Alaskans Like ’Em Hairy

At the biennial World Beard and Moustache Championships in Anchorage, Alaska, four local heroes defeated the usually dominant German contingent. The 18-category pageant, which took place in May, included overall champ David Traver of Girdwood, Alaska, whose woven chin hair resembles a snowshoe. Traver said of the German competitors, "They were humble, and you have to respect that." One defending champ, California’s Jack Passion, fell short with his navel-length red hair, despite having authored The Facial Hair Handbook after his 2007 victory. Traver acknowledged that no money was at stake—only trophies and "bragging rights"—but added that there are "a lot of ladies" who fawn over men's facial hair. "Seriously, they exist."

Fun With Prisons

The head of Florida's Department of Corrections (DOC) admitted in May that at least 43 children (including a 5-year-old) who observed their parents' prison jobs as part of "Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day" in April were playfully zapped by 50,000-volt stun guns. DOC Secretary Walt McNeil said the demonstrations, which occurred in three of the state's 55 prisons, included 14 children who were individually shot (the rest of the kids took part in hand-holding circles to feel a passing current). Twenty-one employees were disciplined.

People Different From Us

When Christina Vanderclip dropped by the house of her former boyfriend, Travis Schneller, in Greeley, Colo., in June, she soon began to argue with him. According to police, Travis hit her and pulled her hair, then Travis' mother jumped on Christina's back and pulled her hair, and then Travis' younger brother and father, Robert, jumped on Christina, too, hitting and choking her. Christina managed to escape, and police, after a six-hour standoff, entered the home and arrested the entire Schneller family.

Least Competent Criminals

(1) Jose Villarreal, charged in Georgetown, Texas, with assaulting his girlfriend, decided to reject the prosecutor's offer of five years in prison and take his chances at trial. In May, the jury deliberated one minute before finding Villarreal guilty, and he received 16 years in prison. (2) Charles Dumas, 37, insisted that he was innocent of raping a young girl in 1998, even though he had been convicted of the crime and sentenced to 10-years-to-life. After years of Dumas asking for a DNA test, prosecutors finally relented earlier this year. Dumas told a reporter from The Columbus Dispatch: "This test means my life. It's my last chance to prove to my children I didn't do this." In May, the results came back and confirmed that Dumas was guilty.

Look What I Found

(1) Rescuers searching for a missing tourist on China's Taishan Mountain in April failed to find him, but they did discover seven corpses. (2) Los Angeles Police detectives, frustrated that a 1980s-era South Los Angeles serial rapist/killer is still at large, set out to painstakingly trawl for DNA from all unregistered sex offenders who have come through the system since then. They came up with nothing to match those crimes, but in late March they matched DNA to a different cold-case serial killer, the "Westside Rapist" from the 1970s, and arrested John Floyd Thomas Jr., now 72.

Recurring Themes

Drivers Run Over By Their Own Cars: (1) An allegedly inebriated 21-year-old man in Santa Fe, N.M., shifted into reverse, thinking it was "park," and fell out the driver's door (November). (2) An allegedly inebriated 52-year-old man in Tobyhanna, Pa., ran over himself after falling out of his truck while trying to reach the controls of the access fence at his gated community (May). (3) A 56-year-old woman in Santa Monica, Calif., was killed when she left her stalled car in "drive" while she crawled underneath to determine why it wouldn't start. She accidentally triggered the starter with a screwdriver, and the car drove over her (May).

A News of the Weird Classic (September 2005)

On a hot day in July 2005 in Stamford, Conn., firefighters not only had to break a car window to save a young child, but they also had to overcome the car's owner, who couldn't bear to see her Audi A4 damaged. The then-23-month-old son of Susan Guita Silverstein, then 42, had been locked inside the car by accident, along with the key, for at least 20 minutes on a sweltering, 88-degree day. Silverstein, who was later charged with reckless endangerment, begged firefighters to wait for her to go home and retrieve her spare key instead of breaking a window on the car.

c. 2009 Chuck Shepherd

REPLY TO THIS COMMENT

anonymous

Hi Chuck, I have a red hot news tip for you. This is so "HOT" it just might burn you. So be extra careful. The film that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin made in 1967 in Northern California at Bluff Creek of Bigfoot was real. Here is what they filmed 42 years ago on that October day. Long before Jesus was born there were thousands of slaves that ran off around the world and started their own countries. When these slaves ran off there was a large group of men and boys of all different ages and sizes that took off and ended up in Africa. Some of them were giants as tall as 9 ft. or even taller. The giant name Goliath that David killed with his slingshot was 9 ft. tall. So there were giant men back then. Some of these men and boys went exploring to Borneo and caught female Orangutans and took them to South America and had sex with them and created the American Indian. The men and boys that stayed in Africa caught female Gorillas and had sex with them and created the African American. When scientists found the bones in Africa they thought we evolved from a female Chimpanzee. But it wasn't a natural evolution it was a man made evolution. That's where Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Orangutan Man and the Skunk Ape comes from. They are half man and half Gorilla and half man and half Orangutan. They use to call the American Indian the red man. The Orangutan has reddish hair. When those men bred out the hair the American Indian's skin remained red. The Gorilla has black hair and skin. When those men bred out the hair the African American's skin remained black. Some of the American Indians and African Americans are very tall. And so are some of the Bigfoots. They are tall because some of the men that created them were tall. Some scientists believe that we evolved from a female Chimpanzee. Have you ever seen an 8 ft. tall Chimpanzee? I haven't either. If you look at the nose of an African American you will notice that their nose is wide like a Gorilla's nose. When Jesse Owens went to Germany for the Olympics Adolf Hitler started complaining because Jesse Owens was winning all the events. So he told the officials that he wanted to have Jesse Owens examined by an anthropologist. When the anthropologist was finished examining Jesse Owens he went back to Adolf Hitler and told him that in his opinion Jesse Owens was more animal than he was human. So Adolf Hitler told the officials that his people could not win against a Cheeta. The creature that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed in 1967 was half man and half Gorilla. It was a female Bigfoot and they named her Patty. Patty was not a man in a costume, she is not our missing link and she is not a figment of our imagination. Patty was simply a creature that was created by men that had sex with female Gorillas and Orangutans a long time ago. Jesus

Alaskans Like ’Em Hairy

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