June 2, 1999

Your foray into the wacky, hilarious, and sometimes poignant and cruel world of crime.

A failed hoist in Beijing. A decent crane might have saved Chen Mengxing, a farmer from Hebei, a province famous for its North China Revolutionary Martyr's Cemetery. In 1939, hero Norman Bethune, a Canadian physician who helped Communists fight the Japanese, was buried there.

Chen has been sentenced to death for stealing a massive, ancient statue of Buddha. His accomplices received life in prison.

Aggravated injury: During the theft, Chen and cohorts dropped the two-ton statue, shattering it. They then tried to dispose of evidence by burying parts of the statue in accomplice Liu Xueru's backyard. Experts from the Beijing Cultural Relics Administration have pieced the statue back together

Cyber Thief Hit List: No right-clicking to steal images on OUR site, say the "Webmasters Against Hole Site Theft." These Webmasters host sites for the punk band Hole, and lead singer/guitarist Courtney Love. They mean business: they’ve compiled a "hitlist (sic) of the top thieving Hole sites on the Internet and the reasons why they are targeted."

Redemption for Hole thieves is possible: If the stolen images are removed, the offender’s name will be taken off the hit list.

Donkey Soup Surprise: A restaurant owner has been sentenced to death for poisoning the donkey soup at a nearby rival's eatery and making 148 people ill. Chi Jianguo was so envious of another restaurateur’s success that he hired farmers to throw poison into the donkey soup at his competitor’s restaurant. The agrarian poisoners remain at large.

Repentance is possible: Chi Jianguo’s death sentence has been suspended for two years during which time, if he repents, his sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.

Rockhounds: Seen any "hot" meteorites lately? A 3kg meteorite, which landed on earth in 1863, was stolen from the Museum of Geology in the city of Tartu, Estonia.

Dirty Nappies: While her mother took a nap, a 3-year-old English girl tried to comfort her crying baby brother, who had dirty "nappies." She placed the seven-week-old baby in the family’s tumble drier. The infant died of head injuries.

Dunedin Again: Recently paroled off death row, William Brown of Dunedin, Fla., rode his bicycle to a local bank and, while brandishing a broken broom handle, robbed a bank teller. Loot in tow, Brown next broke into a home, stole the car keys, and drove off in the resident’s car. He then promptly slammed into another vehicle. Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies quickly nabbed him.

Rockin’ Revenge: In northern Iran, a man was stoned to death for killing his three sons – ages 7 to 12. He wanted the boys out of the way lest they interfere with his plans to marry his mistress. Before the first stone thrown by the judge who sentenced him, the man received 60 lashes. The man’s wife also got to throw a stone.

Khartoum Takes to Traditional Executions: Modern-day crucifixions are not practiced solely by fanatical Filipinos during Easter parades and rituals. In April, a tribunal in Sudan sentenced 10 instigators of bloody tribal skirmishes to death by crucifixion.

The Least Enfranchised and Homeless Among Us:

In a city in Israel: Officials have decided to reduce the feral cat population by poisoning the cats. The government has rejected offers by animal welfare groups to spay, neuter or euthanize the cats.

In the U.S.: Town leaders in Wilkins, Pa., hired a private company to exterminate all the cats in the area. Rescuers of feral cats point out that exterminating the cats doesn’t solve the problem because new cats will move into the area and breed. Experts say the plan that works best is trapping, neutering, and releasing.

Kitty Control Freaks: Officials of Montgomery County, Md., are pushing for a leash law for cats, including making it illegal for cats to defecate on property other than their owners’.

Frat House Pranks: Chad Alvarez, a senior at the University of Wisconsin, took revenge on a Sigma Chi fraternity brother by tossing the young man’s parrot in a microwave oven. Fraternity members heard screeching noises coming from the microwave oven, but were unable to rescue the bird before it exploded.

Alvarez is the son of the University of Wisconsin’s football coach, Barry Alvarez. He faces up to two years in prison, and a $1,000 fine. The parrot’s owner, Cory Greenfield, says that Alvarez told him that he "did not realize that I was so attached to him because he never had a pet before."

Violence With Purpose: Discriminating fans are saying goodbye to one of the best-written and emotionally complex shows on television: Homicide: Life on the Streets. NBC pulled the plug after seven years and 122 episodes (enough for NBC to profit from syndication).

We’ve all read the claims that violence on television leads to horrors such as the Littleton, Co., massacre. But, long before the tragedy at Columbine High, there was lots of finger pointing at television and films. In 1993, Senators Fritz Hollings and Daniel Inouye introduced legislation to ban depiction of violence on television shows before midnight.

But, there are meritorious TV shows with violent content that also portray the emotional and ethical complexities of violence, and which guide us to think about, and experience, the consequences of crime and punishment. Homicide was such a show.

Co-executive producers Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana are too busy to weep. Their HBO dramatic series, OZ, begins its third season exploring prison life in July 1999. A dramatic series about basketball players airs on Showtime in July 1999, and a new series about cops for UPN network begins in the fall of 1999. And, if your cable provider carries Court TV, you can catch reruns of Homicide every night of the week.

URLs or Acknowledgements:

Webmasters Against Hole Site Theft:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/5984/wahst.htm

Buddha statue story: Buddha statue story: Agence France Presse Hebei Province:

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