On Feb. 9 a single traffic stop in Alderson, West Virginia, resulted in the arrest of six people from the same family, trafficking in stolen power tools (including one man who traded a leaf blower, hedge trimmer, and weed trimmer for Percocet pills). However, a month later, members of an even more charming family were caught in raids in Elyria, Ohio. Officers from three jurisdictions arrested 34 people — all related to each other — in connection with a $400,000 drug operation.
Government in action
• The predawn line in March actually started forming at midnight, snaking around the building in Maitland, Florida, but it wasn’t for concert tickets. The dozens of people needed coveted visitor passes just to speak to an IRS agent — because budget cuts and personnel reductions have limited services. “I just came here to verify my identity,” said one frustrated taxpayer, who arrived at 8 a.m. and would not be served that day. The agency said its budget had been cut by $1 billion since the congressional “sequestration” in 2011.
• Nope, They Haven’t Grown Back Yet: Canada’s Department of Veterans Affairs requires any vet receiving disability benefits to have a doctor recertify the condition annually — including people like Afghan war double-leg amputee Paul Franklin. He complained to Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News in March that he had been harshly threatened with loss of benefits if he failed to file even though the department told CBC News that it might perhaps relax the certification requirement to “every third year.”
Wait, what?
• Several theaters in Denmark reported in March that they had begun adding subtitles — to Danish-language films — because so many customers complained that the dialogue was incomprehensible. Apparently, it is widely known that spoken Danish is harder to understand than the written, but Copenhagen’s website The Local reported that actors had rebelled at improving their diction, claiming that their “mumbling” adds “realism” to the films.
• Attention to Detail: Major League pitcher Max Scherzer, new this season to the Washington Nationals, informed manager Matt Williams in March, according to a New York Times report, that he requires assistance when he warms up during daily practice sessions. He spoke of the importance of simulating actual game conditions, and since Scherzer is a starting pitcher, he needed someone to stand beside him and hum “The Star-Spangled Banner” before he begins his practice pitching.
Perspective
Lawyers Brendan and Nessa Coppinger live in a Washington, D.C., row house next door to a tobacco user, whose smoke seeps into their unit, and (especially since Nessa is pregnant) the Coppingers have filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the neighbor. However, the anti-corruption website Republic Report found that one of Nessa Coppinger’s clients is Suncoke Energy, which is being sued by four Ohio residents who allege that Suncoke does to them what Coppinger’s neighbor does to her and her fetus. (Suncoke’s “clouds or haze,” containing particulates of lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, creosote, coal tar pitch and other alarming substances, allegedly threatens the neighbors’ health and property values.)
The Continuing Crisis
• Superman: While thousands of Japanese women accept commercial pornographic movie roles, only a dwindling number of males (by one estimate, only 30 industrywide) are available to pair with them (“stallions on call,” according to one producer). That makes the undisputed king of Japanese porn, “Shimiken,” 35, in such demand that he works in as many as six movies a day with few days off. His oeuvre, according to a double entendre-laden March profile in Details magazine, includes 7,000 films, with at least 7,500 “co-stars,” including, once, 72-year-old twins. To maintain his vigor, he hits the gym fanatically and downs mineral supplements and complex amino acids — but no Viagra. “I haven’t had to use it,” he said adding, after a pause, “yet.”
• Among Colorado’s legal contortions to improve James Holmes’
