Lead Story
In a first-person account in London’s Independent in September, Jenny Gathorne-Hardy reported that she drilled a hole in her skull to test the theory that adults’ brains would function better if blood were able to circulate to the topmost part. Reported Gathorne-Hardy, “I feel calmer, and that particular mental exhaustion I became so used to has gone.”
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In August 70-year-old Kim Sun Myung, who’s thought to be the longest-serving prisoner of war in the world, was freed in South Korea, where he’d been held–mostly in solitary confinement–since the outbreak of the Korean war in 1951. Officials said he would have been released years ago if he had publicly renounced his support for North Korea.
9Also in November a jury in Louisville, Kentucky, awarded William Townsend Jr. $20,000 after finding that he’d been excessively punished at River City Corrections Center. A guard had found contraband–two cans of Vienna sausages–in Townsend’s underwear and had squeezed his testicles three times, causing a contusion that left him in pain long after his release from jail. According to Townsend, the guard told him at the time, “That’ll teach you to bring Vienna sausages up here.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Illustration by Shawn Belschwender.