Funding the Revolution
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks publisher of state secrets who remains holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London, has signed on with an Icelandic licensing agent to sell Assange-branded high-end clothing, shoes and various household goods in India and much of Europe, and is negotiating to put his logo on apparel in Japan and the U.S. The agent told The New York Times in October that “WikiLeaks” and “Assange” “can be as big as Coca-Cola.” A 46-page book sets out licensing standards (e.g., no tacky slogans, such as “We Steal Secrets”) and includes the one approved Assange portrait (an “idealized line drawing” of him “gazing soulfully into what is presumably a better future,” wrote the Times).
Things You Thought Couldn’t Happen
A Practical Use for Trigonometry: When a stampede killed pigs and induced sows’ abortions on a farm near York, England, two years ago, the operator of a noisy hot-air balloon denied responsibility, referring to a court order keeping balloons 500 meters away. Using GPS coordinates and the location of dead pigs, a mathematics professor at York University (employing trigonometry, he said) proved that the balloon could not have been more than 300 meters away. After the professor “showed his work” on the problem, the balloon’s insurer upped the settlement to almost four times its initial offer.
Things You Thought Would Happen
Britain’s The Guardian reported in October that repairing the “fashion” holes in earlobes is one of the fastest-growing cosmetic procedures in the U.K., as millennial generation radicals tire of their half-to-3/4-inch, see-through lobes. Doctors charge close to $3,000 to remove the entire area around the hole (originally created by stretching the tissue) and connect the healthy parts back so they fuse together. (A Hawaiian man, not currently a patient, supposedly has the largest ear hole, nearly 4 inches in diameter.)
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Compelling Explanations
Plausible: (1) Police in Bayonne, France, were contemplating charges in October against Kappa Clinic anesthetist Helga Wauters, 45, after a patient died from an improperly placed breathing tube. Wauters, appearing inebriated, said she requires vodka so that she doesn’t “shake” when she works. (2) Lisa Roche, 41, was arrested in Jackson County, Miss., in October allegedly burglarizing students’ cars at East Central High School. She told police she was only searching out “members of ISIS.”
American Scenes
A man named John Thornton was arrested in October after, for some reason, grabbing a mop from an employee at the Double Tree Hotel in Bristol, Conn., and (according to the police report) “aggressive[ly]” mopping the floor in a threatening manner, backing the employee into a corner and mopping over her shoes.
Latest Religious Messages
Owen Reese, 22, was arrested in October in Sparta, Wis., for reckless endangerment when he answered a knock on his door from fundraising Cub Scouts by swinging a sword wildly. Reese told police that he “always” answers the door with his sword—to protect himself “against religious people.”
Perspective
South Carolina is one of at least 20 states to have enacted “stand your ground” defenses for use of deadly force, but prosecutors in Charleston are refusing to recognize it in one logical category—“standing your ground” in the home against life-threatening assaults by one’s spouse. The legislative history of the South Carolina law, and a recent state Supreme Court decision, show (said a prosecutor) that it was to be used only against intruders and not against people with a right to be there, even to ward off a vicious assault by, for example, a husband against a wife.
Least Competent Criminals
Lack of Foresight: Jonathan Warrenfeltz, 24, and a buddy were charged with robbing five sunbathers in Dania Beach, Fla., at gunpoint in October. Police quickly picked up the two based on a lookout for the only man around with the word “Misunderstood” tattooed in large letters across his forehead (as Warrenfeltz had).
© 2014 CHUCK SHEPHERD
