Maggots ARE TOO Edible!

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.



A shopper who complained to a supermarket after finding maggots in her tinned tomatoes was told the grubs are eaten in some countries.
Angela Farr, from Crewe, was having her lunch when she sliced into a tomato to find the maggots.

The 38-year-old said she instantly felt sick and that she suffered from an upset stomach for five days.

When she complained to Morrisons, where she had bought the 11p can of tomatoes, Mrs Farr received a letter from the company's loss adjustors telling her maggots are edible.

'Not poisonous'

The letter read: "We do not believe that any ingestion of the maggots would cause food poisoning and certainly not for five days.

"We do not believe the maggots would have been poisonous and they are indeed eaten in some countries.

"Your illness could have been caused by other sources, such as an airborne virus."

£10 voucher

Mrs Farr had returned the tin to the store where she was refunded the price of the tomatoes and offered a £10 voucher.

A spokesman for Morrisons said: "We are extremely disappointed in the way this complaint was handled by our loss adjustors and we will be contacting Mrs Farr to make amends.

"Again, we would like to apologise to the customer."
~~~~

I found this in a recipe on the web for boiled maggots!

"All I ever do is boil them, thoroughly. Sometimes I get a little white foam on the top of the boiling water, This stuff has an interesting odor. If you want to taste it, it's good to have a cold. Either way, the flavor of the foam isn't bad though I prefer to skim it off. The dogs love it! Usually the maggots I collect are from range cattle who've died over the winter. In addition to the maggots I often find the carcass's contain good material for other uses...

Alligator Bites Boy's Head, Drags Him Underwater

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.
DELTONA, Fla. -- A 12-year-old boy fought off a 7-foot alligator that clamped down on his head and dragged him underwater, according to Local 6 News.



Malcolm Locke was swimming in Lake Diana Wednesday when he noticed an alligator swimming toward him.

The boy tried to swim back to shore but the alligator attacked his head and pulled him underwater, said Joy Hill, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Locke said the alligator clamped down and wrapped its tail around the boy's stomach before pulling him down.

"I thought I was going to get swallowed up," Locke told Local 6 News.

Locke fought the alligator off by
punching it and swam to shore.

A neighbor drove the boy to Florida Hospital in Orange City where he was being treated for cuts and lacerations. The alligator bit off a chunk of his ear but Locke's injuries were not life-threatening.

A trapper was sent to the lake to remove the alligator.

The best thing to do during an alligator attack is struggle, make noise and create confusion, Hill said.

"Malcolm did the right thing," Hill said. "He fought the alligator and it let him go."

Woman Bites Snake’s Head Off

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

A Florida woman’s been arrested for allegedly biting the head off a friend’s pet python. Wheelchair-user Cynthia Christensen, of Spring Hill, was with a group of friends when the incident happened.

The 46-year-old asked her friend if she could hold the python, and then told the group she was going to bite its head off.

When the snake’s owner turned around moments later, she saw the reptile dangling from Christensen’s hand with its head missing, reports the St. Petersburg Times.

While she didn’t see the incident, her boyfriend who was watching from a nearby house, told police he saw Christensen bite the snake. She told officers the snake had bitten her but then changed her story to say a dog had attacked it.

Christensen has been charged with cruelty to animals. If convicted she faces being fined and jailed for as long as five years.

Cook Spices Up Sandwiches with Semen

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

A former cook at an Illinois restaurant has been ordered to stand trial after putting his semen in sandwiches.

Police said that Anthony J. Lindhorst, of Waterloo, Illinois, deliberately contaminated food on at least two occasions by putting his semen into honey-mustard dressing.

A police spokeswoman said 26-year-old Lindhorst targeted "people that he didn't like, for one reason or another."

He's been charged with aggravated battery and will stand trial on four counts, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

One of the victims was a woman in her early 40s. The other was a male police officer who had issued a traffic ticket to Lindhorst.

Police said Lindhorst had worked at the restaurant for about a year until he was sacked in April for bringing brownies to work that he had baked with marijuana.

Lindhorst served the brownies to two co-workers and that two of the aggravated battery charges stem from that incident.

Mouse Chewing Contest

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Pub 'sorry' for mouse-chewing contest

A Brisbane pub has apologised for staging a mice-chewing contest.

The Exchange Hotel staged the contest in which live mice were chewed up and spat out by contestants to try to win a holiday.

The owners of the pub said they were unaware of the "appalling incident", reports the Herald Sun.

The incident outraged the RSPCA which wants to prosecute the two men involved for animal cruelty.

RSPCA chief inspector Byron Hall said those involved faced fines of up to $75,000 and two years in prison.

The Exchange Hotel issued a statement condemning the incident and promising an end to Jackass-style competitions.

"We are embarrassed this incident occurred at our hotel," said the hotel's senior manager Scott Agnew.

"The offensive part of the promotion was conducted without the knowledge of our senior management and after this incident was brought to our attention we immediately made changes to stop such unacceptable behaviour."

Eating Boogers: It's what's for dinner!

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Top doc backs picking your nose and eating it.

Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor.

Innsbruck-based lung specialist Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who pick their noses with their fingers were healthy, happier and probably better in tune with their bodies.

He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage children to take it up.

Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.

"And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system.

"Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it works just like a medicine.

"Modern medicine is constantly trying to do the same thing through far more complicated methods, people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost to their immune system for free."

He pointed out that children happily pick their noses, yet by the time they have become adults they have stopped under pressure from a society that has branded it disgusting and anti social.

He said: "I would recommend a new approach where children are encouraged to pick their nose. It is a completely natural response and medically a good idea as well."

And he pointed out that if anyone was really worried about what their neighbour was thinking, they could still enjoy picking their nose in private if they still wanted to get the benefits it offered.

Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap


Tired of waking up and having to wait for your morning java to brew? Are you one of those groggy early morning types that just needs that extra kick? Know any programmers who don't regularly bathe and need some special motivation? Introducing Shower Shock, the original and world's first caffeinated soap from ThinkGeek. When you think about it, ShowerShock is the ultimate clean buzz ;)

Shower Shock is an all vegetable based glycerine soap which does *not* contain any harsh ingredients like ethanol, diethanolamine, polyethylene glycol or cocyl isethionate. So it's a gently invigorating soap ;) Scented with peppermint oil and infused with caffeine anhydrous, each bar of Shower shock contains approximately 12 servings/showers per 4 ounce bar with 200 milligrams of caffeine per serving. No, we're not kidding and no you don't eat it. The caffeine is absorbed through the skin...

Top 5 Wierd Sex Laws

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.


In Connorsville, Wisconsin no man shall shoot off a gun while his female partner is having a sexual orgasm.


A law in Fairbanks, Alaska does not allow moose to have sex on the city streets.


An ordinance in Newcastle, Wyoming, specifically bans couples from having sex while standing inside a meat freezer.


The only acceptable position in Washington D.C. is the missionary style position. Any other one is illegal.


In the state of Washington there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances. (Including the wedding night)

Chocolate Cigarettes

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

BAT tests chocolate cigarettes
From correspondents in London
03jun04

TOBACCO giant British American Tobacco (BAT) has been testing cigarettes flavoured with substances such as chocolate and wine, a report said today.

The experiments - reported by the Independent newspaper, in turn citing specialist journal Food and Chemical Toxicology - were condemned by anti-smoking campaigners as an apparent attempt to make tobacco more appealing to young people.
Among the flavourings tested by BAT, whose brands include Kent, Dunhill, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall, were chocolate, wine, sherry, cherry juice and vanilla, the newspaper said.

British anti-tobacco lobby Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) reacted with fury, labelling the tests "appalling".

"These are just the sort of ingredients that could make cigarettes more attractive to children. Why would they want to test these sort of additives?" ASH director Deborah Arnold told the paper.

In the trials, 482 different flavours were tested on laboratory rats in Canada - tobacco tests on live animals are banned in Britain - to see if the additives had any different impact on health than ordinary cigarettes.

A BAT spokesman told the Independent that tiny quantities of some flavourings such as cocoa butter were already used in certain brands.

These had been included for years but the amounts were so small that smokers could not detect them, he said, dismissing the notion that the company aimed to attract children with new flavourings.

"Anybody who might attempt to claim that they are added to appeal to youth are barking mad because cigarettes taste like cigarettes," he said.

Satanic Ritual Blamed for Death of Italian Teens

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Satanic Ritual Blamed for Death of Italian Teens
By Rachel Sanderson

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian magistrate warned against the growing lure of Antichrist cults in Catholic Italy Monday after the discovery of the bodies of two teenagers killed in a satanic sacrifice.

Police announced at the weekend they had uncovered the bodies of 19-year-old Chiara Marino and 16-year-old Fabio Tollis, last seen in January 1998 leaving a pizzeria with other members of their heavy metal rock band "Beasts of Satan."

As forensic experts searched the two meter (six foot six inches) deep grave in a wood in northern Italy, police said they had arrested four of the band members for murdering the pair for a human sacrifice.

"It is a crime with a level of cruelty and savagery, with an intent to cause extreme pain through ritual activity, that I have never seen before in my career," chief investigating magistrate Antonio Pizzi told Reuters.


"There was a very specific ritual with very specific rites and at the end of that Chiara and Fabio were killed."


Italian media said witness statements showed Marino and Tollis died during a cocaine-fueled ritual where Marino, a petite brunette, was killed under a full moon by knife plunged into her heart.


Tollis, the lead singer of the band, was killed with a hammer blow to the head when he realized the other band members were going ahead with Marino's murder and tried to stop it.


BLACK CANDLES AND GOATS' SKULLS


The deaths have horrified Catholic Italy, home of Vatican City, with pages of newspapers given over to descriptions of the black candles and goats' skulls decorating Marino's bedroom and witness statements of sexual violence.


What has fueled the fear are suggestions the double sacrifice near the town of Busto Arsizio may not be isolated.


"Four people have been arrested for the murder of the two teenagers, but the investigations are ongoing. We are looking at other levels of involvement," Pizzi said.


One of those arrested in the double murder is already in prison for the murder of a former girlfriend.


As many as 5,000 people are thought to be members of satanic cults in Italy with 17- to 25-year-olds making up three quarters of them, officials say.


"The phenomenon always existed in Catholic countries where the figure of Satan is prominent in teachings as the alter-ego of Christ," La Sapienza University professor Maria Matioti said.


"What has changed is the age of those involved, who are younger," she said.


She said satanic cults tended to be found in northern Italy, where traditional family communities had been split up due to migration to find work, leaving some people demoralized and isolated. "In the south, people are more open," she said.


Pizzi said investigators were looking into the possibility the "Beasts of Satan" band members were instructed by Satanists in their late 20s or early 30s. He said police were also reviewing two suspicious suicides in the area.


"I am convinced there are others involved in this," Michele Tollis, father of Fabio told RAI state television.

Cheesy artist installs bed of ham

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.


Cosimo Cavallaro regards his finished work of art, a bed with more than 300 pounds of sliced ham, at a gallery in New York. (AP /Tina Fineberg)
NEW YORK (AP) - An artist best known for decorative cheese has broadened his palette - or palate - to ham.

Cosimo Cavallaro, who once repainted a New York hotel room in melted mozzarella, has covered a bed in processed ham. "I feel like I am back in my mother's deli," the Montreal-raised artist said Thursday.

His installation in a street-level gallery space of the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan involved slicing 140 kilograms of ham and tossing the meat atop a four-poster bed. The installation, which took 3 1/2 hours, will be kept in the air-conditioned room for two days.

At noon, Cavallaro, a burly man with long unkempt hair and a beard, was busy working a chrome meat slicer, similar to one he had used as a youth working summers in his mother's delicatessen.

Outside, pedestrians stopped to peer in through the glass. Some called the project a waste of food, but nearby delis were said to be picking up business because the mounds of meat seemed to trigger appetites.

Cavallaro, 41, the son of immigrants from southern Italy, grew up in Montreal and now lives in Brooklyn.


He asked his mother, who still lives in Montreal, not to attend the installation. "She would want to get in on the act," he said.

Gallery director Matthew Semler said he booked the exhibit for the fun of it. "This isn't work, it's play. That's what Cos does," he said, referring to the artist.

Cavallaro says his cheese period ended two years ago.

J.Lo Reportedly Weds Singer Marc Anthony

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Jennifer Lopez reportedly married Marc Anthony in a small ceremony at her home, less than six months after she ended her high-profile engagement to Ben Affleck.

Both Us Weekly and People magazines reported Saturday's nuptials. Lopez's spokesman Rob Shuter told The Associated Press on Sunday that he had no immediate comment, and neither magazine published comment from either Shuter or a representative for Anthony.

For Lopez, 34, the marriage would mark her third - the first was to waiter Ojani Noa in 1997, the second to dancer Cris Judd in 2001. Noa lasted a little more than a year; Judd for nine months.

Anthony, the Latin singing sensation, just divorced former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres last week in the Dominican Republic. The pair, wed in 2000, have two young sons, and he has a daughter from a previous relationship.


Lopez - the singer-actress-fashonista more famously known as J.Lo - has kept her romance with Anthony, 34, decidedly more low-key than her engagement to Ben Affleck, which was a magnet for tabloid attention. The 18-month "Bennifer" romance featured a near-wedding, but it was scuttled at the last minute with the couple blaming excessive media attention.

Lopez also famously dated Sean "P. Diddy" Combs - back when he was still "Puffy" - for two years before the couple broke up in February 2001.

It was unclear when Anthony and Lopez were engaged. The two first dated in 1999 and had been seen together since Lopez's split from Affleck. Lopez had reportedly been wearing a dazzling new diamond engagement ring for several weeks.

White tents and an altar were set up outside Lopez's house on Saturday, with folding chairs on both sides of an aisle, Us reported. The two were married shortly after 6 p.m. before about 40 guests, Us reported. Lopez reportedly wore Neil Lane jewelry and a dress with a veil. Lopez's mother, Guadalupe, arrived at the event in a limousine with Anthony, "Entertainment Tonight" reported.

Anthony and Lopez were both born in New York.

Us reported that Saturday's wedding was coordinated by Sharon Sachs, who also planned Lopez's wedding to Judd and the canceled wedding to Affleck in Santa Barbara.

Lopez was on screen most recently as Affleck's wife in "Jersey Girl." She dies minutes into the film.

Anthony, a salsa superstar who has also had crossover success, is releasing a Spanish album, "Amar Sin Mentiras," on Tuesday. He has also dabbled in acting, and appeared in the recent Denzel Washington film "Man on Fire."

Soul of a Dead Fisherman

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Senior year of college-1978

That year there were 4 anthropology students that took an independent study class and we did very well. To celebrate our success and graduations our anthropology professor invited us to his home for dinner. We had a feast with him and his wife. The best part of the night was at end when we all got a surprise from our professor. He had a gift for each of us. Not just any gift but an anthropological gift. A gift from his travels and studies down in Suriname. In this past post, Floating Down the Amazon in a Dugout Canoe, I mentioned some general detail about the indigenous people he studied.

The population he studied believed in animism. A little bit about is listed below. I do not recall what anyone else got but I could never forget mine.

Basic Beliefs of Animism
In anthropology, animism can be considered to be the original human religion, being defined simply as belief in the existence of spiritual beings. It dates back to the earliest humans and continues to exist today, making it the oldest form of religious belief on Earth. It is characteristic of aboriginal and native cultures, yet it can be practiced by anyone who believes in spirituality but does not proscribe to any specific organized religion. The basis for animism is acknowledgment that there is a spiritual realm which humans share the universe with. The concepts that humans possess souls and that souls have life apart from human bodies before and after death are central to animism, along with the ideas that animals, plants, and celestial bodies have spirits.

Animistic gods often are immortalized by mythology explaining the creation of fire, wind, water, man, animals, and other natural earthly things. Although specific beliefs of animism vary widely, similarities between the characteristics of gods and goddesses and rituals practiced by animistic societies exist. The presence of holy men or women, visions, trancing, dancing, sacred items, and sacred spaces for worship, and the connection felt to the spirits of ancestors are characteristic of animistic societies.

I got a hand carved gourd. Not just any gourd but a gourd that contained the soul of a dead fisherman. That night he told all of us the story of the gourd. This is what he said.

He had been living with a family in Suriname and became a member of the family chewing and spitting betel with the best of them. One of the family who was a fisherman died. Because of the animism exorcisms were held whenever someone died to capture their soul.

On a side note he had brought in a tape of a possession into class for our Magic, Ritualism and Symbolism class a year earlier and played it. It was the most awful thing you would ever want to hear as it was real. Linda Blair does not even compare. He said that the shaman held a small bowl of water in his outstretched hand for as long as he could. All the time he was chanting and praying. The soul of the deceased family member would be captured when one drop of the water in the bowl spilled over the side. After 15 minutes of listening to demonic sounds there was a loud yell and silence. Gary told us that the drop of water had spilled over the side and the soul had been captured. He told us the soul was placed in a gourd for safe keeping in the home. That was a year before the dinner. Who knew or even remembered that? Not me. Until I was reminded that night.

Gary was on his way back to America when this family member died and since he had become like a brother to this man, the family presented the gourd to him for safekeeping since he was leaving and may not be back. He accepted his friends soul and kept that gourd for about 15 years. Now he was presenting it to me. I was speechless. After my "thing that was darker than dark" scare, I did not need the soul of a dead fisherman to stay with me forever.

He said that he could not ever get rid of the gourd unless he was able to present it to someone else who would understand the meaning and take care of it. I was honored and just a little leary. I accepted the soul. I still have the soul. I take good care of that soul. The gourd itself has been designed so that the top of the gourd acts as a lid attached with some sort of native twine. Throughout the years whenever I have had to move, the gourd was the first thing packed and traveled with me in the car. It has a permanent location of the highest bookshelf away from the cat. I have never even thought about throwing it away for fear of some strange thing happening with soul.

I have told others about this story and offered them the soul. Noone wants it. They are all fearful. My mother says I need to take it to our minister and let him say a few words over it and then quietly bury it in a cemetery. I do not know it that is the right thing to do either. Only one person has been interested in it and it was a former co-worker who was a wiccan. I had no idea she was a wiccan until I told that story. She said she needed that gourd. I refused to bring it to her. Who knows what would have happened to the soul or to me. Come on, noone needs a soul.

Thoughout the years strange things have happened with the gourd. As I said earlier, it has a permanent home on a shelf and is never touched. Sometimes when I come home the lid of the gourd is off. I put it back on. Some months later the lid will be off again. I put it back on. Finally, I took 2 very small pieces of scotch tape and taped each side closed. The lid has not been off since. During the years when the lid was coming off on its own I lived alone so there was no way anyone else could have removed the lid. It was very creepy! I live with the soul of a dead fisherman. I do not think I will be able to find anyone else to pass it on to.

Anyone interested in a gourd containing the soul of a dead fisherman?

Caption this Photo!

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Odd Books

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.


Just a few odd books to read over the summer! Also a little about Jeff Noon, author of most of the books below.

Jeff Noon
Jeff Noon was born in 1957 in Droylsden, a small town near Manchester, England. Prior to the publication of his debut novel in 1993, Noon had worked as a playwright, bookseller, and performer – both as a musician in punk bands and staging his own one-man shows. His current output, which encompasses novels, novellas and collections of short fiction, is characterized by emotional intensity and linguistic innovation.
Noon’s versatile prose is marked by musicality. He has a fine ear for natural speech, and uses a lot of dialogue in all of his works. Music, on the other hand, is not only ever-present in the stories themselves, but also suggests new ways of storytelling. The rhythms created by sound and silence, be it in the space of a single paragraph or that of an entire work, punctuate the narrative.
Often, Noon centers his novels around a single object. This object, be it a feather or a grain of pollen, is subjected to incessant repetition and extrapolation, until it becomes linked with nearly everything within a given work. When one takes into account Noon’s rich use of allusion (both to his own works as well as those of Lewis Carroll and Jorge Luis Borges), it is not surprising to find that he has managed to create a network of powerful visual motifs. It might not be going too far to claim that something akin to a private vocabulary has begun to emerge; a chamber of echoes where everyday words embrace new layers of meaning and association.

Stopping Alien Abduction

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.


Some general things I read were to:

*Leave bright light on.
*Use a warning buzzer that will alarm you if the power goes off.
*If you have floor fans turn them all on with air-stream directed away from you.
*Spread salt all around your bed.
*Sleep with iron bars nearby or preferably, next to you.
*Pray and sleep with religious book, picture, etc around you.
*Visualize white light surrounding adn protecting you.

You can always buy an abduction insurance policy! I think it is $19.95.


And of course take all of this with a grain of salt and use at your own risk!

Angels

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

There are many voices in the angelic spirit world. We need to be able to discern whether the voice comes from our personal angel or from a fallen angel or destructive spirit.
Where there is a force for the good and the light there is always an opposite force of darkness close at hand. This darker force often manifests as disquiet, anxiety and depression. We can be healed by making contact with our personal angel and by developing the knowledge that it is truly our personal angel.

Angel Links:

Sylvia Browne

Angels Good and Bad

ParaWeb Online Psychics

Very Virtual Voodoo

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Need to take care of business? Try Very Virtual Voodoo

Use at your own risk. I know nothing about voodoo but apparently rumor has it that whatever you do to others comes back to you 2 or 3 times the power.

Scary!

SNOWBALL THE KILLER GOAT

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Carl Hulsey was determined to turn his white billy goat, Snowball, into a watchdog, whether Snowball wanted to be one or not. To that end, 77-year-old Hulsey, a retired poultry worker from Canton, Georgia, took to beating Snowball with a stick to make him more aggressive. "Pa, this goat's going to kill you if you keep that up," Alma Hulsey warned her husband. She was right.

On 16 May 1991, Hulsey once again approached the goat, brandishing a stick. This time Snowball landed the first blow. The 110-pound goat attacked his tormentor, butting Hulsey in the stomach, twice knocking him down. Hulsey scrambled onto the porch in an effort to get away. The goat bounded up the steps after him. While Alma Hulsey watched, Snowball rammed his master over the edge. Hulsey fell to the ground five feet below and died where he landed. "Blunt trauma to the abdominal cavity," said the coroner. Snowball had ruptured Hulsey's stomach.

As a dangerous animal who might harm another, by rights Snowball should have been put down. Once the goat's story was known, however, the officials who were to decide Snowball's fate were inundated with pleas to spare the creature. More than 500 protesters from around the nation called Cherokee County animal control after it was announced Snowball might be put to death. Many offered to adopt Snowball.

Some even made death threats. "What happens to the goat happens to you," one caller reportedly warned. There was also talk of a bomb being planted if the goat didn't walk.

Snowball got his reprieve. He was turned over to Noah's Ark, a private animal shelter for neglected and abused animals in Locust Grove, a little town south of Atlanta. Four hours after his arrival, he was laid on a kitchen table and neutered, an operation intended to make him less aggressive. He was also rechristened "Snow".

Why this furor over a goat and the seeming lack of concern for the man whose life it had ended? In the small community Hulsey had been part of, he was well and truly mourned. Yet outside that pocket of acquaintance, sentiment ran the other way -- many animal lovers saw a certain divine justice in his fate. He'd brought harm to an animal, and the animal had struck back.

As Tom Teepen, editor of the editorial pages of The Atlanta Constitution, noted:

We are keener to understand and spare an abused goat than an abused human. Indeed, when a human kills, we sneer at his defense as a dodge -- 'Yeah, yeah sure, his mother didn't love him' - yet we are sentimental about killer goats. We are a very strange animal.

Man Decapitated While Fleeing Police

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

*****WARNING---GRAPHIC IMAGE FOLLOWS*****

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 16 February 2003
A narcotics traffic stop on the Downtown Connector turned deadly Saturday afternoon when a man climbed over the interstate railing, fell about 35 feet and was decapitated on a wrought-iron fence, Atlanta police said.

Officers in a marked car stopped the man about 4:30 p.m., as he drove south on the interstate above Auburn Avenue. The man, who has not been identified, stopped his vehicle and tried to flee by climbing over the railing, Lt. Danny Agan said.

Police still are investigating whether the man jumped or fell off the raised interstate.

"This is a new one for me in 29 years," Agan said.

The decapitation shocked people who work in the neighborhood. Gary White, an income tax preparer, came out of his office when he heard the commotion. "It's surreal," White said.

Agan said narcotics officers had been trailing the man for much of the day.

Agan did not know if the officers who tried to arrest the man would be placed on administrative leave. "This is not something normally covered under the [standard operating procedure] of the department," he said.

Mike The Headless Chicken

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

September 10th, 1945 finds a strapping (but tender) five and a half month old Wyandotte rooster pecking through the dust of Fruita, Colorado. The unsuspecting bird had never looked so delicious as he did that, now famous, day. Clara Olsen was planning on featuring the plump chicken in the evening meal. Husband Lloyd Olsen was sent out, on a very routine mission, to prepare the designated fryer for the pan. Nothing about this task turned out to be routine.Lloyd knew his Mother in Law would be dining with them and would savor the neck. He positioned his ax precisely, estimating just the right tolerances, to leave a generous neck bone. "It was as important to Suck-Up to your Mother in Law in the 40's as it is today." A skillful blow was executed and the chicken staggered around like most freshly terminated poultry.

When Olsen found Mike the next morning, sleeping with his "head" under his wing, he decided that if Mike had that much will to live, he would figure out a way to feed and water him. With an eyedropper Mike was given grain and water. It was becoming obvious that Mike was special. A week into Mike's new life Olsen packed him up and took him 250 miles to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The skeptical scientists were eager to answer all the questions regarding Mike's amazing ability to survive with no head. It was determined that ax blade had missed the jugular vein and a clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of his head was in a jar, most of his brain stem and one ear was left on his body. Since most of a chicken's reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem Mike was able to remain quite healthy.

In the 18 months that Mike lived as "The Headless Wonder Chicken" he grew from a mere 2 1/2 lbs. to nearly 8 lbs. In a Gayle Meyer interview Olsen said Mike was a "robust chicken - a fine specimen of a chicken except for not having a head." Some longtime Fruita residents, gathered at the Monument Cafe for coffee, also remember Mike - "he was a big fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head" - "he seemed as happy as any other chicken." Mike's excellent state of health made it difficult for animal-rights activists to garner much of a following. Even now the town of Fruita celebrates Mike's impressive will to live, not the nature of his handicap. Miracle Mike took on a manager, and with the Olsens in tow, set out on a national tour. Curious sideshow patrons in New York, Atlantic City, Los Angeles, and San Diego lined up to pay 25 cents to see Mike. The "Wonder Chicken" was valued at $10,000.00 and insured for the same. His fame and fortune would earn him recognition in Life and Time Magazines. It goes without saying there was a Guinness World Record in all this. While returning from one of these road trips the Olsens stopped at a motel in the Arizona desert. In the middle of the night Mike began to choke. Unable to find the eyedropper used to clear Mike's open esophagus Miracle Mike passed on.

Contorsionists

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Ska von Schöning, is an amazing woman who has created many of the best contortion acts in modern history. She does it all ... including training, choreographing, managing, and directing. She has taken a very active role in the community of contortion enthusiasts who use the Internet. She has also organized the most impressive events in history to showcase contortion talent ... the ICC 1998 and the ICC 2000. We here at the CHP are anxiously awaiting the upcoming ICC 2003. We are sure that it will be an event to remember. And, last but not least, Ska has also organized a scholarship program to help contortionists from countries with poor economies. The above photo of Albana shows the first recipient of the scholarship. Enough can not be said about Ska's contribution to the betterment of contortion. She is bringing the beauty and artistry of contortion to people from all over the world.

Eye Ball Piercing

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Body piercing and tattoos make way. The latest fashion trend to hit the Netherlands is eyeball jewelry.

Dutch eye surgeons have implanted tiny pieces of jewelry called “JewelEye” in the mucous membrane of the eyes of six women and one man in cosmetic surgery pioneered by an ophthalmic surgery research and development institute in Rotterdam.

The procedure involves inserting a 0.13 inch wide piece of specially developed jewelry -- the range includes a glittering half-moon or heart -- into the eye’s mucous membrane under local anaesthetic at a cost of $610 to $1,232.

“In my view it is a little more subtle than (body) piercing. It is a bit of a fun thing and a very personal thing for people,” said Gerrit Melles, director of the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery.

The piece of jewelry is inserted in the conjunctiva -- the mucous membrane lining the inner surface of the eyelids and front of the eyeball -- in sterile conditions using an operating microscope in a procedure taking about 15 minutes.

“Without doing any harm to the eye we can implant a jewel in the conjunctiva,” Melles said. “So far we have not seen any side effects or complications and we don’t expect any in the future.”

The Rotterdam-based institute, which develops new ocular surgical techniques in corneal, cataract and retinal surgery, developed and patented the jewelry made with special materials and the surgical procedure.

The institute, which carries out the procedure in cooperation with an eye clinic near the city of Utrecht, said it has a waiting list for people who wanted the implant.

Man Commits Suicide After Sex with Hen

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Fri May 28, 2004 10:50 AM ET

LUSAKA (Reuters) - A 50-year-old Zambian man has hanged himself after his wife found him having sex with a hen, police said Friday.
The woman caught him in the act when she rushed into their house to investigate a noise.

"He attempted to kill her but she managed to escape," a police spokesman said.

The man from the town of Chongwe, about 50 km (30 miles) east of Lusaka, killed himself after being admonished by other villagers.

The hen was slaughtered after the incident.

Teacher Blinds Pupils with Anti-Lice Shampoo

Freakish things and people are plentiful--all over the world.

Jun 2, 11:04 am ET

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - A Peruvian school teacher blinded four of her pupils and left 20 suffering from severe eye irritation after she used a traditional hair shampoo to wash away hair lice, parents of the children and medical staff said Tuesday.
The state school teacher used a mixture of alcohol and seeds from the cherimoya fruit on the children, aged between 4 and 5 years old, Monday to rid a local bout of hair lice in the remote coastal town of Paijan, 355 miles north of Lima.

The mixture had run down into the children's eyes and "has affected four children who cannot see. It has damaged their retinas," an assistant nurse at a hospital in Paijan, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

The children were taken to a hospital in the provincial capital of Trujillo for treatment, the nurse said. The four are totally blinded, but doctors have yet to determine whether this is permanent. One parent, Natividad Mendoza, told RPP radio 20 other children had suffered serious eye irritation from the shampoo.

The anti-lice remedy is used along the impoverished coastal towns of northern Peru. Locals boil the cherimoya seeds, add them to alcohol and rub the mixture into children's hair. Police said no action had been taken against the teacher.