News of the Weird	by Chuck Shepherd

LEAD STORY

■ A February report on mine safety regulation by USA Today found that complicated federal statutes and unvigorous Mine Safety and Health Administration enforcement have resulted in a structure of civil fines almost guaranteed not to deter dangerous conditions. The largest-ever MSHA fine (for a 2001 incident with 13 deaths) was $605,400 (as compared to, for example, the FCC’s 2004 fine of CBS for the brief image of Janet Jackson’s breast at the Super Bowl, which was $3.5 million). One attorney who represents coal companies claimed that fines are largely irrelevant to safety: “I really don’t think any responsible mine operator makes any decision about safety based on civil penalties.” [USA Today, 2-10-06]

Compelling Explanations

■ American Pride: In January, spokesman Nick Inskip of the trade association of Australia’s legalized brothels and strip clubs praised the American sailors who that week began several days’ shore leave in Brisbane. “(T)he fellows are fantastic customers,” he said. “They are so well-mannered…They’re very aware that they’re representing their country, and that’s why they behave so well.”

■ More Things to Blame on Bush: (1) Two gunmen robbed a 57-year-old woman in her Westerville, Ohio, home in February, but, according to a police report, argued among themselves about how to do the job, until one of the men, perhaps feeling sorry for himself, said, “This is all George W. Bush’s fault. He screwed up the economy.” All the two men needed, he said, was “gas money for the car.” (2) A 29-year-old man was convicted in February after he jumped over a fence at the White House to meet up with Chelsea Clinton. According to an officer, the man seemed unfazed at being told that the Clintons no longer lived there but did say that “George Bush told me to jump the fence, and I jumped the fence.”

■ After the secretary for the Miracle of Prayer Church in Grove Hill, Ala., was arrested in January on an outstanding warrant, the church’s Prophet Ron Williams called congregation members (most of whom are African-American) to the Clarke County jail to protest, vowing that he wasn’t going “no damn where” until she was released. As the crowd grew, and deputies warned Williams about inciting a riot, Williams became more defiant, screaming at deputies and pointing to his cell phone, yelling, “I got Johnnie Cochran on the phone right now!” (even though Cochran had passed away 10 months earlier).

The Litigious Society

■ After two boys at PS 14 in New York City taunted a 5-year-old classmate in January three times by grabbing his privates, school officials held a hearing and referred the boys for guidance counseling. Unsatisfied, the younger boy’s parents in February filed a lawsuit against the already-budget-challenged New York City school system for $6 million.

■ Massachusetts inmate Joseph Schmitt, 41, filed a lawsuit for $70,000 against the Department of Corrections in December for restricting his ability to continue his writing career from lockup. Schmitt, now in civil detainment (as exceptionally dangerous) following completion of his sentence for child rape, previously earned up to $20,000 a year writing pornography (including at least one piece on child sex) and sees no reason why he can’t return to that line of work.

Ironies

■ Jacqueline Dotson was seriously injured in an accident near Winchester, Ky., in February that police say happened when she lost control of her SUV and ran several other cars off the road before overcorrecting, which caused the SUV to roll over a guardrail and land upside down. A rescue crew labored an hour and a half with the “jaws of life” to extricate her from the vehicle, but one of her arms was already free, severed in the accident and lying on the road, still grasping a cell phone.

Awesome!

■ In December, more than a month before “buckshot” would be all over the news (from a misadventure at a Texas ranch), the New England Journal of Medicine reported the odd case of a 73-year-old Inuit woman hospitalized in Nome, Alaska, whose abdominal X-ray revealed an enlarged and photographically opaque appendix, which doctors concluded was an appendix filled with buckshot. The Inuits, doctors said, eat so many ducks and geese downed by buckshot that inevitably some buckshot remains in the cooked meat and is eaten and digested, with some migrating to the appendix, where it is trapped. The appendix was enlarged and opaque on the X-ray simply because it was overstuffed with buckshot.

Smooth Reactions

■ (1) In Japan’s Wakayama prefecture in December, Miichiro Yamashita, 70, received a suspended sentence for bringing 25 sticks of dynamite to a hospital and threatening to blow the place up unless his doctor changed his mind and gave him the treatment he wanted for his stomachache. (2) Two women are at large in the Kenner, La., area after one slashed a Rally’s restaurant manager in February with a razor blade because her requested substitution (mayonnaise for tartar sauce on her fish sandwich) was not honored. (3) In February, Kimberly Dasilva, 40, was charged in Boston with putting explosives into condoms and mailing them to people she believes are associated with her longstanding mistreatment by men, including two strip clubs where she used to work.

■ Stewart Jenkins, 33, was arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, in November for allegedly pulling a gun on a man he apparently thought was disrespecting him. According to the police report, Jenkins and Patrick Hickey passed each other in an alley, and Jenkins asked, “What’s up?” Hickey responded: “What’s up?” Jenkins asked again: “What’s up?” Hickey (again): “What’s up?” Jenkins: “I’ll show you what’s up!” He ran into a nearby house and emerged angrily with a .38-caliber handgun. (Unfortunately for him, Patrick Hickey is a plainclothes police officer. He arrested Jenkins and recovered about 15 grams of suspected crack cocaine from the house.)

Least Competent Criminals

■ Not Cut Out for a Life of Crime: (1) University of Colorado freshman Jonathan Baldino, caught by security personnel in November after he printed out a fake bar code, stuck it on a $149.99 iPod, and bought it for $4.99 at a Target store, immediately wrote a frenzied confession: “I will NEVER EVER DO THIS EVER AGAIN, and I am once more terribly sorry. I’m only a kid! Help me out!…Please! Please! Please!” (It didn’t help.) (2) After Seattle police chased a carjacking suspect into a tree in February, bystanders gathered around and laughed, but the suspect, still defiant, yelled at them, “It’s not funny!” (However, according to a KIRO-TV reporter, some in the crowd yelled back, “Yes it is!”)

Recent Alarming Headlines

■ (1) “Australian Whale Vomit Find Worth a Fortune” (an Agence France-Presse dispatch from Sydney on a vacationing family’s discovery of a solid fatty substance somehow actually used in the fragrance industry and which was expected to bring the equivalent of about US$215,000) (January). (2) “Why I Still Breastfeed My Eight-Year-Old Girl” (a News & Star of Carlisle, England, report on mothers who insist on breastfeeding as long as the child desires it) (February).

Undignified Deaths

■ A 23-year-old man fell to his death off a balcony during a spitting contest with his brother and a friend (Mount Prospect, Ill., November). A 21-year-old man was shot to death inside a stranger’s home at 1:45 a.m., perhaps after having missed the bumper sticker on the homeowner’s truck, reading, “Gun control means using both hands.” (Rochester, N.H., September). A 37-year-old man escaped a fire in his home but died of smoke inhalation after he decided to go back inside to look for his cell phone to call 911 (Greenville, S.C., December).