Posted: Friday, February 22, 2008 12:00 am
Should've used a calling card
The boss of a factory in North Korea was executed by firing squad before 150,000 people in a South Pyongan province stadium after he was convicted of the crime of making out-of-country telephone calls (November).
Cultural diversity
- Brand new Japanese parents receiving a gift are then customarily obligated to give a lesser one in return, and the Yoshimiya rice shop in Fukuoka recently created the ideal such return: small bags of rice of the exact weight of the newborn, printed with its face and name, so that original gift-givers (relatives, friends) can experience cuddling "the baby." Then, of course, according to Yoshimiya's owner, they can break open the bag and eat the rice, though he admitted some people have a problem with that.
Questionable judgments
- In December, even after the widely reported tiger attack on a visitor at the San Francisco Zoo, the Houston Zoo was still allowing its visitors to play "tug of war" with its own lions and tigers. A 20-pound slab of meat, attached to a long rope, is tossed into the enclosure, and visitors are encouraged to toy with the cats by yanking on it as the animal lunges for it. Said a Houston zookeeper, the game keeps the animals from getting bored. Besides, a zoo official said, "(The lion or tiger) kind of lets us know when he wants to play, and we go along with that."
- Edward Debrow of San Antonio, Texas, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for a 1992 murder conviction, appealed that sentence as too harsh. After a Texas appeals court granted his challenge and ordered a re-sentencing in October, a judge gave him 40 years.
- Two counselors in the Denver school system proposed in December that the school board give high school girls who get pregnant at least four weeks of maternity leave, without academic penalty, so they can bond with their newborns. The counselors said the policy would encourage teen mothers to stay in school. (Meanwhile, the Department of Education of the Australian Capital Territory in Canberra granted permission for a 16-year-old student at Stromlo High School to take smoking breaks, based on a doctor's finding that she is so "clinically addicted" to nicotine that her work suffers without it.)
A slap in the face to education
A teacher at Yamata Elementary School in Yokohama, Japan, was disciplined in January after a finding that she improperly punished her class because a few students would not come to order. Officials said she lined up all students and walked down the row, slapping each one in the face.
Family values
Geraldine Magda, 44, was arrested in Austin, Minn., in January, following a nursing-home visit to hold the hand of her dying sister in her final hours. Magda was charged with stealing the wedding ring from her sister's finger during the hand-holding.
Least justifiable homicides
- David Thomson, 49, was convicted in Edinburgh, Scotland, of smothering his mom to death after she had taunted him for his inept suicide attempt several weeks before (October).
- In Sydney, Australia, a man was charged with beating a neighbor to death because the neighbor was watering his lawn in violation of the city's water restrictions (October).