America What a Country! In 2007, after a stay in the United States distinguished mainly by his acquisition of a long police record, illegal immigrant Cecil Harvey, 55, was deported to his native Barbados. However, according to records revealed by the New York Post in May, Harvey received, in late 2009, one last remembrance of America: $145,000 from the city of New York in settlement of his lawsuit over having once been held at Rikers Island jail for about a month longer than the law permitted.

-- Betty Lou Lynn, 83, was mugged and had her wallet stolen in her new hometown of Mount Airy, N.C., in April. Lynn is the actress who played Barney Fife's best girl, Thelma Lou, in the Andy Griffith TV show and had lived in Los Angeles until she became alarmed at the city's crime rate. She decided in 2007 to move to the quieter, peaceful Mount Airy, which was Griffith's birthplace and the model for the TV town of Mayberry.

-- Gary Null filed a lawsuit in New York City in April against the maker of a nutrition supplement called Ultimate Power Meal, alleging that he had suffered constant pain, kidney damage and internal bleeding from the product's recommended daily regimen. Ultimate Power Meal is one of the "health" supplements packaged under the label of ... Gary Null, a nationally prominent pitchman for homeopathic remedies. Null is suing the manufacturer who supplies the product on which Null affixes his Ultimate Power Meal label. (According to consumer advisers at Quackwatch.org, Null is "one of the nation's leading promoters of dubious treatment for serious disease.")

-- According to court records cited by The Washington Post in April, Rene Fernandez, 45, will plead guilty to one count of a DUI-caused injury in connection with a 2009 traffic accident in Montgomery County, Md., that severely injured a retired county judge and his wife, both in their 80s. Fernandez and the judge, Edwin Collier, had met previously, in 1998, when Judge Collier pronounced sentence on Fernandez for DUI. At that time, Judge Collier released Fernandez on probation, even though Fernandez had been arrested for DUI twice in the previous three months.

-- Paula Wolf, 41, was arrested in Stevens Point, Wis., and charged with hitting four pedestrians at random with projectiles on April 21. In Wolf's car, police found a blow gun, a slingshot and a bucket of rocks, and after questioning, Wolf told police that she just "liked to hear people say 'ouch.'"

-- Lame: (1) The reason career criminal Kevin Polwart gave for his brief February escape from New Zealand's Auckland Prison was to demonstrate that he posed no threat to society on the outside (and thus that he should be parolled). (Instead, authorities added nine months to his sentence.) (2) A judge in Scotland went lenient on George McIntosh, 53, who had been convicted of embezzling the equivalent of about $87,000 from two pro golfing organizations. McIntosh claimed that his medication for Parkinson's disease had made him "compulsive(ly)" generous so that he needed to embezzle money in order to buy gifts for his friends.

-- In April, George Black's lawsuit to be compensated for his injuries was permitted to proceed to trial, following an Ontario Superior Court decision. Black was playing third base (the "hot corner") in a softball game in Hamilton when he lost track of a line drive in the sun. The ball hit him in the head, smashing his glasses into his face and causing serious trauma to his eye. Black figures his injury is the fault of the owner of the softball field for failing to put up any kind of shade to block the late afternoon sun.

-- Melanie Shaker filed a lawsuit recently against the Fases Salon in Chicago for her 2008 injuries, which she incurred when she fell through the salon's front window and badly slashed herself. She fell after losing her balance while attempting to kick her husband during a quarrel along Sheffield Avenue following dinner (and, of course, drinks). Shaker suffered deep cuts to her arm, back and feet, which she now says was the salon's fault in that they had neglected to use "safety glass" in their front window, which would not have shattered into glass shards.

-- Jo Ann Fonzone's four-year quest to divorce the rock singer David Lee Roth (of Van Halen) continues, according to a May report in the Morning Call of Allentown, Pa. Roth, through his publicist, denied any connection whatsoever to Fonzone, who has filed nearly two dozen lawsuits against various people who she claims have done her wrong, including Hollywood executive Cary Woods and MTV CEO Judy McGrath, who each has been accused of trying to steal Fonzone's identity. Judges have noted that Fonzone's claims are unaccompanied by any "evidence" (such as a marriage license to Roth, or even photographs of the "couple" together), and most judges who have heard her claims regard the lawsuits as "frivolous." Said a court records chief of Fonzone's prolific filings, "When (the clerks) see her, they all want to run." Fonzone actually has a law degree, from Western State University in Fullerton, Calif.

In April, warehouse workers at the Copenhagen, Denmark, brewery that makes Carlsberg beer went on strike after the company cut back on its allowance of providing up to three free beers per shift, which workers thought made their mundane jobs easier to take. As of April 1, only one beer per shift was provided, and only at lunch. (The previous "right" belonged also to delivery drivers, according to a Reuters report, but it was not clear how that right squared with drunk-driving laws.)

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) John Campana, 18, was detained by police after they found him with several pieces of expensive jewelry in Gainesville, Fla. As they were questioning him about where he got the jewelry, Campana (according to the police report) started shaking and sweating, and then fainted. (He was charged several days later with burglary.) (2) Jason Robinson, 22, was arrested at a Burger King in Pine Bluff, Ark., in May after robbing the restaurant manager at gunpoint. As the manager handed over the day's proceeds, Robinson set his gun down on a counter to grab the money. Not surprisingly, the manager picked up the gun and shot Robinson in the leg.

Recurring Theme: Police in Austin, Texas, executing a search warrant in May, discovered an elaborate, three-story tunnel complex extending as far as 35 feet underground, beneath the home of Jose Del Rio, 70, which he apparently dug over at least a two-year period. Police also found 19 guns, plus ammunition, batteries and compressed gas (which presented a serious safety hazard). The property showed signs of caving in and posed a threat to adjacent property, as well. Police noted that Del Rio (who neighbors said "kept to himself") was cooperative during the search although he offered no particular explanation for the tunnels.

The New York Daily News reported in April (1994) on a cellblock fight between prominent New York mass murderers Colin Ferguson and Joel Rifkin while they were awaiting trials at the Nassau County jail. (They were later convicted.) Reportedly, Ferguson was using a telephone and told Rifkin to be quiet. According to the Daily News source, Ferguson told Rifkin, "I wiped out six devils (white people), and you only killed women." Rifkin allegedly responded, "Yeah, but I had more victims." Ferguson then allegedly punched Rifkin in the mouth.

American families from certain Asian and African cultures continue to ritually "circumcise" their young daughters, though the practice is illegal in the U.S. and most of the world. In May, the bioethics committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics changed its policy from absolutely banning such surgery to one which would sanction a minor "pinprick" on girls' genitals (comparable, it said, to ear-piercing), with the hope of satisfying parents so they would not opt to send the girls to the home countries for full genital "mutilation." U.S. anti-female-circumcision support groups were outraged. Said one advocate, "We don't let (husbands) beat their wives a little bit" just because their cultures permit wife-beating. (On May 26, following that storm of criticism, the academy rescinded the policy change.)

-- The local government of Bolton, England, responding in March to a citizen's report of a discarded mattress on the side of a road, sent an official to assess the scene. He wrote a work order for four men (a driver, an assistant and two supervisors) and a 1.7-ton construction vehicle, and the pickup was scheduled for the following week, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph. (When a Bolton councilman saw the schedule, he, with the help of a friend, drove a council van to the scene and hauled the mattress to a dump site.)

-- A Hollywood, Fla., leukemia patient on Medicaid had endured six months of grueling chemotherapy in order to be healthy enough for a long-awaited bone marrow transplant when, in March, a Social Security Administration caseworker called her up out of the blue to inform her that her son was eligible for disability payments, which the woman immediately signed up for. However, almost as immediately, Medicaid removed her from its rolls because the disability check raised her income beyond the qualifying maximum, and her transplant was, life-threateningly, canceled. (In April, the hospital persuaded Medicaid to cover the transplant.)

-- In April, officials in Hudson, N.Y., proudly unveiled their state-of-the-art water fountain for the disabled in the county courthouse, a fixture whose installation was agreed to in a 2003 settlement with federal officials enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, the fountain was installed on the courthouse's second floor, which is accessible only by stairway. In defense, county officials said the fountain had several features for handicapped people other than those in wheelchairs.

-- Apparently, the death penalty is so important to Californians that they spend $125 million a year administering it, plus $400 million recently for a new death row and execution chamber even though the state is notoriously nearly bankrupt and even though, in a death-row population of more than 700, only 13 have been executed in the past 30 years. (As News of the Weird mentioned last year, one killer demanded the death penalty instead of life in prison because death row has better facilities and because, like nearly everyone on death row, he expects to die of disease or natural causes before the state can execute him.) Said the outraged mother of a raped-and-murdered teenage boy, of her son's killer, "(Scott Erskine) is (in) there watching television knowing I am going to die before he does."

-- Susan Collis' conceptual art, "Since I Fell for You," debuted at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England, in May, consisting of an empty room with pieces of lumber on the floor, along with a broom propped against a wall and an empty laundry bag. Though the Birmingham Mail quoted several annoyed visitors, Collis defended her work. "Often a work that looks very careless ... takes a long time to produce."

-- Just finishing up in May at New York City's Museum of Modern Art is a tribute to performance artist Marina Abramovic for her lifetime achievements in making patrons uneasy. Videos played, including one in which the artist screams at the top of her lungs until such time as she loses her voice, and visitors faced unsettling live demonstrations, including being asked to enter a room by squeezing between a naked man and woman facing each other in the doorway. The artist herself planned to attend the entire run sitting at a table in the museum's atrium, silent and motionless, all day long, during which time patrons could stare back at her.

-- A 2009 Minnesota law gives local police the authority to make traffic stops to enforce the stand-alone offense of failure of a passenger to wear a seat belt. According to a report in the Pioneer Press, police in the St. Paul suburb of Maplewood take it seriously. An undercover cop, posing as a homeless man with a "will work for food" sign, roamed an intersection, peering into cars and secretly signaling colleagues, who subsequently pulled over violators, and all unbelted passengers were issued $108 tickets: $25 for the violation, $75 for a brand-new "surcharge" for petty misdemeanors, and an $8 general state fee (none of which, according to the legislative history, represented a "tax increase").

-- Veteran Dallas attorney Sandra McFeeley, 67, was arrested in April after refusing to stop pruning the excess vegetation and dead tree limbs at her neighborhood's Wynnewood Parkway Park, which she had been doing regularly for three years, thus violating a municipal trespass ordinance. McFeeley remained upbeat. "I met some neat people (at the police station). I'd never been in a perp walk before. It was cool." Said a supporter, "It's hard enough to keep that neighborhood nice without having the police haul people off for felonious gardening."

-- Galena Park, Texas, high school teacher Fernando Gonzalez, 35, was sentenced to seven years in prison in March as a result of his being caught using his classroom computer to watch child pornography from his many disks. He tried to explain that he had no other choice, in that his wife had already banned him from watching child porn at home.

-- Mary Merten, 43, pleaded guilty in March to four felonies in connection with an eight-year-long spree in which, as bookkeeper for a two-lawyer firm in Kingston, N.Y., she stole over $800,000 via embezzlement and theft of the lawyers' identities. However, as she awaited sentencing, she wrote her former bosses: "I would ask that you consider keeping me employed. ... I truly enjoy my job and want to continue to work for the both of you to make up for my imperfections." (At press time, she was still awaiting sentencing.)

(1) James Fall, 58, told police in Mound, Minn., in March that his "marriage" to his 10-year-old niece was perfectly acceptable in that he is a "prophet of God," citing Corinthians 6:12. (2) Terrill Dalton, 43, who refers to himself as the Holy Ghost, moved his small congregation to Fromberg, Mont., in March as the latest stop in avoiding law enforcement investigations in Utah and Idaho. He credits his holiness to his collection of rocks, several of which he said are powerful "seer stones." (3) Adam Disabato, who said he is "the Messiah," was arrested in Pittsburgh in April after he drove his car into the Poale Zedeck synagogue, causing about $30,000 in damages. "I'm not crazy, and I don't hear voices. I just got a feeling sent by God to drive real fast for some reason."

In December 1994, the Air Force Times reported that Army soldier Joseph Cannon had recently ended his six-year career having not received a single military paycheck after boot camp. Officials said Cannon's records were lost at his first duty station, but that he had never complained, though he missed 144 paychecks totaling, in 1994 dollars, about $103,000. Apparently, Cannon lived only in the barracks, ate only in the mess halls, and borrowed money from relatives whenever he had special needs.

Briton Robert Dee, feeling humiliated at being called the "world's worst tennis pro" by London's Daily Telegraph (and other news organizations) sued the newspaper for libel last year. After taking testimony in February 2010, the judge tossed out the lawsuit in April, persuaded by Dee's having lost 54 consecutive international tour matches (all in straight sets). Fearful of an opposite result, 30 other news organizations had already apologized to Dee for disparaging him, and some even paid him money in repentance, but the Telegraph had stood its ground (and was, of course, humble in victory, titling its story on the outcome, "'World's Worst' Tennis Player Loses Again").

-- Mexican police, raiding a suspected hideout of drug kingpin Oscar Nava Valencia in the city of Zapopan in December, found the expected items (weapons, drugs, cash) but also 38 gold- or silver-plated guns emblazoned with ornate designs and studded with diamonds, which it placed on public display in May. Included were seven bejeweled assault weapons.

-- In war-torn Gaza, with little relief from the tedium of destruction and poverty, the Mediterranean Sea offers some relief, especially for about 40 people who belong to the Gaza Surf Club, riding waves on secondhand, beaten-down boards. While the waves might not be as challenging as those in Huntington Beach, Calif., the surfers nonetheless must be skilled enough to avoid the estimated 60 million liters of raw sewage that Gaza city, with no practical alternative, has routinely emptied into the sea.

-- An April ABC News TV report featured a Westford, Mass., couple as the face of the "radical unschooling" philosophy, which challenges both the formal classroom system and home schooling. Typically, home-schooling parents believe they can organize their kids' educations better than schools can, but "unschoolers" simply put kids on their own, free to decide by themselves what, or whether, to learn any of the traditional school subjects. There is no punishment, no judgment, no discipline. The key, said parent Christine Yablonski, "is that you've got to trust your kids." For example, "If they (decide that they) need formal algebra understanding ... they'll find that information."

-- Bolinas, Calif., north of San Francisco, is famously reclusive, even to the point of residents' removing state highway signs pointing to the town, hoping that outsiders will get lost enroute and give up the quest. It limits its population to about 1,500 by officially fixing the number of municipal water hookups at 580, but in April, one of the meters became available when the city purchased a residential lot to convert to a park. The meter was to be sold at a May auction, with a minimum bid of $300,000.

-- A recent French documentary in the form of a TV show called "Game of Death" mimics the notorious 1950s human-torture experiments of Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, who would coax test subjects to administer increasingly painful jolts of electricity to strangers to assess their obedience to an "authority figure," even if contrary to their own moral codes. As in Milgram's experiments, the Game of Death "victims" were actors, unharmed but paid to scream louder with each successive "shock." According to a BBC News report, 82 percent of the game's players were willing torturers, a higher percentage than Milgram found, but the TV show's subjects had greater encouragement, cheered on by a raucous studio audience and a glamorous hostess.

-- According to an April lawsuit filed by an employee of the five-star Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., the hotel complied with a February request by a wealthy British traveler that, during their stay, his family not be served by "people of colour" or anyone who spoke with a "foreign accent." The hotel has apologized to the employee, but denied that it had complied with the traveler's request. (Lawyers for the employee told the Associated Press that nine witnesses and a copy of a computer entry prove their claim.)

-- Good News/Bad News: Based on April federal indictments of organized crime members in New York and New Jersey, it appears that any "glass ceiling" to management in the exclusively male Gambino family has been cracked in that at least one woman, Suzanne Porcelli, 43, was indicted among the 14 family members and associates. However, the Gambino "farm system" is apparently weak, in that with the imprisonment of John Gotti and other experienced capos, the organization appears headed in historically unfamiliar directions, most notably in child prostitution. Until now, even the most vicious of Mafiosi historically, heroically, protected women and children from the families' "business."

Spectacular Errors: (1) Milton High School beat Westlake, 56-46, for the Georgia 5A boys' basketball championship in March. Westlake's chances evaporated during the pre-game warm-ups, when their Georgia-player-of-the-year candidate Marcus Thornton was forced to sit after spraining his ankle leaping to ceremonially hip-bump a teammate. (2) Two North Carolina surgeons were issued official "letters of concern" in January for a 2008 incident in which they performed a C-section on a woman who was not pregnant. (They relied on an intern's confused diagnosis and followed an ultrasound with no heartbeat and several obviously failed attempts to induce labor.)

Frustrated customers frequently challenge bills, and occasionally, "rescission" of the original deal is a suitable remedy. However, it's not suitable for some services. Deborah Dillow was late with the $150 she allegedly owed to The Bomb Squad dog waste pick-up service in Bend, Ore., in April, and appeared to be avoiding calls at her home. The Bomb Squad owner, frustrated by the delays, simply returned all the work done to that point on Dillow's property in one big pile, in her front yard.

The Wonder Drug: (1) Donald Wolfe, 55, was charged with public drunkenness in March in Brookville, Pa., after neighbors spotted him giving, as he described it, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a roadkill possum along Route 36. (2) A 62-year-old man suffered second-degree burns after launching himself on a makeshift, rocket-powered sled in Independence Township, Mich., in January. Witnesses said he put on a helmet, then strapped a contraption consisting of a motorcycle muffler, a pipe, gunpowder, match heads and gasoline on his back, and had someone light the wick to send him blasting through the snow.

Overconfident "Artists": (1) Clair Arthur Smith, 42, of Cape Coral, Fla., was charged with forgery in May after he allegedly tried to doctor the amount of a check he had received from Bank of America. Converting the "$10.00" check to $100, or even $100,000, would seem plausible, but Smith tried to deposit the check into his account after he had marked it up to "$269,951.00." (2) A 17-year-old was arrested in College Station, Texas, in January and charged with trying to pass a homemade $5 bill at a restaurant. Police said the bill's front and back had been computer-scanned and then pasted together but that the front of the bill was longer than the back.

Among the ill-fated public relations moves by the Brown & Williamson tobacco company to counteract the industry's cascading legal problems in the year 2000 were these automated telephone announcements for 800-number callers (according to an April 2000 New York Times story): (1) a male chorus serenading callers with, "Oooh, the tobacco plant is a lovely plant / Its leaves so broad and green / But you shouldn't think about the tobacco plant / If you're still a teen," and (2) an earlier message featuring a sexy male voice intoning, "Brown & Williamson Tobacco is in love. We're a giant corporation, and you make us feel like a little kitten." "Thank you, lover."