There's hardly a more "generic" song in America than "Happy Birthday to You," but to this day (until a judge renders a decision in a pending case), Warner/Chappel Music is still trying to make big dollars off of the 16-word ditty (15 original words plus a user-supplied 16th). Its original copyright should have expired, at the latest, in 1921, but amendments to the law and technicalities in interpretation (e.g., did the copyright cover all public uses or just piano arrangements?) bring Warner at least $2 million a year in fees. A federal judge in California is expected to rule soon on whether the song is in fact uncopyrightably "generic" -- 125 years after the Hill sisters (Mildred and Patty) composed it. [CBS News, 3-27-2015]

-- In April, WNBC-TV's investigative unit in New York City reported on a series of fetish parties in Manhattan reportedly organized by a licensed M.D., in which the consensual activities consisted of saline scrotal inflation, controlled near-asphyxiation and controlled arterial blood-letting (in which splatters are captured on a canvas as if made by a painter). An event organizer said the "Cirque de Plaisir" was more of a "performance art" display by a few body-modification aficionados than it was a fetish "party." Local governments were alarmed especially by the blood splatters' endangering onlookers and promised an investigation. [WNBC-TV, 4-29-2015]

-- Accused amateur serial tooth-puller Philip Hansen, 56, was convicted on two counts in May following a trial in Wellington (New Zealand) District Court. Several women had accused him, during 1988-2011, of holding their mouths open and wriggling teeth out with pliers (and in one case, a screwdriver), motivated by his attraction to "gummy women" as a prelude to sex. He apparently also lauded the "free" service he was providing, since real dentists, he said, would have charged the women. (Hansen allegedly told another woman, with full dentures, how "beautiful" she was -- as he was removing the plates, crushing them and flushing them down a toilet.) [Stuff.co.nz, 4-30-2015; Dominion Post via Stuff.co.nz, 5-6-2015]

-- "The ancient art of yoga is supposed to offer a path to inner peace," wrote the Wall Street Journal in February -- before launching into a report on how many yoga classes these days are so crowded that inner peace-seekers are more likely than ever either to seethe throughout their session -- or to openly confront floor-hoggers. Explained one coach, "People who are practicing yoga want Zen; they don't already have it." [Wall Street Journal, 2-16-2015]

-- Timely Information: (1) Joseph Forren, 21, with a .172 blood alcohol level, plowed into a pickup truck in April in Trumbull, Connecticut (though with no serious injuries). Police said Forren's cellphone on the seat still displayed a current text message, "Don't drink and drive ... Dad." (2) According to police records released in April, Mila Dago (now 24 and awaiting trial for DUI manslaughter) was trading sarcastic texts with her ex-boyfriend that night in August 2013 while barhopping (later, registering .178 blood alcohol), and as she ran a red light, smashed into a pickup truck, injuring herself badly and her friend in the passenger seat fatally. According to the police report, her last text to the ex- boyfriend (three minutes earlier) was "Driving drunk woo ... I'll be dead thanks to you." [Connecticut Post (Bridgeport), 4-27-2015] [Miami Herald, 4-30-2015]

-- Readers' Choice: (1) The Indian Journal of Dermatology announced in April that it was withdrawing a recent scientific paper by a dentist in Kerala state, "Development of a Guideline to Approach Plagiarism in Indian Scenarios," because parts of the article had been plagiarized from a student dissertation. (2) Low voter turnout in non-presidential election years is increasingly problematic in easily distracted Los Angeles, but the issue was specifically addressed by campaigners in the March 3 city council elections -- which, of course, only about 9 percent of registered voters cast ballots in. [NPR, 4-2-2015] [LA Weekly, 3-4-2015]

-- In New York City, someone can be fired for being "too nice." Doorman Ralph Body, 41, was dismissed from his job at an upscale New York City apartment building because he did too many favors for tenants, according to an April New York Post report. Body said he "gave his life" to the residents at the "27 on 27th" tower in Queens, but "upper management" thought such extra kindnesses violated building policy and ordered his dismissal despite a tenant petition. [New York Post, 4-5-2015]

-- When the chief auditor for Hartford, Connecticut, finally got around to checking the finances of the police shooting range recently, he found that the range supervisor had bought 485,000 bullets per year, but was using only 180,000 -- and had no paperwork on where the other bullets went. (In one instance, the supervisor acknowledged having bought 94,500 rounds of .45-caliber ammo two years after the department had stopped using .45s and switched to .40-caliber weapons -- but his story was that he needed .45-caliber bullets so he could trade them for .40s.) [Hartford Courant, 5-2-2015]

Millions of sports fans "draft" their own fantasy sports teams -- and even the bass-fishing tournament circuit has its fantasy league, where fans select anglers good at exploiting choice spots on the lakes. In March, Alaska Dispatch News reported that, for the fourth straight year, there would be an Iditarod Fantasy League, with a "salary cap" of "$27,000" to pick seven mushers with the best chances to push their dogs to victory, with all-stars going for around $6,000 and promising rookies selling for much less. [Alaska Dispatch News, 3-6-2015]

Alfred Guercio, 54, was arrested in Burnsville, Minnesota, in March after forcibly entering a neighbor's home and swiping a knife set that he had given the woman as a Christmas gift. He told the woman, and police, that he was taking the gift back, as he was upset that the woman was failing to appreciate it enough. [The Smoking Gun, 3-17-2015]

John Deere became the most recent company in America to claim that, though a buyer may have paid in full for a device, he may not actually "own" it. Deere claims that because its tractors run on sophisticated computer programs, the ostensible owner of the tractor cannot "tamper" with that software without Deere's permission -- even to repair a defect or to customize its operation. Already, traditional movie videos may come with restrictions on copying, but the Deere case, according to an April report on Wired.com, might extend the principle to machinery not traditionally subject to copyright law. [Wired.com, 4-21-2015]

The March arranged-marriage ceremony in Kanpur, India, was about to start when cousins of the bride (whose name is Lovely, daughter of Mohar Singh) commandeered center stage and demanded that groom Ram Baran answer the question, "What is 15 plus 6?" Baran answered, "17," and in short order, Lovely and her family began to drift out of the room, and the marriage was off. Eventually, according to a Times of India report, the families settled the fiasco amicably, with all gifts returned. [Times of India, 3-13-2015]

"You're not going to like this," warned NPR's Robert Krulwich, about to deliver a February (2011) story about visionary robotics developers James Auger and Jimmy Louizeau, who created a carnivorous clock, supposedly able to power itself for 12 days merely on the carcasses of 12 dead houseflies (which the clock traps with flypaper and then mechanically razors in two). The pair also showed a prototype of a coffee table that catches mice by luring them up the table legs with cheese into a hole in the center, where they are guillotined. Auger and Louizeau said their creations are just extensions of TV nature programs showing animals hunting in the wild, but Krulwich fretted about the dangers inherent in "giving robots a taste for (meat)." [NPR, 2-7-2011]

CLARIFICATION: The story two weeks ago about the anticipated "sex shop" in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, though reported by many reputable news sources, was in fact (a) about a year old and (b) apparently based on a faulty translation from Arabic, and no such shop can be said to be forthcoming. The "developer," Abdelaziz Aouragh, apparently disclosed only that he would be "willing" to open such a shop. [Times of Israel, 4-26-2015]

Thanks This Week to Kathryn Wood, Don Peck, Chuck Hamilton, Pete Randall, and Robert Zimmer, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

LEAD STORY -- Donating for Dollars

Already, healthy people can donate blood, sperm and eggs, but now the nonprofit OpenBiome offers donors $40 for bowel movements -- to supply "fecal transplants" for patients with nasty C. difficile bacterial infections. ("Healthy" contents are transplanted into the infected gut via endoscope or frozen swallowed capsules so that the good bacteria drive out the antibiotic-resistant bad.) Over 2,000 transplant units have been shipped to 185 hospitals so far, and OpenBiome allows daily "donations" so that, with bonuses, a donor could earn $13,000 a year. However, extensive medical questioning and stool-testing is required, and only about 4 percent of potential donors have exquisite-enough feces to qualify. [Washington Post, 1-29-2015]

California State University Los Angeles researcher Marc Kubasak spent about 2,500 hours (sometimes 12 hours a day) training 40 brain-damaged rats to walk on a treadmill, after sewing little vests to tether the critters, suspended, to a robotic arm. His work paid off, though, according to the February Popular Science magazine, as doctors in Poland and University College London used his procedures to help a man with a damaged spine. (In the middle of the project, Kubasak developed a rodent allergy and was forced to wear a body suit every day with a respirator.) [Popular Science, February 2015]

-- U.K.'s Bedfordshire Police were searching in April for the thief who ran off without paying for his Jesus arm tattoo at the RedINC Luton studio (to go with his "Only God Can Judge Me" inking on the other arm.) In fact, the shopkeeper also believes the man swiped the equivalent of $1,548 from a cash drawer when he was momentarily alone in the studio. [Luton Today, 4-1-2015]

-- Former Virginia state Delegate Joseph Morrissey, already scheduled for trial for submitting false documents in one case, was foiled in March qualifying for a state Senate primary because 750 of the 972 voter signatures he submitted were found to be bogus. (Morrissey was sworn in as delegate in January while wearing an ankle monitor as part of his sentence for having sex with an underage girl, but resigned to run for the Senate.) [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3-31-2015] [Associated Press via Virginian-Pilot (Hampton Roads), 1-15-2015]

-- In March, the U.S. patent office approved Google's application covering robot software that mimics human personalities (voice, mannerisms) using a variety of moods (happiness, fear, surprise) with a notable use that family members might employ it to continue to "interact" with a loved one after he has passed. One disquieting possibility might allow a deceased person to be directed to act in ways that the person never acted while alive. [Discover Magazine, 4-26-2015]

-- Entrepreneurship: (1) A curious woman, inspired by her own mother's attachment to her unlaundered pillowcases following the death of her dad, has partnered with France's Universite du Havre to produce a person's bottled scent by processing old clothing. A September rollout is planned, with the probable retail price of about $600. (2) Artist Mark Sturkenboom has described plans for an even more remarkable remembrance device (if the deceased is male): a dildo that holds 21 grams of cremated ashes (accessorized, perhaps for non-sexual "cover," by a necklace and music player). "After passing," Sturkenboom explained, "the missing of intimacy" is "one aspect of the pain and grief." [Popular Science, 4-24-2015] [Metro News (London), 4-26-2015]

Just west of Ferguson, Missouri, is Kinloch (pop. 299), where newly elected mayor Betty McCray was unable to start work on April 23 because the losing incumbent administration merely locked her out of City Hall ("impeaching" her for "voter fraud" in the April 7 election, despite St. Louis County election officials having already certified her victory). Of McCray's two predecessors, one was once also locked out of office by police, and the other had to go to court to get his mayoral job back after admitting that he had missed child-support payments. [KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 4-23-2015] [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1-29-2014]

The controversial ex-Greenpeace campaigner who years later turned against the environmental group's program walked out of an interview in March for a French documentary in which he assured viewers that Monsanto's Roundup weed killer was safe for humans. "You can drink a whole quart of it, and it won't hurt you," Patrick Moore told the interviewer for Canal Plus. The interviewer then offered Moore a swig of Roundup he had on hand. "I'd be happy to, actually," Moore reportedly said on camera, but then quickly changed his mind. "No, I'm not an idiot." At that point, Moore declared, the interview was "finished." [Time, 3-27-2015]

The owner of a New York City condominium apartment that sold for $100.5 million recently received a property tax reduction of $360,000 last year -- and is likely to keep receiving reductions over as many as 25 years, based on "Section 421-a" benefits the state enacted to encourage "affordable" housing in the most desirable parts of New York City. The tax abatements are available to developers that promise to create "affordable" units in the same zones ("affordable" to families making under about $40,000 annually), but in recent years, the new "millionaire" units (with tax breaks) have outnumbered the new affordable units by about 11-to-1, according to a February New York Times report, costing the city over $1 billion a year in revenue. [New York Times, 2-2-2015] [Gothamist.com, 3-18-2015]

-- Prison breaks in Latin American countries are often staged with cooperative, corrupt guards. However, the escape by 28 inmates in February from the Nova Mutum prison near Cuiaba, Brazil, was engineered by three make-believe "dominatrixes" (in police costumes), who playfully handcuffed the guards, knocked them out with sedatives and unlocked the cells. (The guards were found the next day, still handcuffed and naked.) [Daily Mirror (London), 2-8-2015]

-- Wall Street Miracle: Two March instances of gleaning insight and using it to buy stock "options" were executed so quickly (1 to 3 seconds each) that experts consulted for a Slate.com analysis said they couldn't possibly have been made by human securities traders. Their conclusion: A robot so intelligent exists that it can "read" a news wire report, "analyze" it for hints whether to place bets on a company's future price, and execute the order -- before human traders even finish reading the news report. Profits on the seconds-long trades: $2.4 million on one and "between $1 million and $2 million" on the other. [Slate.com, 4-26-2015]

(1) England's Tavistock Town Council hastily changed the wording in March of its help-wanted ad seeking a general maintenance person (a "hand," in local jargon); thus, it is no longer wording the offering as a "general hand job." (2) Alaska's Juneau Empire newspaper announced on February 26 a rededication ceremony for the local homeless facility, long known as the Glory Hole Shelter. (3) In April, the Tisdale, Saskatchewan, town council finally decided, after 60 years, to alter the widely used and inspiring town slogan (honoring the canola oil's parent, the rapeseed) -- "Land of Rape and Honey." (4) A Brazilian student-athlete enrolled at Medicine Hat (Alberta) College announced he would play the basketball season under his real Brazilian-German name, Guilherme Fuck (which he insists is pronounced foo-kay). [Plymouth Herald, 3-4-2015] [Juneau Empire, 2-26-2015] [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 4-21-2015] [Medicine Hat News, 3-20-2015]

David Morice, of Iowa City, Iowa, a teacher at Kirkwood Community College, was best known for a series of "Poetry Comics" until he decided (in 2010) to write 100-page poems (not prose -- poems!) every day for 100 days, until he had a book totaling 10,000 pages (actually, 10,119). The University of Iowa Libraries published the finished book online, but for some reason, also in a two-foot-high hardcopy stack. (Strangely, in a 480-word article describing Morice's feat, the Iowa City Press-Citizen included not even a hint about any of the poems' subject matter.) [Iowa City Press-Citizen, 1-27-2011]

Thanks This Week to Rita Johnson, Joe Harman, Gerald Davidson, and Don Schwartz, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Saudi Arabia's very first sex accessory shop (in the holy city of Mecca) should be opening soon, according to news reports -- operated by a Moroccan Muslim, backed by the German adult mega-retailer Beate Uhse, and supposedly fully compliant with Islamic law. Owner Abdelaziz Aouragh told Agence France-Presse he would stock 18 different Islam-appropriate toys for married couples, along with oils and fragrances that he said would enhance the marital experience. (He did not actually describe the toys, but ruled out U.S. mainstays such as inflatable dolls and vibrators.) One such "halal" sex shop opened in Turkey in 2013, and Aouragh's financial partner runs a similar enterprise online. [International Business Times (New York), 4-20-2015]

-- The February gun-and-baby-carrying workshop in Johnston, Iowa, was so successful that instructor Melody Lauer and CrossRoads Shooting Sports owner Tom Hudson plan more. Lauer insisted that she does not necessarily encourage a baby-holding mother to arm herself, but if she chooses to, safety would of course require that she be familiar with the tricky procedure of drawing, aiming and firing even though she might be "wearing" a baby in a sling in front of her body. Hudson, noting the fast-growing market of gun sales to women, said scheduling the workshop "was a no-brainer." [Yahoo News, 3-4-2015]

-- What is believed to be America's only hard-nosed "gang" composed only of gay and transgendered African-Americans hopes to have its story told soon by filmmakers -- who emphasize the group's transition from fighters to entrepreneurs working to establish their own clothing line, according to a March report on advocate.com. The gang, originally organized for protection ("We gonna get our respect one way or another," said one), hails from the violent Washington, D.C., Trinidad neighborhood, yet some of the 200 members (in their teens or early 20s) insist on stilettos, lipstick and mascara (while carrying knives, brass knuckles and mace). [Advocate.com, 3-9-2015]

-- Pioneering British facial surgeon Ninian Peckitt, 63, facing a Medical Practitioners Tribunal in Manchester in April, was accused by a witness of "repeatedly" having punched one patient in the face during a procedure in order to straighten a fracture. Dr. Peckitt acknowledged having used his hands to "manipulate" bones in the patient's face, calling it a routine surgery-avoiding procedure sometimes required for extensive injuries. [Daily Mail (London), 4-8-2015]

-- Suspicions Confirmed: Two airport screeners at Denver International collaborated in an ongoing ploy in which one, a male, signaled to a female colleague that he had spotted an attractive male passenger in line that he might like to grope. The female would then suddenly notice an "anomaly" in the screening and ask that passenger to stand aside so the male agent could "inspect" him further -- by genital and posterior fondling (over his clothing). The two agents were fired in February after a Transportation Security Administration investigator, having been alerted to the scheme, observed it in action. [KCNC-TV (Denver), 4-13-2015]

From Recent Florida Crime Reports: (1) Mohammed Almarri, 21, was arrested on multiple charges in Tampa on April 12 after illegally entering a neighbor's apartment in a high-rise and forcing the owner onto the balcony. For reasons undisclosed in the police report, Almarri then allegedly microwaved the man's wallet in his oven. (2) Joseph Williams, 35 (and with several pending warrants), was arrested on April 5 in Fort Pierce, Florida, after entering the emergency room at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center and Heart Institute, demanding an enema and refusing to leave until he got one. [Bay News 9 (St. Petersburg, 4-12-2015] [TCPalm.com (Stuart, Fla.), 4-14-2015]

-- In the face of jokes about proliferating airline charges, the British economy line easyJet added another fee recently. If easyJet, on its own, cancels a flight, it charges a fee of 10 British pounds (about $15) to notify third parties. The airline said that even though its own decision created the issue, it must nonetheless cover its costs to provide cancellation notices to passengers who miss connections or who need to provide verification to collect on private travel-interruption insurance. [Daily Mail (London), 4-21-2015]

-- Is This a Great Country or What? Counting only the pool of bonus money (not regular salaries), employees of New York securities industries in 2014 earned roughly twice as much as the total income paid to all employees in the United States who worked full time at the federal minimum wage ($7.25 an hour). (The statistic, from a report by the Institute for Policy Studies and reinforced by a University of Michigan professor using figures from the New York State Comptroller and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was featured in a March New York Times analysis.) [New York Times, 3-13-2015]

In April, a court in Munich, Germany, ordered a dentist (identified only as "K") to pay the equivalent of about $21,000 to patient "Alex S" for pulling all of his teeth (19) over four weeks of treatments -- as the remedy for his schizophrenia and erectile dysfunction. The dentist had testified that Alex had too much bone inflammation for ordinary fillings. K made his own claim for the equivalent of about $54,000 for the damage to his professional reputation that the trial had caused, but the court rejected it. [The Local (Berlin) via Daily Mail (London), 4-17-2015]

(1) Austin Hatfield, 18, reported to an emergency room in April after being bitten on the lip by a venomous cottonmouth viper in Wimauma, Florida. According to a fish and wildlife commission spokesman, Hatfield had been keeping the recently caught snake in an ordinary pillowcase on his bed, and when it got out, Hatfield (ungracefully) recaptured it. (The bite was not fatal.) (2) According to witnesses questioned by the Jacksonville, Florida, Sheriff's Office (on the scene after shots had been reported at Murphy's Express Gas station in March), one customer had fired at another, hitting him in the foot, because he felt that the customer was staring at him while he pumped gas. [Tampa Tribune, 4-21-2015] [WJAX-TV, 3-31-2015]

Nikko Jenkins, convicted of murder in a 2013 spree and trying to avoid a scheduled sentencing hearing, recently self-mutilated (for the second time), which he told a judge in Omaha, Nebraska, was evidence of his mental disorder that should render him ineligible for death row. Jenkins told the judge that a "serpent god" had ordered him to carve the "number of the beast" into his forehead, but apparently because Jenkins was looking into a mirror as he carved, his forehead display more resembled an upside-down 999 (or a lowercase ddd) than it did 666. [Omaha World-Herald, 4-17-2015]

(1) Tidiest Animal: In a February science journal report, a University of Regensburg (Germany) professor noted that ants seem particularly orderly -- with "toilet" facilities arranged in far corners of the nests. The researcher speculated that ants keep feces on hand in order to mine nutrients. (2) Least Competent Beaver: A local logger telephoned the Agder Natural History museum in Kristiansand, Norway, in April to report that he had encountered a beaver crushed to death because it was unable to judge which way the tree it was gnawing would fall. (Usually, beavers have an uncanny ability to avoid the tree, but some stragglers still populate their gene pool.) [Los Angeles Times, 2-18-2015] [The Local (Oslo), 4-16-2015]

Enterprising reporters get stories by earning the confidence of their sources, which Simon Eroro of the Post-Courier (Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea) obviously did. At a banquet in November (2011), the News Corp. (Rupert Murdoch's empire) awarded Eroro its "Scoop of the Year" honor for reporting on militant tribal fighters of the Free West Papua movement -- and all Eroro had to do to earn the scoop was undergo a ritual circumcision, with bamboo sticks, to prove his trustworthiness. (Some of the rebels still wear penis gourds whose size varies with the status of the wearer.) [Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 11-7-2011]

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