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Two strikes and he's out

Anne Greer filed a lawsuit in June against Winter Park, Fla., dentist Wesley Meyers over the death of her father last year during procedures to secure his dentures with implants. During the October 2006 visit, Meyers had accidentally dropped a screwdriver down the patient's throat, which required a colonoscopy to remove.

The man returned the following year to give Meyers another chance (against his daughter's wishes), and during that procedure, Meyers accidentally dropped a torque wrench down his throat, creating problems that ultimately proved fatal.

People with issues

Since 2004 the Palmerton Area (Pa.) School Board has paid $45,000 for the special education of Rebecca Maykish, 17, who has an apparently devastating fear of "school," dating back to fourth grade.

The mere act of spending time in a classroom, her mother says, causes her to cry nonstop for hours. The board, acknowledging her "generalized anxiety disorder," agreed to accommodate her illness by specially funding things broadly educational or therapeutic, and so far that includes not only tutors and software but modeling classes and travel, to build her self-esteem.

The Morning Call of Allentown reported in May that, with the board's funds depleted, and Rebecca's continuing to drop out shortly after each school year begins, the government has begun to impose truancy fines on her mother.

Fine Points of the Law

"Everyone knows what an ankle is," said an official of the association of Texas medical doctors.

Not so, said a lawyer representing Texas podiatrists: "You don't have an ankle. The foot actually includes the ankle." A state appeals court in March sided with the medical doctors, but the podiatrists say it's not over yet and that they may continue to treat ankles even though they are licensed to work only on feet.

Questionable judgments

Officials in Chongqing, China, abruptly shut down the lifestyle magazine New Travel Weekly in May after it published a photo spread of sexy women in lingerie posing in the rubble at one of the country's recent earthquake sites. The editorial staff was fired and the company ordered into "rectification," which is apparently the process of self-examination of what in the world the company might have been thinking.

Cultural diversity

-- Dozens of spas operate in Russia's Caucasus Mountains region, exploiting the mineral springs in the area, and apparently colonic treatment is a specialty.

In fact, in June, the Mashuk-Akva Term spa in Zheleznovodsk unveiled a large monument to the enema (an 800-pound brass syringe bulb held aloft by three angels). "Let's beat constipation," read one banner. Said the sculptor: "This device is eternal; it will never change. We could promote this brand, turn it into a franchise with souvenirs and awards for medical doctors."

--The reputation of the Japanese for being humble is falling to Western norms among primary-school parents, according to a June dispatch from Tokyo in The Times of London.

"Across Japan, teachers are reporting an astonishing change in the character of parents" as they push for their children's "rights." In one school's performance of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," there were 25 Snow Whites after "monster parents" bullied officials into admitting that it was not fair to have just one kid in the title role.

--His countrymen are too polite, wrote French doctor Frederic Saldmann in his new book (translated as "Spring Cleaning"), and can improve their health by uninhibitedly embracing their bodily functions that he said too many Frenchmen suppress. According to a May dispatch from Paris in London's Daily Telegraph, Saldmann wrote that the intestines, stomach and esophagus benefit if gas is expelled promptly and pores freely excrete toxins. In fact, he wrote, doing away with antiperspirants also facilitates "a certain number of messages that are potentially very attractive to the opposite sex."