The Osiligi Maasai Warrior choir, from Kenya, in ornate, mystifying native costumes and uncalled-for headdresses, happened to be touring the U.K. this fall, coinciding with the recent Paris Fashion Week in which the most celebrated designers from the "developed" world exhibited their wares, which often seemed as excessive as the Maasais'. Examples: Rei Kawakubo's "Blood and Roses," a red KKK-type swaddling robe with face-obscuring, pointy hood. Sarah Burton's skirt of oversized petals, accessorized with skull cap and chin strap. Junya Watanabe's dress with huge plastic puff sleeves of red and blue -- and vinyl see-through helmet. Julie de Libran's gown with earmuff-like chest coverings. The week ended with a street march of "Chanel girls" (most, Caucasian) dressed as garishly as the African Maasais. (Bonus: Some designers delightfully offered explanations of their often-inexplicable works.) [New York Times, 10-1-2014; Washington Post, 10-1-2014; CNN, 10-3-2014]

-- Oops: The Rural Municipality of Hanover, Manitoba, has prohibited alcohol sales for more than a century -- or at least that's what everyone in the community believed as recently as 2006 when the last attempt was made to repeal the ban (and failed by 30 votes). However, town officials finally decided recently to research the prohibition (examining records back to 1880) and in July revealed, astonishingly, that no city bylaw exists making the town dry. At least one restaurateur is expected to start serving booze soon. [Canadian Press via National Post, 7-24-2014]

-- In August, Katja Kipping, the leader of Germany's largest opposition party (the liberal Die Linke), proposed to grant all welfare families a cash voucher of the equivalent of about $640 in order to allow each a summer vacation. "For me," she said, "the holidays of my childhood are among the most beautiful memories," and she is saddened that "3 million children this summer cannot experience what a holiday means." [Daily Telegraph (London), 8-11-2014]

-- In October in Gresham, Oregon, a 21-year-old man openly carrying a handgun he had just bought was robbed, at gunpoint, the same day. According to the police report, the robber apparently thought the victim's gun was nicer than his own: "I like your gun. Give it to me." [KPTV (Portland), 10-7-2014]

-- New World Order: In September, Dr. Sean Perry of the Marathon (Florida) Veterinary Hospital saved the life of Buttercup, an orange tabby who needed blood -- by giving him a transfusion from a West Palm Beach dog blood bank. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, 62 cats have been known to receive such "xenotransfusions," and cats are apparently the only animals (besides dogs) that can safely process dog blood. [Keynoter (Key West), 10-4-2014]

When a van on official business for the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, accidentally hit Megan Campbell's Nissan Pathfinder in August, Campbell, naturally, filed a claim against the city for the $1,900 damage -- normally just a cost of business for a city and one of about 400 claims St. Paul has processed this year. However, the van happened to be driven by the same Megan Campbell, an employee of St. Paul Parks and Recreation, who apparently could not avoid hitting her own parked SUV. At press time, the city was investigating but expected to handle the claim as routine. [St. Paul Pioneer-Press, 10-9-2014]

Pauline Chai and her estranged husband, Khoo Kay Peng (a Laura Ashley executive), are battling in a London courtroom in a very expensive divorce, with the current issue to determine whether the English judge has jurisdiction instead of courts in the couple's native Malaysia. In the course of bringing the British judge up to date, Chai casually described how she has supported her husband's relentless nature -- by revealing that he would do copious amounts of work (for four hours at a time) at home while sitting on the toilet. Khoo "got backache there," she said, "so I got the idea of (a) padded toilet seat" for him. [Daily Telegraph (London), 10-2-2014]

The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, revealed at an October conference in Chicago that even though his post-government income will be several times what he earned as Fed chairman, he was nonetheless rejected recently when he tried to refinance his Washington, D.C., home. Mortgage-lending is so highly computerized, he was told, dictated by formulas, that he apparently got caught in an algorithm. Despite a probably seven-figure book contract and six-figure public speeches, he is no longer "employed" in a steady job, which apparently caused a computer program to signal him as too risky. [New York Times, 10-2-2014]

-- Victor Thompson, 46, arrested in St. Petersburg, Florida, in October for possession of the synthetic marijuana called Master Kush Spice (which he insisted is legal in his native New Hampshire), is apparently an out-of-control New England Patriots' fan -- having tattooed his entire bald head with a painstaking replica of quarterback Tom Brady's helmet. The attention to detail on the authentic design and colors is remarkable, including subtle add-ons such as the American flag, NFL logo and helmet manufacturer ("Riddell"). Not only is Brady's "12" properly placed, so is the green dot identifying the "helmet" as radio-ready for messages from the sideline. [The Smoking Gun, 10-10-2014]

-- Police in Minneapolis arrested Nicholas Mullenmaster, 38, in October as the man who inexplicably flushed nails and other pieces of metal down toilets of several restaurants since August, causing "thousands of dollars" in damage. In most incidents, two to three pounds of nails clogged the toilets, requiring plumbing repair charges of up to $1,000 each, but at one Starbucks, a wall had to be removed. Although witnesses and surveillance video seemed to identify Mullenmaster as the culprit, he denied any involvement, and thus no motive for the toilet attacks has emerged. [WCCO-TV (Minneapolis), 10-6-2014]

-- A Duck With Issues: After days of looking weary and walking lopsidedly, "Ducka," the pet muscovy, finally gave owner Vicki Hicks of Sydney, Australia, a clue to its behavior by coughing up a nail. Veterinarian Hamish Baron of the Avian Reptile and Exotic Animal Hospital ordered an X-ray, which revealed a small toolbox's worth of nails, screws and washers in Ducka's belly. The items had to be removed, one by one, in surgeries totaling five hours. Dr. Baron told Sydney's Daily Telegraph in October that though birds are attracted to shiny objects, Ducka's case was severe. [Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 10-13-2014]

Two men ran out the door of a closed-for-the-night Houston Family Dollar store on Oct. 7 -- empty-handed, after a failed theft attempt. According to the surveillance video, one man had removed items from a bottom shelf while the store was still open, and crawled behind the shelf space just before his partner came by and restocked the shelf (thus hiding his buddy). The partner then made a purchase and left. After the last employee had closed up around 11 p.m., the "hidden" (and extremely patient!) man crawled out, surely intending to let his partner in and start snatching things, but the "hidden" man was only able to take a few steps before a motion-detector sounded an alarm, and both men fled on foot (not even bothering to grab an item or two on the way out). [KHOU-TV, 10-10-2014]

Unless Stephen Gough, 50, changes his mind about wearing pants, he risks spending the rest of his life behind bars, according to a January (2010) ruling of Scotland's Perth Sheriff's Court. Gough, Britain's "naked rambler," is a freelance nudist who for years has roamed U.K. countrysides, interrupted by numerous jail stints for violating public decency. He was released from Perth Prison in December (2009) after his latest stay, but seconds later shucked his clothes and was re-arrested. (In his most recent trial before that, Gough acted as his own lawyer and somehow persuaded an overly fair judge to let him be naked in court.) (Update: Gough has remained in character, having spent almost every day since this story was published incarcerated for violating a series of anti-social behavior orders requiring him to wear clothes in public.) [STV.tv (Edinburgh), 1-12-10] [BBC News, 10-7-2014]

Thanks This Week to Susan Kennedy, Steven Lobejko, Steve Dunn, and Alex Boese, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

"Selfie fever" has begun to sully the sacred Islamic pilgrimages to Mecca, according to scholars who complained to Arab News in September. What for centuries has been a hallowed journey intended to renew the spirit of Islam (that all Muslims are called upon to experience at least once) has come, for some in the so-called "Facebook era," to resemble a trip to Disneyland, with visitors to the Sacred Mosque texting friends the "evidence" of their piety. (Another scholar complained in a New York Times opinion piece in October that Mecca is often experienced more as a tour packaged by marketers and centered around Mecca's upscale shopping malls rather than religious structures.) [Arab News, 9-30-2014; New York Times, 10-1-2014]

-- Just in time for California's new law requiring explicit consent for students' sexual activities is the free iPhone/Google app Good2Go, which developer Lee Ann Allman promises will simplify the consent process (and even document it). As described in a September Slate.com report, Good2Go requires the initiator to send the prospective partner to at least four smartphone screens, wait for a text message, provide phone numbers (unless he/she is a multiple-user with an "account") and choose accurately one's sobriety level -- all before "the mood" evaporates (ending the app's usefulness). It took the tech-savvy Slate writer four minutes to navigate the process -- and she was still unclear which sexual activities had been consented to, since those specifics aren't referenced. (The app has since been pulled from the market.) [Slate.com, 9-29-2014]

-- New York Giants tight end Larry Donnell manages his own fantasy league team by "drafting" NFL players for virtual competitions based on their real-life statistics of the previous weekend. Donnell lamented to New Jersey's The Record in October that he had benched virtual "Larry Donnell" on his fantasy team the week before because he thought his other tight end ("Vernon Davis") would do better. In reality, real Donnell had a career-high game, with his three touchdowns leading the real Giants to a 45-14 victory. However, Donnell's fantasy team lost badly because virtual Larry Donnell (and his weekend statistical bonanza) was on Donnell's bench. [WCBS-TV, 10-2-2014]

In August, the Tampa Bay Times reported a dispute in Dunedin, Florida, between 12-year-old lemonade-stand operator T.J. Guerrero and the adult neighbor (Doug Wilkey) trying to close him down as an unlicensed entrepreneur, despite T.J.'s business plan for assisting his favorite animal shelter. Of course, T.J. was quickly inundated with donations, media praise and more lemonade sales. Wilkey, however, is under investigation by the city after a tipster revealed that Wilkey himself might operate a home-based financial services business not properly licensed. [Tampa Bay Times, 8-28-2014]

"My Friends, I Am a Man of Action!": Roger Weber, running for a Minnesota House seat in November, is now being sued by a neighbor over a property-line dispute near Nashwauk. Rather than working with an arbitrator or mediator, or letting the legal process run its course, Weber in 2013 took a chain saw and sliced completely in half the large, two-car garage that Weber says sat half on his property and half on the neighbor's. [St. Paul Pioneer Press, 9-22-2014]

(1) Lianne and Brian Kowiak of Waterbury, Vermont, complained to Ben & Jerry's in September that its new ice cream flavor, "Hazed & Confused," was "shock(ing)" and "upset(ting)" and should be changed immediately. Though most customers recognize the name only as a play on the 1993 cult movie "Dazed & Confused," the Kowiaks insist that they never be reminded that their 19-year-old son died in a college hazing incident. (2) In Winooski, Vermont, in August, the local eatery Sneakers Bistro earned public advertising space by beautifying one of the city's flower beds, and managers used it for the quixotic ad, "Yield for Sneakers Bacon." After one woman complained that the sign disrespected those who do not consume pork, Sneakers took it down. [WCAX-TV (Burlington), 9-22-2014] [WPTZ-TV (Plattsburgh, N.Y.), 8-25-2014]

-- Medical Marvels: (1) In October, workers at a clinic in Honda, Colombia, reported helping a 22-year-old woman who came in several days earlier with vegetation growing from her vagina. She said her mother had told her that inserting a potato (now sprouting) was effective contraception. (2) An 18-year-old woman was admitted to Bishkek Hospital in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, in September with severe stomach pains, which doctors discovered was due to her long-standing habit of chewing both discarded hair and her own. Doctors removed a hairball that weighed 8.8 pounds (and a Yahoo News report had a photo). [United Press International, 10-2-2014] [Yahoo UK News, 9-29-2014]

-- The family of Kai Halvorsen of Lillestrom, Norway, planning a holiday in Thailand, feared that their bulldog, Igor, would be traumatized, having never been left alone. Halvorsen and a friend arranged with Labben Kennel to make a replica of the family living room to calm Igor's anxiety. The two men painted the walls the same shade of gray, brought in the family couch, built a replica coffee table, and moved in Igor's bed, carpet, pillows and blankets. (However, according to the friend, Igor spent much of the holiday cavorting outside with his new friend, Helga, the St. Bernard.) [United Press International, 9-8-2014]

Prosecutors in Killeen, Texas, are seeking the death penalty for Marvin Guy, who in May shot one SWAT officer to death and wounded three as they conducted an unannounced ("no-knock") drug raid on his home at 5:30 a.m. -- leading Guy to believe hoodlums were breaking in and thus provoking him to grab his gun and start firing. (The tip given to police was bogus; no drugs were found.) However, in December, 90 miles away in another Texas county, mistaken SWAT-raid victim Henry Magee also killed an officer under similar circumstances (except that Magee actually had some marijuana), but was cleared in the shooting by a grand jury's acceptance of self-defense. Guy is black; Magee is white. [Killeen Daily Herald, 9-22-2014] [KBTX-TV (Bryan-College Station), 2-7-2014]

Harmonic Convergence of Perversions: (1) Palm Beach County, Florida, sheriff's deputies searching the home of child-pornography suspect Douglas Wescott, 55, stumbled upon about 50 dead cats stored in four freezers. Wescott's computers were seized, along with another 30 to 35 live cats. (2) In September, following a months-long trial in Canada's Nunavut territory, defrocked Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger, 67, was found guilty of 31 counts of raping children and one of raping a sled dog. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9-10-2014] [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 9-12-2014]

-- Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) William Dixon, 21, was arrested in Brentwood, Tennessee, in August fleeing a Best Buy store after arousing suspicion. According to the police report, Dixon, on foot, ran across all lanes of Interstate 65, but the chase ended when he collided with a tree. (2) In October, a man unnamed in news reports snatched a bottle of wine from the shelf of a Sainsbury's supermarket in East Grinstead, England, and dashed for the door. However, he ran into a shelving unit and knocked himself unconscious. [BrentwoodHomePage.com, 8-21-2014] [East Grinstead Courier, 10-9-2014]

-- Walter Morrison, 20, a United Parcel Service baggage agent at Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport, apparently intended only to swipe random parcels, but inadvertently came upon, in one package, a diamond (later found to be worth about $160,000). Police charging him in September said he traded the diamond to a friend for a gram of marijuana (around $20, retail). [The Smoking Gun, 9-26-2014]

Surreal Estate: Sixty-two percent of the 12 million people of Mumbai, India, live in slums, but the city is also home to Mukesh Ambani's 27-story private residence (60,000 square feet, 600 employees serving a family of five), reported to cost about $1 billion. According to an October (2010) New York Times dispatch, there are "four-story hanging gardens," "airborne swimming pools" and a room where "artificial weather" can be created. Ambani and his brother inherited their father's textile-exporting juggernaut, but notoriously spend much of their time in intra-family feuding. A domestic-worker neighbor told the Times that she makes the equivalent of about $90 a month. [New York Times, 10-29-10]

Thanks This Week to Steven Lobejko and Ken Wilkens, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Police in Japan's Kyoto Prefecture raided a shoe manufacturer in July and commandeered a list of about 1,500 purchasers of the company's signature "tosatsu shoes" -- shoes with built-in cameras. Investigators have begun visiting the purchasers at home to ask that they hand in the shoes (but, out of fairness, said they would not cause trouble for customers who could produce a legitimate reason for needing to take photographs and video by pointing their shoe at something). The seller was charged with "aiding voyeurism" and fined the equivalent of about $4,500 under a nuisance-prevention law. [United Press International, 9-23-2014]

-- Doris Carvalho of Tampa, Florida, is raising venture capital to expand her hobby of crafting high-end handbags from groomed, recycled dog hair (two pounds' worth for each bag). With investors, she could lower her costs and the $1,000 price tag, since it now takes 50 hours' labor to make the yarn for her haute couture accessory. [BayNews9.com (St. Petersburg), 9-9-2014]

-- Among the suggestions of the Brisbane, Australia, company Pets Eternal for honoring a deceased pet (made to a reporter in September): keeping a whisker or tooth or lock of hair, or having the remains made into jewelry or mixed with ink to make a tattoo. Overlooked was a new project by the Houston space-flight company Celestis, known for blasting human ashes into orbit (most famously those of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry). Celestis, working with a California company, will soon offer to shoot pets' remains into orbit ($995) or perhaps even to the moon ($12,000). [News.com.au (Sydney), 9-23-2014] [Associated Press via KRLD-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth), 7-30-2014]

-- Ontario's top court rejected Bryan Teskey's complaint in August over how Roman Catholics continue to be discriminated against by the laws of British royal succession. Even though Ontario (along with many Commonwealth countries) recently removed some aspects of bias (ending the ban on the royal family's marrying Catholics), Teskey pointed out that Canadian Catholics still do not have a fair shot at becoming king or queen (although Teskey did not claim that he, personally, had been a candidate). [Canadian Press, 8-27-2014]

-- Names in the News: (1) One of the three suspects in an August arrest for making fraudulent purchases at a Jupiter, Florida, shop: Ms. Cherries Waffles Tennis, 19. (2) The president of the Alabama Public Service Commission (who invoked prayer in July as the most effective way to fight federal restrictions on coal-fired power plants): Ms. Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh. (3) The investigator for the Ohio state auditor's office who was ordered by his supervisor in July to end a romantic relationship with another government official: Jim Longerbone. [Palm Beach Post, 8-21-2014] [Al.com (Birmingham), 7-28-2014] [Columbus Dispatch, 7-30-2014]

-- Venezuela, already in a recession, suffered a particularly cruel blow (according to a September Associated Press dispatch from Caracas) with the recent shortage in availability of breast implants for its beauty-obsessed senoritas. Restrictive currency controls are limiting enhancement surgeries from the 85,000 performed last year and, according to a local joke, will force Venezuelan women to start developing their personalities. (However, according to leading surgeon Dr. Daniel Slobodianik, when potential patients are told their preferred size implant is back-ordered, many merely choose the next-largest available size.) [Associated Press via CTV News (Toronto), 9-15-2014]

-- But It's About "Safety," Not "Money": On the same day in September, Washington, D.C., and New York City made traffic-camera announcements, with Washington declaring a revenue crisis and New York revealing that just one speed camera in Brooklyn had earned the city $77,550 in a single day. The District of Columbia had projected $93 million in annual camera income, but estimated it would collect only $26 million, while New York City, which has many fewer cameras, was marveling at the 1,551 tickets the Brooklyn camera zapped on July 7. [Washington Post, 9-29-2014]

(1) Staci Anne Spence, 42, was hauled to jail for assault in Sandpoint, Idaho, in September, but when the squad car arrived at the station, officers learned that during the ride, she had completely gnawed through the back seat -- foam padding and seat cover. (2) A 38-year-old man was taken, unconscious, to St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, in August. After allegedly choking his mother-in-law and refusing to cooperate with police, who used a stun gun and chemical spray on him to no effect, he dramatically KO'd himself with an empty beer bottle. [KXLY-TV (Spokane, Wash.), 9-23-2014] [Post Bulletin (Rochester), 8-25-2014]

An August West Virginia Board of Medicine report accused Martinsburg doctor Tressie Montene Duffy, age 44 and owner of a "weight and wellness" clinic, of over-prescribing drugs and repeatedly exposing herself to co-workers -- including forcing one employee to "motor boat" Duffy's surgically enhanced breasts. [Charleston Daily Mail, 8-12-2014]

Leonard Decides Whether You Can Be Nervous or Not: Leonard Embody marched up and down a sidewalk in September in front of Hillsboro High School in Nashville, Tennessee, in military clothing and with a rifle on his back and a GoPro camcorder attached to his chest -- just his latest street demonstration supporting Tennessee's "open carry" gun law. According to a WSMV-TV report, this episode made even some supporters edgy because of the school setting, but Embody failed to see the problem. "Other people may think I look terrifying," he acknowledged, but he doesn't think he does, and if you disagree, he suggests psychological counseling. (Tennessee bans guns on school property, but a few inches away, on the sidewalk, Embody has decided that there is no problem.) [WSMV-TV, 9-19-2014]

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Police in West Valley City, Utah, searched for an exceptionally unintimidating man in August after reports that the man tried to rob a Subway sandwich shop and a Family Dollar. In each episode, an employee told the man to wait while the employee went to a back room, but then simply failed to return, leading the "robber," eventually, to walk away empty-handed. (2) In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in August, Kevin Clarence, 20, was arrested for an inept attempt to rob a supermarket. He entered the store, and only then, according to witnesses, put a plastic garbage bag over his head and decided to wait in line for his opportunity to address a cashier. He quickly got tired of waiting and said, "I'll be back," but was caught by police minutes after leaving the store. [KSTU-TV (Salt Lake City), 8-30-2014] [BBC News, 8-14-2014]

In 1993, News of the Weird introduced readers to Kopi Luwak coffee -- whose beans had first passed through the digestive tracts of Asian civet cats (to give them, supposedly, a certain tartness, as well as a certain hipster price tag). Canadian entrepreneur Blake Dinkin, 44, believes his Black Ivory Coffee tastes even better because his pre-digested beans are recovered from elephant dung in Thailand -- and are less bitter, in that the pachyderms, unlike civets, are herbivores. Dung-farming labor in Thailand may be inexpensive, but it takes 33 pounds of Arabica beans to achieve the precise blend Dinkin demands, and he told NPR in August that he anticipated sales only to upscale resorts in the Middle East (and to one elephant-themed store in Comfort, Texas). [NPR, 8-20-2014]

Donald Denney and his father (also named Donald Denney) concocted a plan on the telephone for Dad to smuggle a ball of black-tar heroin into the son's Colorado prison during visiting hours, to be passed by mouth via kiss from a female visitor. However, Dad failed to find a woman with a clean-enough rap sheet to be admitted as a visitor. Still enamored of the plan, however, the father decided to be the carrier himself, and inserted the "package" into his rectum for later transferral to his mouth (though the eventual messy kiss of the son would be awkward). Neither Denney realized, despite audio warnings, that all phone calls were monitored, and in September (2010), prison officials were waiting for the father, with a body-cavity search warrant, as he arrived. [TheSmokingGun.com, 9-21-10]

Thanks This Week to George Bayrd, Chuck Hamilton, Bruce Leiserowitz, Steve Dunn, and Sam Scrutchins, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.