The Moscow Times reported in May that bailiffs in Russia’s Perm region arrested a debtor’s cat. The bailiffs listed the feline’s value at $23. The man came up with that sum the next day and took the cat home. The Federal Bailiffs Service explained that all the other property in the apartment was in other people’s names.
Why Deer Like The FBI
The 547-acre FBI Academy on the grounds of the Quantico, Va., Marine Base houses a firing range on which a million bullets a month are shot by agents in training. It is also a de facto wildlife refuge due to the fact that the academy is off-limits to Virginia hunters. According to a 2011 ABC News dispatch, deer learn that in spite of the gunfire, which is sometimes at astonishingly close range, none of them ever gets hit. The academy has also become a sanctuary for foxes, wild turkeys and other critters.
People With Issues
Pixee Fox reported in May that she was recovering nicely from cosmetic rib-removal surgery, performed by one of the few doctors in the world who offers it — Dr. Barry Eppley of Carmel, Ind. Though Fox has had more than a dozen beautifying procedures, she has had trouble finding a surgeon who would agree to take out six free-floating ribs (the ones not attached to the sternum). Born in Sweden, she gave up a career as a trained electrician to come to the U.S. to pursue her goal of looking “like a cartoon character” — a goal she has reached with her 16-inch waist.
Leading Economic Indicators
Triple Crown winner American Pharoah earned $8.6 million racing. Now retired, he could earn as much as $35 million by siring. Stallions reportedly can breed into their 20s. The horse, now barely age 4, will have 175 conquests by the end of this summer, according to a May report by CNBC. One industry worker said Pharoah has put on weight; spends his spare time peaceably eating grass; and “looks like a relaxed horse.” A spokesman for the Kentucky farm now housing Pharoah said he “has proven to be very professional in the breeding shed.”
Latest Religious Messages
The Keystone Fellowship Church in North Wales, Penn., has a tradition of congregants reserving pew seats by leaving Bibles in place. But on April 24, Robert Braxton took a saved seat anyway. Witnesses told Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV that when one church member gently tapped Braxton on the shoulder to inform him of the tradition, Braxton snapped at him and became disruptive. Congregant Mark Storms flashed a gun and confronted Braxton, who punched Storms, saying, “That’s not a real gun” and “What are you going to do? Shoot me?” Storms, contending that he felt threatened; fired two shots, killing Braxton; and was charged with voluntary manslaughter.
Bright Ideas
Shannon Egeland, 41, already convicted of running a mortgage-fraud operation during the 2004-08 real estate boom, pleaded guilty this year to the crime of having himself shot to collect the disability insurance he had purchased the week before the shooting. Egeland, scheduled to start a 10-year sentence for the 2014 conviction, told the judge he had been assaulted by gunfire when he stopped in traffic to help a pregnant woman. In reality, he had ordered his teenage son to shoot him in the legs with a 20-gauge shotgun.
New World Order
— German soldiers participating in a four-week NATO exercise in Norway had to abort their efforts days earlier than other countries because Germany’s defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, had imposed strict rules on overtime pay. She said soldiers were to work no more than 41 hours a week, according to London’s Daily Telegraph. — Britain’s venerable Oxford University issued a formal suggestion to law lecturers recently that they give “trigger warnings” and allow classroom absences if the class subject matter might be unpleasant to some students. Complained one frustrated lecturer, “We can’t remove sexual offenses from the criminal law syllabus — obviously.”
The Canadian Way
Government agencies sometimes hide details from materials obtained through freedom-of-information demands by blacking out what they don’t want revealed. But the Public Health Agency of Canada recently tried a different method with an Associated Press correspondent. The AP had requested files on the 2014 Ebola outbreak. According to reporter Raphael Satter, the documents finally arrived from the PHA with parts carefully “redacted” — that is, covered up with “Scotch tape and paper.” Satter reported that he got everything the AP had asked for merely by peeling the tape back. A Dallas Morning News reporter, commenting on Satter’s experience, wrote, “Canadians are so nice.”
Perspective
King Cove, Ala., population 923, lies between two massive volcanic mountains on one of the Aleutian Islands. It is unconnected to other civilization and 625 miles from any medical facility. It’s accessible only by airplane. Two-thirds of the residents have flying anxieties so severe that airport staff give them Valium before a flight. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has campaigned to build a road to Cold Bay to eliminate the nerve-wracking flights. But that would disturb a federally protected wilderness, and the U.S. Interior Dept. has declined.
Armed And Dangerous
In Florida Michael Blevins, 37, reported to Florida Hospital in Orange City (near Daytona Beach) after realizing — three days after the fact — that he had shot himself while he was cleaning his handgun. He said he was on pain medication, and, in addition, was wearing a black shirt that obscured blood stains. He said he had felt a sharp pain, but that, mainly, that had done nothing worse than aggravate his back injury, causing him to fall and hit his head against a coffee table. He was, therefore, not aware of the origin of the loud noise the .22-caliber handgun made. Deputies investigated briefly, but soon closed the case.
Update
Annual Chinese “Tombsweeping” celebrations have made News of the Weird several times, most recently in 2008 when the government reinstated the ritual as an official holiday. Traditionally, people brought jewelry and other valuables to ancestors’ gravesites for burial with the body, thus theoretically enriching the relative’s afterlife. In recent years, during economic turbulence, some brought only paper images of valuables. Now, there’s a retail market for ultra-cheap knock-off upscale items, such as fake Gucci shoes, computers, big-screen TV sets and air-conditioners. In spite of the fact that the flimsy fakes hardly look convincing, a Hong Kong representative for Gucci has issued warnings about trademark abuse.
Cashing In
By 2009, when Zimbabwe’s central bank gave up on controlling inflation, its largest currency was the 100 trillion-dollar bill. It was barely enough for bus fare in Harare and not even worth the paper needed to print it. However, that 100 trillion-dollar note turned out to be a great investment for several astute traders in London and New Zealand, who bought thousands of them at pennies on the trillion and now report brisk sales to collectors on eBay at $30-40 a note. That is a six-year return on an investment of nearly 1,500 percent.
Can’t Possibly Be True
Long-divorced Henry Peisch, 56, has seven children. But only one is still living with his ex-wife, who had originally been awarded $581 in monthly support for all seven. Three children are now independent, and three others successfully petitioned courts to live with Henry. The hardship from the monthly $581 payment caused Henry to ask the Bergen County, N.J., Family Court several times for a hardship hearing, which the court denied in a move that defied the New Jersey Supreme Court. On April 8, Family Court judge Gary Wilcox, noting Peisch’s appearance on a related matter, “granted” him an “ability to pay” hearing, which was to take place immediately. There was thus no opportunity for witnesses or evidence-gathering on Peisch’s part. The judge jailed Peisch for missing some of the $581 payments.
Government In Action
U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, in a May publication deriding the value of certain federally funded research, highlighted several recent National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation projects, such as the $13 million for exploring musical preferences of monkeys and chimpanzees; the $1.1 million for a study of whether cheerleaders are more attractive when seen as a squad than individually; the $390,000 used to determine how many shakes a wet dog needs to feel dry; and the $5 million to learn whether drunk birds slur when they sing.
Australia!
— Yahoo News Australia reported that a man in Tallebudgera Creek on the country’s Gold Coast went swimming with his pet snake, a carpet python. The man, standing chest-deep in water, tossed the snake a few feet and the snake swam back to him each time. In the man’s free hand was a beer. — In April, police in Broome in Australia’s far northwest stopped a 27-year-old man whose “several” children, including one infant, were unrestrained in his car while “cartons of beer” were “buckled into car seats.” He faces several charges, including driving with a suspended license.
New World Order
Jai Dara Latto, 23, won the title Miss Transgender UK last September. But in February, organizers stripped her of the title on the grounds that she was insufficiently trans. They passed the crown to Daisy Bell. Officials had spotted Latto in a BBC documentary wearing boxer shorts. Since switching underwear is usually a crucial step for transgenders, officials concluded that Latto must not yet have made a sufficient commitment to qualify for the title.
Birdbrains
In a recent book, biologist Jennifer Ackerman noted the extraordinary intelligence of birds, which she attributed to the dense packing of neurons in their equivalent of humans beings’ cerebral cortex. For example, the New Caledonia crow knows how to make and use hooked tools to hide food and retrieve it from tricky-to-reach places. The blue jay and others store many thousands of seeds during autumn and steal seeds from less vigilant birds. They also return to hide food again if they sense they have been spotted storing it before. In addition, the birds’ equivalent of the human larynx is so finely tuned that it is thought to produce the most sophisticated sound in all of nature.
Perspective
The president of the New England Organ Bank told U.S. News & World Report that she attributes the enormous upsurge in donations in recent years to the opiod “epidemic” that has pro duced an enormous upsurge in fatal overdoses. Now, one out of every 11 donated organs comes as a result of the overdosing that in 2014 claimed more than 47,000 lives. An organ-sharing organization’s chief medical officer reminded the magazine that all organ donations are carefully screened — especially those acquired from overdose deaths.
Nature 2, Florida 0
— Nicole Bjanes, who was casually zipping along Interstate 4 in Volusia County, saw a red-eared slider turtle come sailing through the air and crash into her windshield, sending her car off the road. The Florida Highway Patrol said the turtle had become airborne after being hit by another car. It was apparently unhurt and swam away when a firefighter released it into a nearby pond. — Police in Key West responded to a caller at the scene of a giant banyan tree featuring vertical roots that thicken, spread and become entangled with the central trunk. A woman had attempted to climb the tree but had fallen among the vertical roots, making her barely visible. Said a proud police spokesperson, “They popped her out like a cork.”
Unclear On The Concept
Prolancia Turner, 26, was arrested on May 13 at Vero Beach (Florida) Outlets mall after she allegedly walked out of a Claire’s store with unpaid-for earrings tucked into her waistband. Police reported her “crying and angry” and complaining that, “Everyone steals from this store. Why are you picking on me?”
Comments are closed.