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News of the Weird

11/12/2014

Baby beauty

Amanda Collins, 28, took “beauty pageant mom” to the next level (down) earlier this year when she entered her daughter Luna in Britain’s UK Princess and Prince International — based entirely on Luna’s ultrasound scan at age 20 weeks. Said Collins, “As soon as I saw her image on the screen … I knew she was a stunner.” Contest officials had accepted the scan application, and six weeks after birth, Luna was named runner-up in the Princess and Prince, and on top of that, four weeks later, runner-up in Miss Dreams UK. “All she has to do is lie in my arms and smile as I stroll down the catwalk, said Collins.”

Recurring themes

In September, at the annual 10-day Phuket Vegetarian Festival in Thailand (ostensibly promoting abstinence from eating meat), dozens of men pierced and sliced their mouths, cheeks and arms in religious devotion in a spectacle which, though blood-drenched, was supposedly free of pain (and subsequent scars) because the fanatics were in God-imposed trances. The display supposedly brings “good health, peace of mind and spiritual cleansing,” and includes walking on hot coals and climbing blade-embedded ladders (both barefoot, of course), all to the accompaniment of fireworks and the ear-shattering pounding of drums. …

Brad Culpepper played defensive tackle for nine NFL seasons and, not surprisingly, applied for disability when he retired, since his medical folder listed 14 MRIs, head and knee trauma and neurological and vision problems — which resulted in doctors declaring him “89 percent” disabled and the Fairmont Premier insurance company giving him a $175,000 settlement. Fairmont sued recently to get its money back, claiming that Culpepper is, and was, “exquisitely fit,” as evidenced by a September 2013 Tampa Bay Times feature on his gym workouts, and in his having earned a martial-arts Black Belt, and in his participation for 14 days in the grueling TV series “Survivor: Blood vs. Water” in 2013. …

CNA - Stop HIV Iowa

Angry taxpayers and retail customers sometimes protest their debt by paying the bill with containers of coins (especially pennies), but what if a company did that to a customer? A court had ruled that Adriana’s Insurance Services in Rancho Cucamonga, California, had unjustifiably ejected (and assaulted) 74-year-old Andres Carrasco from its office when he complained about a canceled policy, and ordered Adriana’s to pay him about $21,000. Consequently, in August, the still-irritated company dropped off at least 16 buckets full of coins at the customer’s lawyer’s office. …

Several News of the Weird stories mentioned Body Dysmorphic Disorder sufferers who sought the ultimate treatment: amputation of healthy body parts on irrationally aesthetic grounds, led by castration-desiring men. Now, 15-year-old Danielle Bradshaw of Tameside, England, also wants a useful leg amputated — but not irrationally. Her “developmental dysplasia” caused the amputation of her useless right leg, but the resultant stress on the left one has weakened it, and besides, having taken up competitive running, she wants Oscar Pistorius-style blades instead of her current prosthesis, which slows her down. However, no hospital has yet agreed to perform the surgery, considering the leg’s continued functionality and Bradshaw’s young age.

Update

News of the Weird first mentioned the breakthrough treatment of “fecal transplants” in 2000 (to remedy the brutal diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile infections) — in which large-intestine bacteria of a healthier relative is delivered to the patient’s gut — so that healthy bacteria kill off the germs causing the diarrhea. However, the procedure is awkward and inconvenient and requires a colonoscopy to deliver. Recently, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital tried an alternative: placing healthy transplant poop into 30 large, stomach-acid-resistant capsules, to be ingested by mouth over two days. The regimen worked remarkably well for 14 of 20 patients and for four of the remaining six on a second try.

Readers’ choice

Ashley Tull, 30, was arrested in Selbyville, Delaware, in October after her 4-year-old daughter showed up at Hickory Tree Child Care Center with more than 200 baggies of heroin in her backpack, innocently sharing them with classmates. …

Chula Vista, California, police officers in August rescued a woman and her adult daughter, who had screamed to 911 that they were trapped in the mother’s bedroom, unable to leave because her house cat had turned bad and was “guarding” the door. (Officers repeatedly called “Cuppy” by name, softly, until he finally walked away.) CV

Read more weird news at www.WeirdUniverse.net.

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