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May 08, 2008
TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
A Maryland governmental fund created to assist "innocent" victims of violent crime has paid out nearly $1.8 million since 2003 to injured (or deceased) "drug dealers, violent offenders and other criminals," according to an investigation by the Baltimore Sun published in March. Burial expenses were awarded for a carjacker, a victim of an inter-gang killing and a sex offender who was fatally beaten in prison. The Maryland courts have ruled that as long as the applicant was not engaged in a crime at the time he was injured, he must be considered for an award.
NEXT BIG THING
Experimental "natural orifice" surgery might be health care's next big thing following its U.S. introduction last year at Columbia University (as reported also in "News of the Weird"), where doctors removed a woman's diseased gall bladder not by an abdominal incision but through her vagina. In March, doctors at UC-San Diego Medical Center removed a woman's appendix through her vagina, and a man's through his mouth. (A microscopic camera must be inserted through the abdomen, however, to guide the surgeons.) Pain and healing time are usually less than half that of ordinary surgery, but the risk of internal infection is greater. The next step, doctors say, will be removing kidneys through the anus.
GREAT ART!
Graduate art student Matthew Keeney's latest piece of performance art, called "The Waiting Project," had him standing on streets in Syracuse, New York in February, waiting for someone to ask him what "The Waiting Project" is. In previous pieces, Keeney held a "Super Bowl party for one" on a park bench, earnestly watched ice sculptures melt and walked from the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C., to the Lincoln Memorial, stopping each time he heard a car horn and then starting again when he heard another.
THAT'S A LOT OF COPS
Police in Osaka, Japan, mobilized in January to apprehend fugitive Hirofumi Fukuda, 27, who was wanted for assaulting an officer (which tends to get the attention of fellow officers). By the end of the two-hour episode, a helicopter and 460 patrol cars, involving 2,240 law-enforcement officers, were on the case.
WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND
Thirty years ago, before Wal-Mart became an international giant, a small video company made a "handshake" deal to shoot promotional footage of the firm's executives and was given free rein within the company. It made 15,000 tapes, including many, inevitably, showing Wal-Mart leaders in awkward situations. In 2006, an incoming Wal-Mart executive decided to end the relationship, devastating Flagler Productions' bottom line. To compensate, the company began offering to research its library for historians and, more notably, litigants suing Wal-Mart on product safety, employment and union-busting issues. According to an April Wall Street Journal report, a treasure trove of embarrassing moments is now available.
PEOPLE DIFFERENT FROM US
Even though 20 states outlaw keeping monkeys as pets, the Humane Society of the U.S. estimates that there are 15,000 privately owned primates, with at least 200 Floridians licensed for pet capuchins, according to an April Orlando Sentinel report. Since experts warn that the animals are biters and scratchers and are very aggressive when agitated, the Sentinel asked what accounts for their popularity. Said the editor of the magazine Monkey Matters, it's their humanlike features and owners' desires to dress them up. "Believe me," said the editor, "if people could get their cats [into] outfits, a lot of those cats would be wearing outfits." MTW
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| Entertainment and lifestyle news for Maui, Hawaii and the surrounding Islands. Maui Time Weekly is Mauis only independent and locally owned newspaper.
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