Darth Vader’s Example Lives
Bob Anderson, the man who took over over for David Prowse in the Darth Vader costume to perform Vader’s light-saber duels, died this week. He was 89, and now he’s as dead as Darth Vader is dead, but Vader’s example still lives, and it lives everywhere. Just yesterday it was living in Orlando,…
Man Stabbed for Not Knowing His Jay-Z Trivia
The knowledge that Jay-Z is married to Beyonce may be trivial to you, but it’s no longer trivial to a certain unnamed 48-year-old, now in reportedly good condition in a hospital outside Cleveland; and it’s certainly not at all trivial to one Ronald Deaver, 31, who was compelled to stab the…
First Amateur Drinker of the New Year Can’t Even Wait for the New Year
When they took Bradley Garrison, 40, to the police station, they couldn’t even give him a Breathalyzer, he was puking so much. They’d just finished pulling his car over down there in Ocala, Florida, and when they smelled the fumes coming from inside and asked how many he’d had, he gave the…
The New Pecan-Theft Epidemic
Down where the Pecan Belt wraps itself around Georgia, the New York Times finds today that pecan theft is a persistent epidemic, growing more persistent all the time. Twice as many pecans were stolen this year over last year, and with states like Texas gone too dry to grow them right, and…
Ringling Bros. Fined Record Amount for Cruelty to Animals
Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus has just been fined more than a quarter-million dollars for the way some of their animals get treated in putting on the Greatest Show on Earth. At $10,000 incurred for each violation of the Animal Welfare Act, that’s a brand-new record, although I don’t…
TSA Screener Arrested for Sexual Assault
Harold Glenn Rodman, 52, charged in Virginia with abduction with intent to defile, aggravated sexual assault, forcible sodomy, and object sexual penetration
That a TSA officer committed sexual assault is no big deal. It’s perfectly normal, and it happens every day. That he allegedly committed…
Hoover’s Fingerprints: ‘J. Edgar,’ and a Half-Century of Criminal Crime-Fighting
Since his death, J. Edgar Hoover’s had one hell of a strange career at the movies. Not quite as strange as the career he had as director of the FBI, for 48 years while still alive, but still, there are times when I wonder. I got to wondering all over again just last week, when I saw Clint…
NYPD Arrests Pipe-Bomb Terror Suspect
Jose Pimentel, 27, arrested in Manhattan for constructing pipe-bomb with terrorist intentions
The suspect identifies with al Qaeda, even if al Qaeda does not identify with the suspect. He once tried to reach out to Anwar al-Awlaki, all the way up at the top of al Qaeda’s organization, but…
White House Shooting Suspect: “It’s Not Just a Coincidence that I Look Like Jesus”
According to one witness known to have known Oscar Ortega, he’d been talking for some time about how Obama “needed to be taken care of,” and he wasn’t talking mandatory healthcare, either—even if what he carried concealed from Idaho to Washington did count for a kind of public…
Natalie Wood Death to be Re-investigated
The story for thirty years has been that no one will ever know the true story. Suicide, murder, or accident—there were indications of all three, but, finally, for lack of stronger clues and a better verdict, the latter was what was settled on, or settled for.
