Transsexual Eye for the Straight Guy: Among the fashions introduced at the seasonal shows in Milan, Italy, was British designer Vivienne Westwood's "Man" collection, featuring for-men items with frilly cuffs and bonnet-like scarves, along with tight, knit sweater sets and jumpers worn over male models' fake breasts. Westwood (a pioneer of punk clothing in the 1970s) said she was motivated by "how men are so attached to the breast of their mother, a symbol of eternal warmth."

The Guardian (London), January 17

Chutzpah!: A Kansas City, Kan., judge granted Wesley Fitzpatrick a temporary restraining order against a female who he said was stalking him (making him "scared, depressed and in fear for my freedom"). The order was rescinded when the judge found out that the "stalker" was actually Fitzpatrick's parole officer (who said Fitzpatrick had been missing meetings).

Wichita Eagle-Associated Press, March 14

Unclear on the Concept: Boston City Councilman Felix Arroyo announced in January that he was going on a hunger strike to protest U.S. war threats toward Iraq. At first, he said he would consume only liquids, but then limited the strike to daylight hours, and, later still, restricted his hardship regimen to only the second and fourth Fridays of each month.

Boston Globe, January 30

North Korea's official news agency accused Japan of breaking a promise to return five people to North Korea. The five are Japanese citizens who were kidnapped by North Korea in 1978 but released to see their families in October 2002. North Korea's position is that they were sent home only temporarily and must be returned.

Japan Today-Kyodo News, October 19

Leave No Superintendent Behind: The Lawrence, Mass., Superintendent of Schools, Wilfredo T. Laboy, failed for the third time the basic English proficiency test required of all teachers in the state (a test which, after one of the failures, he had called "stupid"). He passed on the fourth try.

Boston Globe-Associated Press, August 4In Fact, There Must Not Be Any

Problems in Massachusetts Schools: Longmeadow, Mass., School Committee chair Mary Ryan-Kusiak abruptly adjourned the August 25 meeting because committee member Laura J. Bertelli refused to sit in her assigned seat, and Ryan-Kusiak said she'd cancel the next meeting, too, if Bertelli didn't sit where she was told.

The Republican (Springfield), August 26

Least Competent Criminals: Gary Lee Owens, 42, was arrested in Stilwell, Kan., although police weren't even after him when they knocked on his door. They had a tip that two fugitives were hiding at that address, and since Owens knew nothing about that, he matter-of-factly gave them permission to search the house but then added the restriction "everywhere but the garage." That was good enough for a judge to grant a search warrant, and in the garage, police found the remains of a suspected methamphetamine lab.

Kansas City Star, April 5

Zachary G. Holloway, 20, and a pal were arrested in Springfield, Ill., and charged with breaking into one car (and stealing a motorcycle helmet) and attempting to break into another. To get into the second locked car, Holloway put on the helmet, stood back, and charged into it, head-butting a window. Unsuccessfully. Twice.

State Journal-Register (Springfield), September 5

American Hegemony in the Middle East: The Vagina Monologues was performed at a hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, by author Eve Ensler and a troupe of local actresses (bundled in their traditional clothing) to an audience of 150, who apparently loved it. "If [the play] can happen here, it can happen anywhere," said Ms. Hibaaq Osman, a Somali Muslim activist, who playfully renamed the capital city "Vaginabad." "Having these Pakistani women talking about vibrators [is] what it's all about."

Globe and Mail, March 17

Red Alert: Two American Legion posts and two other veterans' groups in Pleasanton, Calif., sponsored a class on dowsing to consider whether domestic terrorists could be identified by pointing sticks at suspicious people and seeing if the sticks move. Said one of the leaders: "You can't wait for the FBI and police to come up with solutions when you have the bad guys living among us."

Tri-Valley Herald, March 25

What We're Fighting For: In one of the first expressions of religious freedom just days after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell in Baghdad, Iraqi Shi'ite pilgrims in Karbala celebrated the long-suppressed holy martyrs' day of Shaoura by the traditional method of slashing their heads open and marching through the streets with their clothes soaked in blood.

Associated Press, April 22

Why People in Roanoke Rapids Do All Their Shopping at Food Lion: Michael Christopher Harris, 24, was arrested after he tried to pass a $200 bill emblazoned with a photo of George W. Bush at a convenience store in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. Then police found out that before that, he had gotten a cashier at a local Food Lion to actually accept one and give him back change.

WRAL-TV (Raleigh)-Associated Press, September 9

Cutting-Edge Law Enforcement: To accommodate the many activists who wished to be arrested protesting a visit by President Bush to Santa Fe, N.M., in May, police chief Beverly Lennen set up a system at the jail for reserving booking time in advance.

The New Mexican, May 10

Wiltshire County (England) police hand-delivered letters to 22 persistent criminals in January asking them, for the New Year, to please stop breaking the law.

FoxNews-Associated Press, January 24

Disability Checks: $39,000 a Year, Getting the Last Laugh: Priceless: Milwaukee police officer Robert Henry was fired in 2002 for beating up a suspect in an incident caught on videotape. He was reinstated on appeal, but then immediately filed for disability, citing the work-related stress of being fired for beating up a suspect. This year, Henry (who had four years' service) was granted permanent disability ($23,000 immediately, then $39,000 a year for 29 years, after which he gets the standard pension).

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 17

Hurricanes 2, Pat Robertson 0: Hurricane Isabel roared through Virginia Beach, Va., in September, inflicting serious property damage despite public calls for prayer to keep it away by local resident Pat Robertson, whose Christian Broadcasting Network is headquartered there. (In 1998, Robertson condemned the city of Orlando, Fla., for sponsoring the Gay Days festival, and warned the city that God could tear it up during hurricane season for promoting homosexuality. Instead, the first hurricane to make landfall in 1998, Bonnie, scored a direct hit on Virginia Beach.)

The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk), September 16

Fool for Client 3, Prosecutors 0: Between June and August, high school dropout Jonathan Harris acted as his own lawyer in three Philadelphia felony cases and won them all, including a murder trial that could have sent him to death row. He had two more charges pending and was overheard taunting the prosecutor about taking him on again.

Newsday-Associated Press, August 18

The Laws of Irony Are Strictly Enforced: The Pentagon, claiming an exception to the law, rejected a Freedom of Information Act request by a reporter to see an internal training video. The video was the 22-minute Freedom of Information Act/The People's Right to Know, for teaching Pentagon employees how to administer the Act.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune-Associated Press, February 13

A CIA-sponsored panel of scientists concluded that, despite the risks of potential terrorist uses of research, openness in scientific study was absolutely crucial. Three months later, the agency suppressed the panel's work as classified.

Federation of American Scientists Secrecy News, April 2

In March, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia accepted an award by the Cleveland City Club for his contributions to freedom of speech, which he accepted at a Club meeting that, at his request, was closed to television and radio.

CNN.com, March 19

The Republican Party Platform Is Silent on the Issue: Dr. Yogendra Shah of Granite City, Ill., was accused by a state regulatory board of performing an abortion on a woman who was not pregnant. She thought she was, but Dr. Shah, who had failed to test for pregnancy beforehand, found no fetal tissue during the procedure.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 1

Politics As Usual: Six candidates for city offices in Charleston, W.Va., misspelled their party affiliations in their official filing forms ("Democart," "Democrate," "Repbulican" and "Repucican").

Associated Press, January 16

In One Hour, Each Lawyer Would Make the Annual Poverty Rate for a Family of Four: Two Massachusetts law firms sued the state over the 1998 tobacco settlement, claiming that the $775-million in fees they were awarded by an arbitration panel was not enough. The firms say they are due $1.3-billion more under their original contract, although other law firms in the 46-state settlement so far have accepted the arbitrators' awards. A Massachusetts official said a $775-million fee works out to about $6,300 per lawyer-hour and a $2.075-billion fee to about $17,000 per lawyer-hour.

The New York Times, November 5

The Moral Authority of the United Nations: Dining-room workers at the U.N. staged a wildcat strike at lunchtime on May 2, causing the building's restaurants to be locked down, but a man whom Time magazine called a "high-ranking U.N. official" ordered them unlocked so that staff members could eat (perhaps to pay for food on the honor system). What ensued, according to Time, was "Baghdad style [looting] chaos," in which staff members ran wild, stripping the cafeterias and snack bars bare not only of food, but of liquor and silverware, none of it paid for, including bar drinks taken by "some well-known diplomats."

Time.com, May 3

Methadone: Don't Take on an Empty Stomach: A 37-year-old female inmate died at the Pine Grove Correctional Centre in Saskatchewan, Canada, from a toxic reaction to methadone that she had consumed by drinking the vomit of a fellow inmate who was on a methadone maintenance program. A coroner's inquest in March heard witness after witness describe inmates' practice of trading their methadone-laced vomit for various inmate favors, and the two inmates who admitted vomiting for the victim have since been additionally sentenced for drug trafficking.

Prince Albert (Saskatchewan) Daily Herald, March 4

The Gray Panther: Reserve defensive back Charlotte Chambers, who plays for the Orlando Starz of the Independent Women's (tackle) Football League, and who is 70 years old, was profiled by several publications. "You better hit me [first], because I'm laying you out," the 5-foot-4, 140-pound grandmother gave as her mantra. The New York Times-Associated Press, May 18

Those Overrated Monkeys: Plymouth (England) University, with a small Arts Council grant, could not quite test whether an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters could produce the works of Shakespeare, but did see what six Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys would do on a computer over a four-week period. They produced about five pages of text between them, mostly consisting of the letter S. According to lead professor Geoff Cox, they spent a lot of time sitting on the keyboard.

The Guardian, May 9

The Class-Action Money Tree: In a settlement between Sears and customers with improperly done wheel balancing, lawyers got $2.45-million, and customers got $2.50 a tire.

St.Louis Post-Dispatch, June 4

In a $3.7-million settlement between televangelist Jim Bakker's Praise The Lord Ministries and 165,000 defrauded Christians, lawyers got $2.5-million, and each victim got $6.54.

The Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), July 30

In a settlement of price-fixing charges against cosmetics manufacturers and retailers, lawyers got $24-million, and each customer got a free cosmetic.

San Francisco Chronicle, July 19

The Other America: West Point, Ky., hosted 12,000 visitors for the weekend- long Knob Creek Gun Range Machine Gun Shoot (with a separate competition for flame-throwers). The featured attraction was "The Line," where a limit of 60 people (the waiting list is 10 years long) get to fire their machine guns into a field of abandoned cars and boats and during which a shooter might run through $10,000 worth of ammunition. Among the Shoot's champions was Samantha Sawyer, 16, the top women's submachine gunner for the last four years. One man told the Louisville Courier-Journal that he met his wife at a previous Shoot, knowing that "if she could accept flame-throwing as a hobby, she could accept anything." Said another: "This is one of those times when you know this [the United States] is the greatest place on Earth."

Courier-Journal, October 19

Still, It Beats Having to Do Telemarketing: The Norwegian Newspaper VG's series on odd summer jobs included that of teenager Svein Tore Hauge, who, armed with a shovel and a container, works at Saerheim Plant Research, following cattle around and catching their excreta before it can hit the ground. Because the work-product is used for scientific study, it must be "pristine," free of grass, dirt, foreign bacteria, etc. Sometimes it's easy, he said, but, "Sometimes it just sprays in all directions."

Aftenposten (Oslo), June 25

Makes Texas Look Like Sweden: China's Yunnan province rolled out a fleet of 18 "mobile execution vehicles" to travel the countryside so that capital punishment (via lethal injection) could be imposed immediately upon the rendering of a guilty verdict.

Agence France-Presse, March 7

Chuck Shepherd, who lives in Tampa, writes the weekly syndicated column News of the Weird, which appears in Weekly Planet and at www.NewsoftheWeird.com.

This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2004.