News from THE DELANEY CO.

SORRY, HONEY - Kuala Lumpur - An Islamic court sentenced Bung Mokhtar, 51, a senior Malaysian politician to a month in prison on Wednesday for taking a second wife without the permission of his first wife. He was also fined 1,000 ringgit ($310.80) in addition to the jail sentence. Muslims are allowed to take up to four wives in Malaysia and the multiple marriage has become more popular with a "polygamy club" being set up, although it remains a minority practice in this mainly Muslim country in Southeast Asia. But the man must ask the permission of his current wife before taking another, and she must agree before the second marriage is considered legal. "The accused had bad intentions and had toyed with the marriage solemnization process and the rules of polygamy according to shariah law," Judge Wan Mahyuddin Wan Muhammad said, according to news portal Malaysiakin. Bung's lawyers have asked for a lesser sentence of just a fine, as it was his first offence.

A QUAINT TRADITION - On Sunday, May 2^nd, Yeardley Love, a fourth-year defender on the University of Virginia women's lacrosse team, was murdered (allegedly) by George Huguely, a letterman on the men's lacrosse team. Huguely waived his Miranda rights after being arrested and offered chilling details of the crime, which I need not share with you. What specifically caught my eye in this story was that Yeardley Love was a "fourth-year" student at UVA, not a "senior." Upon further investigation, it appears this subtle difference at the University of Virginia is another example of the powerful insight of our third U.S. president and founder of the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson believed that a "senior" level of knowledge is unattainable, that learning is a lifelong process. So students in their final two semesters are referred to a "fourth-years." It's a quaint UVA tradition, one of many, but it also hints at deeper truths: Even the oldest undergraduates are novice adults, full of promise yet not fully formed. And some events in life are beyond comprehension.

OIL SPILL - The exploratory oil well two miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico exploded in a ball of fire, spurting millions of gallons of crude into the sea. As weeks turned to months, oil executives grappled with capping the well. The growing slick turned into an immediate ecological nightmare. The year was 1979. The blowout of the Ixtoc I, drilled by the Mexican-run Pemex, retains the dubious record of causing the world's largest accidental oil spill, dumping an estimated 138 million gallons over nine months. Eventually, Pemex cut off Ixtoc I with two relief wells and a cement seal.

With top BP executives, scientists and Obama administration officials searching for a solution to capping the Deepwater Horizon blowout off the Louisiana coast, perhaps they could find a blueprint in the Ixtoc I experience, observers say. They also may find lessons from the Montara oil spill last August off the northern coast of Australia, where it took five tries and nearly three months to stop the flow of as many as 84,000 gallons a day into the Timor Sea.

``Everybody keeps saying the spill in the Gulf is unprecedented,'' said geologist John Amos, president and founder of SkyTruth, a nonprofit that investigates environmental issues using satellite images. ``That is such bull----t. We had perfect precedence.''

PAC-MAN BIRTHDAY - The month of May marked the 30th anniversary of Namco's Pac-Man game, one of the few early games to have survived the novelty of the arcade era. The addictive video offering with that minimalist chomping circle has been tweaked and remade repeatedly; there have been more than 50 versions of the landmark maze game. More than 10 billion games of Pac-Man have been played worldwide. How exactly did Pac-Man mania happen here and throughout the world? When Pac-Man was introduced, there still weren't that many arcade games from which to choose. After the success of Pong and Space Invaders, there was a constant, frantic search for the hot new game. But the demand for something new and creative outpaced the supply of what was new and creative.

Then came Namco. In 1980, Namco released eight arcade inventions. Strangely, the company didn't initially think Pac-Man was going to be the standout, but it became a worldwide phenomenon. Even today, Pac-Man remains the most recognizable video game character in the United States. Why is it so successful? It's the simplicity. You didn't need a manual to figure out Pac-Man, like you did with many other games. You were simply required to follow three rules: Navigate the maze. Eat dots. Avoid ghosts. You needed quick reflexes and a fear/hatred of those ghosts to succeed.

For an industry in which hard-core games cost millions and often fade within three weeks of release, it's comforting to know that Pac-Man is evergreen, fondly remembered and still played after three decades of joystick nostalgia.

SURFIN' USA - San Diego - Surf's up...and Buddy, a Jack Russell terrier, is stoked. The wiry canine, who weighs about 15 pounds, has been surfing for 10 of his 12 years alongside owner Bruce Hooker, 53, from Ventura, California, usually hitting the waves three times a week and walking up to six miles daily to stay fit for the ocean. This Saturday he will be competing with about 60 other dogs in the fifth annual Loews Coronado Bay Resort Surf Dog competition in Imperial Beach which marks the start of the dog surfing season. "He's really passionate about it. He sees this as a game and he wants to play." The popular San Diego area contest, like many of the growing number of dog surfing events being held in southern California each year, is a fundraiser for pet-related charities, said Loews General Manager Kathleen Cochran. The rules of the contest? Every canine has 10 minutes to catch his or her best wave and will be judged on confidence level, length of ride and overall ability to "grip it and rip it," Cochran said. "I personally look for attire, whether they come dressed seriously with board shorts on, what's going on with their tails, whether they're wagging them or sitting on them," said Cochran. "For me that means they're having fun and that's what this is all about." As a special treat after the contest this year, dogs are invited to a wiener roast and advance screening of the 20th Century Fox film, "Marmaduke," based on the popular comic-strip character, which opens June 4.

PRESIDENTIAL CRIME - New York - A library book borrowed by the first U.S. president, George Washington, has been returned to a New York City's oldest library, 221 years late. Washington checked out the book from the New York Society Library at a time when the library shared a building with the federal government in lower Manhattan. The library said in a statement that its borrowing records, or charging ledger, showed Washington took out "The Law of Nations" by Emer de Vattel on October 5, 1789. The book was not returned, nor any overdue book fine paid -- with the overdue fee now calculated at about $300,000. The missing book came to light when the New York Society Library was restoring its 1789-1792 charging ledger, which features the borrowing history of Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and others. The library conducted an inventory of books mentioned in the ledger and confirmed the book checked out by Washington was still missing. But the missing book was kept secret for years until it became public recently in an article in The New York Daily News, the library said in a statement. "A few days after learning of the situation, staff at Washington's home in Virginia, Mount Vernon, offered to replace Vattel's "Law of Nations" with another copy of the same edition," the library said in a statement. To mark the occasion the library hosted a ceremony on May 19 at which the errant volume was presented.

LACK OF TRUST - Washington - At a time when widespread polling data suggests that a majority of the U.S. populace no longer trusts the federal government, a Pew Research Center report has found that the vast majority of the federal government doesn't trust the U.S. populace all that much either. According to the poll-which surveyed members of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches-9 out of 10 government officials reported feeling "disillusioned" by the populace and claimed to have "completely lost confidence" in the citizenry's ability to act in the nation's best interests. "All the vitriol and partisan bickering in Congress has caused most Americans to form negative opinions of the U.S. government," Pew researcher Amy Ratner said. "However, over the same time period, the government has likewise grown wary of U.S. citizens, largely due to their utter lack of foresight, laziness, and overall incompetence." Added Ratner, "And the fact that American Idol is still the No. 1 show on television doesn't exactly make our government burst with confidence." Out of 100 U.S. senators polled, 84 said they don't trust the U.S. populace to do what is right, and 79 said Americans are not qualified to do their jobs. Ninety-one percent of all government officials polled said they find citizens to be every bit as irresponsible, greedy, irrational, and selfishly motivated as government officials are.