News of the Weird

Comments (0) By Chuck Shepherd Wednesday, May 26 1999

* In February, legislatures in Maine and Arizona voted down proposals to prohibit discrimination against motorcyclists, but a similar effort continues in Pennsylvania. (Last year, the Minnesota Legislature passed an obscure provision in a finance bill barring anti-biker discrimination by restaurants and bars.) And a legislative proposal in California pending from last year, the Open Waves Act, would guarantee that local surfers had no greater right to a wave than visiting surfers. (At times in California, surfers brawl over waves, using their boards as clubs.)

* In March, an Ontario provincial court upheld the right of convicted public masturbator Marvin Mezquita-Duenas not to have to stand in front of City Hall holding a sign that revealed his crime. The trial judge had sentenced him to 18 months' probation and five days of openly admitting his perversion.

* Within a three-day period in April, two people accidentally hanged themselves. A 73-year-old woman in Pittsburgh strangled herself when she fell down while unlocking her door with a necklace key, and in New York City, suspected burglar Terrence Adams, 55, hanged himself when his sweater caught on a piece of metal as he was lowering himself through a ceiling into a clothing store. (The store's name: the Dum Dum Boutique.)

Send your weird news to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 8306, St. Petersburg, FL 33738, or Weird@compuserve.com.