News & Blues 9/22

Second-Amendment
Follies

A 41-year-old man shot himself in the testicles while shopping at a
Lowe’s Home Improvement store in Lynnwood, Wash. Paramedic Jim Fischer
said the victim, who was wearing black sweatpants, told him the gun “was
in my waistband, and I felt it starting to slip, reached for it, and I
must have positioned my finger so the trigger went off.” (Seattle Times)

Not-So-Sweet Revenge

After her car was repossessed, Haleigh Boland, 26, tracked down the
repo woman and tried to set the woman’s car on fire. According to Etowah
County, Ala., Sheriff Todd Entrekin, Boland poured gasoline on the
vehicle but had trouble starting the fire. When it finally did ignite,
the flash set her clothes on fire. The repo woman’s surveillance video
shows Boland tearing off her clothes and running to a waiting getaway
car driven by her father. She suffered first and second degree burns to
her upper body. (Huntsville’s WAAY-TV)

Spy Games

Indian police reported they were holding a pigeon under armed guard
after it was caught on a “special mission of spying” for archenemy
Pakistan. The pigeon had a ring around its foot and a Pakistani phone
number and address stamped on its body in red ink. Police officer Ramdas
Jagjit Singh Chahal said the bird was being held in an air-conditioned
room under police guard, and senior officers asked for updates on the
situation three times a day. Chahal added that Pakistani pigeons are
easy to spot because they look different from Indian ones. (Agence
France-Presse)

Carnivore’s Digest

A man was hospitalized after being sucked into a sausage-making
machine in Danver, Mass. Police Lt. Carole Germano said the worker at
DiLuigi Sausage Co. was cleaning inside “a vacuum-type cylinder” that
draws marinade into the meat when it somehow was activated, and his head
and shoulders got stuck in the machine. The man was helped out of the
machine with no obvious injuries but taken to the hospital as a
precaution. (The Salem News)

Scientists in mostly Muslim Kazakhstan have come up with a simple
test to detect pork in food. “It’s no secret that some chefs cheat and
put pork to beef to make the dish cheaper,” the newspaper Megapolis
observed in announcing the test, which uses a plastic stick to detect
pork molecules. “When you get your beef patty, cut off a couple of small
pieces and drop them in a glass of water. Stir, shake, put the test
stick in. In a minute or two you will see the result.” (Reuters)

The Spanish butcher shop Izarzugaza has installed a meat vending
machine outside its Mundaka location so customers can buy meat, sausages
and sandwiches 24 hours a day. “We had to provide a service when the
shop closes,” fourth-generation butcher Izarzugaza Mikel, 31, explained.
(Fox News)

Classical Gas

A German sewage-treatment plant is saving $1,200 a month by using the
music of Mozart to motivate microbes to break down waste faster. “We
think the secret is in the vibrations of the music, which penetrate
everything — including the water, the sewage and the cells,” said Anton
Stucki, chief operator of the Treuenbrietzen plant. “It creates a
certain resonance that stimulates the microbes and helps them to work
better.” Stucki believes Mozart works because the composer “managed to
transpose universal laws of nature into his music.” (Britain’s The Guardian)

Not So Much Fly As Plummet

Having paid $440 on eBay for a paraglider, Britain’s Roy Dixon, 45,
learned to fly it by watching video clips on the Internet. For his
maiden flight, he also made the mistake of tethering the paraglider to
his car. The flight lasted less than a minute, and he fell 40 feet to
the ground, breaking his back in two places. “I went shooting up in the
air, then banged down on the ground,” Dixon said from Newcastle General
Hospital. “I should have joined a club and got lessons, but I was trying
to teach myself and learn from bits I had seen on YouTube.” (BBC News) 

Homeland Insecurity

Firefighters responding to a fire in Jersey City, N.J., found no one
at home in the apartment, where a pot on the stove had boiled dry and
cloth inside had ignited. They also found 60 to 80 half-gallon
containers of unknown substances and an envelope with President Obama’s
name on it, triggering a massive response by Secret Service agents and a
hazardous materials unit. When the apartment resident returned, he said
he must have forgotten to turn off the stove burner when he walked to
the store. The 80-year-old man explained he uses the chemicals to make
perfume, which he sells for a living. (The Jersey Journal)

Duty First

David Boruchowitz, a sheriff’s detective in Nye County, Nev., was
charged with burglary and assault to try to harass candidates for public
office after an investigation, which he conducted himself. Boruchowitz,
who handles media relations for the sheriff’s office, issued a press
release about his arrest, accompanied by his booking photo, that noted
his duties include investigating and arresting people who commit crimes,
“no matter who they may be.” (Associated Press)

When Guns Are

Outlawed

Police in Austin, Texas, accused Jose Alejandro Romero, 17, of trying
to rob a gas station with a caulk gun. Clerk Johnnie Limuel, 68,
thought it was a joke, until the robber hit him with the caulk gun.
Limuel responded by hitting the robber with a plastic trashcan.
According to the police affidavit, Romero fled empty-handed, accompanied
by a transgender prostitute. (The Statesman)

Google Map Follies

The Louisiana Senate unanimously approved a bill that would increase
penalties for crimes committed with the aid of a “virtual street-level
map.” The Internet-generated maps show the locations or pictures of
homes and other buildings. The measure would add at least 10 years to
sentences where virtual maps are used to commit acts of terrorism and at
least one year in jail for burglary. (New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune)

Slightest Provocation

Police investigating a stabbing at a home in Northport, Ala., said
the attack occurred after two men got into an argument over how many
championship rings basketball coach Phil Jackson has. The 30-year-old
victim required stitches. Jackson, 64, now has 13 championship rings —
two as a player and 11 as a coach. (Tuscaloosa News)

Spendthrift

Conservatives

Critics derided Canada’s government for spending nearly $2 million to
build a media center in Toronto for reporters unable to cover the Group
of Eight global economic summit in Huntsville, 140 miles to the north,
which could accommodate only about 150 of the 3,000 journalists
assigned. “This is supposed to be a meeting about dealing with the
international debt crisis,” opposition lawmaker Mark Holland said.
“We’re supposed to be leading the world in showing austerity, and we
invite them to our doorsteps to sit around a $2 million dollar fake
lake.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisted the lake, which is only a
few blocks from Lake Ontario, is really only a reflecting pool intended
to promote tourism. (Associated Press)

Justice at Any Price

Now Advanced Metal Technologies in East Spokane, Wash., offered a
$1,000 reward for information leading to the identity of whoever stole
its doormat, worth $20. (KREM-TV News)

First Things First

When JoAnne Famal arrived at a Verizon wireless store in Trotwood,
Ohio, to pay her monthly bill, her 16-year-old grandson was in the
driver’s seat of her sport utility vehicle. He hit the accelerator
instead of the brake, causing the SUV to hop the curb and crash through
the front window and into a wall inside the store. No one was hurt,
although salesman Rob Thomas said, “If I hadn’t jumped over the counter,
I’d be dead.” After the car stopped, Famal walked to the counter and
paid her bill, then got behind the wheel of the SUV, backed out and
drove off. (Dayton Daily News)

Hiding Places

Customs officials at Los Angeles International Airport became
suspicious of arriving passenger Sony Dong, 46, after they noticed bird
droppings on his socks and feathers sticking out from under his pants. A
search found 14 live Asian songbirds attached to pieces of cloth
wrapped around his calves. Dong, who wore the birds on a flight from
Vietnam, received four months in prison and was ordered to pay $4,000 to
federal authorities who cared for the birds while they were
quarantined. Authorities found 51 more songbirds at Dong’s Garden Grove
home, worth $800 to $1,000 each. (Associated Press)

Officials at the county jail in Wenatchee, Wash., said new inmate
Gavin Stanger, 24, smuggled a cigarette lighter, rolling papers, a
golf-sized bag of tobacco, a tattoo ink bottle, eight tattoo needles, a
one-inch smoking pipe and a small bag of pot into his cell—all stuffed
inside his rectum. (New York City’s Daily News)

Beeline to Disaster

The latest suspect in the widespread disappearance of honeybees and
the collapse of their hives throughout Europe and North America is
radiation from wireless phones. Researchers at India’s Punjab University
said their findings suggest the phones are interfering with the bees’
sense of navigation, causing them to get lost. Reporting in the journal Current Science,
Ved Prakash Sharma and Neelima Kumar said a hive exposed to cell-phone
radiation in a controlled experiment showed a dramatic decline in the
number of worker bees returning after collecting pollen, as well as a
drop in the queen’s egg-laying rate. (Britain’s The Telegraph)

Avoirdupois Follies

Australian chef Yukako Ichikawa issued orders that customers who
don’t eat everything on their plates must pay a penalty and told not to
return. Wafu, her 30-seat restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Surry
Hills, describes itself as “guilty-free Japanese cuisine.” Customers who
do clean their plates receive a 30 percent discount; those who don’t
pay full price. Restaurant policy notices remind diners “that vegetables
and salad on the side are NOT decorations; they are part of the meal,
too.” (Reuters)

Donna Simpson, 42, declared that her life’s goal is to become the
world’s heaviest living woman. Already weighing more than 600 pounds,
the mother of two from Old Bridge, N.J., said she intends to reach 1,000
pounds by sticking to a calorie-rich diet. She already wears XXXXXL
clothing, spends as much as $750 a week on groceries and craves her own
reality-TV show to give plus-size women more confidence. “The bigger
your butt is, the bigger belly you have, the sexier you are,” she
announced. (Reuters)

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.