I often wonder if some people are from this planet

Last week, I saw this.

Out in Michigan, a man in an adult education English class doused his teacher in a nonflammable liquid and threatened to burn her as a witch because she assigned "The Crucible." Yes, the Arthur Miller play.

The 20-year-old man is obviously a bit unhinged. He said he was trying to kill the witch by pouring holy water over her head. He called the play "blasphemy" on the day it was assigned, then chanted around the teacher the next day.

Seriously. I get that there are crazy people in this world, but what's depressing is that a large sector of our population probably wouldn't see anything weird about what this dude did. That's even sadder than the fact that this guy thought the teacher should be burned.

One final point: the detective quoted in the story is named Ken Denmark. Doesn't that just sound like a tough-guy P. I. in a 1970s television show? Well, I thought so. "Ken Denmark, P. I." starring Perry King! It totally works.