On the Edge, July 1

Graffiti Staff
Lemonade Gone Wild


Call it a lemonade stand-off.


A young girl whose lemonade stand was robbed of $17.50 chased the suspect into a nearby home and called police, who spent nearly an hour trying to coax the man into surrendering.


“The guy came up and was, like, ‘Give me your money,’” said Dominique Morefield, who was running the lemonade stand with a group of friends. “I was shocked. It was just my immediate reaction to chase after him.”


Dominique dashed after the man who ran into a house, and then she called police. Officers eventually persuaded Steve Tryon, 18, to come outside after 45 minutes and arrested him on a preliminary felony charge of robbery.





Tryon was jailed and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. The Vigo County prosecutor’s office did not immediately know if he had an attorney.





“I didn’t think anyone would come up to a lemonade stand and steal, that’s really low,” 12-year-old Fred Erstine said.





News of the Weird


By Chuck Shephard





Rising prices of synthetic fertilizers and organic foods have intensified the collection of bird droppings on 20 climatically ideal islands off the coast of Peru where 12-inch-thick seabird guano coats the land. In the 19th century, Spain fought with Peru on the high seas for the right to mine the guano, which at that time was 150 feet high in places. Said an official of the Peruvian company that controls guano production (to a New York Times reporter in May), “Before there was oil, there was guano, so of course we fought wars over it.” The exceptionally dry climate means that 12,000 to 15,000 tons of guano are available yearly.





The Los Angeles Police Department announced in April that it had investigated 320 complaints against its officers last year for alleged “racial profiling” and found that not a single one was valid. The Los Angeles Times reported that that was at least the sixth consecutive year that LAPD reported a perfect record on racial profiling.





The British government compensates soldiers the equivalent of about $115,000 if they lose a leg in battle. In March, though, the Defense Ministry paid out the equivalent of about $400,000 in disability to a civil servant who had injured his back while lifting a printer, and in May the ministry paid out the equivalent of about $500,000 to an army paratrooper to settle a claim of “humiliating and demeaning” treatment. The soldier had undergone sex-change surgery, converting from “Ian” into “Jan,” yet was ordered by the army to report for a physical exam dressed as Ian.





Worth Every Penny: At an April auction in Beijing, artist Liu Xiaodong’s large (8 feet by 30 feet) oil painting, part of his Three Gorges series, brought the equivalent of about $8 million. The work, “Breeding Ground No. 1,” depicts 11 men in their underwear playing cards.





In May, eighth-grader Michael Avery of Thousand Oaks, Calif., told the hometown newspaper The Acorn that he was undecided which area high school he would attend next fall. This was a matter of interest in that Avery, 15, is a basketball prodigy and, though undecided on high school, he knows exactly where he will go to college because he had just accepted a full scholarship at the University of Kentucky beginning in 2012. The following week, Kentucky offered another one, to ninth-grader Jeremiah Davis III, to enroll in 2011.





Martin Turner, 39, of Blackpool, England, pleaded guilty to four counts of harassment in May, specifically, pestering several workmen by telephone over a three-year period to please come by and stand on his face, his fingers and his genitals while wearing their heavy boots. His lawyer said it had something to do with “domination.”





Jeremy Pope, 26, was arrested in April in Madison, Wis., in an alleged second episode at a Target store (the first was in December at a ShopKo), in which he urinated on women’s underwear on the shelves. Police said Pope was quick to confess: “Yeah, I have a problem.”





Police in Mesa, Ariz., chased driver Christopher Psomas, 38, in May after his companion, Ashley Strahan, 20, allegedly tried to pass a forged check at a business. The pair’s car ran red lights at high speeds to get out of town, then left the road near the Salt River Reservation, and when the car became disabled, kept going on foot. However, they ran smack into a bed of chola cactus, becoming virtual pin cushions. At Banner Desert Medical Center, as nurses plucked the needles from his body, Psomas, in pain and in tears, said, “I am so stupid. This is what I get for trying to run from the police.”





WWL-TV reported in April that at least one east New Orleans floodwall, built immediately after Hurricane Katrina, had been temporarily stuffed with newspaper to create seals, but that in the two years since had not been upgraded. Among the stuffing that had not decayed or been eaten by bugs was an issue of Parade magazine of May 21, 2006. A contractor of the Army Corps of Engineers told a resident at the time that the newspaper seals were used only until money from Washington arrived to finish the job. Two weeks after WWL-TV’s report, the corps repaired the seals properly, but a spokesman insisted that the newspaper stuffing “ha(d) no effect from a structural or safety factor.”





The Government Accountability Office revealed in April that more than 60,000 of the federal government’s contractors owe a total of about $7.7 billion in unpaid federal taxes, and that health care providers who take Medicare payments owe an additional $1 billion in late taxes. One unnamed company owes $10 million in back taxes, yet the Pentagon did $1 million worth of business with it. (One activist on tax issues pointed out that firms might find it easy to win low-bid contracts if they don’t have the tax expense that their competitors have.) Today, 4-24-08]











The kids said they would continue to sell lemonade, but with an adult’s supervision.





Joke of the Week:


Puns


Everyone loves puns, even if they don’t want to admit it. That’s why jokesgalore.com has provided us with this quick list for some afternoon giggles.





Energizer Bunny arrested; charged with battery.


A pessimist’s blood type is always b-negative.


Dijon vu: the same mustard as before.


I fired my masseuse today. She just rubbed me the wrong way.


A hangover is the wrath of grapes.


Corduroy pillows are making headlines.


Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.


A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.


Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.


Without geometry, life is pointless.


When you dream in color, it’s a pigment of your imagination.