Chuck Shepherd's News Of The Weird

Government in Action      

• In October, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro created a “Deputy Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness” to coordinate the welfare programs begun by the late President Hugo Chavez. Critics charged, however, that there is much to be unhappy about, given the country’s annual rate of inflation (near 50%), and an Associated Press dispatch quoted one critic who said she would be happy enough if only stores were not constantly out of milk and toilet paper. (Another skeptic said he looked forward to maybe a Vice Ministry of Beer.)   

• The U.S. government has engaged in some legendarily wasteful projects, but leaders in China’s Yungai village (pop. 3,683), in Hunan province, have surely raised the bar for epic squander after borrowing the equivalent of $2.4 million and building an impressive seven-story government headquarters—but with 96 still-unlooked-out front windows because there is no activity beyond the first floor. According to an October London Daily Telegraph report, the only occupants are the village government’s eight employees.                                                                                    

Police Report      

• Informal Georgia Sobriety Tests: Rachel Gossett blew a .216 alcohol reading in Loganville, Ga., in November, but that was probably a formality after an officer witnessed her attempt to put a cheeseburger from a Waffle House onto her foot as if it were a shoe. And Rashad Williams, 38, was charged with DUI in Atlanta in October after he crashed through the front of a Walgreens drugstore and then, according to a witness, calmly exited his vehicle (which was sticking halfway into the building) and resumed drinking next door at the Anchor Bar.               

• Round Up the Usual Suspect: Indicted for rape in August in Hamilton County, Tenn.: John Allan Raper, 19. (Other recent miscreants were Batman Suparman, 23, convicted in Singapore in November of housebreaking and theft, and Bamboo Flute Blanchard, 18, who was arrested in June in Gainesville, Fla., and accused of trying to stab his father for an unreported provocation—although one possible motive suggests itself.)                                                

Sights to Behold

• When Franco Scaramuzza witnessed two men pepper-spraying a couple in a shopping center parking lot in Nashville, Tenn., in September, he bravely responded in the only way he knew. Scaramuzza, who teaches the art of fencing, drew his fencing sword (“épée