News & Blues 3/3

Welsh police said Dean Gardener, 19, and Jason Fender, 22, attacked
two men walking along a Swansea street in wigs, short skirts and high
heels. The victims turned out to be cage fighters, who promptly punched
their attackers to the ground and walked off. The Daily Mail
said police identified Gardener and Fender from closed-circuit
television footage of the incident. “You know it cannot have been a
good night,” defense attorney Mark Davies told the newspaper, “when you
get into a fight with two cross-dressing men.”

Irony Illustrated

A wind-power company rejected a site in western Maine for its wind turbines because it’s too windy. The Sun-Journal
of Lewiston reported that First Wind’s Matthew Kearns told a public
meeting in Rumford that the company’s wind towers couldn’t handle the
strong gusts on Black Mountain.

Don’t Touch

A civilian passenger riding in the back seat of a South African air
force jet accidentally ejected himself after grabbing the
black-and-yellow striped handle between his legs. The rocket-powered
seat smashed through the canopy and blasted 300 feet into the sky. The Guardian
reported the passenger was recovered by helicopter unharmed and
returned to Langebaanweg air force base. The aircraft, piloted by a
member of South Africa’s air force aerobatics squad, landed safely.

When Guns Are Outlawed

While spending Thanksgiving with their parents in Algoa, Texas, a
26-year-old man who was arguing with his 23-year-old sister smacked her
in the face with a piece of hot pecan pie. Galveston County sheriff’s
Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo told The Houston Chronicle the sister required treatment for first- and second-degree burns to her face and neck.

Bruce Lee Follies

A 41-year-old man tried to enter a Seattle sports bar, but a
25-year-old man accosted him, and the two men started fighting. At one
point, the younger man tried to get away by jumping over a 5-foot
fence, but, according to police official Renee Witt, “he didn’t quite
make it.” Officers called to the scene found the younger man stuck on
the fence with a metal spike jutting out from his buttock. He was
bleeding profusely. The Seattle Times reported that the impaled man explained he assumed he could jump over the fence because he believed he was a ninja.

Pre-Judgment Day

The day before Gary Joseph Wessel, 55, was set to stand trial on
child molestation and sodomy charges in Illinois, state police found
his body with a shotgun wound to the chest lying on the side of the
road next to a truck with a low tire. Police Lt. James Morrisey said
Wessel shot himself while trying to change a tire when he dislodged the
jack, and it snagged on the shotgun case, causing the gun inside to
discharge through the case.

What Color Ribbon Covers This?

Trista Joy Lathern, 24, told authorities in Waco, Texas, that she
pretended to have breast cancer, collected $10,000 at a benefit held
for her and then used the money for breast implants she hoped would
save her failing, seven-month marriage. The Waco Tribune-Herald
reported that after she was charged with theft by deception, her
husband, William Lathern, who married her when he thought she had
cancer, filed for an annulment, alleging that she induced him to marry
her “by fraud.”

Illegal Aliens

Officials of an Arizona school district accused Brad Niesluchowski,
the district’s former information technology director, of using school
computers to search for space aliens, bogging down the district’s
computer system and interfering with technology use in classrooms.
Higley Unified School District Superintendent Denise Birdwell told the East Valley Tribune the problem would cost more than $1 million to fix.

News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To
contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to
Roland Sweet in care of The New Times.