In a May dispatch from Atlanta on Southerners’ notoriously unnutritious, fat-laden cuisine, a Chicago Tribune reporter watered readers’ mouths with descriptions of the “hamdog” and the “Luther” (prized dishes of Mulligan’s restaurant in Decatur, Ga.), which are, respectively, “a half-pound of hamburger meat wrapped around a hot dog, which is deep-fried and served on a hoagie topped with chili, bacon and a fried egg,” and “a half-pound burger served with bacon and cheese on a Krispy Kreme doughnut.” The 11 states from Washington, D.C., to Florida, west to Texas, have the nation’s highest mortality rate from strokes, but, said a University of Mississippi professor, “Food is a strong emblem of identity for Southerners,” uniquely shared across racial lines.
INEXPLICABLE
Michael Scanlon, 31, a chief associate of disgraced Washington, D.C., lobbyist Jack Abramoff, reportedly earned millions from his largely illegal deals with Abramoff and spent most of it buying real estate in Delaware beach communities during 2002-2005, paying at least $12 million in cash. However, according to a May report in the Wilmington News-Journal, Scanlon dutifully each summer during those years worked as a full-time lifeguard on Delaware beaches, at $11.35 an hour, and reportedly had tried to line up the job again this summer, but was turned down by Rehoboth Beach officials because of his pending federal sentence.
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
Jason Lyon, 28, a National Guardsman from Buffalo, N.Y., who hurt his ankle jumping from a Humvee in Baghdad in 2004, was cleared, after treatment, to return to combat. After his tour ended, he applied to the U.S. Postal Service to be a letter carrier but was turned down because of his ankle injury, though he is free to apply for less-strenuous positions. In March the Postal Service said it would seek a second medical opinion on the ankle.
MORE THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT
Spokane, Wash., dentist Henry G. Kolsrud, 82, decided to give up his license in May rather than face punishment for having an unsanitary office; among the charges: that he kept cat food in the office refrigerator with dental supplies, and that he scooped up cat vomit around the office with dental spatulas.
LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS
In St. Paul, Minn., in May, an unnamed man, working out a community-service sentence by cleaning up for the next day’s “graduation” at the St. Paul Police Department’s dog training school, was caught with drugs by the senior canine “instructor,” Buster. According to a report in the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, the worker had brought six small bags of marijuana with him, even though assigned to the dog school. “I was going to smoke it when I was done working,” he said.
END MATTERS
In April, authorities at El Salvador’s La Esperanza prison near San Salvador arrested visitor Lidia Alvarado for allegedly trying to smuggle an M-67 grenade to inmates by stuffing it inside her vagina. Also in April, the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal-Star reported that a 38-year-old man appeared at the ER at BryanLGH Medical Center West in Lincoln with a 20-ounce soft drink bottle lodged in his rectum. MTW
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