a pair of ocean-navigating journeys that will last at least 10 years, gradually breaking off and joining (thus substantially enlarging) the two distinct legs of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Bruce Damon, attempting to work a plea bargain in February (1992) to charges that he knocked off a bank in Whitman, Mass., argued to the judge that the 8- to 15-year term suggested by the prosecutor was way too long. Damon cited an article from the Brockton Enterprise newspaper showing that the bank had enjoyed record earnings in the months after the robbery and expected to continue doing well. Said Damon, "I didn't hurt this bank at all." (When the judge asked Damon if he would rob banks again if he were free, Damon replied, "I'd like to plead the Fifth Amendment on that.")