Not the Top Stories of the Year -- Just the Weirdest

By: E&P Staff Chuck Shepherd, who writes the weekly syndicated column News of the Weird, presented a holiday gift to readers of the Washington Post with a compilation of some of the weirdest of the weird, mainly drawn from newspaper and wire service accounts.

"If you spent your year paying close attention to the comings and goings of Angelina and Brad, Tom and Katie, Jessica and Nick, Judy and Scooter -- or, heaven forbid, more important things like DeLay or the deluge that devastated the Gulf Coast -- you might have missed the most disconcerting, perplexing and underreported stories from 2005," he wrote by way of introduction.

Here are just four of his two dozen choices in a year that will live in infamy.

TACKLING THE HARD ISSUES Oklahoma state senator Frank Shurden proposed legislation to revive the "sport" of cockfighting, which the state outlawed in 2002. But to make it more rooster-friendly, he suggested that the birds wear tiny boxing gloves instead of razor cleats and wear fencing-type electronic vests to record hits. "Let the roosters do what they love to do without getting injured," he said. -- The Daily Oklahoman , Jan. 26

DO I LOSE MY PLACE IN LINE? As a registered sex offender in California, James Andrew Crawford was required to notify authorities if he adopted a new "domicile" for more than five days. He was arrested in May for noncompliance after he camped out for two weeks in a theater line waiting for "Star Wars: Episode III" to open. --North County (Escondido, Calif.) Times, May 19

THE REALITY SHOW IS NEXT At a new theme park in El Alberto, Mexico (near Mexico City), wannabe migrants to the United States can test their survival skills at an obstacle course that replicates the rigors migrants must endure while sneaking across the border. Admission price: about $13.50. --Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Feb. 20

DOES THE COP GET CREDIT FOR TWO COLLARS? Transsexual prostitute Monica Renee Champion, 37, was picked up by police in Richmond after arrest warrants for indecent exposure had been issued against her in the city's South Side, as a male, and in the North Side, as a female. --Richmond Times-Dispatch, Aug. 27