News & Blues 1/20

Billy J. Robinson, 20, was trying to
steal a car in broad daylight in East Peoria, Ill., when the owner
interrupted him and ordered him to follow her to the police station.
“Believe it or not,” Police Chief Ed Papis told the Peoria Journal-Star,
“he started to follow her but had a change of heart.” The car’s owner
called police, who broadcast a detailed description, which mentioned a
large, abnormal growth hanging from the suspect’s left ear lobe. Not
long after, Robinson walked into the police station saying he needed
money for a bus ticket out of town. The dispatcher recognized him by
the walnut-sized mass on his ear. Officers who searched the two bags
Robinson was carrying found sweaty clothes matching the robber’s, as
well as step-by-step instructions on how to break into and hot-wire a
car, with the boldly written recommendation, “Try this at night.”

Case Closed

After former Kansas radio executive Paul
W. Lyle admitted in a Girard court to embezzling $88,000 to support an
addiction to scratch-off lottery tickets, he learned he had won a
lottery prize worth $96,000.

Mixed Messages

At least 22 states that ban texting
while driving offer some type of service that allows motorists to send
and receive information about traffic jams, road conditions or
emergencies via Twitter. “If you’re sitting there and trying to update
the world on the congestion you’re in, you could be part of a
collision,” said Fairley Mahlum of the AAA Foundation for Traffic
Safety.

FWIW

The Wisconsin Tourism Federation, a
30-year-old tourism lobbying coalition, changed its name to the Tourism
Federation of Wisconsin after officials realized its
initials—WTF—formed a crude acronym popular in text messages. The group
made the switch after web sites and blogs poked fun at it. “We didn’t
want it to detract from our mission,” TFW official Julia Hertel told
the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Second-Amendment Follies

Police in Miamisburg, Ohio, locked down
an elementary school after a report of a shooting in the vicinity, even
though students were off that day. Neighbors initially said someone was
running around the area firing a gun, but police determined that a man
who lives nearby accidentally shot himself in the hand while cleaning
his gun.

Four days after Ralph Needs, 80, was
pistol-whipped during a home invasion in Groveport, Ohio, he was
learning to fire a gun to defend himself when he was shot in the hand
as one of his sons was loading the 9 mm pistol.

Timothy Allen Davis, 22, told sheriff’s
investigators in Lee County, Fla., that he was digging through a drawer
looking for a shirt, but when he pulled it out, his .380 semi-automatic
handgun flipped in the air, landed and discharged a round. The Fort Myers News-Press reported the bullet hit Davis in the rear end.

When Guns Are Outlawed

Police in Broken Arrow, Okla., charged
Decai Liu, 52, with beating his roommate on the head with a harmonica.
The roommate explained he was in the bathroom getting ready for work
when Liu burst in and started beating him with the musical instrument.
“I don’t know what his problem was,” the roommate said.

Crackdowns of the Week

As part of their campaign against
Western cultural influences, Iran’s morality police warned storeowners
not to use scantily clad or curvaceous female mannequins in their
windows. According to the state-owned newspaper IRNA, the police also banned men from selling women’s underwear and shopkeepers from showing models wearing neckties or bow ties.

A gay bar in Elk Grove Village, Ill.,
began requiring cross-dressing patrons to show a valid
government-issued photo ID that matches their “gender presentation.”
Peter Landorf, manager of Hunter’s Nightclub, told The Chicago Tribune
the policy is aimed at preventing prostitution “that could cost me my
license.” Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois
said the rule could be discriminatory if it applies only to
cross-dressers.

Uniform Disaster

Women draftees in Sweden complained that
the brassieres issued by the military are unacceptable because they
keep catching on fire. And because the garments aren’t flame resistant,
once lit, they can melt onto conscripts’ skin. “Our opinion is that the
Swedish Armed Forces should have ordered good, flame-proof underwear,”
Paulina Rehbinder of the Swedish Conscription Council said. The Goteborgs-Posten
newspaper reported the women also complained that the standard-issue
sports bras’ fasteners have a tendency to come undone during vigorous
exercise, forcing them to remove all their gear to refasten the
brassieres. 

Slightest Provocation

A Washington, D.C., jury needed less
than 10 minutes to convict Lankward Harrington, 25, of shooting a
landscaper who was using a lawn trimmer and got some grass on
Harrington’s clothes and hair. Harrington stopped, reached into his
backpack for a .357 magnum and shot Jose Villatoro four times in the
face and body before walking away. “I made sure he saw me and looked me
in the eye,” Harrington testified. “I take pride in my appearance. I
did not appreciate that.”

“He did nothing to you, did he?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Snyder asked.

“He got grass on me,” Harrington said. “That was something.”

Race to the Finish

Jerry Johncock, 81, was at mile 21 of a
marathon race through Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., when he stopped
at an aid station and said he badly needed to urinate but couldn’t
force anything out. He explained a catheter would fix the problem, but
the aid station didn’t have one. According to The Pioneer Press,
a spectator who overheard the conversation said he had a spare catheter
in his car. Johncock was able to insert it himself and finish the race,
1:23:05 off the record pace he set last year but still good enough to
win his age group. “What a relief that was,” he said. “I must have had
a pint of urine inside me.” 

Torture Rock

The government used rock music to
torment terror suspects and coerce confessions at the U.S. Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to recently declassified documents
obtained by the National Security Archives, a research division of
George Washington University. Among the artists whose music was played
at ear-splitting levels to “create futility” with uncooperative
detainees are AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Neil Diamond, Tupac Shakur, Limp
Bizkit, Christine Aguilera, the Bee Gees, Nine Inch Nails and Rage
Against the Machine. Also included was Barney the Dinosaur’s theme
song. The Washington Times reported that some of the musicians
are banding together with the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo to
protest the use of their songs to torture detainees, expressing outrage
that the music was used without their knowledge.

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.