On May 21, Jesse Robinson either established or tied the unofficial world record for unluckiest underage drinker of all time when he was booked into the Hamilton County, Ohio, jail for underage consumption. According to booking records, Robinson's date of birth is May 22, 1990.

-- "Common sense lost its voice on this one," concluded a Wethersfield, Conn., city councilman, lamenting the local school board's having spent at least $630,000 to "resolve" an ethics complaint against the board's chairwoman -- all because her son had improperly taken a $400 high school course for free. The town's ethics board conducted more than 60 hours of hearings over 11 months, incurring $407,000 in legal expenses, and finally voted, 3-2, to uphold the complaint. (However, the ethics board ordered only that the chairwoman reimburse the $400; the school board then voted to pay all her legal expenses.)

-- "Science does not trump the testimony of individuals," said Detroit prosecutor Marilyn Eisenbraun, explaining her office's decision in April to disregard DNA evidence that the University of Michigan's Innocence Clinic said exonerates Karl Vinson, 56, who has spent 25 years in prison for rape. Despite the science, Eisenbraun said she had to stick with eyewitness identification by the victim. Although Vinson has been eligible for release for 15 years, the Parole Board keeps turning him down -- because he refuses to acknowledge guilt. (Update: In July, the Michigan Court of Appeals declined to order either Vinson's release or a new trial, but did grant him an extraordinary right to appeal, based on the new evidence.)

-- In June, as five young men gathered around the Mount Tabor Reservoir near Portland, Ore., one urinated in it, thus "contaminating" the 7.2 million gallons that serve the city, and, said Water Bureau administrator David Shaff, necessitating that the entire supply be dumped. Under questioning by the weekly Portland Mercury whether the water is also dumped when an animal urinates in it (or worse, dies in it), Shaff replied, certainly not. "If we did that, we'd be (dumping the water) all the time." Well, asked the reporter, what's the difference? Because, said Shaff (sounding confident of his logic), "Do you want to be drinking someone's pee?"

-- A 53-year-old man committed suicide in May by wading into San Francisco Bay, 150 yards offshore, and standing neck-deep until he died in the 60-degree water, with police and firefighters from the city of Alameda watching from shore the entire time. Said a police lieutenant, "We're not trained to go into the water (and) don't have the type of equipment that you would use ...." KGO-TV attributed the reluctance to budget cuts that prevented the city's firefighters from being recertified in water rescues.

-- Title IX of the federal Civil Rights Act requires universities to offer "equal" intercollegiate athletic access to females, even though finding that many serious female athletes is difficult on some campuses. The easiest subterfuge, according to an April New York Times report, is to pad women's teams with whimsically enlisted females -- and in some cases, with males. Said former university president (and Health and Human Services Secretary) Donna Shalala, "Those of us in the business know that universities have been end-running Title IX for a long time, and they do it until they get caught." Sample dysfunctional result: When University of South Florida added football (100 male players) a few years ago, it was forced to populate more female teams, and thus "recruited" 71 women for its cross-country team, even though fewer than half ran races and several were surprised to know they were even on the team when a Times reporter inquired.

Britain's Ben Wilson is one artist with the entire field to himself -- the only painter who creates finely detailed masterpieces on flattened pieces of chewing gum found on London sidewalks. Frequently spotted lying nearly inert on the ground, working, Wilson estimates he has painted "many thousands" of such "canvases," ranging from portraits and landscapes to specialized messages (such as listing the names of all employees at a soon-to- be-closed Woolworth's store). According to a June New York Times dispatch, Wilson initially heats each piece with a blowtorch, applies lacquer and acrylic enamel before painting -- and sealing with more lacquer. And of course he works only with tiny, tiny brushes.

Gregory Snelling, 41, was indicted in June for the robbery of a KeyBank branch in Springfield, Ohio, which was notable more for the foot chase with police afterward. They caught him, but Snelling might deserve "style" points for the run, covered as he was in red dye from the money bag and the fact that he was holding a beer in his hand during the entire chase.

(1) Brent Kendall, 31, was arrested in June in Coralville, Iowa, and charged with criminal mischief after he allegedly reacted to a domestic quarrel with his live-in girlfriend by cutting up items of her clothing and urinating on her bed and computer. (2) An employee of Bed, Bath and Beyond at the St. Davids Square shopping center in Radnor, Pa., reported to police on June 5 that, for the second time in two weeks, he had come across a bag (estimated to weigh about 35 pounds) behind the store, filled with human vomit.

It was a 2004 gang-related murder that had frustrated Los Angeles police for four years until a homicide investigator, paging through gangbangers' photographs for another case, spotted an elaborate tattoo on the chest of Anthony Garcia. Evidently, that 2004 killing was such a milestone in Garcia's life that he had commemorated the liquor store crime scene on his chest. The investigation was reopened, eventually leading to a surreptitious confession by Garcia and, in April 2011, to his conviction for first-degree murder. (Photos from Garcia's several bookings between 2004 and 2008 show his mural actually evolving as he added details -- until the crime scene was complete enough that the investigator recognized it.)

In May, in Rensselaer, N.Y., and in June, in Bluefield, W.Va., two men, noticing that police were investigating nearby, became alarmed and fled out of fear of being arrested since both were certain that there were active warrants out on them. Nicholas Volmer, 21, eventually "escaped" into the Hudson River and needed to be rescued, but the police were after someone else, and no warrant was on file against him. Arlis Dempsey Jr., 32, left his three kids on the street in Bluefield to make a run for it before police caught him, but he was not wanted for anything, either. (Both men, however, face new charges -- trespassing for Volmer, and child endangerment for Dempsey.)

(1) People sometimes have illicit sex in cemeteries, and when they get really aggressive, tombstones may fall over on top of them. (A randy 39-year-old woman was injured in Hamilton, N.J., in June after a gravestone rolled onto her leg at the Ahavath Israel Cemetery.) (2) Motorists who stop along the side of the road at night to relieve themselves are often not careful enough. (In May, a specialty unit from the Renton, Wash., Fire Department was required in order to rescue a urinator who accidentally fell down a 30-foot embankment in south King County and was trapped for several hours.)

A 38-year-old man, unidentified in news reports, was hospitalized in Princeton, W.Va., in October (1992) with gunshot wounds. He had been drinking beer and reported accidentally shooting himself three times -- as he attempted to clean each of his three guns. He said the first shot didn't hurt, the second "stung a little," and the third "really hurt," prompting him to call an ambulance.

Top Gun: Todd Whitehurst may be the "father" of from 42 to 60 children, based on statistical probability that recognizes his virtuosity as a sperm donor, according to a June New York Post profile (though one website, Donor Sibling Registry, claims to have documented 129 children sired by an unnamed seed demon, who is one of 92 highly productive men with 10 or more). Whitehurst, who like the others, was selected based on his sperm's profile and speed, donated weekly for about three years in the late 1980s (for $50 a session), and has been contacted so far by nine teenagers who sent him their photos after piecing together evidence identifying him (despite sperm banks' promises of confidentiality). Whitehurst, acknowledging the resemblances to his "offspring," seems to find the relationships fulfilling, however limited they are. Said he, "I love Father's Day."

-- New York scent artist Christopher Brosius had made his name with fragrances recalling childhood (such as Clean Baby Butt, Green Bean and Baseball Glove), but felt it was time, according to an April report in New York magazine, to approach the next frontier -- to make a perfume so exclusive that no one could smell it. By Brosius' reasoning, the scent's chemicals would provoke whatever reactions scents provoke in those exposed to it, but the actual scent would be undetectable to the nose; hence, no one would know why they were reacting as they were. By trial and error, he combined jasmine, sandalwood and natural amber, and scaled them down in power, yielding what he calls Where We Are There Is No Here. Said Brosius, "The question, 'What perfume are you wearing?' should never arise."

-- Blow Against the Empire: Bank of America (BA) had the tables turned on it in June after the company wrongfully harassed an alleged mortgage scofflaw in Naples, Fla. BA had attempted to foreclose on homeowners Warren and Maureen Nyerges last year even though the couple had bought their house with cash -- paid directly to BA. It took BA a year and a half to understand its mistake -- that is, until the Nyergeses sued and won a judgment for expenses of $2,534, which BA promptly ignored. The Nyergeses' attorney obtained a seizure order, and two sheriff's deputies, with a moving truck, arrived at the local BA branch on June 3 to load $2,534 worth of furniture and computer equipment from the bank's offices. After about an hour on the phone with higher-ups, the local BA manager issue a check for $2,534.

-- Police in Doncaster, England, were on the lookout in June for an organized group of four female and two male shoplifters who hit a liquor store on Bentley Road in May but left an interesting crime-scene story on the surveillance video. While five of the crew distracted employees, one woman, wearing pants, walked to the back but emerged minutes later wearing a large wraparound skirt and waddling slowly toward the front door. After the unsuspecting employees bid farewell to the six, they discovered that the office safe was missing and concluded that the waddling woman was holding it between her legs.

China's sleepy Zisiqiao Village in Zhejiang province is actually headquarters for the country's revered snake industry, with 160 families raising about 3 million serpents a year, mostly to harvest livers and gall bladders for soup, wine, and other products consumed for their immunity-building properties. In a June Reuters dispatch, one farmer described the 25-year evolution of "Snake Town" from a place where farmers simply threw males and females together for breeding to today's sophisticated production facilities that supply proper snake diets, research measures to enrich female fertility, and provide enhanced incubation conditions.

-- Perhaps a kindergartner needs to have his dad wait with him and wave bye-bye as he steps onto the school bus in the morning, but Rain Price is a 10th-grader (in American Fork, Utah), and his dad, Dale Price, nevertheless waves from the bus stop every morning, right in front of Rain's friends. Furthermore, according to a June report by KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, Dale makes it a point to be wearing a different, "crazy" costume every morning (170 in all for the school year, including, once, a wedding dress).

-- Alleged gang members Barbara Lee, 45, and Marco Ibanez, 19, were arrested in Hallandale Beach, Fla., in April and charged in the assault and stabbing of four deaf people. Lee was at the Ocean's Eleven Lounge one evening when she saw several people in a group make hand signs that she interpreted as disrespecting her own gang's signs, and, according to police, left to recruit Ibanez to come administer retribution. Unknown to Lee or Ibanez, the group were deaf people using sign language and had no idea they were making "gang" signs.

-- Rescues: (1) A 93-year-old woman was rescued by medics in Philadelphia in April after spending several days stuck in her own toilet. (According to KYW-TV, she had to be carried out with a portion of the toilet still stuck tightly to her body.) (2) In Tooting, England, in May, an unnamed senior was rescued by firefighters after he got his testicles caught in a shower seat in which he was sitting while bathing.

-- Parkridge Medical Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., apologized and paid the bill in June for exhuming the body of the recently deceased Kenneth Manis. The man who had shared Mr. Manis' hospital room during his final days had reported that his dentures were missing, and the hospital determined that they had been mistakenly buried with Mr. Manis.

Toshihiko Mizuno, 55, was arrested in Tokyo in June after three girls, ages 9 and 10, reported that he had talked them into spitting for him so that he could record it on video, to assist with "research" he was doing on "saliva." Police later discovered 26 videotapes, featuring about 400 young girls spitting. According to local media sources, Mizuno has had the obsession for 17 years, successfully getting at least 500 girls to spit, among the estimated 4,000 he propositioned.

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Eric Cogan, 33, was arrested in Port St. Lucie, Fla., in June after (according to police) presenting a holdup note to a teller at a TD Bank. To get to the teller, Cogan walked right by a sheriff's cruiser parked in front of the bank and a deputy in uniform seated inside the bank's entrance. (2) In April, Matthew Hudleston, 33, pleaded guilty in Mobile, Ala., to robbing a Regions Bank, using a holdup note that mentioned a gun. He got away but was arrested after he returned a few minutes later to ask for the holdup note back.

The Good Lord Willing: (1) Self-described anarchist Luciano Pitronello Schuffeneger was hospitalized and placed in a medically induced coma after a bomb he was planning for a Banco Santander bank in Santiago, Chile, exploded prematurely. He suffered third-degree burns and lost both hands and his eyesight, after accidentally tripping the bomb's trigger before entering the bank. (2) Mr. Isabel Gutierrez, 53, died of a heart attack in Refugio County, Texas, in June, after taking a break during the act of raping a 77-year-old woman. He told his victim that he didn't feel well, moved away from her, and stopped breathing.

In a report in the August (1993) Archives of Dermatology, a 39-year-old woman in Cleveland complaining of bad hair was reported to have the first adult case of "acquired uncombable hair," which produces permanently coarse, tangled hair. Her condition was attributed to a side-effect of a diuretic.

Somehow, upscale restaurateurs believe that diners will soon willingly pay more for a beef dish if it comes with disclosure of the DNA of the actual cow being eaten, according to a May Associated Press report. "People want to know where their food is coming from," said one excited chef, lauding the knowledge to be gleaned from a calf's upbringing. (A more practical beef-supply executive added that DNA can help identify the "multiple animals" whose parts were used in hunks of ground beef -- a 10-pound package of which may include contributions from "hundreds" of different cows.)

-- It was not difficult to find critics when the Orlando-area government job-service engine Workforce Central Florida said it was spending more than $70,000 of federal stimulus money to help the laid-off by handing out 6,000 satiny capes for jobless "superheroes" to "fight" "Dr. Evil Unemployment." ("Absolutely absurd" was the reaction of a laid-off customer-service representative.) Several critics interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel noted that such an awkward program further erodes the unemployed's fragile self-respect. WCF, though, remained convinced. In the words of a spokeswoman, "Everyone is a superhero in the fight against unemployment."

-- Urban Legend Come to Life: Too-good-to-be-true stories have circulated for years about men who accidentally fell, posterior first, onto compressed-air nozzles and self-inflated to resemble "dough boys," usually with fatal results. However, in May in Opotiki, New Zealand, trucker Steven McCormack found himself in similar circumstances, and had it not been for quick-thinking colleagues who pulled him away, he would have been killed -- as the air, puncturing a buttock, had already begun separating tissue from muscle. McCormack was hospitalized in severe pain, but the air gradually seeped from his body (according to a doctor, in the way air "usually" seeps from a body).

-- Oops! Oswind David was convicted of "first-degree assault" in a 2006 trial in New York City, but unknown to him, his lawyer and the judge, the charge had already been dismissed by another judge due to prosecutorial error. Nonetheless, David has been in prison since his conviction, serving a 23-year term, and was freed only in May when the error came to light. (However, the New York City district attorney still resisted releasing David, arguing that only the "first-degree" part had been dismissed. A judge finally freed David on bail while prosecutors ponder reopening the case.)

-- Parents were puzzled in June after Dry Creek School District in Roseville, Calif., passed out questionnaires asking for biographical details of prospective students, including whether or not the child has been delivered by C-section. Parents told Sacramento station KOVR-TV that school officials were refusing to explain why they wanted to know that.

(1) Night club singer Simon Ledger was arrested following a performance at the Driftwood Beach Bar on Britain's Isle of Wight in April after a patron complained to police. Ledger was covering the 1974 hit "Kung Fu Fighting," and two customers of Chinese descent reported that they felt victims of illegal "racially aggravated harassment." (2) Leslie Clarke, 29, turned himself in to police in Darwin, Australia, in May after authorities released surveillance tape of a break-in and vandalism at the Hidden Valley Tavern. Clarke, a large man, confessed to going on a drunken prowl with friends, but said he remembered the break-in only when he saw the video and recognized his distinctive image from the back, including several inches of his butt crack.

(1) An April Associated Press story, citing federal government sources, reported that 247 people on the terrorist "watch list" were nonetheless legally permitted to purchase guns in 2010 -- about the same number who did so legally in 2009. (2) In May, Oklahoma judge Susie Pritchett, receiving guilty pleas from a $31 drug-deal raid in 2010 that netted a mother and her two grown children, sentenced the mother and son to probation, but the 31-year-old daughter to 12 years in prison (just because the daughter showed "no ... remorse").

In May, a federal appeals court reinstated the Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit filed in 2007 by Darrell Miller after he was fired as a bridge maintenance worker by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Miller had been medically diagnosed with a fear of heights, and could not work on many projects, but a lower court dismissed his lawsuit, concluding that working at heights was an unavoidable condition of bridge maintenance. (The appeals court said that a jury "might" find that bridge maintenance could be done in "teams" with one worker always on the ground.)

(1) Zachary Woody, 21, of Calhoun, Ga., was charged with aggravated assault in May after stabbing a friend. Allegedly, Woody had escalated what was initially just a fistfight over whether Fords are better than Chevrolets. (2) Joseph Hayes, 48, was arrested in South Memphis, Tenn., in June after allegedly threatening (with a gun in his waistband) the hostess of a birthday party to which his kids had been invited but which ran out of cake and ice cream. "Y'all didn't save my kids no damn ice cream and cake," he was heard to say, and "I ain't scared to go to jail."

Stanley Thornton Jr., 30, and his "nurse"-roommate, Sandra Dias, featured on a May edition of the TV show "Taboo" (National Geographic Channel), are both drawing federal Supplemental Security Income as disabled persons, even though Thornton builds his own "adult baby" furniture (cribs and high chairs large enough to accommodate his 350-pound body) and operates a website where people living as adult babies can communicate. U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn asked the Social Security Administration to investigate whether Thornton is abusing the system (and Dias, too, since if she can "nurse" Thornton, she can "nurse" for a living). Thornton subsequently told The Washington Times that if his SSI checks were discontinued, he would kill himself.

Lawrence Bottone, 52, of Stamford, Conn., served four years in prison in the late-1990s for his fondness for attracting and convincing teenage boys and young men to strip down to underwear and allow him to torture (and photograph) them -- chaining them to his garage wall, whipping them and inserting stakes under their fingernails. In May 2011, police in Westchester County, N.Y., arrested Bottone for what appears to signal a return to his specialty but with an updated, 21st-century rationale: Now, according to police, he "recruits" young men to work at a fictitious "intelligence agency" -- which requires Bottone to "train" them to withstand torture.

Nakedness Recently in the News: (1) Just after Clayton County, Ga., schoolteacher Harlan Porter was told his contract would not be renewed, he walked naked through the school hallways (no students were present) and spoke of a "newer level of enlightenment" now that his "third eye was open" (April). (2) After a clothing malfunction, veteran marathoner Brett Henderson, 35, decided during the Flying Pig race in Cincinnati that, since marathoners sometimes run naked in California, he could do it there. Henderson outran police and stopped only when he was Tasered (May).

In December (1993), a New York appeals court rejected Edna Hobbs' lawsuit against the company that makes the device called The Clapper. Hobbs claimed she hurt her hands because she had to clap too hard in order to turn her appliances on: "I couldn't peel potatoes (when my hands hurt). I never ate so many baked potatoes in my life. I was in pain." However, the judge said Hobbs had merely failed to adjust the sensitivity controls.