An annual spring fertility festival in Vietnam's Phu Tho province is capped by a symbolic X-rated ceremony rendered G-rated by wooden stand-ins. At midnight on the 12th day of the lunar new year, a man holding a wooden phallus-like object stands in total darkness alongside a woman holding a wooden plank with a hole in it, and the act is attempted. As the tradition goes, if the man is successful at penetration, then there will be good crops. Following the ceremony, villagers are ordered to "go and be free," which, according to a February report by Thanh Nien News Service, means uninhibited friskiness during the lights-out period. [Thanh Nien News (Ho Chi Minh City), 2-9-2012]

-- In the remote state of Meghalaya, India, a matrilineal system endows the women with wealth and property rights and relegates the men to slow-moving campaigns for equality. A men's rights advocate, interviewed by BBC News in January, lamented even the language's favoring of women, noting that "useful" nouns seem all to be female. The system, he said, breeds generations of men "who feel useless," falling into alcoholism and drug abuse. In maternity wards, he said, the sound of cheering greets baby girls, and if it's a boy, the prevailing sentiment is "Whatever God gives us is quite all right." The husband of one woman interviewed said, meekly, that he "likes" the current system -- or at least that's what his wife's translation said he said. [BBC News, 1-19-2012]

-- Each year, the town of Chumbivilcas, Peru, celebrates the new year with what to Americans might seem "Festivus"-inspired (from the Seinfeld TV show), but is actually drawn from Incan tradition. For "Takanakuy," with a background of singing and dancing, all townspeople with grudges from the previous 12 months (men, women, children) settle them with sometimes-bloody fistfights so that they start the new year clean. Said one villager to a Reuters reporter, "Everything is solved here, and after(ward) we are all friends." [Reuters via CBS News, 12-14-2011]

-- In a tradition believed to have originated in the eighth century, the village of San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, marks each Jan. 16 with the festival of Saint Anthony, commenced in style by villagers riding their horses through large fires in the streets ("Las Luminarias"). As horses jump the flames, according to belief, they become purified, demons are destroyed, and fertility and good health result. (Apparently, no horses are harmed, and an on-the-scene priest blesses each for its courage.) [ABC News, 1-17-2012]

-- Prophet Warren Jeffs, of a breakaway Mormon cult, is serving life (plus 20 years) in a Texas prison for raping two underage parishioners, but insists that his power has not been diminished. He was disciplined in December for making a phone call to his congregation announcing several decrees, including barring marriages from taking place until he can return to "seal" them and prohibiting everyone from having sex. (Since Jeffs retains his "messiah" status among many church members, and since life-plus-20 is a long time to wait, and since the cult is reclusive, it is difficult for outsiders to assess the level of sexual frustration in the compound.) [Daily Mail (London), 12-31-2011; Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 12-30-2011]

-- Recovering alcoholic Ryan Brown recently moved his licensed tattoo parlor into The Bridge church in Flint Township, Mich., which is one more indicator of Rev. Steve Bentley's nontraditional belief that mainstream religion had become irrelevant to most people. Tattooing is a "morally neutral" practice, Bentley said, although Brown, of course, does not ink tattoos lauding drugs, gangs or the devil. (The Bridge has also loaned out its plentiful floor space in a shopping mall to wrestling, cage fighting and auto repair facilities.) [Flint Journal, 1-5-2012]

-- In December, Pennsylvania judge Mark Martin dismissed harassment charges against Muslim Talaag Elbayomy, who had snatched a "Zombie Mohammad" sign from the neck of atheist Ernie Perce at last year's Halloween parade in Mechanicsburg, Pa. (Perce was mockingly dressed as an undead person, in robes and beard.) In tossing out the charge (even though Elbayomy seemed to admit to an assault and battery), Martin ruled that Sharia law actually required Elbayomy to take the sign away from Perce. Judge Martin later explained that the technical basis for the ruling was (he-said/he-said) lack of evidence. (The December ruling did not attract press attention until February.) [WHTM-TV (Harrisburg, Pa.), 2-21-2012; Carlisle (Pa.) Sentinel, 3-3-2012]

-- According to a municipal street sign in front of Lakewood Elementary School in White Lake, Mich. (filmed in February by Detroit's WJBK-TV), the speed limit drops to 25 mph on "school days only," but just from "6:49-7:15 a.m., 7:52-8:22 a.m., 8:37-9:07 a.m., 2:03-2:33 p.m., 3:04-3:34 p.m. (and) 3:59-4:29 p.m." [WJBK-TV, 2-15-2012]

-- Jack Taylor, 18, of Worcester, England, was given a lenient sentence in January for an August burglary he admitted. He and another youth had tried to steal a resident's motorcycle but damaged it in the process. Since he was remorseful, made restitution, observed a curfew and did community service, he was released by the judge when he secured full-time employment. (However, the employment, the court later learned, was as a slaughterman in Norway, where he was to take part in the culling of Alaskan baby seals.) [Worcester News, 1-17-2012]

(1) John Morgan, 34, was charged in February in Port St. Lucie, Fla., with embezzling over $40,000 from a trust fund that had been established for his daughter, who has special needs because of cerebral palsy. Because of the theft, she is unable to have dental work necessitated because a care provider failed to lock her wheelchair, sending her sprawling face-first. (2) Police officer Skeeter Manos, 34, was charged in February in Seattle with embezzling over $120,000 from a fund for the families of four colleagues who had been shot to death in the line of duty. Manos' alleged expenditures included several trips to Las Vegas. [WPTV (West Palm Beach, Fla.), 2-6-2012] [Associated Press via WHBF-TV (Rock Island, Ill.), 2-8-2012]

What Do You Mean, I'm Not Mentally Stable: Ms. Fausat Ogunbayo, 46, filed a federal lawsuit against New York City's Administration for Children's Services because it had taken away her kids (aged 13 and 10 at the time) in 2008 for questions about Ogunbayo's mental stability. The lawsuit, for "recklessly disregard(ing)" her "right to family integrity," asks the city to pay her $900,000,000,000,000 (trillion). [Staten Island Advance, 2-7-2012]

LaDondrell Montgomery, 36, had been sentenced in November in Houston to life in prison for armed robbery despite his vigorous protestations of innocence, and about a week later, in December, he was exonerated in fact. Although he had testified at his trial, he had not mentioned that he had an ironclad alibi -- that he had been in jail during the time the robbery was committed. Once jail records were reviewed, Montgomery was freed. The prosecutor hadn't checked the records before trial, and neither had Montgomery's attorney, but then neither had Montgomery ever mentioned it (because, he had told his lawyers, he had been in and out of jail so many times in his life that he just could not remember if he had been locked up at the time of the armed robbery). [Houston Chronicle, 12-9-2011]

Sherwin Shayegan of Bothell, Wash., has apparently been acting out again. News of the Weird first mentioned, in 2007, an adult "troll" who hung out at high schools and befriended male students, especially athletes, ultimately beseeching them for piggyback rides. In some cases, he jumped on without permission and was arrested and ordered to get treatment and to stay away from schools. He reportedly began his piggyback "career" in 2004 with incidents in Washington and Oregon, and though there were periods of dormancy, it flared up again recently as he traveled to Montana, Bismarck, N.D., and Minneapolis (perhaps to outrun restraining orders). (Fondness for piggyback rides is not a widely practiced obsession, though the legendary illustrator R. Crumb liked to receive them in lieu of sex, according to an ex-girlfriend in the 1994 movie "Crumb.") [Associated Press via KOMO-TV (Seattle), 2-16-2012]

The royal family of Qatar, apparently striving for art-world credibility, purchased a Paul Cezanne painting ("The Card Players") last year for the equivalent of about $250 million, which is twice as much as the previous most-expensive painting sold for. (Qatar is vying with the United Arab Emirates to become the Middle East's major intellectual hub.) At the same time that Qatar's purchase was made public in February, artwork of the probable value of about $200 million became news in reports of the imminent Facebook initial public offering. Graffiti artist ("muralist") David Choe stood to make about that amount because he took stock instead of money to paint the lewd themes on the walls of Facebook's first offices. Even though Choe was quoted as saying, originally, that he found the whole idea of Facebook "ridiculous and pointless," his shares today are reportedly worth up to one quarter of 1 percent of the company. [Vanity Fair, 2-2-2012] [New York Times, 2-2-2012; Washington Post, 2-4-2012]

-- Last year, the Cape Town, South Africa, "gentlemen's club" Mavericks began selling an Alibi line of fragrances designed for men who need excuses for coming home late. For example, as men come through the door, they could splash on "I Was Working Late" (to reek of coffee and cigarettes) or "My Car Broke Down" (evoking fuel, burned rubber and grease). [The Times (Johannesburg), 1-19-2012]

-- Bipartisanship: White supremacist Richard Treis, 38, was arrested in February in St. Louis, along with his alleged partner, black gang member Robert "Biz" Swinney, 22, and charged with running a huge methamphetamine operation. The two, who had met at a prison halfway house, had allegedly meshed their unique talents -- Treis as a meth cook and Swinney as a skilled street seller who recruited people to buy restricted pseudoephedrine products from pharmacies. Said a deputy, "They put away their differences to get the job done." [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2-17-2012]

-- Can't Possibly Be True: "(A) growing number of scientists" are at work on biocomputer models based on movements of slime to solve complex-systems problems, according to a December report in London's Daily Telegraph. Though slime molds are single-cell organisms lacking a "brain," said professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Japan's Future University Hakodate, they somehow can "organize" themselves to create the most direct route through mazes in order to find food. Said professor Atsushi Tero, of Kyushu University, ordinary computers are "not so good" at finding such ideal routes because of the quantity of calculations required, but slime molds seem to flow "in an impromptu manner" and gradually find the best routes. [Daily Telegraph, 12-29-2011]

-- Medical Marvels: (1) Claire Osborn, 37, of Coventry, England, was diagnosed in October with an aggressive, inoperable throat-mouth cancer and given a 50 percent chance of survival. However, less than a month later, during a severe coughing spell, she actually coughed out the entire tumor in two pieces. Subsequent tests revealed no trace of cancer in her body. (Doctors hypothesized that, fortuitously, the tumor was growing on a weak stalk that was overcome by the force of the cough.) (2) In January, doctors at North Carolina State University performed knee-replacement surgery on a cancer-stricken house cat. Such surgery on dogs has been done, but because of cats' smaller bones and joints, doctors had to use micro techniques usually employed on humans. [Daily Mail (London), 1-11-2012] [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 1-27-2012]

The Houston Funding debt collection company in Houston, Texas, had fired receptionist Donnicia Venters shortly after she returned from maternity leave when she announced that she intended to breastfeed her child and needed space in the office to pump her breast milk. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Houston Funding for illegal discrimination based on "pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions," but in February, federal judge Lynn Hughes (Mr. Lynn Hughes) rejected the EEOC's reasoning. The law does not, he wrote, cover "lactation" discrimination. [Houston Press, 2-8-2012]

-- In an incident reported in February by the Indo-Asian News Service, a Pakistan International Airlines captain made a revenue-enhancing decision for his full flight PK 303 from Lahore to Karachi. Two overbooked passengers would not have to make alternative arrangements if they accepted seats for the 640-mile flight in the plane's restrooms. [IANS News Service via The Times of India, 2-16-2012]

-- Real estate reassessments hit Pittsburgh like a bombshell in December when county officials announced enhanced estimates of property value in order to raise needed tax revenue. In the first wave of assessments (which engendered criticism countywide, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story), a real estate attorney who lives in the Mount Washington neighborhood was stunned to find his condominium apartment had jumped $55,000 in value, now "worth" $228,700 and, worse, his private parking space on the ground floor of the building, previously valued at $5,000, now "worth" $287,800. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12-30-2011]

-- In December, National Geographic lamented that the number of South Africa's rhinoceroses killed by poaching increased by a third in 2011, to 443, as a response to the booming street price of rhino horns. MSNBC reported that the horns' market price "soared to about $65,000 a kilogram, making (them) more expensive than gold, platinum, and in many cases, cocaine." The reason for the price is an escalating, though science-free, belief in Asia that rhino horn powder can cure cancer. [MSNBC, 12-30-2011]

In February, a jury in Thousand Oaks, Calif., acquitted Charles Hersel, 41, of molesting children. Though Hersel admitted through his lawyer that he paid high school students to spit in his face and yell profanities at him, and had offered to pay them money to urinate and defecate on him, jurors found that he must have done those things for reasons other than "sexual gratification" and therefore, technically, did not violate the statute under which he was charged. [KTLA-TV (Los Angeles, 2-21-2012]

According to prosecutors in Camden, S.C., in November, Christopher Hutto, 30, needed money badly to buy crack cocaine, but the best plan he could devise was getting a friend to telephone Hutto's mother and demand a ransom. Though Hutto, according to the phone call, supposedly had been beaten up by kidnappers and dumped in a secret location and was "near death," the "kidnapper" asked only for $100. The un-eager mother dawdled a bit until she and the caller had negotiated the ransom down to $60. (The money drop was made, and sheriff's deputies arrested Hutto running from the site with the booty.) [McClatchy Newspapers via Sacramento Bee, 11-18-2011]

Airbags Save Lives: News of the Weird has previously chronicled the breast-obsessive Sheyla Hershey, the Guinness Book record-holder for largest artificially enhanced bosom (size 38MMM). (To recap, the Brazil-born, Houston-area woman had her implants removed two years ago for health reasons but then, after depression set in over her "loss," she wanted them back, but no U.S. surgeon would meet her requirement of 85 fluid ounces of silicone per breast. Finally, she found a surgeon in Cancun, Mexico, and received slightly smaller implants -- 38KKK.) Hershey, 32, was charged with DUI as she drove home after a Super Bowl party in February. Her car spun around and hit a tree, and according to Hershey, who was not wearing a seat belt, it was likely that her breasts saved her from injury by cushioning her as she was thrust against the steering wheel. [Daily Mail, 2-9-2012; Huffington Post, 2-17-2012, 2-20-2012]

Like many cities, Taipei, Taiwan, has a dog-litter problem that has proved unsolvable, as citizens continue to ignore pleas to pick up after their dogs and keep sidewalks clean. Finally, city officials designed a successful program (announced in December): a dog-poop lottery. Anyone handing in a bag of dog litter would get a ticket (one ticket per bag) to a drawing with prizes ranging up to pieces of gold worth the equivalent of about $2,000. (Citizens would be on the honor system as to whether the "litter" in the bag came from a dog or from another source.) [Agence France-Presse via Google News, 12-7-2011]

Thanks This Week to Charles Nicholson and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.