We’re not going to talk about the man who stabbed, gutted and decapitated a sleeping passenger on a Greyhound bus in Canada, because it’s a tragedy, and it’s better left to sensationalist websites to pander to the debauched taste for such ultraviolent tripe.  I’m just not going to go there.
Instead, I’d like to write about an incident that occurred last Thursday in Iowa City, where Matthew Osing invited friend Donroy Merrival to his apartment for a few drinks.  The two were getting along splendidly till the guest borrowed Osing’s bike to get more alcoholic beverages.  Upon his return the host discovered that his bicycle was damaged. ÂÂ
When he confronted Merrival about the damage, according to Osing, the guest’s mood changed.  He hunched down in a threatening, ready-to-spring posture.  It was at that point Osing smacked his whilom guest with a shovel:
something police say he shouldn’t have done.
“Totally inappropriate, totally uncalled for and probably actionable legally,” said Troy Kelsay, Iowa City Police.
Be that as it may, the now irritated Merrival leapt at Osing and bit a portion of his nose off:
So what happened to the part of Osing’s nose bitten off by Merrival?
“I don’t know if he swallowed it or if my dogs might have eaten it, I don’t know,” said Osing.
This bizarre story doesn’t end there. Police continued to investigate, but did not keep Merrival or Osing in custody following the fight. Police say two days later, Merrival ended up here on J Street. Police reports show a woman says he pressured her to have sex and when she declined, Merrival threatened to kill her. The woman told police she pulled out a knife and ran away.
Merrival faces a felony assault charge for biting off Osing’s nose. And another charge for assaulting the woman.
I think it’s a bit of the cheek for the police to criticize Osing’s judgement after having not arrested either of the men for the initial incident.  The clincher, though, has to be the headline: “Man Arrested for Biting Off Another Man’s Nose.”  Well, now, that does clarify things, doesn’t it?  For it’s certainly bewildering to attempt imagining how Man might have bitten off his own nose, and this saves me a great deal of pointless cogitation.  So, thanks for spelling it out!  And at the risk of incurring James Wolcott’s elan vital, that is some mighty fine disambiguation.  This is why they’re the professionals, people.
The Greyhound bus of death thing is some endtimes shit right there.
It’s a terrible, terrible thing, hf. I’m so glad I don’t have to think of it.
Anyway . . . how’s the turtles?
#1 – no kidding, ‘feets. That’s the creepiest thing I’ve read about in a long time. And that’s counting all of Obama’s speeches.
Iowa?
C’mon. There is no such place!
I have been there, and believe me, that it is just a fantasy nightmare of Nancy Pelosi’s.
Only douchenozzles believe that Iowa exists, and that Nancy Pelosi gets her votes from anyhere but the heartland. I mean, who could ever be agianst a stupid twit who thinks that Americans are too stupid to ubderstand their own lives?
76% want to drill for oil?
“Go fuck yourselves you stupid assholes!”
“I am Nancy Fucking Pelosi, and you are too stoopid to see that I am saving the planet! And don’t you even think about any choices!. I make the choices fot you, and you had damn well better kiss my asss for being so smart!”
What a fucking idiot this woman is…
Wolcott is so crusty, I have no idea she’s even around anymore. I guess she is.
If someone fucks up your bike, hitting him with a shovel is well within the range of acceptable responses. If you hit someone with a shovel weakly enough that he can respond at all, he gets to bite your nose off. And anyone who’s way too serious about picking up knife-wielding girls will enjoy prison. So that’s a nice, round story.
The other one, I don’t get at all. I know crazy guys do crazy shit on the bus. That’s what it’s for. What I don’t understand is all the non-stabbed or -stabbing passengers’ missing time.
Cutting someone’s head off, especially with a bus-passenger-quality knife, is a lengthy chore. And he “gutted” the guy, too, whatever that means. This all supposedly after stabbing him about sixty times. That’s not quick work, either; each stab is slower than the last one. It takes forever.
So what the hell was everybody doing between bailing when shit got serious — say at stab #10 or so — and, oh, about half an hour later, when they “returned to check on the victim” and found dude marching around with his head?
Note from civilization, Canadia: When the real crazy shows up, no loitering. Your job is to stop it, get it on video, or split up and do both. You can waste time fetching the mounties from Tim Horton’s when it’s over. Savages.
I think a lot of them were throwing up, psycho.
Plus, some did a version of stopping it. As in, stopping the guy driving away by disabling the bus, and stopping him getting out to stab the living by barricading him inside.
It’s the Iowa version of “doing a Rochambeau” for it, but since they couldn’t spell it, this had to do.
(first attempt at doing HTML, using Xinha in Firefox – sorry if it tanks)
Yay, Xinha works!!!11!!!!!1!
The stabber is not at fault. He was driven to it.
Route causes? Hadn’t thought of that.
This whole incident is so … eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww. Fuckin’ Canadians.
Fuckin’ Canadians is probably some racist code-word, huh Keith?
Since when is it †probably actionable legally†to hit some one with a shovel? Maybe next time the guy will grab a hammer, might still have a full nose.
About Wolcott: does he actually approve of that drawing?
‘Cause if so…wow.
Wait… you can’t hit people with shovels? And you can’t bite someone’s nose off in retaliation?
What are we living in some sort of Disneyfied utopia now?
That first story though, that’s just no good.
It’s Iowa City, man. It’s the Berkeley of the Midwest. They have a law banning nuclear weapons in the city limits. Don’t expect anything that happens there to make any sort of sense.
You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose unless he hits you with a shovel.