Universal health insurance cannot come soonenough for uninsured Kathy Myers, 41, of Niles, Mich., who, suffering from anincreasingly painful shoulder injury, has been continually turned away fromemergency rooms because the condition is not considered to be life-threatening.In June, as a last resort, she took a gun and shot herself in the shoulder,hoping for a wound serious enough for ER treatment. Alas, she missed majorarteries and bones and was again sent home, except with even more pain.
The Future of Sports
In the midst of World Cup fever, readers mighthave missed host Barbados'win over Germanyin June for the Woz Challenge Cupan eight-team polo tournament with players onSegways instead of horses. The sport is said to have been created by Appleco-founder Steve Wozniak, whose Silicon Valley Aftershocks competed in Barbados (theAftershocks last won the Cup in 2007). Wozniak told ESPN.com that his own poloskills are fading, but the San JoseMercury News reported in May that Woz's fearlessness on the Segway hardlyseems diminished. (The Mercury Newsreport on the Aftershocks' local, nerd-populated league described the playersas "the pudgy and the pale" and "geek chic.")
Foul-Mouthed Politicians
(1) At a public meeting of the Dixon, Calif.,City Council in May, Councilman Michael Ceremello refused to yield the floor toa colleague, saying: "You don't have the floor. Please sit back and shutthe (F-word) up." (2) Paul Gogarty, a member of Ireland's Parliament, during apublic session last December, answering the criticism of an opponent, said:"With all due respect, (F-word) you, Deputy Stagg, (F-word) you."
The Aristocrats!
In the space of about 30 minutes on a Junemorning, according to a Dayton Daily Newsreport, Brian Horst, 35, shoplifted several packages of meat and a jug of MadDog 20/20 wine from a store, rolled a stainless-steel tank of carbon dioxide onwheels away from a restaurant, and disabled an ATM by pounding it with a rock(after a bank camera allegedly recorded him in conversation with the screen,apparently trying to reason with the machine or possibly with an imaginaryemployee inside it).
The Continuing Crisis
Stories of great sportsmanship warm thepublic's heartand then there is the flip side, as exhibited by Monrovia (Calif.)High School girls' track coach Mike Knowles. Knowles' team had just beendefeated for first place in the last event of the April league championshipmeet. A pole vault by South Pasadena High School's Robin Laird gave her team the edge overMonrovia,66-61. Knowles, however, noticed that Laird was wearing a string"friendship" bracelet, thus violating a national rule regardingjewelry in high-school athletics. He notified officials, who were forced to disqualifyLaird and declare Monroviathe champion, 65-62. "This is my 30th year coaching track," Knowlessaid later. "I know a lot of rules and regulations."
Great Expectorations
The prominent Howrahbridge in Calcutta, India, has become a serious safetyrisk, according to a May report for the Calcutta PortTrust (which is in charge of caring for the bridge), because thesteel hoods protecting the pillars holding up the bridge have been thinned by50% in recent years. Engineers believe the corrosion has been caused almostentirely by the chemicals in gutkha, the popular chewing tobacco/herbconcoction that is routinely spit onto the bridge by the 500,000 pedestrianswho cross it every day.
A News of the Weird Classic
Tensions were brewing in the family of ZellKravinsky and his wife, Emily, a psychiatrist, over what she believes to be hisexcessive altruism (according to an August 2003 profile in The New York Times). Kravinsky is not just a passionatephilanthropist (from his fortune in commercial real estate), but also such astrict utilitarian that he says he would sacrifice his one good kidney (he'salready donated the other one) if someone doing more social good than himneeded it. "No one should have two kidneys," he says, "untileveryone has one." He also said he cannot value his own kids more thananyone else's, a point that has angered his parents and caused Emily tothreaten him with divorce.
© 2010 Chuck Shepherd
