Remove ImagesNews of the Weird
June 05, 2008
WAR ON HIGH VACATION PRICES
The U.S. military operates a beachfront vacation site for its personnel worldwide and their families at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, with $42-a-night air-conditioned suites, surfing, boat rides, golf course, bowling alley and even a gift shop. One T-shirt for sale reads, "The Taliban Towers at Guantanamo Bay, the Caribbean's Newest 5-star Resort." News of the facility was not widely reported until a British lawyer who represents 28 of the nearly 300 detainees housed there described it to London's Daily Mail in May.
THE CONTINUING CRISIS
Police in Fort Myers, Fla., were called to Royal Palm Exceptional School in April and wound up arresting eight-year-old Deshawn for punching his female teacher in the face, leaving several bruises. Said Deshawn's grandmother, Dorothy Williams, when interviewed by WBBH-TV: "He gets very upset, and he loves to hit… If he was overpowering her that much, I feel like she shouldn't be in that line of work."
AMERICA IN DECLINE
One of the Internet's successful Web sites (10 million page views a month, with $500,000 in ads from companies including Verizon, McDonald's and General Motors) is a site that merely reports on what celebrities' babies are wearing, in that so many mothers are apparently obsessed with mimicking those clothing choices for their own tots. A May Wall Street Journal feature said sometimes the site's posting a photo of a celebrity baby incites a nationwide run on what it's wearing.
WORKPLACE CULTURE
Salesman Chad Hudgens filed a lawsuit in January against his former Salt Lake City employer, charging that the boss and a "motivational trainer" used, as a "team-building" exercise, what was essentially the controversial "torture" practice of "waterboarding." The boss allegedly said that if salesmen tried as hard to close deals as they're trying to breathe during the simulated drowning, sales would soar.
MOST CONVOLUTED BUSINESS PLAN
Adolfo Martinez, 33, and Mark Anderson, 26, were indicted for fraud in Las Cruces, N.M., in April, accused of passing forged checks. Their plan was to buy Domino's pizzas with the checks, then have one of the men put on a Pizza Hut shirt and resell the pizzas, by the slice, in a local park or at stores, even though the pizzas were still being carried around in the Domino's boxes.
HOT BRA
Triumph International, the Japanese women's underwear company, released its latest publicity-seeking creation in May: the solar-powered bra, with enough exposed panels to power an iPod or cell phone. Other Triumph specials include a baseball bra (with fielder's-mitt-shaped cups) and a heated bra (with microwavable gel pads to warm the cups).
AT ONE WITH NATURE
Cameron Fritzson, 20, landed in the hospital in critical condition in May after he scaled first the outer, 10-foot fence at an electrical substation in Pembroke Pines, Fla., and then the main electrical tower, where his arm brushed against a live wire. Police said Fritzson was after a parakeet's nest at the top so he could sell the eggs to a pet store for as much as $20 each. MTW