Two years ago, China\u2019s Ministry of Culture cracked down on the centuries-old tradition of festive, over-the-top funeral ceremonies designed to ensure the family that the deceased died properly. The ministry arrested the song-and-dance people at the celebrations, including strippers and pole-dancers. Even though that ban has been working, nostalgic Chinese can still see great funeral pole-dancing \u2014 in Taiwan \u2014 according to a January report on the death of Chiayi county official Tung Hsiang. His funeral ceremony featured 50 scantily clad entertainers. Pole-dancing is still big in China, where the national pole-dancing team recently performed its annual outdoor show in shorts and halter tops in the country\u2019s northernmost village, Beiji, where the temperature was -33 degrees.<\/p>\n
Compelling Explanations<\/strong><\/p>\n With a 37-conviction rap sheet dating to 1985, James Leslie Kelly, 52, filed a federal lawsuit in Florida claiming that his latest brush with the law was Verizon\u2019s fault and not his. Kelly was convicted of stealing the identity of another James Kelly and taking more than $300 in Verizon services. He bases his case on the Verizon sales representative\u2019s having spent \u201can hour and a half\u201d with him. This was surely enough time, he says, to have figured out that he was not the James Kelly he was pretending to be. He seeks $72 million.<\/p>\n The Litigious Society<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometime in 2006, a photographer on assignment roamed a Chipotle restaurant in Denver, snapping photos of customers. Leah Caldwell says she refused to sign the photographer\u2019s release. She was surprised to see a photo of herself in a Chipotle promotion in 2015. She denied she ever ordered the \u201calcoholic beverages\u201d on her table. In January, Caldwell claimed she is entitled to all the profits Chipotle earned between 2006 and 2015: $2.237 billion.<\/p>\n Precocious<\/strong><\/p>\n In December, Ashlynd Howell, age 6, of Little Rock, Ark., deftly mashed her sleeping mother\u2019s thumbprint onto her phone to unlock the Amazon app and order $250 worth of Pokemon toys. Mom later noticed 13 email confirmations and asked Ashlynd if something was amiss. According to the Wall Street Journal report, Ashlynd said, \u201cNo, Mommy, I was shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n Leading Economic Indicators<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 The British think tank High Pay Centre reported that the average CEO among the U.K.\u2019s top 100 companies earns $1,600 an hour. That means that by Jan. 4, a 12-hour-a-day boss will earn as much money as the typical worker at his firm will earn the entire year. Around the same time, the anti-poverty organization Oxfam reported that eight men \u2014 six of these were Americans, with one being Bill Gates \u2014 have the same net worth as the 3.6 billion people who comprise the poorest half of the planet.<\/p>\n \u2014 An organization that tracks \u201chigh net worth\u201d investors (Spectrem Group of Lake Forest, Ill.) reported that of Americans worth $25 million or more, only two-thirds donate $10,000 or more a year to charity. And then there\u2019s Charles Feeney, 85, of New York City, who recently made his final gift to charity \u2014 $7 million to Cornell University \u2014 completing his pledge to give away almost all of his $8 billion. He left his wife and himself $2 million to live on. A January New York Times profile noted that the gifts were mostly anonymous, and that Feeney cultivated a low profile.<\/p>\n A News of the Weird Classic<\/strong><\/p>\n College basketball player Shanteona Keys made free throws at a 78 percent rate for her career. But on Feb. 16, 2013, she shanked one of the 15-foot shots, causing it to thud to the floor 8 feet short of the rim. It was the worst collegiate free-throw attempt of all time, according to several sports reporters who viewed the video. Keys explained to Deadspin.com that she always brought the ball close to her face when she shot. \u201cMy fingernail got caught on my nose, so I couldn\u2019t follow through correctly.\u201d Her Georgia College-Milledgeville team lost to rival Columbus State 70-60.<\/p>\n Retiring The Herd<\/strong><\/p>\n In a settlement of a class-action lawsuit against a group of dairy co-ops, milk producers agreed to pay $52 million on charges they had conspired to fix the dairy supply for years to get top-dollar prices. Among the producers\u2019 primary tactics was using what the industry calls \u201cherd retirement,\u201d which is \u201cretirement\u201d only in the sense that 500,000 healthy young cows were slaughtered. This was done just to drive up prices by eliminating otherwise-available milk. The $52 million will be used for consumers in 15 states and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n Wrist-Slapping\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 Responding to the NCAA\u2019s announcement of violations against the school\u2019s sports programs, Rutgers University Athletic Director Pat Hobbs told the Asbury Park Press that he would immediately dismiss from the teams any player testing positive for hard drugs on the fourth violation.<\/p>\n \u2014 The Russian parliament voted 380 to 3 to amend its assault law to allow a spouse one punishment by \u201cticketing\u201d for domestic violence against his partner provided the bodily harm was not \u201csubstantial\u201d and that it took place no more than once a year. Such ticketed behavior would not be considered criminal.<\/p>\n Wait, What?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 Surgery on a 16-year-old Japanese female revealed that her ovary contained a miniature skull and brain. Doctors say that finding rogue brain cells in ovaries is not uncommon. But the presence of an already-organized brain, capable of transmitting electric impulses, is almost unheard of.<\/p>\n \u2014 The neonatal intensive care unit of Texas Health Fort Worth disclosed that the secret to keeping the most fragile prematurely born babies alive is to quickly stick them into Ziploc freezer bags to create, according to a clinician, a \u201chot house effect.\u201d Merely raising the temperature in the delivery room had only a marginal effect.<\/p>\n Least Competent Criminals<\/strong><\/p>\n Driver Joshua Concepcion-West, 27, was arrested in Apopka, Fla., while he was using a license-plate cover he could raise and lower remotely with his key chain. He could thus avoid identification by cameras as he passed through turnpike checkpoints. On Jan. 11 at a $1.25 toll plaza, he neglected to check his rear-view mirror before he lowered the cover. Thus he failed to notice that right behind him was a Florida Highway Patrol car with a trooper watching the whole thing.<\/p>\n Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n Trader Joe\u2019s has gained popularity among grocery shoppers by employing relentlessly sunny employees. But now that the firm has expanded from mellower California to more brusque New York City, it\u2019s learning that cheerfulness is harder to find. The company fired Thomas Nagle recently. Even though he said he frequently smiled, he was told his smile was insufficiently \u201cgenuine.\u201d Backed by several colleagues, he filed an unfair labor practice charge. The National Labor Relations Board has already ruled that workers cannot be forced to convey that they feel they work in a \u201cpositive work environment\u201d because they are entitled to have grievances.<\/p>\n A News of the Weird Classic\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Undocumented immigrant Jose Munoz, 25, believed himself an ideal candidate for President Obama\u2019s 2012 initiative for children. He had been brought to the United States by his undocumented parents before he was 16; had no criminal record; and had graduated from high school with honors. Since graduation, however, he had stayed at his parents\u2019 home in Sheboygan, Wisc., where he was jobless and \u201cvegging.\u201d He thus found it difficult to prove the final requirement of the law: that he had lived continuously in the U.S. since graduation. Munoz finally proved his residency by submitting his Xbox Live records, which documented that his computer\u2019s Wisconsin location had been accessing video games, daily, year after year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two years ago, China\u2019s Ministry of Culture cracked down on the centuries-old tradition of festive, over-the-top funeral ceremonies designed to ensure the family that the deceased died properly. The ministry arrested the song-and-dance people at the celebrations, including strippers and pole-dancers. Even though that ban has been working, nostalgic Chinese can still see great funeral [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[65,40],"yoast_head":"\n