Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   4

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92
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
1991:
 Hedy Lamarr, now 78 and living in Florida, is arrested 
for shoplifting again—this time for pocketing laxatives and 
eye drops. Rather than charging her, prosecutors ask her to 
please stop stealing things.
1992:
  “Iron”  Mike  Tyson  is  convicted  of  raping  Miss  Black 
Rhode Island, Desiree Washington. He converts to Islam in 
prison, exchanging “Iron” for a tamer sobriquet: Malik Abdul 
Aziz.
1992:
 A not guilty verdict for LAPD offi
  cers charged with 
beating black motorist Rodney King sparks devastating riots 
in Los Angeles that saw the deaths of 58 people.
1995:
 O. J. Simpson: “trial of the century” of the century? 
Let us break it down: Th
  e crime was sensational, but Harry 
Th
  aw’s was more so. Cochran was compelling, but no Clar-
ence Darrow. Th
  e trial’s racial implications were troubling, 
but not like Scottsboro. Word.
1999:
 “Slick” William J. Clinton is (at least) the eighth U.S. 
president to engage in sexual misconduct while in offi
  ce, the 
fi rst to be forced to discuss it under oath, and his impeach-
ment is the last of the 20th century’s “trials of the century.” 
His unfortunate fall, however, leads us to an altogether more 
pleasant kind of fall.
04
  Having a “Great ” Fall:
Facts and Figures About Terrifying Things That 
 Happened in September, October, and November
On 
November 20,
 1820, an 80-ton sperm whale rammed into 
and sank the 
Essex,
 a Nantucket whaling ship. Twenty years 
later, son of 
Essex
 survivor Owen Chase met a young Herman 

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93
Melville working aboard an-
other whaling ship and re-
galed him with the tragic tale. 
On 
October 19,
 1851, Melville 
published his own story about 
an aggressive sperm whale 
out for blood: 
Moby-Dick.
✖  ✖  ✖
Incidentally, there is at least 
one known instance of a whale 
destroying not a boat, but an 
automobile: On 
November 12,
 
1970, offi
  cials in Florence, Or-
egon, used dynamite to rid 
their beachfront of a 45-foot-
long rotting whale carcass. 
Overzealous, they planted a 
half ton of it, and the resulting 
explosion sent whale chunks 
fl ying up to a quarter mile, 
covering horrifi ed news crews in blubber and caving in the roof 
of one poor fellow’s car. Insert your own “Th
  ar she blows!” joke 
here.
✖  ✖  ✖
A  somewhat  less  disgusting  but  considerably  more  powerful 
explosion occurred on 
November 1,
 1952, when the fi rst hydro-
gen bomb was detonated. Code-named “Mike” (for megatons—
10.4 of them), it was 450 times more powerful than the atomic 
bomb dropped on Nagasaki and erased the tiny Pacifi c atoll 
where it was tested. Irradiated coral rained on boats up to 30 
miles away, resulting in several cases of radiation poisoning.
It’s a Bird! It’s 
a Plane! It’s 
a . . . Bird Strike?
Bird strike, as the dangerous 
collision of airplanes and ka-
mikaze birds is known, costs 
the aviation industry $600 
million in damage annually 
and has resulted in 195 
deaths since 1988. The dead-
liest single bird strike occurred 
on 
October 4,
 1960, when a 
fl ock of starlings embedded 
themselves in all four engines 
of an Eastern Air Lines L-188 
Electra, downing the plane 
into  Boston  Harbor  and  kill-
ing 62 people.