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April seeks to be coolest

Published 3:58 pm Saturday, April 10, 2010

April is tired of being known as the cruelest month. (Here we go, sighs February the dreariest.) But April has a point. With the news full of cruel teens, Cruella De Vil adoptive mothers, and general meanness, let’s focus elsewhere:

  • “Doctors remove live ammunition from soldier’s head”: After a radiologist spotted the unexploded explosive on the Afghan soldier’s CT scan, the operating room at Bagram Air Base hospital in Afghanistan was evacuated. Except for trauma surgeon Maj. John Bini, anesthesiologist Maj. Jeffrey Rengel and a bomb technician, who put on their body armor and did their jobs. The explosive was removed and a neurosurgeon took over, the New York Times reported.

    The Air Force medical team deserves a “Sully” award, in honor of Captain C.B. “Sully” Sullenberger — the US Airways pilot who safely landed his powerless plane on the Hudson River last year — for remaining calm in a potentially any-second-now deadly situation they had prepared for, but had never before faced, performing their duties as trained, resulting in no loss of life.

    May this admirable action, true grace and skill under unimaginable pressure, bring a little perspective to our everyday the-sky-is-falling debates.

  • “Female knuckleballer from Japan joins men’s minor league team”: Eri Yoshida, 18, who played pro ball in Japan last year, signed with the Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League.

    The 5-foot, 114-pound Yoshida learned how to throw a knuckleball by watching video of Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield. Of course she did. (Sounds like learning a second language in your sleep while listening to subliminal tapes, but why foul up a charming story?)

    With the Mariners’ deep Japanese ties, Yoshida is a natural prospect for them. A team always needs pitching. And because the minds behind the M’s commercials can already see, among endless possibilities, a spot with Yoshida, Ichiro and Ken Griffey Jr. doing a “Charlie’s Angels” kind of thing. (Charlie being manager Don Wakamatsu, as played by himself.) Plus, Yoshida would make Ichiro look like he bulked up. Not that he needs to.

  • “Camilla, wife of Prince Charles, breaks her leg”: The 62-year-old royal was hiking in Scotland when she slipped and fractured her fibula last week. That’s bad news for Camilla, but more material for Britain’s poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who recently wrote a poem about soccer player and fashion maven David Beckham’s torn Achilles’ tendon. Not beloved like Beckham, who knows how the Duchess of Cornwall’s misfortune in the wilds of Scotland might inspire Duffy poetically. Maybe April is mean, throwing spitballs at the duchess and not the queen.

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