Good Week for…
Fusion cuisine, after a man won a Texas chili cook-off by secretly taking spoonfuls out of 80 other contestants’ pots and mixing them together.
Bad Week for…
Self-deception, when a Cleveland man with a phony U.S. marshal’s uniform and badge pulled over a car and then called real marshals for backup. “It made me feel so special to put on a marshal’s uniform,” explained Donald Sebastian.
From “The Week Newsletter”
Save The Rock: “This chunk of concrete is a byproduct of a major rehabilitation effort now underway on Alcatraz Island. Each rock is unique. Package may be slightly scratched due to the nature of the rock. This is not a toy. Not for children under age 5. Includes Informational Brochure.”
ThisisLondon: “Ten British people have put their names forward to become the first in the world to undergo a face transplant.”
San Francisco Chronicle: Bolinas supports nature bid
The author, Jane Blethen, whose nickname is “Dakar,” moved to the Bay Area from Minnesota sometime in the 1960s and studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. She moved to Bolinas around 1980 and took up residence in the bushes.
Her erratic speech, unusual wardrobe and choice of habitation at first attracted the attention of local bullies, but the rest of the town soon adopted her as one of their own. A local rock band called “Don’t Kill Jane” was formed in an attempt to spread the word that their lovable loner was off limits.
Blethen now walks around with a burlap headband and strips of burlap tied around her legs. Her face is a mask of smeared dark brown chocolate. Grains of pepper form speckles on the chocolate, like glitter.
“She’s definitely a character’s character,” said Erik Festin, 68, of Bolinas, who used to give her rides and take her out for toast and coffee. “Her message is really pretty simple: ‘take care of the animals and preserve the beauty of the place.’ ”
In the days before the election, several Bolinas residents confessed that they signed the petition mainly in order to avoid hurting Blethen’s feelings. Whatever the motive, there were enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot — and aside from some collateral damage to the English language and ambiguity about the fate of motor boats, hotels and airplanes, there did not seem to be any harm that could come in voting for Measure G.
There’s a photo of Dakar and another of downtown Bolinas if you follow the link.
From the Coastal Post Online May 2003 Letters to the Editor
On Trimming Trees…
Plan in the Fire Department is for trimming the trees a lot. I don’t like any trimming because it requires the experience of the whole tree to understand if it is exotic, fascinating and interesting to yourself including your friends. Like how you find things in the store for yourself and also appropriate to your friends. This appropriateness without science is medically substantial to find plants. What you see as exotic, extremely interesting, extremely fascinating is good to you; boring things different for different persons — broccoli better than broccoli sprouts, better than iron, calcium, enzymes, protein and other inedibles in dirt. Broccoli the best.
Vote for Bolinas, Socially Acknowledged Nature Loving Town. Because to like to drink the water out of the lakes, to like to eat the blueberries, to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motorboats.
Dakar
Bolinas
“Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson was found dead Wednesday on a residential street after he was shot and apparently run over in a Phoenix suburb, police said. Chandler police said the death was being treated as a homicide.” — Associated Press, Nov. 6
From The Miami Herald: “A Tamarac woman is arrested after police say she punched a 71-year-old deaf woman over the woman’s hearing dog being in a restaurant.”
Yahoo! News: “Sponsored by a local woman known for wearing hats made of tree bark and newspaper, Measure G won 314 to 152 in the town of 1,200, where residents are so protective of their isolated way of life that they regularly remove highway signs pointing into town.”
Once again, the complete text of the winning proposition: “Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful.”
From the Arizona Daily Star:
“A rolling gunbattle erupted on Interstate 10 between Tucson and Phoenix Tuesday morning as one group of people-smugglers apparently tried to hijack the human cargo officials said was stolen from them by another group of smugglers earlier in the morning.”
Measure G: “Shall the following language constitute a policy of the Bolinas Community Public Utility District? Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful.”
Yes 314 No 152
CNN.com: “The lawyer for a man convicted of shooting and killing a policeman apologized for singing the Bob Marley hit ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ as he was leaving the courtroom.”
From OpinionJournal:
There’s yet another installment in the saga of thedrunkensailor and his Beanie Babies, stuffed animals purportedly left by his ex-wife. It appears the sailor may have taken some liberties with the truth when he sold the toys. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Ralph De La Cruz reports:
I eventually tracked down thedrunkensailor. In keeping with the well-recognized canon that all things bizarre must have roots in South Florida, it turns out he’s a neighbor.And get this. He’s not divorced. Happily married, in fact. No affairs.
His real name is Steve (he asked that his last name not be used because he worries he’ll be harassed by critics). Steve, 32, and wife Mary, 28, found the box of beanies when they packed to move from Coral Springs to Margate. They had picked them up over the years and really didn’t know their worth. Steve said they would have been happy to get the $10.
The story was just Steve goofing around.
“I made the story amusing for myself, more than anything else,” he said over the phone.
According to TraderList.com, Steve’s last name is Kaye. The buyer, a woman who sometimes goes by Taisha and whose real name is apparently J. O’Buck or Pat O’Buck, has relisted the collection–for which she paid $860–on eBay:
Up for sale with an opening minimum bid of $9.99 are 26 beanie babies formerly owned by a sailor’s ex-wife. Well, actually, five are teenies of five of them. I’m keeping Beanies Royal Blue Peanut, Humphrey, Web, Steg, and Britannia ’cause they don’t look too pretty with big black-marker “F’s” (FOR “FAKE”) on their derrieres. No need to elucidate about that previous ownership. A half million people around the world were directed to the auction. The “shot heard around the world” blanches compared with the “beanies seen around the world.”Please, no questions about these beanies. The information of their history was covered very well in a sailor’s late auction and there is no need to repeat it other than to say I acquired them intact. Gosh, a bid of only $9.99 for 26 beanies. Wow! What a deal! And to think they were once held in the hands of a world-famous–what’s the word? It escapes me.
The 1500+ beanies in my collection have insisted that I get rid of these interloping buggers because they smell and the rank odor of stale beer upsets their fragile tummies. I figured with all the interest in them that some of the half million readers who thought a sailor’s listing hysterical might like to have them as a trophy of sorts. Can any other beanies make the claim to have been around the world and entered into a half million homes? What a conversation piece they would be poised at the end of the bar or in a rec room. The cost of a sign proclaiming “Look What I’ve Got” and their history found in the original listing would not be expensive to have crafted. You’d be the hit of your neighborhood and you possibly could charge admission. I might even provide a photo of “the stupid one.” Darts anyone?…
I have no interest in tools or beer so whatever the beanies bring on this auction will be donated to a local animal shelter. Most animal shelters and sanctuaries have seen their donations drop to all-time low levels since 9/11.
The current bPOSTID: $34. Meanwhile, thedrunkensailor himself came up with a new money-making scheme, selling “certificates of liquid appreciation” He explains that “your offering of $1.50 will buy me a cold frosty mug of malted barley and hops at my favorite local watering hole. I will have a list with me at all times and I will toast each of you individually over time with each brewsky you buy me.”
He also says he used the proceeds from his Beanie Baby sale to buy a power saw. Just remember, Steve: Drinking and sawing don’t mix.
From SeattlePI
“The driver told police that he thought he hit something but said he was not aware it was a person.
Police later found the victim’s blood in the interior of the car, on the driver and on the driver’s cell phone.
The man drove a few more blocks before High somehow became dislodged from the car, Gracy said.”
“One illustration of what the city is up against comes from police reports detailing Washington’s many armed robberies.
Those reports show that in many D.C. neighborhoods, robbers do not feel the need to tell their victims, ‘This is a robbery.’
Instead, they merely show that they have a weapon, and let the victim know in street lingo that they are about to be held up.
One common phrase was used during a 1 a.m. holdup last month near the Howard University campus. The robber simply told his victim, ‘You know what time it is.’
The victim got the message: He gave up his earrings, watch and $40.
They don’t want to use the old cliche of saying, ‘This is a robbery,’ ‘ said Detective McKinley Williams of the 4th Police District. ‘It’s like . . . “If you see this gun, what do you think I’m here for?”‘”
From The Washington Post article: D.C. Leads Big Cities In Rate of Homicides.
Teens More Curious About Sex Than Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Key quote: “The researchers found that teens tended to ask about sex behaviors at a younger age than they asked about pregnancy or contraception.”
Man fails to break clothes pegs on face record
Worth a click to see the photo.
A newsletter from The Wall Street Journal brought this item to NewMexiKen’s attention.
According to a report in the Seattle Times:
Roughly 40,000 poor people have been dropped from the Oregon Health Plan this year because of their failure to make monthly premium payments, some as low as $6 a month…Advocates for the poor say the premiums are too expensive for some people and the government may have overestimated the ability of people to mail a check.
“It’s an enormous barrier,” said Ellen Pinney, director of the Oregon Health Action Committee. “Let alone the $6, there is the whole issue of writing a check or getting a money order, putting it in an envelope with a stamp and putting it in the mail to this place in Portland that must receive it by the due date.”
Now NewMexiKen truly hates to agree with the Journal on anything — and everyone in this country should have adequate health care as a matter of course — but yapping that people aren’t able to make a payment by mail leaves me non-plussed.
More from The Washington Monthly’s Monday Morning Monologue: “But [sniper John] Muhammad’s defense strategy was a little embarrassing. At one point he claimed he was a victim of that same bitch who set up Marion Barry.”
“An Omaha judge told a Mexican-American man that his right to see his 5-year-old daughter would be severely restricted if he insisted on speaking ‘the Hispanic language.’ Judge Ronald E. Reagan, presiding over a custody case, told Eloy Amador he could not speak ‘Hispanic’ in his daughter’s presence. ‘Are you telling me I can teach it to her but not speak it?’ Amador asked. ‘That’s right,’ Reagan said. ‘The principal form of communication…is going to be English.’ Civil-rights groups vowed legal action.”
From The Week
The Smoking Gun reports on a Tennessee couple “trysting” in public. The police report indicates the victim was “Society.” Check out their mug shots.
The Smoking Gun reports a record blood alcohol level of .69.
“Although daredevils in barrels have survived a plunge over Niagara Falls, the unidentified man who went over the edge Tuesday is believed to be the first person ever to survive the drop without the aid of some kind of flotation device. The man, who witnesses said had a smile on his face as he climbed over the railing near Horseshoe Falls, disappeared for several minutes before reappearing a few hundred feet downstream. Refusing help from a tour boat, he swam to shore and was promptly arrested.”
From Wired News
“In August, U.S. Customs confiscated an SUV being used to smuggle Mexican immigrants into the country, but later admitted that their thorough search of it had overlooked a 13-year-old girl hiding inside; she was discovered 42 hours later. And in July, Adrian Rodriguez was imprisoned (but released by an appeals court a month later) because Mexican authorities found 33 pounds of marijuana that U.S. Customs had failed to find in a vehicle it had just sold to him at auction. That was the third time recently that someone had bought a vehicle from U.S. Customs that contained overlooked marijuana and for which the purchaser spent at least some time in prison (in one case, one year) before things were straightened out.”
From News of the Weird
Only in America
When a Texas high school student suffered an asthma attack at school on a day she’d forgotten her inhaler at home, her boyfriend, who uses the same medication, let her use his. As a result, Brandon Kivi was expelled for “delivery of a dangerous drug,” under the school district’s zero-tolerance policy. “I’m expelled till after Christmas, and I can probably come back after Christmas,” said Kivi, “but I won’t.” His parents said they would home-school him from now on.
Good Week for…
Having it all, as New Mexico high school freshman Vanessa Lucero scored the opening touchdown in her school’s big football game shortly after being crowned homecoming princess.
Bad Week for…
Staying connected, as former world chess champion Ruslan Ponomariov was disqualified from a championship match when his cell phone rang.