That New York Attitude
Gregory Reddick, 54, and his employer, SJQ Sightseeing Tours, filed a lawsuit in June against New York City for “harass[ing]” them and hampering their ability to rip off tourists, specifically, interfering with their “right” to sell tickets for $200 or more for trips on the Staten Island Ferry—which is actually free to ride. Reddick was wearing an (unauthorized) “Authorized Ticket Agent” jacket when arrested, and, according to a New York Post account, believes he operates legally because he misunderstands a technicality in a 2013 court case. Prosecutors, who described the waterfront tourist-exploitation scene as “the wild west,” found Reddick with seven dates of birth, five aliases and six Social Security numbers.
Can’t Possibly Be True
■ Doctors at a hospital in Dongyang, China, removed 420 kidney stones from a single patient in June (a “Mr. He”). One of the surgeons told reporters that a soy-heavy diet of tofu was probably to blame. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most stones removed from one kidney during surgery (in India in 2009 in a three-hour operation) is (this is not a misprint) 172,155.
■ In May, the Museum of Modern Arts in Krakow, Poland, began showing a video of naked men and women entering a room and playing a game of tag—then revealing that that particular room was actually a building in a Holocaust gas-chamber facility in Auschwitz. The idea, apparently, was to bring three affected nations (Poland, Germany and Israel) together, and among the sponsors of the exhibit was the Israeli embassy in Warsaw, despite criticism that the work was somewhat “repulsive and offensive.” (A similar project opened in Tartu, Estonia, in February, but was closed almost immediately after objections from Jewish-advocacy organizations.)
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■ U.S. students may be clever, but they apparently badly trail Chinese students in the genius of cheating on exams (and especially on the use of cheat-enabling technology). The government’s newest anti-fraud weapon, employed recently in the city of Luoyang during the crucial university-determining tests, is a six-propeller drone that can hover above a cavernous exam hall, trying to pinpoint the locations inside in which designated ace test-takers are radio-transmitting correct answers to their clients, whose tiny earbuds are worn deep in ear canals. Cheating students also use beverage-bottle cameras, ordinary-appearing eyeglasses that can scan and transmit images, and fingerprint film (to fool fingerprint scanners that otherwise would root out test-taking “ringers”).
■ France’s daily La Provence reported in May that at least one enterprising drug dealer in Marseilles had begun distributing “loyalty cards” to its best customers, offering a 10-euro discount on future sales after that customer’s card was full (all 10 squares stamped from previous sales). Said one buyer, “I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I was at a pizzeria or something.” The card also expressed thanks for the patronage and reminded the customer of operating hours (11 a.m. to midnight).
Compelling Explanations
■ Luis Cruz, 46, sought pre-trial release in Springfield, Mass., in June—even though he had been charged with heroin distribution and has a rap sheet, counting his record in Florida, that is 52 pages long. His court-appointed lawyer, Anna Levine, was not deterred, arguing that bail was not necessary to assure that her client would appear for trial because none of the 52 pages, she said, contained an arrest for failure to appear. Said Levine, earnestly, “It’s a 52-page record for showing up.”
■ “It was just one of those spur-of-the-moment crazy things,” explained John Paul Jones Jr., in May after he had intentionally driven his pickup truck through his living room in Senoia, Ga. He told a reporter that he had been on the phone with his wife and gotten angry, and “one thing led to another.” Fortunately, Jones is a contractor, and has been out of work for a while and thus figures he can keep busy fixing his mess. The house “needed some work,” he said, “needed air conditioning.” Jones said the truck fared well, with just a few scratches.
© 2015 CHUCK SHEPHERD
