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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True®
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2008's Weirdest Stories
Through the year (with *cough* occasional delays) I've posted the weirdest two stories of the month. It's time to announce the winner of the weirdest story "contest".
Free Weird Newsletter
Once I've written the last column for the year, it's a mad rush to choose the two December nominations, then get a voting form together, and then get the hidden voting URL out to the Premium subscribers to do the actual voting. And I have to give them a chance to read the voting request and vote: that's the several days where I sit drumming my fingers, and watch for duplicate votes.
(I make it clear that they can only vote for one story. Oddly, several seem to vote more than once. This year -- careful, you're about to hear someone slap their forehead really hard -- someone voted twelve times, since he apparently thought he was supposed to vote for the weirdest of each month. No... it's the weirdest story of the year competition, and there can only be one weirdest story! As threatened/promised, those who voted more than once had all their votes thrown out, but there were still hundreds of votes to get the results we needed.)
Of the 24 stories, 22 got at least one vote. But, as happened last year, there was a clear winner, which I'll get to in just a moment. First, there was some strong competition, which means several runners-up....
Fourth Runner-Up:
This is America in the 21st Century
"My whole career is in limbo," said a bewildered Jim Piculas. He had been a substitute teacher in Pasco County, Fla., for eight months until his boss, Pat Sinclair, called Piculas over a complaint about his time at Rushe Middle School in Land O' Lakes. "She said, 'You've been accused of wizardry'." Piculas says the week before, he did a brief magic trick for his class: he made a toothpick disappear. A piece of tape hid it behind his thumb, and a flick of his fingers brought it back into view. He then showed students how to do the trick. "The whole thing lasted 45 seconds," he said. But Sinclair told him he would not be hired by the district again. (Tampa Tribune) ...And Presto! With the flick of a pen a teacher disappeared.
Voter comments included:
- This sums up what's wrong with our educational system. It's no wonder our children don't know how to think critically. The people who are in charge of their education don't know how, either. --Janet, Kansas
- With a name like "Spell", I have to vote for the man accused of Wizardry! --Jon Spell, Utah
- Sheer institutionalized stupidity. --James, Ontario, Canada
- When all the real teachers are gone, will we have reached 1984? --Ed, Ohio
- This story left me speechless before (not an easy task) and it left me speechless when I saw it again. --Dan, Virginia
- Critical thinking is critically endangered! --Henry, Ontario, Canada
Third Runner-Up:
Committed to the Rage
Paula Small was driving in Gloucestershire, England, and had to swerve to avoid a collision when a woman in another car shot into the roadway without stopping. The offending car then stopped, so Small stopped to see what the fuss was. That's when the woman rammed Small's car, and then kept the pedal floored, spinning her tires wildly, which created so much friction it set the woman's car on fire. A witness tried to rescue the woman, but when he opened her door, "The person replied, 'F*** off, just f*** off' and she raised her right fist towards me in a threatening manner before slamming the door shut." Rather than get out of her car, Serena Sutton-Smith, 54, burned to death, which the coroner recorded as "accidental." (London Times) ..."There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed." -- Napoleon Bonaparte (French Emperor 1769-1821)
Voter comments included:
- Most of the others I can see the stupidity or over-zealous political correctness, and simply shake my head and give thanks that it's not me. This one is just rage rage rage, beyond the realms of sanity, and I just don't get how anyone could get into that place. --Deborah, Washington DC
- I think she got what she deserved. --Sandy, California
- All of the other stories 'I get' on some level. I can see how someone could do the things in the other stories. Even the ZT kind of stuff. But this one is just too weird. --Rachel, Arizona
- I really wonder what she was thinking, if 'thinking' is the right term at all. And I kind of hope it doesn't win.... --Hunter, West Virginia
Second Runner-Up:
Turnabout is Fair Play
When Roland Scott was confronted by a robber, the Baltimore, Md., man didn't stand for it, even though the robber was pointing a sawed-off shotgun at him. Scott grabbed the man's gun and got it away from him, and turned the tables. The robber, now looking down the business end of his own gun, was ordered to strip, and to hand over his money. The robber took off his clothes, and handed over $800. That apparently didn't satisfy Scott: he started beating the man. "He is beating him with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun," said detective Sgt. Dennis Rafferty Jr. While Scott was beating the man, the shotgun discharged -- shooting Scott in the stomach. He was killed; a witness corroborated the robber's story, and investigators are ruling Scott's death accidental. "You can't make this up. You just can't," Rafferty said. "It is sort of like one for the books." (Baltimore Sun) ...Mine, for sure -- Volume 14.
Voter comments included:
- I think, out of all the picks, this one's got to be the weirdest. --Octav, Romania
- Another tough call this year. I had to pick this one simply for the poetic justice of it all. --Bruce, Minnesota
- I can't get past the poetic justice (times two!) of the robber being beaten with his own gun, and the beater being killed while holding the barrel of a loaded gun and beating someone with it. --Mary, Georgia
First Runner-Up:
The Tomb of Stifled Patriotism
John Haines, a retired car dealer from Glenwood Springs, Colo., wanted to do his part: the marble Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has severe cracks, and he decided to take action. Haines commissioned a new piece of marble from the same Colorado quarry where the original was from, so it would match the original exactly. It took five years to find a perfect match, and it was cut in 2003. He paid $31,000 out of his own pocket for it, and even arranged free transportation for the slab to Washington D.C. But the replacement marble is still sitting at the quarry, since the government won't accept it. Instead, the Arlington National Cemetery has budgeted $2.2 million for the replacement project, $80,000 of which is solely to support the bidding process. "A citizen can't just give us any piece of marble and say, 'This is what we'll use to replace the tomb'," sniffed Arlington's deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham. "I understand how the government works," Haines said. "But there comes a point when you just say 'to hell with it'." (Denver Post) ...Mr. Haines, welcome to the tail of a long, long queue.
Voter comments included:
- Just goes to show, If a job is worth doing, the government will find a way to make sure it --Costs more than it should, --Takes longer than it should, --Breaks down before it should. And that a friend of the current incumbent will get the job and the maintenance contract. --Jim, U.K.
- This is probably not the "Weirdest" story, but I voted for it because it is the one that pissed -- Oops can't say that -- upset me the most of all the stories you had this year. It is a total reflection of what's wrong in D.C. --Ken, Ohio
- I almost did not vote for this story, since if the cemetery had accepted the marble that would have been more weird. --Jeffrey, Texas
- It stands out from all the others because it rouses by far the greatest response: anger! --HJ, Texas
The story was also made into a True video.
And the Winner Is...
How Embarrbutting
Web sites that import news feeds, but then automatically censor "objectionable" words, are sometimes committing "Clbuttic Mistakes". The term was coined when a site changed the word "classic" to "clbuttic" on the theory the word "butt" (for instance) is less objectionable than "ass". Prior to the 2008 Olympics, the American Family Association's news site automatically replaced a word in articles about sprinter Tyson Gay: "Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue," they reported, "sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has." Other mangled language has included "consbreastution", an article on "What did the British Embbutty do for this British National Overseas pbuttport holder," and a "series of previously secret Central Intelligence Agency plots to buttbuttinate foreign leaders." (London Telegraph) ...As if such urinevish buttaults on our language could protect anyone's chasbreasty.
Voter comments included:
- Part of me understands the reason people want content filters on their sites. Many of them have religious reasons for that, but as a religious person I resent others thinking I need help filtering content because I can't properly use the divinely designed content filter between my ears! --Jim, Oklahoma
- I studied computer science and can just imagine the morons that came up with this idea. "Oh, we can put a filter in place that will fix things real quickly!" I don't think they were quick enough, though... more like half-fast. (Say that last word out loud.) --Jarred, Washington
- I was enthusibuttic about the tagline. --Sonia, Colorado
- It's clear as glbutt, this consbreastutes proof that political correctness is low on buttets. Rather than political correctness, it's more like political correctum. --Jackie, California
- Once crbutt supersbreastion wins over a sound consbreastution it will lead us into the intellectual morbutt. --Frank, Germany
Not surprisingly, I also made this story into a video -- and I think I did a darned good job at keeping a straight face!
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Most Recent Comments
Posted by Michael in Cornwall, UK on January 12, 2009:
As examples of really serious cleaning up, has anyone ever come across a reference to Buttne Wenger, the manager of the English Premiership soccer team, Buttnal?
Posted by Paul, Oklahoma City on January 12, 2009:
I think the Third Runner Up: Committed to Rage and the Second Runner Up: Turnabout is Fair Play should both be nominated for the Darwin Award.
Posted by Tom, Port Townsend, Wash. on February 5, 2009:
"Political correctness" is being forced upon the language by people who probably don't understand English all that well in the first place. Meanwhile, I find these accounts breatillating. I wonder about a line from an old song that might well wind up "...when our hearts were young and homosexual" (from "Old Black Joe," I believe, although that may have since been changed to "Old African-American Joe"). I suppose next a crotchety old man such as I will have to be described as a groinety old man.