Fern Cooper, 65, and 13 other cataract-surgery patients arrived at Ontario's Oakville Trafalgar Hospital on June 25 to learn that they would not receive the usual anesthesia because the hospital had decided to schedule an "experimental day" to evaluate how unsedated patients responded. (The Ontario Health Insurance Plan had recently cut anesthesiologists' fee.) A topical numbing gel, plus doctors' reassurances were provided, but Cooper, previously diagnosed with severe anxiety, told the Toronto Star of the terror she felt when, fully awake, she watched the surgeon's scalpel approaching, and then cutting, her eyeball. [Toronto Star, 7-6-2012]

-- Officials organizing a show for high school girls in June in Sherbrooke, Quebec, signed up a 20-year-old apprentice hypnotist to perform, but by the end of his session, he had failed to bring all of the entranced girls out of their spells, including one who was so far under that the man had to summon his mentor from home (an hour's drive away) to come rescue her. The mentor, Richard Whitbread, quickly rehypnotized her and then snapped her out of it with a stern voice, according to a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News report. He noted that his protege is a handsome young man, which might have unduly influenced the girls. [CBC News, 6-15-2012]

-- Christianity has grown in acceptance recently in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia, according to a June report in the Phnom Penh Post, as up to 80 percent of the population has given up the traditional Theravada Buddhism (mixed with animism) as too demanding. According to local officials, traditional priests typically prescribe expensive offerings, such as a slaughtered buffalo, as the price of improving a relative's health. Said one convertee, with the money saved using Western medicine instead of traditional sacrifices, she was able to build a house for her family. [Phnom Penh Post, 6-12-2012]

-- According to a June lawsuit by a former student, Western Nevada College's course in human sexuality was so over-the-top that it might be described as a collection of instructor Tom Kubistant's erotic fantasies about college-age kids. Among Kubistant's demands, according to "K.R.," were keeping a masturbation journal (and ramping up the activity to twice the student's pre-course level), disclosing one's uninhibited sexual fantasies that in some cases were described by the instructor to the class at large, and conducting discussion groups on the uses of sex toys and lubricants. By the fifth week, K.R. claimed, Kubistant had abandoned his schedule of topics and begun to dwell extensively on "the female orgasm." Kubistant's instructions appear to fit the faculty handbook's definition of sexual harassment. [Courthouse News Service, 6-28-2012]

-- "Deer stands," classically, are jerry-built platforms hunters climb onto to spot deer in the distance, but county officials in Duluth, Minn., complained in July that the woods are becoming cluttered with elaborate tree houses that are too often abandoned on public land at the close of the season. One official was alarmed by "mansions" -- tree stands, he told the Duluth News Tribune, with "stairways, decks, shingled roofs, commercial windows, insulation, propane heaters, carpeting, lounge chairs, tables, and even the occasional generator." [Associated Press via The Oklahoman, 7-9-2012]

Rhesus monkeys have always posed delicate problems in India, where they are both revered (by Hindu law) and despised (for damaging property and roaming the streets begging for food). In Delhi, the rhesus population has grown dramatically, aided by the Hindus who feed them, and streets and private property are increasingly fouled. However, Amar Singh's business is good. He owns 65 langurs (apes much more vicious than rhesus monkeys) and, for the equivalent of about $200 per month, periodically brings one or two by a client's house to urinate in the yard so that the rhesus monkeys will steer clear. [New York Times, 5-23-2012]

-- Awww, Mo-ther! Alleged drug dealer Jesus "Pepe" Fuentes, 37, was arrested in Chicago in May after his mother botched a heroin pickup for him. Fuentes, eager to catch a concert by the rapper Scarface, sent his mother instead to gather the 10-kilo drop. She collected the drugs, but the entire shipment was lost when she failed to use a turn signal and was stopped by police. [Chicago Tribune, 5-24-2012]

-- Catherine Venusto, 45, was arrested in July and charged with breaking into the computer system of the Northwestern Lehigh School District in Pennsylvania (where she formerly worked) and changing the records of her two children (and while at it, reading private e-mails of 10 school officials). Venusto allegedly switched a daughter's F grade to M (for medically excused) and one grade of her overachieving son from 98 to 99. [ABC News, 7-19-2012]

Should Be an Olympic Sport: Romanian gang members have apparently been apprehended after a series of robberies during March, April and May that resembled a scene from a recent "Fast and Furious" movie. The gang's vehicle approaches the rear of tractor-trailers traveling at highway speed, and gangsters climb onto the hood, grab the 18-wheeler's rear door, open it using specialized tools, and steal inventory, apparently without knowledge of the driver. In one video released by police in Bucharest, the gang members, after peering inside the trailer, decided to take nothing and climbed back out. [Daily Telegraph, 6-12-2012]

Chicago staged its annual gun buy-back program in June (a $100 gift card for every firearm turned in) amidst its worst homicide epidemic in years, in which 259 have died on city streets in the first six months of 2012. However, the program appears to be, inadvertently, a win-win project for both anti- and pro-gun forces. The city reported that 5,500 guns were removed from circulation (bringing the total to 23,000 since the program was inaugurated), and included this year were several machine guns. On the other hand, 60 of this year's guns were handed in by a local pro-gun organization, Guns Save Life, which promised to use its gift cards to buy ammunition for a National Rifle Association-supported shooting camp for kids. [Chicago Sun-Times, 7-1-2012]

Jacksonville, Fla., sheriff's officers were investigating in July a suspect (not identified) who they believe is responsible for several incidents in which boxes of ready-to-use saline enemas were purchased at a CVS drugstore, opened, used, put back in the boxes, resealed and returned for refund (and which in some cases wound up back on the store's shelves). The sheriff's office noted that the man they suspect is in custody, having been arrested on unrelated charges in June. [The Smoking Gun, 6-29-2012]

British Scared-y Cats: U.K. bureaucrats are constantly drawing criticism for their alleged over-concern with safety. In June, Royal Mail notified businesses on a street in Doncaster that it would no longer deliver to them on rainy days because the street was too slippery. (One clumsy postman had just suffered a broken shoulder when he slipped and fell.) And in May, the Somerset County Council ordered the removal of a yard sign advertising an upcoming public fundraiser on the ground that someone might bump into it at night. An event organizer pointed out that the particular yard sign was stuck in the grass directly in front of a tree, which was likely equally hard to see in darkness. [The Star (Sheffield, England), 6-13-2012] [Western Daily Press, 5-17-2012]

(1) "Meth Lab Explodes in Man's Pants" was the headline on one newspaper's version of an April Associated Press dispatch from Okmulgee County, Okla. Police have warned that "one-pot" labs, "cooking" in a soda bottle, can be ready to go in about 40 minutes, but that the contents are many times more highly pressurized than, say, a fizzing soda bottle. (2) At first impression, visitors to New York City's Central Park seemed excited to be greeted by a man dressed as the "Sesame Street" character Elmo, but then, when a crowd gathers, Elmo incongruously begins a raunchy anti-Semitic rant, denouncing various Jewish conspiracies. Following complaints of several incidents, in June, police took him to a hospital for observation. [Associated Press via Kansas City Star, 4-27-2012] [The Smoking Gun, 6-25-2012]

Thanks This Week to Sandy Pearlman, Jeremy Hamilton, Scott Huber, Lisa Stapleton, Ben Hestir, Reid Stacey, and Roy Henock, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

New York City's tap water is already widely regarded as world-class, in safety and taste (and subjected to a half-million tests a year by the city's Department of Environmental Protection). However, two entrepreneurs recently opened the Molecule water bar in the city's East Village, selling 16-ounce bottles of the same water for $2.50, extra-filtered through their $25,000 machine that applies UV rays, ozone treatment and "reverse osmosis" in a seven-stage process to create what they call "pure H2O." The owners of Molecule are a restaurateur/art dealer and a "social-justice activist" who is a "former world champion boomerang player," according to a July Wall Street Journal profile. [Wall Street Journal, 7-18-2012]

-- In 2011, the Liberty County, Texas, home of Joe Bankson and Gena Charlton was raided by sheriff's deputies, the FBI, state officials and a trailing media crew (alerted by the sheriff), checking out a tip that "25 to 30" children's bodies were buried on the property. No evidence was found, and in a June 2012 lawsuit for defamation, Bankson and Charlton claim that the sheriff had organized the raid knowing full well that the tipster was a self-described "prophet" who had disclosed that her information came from "Jesus and the (32) angels" who were present with her. The sheriff said he did everything "by the book" and that a judge signed the search warrant confirming "probable cause" to believe that at least one crime (if not 25 to 30) had been committed. [Courthouse News, 6-8-2012; Simple Justice blog, 6-19-2012]

-- In July, the online magazine Salon profiled Virtuous Pedophiles -- an effort by two notably articulate men who insist that their sexual fascination with children would never extend to personal contact. Said one (who claims "advanced degrees from prestigious universities"): "We do not choose to be attracted to children (but) we can resist the temptation to abuse children sexually." He added, curiously, that "many" of the Virtuous Pedophiles "present no danger to children whatsoever." Lamented the group's co-founder, "Almost any group in the world can hold a convention, look out on a sea of faces, and say, 'These are people like me,'" but because pedophiles are treated with such scorn, "we can't." [Salon, 7-1-2012]

-- North Carolina state Rep. Becky Carney, an environmental activist, inadvertently cast the deciding vote in July to open up natural-gas hydraulic fracking in the state. The legislature had passed the bill earlier, but it was vetoed by Gov. Bev Perdue, and the House needed exactly 72 votes to override the veto and enact the bill. Carney's tireless lobbying of colleagues appeared to have helped halt the overriders at 71 votes, but when it came time to push the buttons, Carney accidentally became the 72nd. She could be heard on her microphone in the chamber, saying, "Oh my gosh. I pushed green." [The Atlantic blog, 7-3-2012]

-- "It's Just Politics": (1) Mark Schimel told reporters in Albany, N.Y., in May that it was nothing personal that caused him to run for the Republican nomination to the state assembly from Nassau County -- where the incumbent is his estranged wife, Democrat Michelle Schimel. Mark's mother seemed quite upset at her son. "I can't believe he'd do a thing like this (to Michelle)," she told a reporter. "I'm going to talk to him." (2) Democratic attorney Christopher Smith is the presumptive nominee for a Florida Senate seat from Fort Lauderdale, and it was just a coincidence, said Republican leadership in June, that their candidate is attorney Christopher Smithmyer. Registered Democrats dominate the district, but Smithmyer may win some votes by confusion. [New York Daily News, 5-13-2012] [Tampa Bay Times, 6-9-2012]

-- Coming Soon to American Democracy? (1) In March in Ireland, Bundoran Town Councilor Florence Doherty became exasperated with colleague Michael McMahon, who opposed a bill to strengthen whistleblowers' rights. "(T)his country doesn't need whistleblowers," McMahon said. Doherty replied, "Of course it does, you asshole." In a later radio interview, Doherty repeated her word-of-the-day four times. (2) In a live TV debate in July, Mohammed Shawabka, a member of the Jordanian parliament, became enraged when his opponent, Mansour Seif-Eddine Murad, called him a secret Israeli agent. Shawabka removed a shoe and hurled it at Murad, who ducked, but then Shawabka pulled a silver pistol from his waistband and waved it around (though no shots were fired). [Donegal Democrat, 3-7-2012] [Associated Press via Fox News, 7-9-2012]

-- Mainstreaming: In May, the brother of Jane Svoboda, 52, called for sympathy after a video surfaced of her addressing the Lincoln (Neb.) City Council with nonsense comments about Whitney Houston, Hillary Clinton and "corpse(s) found without clothes." The brother noted that his sister lives in an assisted living community and has been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Nonetheless, as the Lincoln Journal Star pointed out, Ms. Svoboda continues to be a registered lobbyist at the state capitol. [Lincoln Journal Star, 5-12-2012]

William Voss has a tough job, noted a Bloomberg News report in June. He is CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, which relentlessly campaigns for improving airline safety regulations, but admits that his primary obstacle is ... safe airlines. (The last major-airline accident in the U.S. was 11 years ago, leading to complacency by airlines, passengers and regulators.) "If anyone wants to advance safety through regulation," Voss said, "it can't be done without further loss of life." [Bloomberg News, 6-25-2012]

Perspective: The median annual per-capita income in the New York City borough of the Bronx is about $18,000. In the adjacent borough of Manhattan, as the New York Post reported in May, a resident of a certain condominium on East 11th Street was about to pay over 50 times that amount -- just for a parking space. The space is a deluxe one, though: about 12 feet by 23 feet by 15 feet high, meaning that it can be configured to store more than one car. [MSNBC, 5-20-2012]

Yet another woman made the news recently for having loaded up, over several years, in breast augmentation surgery. Paula Simonds, 44, of Miami, who is known professionally as model Lacey Wildd, is approaching her goal of having breasts large enough to place her in the top five in the world. However, the quest is grossing out her six kids -- two young, two grown and (especially tough) two in high school, where the taunts flow freely. Currently, Simonds measures herself as an "L"-cup, headed for a "triple-M." [Daily Mail, 6-14-2012]

-- James Allan, 28, was sentenced to three years in prison in Oxford, England, in July for robbing a news shop. Allan's getaway was delayed when he insisted, repeatedly, on pushing the front door open when he obviously should have been pulling. Finally, exasperated, he yanked off his balaclava, exposing his face to the surveillance camera, kicked the door, breaking the glass, and escaped. Police arrested him about three hours later nearby. (The 2000 British movie "Snatch" featured just such a memorable scene of push/pull helplessness.) [Oxford Mail, 7-3-2012]

-- When the assistant manager arrived early on June 26 to open up the Rent-A-Center in Brockton, Mass., he encountered a man with his head stuck underneath the heavy metal loading bay door (obviously as a result of a failed burglary attempt during the night). "Hang tight!" the manager consoled the trapped man. "The police are on their way." Manuel Fernandes, 53, was arrested. [The Enterprise (Brockton), 6-26-2012]

(1) Our Lady of Sorrows Academy in Phoenix, playing for an Arizona state boys' baseball title in May, decided to forfeit the game rather than field a team against Mesa Preparatory Academy -- because Mesa's second-baseman was a girl, Paige Sultzbach. (In two regular-season meetings, Mesa had honored Our Lady's beliefs by benching Sultzbach.) (2) The Judson Independent School District near San Antonio fired a kindergarten teacher in June for arranging an unorthodox solution to a colleague's bullying-student problem. The teacher ordered the class's 24 other students to line up and slap the bully (and encouraging the students to "hit him harder") to reinforce the message of "why bullying is bad." [AZCentral.com (Phoenix), 5-9-2012] [Associated Press via ABC News, 6-18-2012]

Thanks This Week to Gary DaSilva, Jim Weiss, and Perry Levin, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Urinal Technology: (1) Two Brazilian firms collaborated recently to test a whimsical device that could perhaps lessen splashing on men's room floors: a urinal containing a fretboard that makes musical sounds as liquid hits it (if the stream is strong enough). According to a May report in the Brazilian edition of Billboard magazine, versions were set up in several Sao Paulo bars to see if men's aims improved. (Flushing produces an online address from which a sound recording of the user's "music" can be retrieved.) (2) In a project that has already gone live in 200 Michigan bars and restaurants, the state's Office of Highway Safety Planning has installed "talking" urinal cakes featuring a female announcer urging inebriated patrons to call a taxi. [Billboard-Brazil via The Atlantic, 6-1-2012] [WZZM-TV (Grand Rapids), 7-2-2012]

-- Recurring Theme: From time to time, Buddhist groups attempt to improve their "karmic balance" by doing good deeds for Earth's animal cohabitants. (Previously, "News of the Weird" mentioned a California group's "freeing" fish by buying out a pet shop's inventory and liberating the "lucky" fish into the Pacific Ocean -- where they were undoubtedly eaten almost immediately by larger fish.) In June, about 50 members of the Let Blessings and Wisdom Grow Buddhist group in Beijing bought at least 200 snakes, took them into a rural area of Hebei province, and, chanting, released them. Almost immediately, the snakes infested the nearby village of Miao Erdong, horrifying the villagers, who were able to club to death some of the snakes, but who remained on edge. [Daily Telegraph (London), 6-5-2012]

-- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly Morbidity and Mortality newsletter reported in June that, officially, 11 newborn Jewish males in New York City between the years 2000-2011 were diagnosed with herpes simplex virus that had been passed on by a circumcision technique in which the "mohel" (circumciser) contains bleeding by sucking blood directly from the wound. [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, 6-8-2012]

-- Prominent filmmakers Daniel Junge (an Academy Award winner) and Bryan Storkel have been raising money for their documentary "Fight Church," featuring devout Christian mixed martial artists viciously pummeling each other -- but only after the brawlers begin the match with a prayer and commitment to serve Jesus Christ. Among those featured is Pastor Paul Burress of Rochester, N.Y., who says he "loves to fight" and sees no problem with MMA's barbaric nature. "These (techniques of fighting savagely) are the gifts and the skills God has given me." [Christian Post, 6-19-2012]

-- Scottish officials were reportedly optimistic about a recent decision of the legislature of Louisiana. State officials this year broadened a voucher program to allow parents to choose private schools with Christian fundamentalist curricula. One prominent textbook for that curriculum (offered by the Accelerated Christian Education program) touted sightings of Scotland's Loch Ness monster as "evidence" that humans and dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time, thus undermining the widely accepted scientific theory of evolution. Officials now anticipate an influx of tourists to Loch Ness, near Inverness. [The Herald (Glasgow), 6-24-2012]

-- Television ads appeared recently in India exploiting women's obsession with lightening their skin -- a fascination already responsible for a rich market in facial bleaching. Now, ads for "Clean and Dry Intimate Wash" promise to "refresh" a woman's private parts by making them fairer. Female columnist Amrit Dhillon, viewing an ad of a disinterested husband ignoring his too-brown wife, denounced the product as catering to "self-hatred -- of race and gender" and urged the banning of the ads. [The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 5-23-2012]

-- In May, the Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration and Environment issued a formal rule to crack down on unhygienic public restrooms. The toilets' attendants will be ordered to take corrective action any time they count a number of flies equal to two times the number of stalls in the restroom. The city official in charge downplayed the likelihood of inspectors themselves counting flies. "The regulation is specific ... but the inspection methodology will be flexible." [Fox NewsCore via WTTG-TV (Washington, D.C.), 5-23-2012]

-- Adriana Villareal of Dos de Mayo, Argentina, lost her husband two years ago but now makes it a point to visit his tomb about four times a year, and not just briefly. Villareal brings bedding, an Internet connection, and a small stove so that she can remain three or four days at each visit. Said Villareal, according to a June Agence France-Presse dispatch, "When you love someone, you do all sorts of things." [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 6-15- 2012]

-- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling in June in which Marshall Hollins was sentenced to eight years in prison for taking cellphone photographs of a 17-year-old girl with whom he was having sex. That sex was voluntary and, since Illinois' age of consent is 16, legal. However, the court ruled, it is still illegal in Illinois to take sexual pictures of a child, and that particular law defines underage as under 18. (Hollins had claimed, unsuccessfully, that he surely ought to be able to take pictures of a legal event.) [Associated Press via Springfield Journal-Register, 6-21-2012]

-- British soccer player John Terry was acquitted in July of hurling racial abuse at opponent Anton Ferdinand, even though Terry's three-word phrase was acknowledged by the judge to contain the word "black" and two words that are commonly censored in family newspapers. According to a New York Times dispatch before the verdict, there was much testimony about the "paint-peeling profanities" that soccer opponents routinely use on the pitch (in particular, referencing each other's mothers' sex lives). In handing down the verdict, the Westminster Magistrates' Court judge said he was not certain that Terry was not simply repeating a slur that he had heard moments earlier. [The Sun (London), 7-14-2012; New York Times, 7-13-2012]

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) On June 8, sheriff's deputies near Tampa, Fla., charged Robert Suggs, 36, and David Hall, 28, with taking a front-end loader and a dump truck from a construction site and using them to steal an ATM from a Bank of America drive-thru. The theft took place at 5 a.m., and deputies arrested the pair that afternoon when they were found near the bank, still trying to get the ATM open. (2) On the same day, in Albuquerque, Thomas Molina, 38, was arrested in the act of fleeing a burglary at Central New Mexico Community College. As he tried to climb out a window, his getaway was hampered by having gotten his foot caught in the blinds. [WTSP.com (St. Petersburg), 7-9-2012; KQRE-TV (Albuquerque), 7-10-2012]

Some events, no matter how "weird" they first seemed, now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation. Surely there are now too many instances in which a worker drawing disability benefits cheats by taking on strenuous pastimes or even second jobs while claiming to be unable to function normally at work. One of the most recent involved letter-carrier Jacquelyn Myers of Tallahassee, Fla., who was put on "light duty," with worker compensation benefits, because of a back injury from heavy lifting. Over a several-months period after her May 2009 injury, investigators found that she had entered more than 80 long-distance races, including the Boston Marathon. Investigators also noted that her race times improved after her "injury." [Associated Press via Northwest Florida Daily News, 5-16-2012]

The Role of Alcohol in Parenting: (1) Police in Fort Wayne, Ind., arrested an intoxicated man and woman on May 7 after witnesses reported that the couple was seen leaving Belmont Beverage with four children strapped to the hood of their car. The children (ages 4, 5, 6 and 7) were not hurt. (2) In April, Paul Berloni, 49, was arrested in Sarasota County, Fla., when police spotted him driving an SUV with his 7-year-old granddaughter in a toy Hot Wheels car behind him, attached to the SUV with two dog leashes. The SUV was traveling 5 to 10 mph, witnesses said, and Berloni, who smelled of alcohol, admitted that his license had been suspended following his last DUI. [WANE-TV (Fort Wayne), 5-8-2012] [The Smoking Gun, 4-30-2012]

Thanks This Week to Sam Dillon, Mike Wolcott, Tim Allen, Peter Smagorinsky, Eric Ivers, Roy Henock, Tom Sullivan, John Ellwood, and Craig Cryer, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.