Pole Position:
The annual World Pole-Sitting Championships began May 1 in Berlin (and if the winner is decided after Nov. 17, he will have a new world record). Contestants sit on a 15-inch-by-23-inch platform, 24 hours a day, and electronic sensors detect if anyone leaves the platform for any reason except for the 10-minute break every two hours. The event's organizer said the Dutch are the sport's "purists," that in Dutch competitions, "you don't get to sit on a board, and you can't come down (for restroom breaks)."
Trial by fire:
A juror in the recent London trial in which five Irish car-bombers were convicted was let go by the judge for inattention because she carried out spiritual rituals in the jury box while clutching a witchcraft book in one hand and placing the other, as required by the ritual, on the floor. And in York, Pa., trial is nearing for Matthew Turner, 22, who was arrested last year after pursuing a man for his adrenal gland, which he thought would bring a week-long high if licked or eaten; allegedly, he had stabbed the man in the side, and when the man escaped, Turner chased him relentlessly through town, knife drawn, until police caught him.
Oral arguments:
Responding to a February incident in St. Clair Shores, Mich., in which a girl performed oral sex on a boy during a middle-school class (both were suspended), the superintendent and the principal wrote to parents: "Just like our country was shocked into awareness when never-before acts of terrorism occurred in New York City, our district was shocked into awareness when middle-school students engaged in indecent acts in the classroom." (The boy's parents filed a lawsuit over the suspension, pointing out that their son was a "victim" in that, when the girl started, he had no "legal duty" to resist.)
Recurring Themes:
Cat-hoarder Heidi Erickson, 42, had two Boston-area homes raided in April and May, at which authorities rescued a total of 112 sickly cats and found several cat carcasses. Erickson is one of the more aggressive hoarders on record, both for her proclivity for litigiousness (40 cases in seven years) and the circus-like atmosphere she created at a subsequent court hearing (during which she denied the accounts of numerous witnesses that the cats were ailing). She told one person her mission was to breed the "imperfections" out of Persians.
Masters of Disguise:
A man escaped in February after robbing a Wienerschnitzel drive-thru in North Long Beach, Calif.; identifying him was difficult because he had smeared what appeared to be chocolate pudding over his face. And Edwin Lockhart, 48, had less success robbing a SunTrust bank in Palatka, Fla., receiving a 10-year sentence in April; he was identified despite having stuck several sanitary napkins on his face.
Affirmative Action in Action:
In May, a second Indian mayor, Amarnath Yadav of Gorakhpur, was removed from office because "he," a eunuch, had run as a female but was declared by a court to be just an effeminate male and thus ineligible to seek a female-reserved electoral office.
Also, in the Last Month ... :
Police chief Beverly Lennen instituted an advance-reservations system at the jail, to serve activists who wanted to be arrested protesting a visit by President Bush (Santa Fe, N.M.). The museum director who housed Marco Evaristti's installation, in which patrons were invited to turn on a live goldfish-containing blender, was acquitted of animal cruelty charges because the two unlucky fish died instantly (Copenhagen, Denmark).
2003 CHUCK SHEPHERD
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