Having 10,000 songs in your pocket, and more

Good week for:

Having 10,000 songs in your pocket, after Sophie Frost, a 14-year-old girl from outside London, survived a 30,000-volt lightning strike only because it was diverted from her vital organs by an iPod wire.

Cockroaches, after a California man desperate to rid his apartment of the hardy insects set off at least 18 bug bombs in his apartment, triggering an explosion that shattered windows and almost blew the roof off. Live roaches were seen crawling through the rubble.

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Free expression, after Portuguese tennis wunderkind Michelle Larcher De Brito refused requests to stop grunting and shrieking every time she hit the ball during her matches at Wimbledon. “If they have to fine me, go ahead,” she said. “Nobody’s going to stop me from grunting.”

Bad week for:

Free expression, after a Pentagon employee leaked an internal anti-terrorism training exam that included the question: “Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?” The correct answer was “protests.”

Diversity, when the city of Toronto admitted it Photoshopped a black guy into the family on the cover of its new Fun Guide, to show how multicultural the city is.

Taxpayers, with the news that New York City is paying about 700 teachers accused of offenses from sexual misconduct to insubordination their full salaries of more than $70,000 per year to sit in a room and do nothing. “It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher,” a school official explained.