Hard to Believe: Just Plain Weird

"Consensual Living" parenting, which was developed in 2006 and now has many hundreds of followers, supposes that every family member's needs are equally valid and respectworthy. Even pre-adolescents are assumed able to understand their own needs and respect those of others. When little Kiernen, 3, of Langley, British Columbia, hits another child, his mom told Toronto's Globe & Mail in March, she does not invoke authority but instead asks about his feelings and whether he'd like to express himself differently. If Kahlan, 18 months old, of Nanaimo, British Columbia, is grumpy at a time when her mother has made plans, Mom says she is obligated to consider other plans. And when Savannah, 6, insisted on wearing her Halloween cat costume every single day for several months, her mom in Burlington, Ontario, just shrugged, since she recalled how contentious the morning dressing rituals were, pre-Consensual Living.

Artist Beth Grossman created her wall exhibit, "Seats of Power," to encourage citizens to greater activism in local affairs around Brisbane, Calif. (just south of San Francisco Bay). The "Seats" are upholstered cushions individually tailored with the buttprints of each of the 10 city council members, who allowed Grossman to photograph them from behind, clothed, through a sheet of Plexiglas pressed against their posteriors to simulate being seated. All 10 co-operated, including Mayor Sepi Richardson, who said she had been considering her "legacy" lately, "but I never thought it would be my butt."

When a supporter of the animal-rights organization PETA contributed, for a fund-raising auction, a towel that had recently been used by actor George Clooney, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk had what she thought was a better idea: extracting Clooney's perspiration from it and using the sweat to flavor a tofu dish. "I can see people having parties to try CloFu," she said. (Clooney rejected the idea, according to a March Washington Post report.)

Public urination continues to be dangerous, as News of the Weird has reported periodically. In April, a 23-year-old man tumbled off a bridge over the Minnesota River in Bloomington, Minn., just before 5 a.m. while attempting to urinate. He fell 30 feet but survived. And in March, tugboat captain Kevin McGonigle fell off his boat into the Campbell River near Victoria, British Columbia, while attempting to urinate. He was rescued after 70 minutes, clad only in T-shirt and pajama bottoms, and could not have survived much longer in the frigid waters.

On the Open Road: A 70-lb. pit bull jumped on a car's gearshift at a carwash in Pryor, Okla., in November, sending the car out of the bay, to circle the lot briefly.

The venerable 17th-century astronomer Galileo Galilei was honored at a gallery in Florence, Italy, in February to mark the 400th anniversary of his transformative work, which was widely discredited at the time (as contradicting the Bible) and which subjected him to vicious slanders. The exhibit includes Galileo's only preserved body part: one of his middle fingers

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