OWLFEST

— In February, officials in Salem, Ore., posted signs to warn joggers on a popular running path that they might be attacked by a rogue owl. Four joggers had already been aggressively pecked by the dive-bombers.

— A motorist smashed into a power pole at 2 am on Feb. 25 in Tukwila, Wash. He explained that he was “chasing an owl.” Police found him to be sober and didn’t charge him.

— A bar called Annie the Owl was scheduled to have a special one-week event in London in March. Patrons would sip drinks while domesticated owls perched on their shoulders. Interest was so keen that a lottery was required for tickets.

Flaws In The System

— Felons, those convicted of domestic assault, and those with a history of mental illness, are forbidden by federal law to buy firearms or explosive devices. But Americans on the National Counterterrorism Center’s consolidated watch list can. Furthermore, they can possess an unlimited quantity. Legislation to ban those on the watch list from having guns was introduced again this year, but failed.

— The annual National Basketball Association All-Star game in February provided a windfall for the co-host arena’s proprietor, James L. Dolan, whose family owns not only Madison Square Garden but also the NBA’s richest franchise (the Knicks), hockey’s second-richest (the Rangers), and the New York region’s telecom juggernaut Cablevision. Among the government handouts Dolan receives is his 33-year-long exemption from property taxes for the Garden’s four square blocks. That gift alone is worth $54 million.

Great Art

The February exhibition of Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera consisted of a blank wall in Chicago’s West Loop gallery. The artist was residing in a narrow, 10-foot crawl space behind the wall; a single sign alerted patrons to this fact. The sign read: “I am here, but you will not see me.” Diaz-Perera’s “In the Absence of a Body” was designed, he said, to explore the boundary between presence and absence.

The Continuing Crisis

Bill Bresnan, 74, of Toms River, N.J., has written a love letter to his wife, Kirsten, also 74, every day for nearly 40 years. That’s more than 10,000 love letters. The practice is still going on, according to a February ABC News report. “We’ve never had a fight,” he says. The couple plays Boggle at breakfast and has candlelit dinners with wine. Kirsten keeps all the letters, filed by date, in 25 boxes.

Perspective

The Mississippi Dept. of Education reported recently that federal student privacy law bars local schools from alerting the MDE about college-age student teachers who might be having inappropriate relationships with the K-12 students they teach. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act apparently controls regulation of the student teachers during on-the-job classroom training. The MDE, which issues educator licenses, may never learn of the inappropriate behavior of a student teacher.

People With Issues

Mummy Maxine and her husband Derek Ventham run adult baby nurseries in Britain. They charge men $115 an hour to lounge in their cribs in man-sized infant clothing while being fawned over as if they were helpless pre-toddlers. No sex play is allowed. Diaper-changing costs $40 extra. Even tamer is the “adult preschool” in New York City that Michelle Lapidos and a partner intend to start soon. A month-long course will allow grownups to “relive their pre-K days” with finger-painting, show-and-tell and nap time. Adults will dress in their “4-year-old best.”

Least Competent Criminals

— Surveillance video released in February by the Irish Independent showed a small-time burglar trying to break into a car at 1 am in front of the Pheasant bar in Drogheda, Ireland, by smashing a window with a brick. The tape also showed that the brick rebounded and knocked the man out. Gerry Brady, owner of the bar, was just closing up. He found the burglar dazed. The man departed before police arrived. Only when Brady later viewed video of the front of his bar did he realize what the man had been up to.

— Aleksander Tomaszewski, 33, was convicted of filing a false police report after a January incident in Lane County, Ore. He claimed police had beaten him up in his cell after his arrest for stalking and sexual abuse. Tomaszewski’s face showed that he had gotten a beating. But he was obviously unaware of the surveillance camera, which revealed that, over a four-minute period, he punched himself in the face 45 times to create the impression he’d been attacked.

— Michael Cassano, 38, was arrested in Lodi, N.J., after allegedly robbing the Hudson City Savings Bank of $4,000. He was spotted minutes later, a block away at a Dunkin’ Donuts, sipping coffee.

— Deputies in Santa Rosa County, Fla., arrested Kevin Barbour, 37, after he fled, on foot, from a recent traffic stop. Deputies chased him a while, then called for K-9 backup. By the time the dogs arrived, there was a sound resembling a “snorting wild boar” in the area. A snoring Barbour was found asleep under a tree and arrested.

Weird News Classic: Aug. 2010 

Mark Seamands, 39, went to trial in May, 2010, in Port Angeles, Wash., accused of second-degree assault and two lesser charges for the hot-iron branding of his three children, aged 13, 15 and 18. Each of the kids bore the mark “SK” for “Seamands’ Kids.” At the trial, however, the siblings testified that they not only consented to the branding, but also thought it was cool. As a result, the jury dismissed the assault charge and deadlocked on the two lesser ones.

Cavalcade Of Rednecks

— A 37-year-old man and two female companions were charged with stealing tailgates from nine trucks in the Orlando area. Their spree ended when they noticed that a club owner had offered a reward on Facebook for his tailgate. The three tried to sell it back to him, but botched the transaction.

— The driver of a truck hauling an empty trailer designed for carrying cars pulled off the Bishop Ford Freeway near Calumet City, Ill., after he heard a calamitous sound and felt the trailer shaking violently. It turns out Asa Cole, 23, speeding and following too closely, had driven his pickup truck up the low-hanging tracks of the trailer and come to a stop only inches away from the cab. Said the carrier driver, “Is this Dukes of Hazzard or something?” Cole was cited for several violations.

Breaking Bad

— Mark Rothwell made the news in Portland, Ore., in March, 2010, when he prevented a bank robbery and rescued the terrified teller by jumping the thief, knocking his gun away and holding him until police arrived. He was later awarded a Portland police Civilian Medal for Heroism. But on Feb. 19, 2015, Rothwell pulled a gun and robbed the Albina Community Bank in Portland, making off with $15,700.

— For Arthur Mondella, 57, a successful maraschino cherry supplier in Brooklyn, N.Y., an inspection by the district attorney’s office concerned alleged pollution of local waters with discharges of cherry syrup. Mondella was cooperative until the investigator discovered odd-looking shelving attached to a wall with magnets. Behind the shelves was a secret room, which emitted an odor of marijuana. Once the agent noticed this, Mondella calmly left the room and shot himself in the head. Ultimately, police found that the 75-year-old company was merely a side business to Mondella’s substantial marijuana-growing operation in the basement.

Legislators’ Wars On Science

— Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore told a radio audience in February that she would soon introduce a bill reforming end-of-life procedures for terminally ill cancer patients. She claimed one of these was intravenously administering baking soda to “flush out” the cancer “fungus.” Before her election in 2013, she was CEO of Always There Personal Care of Nevada (which she describes as being “in the healthcare industry”). Fiore blames her accountant for the company’s reported $1 million in IRS tax liens; the accountant is her ex-husband.

— At a hearing on a proposed bill to ban doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing medications via remote telecommunication, Idaho state Rep. Vito Barbieri asked expert witness Dr. Julie Madsen about an alternative he had in mind. Couldn’t a woman just swallow a small camera, he asked, and then have doctors conduct a remote gynecological exam on her? Madsen quickly reminded Barbieri that swallowed things don’t end up in that part of a woman’s body.

The Hard Sell

Margurite Haragan, 58, was charged with two counts of harassment against a Jewish woman in Boise, Idaho, after the victim complained of being screamed at and roughed up. Haragan was trying to pressure the woman into acknowledging a belief in Jesus Christ. After Haragan allegedly stepped on the woman’s neck and pulled her hair upward, the victim promised to become a Christian. Haragan then left; however, she looked the woman up again two days later and continued the alleged harassment.

News You Can Use

Researchers from Cornell University, who were inspired by the book World War Z, computer-simulated the spread of a “zombie apocalypse.” They have since advised those who are prone to anxiety about zombies to head for higher ground if “infections” break out. In particular, they recommend Glacier National Park in Montana or Alaska. Using differential equations and “lattice-based” models, the statisticians demonstrated that infections would slow dramatically as fewer people became available to bite. Still, they concluded, ultimately all would be doomed. The state they calculated would most quickly be wiped out was New Jersey.

Enemy! Prepare To Be Stripped!

The international sportswear retailer Bjorn Borg created a promotional video game — “First Person Lover” — in which a player can vanquish his opponents with “love.” Players can also “lovingly” strip the avatars in the game so that they can be outfitted in cyber versions of Bjorn Borg fashions. Said a company official, a player’s mission is “to liberate haters by undressing them with your love guns and then to dress them in Bjorn Borg clothing.” The game also features “teddy bear smoke grenades” and a shirtless man resembling Vladimir Putin astride a bear.

Big Crime 

— Morrison Wilson, 58, was convicted of assault in a Magistrates Court in Ireland for using his “big belly” to “bounce” an aggressive neighbor lady out of his garden in a dispute. The lady was injured as she fell backward.

— In a March skirmish over a handicapped-parking space at a Walmart in Greenfield, Wisc., Kezia Perkins, 32, was charged with assaulting a 71-year-old woman by, “chest-butting her” and knocking her to the ground. Said Perkins, “It’s not my fault she bounced off my big chest.” The euphemism “chest” was used by WITI-TV of Milwaukee.

Our Next Delicate Generation

A policy at Avalon Elementary School in Orlando, Fla., prohibited toilet-flushing during the statewide Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. It was thought that the whooshing water sounds from bathrooms would disturb the students and send their scores — according to an Orlando Sentinel reporter — “spiraling down the drain.”

Armed And Clumsy

Here are some more Americans who were unable to keep from accidentally shooting themselves: A Macon, Ga., man checked into a hospital with a gunshot wound to his genitals. Another man wounded himself; the round went through his hand and both legs of his female companion (Elkhart, Ind.). Peter Bonfiglio, 27, shot himself in the foot, but blamed a “robber.” It was the second time he had shot himself then blamed a “robber” (Port Charlotte, Fla.). Then there are those who will never shoot themselves again: a 79-year-old hunter in Indiana, Penn.; the son, 49, of a former sheriff in Chattanooga, Tenn.; and a St. Joseph, Michigan, woman, 55. who shot herself in the face in while adjusting her bra holster.