“It was just screaming to have a song written about it.”
Musician Randy Mitchell, who wrote Ode to Billy Goats, praising the goats in Tennessee that are keeping kudzu vines from throttling the American South (The New York Times, 5 June)
“It would be painful for me but I would have to refuse them.”
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Assisted-suicide pioneer Jack Kevorkian, aka “Doctor Death”, on what he would say to someone seeking his help to end their life. Kevorkian was released from prison on 1 June on the condition that he would not help anyone else commit suicide (The Detroit News, 2 June)
“You have to be careful attributing behaviour but it would seem fumigation is the most likely conclusion.”
Richard Archer of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, on rooks in Devon, UK, spotted spreading their wings over smouldering cigarette butts, ostensibly to get rid of parasites (The Telegraph, London, 2 June)
“Because they didn’t have bleeding disorders, no one followed them up and said: ‘Oh, by the way, we pumped some contaminated blood into you.'”
Peter Stevens, chair of the Eileen Trust support fund, on how the UK’s Department of Health failed to follow up non-haemophiliacs who may have received HIV-tainted blood in the mid-1980s (The Guardian, London, 5 June)
“We don’t say…’You just have to learn to live with sewage in your water.’ Why should we tolerate sewage coming into our ears?”
Retired physician Louis Hagler of Oakland, California, on how noise pollution is leading to sleeplessness, compromised immune systems and even a slightly increased risk of heart attacks (The Washington Post, 5 June)
