Lead Story
David Bridges, 24, was arrested in Grapevine, Texas, in January and charged with stealing a television set from a home. His getaway had been successful, but he was caught and arrested when he returned to the home to get the remote control.
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In separate incidents on the same evening in December in Springfield, Illinois, one pedestrian and one person in a wheelchair were hit by cars, sent to local hospitals, and then ticketed by police for “being in a roadway.”
A 36-year-old man in Chesterfield Township, Michigan, was charged in January with assault and battery after brandishing a rifle and barricading himself in his home with his wife and son and a family friend. Police said the incident started when the son, age ten, became flatulent while watching TV. The father got angry at the boy and then at the wife and friend when they defended him.
The Weirdo-American Community
Psychology professor Russell Carney of Southwest Missouri State University told the Associated Press in August that he had developed a method for improving memory and told the reporter how he could recall, say, that a particular painting was done by Degas in 1865. First, think of an object that sounds like “Degas” (day-GAH), for example, “dagger,” and then memorize the last two digits of the year by learning the sentence “Twin new moons rose low, just clearing four pine saplings” in which the first word begins with a T and stands for “1,” the second, “new,” stands for “2,” and so on. Thus, 1865 becomes “65,” which becomes “just” and “low,” which could translate to J-L, which could be “jelly.” This produces “jelly dagger,” to which the subject tries to find a resemblance, somewhere, in the Degas painting. Simple as that.
