The 90-minute day

The whimsical premise of the iconic movie “Groundhog Day” (that someone can wake up every day believing it is the previous day) has largely come to life for a patient of a British psychologist writing recently in the journal Neurocase. Dr. Gerald Burgess’ patient, following anesthesia and root-canal treatment, was left with a memory span of only about 90 minutes and awakens each day believing it is the day he is to report for the same root canal. He has been examined by numerous specialists, including neurologists who found no ostensible damage to the usual brain areas associated with amnesia. The patient is able to manage his day only by using an electronic diary with prompts.

Can’t possibly be true

Apparently, “uncooperative” child dental patients (even toddlers) can be totally restrained on a straitjacket-like “papoose board” without parental hand-holding, even during tooth-pulling, as long as the parent has signed a “consent form” (that does specifically mention the frightening practice). A recent case arose in Carrollton, Georgia, but a Georgia Board of Dentistry spokesperson told Atlanta’s WSB-TV that such restraints are permitted (though should have been accompanied by an explicit warning of potential physical or psychological harm). The father of the “screaming” girl said he was initially barred from the exam room and was led to believe, when he signed the consent form, that he was merely authorizing anesthesia.

Wait, what?

A shortage of teachers led Howard S. Billings high school in Chateauguay (in the French-sensitive province of Quebec, Canada) to announce that 11th-grade French classes would this year be conducted using only the Rosetta Stone computer program. …

Among the new rules proposed by California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards agency in May was one to require actors in pornographic movies (whose male actors OSHS has already ordered to wear condoms) to wear goggles — lest bodily fluids splash into their eyes during scenes. (Further, all equipment and surfaces of sets must be decontaminated after each scene and at day’s end.)

Compelling explanations

The mayor of Whitesboro, New York, defending to a Village Voice reporter in July the 19th-century-based town seal that features a white settler appearing to push down an American Indian man, denied any racism and said the image is “actually” a typical “friendly wrestling (match) that took place back in those days.” (According to Whitesboro’s website, the Native American supposedly uttered, after the “match,” “UGH. You good fellow too much.”) …

In April, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to stop relocating whistleblowing employees to “offices” that were abandoned jail cells. The bureau had insisted that the transfers were not punishment for reporting agency misconduct — even though one of the “offices” had no desk, computer or phone and required the employee to walk past prisoners’ cells to get to work.

The continuing crisis

Lindsey Perkins pleaded guilty in June in Newport, Vermont, for an incident in which she joy-rode on the roof of a station wagon with her 5-year-old son while a 20-year-old man drove at 50 to 55 mph on the state’s scenic Route 14 near Coventry. …

In February, the Office of Residential Life at Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut), intending to tout its dedication to inclusiveness and the creation of a “safe space” for minority students, posted a notice on its website inviting applications from the “LBTTQQFAGPBDSM” communities. The probable translation: the lesbian/gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, flexual, asexual, (vulgar word), polyamorous, bondage/discipline and sadism/masochism communities.

Police report

Cosbying 2.0: A court in Castrop-Rauxel, Germany, fined a 23-year-old man in July after he admitted that, one evening last year, he put “four or five drops” of a sedative into his girlfriend’s tea without her knowledge — so that she would doze off for the evening and not bother him while he played video games. She had come home after a hard day at work, expecting peace and quiet, but began complaining about the boyfriend’s machine-gun-fire game. …

The Washington Post’s running tally counts more than 400 people shot to death in the United States by law enforcement already this year with five months to go, but 2014 figures from Norway reveal that officers there shot at people only twice all year. Proportionally (64 times as many people live in the U.S.), American police would still have fired only 128 rounds last year if they showed Norway’s restraint. (Bonus fact: Norway’s cops missed their targets both times.) CV

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