Jennifer Tesch's daughter, Kennedy, was kickedoff her cheerleading squad, which supported a youth flag-football team in Madison Heights, Mich.,after Tesch complained about the language used in one of the cheers in thegirls' repertoire. The cheer stated: "Our backs ache! /Our skirts are tootight! /We shake our booties! /From left to right!" Tesch thought thecheer was inappropriate, considering that Kennedy is 6 years old. In Septemberthe team was given the chance to renounce the cheer, but instead voted to keepit and punish the Tesch family for taking the dispute public.
Sports Fans Over the Line
Marie Murphy, a fifth-grade teacher in Stratford, N.J.,and her husband nearly lost everything in a house fire in April, but when Mariearrived at the burning home, she defied firefighters' orders and dashed insideto retrieve a single prized possession: her Philadelphia Phillies seasontickets. "My husband was so mad at me that I didn't save the fire insuranceinstead," Murphy said. (Later, a Phillies representative informed Murphythat the team would have reprinted her tickets for free.)
Least Competent Criminals
Donald Denney and his father (also namedDonald Denney) concocted a plan on the telephone for the father to smuggle aball of black-tar heroin (for resale to prison inmates) to the son, who wasbeing held in a prison in Colorado.The idea, to take place during visiting hours, was for the drugs to be passedthrough the mouth by a deep kiss from a female visitor. However, the elderDenney could not find a woman with a clean-enough record to be admitted as avisitor. Still enamored of the plan, however, the father decided to be the drugmule, himself, and inserted the packaged heroin into his rectum for later (whenthe plan called for it to be transferred to his mouth to be passed on to hisson). Despite audio warnings, the Denneys were apparently unaware that all ofthe son's phone calls were being monitored. In September, prison officials werewaiting for the father, with a body-cavity search warrant, as he entered theprison.
Rough Crowd
A 23-year-old man on Chicago's South Side is still alive after hereported being shot twice on Sept. 17 by different people in differentneighborhoods. He was shot above the armpit just after midnight, was treated ata hospital and released, and then was shot again in the leg about 10 hourslater.
Bright Ideas
- A Breakthrough in Political Campaign Technology: New York Republicangubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, waging a particularly contentiouscampaign, mailed out a flier in September suggesting that opposing statepoliticians are corrupt. Furthermore, the flier had photos of seven current andrecent officeholders and was made with a special paper that releases a"garbage-scented" smell when exposed to air (and which supposedlygrows even more foul over time).
- Sherin Brown, 23, happened to be walking through a Brooklyn,N.Y., neighborhood in August at the exact moment that a tractor-traileraccidentally clipped a light pole, sending it crashing to the sidewalk. Firstresponders found Brown pinned under the pole, screaming for help, and had hertaken to a hospital. Afterward, investigators discovered a nearby surveillancecamera, which revealed that Brown had stepped out of the way of the fallingpole. Moments later, she crawled underneath the pole and began wailing in"pain."
- Gene Cranick, who lives outside the city of South Fulton, Tenn.,was offered firefighter service by the city for an annual $75 fee, but hedeclined to pay. In September, firefighters stood by watching as Cranick's homeburned to the ground. (They had been called to the scene by Cranick's neighbor,who had paid the fee and feared Cranick's fire might spread to his property.)
