Very Easily Offended

— Steve Soifer, CEO of an international support group for people with “shy bladders,” excoriated DirecTV for its series of commercials featuring Rob Lowe, whose “awkward” TV character stands at a urinal and says, “Fact: I can’t go with other people in the room.” Soifer says the ad ridicules a serious problem — and compared it to “making fun” of a man missing an arm or leg.

More Very Easily Offended

— Lt. Col. Sherwood Baker was turned away from Adams High School in Rochester, Mich., by a guard who said a school official sent word that Baker wasn’t allowed in to discuss his daughter’s class schedule until he changed to civilian clothes. The guard said “a student” might be offended by his military uniform. The Rochester school superintendent later apologized.

— The British Embassy in Washington, D.C., apologized twice in August. First, there was a tongue-in-cheek apology for England’s War of 1812 attack on the White House. Then there was an apology for having made that “apology” in the first place. The first apology inspired a backlash on Twitter from Americans who complained it was “offensive.”

Can’t Possibly Be True

— Comprehensive Pentagon studies of America’s nuclear missile infrastructure included the revelation that nuclear warheads had to be attached with a particular wrench. In spite of that, the Air Force owns only one of these wrenches. It must use that single wrench to service 450 missiles housed at three bases. One official told the New York Times, “They started FedExing the one tool” back and forth. He said that it had been years since anyone had checked “to see if new tools were being made.” He felt this was typical of maintenance problems that had “been around so long that no one reported them anymore.”

— London’s Daily Telegraph reported in November that a gardener hired by the House of Commons had spent a day pulling leaves that were changing color from trees on the Westminster Palace grounds. This was done because it would be more cost-effective to pick them off than to rake them up after they fell. The gardener, Annabel Honeybun, said she had 145 trees to service. A local environmentalist lamented the practice of denying autumn visitors “one of the few pleasures at this time of year,” that is, seeing the changing colors of the leaves.

Animal Intelligence

A November story from Leigh-on-Sea, England, reported that a Senegal parrot managed to pick two locks on its cage and fly away. The second lock had been installed as insurance after an earlier lock-picking escape. Also, a missing African gray parrot was returned to its Torrance, Calif., owner in October after a hiatus during which the parrot learned to speak Spanish. On the other hand, a hungry 5-foot-long black rat snake in Verona, Penn., had to be saved by surgery after it failed to distinguish between chicken eggs in a coop and a nearby ceramic egg.

Weird Patriotism

— November is tax season in Finland, where the government releases all tax records to help build public support for the country’s vast welfare state. A few Finns proudly pay high Finnish taxes as a “badge of patriotism,” rejecting common tax shelters. “We’ve received a lot of help from society,” said one wealthy entrepreneur, “and now it is our turn to pay back.”

American Scenes

— A crash of three tractor-trailers on Interstate 24 near Chattanooga, Tennessee, left a pileup of one truck’s load of eggs, another’s pallets of cheese, and another’s boxes of meat. Omelets, anyone?

— “Drunken Trombone-Playing Clown Fires Gun From Garage, Police Say” — this Oct. 21 story on MLive.com from Grand Traverse County, Mich., also reported that the man was wearing camo pants.

Bright Ideas

— When David Van Vleet asked for certain public records in Tacoma, Wash., he was forced to go to federal court when the city turned him down. Van Vleet wanted data from the city licenses of strip club employees (dancers’ stage and real names, date of birth, etc.) so that he could pray for them. In October, Judge Ronald Leighton denied Van Vleet a temporary restraining order against the city.

— The Washington, D.C., restaurant Second State recently added an accessory to its bar menu: “hand-cut rock,” that is, “artisanal” ice, for $1 extra. The local supplier, Favourite Ice, assures that its frozen water contains no calcium to cloud. With a heavy-duty band-saw blade, the ice-maker “hand-cuts” 200-to-300-pound blocks into the cubes that ultimately wind up in the glass. A Favourite Ice founder said his frozen water resists drink-weakening longer than ordinary cubes do.

Took It Too Far

— One of the questions offered in testing by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., school district for high school biology concerned dominant and recessive genes. The question read: “LaShamanda has a heterozygous big bootie, the dominant trait. Her man Fontavius has a small bootie, which is recessive. They get married and have a baby named LaPrincess. What is the probability that LaPrincess will inherit her mama’s big bootie?” Charlotte TV station WBTV was unable to confirm that the school system created the question. The station did report that the question was distributed with other system materials.

— Summer offers an opportunity for imaginative chefs to take caloric overload to the next level, building the sweetest and least heart-healthy concoctions they can. Deep-Fried Candy Corn (in a base of crescent rolls) made its debut this year, along with the Double Donut burger — two beef patties piled with cheese and bacon between “buns” of glazed donuts (1,996 calories and 53 grams of saturated fat).

— Jenya Bolotov, 26, a Russian, became an Internet sensation by releasing photographs that showed how he modified his face so that it resembled that of a platypus. He stretched eight parts of his face to effect a duck-billed look, with holes on the sides of his nostrils and plugs that extend his lips. “I can eat, talk and speak on the phone like everyone else,” he insisted. He said he is happier now that he can “live differently.” Some Internet commenters complained that, while Bolotov’s face is certainly “creepy,” they can’t conjure up “platypus” from the look.

Recurring Themes

For the fourth time, a state issued a driver’s license even though the applicant was wearing a colander as a “religious covering.” Religious coverings are the only hats permitted in license photos. Jessica Steinhauser said the motor vehicles office workers in Hurricane, Utah, shrugged at her affiliation with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Eww — Gross!

Daniela Liverani, 24, of Edinburgh, Scotland, and British singer Katie Melua, recently survived the ordeals of hosting, respectively, a three-inch leech and a spider. The leech had found its way into Liverani’s nose during an Asian backpacking trip and had poked part-way out several times. Liverani assumed it was a nosebleed clot and “sniffed it back up.” When she finally saw a doctor in October, she said, the leech played peek-a-boo for a half-hour until the doctor grabbed it with tweezers. Melua’s tiny spider lived in her ear for a week, creating a constant “rustling” noise until her doctor vacuumed it out. She guessed that it came in through old earbud headphones on an airline flight. Her spokesman said the singer had no hard feelings and had released the spider into her garden.

Chutzpah!

— The law finally caught up to squatter Darrell Beatty as he was charged with grand larceny for forging a deed to a home owned by Jennifer Merin, 70, in Laurelton, N.Y. However, he bailed out of jail on Oct. 22 and immediately returned to the house. In fact, Beatty’s two sons had remained “at home” even while Beatty was locked up. The home has been in Merin’s family since 1930. “Mind-boggling,” she said.

— The Gothamist news site reported in October that bicyclist John Roemer, who was rear-ended by a driver in Brooklyn in May, is now being sued by the driver in small claims court for $2,000 damage to her car.

— In November, a civil court in Lindau, Germany, ordered Rory Gray to pay Dr. Daniel Ubani for calling Ubani “an animal.” (Ubani injected Gray’s father with 10 times a drug’s safe dose in 2008, which led to his death). The court found the epithet unwarranted and ordered Gray to help pay Ubani’s legal expenses.

Latest Spiritual Messages

— “Santa Muerte” (Our Lady of the Holy Death) is an off-shoot of Roman Catholicism that is prominent among drug cartels in Mexico and Central America. It is, according to Vice Media, “the world’s fastest growing” religion. “Saint Death” first appeared 12 years ago, in the Mexico City barrio of Tepito. The saint now offers protection for worshippers in danger zones. (Almost 80,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, Vice reports.) Said an author who has studied the religion, “People feel more comfortable asking (Santa Muerte) for favors they probably shouldn’t ask a Catholic saint for.”

— Pope Francis ordered an investigation of the Italian Riviera diocese of Bishop Mario Oliveri, 70, who is known for giving “second chances” to wayward priests from across the country. Reports had surfaced that among Mario’s priests was one who openly published nude selfies on Facebook. Another was caught flirting with the wife of a port captain. Another was dismissed from a cruise ship for molesting passengers. And yet another was revealed to have a full-body “tribal” tattoo he had exhibited while posing with the tattoo artist in the local newspaper. The manager of a church charity in the diocese estimated that half the bishop’s 175 priests were delinquents.

Well, Of Course!

— The owner of the world’s largest corn maze (63 acres), at Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, Cal., told Sacramento’s KOVR-TV that several times this season, visitors have called 911 for help in getting out of the maze. Said owner Matt Cooley, “When it’s dark, all you see is corn.” Two months earlier, an emergency crew in Braintree, England, was forced to use special equipment to find and rescue an elderly woman who had fallen while she was inside the 10-acre Blake House Craft Centre maze.

—  In a $460,000 police brutality settlement with the city of Birmingham, Ala., plaintiff Anthony Warren received $1,000, with the rest going to his lawyers. Warren is serving 20 years for running over an officer during a high-speed car chase in 2008; he took a beating once officers caught him.

— Condemned California inmate Steven Homick, 74, took his last breath on Nov. 5 — more than 29 years after committing the two murders that put him on death row. But he died of natural causes — the 65th condemned California man to go that way in the last 35 years.

Best Of The Foreign Press

— “Dwarf Stripper Gets Bride Pregnant on Her (Bachelorette) Night” — an October report from the LasCincoDelDia website in Spain that related that the husband was surprised that “his” wedding-night consummation resulted in a baby born with dwarfism.

— “Man’s ‘Drugs Test Trick’ Foiled by Pregnancy” — a November report from Egypt’s Al-Yawm al-Sabi website about a male bus driver who tried to trick a drug test by using his wife’s urine, only to inadvertently discover that he would soon become a father.

Least Competent Criminals

Employees of the Marshalls department store in Longmont, Colo., said they had been hearing noises but were unable to locate the source. Finally, on Nov. 10, they summoned firefighters, who tore out an interior wall and freed a weak, injured Paul Felyk, 35, who had been trapped between that wall and an exterior wall after falling through the roof. A scrawled note near him was three days old. Burglary charges were filed against Felyk, who had a substantial rap sheet.

The Sand Crisis

The desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula are fine-grained and smooth. They can’t be used in the concrete industry, which is crucial to the massive upscale developments in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other countries. Nor does desert sand work for beach restoration in the United States and other areas, because the sand blows away so easily. The “sand crisis,” has various countries bidding against Middle Easterners for the Earth’s sea sand.