Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   4

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88
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
walkouts, and hunger strikes 
won his United Farm Workers 
of America a union contract 
and insurance benefi ts.  But 
when dissenting UFW orga-
nizers went on a hunger strike 
of their own to protest Chavez 
having fi red them, he got up-
set—and fi led a $25 million 
libel suit against them.
✖  ✖  ✖
A divorced father and washed-
up garbage collector at 40, 
Barry Horne was a midlife cri-
sis waiting to happen. Forgoing 
the usual sports car pur chase 
or aff air with a younger woman, 
Horne instead launched a fi ve-
year  campaign  of  fi rebomb-
ings against British companies 
he viewed as animal rights vi-
olators. In 1997 he was caught and received an 18-year jail 
sentence, the longest ever given to an animal rights protestor. 
Four hunger strikes followed in an attempt to force a public 
inquiry into animal lab testing—his longest was a record 68 
days—to  no  avail.  He  died  from  starvation-induced  kidney 
failure in 2001.
✖  ✖  ✖
What’s so magical about magician David Blaine, anyway? 
His “tricks” consist mainly of absurd feats of endurance—
encasing himself in ice for 66 hours, burying himself alive 
for a week—and while he name-checks Houdini as an infl u-
We Want Our 
Welsh TV
When  it  looked  like  Margaret 
Thatcher was about to renege 
on an election promise to cre-
ate the fi rst  Welsh-language 
TV station, Gwynfor Evans did 
what any concerned member 
of Parliament would do: He 
threatened to go on a hunger 
strike. More surprising even 
than Evans’s petulant tactic was 
that hard-nosed Thatcher gave 
in, and Sianel Pedwar Cymru 
(Channel Four Wales) began 
broadcasting in 1982. The sta-
tion’s biggest hit to date: Su-
perTed, the animated adven-
tures of a magical teddy bear.

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89
ence, at least Houdini tried to escape. Blaine just tortures 
himself, not to mention his fans, in the process. A 2003 
stunt suspended him 30 feet above a London park in a glass 
box, without food, for 44 days. (Sure, other folks have fasted 
for longer than that—but who else has done it for no rea-
son?) Charitable Londoners decided if Blaine wanted to tor-
ture himself, they would do their best to help him: eggs, beer 
cans, and paint-fi lled balloons were all lobbed at the box, 
and one prankster used a radio-controlled helicopter to 
taunt Blaine with fl ying cheeseburgers. Call it a case of per-
fect celebrity justice.
03
Celebrity Justice: 
Twenty “Trials of the Century”
Lately, media pundits and newsmakers have been dubbing 
things “trial of the century” like it’s going out of style; ac-
cording to ever-hyperbolic 
USA TODAY,
 Martha Stewart, 
Robert Blake, and Michael Jackson each had trials of the 
century—in 2005. Of course, we think that’s just silly: So 
in the interest of setting the record straight, here are our 
top 20.
1906:
 Harry Th
  aw, the trust-funded son of a Pittsburgh in-
dustrialist, shoots Madison Square Garden architect Stan-
ford White in the face—during a show at Madison Square 
Garden. Claiming White raped Th
  aw’s wife, his lawyer wins 
an acquittal by arguing Th
 aw suff ered from “dementia Amer-
icana,” affl
  icting any American male whose wife’s purity is 
violated.