It's been 12 months of nonstop momentous news: Scott Peterson, Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, Swift boats, White House twins, ketchup heirs, Janet Jackson's malfunctioning wardrobe, Jason Giambi's muscles and Ron Artest's muscle, the final days of Dan and Tom and the upcoming new TV drama "CSI: Falls Church." If you're wondering what you missed while paying attention to all those above-the-fold developments, buckle up for our annual tour of the year's most disturbing and underreported stories.
The Highest Levels
The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.
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Of Professionalism
THE EXPANDING GIRTH OF THE LIPOSUCTION MARKET (II) To promote the potential use of fat tissue for harvesting stem cells to create new human tissue, Texas plastic surgeon Robert Ersek, who is overweight, let reporters watch as he liposuctioned 18 ounces of his own fat from the left side of his abdomen, under local anesthesia and dressed only in gray briefs. A videographer recorded the entire procedure. The Austin-based physician, who urges people to start storing their fat now in anticipation of later breakthroughs, left his right side as is -- to show patients a "before" and "after."
-- Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 27
EPISODES IN INCOMPLETE THINKING (III) Police, arriving at an upscale office building in west St. Louis on a report of two men roaming the halls with guns, found most workers waiting outside -- except for those hiding under desks or in closets. It turned out that lawyers Gary K. Burger and Mark Cantor were engaged in make-believe urban warfare, armed with weapons that looked like real guns. Burger later apologized, calling himself an "idiot." Police confiscated what they said was a BB gun, but Burger said it fired only "plastic projectiles." Most workers had no idea it was a game, except a woman who had been hit in the finger and shoulder after walking into a previous battle. Burger, 37, was arrested on suspicion of "flourishing a dangerous weapon." Police were looking for the other "suspect."
-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 3 and 4;
Associated Press, Aug. 3
THE LOST ARRT OF PROOFREDING Though lawyer Brian Puricelli won his client's civil rights case against the city of Philadelphia, federal magistrate Jacob Hart cut his fees by nearly $32,000 because Puricelli seemed unable to heed Hart's warnings about excessive typos in his filings (e.g., consistently referring to the court as in the "Easter District" of Pennsylvania) and "nearly unintelligible" writing. Puricelli complained vigorously about the pay reduction, but a crucial, three-sentence paragraph in his plea to reinstate the fees had four more typos and referred to the judge as Jacon Hart.
-- The Legal Intelligencer (Philadelphia), Feb. 24
Cultured Pearls
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX (I) Cape Town 's Old Town House museum in South Africa offered an exhibit featuring familiar 17th-century Dutch Master paintings, but turned the artwork to face the wall. Curator Andrew Lamprecht said the decision was a "conceptual art intervention" that recast the pieces as "something new and unexpected" and would force gallery-goers to reconsider their preconceptions.
-- Reuters, Aug. 3
ONE WAY TO AVOID THE PASSIVE VOICE A French writer using the pseudonym Michel Thaler claimed to have published the first-ever novel without verbs, which he called "weeds." The author called "The Train From Nowhere" ("Le Train de Nulle Part") a "revolution," and said the book "is to literature what the great Dada and Surrealist movements were to art." Critics panned the 233-page work, noting its lack of action.
