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July 03, 2008
DRUG ADDICTED PETS
Animals in Trouble: (1) China's Xinhua news agency reported in March that a farmer in Jilin province had been found with a tortoise that is addicted to nicotine. The farmer, a smoker himself, said he was surprised when the pet puffed on a cigarette he had playfully stuck in its mouth, and since then, he occasionally shares smokes with it. (2) Magistrates in Sunderland, England, accepted a guilty plea in June from Samantha Pearson and David Step for animal cruelty. The couple had relocated quarters last October but left behind a pet, Milly, to starve to death. Milly was a pet rat.
ROLE MODELS
High school soccer coach Sanford Kaplan, 57, was arrested in Lincoln, Neb., in May and charged with having imprisoned several underage boys in sessions in his garage in which they were bound, gagged and suspended from the rafters. Track coach Lawrence "Poppy" Vincent, 74, of Bracken Christian School in Bulverde, Texas, was arrested in May and charged with indecent exposure to an undercover police officer; Vincent was wearing floral women's panties and a bra. Football coach Steve Halpin, 52, was permitted to retire quietly in June from Mesquite High School near Dallas after officials discovered that he had pawned 270 items since January 2007, including school equipment (which, in each case, he had later retrieved from the pawnshop).
WASTE OF TIME
Washington, D.C., police chief Cathy Lanier decided in May to rehire 17 cops who had been fired for misconduct. The cases against the officers were solid, she noted, except that their hearings before a police trial board had not been held within the required 55 days after the charges were filed. D.C. courts and arbitrators had previously reinstated officers where the 55-day deadline was not met, and Lanier felt she had no choice. (However, the following week, Lanier announced she was beginning the process of re-firing the 17 officers, this time because they would be unable to perform their jobs since they could not be credible witnesses in criminal cases because of their records.)
DON'T SIT NEXT TO
"There's really no way to explain people's fetishes," said University of Cincinnati campus police Capt. Karen Patterson, describing the arrest of Dwight Pannell, 43, for allegedly crawling under a library table, squirting liquid from a syringe on a female student's shoe, and photographing it. Pannell told police he was just trying out his new camera. In February, police officer Michael Curtin, 36, was removed from the force in Munhall, Pa., and in April was charged with offering two underage girls $1,000 each to let him suck their toes.
FLATULANCE VACCINE
Methane's longstanding menace as a climate-altering greenhouse gas is closer than ever to being controlled, said New Zealand scientists in June after genome-mapping found the source of flatulence in ruminant animals, and the researchers said they thought they could vaccinate against it. While livestock accounts for only 2 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas, it causes over half of New Zealand's. Unless the vaccination is successful, farmers will face a huge tax on methane by 2012 brought on by the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
BREAKING NEWS
When a big storm came through Alma, Ark., on the evening of May 7, residents rushed out to secure themselves inside the brand-new community shelter the town had just built with great fanfare. However, as the winds raged, the 20 people who showed up had to sprawl on the ground because the shelter was locked, and the deputy with the key was busy on a call. (2) In January, Dr. Steve Paulk announced that he would commence offering breast augmentation procedures and would be working out of Moundview Memorial Hospital in Friendship, Wis. MTW
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