In the Nov. 27 edition of Sports Illustrated, Rick Reilly's column "Dingbats, Dodos and Doozies" focused on idiots in the sports world and the absurd things they've done. His examples of global sports lunacy were interesting, to say the least.
I, however, felt it unfair that idiocy outside the sporting world was given short shrift. To those nimrods awaiting their "due moments of fame," I dedicate this week's column.
Bake My Wife - Please!
First, there's Martin Luther Jackson of Conyers, Ga., whom police say attempted to stuff his wife inside their kitchen oven in front of their five children on Thanksgiving. What sounds like a Rodney Dangerfield joke gone terribly awry led to charges of aggravated assault, aggravated battery, cruelty to children and possession of marijuana against Jackson.
One has to wonder what could lead a man to think what cramming his wife into an operational oven would accomplish, but I predict a lawsuit in the coming weeks demanding a warning label be placed on all copies of "Hansel and Gretel" saying fairy tales and reefer don't mix.
Would you like pants with that?
A little closer to home, David Gatton, of Columbia City, Ind., was arrested and charged with indecent exposure for a rash of nude drive-through orders. The 18-year-old was captured in the buff on Nov. 28 after police found him in a McDonald's parking lot putting his clothes back on.
"Maybe it was a way to enjoy the last warm weather," joked police.
Gatton said he doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. He just wants to be at the top of his game when he comes down to Muncie to audition for a walk-on role on "Armed & Famous."
Gatton should be glad he was captured quickly, however, since we all know nude drive-through ordering is a "gateway crime."
If left unchecked, he could progress to the kind of civil disobedience being practiced in Leader, Saskatchewan. In this small Canadian borough, an enraged citizenry has protested the sorry state of their town's roads by posing nude for calendar shots taken in the potholes themselves!
Too bad the fundraising plans have failed, since no one bothered to tell these guys that - gasp - no one wants to look at creepy Canadian men posing naked in potholes.
Bong Hits 4 Jesus.
None of that, however, comes close to as crazy as the case of Joseph Frederick, who says he just wanted to have a "meaningless and funny" sign to get attention as the Olympic torch relay passed through Juneau, Alaska in January 2002.
But his sign, which read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," enraged Deborah Morse, his high school principal, who grabbed the banner and crumpled it. Frederick was promptly suspended for 10 days.
Morse says his sign promoted illegal drug use, something not permitted while under school supervision. Frederick was standing on a public sidewalk across the street from the school, since students had been allowed to skip school to watch the relay.
An appeals court said the school cannot "censor or punish students' speech" just because it goes against government policy. The school board is appealing the case all the way to the Supreme Court, represented by former Clinton-era special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who says this is "of vital importance to every school principal and administrator in the country."
Frederick, meanwhile - ever the industrious student - is at work on a new sign, promoting bong use for other global religions. His principal has been ordered to stay at least 50 feet away from his government sanctioned "free speech zone."
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