A severe but underappreciated American drug problem (sometimes deadly and often expensive) is patients' failure to take prescribed medications -- even to save their own lives (such as with anti-coagulants or cholesterol-regulating statins). In recent pilot programs, according to a June New York Times report, compliance rates have been significantly improved -- by giving patients money ($50 to $100 a month, sometimes more) if they remember to take their drugs. Data show that, indeed, such compliance subsidies reduce society's overall health care costs by preventing expensive hospital admissions. Beyond health care costs is the social benefit when violent schizophrenics take their meds and refrain from attacking people.

-- Labor unions' sweet, recession-proof contract with the New York City area's severely cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority last year provided 8,074 blue-collar workers (conductors, engineers, repairmen, etc.) with six-figure compensation, including about 50 who earned $200,000 or more. Researchers cited by The New York Times in April found that one Long Island Rail Road conductor made $239,148, about $4,000 more than the MTA's chief financial officer and about $48,000 short of being the highest-paid person in the entire system. Included in some of the fat payouts for LIRR locomotive engineers was special "penalty" pay (about $94,600 in one case) for engineers who are required to move a train to a different location from its normal assignment.

-- Arizona (viewed by some as hard-hearted for its April law stepping up its vigilance for illegal immigrants) showed a soft side recently, implementing a $1.25 million federal grant that it believes will save the lives of at least five squirrels a year. The state's 250 endangered Mount Graham red squirrels risk becoming roadkill on Route 366 near Pima, and the state is building a rope bridge for them to add to several existing tunnels.

-- At a June concert in Australia's Sydney Opera House, American musicians Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed performed Anderson's 20-minute, very-high-pitched composition, "Music for Dogs," an arrangement likely to have been largely unmelodious to humans, who generally cannot hear such high pitches, but of more interest to dogs, who can. (Dogs were permitted in the audience, but news reports were inconclusive about their level of enjoyment.)

-- Many jihadist recruiting pitches are dry and pious, but in May, the Somali activist Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, 26, who was born in Alabama, began streaming Internet rap "music" videos to encourage warrior sign-ups. (Sample verse: "It all started out in Afghanistan / When we wiped the oppressors off the land / The Union crumbled and tumbled / Humbled, left them mumbled / Made a power withdraw and cower.") Actually, there was no music but merely al-Amriki singing, presumably because in the version of Islam favored by Somali jihadists, "music" is not permitted.

-- West Virginia's Division of Culture and History announced in June it would hold a state-sponsored art exhibition, showcasing the state's arts talent. Until now, the state has refused such projects because the last one, in 1963, turned out badly. The grand prize that year, supposedly representing the character and tradition of the state, went to "West Virginia Moon," which was a collection of broken boards and a screen door.

In May, the chief media spokesman of the Nye County, Nev., sheriff's office, Det. David Boruchowitz, announced to the press the arrest of a man charged with burglary and assault. The suspect's name, he reported, was Det. David Boruchowitz. The chief investigator on the case, Det. Boruchowitz told reporters, was Det. David Boruchowitz. (Three days later, the charges were dropped, but that announcement was made by someone else.)

-- In Rehoboth Beach, Del., it is illegal for men and women to publicly reveal their genitals and for women to reveal their breasts, but Police Chief Keith Banks, confronted in June with complaints about some beachgoers flouting their shapely breasts, said there was nothing he could do. Banks said the offenders were actually biological males in the midst of hormonal transgendering. As Banks explained, "(T)hey had male genitalia. Therefore, they were not guilty of a crime."

-- In April, Prince Edward Island (Canada) judge John Douglas acquitted minor league hockey player Chris Doyle of assaulting his former girlfriend, though Doyle had arrived at her home uninvited, had annoyed and berated her, and would not leave. The girlfriend was injured when Doyle punched a door, causing it to smash against her face, but Judge Douglas accepted that Doyle honestly did not know she was behind the door. Said the judge, "If he was charged with being a colossal asshole, I would find him guilty. Of 'assault causing bodily harm,' I find him not guilty."

-- Russia: On television in May, the governor of the Russian republic of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, recounted that he had been abducted in a spaceship in 1997 and forced to communicate with aliens telepathically, and later entertained some in his apartment. One opponent seized the moment and called for an inquiry into whether Ilyumzhinov had telepathically spilled government secrets while under the aliens' spell. Then, former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov announced he would challenge Ilyumzhinov for the position of head of the World Chess Federation (which Ilyumzhinov has been since 1993), but yet another Russian chess icon, Arkady Dvorkovich (who is President Medvedev's chief economic adviser), said he still backed Ilyumzhinov because of the latter's superior managerial talent.

-- Florida: (1) While still chairman of the Florida Republican Party, Jim Greer was revealed to have ordered the continuous shuttling of emergency "notes" to him during a Republican National Committee meeting, and according to an April Orlando Sentinel profile, the "notes" were all blank. A Florida RNC official concluded that Greer was simply trying to make himself appear important to his colleagues. (In June, Greer was indicted on six felony counts related to raiding the state party's treasury.) (2) At a forum in May for county school board aspirants in Orlando, candidate John Mark Coney took the floor to read passages from the Bible and then to emphasize his suitability for office by announcing that he, at age 53, is a virgin.

In 2007, News of the Weird reported what looked like the bizarre dreams of an attention-seeking Muslim cleric: that contrary to popular belief, strict, Wahhabi Islam allows unrelated people of the opposite sex to meet, unchaperoned, provided that they were both breastfed by the same woman (thus symbolically making them "siblings"). In June 2010, two more-prominent Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia reintroduced the debate, according to an AOL News report, by agreeing that the workaround could be used by a boyfriend and his girlfriend's mother. However, they disagreed on whether the Quran requires the boy to take the milk directly from her breast or allows him to feed from her stored milk.

"Reeking" Is His Business Model: Homeless New Jersey man Richard Kreimer said in February (2006) that he had settled, on undisclosed terms, part of his most recent lawsuit, against a transit company and two drivers, for having denied him rides because of his foul odor. Kreimer's history includes a $150,000 settlement with the public library in Morris County, which had tried to keep him out because of his odor, and, by his count, $80,000 in additional lawsuit-related income (though some went for legal expenses). Kreimer filed another foul-odor lawsuit in February against a transit company and a train station in Summit.

-- In the midst of World Cup fever, readers might have missed Germany's win over host Barbados in June for the Woz Challenge Cup, following an eight-team polo tournament with players not on horses but Segways. The sport is said to have been created by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, whose Silicon Valley Aftershocks competed again this year in Barbados (but last won the Cup in 2007). Wozniak told ESPN.com that his own polo skills are fading, but the San Jose Mercury News reported in May that Woz's fearlessness on the Segway seems hardly diminished. (The Mercury News report, on the Aftershocks' local, nerd-populated league, described the players as "the pudgy and the pale" and "geek chic.")

-- Stories of epic sportsmanship warm the public's heart, but there is also epic "cutthroat," such as by Monrovia (Calif.) High School girls' track coach Mike Knowles. Knowles' team had just been defeated for first place in the last event of the April league championship meet -- by a record-setting pole vault by South Pasadena High School's Robin Laird, edging her team over Monrovia, 66-61. But then Knowles noticed that Laird was wearing a flimsy, string "friendship" bracelet, thus violating a national high school athletics' jewelry rule. He notified officials, who were forced to disqualify Laird and declare Monrovia the champion, 65-62. "This is my 30th year coaching track," Knowles said later. "I know a lot of rules and regulations."

-- Universal health insurance cannot come soon enough for uninsured Kathy Myers, 41, of Niles, Mich., who, suffering an increasingly painful shoulder injury, has been continually turned away from emergency rooms because the condition was not life-threatening. In June, as a last resort, she took a gun and shot herself in the shoulder, hoping for a wound serious enough for ER treatment. Alas, she missed major arteries and bones and was again sent home, except with even more pain.

-- Britain's Countess of Wemyss and March, now 67, is a hands-on manager-fundraiser for the Beckley Trust -- UK's leading advocacy organization for legalizing marijuana, according to an April profile by the Daily Mail. However, she has not forsaken an earlier psychotropic-promoting campaign. In her early 20s, when she was Amanda Feilding, she extolled the virtues of trepanation (to "broaden ... awareness" by increasing the oxygen in the brain, directly, by drilling a hole in one's head). Feilding's first boyfriend wrote the book on the process ("Bore Hole"), and her husband, the flamboyant 13th Earl of Wemyss, has also been trepanned. The Countess still expresses hope that the National Health Service will eventually cover trepanning.

-- People who live or work in New York City believe themselves to be among the world's toughest and hardiest, but at least 51 of them are apparently legendarily soft: the 51 city bus drivers who between them took 3,200 days of paid leave last year to "heal" over the single workplace "injury" of being spit on by passengers. (Thirty-two other spit-upon drivers did not request leave.) An official with the Transport Workers Union called spitting "physically and psychologically traumatic" and requiring "recuperat(ion)." -- The prominent Howrah bridge in Calcutta, India, has become a serious safety risk, according to a May report for the Calcutta Port Trust, because the steel hoods protecting the pillars holding up the bridge have been thinned by 50 percent in recent years. Engineers believe the corrosion has been caused almost entirely by the chemicals in gutkha, the popular chewing tobacco/herb concoction, which produces expectorants routinely hocked onto the bridge by the 500,000 pedestrians who cross it every day.

-- (1) At a public meeting of the Dixon, Calif., City Council in May, Councilman Michael Ceremello refused to yield the floor to a colleague ("(Y)ou don't have the floor. Please sit back and shut the (F-word) up"). (2) Paul Gogarty, a Member of Ireland's Parliament, during a public session in May, answering the criticism of an opponent ("With all due respect ... (F-word) you, Deputy Stagg, (F-word) you.").

-- Inventor Jiro Takashima, 75, maintains that his Pro-State massager is a serious medical device (retailing for about $80), but his daughter-partner Amy Sung, 35, simultaneously markets it as a prostate sex-play toy called the Aneros at adult novelty stores (retailing for about $50). According to a June Houston Chronicle report, Takashima's booth at medical conventions is popular, but at sex expos, he and his daughter are "rock stars." However, since the Pro-State/Aneros was intended as a medical device, competing sex-toy makers have felt free to copy Aneros' design, and Takashima's lawsuit to stop them is now before a federal court in Houston.

-- Washington, D.C., Attorney General Peter Nickles ordered an investigation in June after learning that the city's payroll office had, over a seven-year period, failed to remit the life-insurance premiums deducted from the paychecks of at least 1,400 employees. Already, one employee had been told that her policy had been canceled because of the unremitted premiums. (Until the investigation is finished, it is impossible to say which of the two usual explanations of chronic D.C. bureaucratic dysfunction -- theft or "large-scale human error" -- is applicable.)

-- In the space of about 30 minutes on a June morning, according to a Dayton Daily News report, Brian Horst, 35, shoplifted several packages of meat and a jug of Mad Dog 20/20 wine from a store, inexplicably rolled a stainless-steel tank of carbon dioxide on wheels away from a restaurant, and disabled an ATM by pounding it with a rock (after several witnesses spotted him in conversation with the screen, apparently trying to reason with the machine or possibly with an imaginary employee inside it).

-- Recent Playdates: (1) Old Forge, Pa., February (Jesus appearing in a bucket of sauce at Brownie's Famous Pizzeria). (2) Lockport, N.Y., December (joint appearance of Jesus and Mary in an orange, sliced open on Christmas morning). (3) Rockford, Ill., April (Jesus appearing in the MRI of a thoracic spine examination). (4) Brownsville, Texas, May (Mary appearing on bark from a tree toppled during a storm). (5) Salford, England, February (Jesus appearing on a frying pan following the burning of a pancake). (6) Old Hatfield, England, February (Jesus appearing on a partially burned log in a fireplace).

-- Tensions were brewing in the family of Zell Kravinsky, 48, and his psychiatrist-wife Emily over what she believes is his excessive altruism (according to an August 2003 profile in The New York Times). Kravinsky is not just a passionate philanthropist (from his fortune in commercial real estate), but such a strict utilitarian that he says he would sacrifice his one good kidney (he's already donated the other one) if it were needed by someone doing more social good than he. "No one should have two kidneys," he says, "until everyone has one." He said he cannot value his own kids more than anyone else's, a point that has angered his parents and caused Emily to threaten divorce and two friends to abandon him.

New York state school officials had promised to crack down on soft test-grading to end the near-automatic grade-advancement by students unprepared for promotion. However, a June New York Post report found that the problem lingers under the current grading guideline called "holistic rubrics." Among examples cited by the Post (from a 4th-grade math test): How many inches long is a "2-foot-long skateboard"? (Answer: 24; "half-credit" answer: 48). Also, if you have 35 book boxes, and each contains 10 books, how many books are there? (Answer: 350; "half-credit" answer: 150).

-- According to a May report by Seattle's KOMO-TV, former Oregon National Guardsman Gary Pfleider II is awaiting the results of his latest appeal to end the garnishment of his disability checks to cover $3,175 for gear he supposedly "lost" when he was shot in Iraq. Pfleider was hit in the leg by a sniper in 2007, bled profusely and was evacuated (and is awaiting his ninth surgery on the leg), but the Oregon Guard apparently believes that, despite the trauma, Pfleider somehow should have paused to inventory the equipment he was carrying and to make arrangements for its safekeeping during his imminent hospitalization.

-- To ease the crowds entering the Texas Capitol building in Austin, officials recently opened an "express" line, bypassing most security precautions, for selected visitors and personnel. Obviously, members of the legislature use the express line, along with Capitol employees presenting ID. A third category of favored visitors: anyone with a Texas concealed-weapons carry permit. The Houston Chronicle reported in June that the lobbyists frustrated with the long security lines have been applying for concealed-weapons permits even if they expect never to touch a firearm.

-- Though he reportedly hacks more frequently lately, 2-year-old Ardi Rizal of Banyuasin, Indonesia, continues to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day, according to a May dispatch in London's Daily Mail and other news reports. Local officials offered Ardi's parents a new car if they convinced him to quit, but the mother warned that her son throws massive, head-banging tantrums if deprived of his smokes, and his fisherman father, noting Ardi's generous girth, says the kid looks fine to him. (Unfortunately for the parents, Ardi prefers only a certain high-end brand, which costs the equivalent of about $2.75 a pack.)

-- Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported in May that Qantas Airways has acknowledged re-using plastic knives and forks from its in-flight meals as many as 30 times before discarding them. One supplier who visited Qantas' Q Catering center in the Sydney suburb of Mascot was told that the Qantas cutlery's plastic is "more robust" than ordinary plastic utensils and is completely safe (after special cleaning).

-- It took until spring 2010 (eight years after the invasion of Afghanistan) for the U.S. Army to realize that enemy fighters in that vast, mountainous country were difficult to shoot at because they are often so far away. The Associated Press reported in May that the Army is only now reconsidering its reliance on standard M-4 rifles (whose effective range is under 1,000 feet), in favor of M-110 sniper rifles (effective at more than 2,500 feet). (Shorter-range rifles work well in Iraq, since the fighting is closer-in.)

Psychologists generally discount that children at age 6 can form a specific intention to "sexually" molest anyone (as opposed to roughing someone up or being obnoxious), but the principal of Downey Elementary School in Brockton, Mass., nonetheless suspended a first-grade boy in 2006 for "sexual harassment." The boy admitted putting two fingers inside a girl's waistband, but his parents sued, livid that a "sexual" motive had been assumed. In February 2010, Brockton's daily Enterprise reported that the school would pay the boy a $160,000 settlement for the principal's overzealousness.

(1) In Urfa, Turkey, in April, pop singer Metin Senturk set the world speed record for an unassisted blind driver (in a Ferrari F430, at about 175 mph), an experience he called "like a dance with death." (2) In March in Watertown, Mass., two blind teenage fencers from local schools for the blind squared off in what was believed to be the first such match ever. (3) The Edinburgh (Scotland) Arts Festival announced in June that it would display, beginning in August, an exhibit of images taken by the blind photographer Rosita McKenzie, 56.

-- The New Living Expo in San Francisco in May showcased such "healthy-living" breakthroughs as a $1,200 machine promising to suck toxins out of your body; a $249 silver amulet to protect you from "deadly" cell phone radiation; and a $15,000 Turbo Sonic if your red blood cells need to be "de-clumped." A Canadian study at the same time found that 97 percent of people who admitted buying "anti-aging" products did not think they would work but nevertheless confessed their need to hope like those who "hope" the viper-venom-derived $525 Euoko Y-30 Intense Lift Concentrate will prolong their lives.

-- Recurring Theme: Once again, the larger question in a "swindling psychic" case is not how Portland, Ore., "psychic" Cathy Stevens managed to separate Mr. Drakar Druella, 42, from his $150,000 (which she needed, to cure Druella's "negative energy"). The larger question is how did a man so totally lacking in street smarts manage to amass $150,000 to begin with. Explained Druella, "(Stevens) could cry (at) will. (She) becomes what you want and need her to be."

At her arraignment in Missoula, Mont., in April, Jackiya Ford, 37, refused to enter a plea to various fraud charges because, she explained, "Montana" is not a legal entity. According to the prosecutor, after Ford was shown a house for sale by a local agent, she tried to cut out the middleman by filing an ownership claim to it and all the land within 20 miles of it (although she generously offered to sell it to the current residents, aka the legal owners, for $900,000, but only in "silver or gold"). Armed with her (fraudulent) ownership document, she broke into the home and posted a no-trespassing sign (the only visitors allowed: people authorized by "our Lord and Savior Yahushua"). (As if she weren't busy enough, she also disclosed that she is pregnant.)

In this latest collection of men who accidentally shot themselves recently, private parts were the center of attention. University of Illinois campus police officer Bryan Mallin accidentally shot himself in the butt while shopping in Chicago (March), and Timothy Davis, 22, digging through a drawer in Fort Myers, Fla., last October, also accidentally shot himself in the butt. And four other men (a shopper at a Lowe's Home Improvement store in Lynnwood, Wash., a 17-year-old in Vallejo, Calif., 20-year-old Jeffrey Disney in Hamilton, Ohio, and 50-year-old David Blurton, in Dillon, Colo.) accidentally shot themselves in what for men is their most cherished spot.

In July (2004), police were summoned to an upscale office building in St. Louis, Mo., on a report of a man roaming the halls with a gun, and on arrival, officers found some workers hiding under desks and in closets and others having fled the building. Police concluded that two lawyers, Gary Burger and Mark Cantor, were once again playing their game in the hallways, stalking each other with BB guns and occasionally firing. Most workers did not know that the men were playing, but one did because she had been shot in the finger and shoulder after walking into a previous battle. Police said they would file gun charges, and one officer said the perps would be tried "as adults" (i.e., not in the juvenile court system).