News & Blues 10/21

President Dick

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez became
the first national leader still in office to promote a cell phone,
taking time during his weekly television show, Alo Presidente, to introduce the new “Vergatorio” model. Britain’s Telegraph
newspaper reported the name derives from Venezuelan slang for “penis.”
Chavez assumed the role of pitchman after he nationalized the phone’s
manufacturer and announced that he wanted to make a phone for all the
people, “not the elites.” Boasting that the new phone “will be the
biggest seller not only in Venezuela but the world,” Chavez declared
that “whoever doesn’t have a Vergatorio is nothing.”

Most Unimaginative Disguise of the Week

Police in Lincoln, Neb., reported that a
man robbed a convenience store while wearing an empty Bud Light 12-pack
box on his head as a mask.

When Guns Are Outlawed

Police in Boulder, Colo., said a
restaurant employee was washing the restaurant’s windows when a man
walked upon behind him holding a knife and demanded money. The employee
brandished a squeegee, and the would-be robber fled.

Amanda Watkins, 26, told police in
Greeley, Colo., that when she told a 3-year-old boy to stop hurting a
cat, the boy’s mother attacked and beat her with a child’s metal
scooter, then fled.

First-Amendment Follies

Authorities said Henry Gasiorowski, 60,
was shot in the arm and back while hunting in Forestburgh, N.Y., when
he sat behind a turkey decoy and began making turkey calls. The Times Herald-Record reported that a hunting companion heard the calls, saw what he thought was a turkey and opened fire.

Slightest Provocation

Authorities in Volusia County, Fla.,
charged Joseph Frank Strauch, 82, with beating his live-in girlfriend
and strangling her unconscious after he got angry about the way she
loaded dirty dishes in the dishwasher. The Daytona Beach News-Journal
reported that Strauch previously pleaded no contest to punching a
68-year-old man after Strauch took the man’s grocery bag and the man
objected.

Mensa Reject of the Week

A 56-year-old woman was run over by her
own car in Santa Monica, Calif., after she crawled underneath it and
started it by touching the starter solenoid with a screwdriver. The Daily Press
reported that an investigation revealed the 1995 Buick Regal rolled
over the driver and dragged her several feet because she had left the
car in gear with the emergency brake off.

Instant Karma

Tom Riall, a senior executive at a firm
that installed speed cameras at around 4,500 locations throughout
Britain, was banned from driving for six months after he was recorded
driving at 103 mph on a 70 mph limit highway.

Bathroom Break

A small airplane crashed when its engine
failed shortly after takeoff from an airfield outside Tacoma, Wash.,
but pilot Clifford Howell, 67, walked away unhurt because a storage
yard full of portable toilets cushioned the landing. The Cessna 182
came to rest upside down after bouncing off the toilets onto a pile of
wood chips. “If he had made the runway, he would have landed a lot
harder than he did by impacting with those Sani-Cans and the woodpile,”
Pierce County sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Blair told Seattle’s KOMO News. “It
probably saved his life.”

Moral and Physical Support

Japan’s novelty bra maker Triumph
International unveiled an undergarment to support women looking for a
husband. Triumph’s Keiko Masuda told Reuters the bra features an
electronic clock that runs until an engagement ring is inserted into
its mechanism, whereupon the bra plays Mendelssohn’s “The Wedding
March.” It also includes a pen to sign a prenuptial agreement.

Felonious Congratulations

El Paso, Texas, schools superintendent
Lorenzo Garcia was celebrating the schools’ performance on state test
scores by giving principals high-fives. When Barron Elementary School
principal Mary Helen Lechuga didn’t raise her hand, Garcia tapped her
on the head instead. The El Paso Times reported that Lechuga
responded by filing a police complaint that Garcia assaulted her,
saying she felt pain and feared what he might do next.

Real Life Not Always Like the Commercials

While more than 100 people on foot and in the air
searched for a missing 62-year-old man in Carroll County, Ohio, Sheriff
Dale Williams said he tried to use the man’s cell phone signal to
locate him. He told The Carrollton Times-Reporter that when he
called Verizon to activate the signal, the operator refused because the
missing man’s bill was overdue and said that the sheriff’s department
would have to pay at least $20 of the unpaid bill. After some
disagreement, Williams agreed to pay. As he was making arrangements,
however, deputies discovered the man, unconscious and unresponsive, in
an area where there is a Verizon cell phone tower.