Runners-up: Despots, Actors, Playmates and Politicians
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who told a reporter inquiring about reports of evacuations, extreme poverty, mass killings and gang rapes in Darfur, “These are all lies. I tell you these are lies. There is no mass killing.”Sudan, the largest country in Africa at nearly a third the size of the lower 48 States, has a per capita gross income of $530, 1,200 miles of paved and gravel roads (the U.S. has 2.4 million miles of such roads) and six million internally displaced refugees, 61 per cent of whom have experienced a family member killed in its Civil War.
Actor Kiefer Sutherland, reportedly throwing a tantrum in a Tennessee restaurant after being asked to smoke outside by a busboy, Nathan Rush, who was fired after the incident. Rush is quoted as saying that Kiefer told the manager his party was leaving because he “sprayed food and drinks at him.”This is the latest in a run of misbehaviors that seem to be worsening, a concern for those who enjoy Sutherland’s character Jack Bauer in “24.”But then, that’s the nature of alcoholism: it only gets worse.
Former Playboy Playmate and would-be heiress Anna Nicole Smith, who won a unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court, clearing the way for further legal battles over $500 million from the estate of her late husband, J. Howard Marshall. A Texas oil billionaire, Marshall was worth $1.6 billion when he died in 1995 at age 89 after marrying the then 26-year-old Smith in 1994. The high court’s review was made possible because Smith had filed for bankruptcy, creating a legal quagmire over which had priority: a federal bankruptcy court in California or a Texas probate court. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Smith’s award after deciding that federal bankruptcy judges had no right to intervene in state probate matters. Because this would have crimped the IRS’s ability to collect taxes owed by an estate, the Justice Department sided with Smith and the bankruptcy court. Who else but an alcoholic could bring together the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, the IRS and a Playmate all in one story?
Los Angeles Lakers center-forward Kwame Brown, under investigation for sexual assault. Brown, the No. 1 pick in the 2001 draft, reportedly clashed with Michael Jordan and Wizard Coach Eddie Jordan. He was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of driving 120 mph and arrested again in 2003 on suspicion of DUI.
Former Georgia state school superintendent Linda Schrenko, who in 1994 was the first woman to win statewide office in Georgia, pleading guilty to defrauding the government and money laundering. Among other violations, Schrenko and her boyfriend funneled federal school money into a $9,300 face-lift and her 2002 campaign for governor. After the election, she split from her husband (yes, she was married and had a boyfriend) and filed for bankruptcy. Even political opponents were shocked at her fall from grace, including former Gov. Roy Barnes who said that Schrenko was “blinded by something”I never could understand what it was”and it led to her downfall.”How about the fact that her staffers said she was drug-addled and rarely showed up for work? Then again, all we need to know is she bankrupted almost $70,000 in credit card debt and tens of thousands in medical bills while earning $113,000 per year. Memo to Gov. Barnes: she was blinded by distortions of perception and memory that made her think she could do no wrong, a byproduct of long-standing alcohol and other-drug addiction.