LEAD STORY
* In May, the immigration office at Pearson International Airport
in Toronto announced that one of its employees had been disciplined
because of complaints that, under the pretense of official policy,
he had ordered people entering Canada to remove their shoes and
socks so that he could photograph their feet. According to officials,
the man had already been counseled four times about his habit.
[Sault Star-CP, 5-3-95]
COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE TRUE
* In December, the Air Force Times reported that Army soldier
Joseph Cannon had recently ended his six-year career having not
received a single military paycheck after boot camp. Officials
said Cannon's records were lost at his first duty station, but
that he had never complained, though he missed 144 paychecks totaling
over $103,000. Apparently, Cannon lived in the barracks, ate
only in the mess halls, and borrowed money from relatives whenever
he had special needs. [Air Force Times, 12-5- 94]
* According to records released in March of the November 1994
autopsy of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, officials kept Dahmer's
body shackled at the feet during the entire procedure, "such
was the fear of this man," according to pathologist Robert
Huntington. [Milwaukee Journal-AP, 3-17-95]
* In February, a fishing boat sank in rough, cold waters off Vancouver
Island, leaving two men in a life raft that was tied to the sinking
boat by a nylon rope. Neither had a knife to cut the rope, and
had the ship sunk, it would have pulled the boat and the men down
with it. For an hour, the two men alternated chewing the rope,
with one man losing a tooth in the process, and, minutes before
the ship sank, the men finally chewed through the rope and survived.
[Vancouver Sun, 2-13-95]
* According to two colleagues, the pilot of the American Eagle
airlines plane that crashed near Morrisville, N. C., in December
told them and others that he was not qualified to pilot that particular
aircraft and that he accepted a captain's assignment only when
American Eagle told him to accept it or resign. The pilot, who
had been forced out of his previous job because of poor skill
performance and who had had difficulty during American Eagle's
training, was said by colleagues interviewed by the Associated
Press to have poor emergency decision-making ability and not to
be "captain material." [Greensboro News- Record-AP,
Apr95]
* According to a New York Times story in May, as many as 20 Orthodox
Jewish fathers in New York City who are involved in bitter divorce
fights may be improving their leverage by resorting to an obscure
passage in the Torah. A father is permitted to arrange his daughter's
marriage while she is still a minor (under age 13); the daughter
can then marry no one else without the father's permission. Because
a mother so fears for her daughter's well-being, she may relent
to divorce demands of the husband if he will drop the arrangement.
The Times interviewed rabbis who called the practice disgusting
and abhorrent, but valid. [N. Y. Times, 5-27-95]
* In July, a judge in Denver, Colo., ruled that a mother and her
current boyfriend could have temporary custody of her 8-month-
old twin girls, even though DNA tests revealed that the boyfriend
and the woman's estranged husband each fathered one, but not both,
of the girls. The woman must have ovulated twice during a single
cycle and had intercourse with both men during that cycle. [Albuquerque
Journal-AP, 5-18-95]
* According to a May story by Reuters columnist Sherwood Ross,
psychic advisors Phyllis Schwartz and Hy Kaplan of Cherry Hill,
N. J., have been retained by nearly 100 firms, including several
of the Fortune 500, to "read" the vibes of applicants
for employment. According to Kaplan, they need to know nothing
more than name and position applied for, but they also note age,
gender, and residence so they won't "read" the wrong
person of the same name. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4-17- 95]
* In April in Los Angeles, Ruth Walston filed for divorce from
her husband, actor Ray Walston. She's 79, he's 80, they've been
married 51 years, and she charged "irreconcilable differences."
[People, 5-8-95]
NAMES IN THE NEWS
* Names that showed up recently on police blotters: Pleading
guilty to rape in Denver, William Freelove; sentenced for assault
in St. Joseph, Mo., Jesse James; cited for speeding in Parma,
Ohio, Amelia A. Earhart; charged with assault and burglary in
Moorhead, Minn., was a man who would not give his name and is
thus listed on the rolls as Mr. Fnu Mnu Lnu (derived from "first
name unknown," etc.); and jailed in Des Moines, Iowa, was
Shannon Cooper, who police said went out bar-hopping, temporarily
abandoning her children, Champaigne, 2, Chardonay, 1, and Chablea,
3 months. [Rocky Mountain News, 4-22-95] [Franklin County Watchman-AP,
2-20-95] [Columbus Dispatch-AP, Dec94] [Fargo Forum, Dec94] [Des
Moines Register, 11-18-94]
* Notable announcements in the news recently included the hiring
by a medical clinic in Koloa, Hawaii, of Dr. Michael Cholera;
the success of a new tooth decay preventive by Dutch professor
Taco Pilot; the appointment as county coroner in Spokane, Wash.,
of Pat Mummey; and the revelation of fraud uncovered in a United
Nations office in Kenya, as announced by office spokeswoman, Shamp
Poo. [The Garden Island, May95] [Nashville Tennessean-AP, 4-8-94]
[Spokane Spokesman- Review, 10-22-94] [New York Times-Reuters,
3-3-95]
* California Names: In Newport Beach, Miss Truly Gold recently
married Cary S. Boring. The Los Angeles Times reported that 16
people named Jesus Christ have California drivers licenses. The
chair of the Polish American Congress, Anti-Defamation Committee
of California, Inc., as of last year was Teodor Polak. [Albuquerque
Journal-AP, 10-10-94] [Los Angeles Times, 5-2-95] [Los Angeles
Times, 1-9-94]
LEAST COMPETENT PERSON
* In May, police in Halifax, Mass., charged Robert Brinson, 28,
with assembling an Oklahoma City-style fertilizer bomb to blow
up his ex-girlfriend and her family. Police said one bomb was
found in the woman's bathroom and another in a doghouse outside,
both consisting of turpentine and nails in cans with a battery
and timer. However, police said the bombs were not explosive--since
Brinson had mistakenly used potting soil instead of fertilizer.
[Boston Herald, 5-23-95]