City contends man lacks proper permits to have himself blown up

Fire officials in Crystal River, Fla., stopped the planned performance in January of Jesse Aviles, “The Human Bomb,” who was set to lie face down across two bar stools at the Oar House Restaurant and Lounge and have himself blown across the room by explosives. According to Oar House, the performance was canceled for the lack of permits. City Manager Andrew Houston, asked by the St. Petersburg Times what kind of permits might be necessary for a person to be exploded from a barstool, said, “I have no earthly idea.”

? In February, when housing officials in Loebau, Germany, ran out of small apartments for low-income residents, they decided to put them in quarters that were larger than regulations allowed. However, the officials made the residents close off some rooms to stay within the allotted space and said inspectors would make regular visits to see that no one cheated.

? Garri Holness, 39, is one of the Britons in a bad place at the time of the July 2005 subway bombings, and he suffered the loss of a leg, for which government programs compensated him with more than 100,000 British pounds (about $190,000). That is more than 10 times the amount of government compensation (in 2005 pounds) received by each of the two teenage girls from a vicious 1985 gang rape that Holness was convicted of participating in (and for which he served seven years in prison).

? Hurricane Katrina Trailer Fiascos: In March, while FEMA was busy evicting the last Katrina victims that it had housed in trailers, it also disclosed that it has been stuck with 8,000 mint-condition trailers that have sat vacant for 18 months now in a field near Hope, Ark., because the agency hasn’t been able to give them away (to government agencies, as federal law requires).

Also, WWL-TV in New Orleans reported in March that area hospitals continue to be overcrowded while specially equipped medical trailers, which were ordered just after Katrina hit and which took eight months to arrive, continue to sit unused.

Big-Time Crime

Marshall Wolbers, 56, was arrested in Lake Bluff, Ill., in February after he had allegedly ripped off almost two dozen spas in the Chicago area over the last year by luxuriating in massage and pedicure services, etc., but skipping out on the bill. Said one specialist on nails, to an Associated Press reporter, “I just want to look at him (a 300-pound man), like ‘You jerk, you didn’t even tip me. You made me rub your gross feet and listen to you for an hour and a half.'”

? Brook Akins, 34, was arrested in January in a Salt Lake City suburb after calling 911 12 times in five hours to complain of a toothache and demand to speak to someone who could help him.

Things People Believe

(1) Super-charismatic Stacy Finley, 34, pleaded guilty in January in Shreveport, La., to defrauding 22 middle-class victims by somehow convincing them to pay a total of $989,000 to have medical scans done of their bodies by overhead satellite and to be administered secret therapeutic drugs while they slept, by CIA agents who would sneak into their homes.

(2) Sacramento, Calif., veterinarian Bert Brooks told a KOVR-TV reporter in February that he had a record of curing pets by having them stare at a computer monitor showing psychedelic images.

“I didn’t learn this in vet school,” he told the reporter, but “there’s a lot going on in the universe that we don’t understand today.”

Signs of the Times

Ariel Milby explained her ostentatious sweet-16 party (televised in February on MTV) by pointing out that her dad owns his own oil company. “I love oil,” she said. “Oil means shoes and cars and purses.” “Oil smells like money….” But it’s not just 16-year-olds who are spoiled. Reuters reported in January that New York City party designers get $25,000 and up for kids’ birthday and coming-of-age bashes, including one 60-guest celebration for a 1-year-old, who of course slept through the whole thing.

In December, at a spare-no-expense birthday party for a 7-year-old girl in Coral Gables, Fla., a cougar brought in to dazzle the kids attacked a 4-year-old, who required hospitalization.

Least Competent Criminals

(1) Andre Henry was convicted on 27 criminal counts in Philadelphia in February (e.g., bank robbery, threatening witnesses and police officers), despite his cocky attitude on the witness stand. After the prosecution played back a recording of Henry confessing his crimes to a wire-wearing inmate, Henry was unfazed, quickly declaring that the confessor was really Henry’s “twin brother” (except that the prosecutor easily showed he doesn’t have one).

(2) A 17-year-old was arrested in January in Sheboygan, Wis., and charged with stealing a snowmobile from the Sheboygan Yamaha lot. However, the next morning, even before the dealer realized the vehicle was missing, the boy had brought it in for service.