Flat Earth: Arms control

AN eight-year-old Pennsylvania boy's protest against having a shower has forced his neighbours in America's wide suburban underbelly to come clean about one household item. And we don't mean facecloths.

Kyle Cannon hit the local headlines after he handcuffed his left wrist to a banister rather than get in the shower. The key to the cuffs, alas, was missing. But before calling the police, who chopped the cuff off, Kyle's parents opened their doors to the neighbours. They marched in and out, to the Cannons' astonishment, trying keys from their handcuffs.

And you thought America was gun crazy.