A mandala is shown Tuesday, May 22, 2007, at Union Station in Kansas City, Mo., after it was destroyed by a toddler. Eight Tibetan monks had spent two days cross-legged on the floor creating the intricate design from colored sand as an expression of their religious faith. The toddler was accompanying a woman who was visiting the post office inside of Union Station.

jay: what’s the sound of eight monks crying?

dan: i heard one of the monks kicked the kid’s ass.

rob: i once had an art teacher who said “there are no wrong choices in art.” i always kind of doubted that statement, but especially so when the rightness/wrongness has to do with your feet on someone else’s painting. that aside, there’s something unbelievably awesome about the video of the little guy skating around on the mandala.

BBC — A Cumbrian couple’s wedding plans are all at sea after the prospective bride dumped her fiance’s work van, and all his clothes, into a harbour.

Following a pub row, Emma Thomason, 24, of Whitehaven, loaded her boyfriend’s van with his belongings, then rolled it off a ramp at the town’s marina.

The argument started when Jason Wilson, 24, wanted to stay out with friends and Miss Thomason wanted to go home.

[…]

The 24-year-old plasterer told reporters: “People had seen the van bobbing around in the water. They called the police, who contacted my boss.

“He was furious, but has been very good about it. I’m very grateful. Emma isn’t sorry one little bit. She insists that I am the one in the wrong and that it is all my fault.

“She put every single last item of clothing I had in the back of the van. All I was left with were the clothes I was wearing.

“I haven’t told her yet that the wedding is off, but I think she can put two and two together.”

[…]

Miss Thomason is now on police bail after being arrested on suspicion of aggravated vehicle taking without consent.

cates: white vans, most of which are driven very badly by aggressive hooligans, are the scourge of britain’s streets. let’s hope these amphibious antics catch on.

AP - MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Two school employees who staged a fake gun attack on a group of students during a field trip have been suspended, school officials said Monday.

During the last night of a weeklong trip to a state park, staff members convinced 69 sixth-grade students from Scales Elementary School that there was a gunman on the loose.

The students were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. After the lights went out, some of the children began to cry. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, pulled on locked doors.

Teacher Quentin Masters and assistant principal Don Bartch were suspended for unprofessional conduct and neglect of duty because of the staged attack, schools director Marilyn Mathis said Monday.

jay: finally, professional educators who aren’t afraid to prepare their students for the rigors of junior high. right on, fellas. hope you enjoy those long summer vacations.

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — Three-time boxing champion Hector “Macho” Camacho was sent to jail Monday after pleading guilty to a 2004 burglary charge.

Camacho faces up to seven years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Circuit Judge Steve Simpson delayed sentencing, but ordered him sent straight to jail because a bail bond agent said he hadn’t heard from Camacho for more than two years, the Sun Herald reported on its Web site.

A warrant was issued for Camacho on Dec. 22, 2004, for a November burglary of a computer store. He was arrested in January 2005 on the burglary charge, and was also was charged with drug possession after police allegedly found ecstasy in his hotel room at the Imperial Palace. Trial on the drug charge is tentatively set for June.

Camacho had bought a laptop from the business but had left it there for work on technical problems. He was trying to retrieve his computer, his attorney, David Morrison, said. The break-in was “a momentary lapse in judgment,” he added.

Wayne Woodall, the Wheelers’ attorney, claims Camacho fell through the ceiling, cut himself, urinated inside the office and left with seven laptops and about $5,600 in checks and cash.

jay: ‘a momentary lapse in judgment,’ to me, means maybe breaking into the store and taking only your own laptop but definitely not taking a piss in the office. but who am i to judge lapses?

Sydney Morning Herald — May 5, 2007 — A judge sentenced a shocked and tearful Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail on Friday, ruling that the hotel heiress violated her probation for a previous traffic offence by knowingly driving without a valid licence.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer rejected Hilton’s defence that she didn’t realise her license was suspended.

He ordered the 26-year-old socialite to report to a county detention facility on June 5. She will not be allowed any work release, no furloughs, no use of an alternative jail and no electronic monitoring in lieu of jail.

Hilton wept and her mother, Kathy, yelled at the prosecutor, “You’re pathetic,” as the packed courtroom cleared.

The stunning decision capped a two-hour hearing in which prosecutors argued that Hilton was thumbing her nose at the court and seeking to be placed above the law, while defence lawyers said she was being singled out for harsh treatment because of her celebrity.

jay: ok, i concede. there is a god.

dan: nah. just a superior court judge who stays at the marriot.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A gang stripped a South African man before supergluing him to an exercise bicycle while they ransacked his house, according to a report Thursday.

SAPA news agency said the attackers, dressed in suits, hijacked a man in his 50s and forced him at gunpoint to take them to his home in Johannesburg.

“The victim was then forced to strip, after which he was superglued to the seat of an exercise bicycle, his hands were superglued, as were his feet and then his mouth was superglued shut,” SAPA quoted Mark Stokoe, a spokesman for emergency services Netcare 911, as saying.

The man was rescued about three hours later when his partner arrived home, SAPA said.

jay: whoa. also, ouch. also also, sad.

dan: i know the feeling. i got stuck to my grandma’s vinyl couch one summer. sucked.

LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) — Hugh Grant has been arrested for allegedly throwing a container of baked beans at a photographer, London police said.

The Metropolitan Police don’t identify suspects who haven’t been charged, but said a 46-year-old man was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of assault and released on bail. No charges have been filed, police said.

Photographer Ian Whittaker told the Daily Star tabloid that Grant had kicked him and shouted abuse before hurling the beans at him Tuesday morning.

jay: are they sure he wasn’t just sharing the beans with a member of the less fortunate? i, for one, am not sure.

rob: this generosity theory is bolstered by the fact that he was earlier seen throwing the crusts of his cucumber sandwiches at the grubby-faced urchins following his carriage.

CHURCH HILL, Tenn. - The mother of a kindergartner was charged with assault Thursday and banned from school after officials said she walked into the child’s classroom, pointed a toy cap gun at students and pulled the trigger several times.

It happened Tuesday, a day after the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech, and scared teachers and students, the school principal said.

Church Hill police and Hawkins County school officials met with Heather Nicole Berg, 26, before charging her with misdemeanor assault, police said. She had already been banned from Church Hill Elementary School for a year.

Police declined to say why Berg had the cap gun with her but called her actions “a monumental lapse in judgment.”

jay: why’d she bring a cap gun to a kindergarten class the day after the virginia tech shootings? my theory: she’s a comedy genius. and the small-minded fools in tiny town, usa just can’t take a joke.

dan: that’s gold, jerry. gold! these people have no respect for prop comedy.

AP — LINCOLN, Neb. — An angry soccer mom who left her teenage daughter alongside an interstate was ticketed for neglect, Lincoln police said Tuesday. Police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell confirmed this account from police reports:

The 42-year-old Lincoln mom was miffed about her daughter’s poor play on Saturday.

On their drive home the girl flubbed the lines her mom had drilled into her on how to improve her game, so the mother slapped her daughter.

The girl told her mom to pull over. The mom did, near the downtown Lincoln exit off Interstate 80.

The mom yelled at the girl to get out. When she did, her mom drove off.

A teammate’s parent spotted the girl alongside the interstate, stopped to pick her up, then took her to their home and called police.

jay: when is it not just a game? when it’s girls pee-wee soccer. that’s right.

rob: hey, it’s like just “the great santini!” (…though i think he was slightly less of a dick.)

dan: i don’t know. sounds to me like the girl needed a little alone time to work on her lines. you should see what we do to mia when she’s not aggressive enough on the pitch…

York, Pa. (AP) — A man who arrived at court drunk for a drunken-driving hearing was again charged with driving under the influence, police said.

Paul H. Zeigler, 45, of Glen Rock, appeared at a preliminary hearing at the Shrewsbury district court on March 26 for a DUI charge from December.

Police said Zeigler appeared to be intoxicated at the hearing, according to police records.

After his court appearance, Zeigler failed a portable breath test for alcohol and was taken into custody for a blood test, police said.

The second test revealed that Zeigler’s blood-alcohol level was twice the legal driving limit and he was charged with DUI, police said.

jay: apparently it’s illegal to ‘keep it real’ in york, pa. that shit’s messed up.

AP — BOULDER, Colo. — Former child star Brian Bonsall, who played Andy Keaton in “Family Ties,” was arrested on charges of assaulting his girlfriend, police said.

Bonsall was arrested Wednesday after his girlfriend told police he poured an alcoholic drink on her face while she slept, put her in a choke hold and threw her onto a bed when she tried to leave, authorities said.

Bonsall told investigators he pushed the woman down in self-defense after she cut his arm and face with a steak knife, but she denied that, police said.

jay: um, did he have cuts or what? tell me more, associated press! we need to know what happened to little tow-headed andy ‘choke-hold’ keaton! choke hold!

dan: my first thought was to look for a family ties curse, but there’s not much there there. justine bateman hasn’t done much since “satisfaction,” but she’s still got jason’s success to hitch her wagon to. and wikipedia tells me that tina yothers “holds the record…for second highest weight loss…in the history of [celebrity fit club].” so i don’t know what bonsall’s problem is.

Seattle PI — BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — The plot hatched as such things often do, in minds made desperate by fear. It involved chemistry, strategy and notions of a clean getaway.

The victim? An unsuspecting sixth-grade teacher. The weapon? Strawberry lip gloss.

In a caper worthy of Wile E. Coyote’s finest failures, two 12-year-old girls from Bainbridge Island are accused of attempting to elude punishment for a tardy assignment Thursday by poisoning their teacher, Kasey Jeffers, with a flavored lip balm they knew would make her ill.

Jeffers, 58, is violently allergic to strawberries — common knowledge at Sakai Intermediate School, according to police, who arrested the youths on suspicion of assault after they were accused of coating the rim of their teacher’s coffee cup and water bottle with strawberry lip gloss.

“They had discussed using real strawberries but decided that would be fatal and this would just make her sick enough to leave school, which was what they wanted,” said Mark Duncan, the island’s deputy police chief. “It’s 12-year-old thinking at its finest.”

“Apparently, even synthetic strawberry flavor can cause a reaction like this,” said Duncan. “It smells the same and tastes the same because, chemically, it’s close to the same thing.”

jay: actually, it doesn’t seem like an unsound plan once you remove the morally-bankrupt part of it: shoot to wound, not to kill; take the weekend to work on your paper. who would have even thought that the chemical composition would be similar? not me.

By DEREK GATOPOULOS, Associated Press Writer

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The Greek government suspended play in all professional team sports for two weeks Friday after a fan was killed in a riot before a women’s volleyball match.

The ban, which covers soccer, basketball, volleyball and other sports, will last until April 13.

A man was killed and seven others were hospitalized Thursday when fans from rival women’s volleyball clubs Panathinaikos Athens and Olympiakos Piraeus fought near Athens.

jay: wait, women’s volleyball? dudes were juiced up enough before a women’s sporting event to kill someone? though maybe this wasn’t actually about women’s volleyball? it’s funny to think about people rioting before a wnba game here. it means they’d have to a) know that the wnba is still around b) show up and c) care.

from the la times sunday magazine:

Patrikios says the letters have made him think more deeply about his own future. He wonders, for instance, what Future Patrikios will think of his decision to cover his body with tattoos. “I feel like the past is written all over me,” he says. “I used to be punk rock and tattooed. And the tattoos are still there. Then you get older, get an Amazon job and do yoga and buy $100 running shoes.”

Still, he adds, he has no regrets. Nor does he expect to have any when the future arrives. He’s confident that in 30 years he’ll be happy, retired, studying Ashtanga yoga and running marathons. “Everything I do now is based on the goal of being a really good long-distance runner until I’m 80.”

jay: total dildo whose soul is being fought over by four different cults.

pdf of the article available here

AP - NEW YORK - Naomi Campbell has cleaned up her act — by getting down and dirty. The catwalker was released Friday from a garbage truck garage after completing five days of community service for assaulting her maid.

The 36-year-old supermodel had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for throwing the phone at her maid about a year ago in Campbell’s Park Avenue apartment over a missing pair of jeans.

Her maid, Ana Scolavino, required four stitches to her head, since the phone apparently was crystal-encrusted.

jay: wait, hahaha. what? i knew about the assault but why is this the first i’m hearing about the crystal-encrusted phone? oh man.

dan: hang on, you missed this part:

(CBS) NEW YORK Supermodel Naomi Campbell, wearing black stilettos and slinging combat-style boots over her shoulder, traded the catwalk for community service at a sanitation garage on Monday.

Campbell, walking with a perky bounce, arrived at the Manhattan District 3 Garage at Pier 36 on the Hudson in a black SUV at around 8 a.m.

dan: she showed up for trash detail in stilettos and walking with a “perky bounce.” i love that. all that’s missing was a newsboy-type cap and a fitted coat. Oh, wait:

Her ensemble also included chocolate brown pants, a short fitted coat with a flared bottom, dark sunglasses and a newsboy-type cap over a short hairdo.

dan: who says journalism is dead?!