Last Week in Weird (August 11, 2014)
Last Week in Weird
datelines 8/1/2014--8/8/2014 (Part II)
[Links, chronological, on Extended page]
Copyright 2014 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
[Ed. Note: There’s no coding here. I hate to code. However, Links to each story (14 in all) are on the Extended page, in chronological order. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s failing to exploit the blogging technology. Tough.]
The New Normal (Facebook-Inspired): First, a piece in L’Espresso magazine that a mid-or-so-level Palermo, Sicily, mobster, Domenico Palazzotto, 28, had created a Facebook page (with an ineffective pseudonym) showing his bare, tanned chest and fashionable beard, referencing his “business.” “Do I need to send a CV?” asked a potential applicant. “Yes, brother. We need to consider your criminal record. We do not take on people with clean records.” Then, another young hunk, the overeducated Egyptian Mr. Islam Yaken, created a page on a social media site called YK replete with narcissistic poses but inviting followers into his new vicious-jihad caliphate.
“It Was a Good Throw. It Hurt a Little Bit.”: So said a 20-yr-old man in court in Christchurch, New Zealand, low-balling the time a few months back when his angry girlfriend threw a kitchen knife at him, embedding it in his skull until doctors removed it.
Gentleman’s Sport: Two golfers in Uniontown, Pa., brawled on the 7th hole over the rule on “casual” water hazards (e.g., rain puddles). One got in a full 3-wood whack; the other dished out a fat lip, a swollen jaw, and an eye scratch.
The Way The World Works: It is crucial that we conserve water (e.g., low-flow toilets), plus if we do, your water bill goes down. Except if you do conserve; then, we don’t make enough money to pay for system maintenance. Then your water bill goes up. Unless you have to flush twice all the time.
Legal Technicalities: Denver’s The Wrangler gay bar denied that it discriminated against gay customer Vito Marzano. Vito can’t come in, they said, because he was dressed in drag, and we’re “bear”-oriented (“hypermasculine”). State agency sided with Vito.
Ironies: (1) If you think the Cost of Living is super-high in New York City or London, take a look at the Cost of Dying (or, rather, the cost of full burial, e.g., 756-sq-ft mausoleum in Brooklyn’s Park Slope goes for $320k). (2) Back in the day (well, 2008), Congress agreed to force agencies to publish how much they’re spending on each budget program, to make federal spending more “transparent.” So far, reports GAO, they’ve come pretty close for gov’t work: only $619bn (on 302 programs) still missing in action in the 2012 data.
Not My Fault: NYC stand-up comic Liza Dye is recuperating from her February 13th fall-and-drag on subway tracks (mangled leg) caused, said witnesses, because she was busy “texting” and wandered off the platform. She said she just fainted, and besides, it’s the transit authority’s fault for taking too long to stop the train.
Of Course! Jonathan Thomas, 50, director of a local Indiana animal shelter, was stopped for DUI and refused to get out of the car, and when officers reached in to pull him out, he “show[ed] his teeth to officers in an angry manner”--a look (“growling”) he later repeated at the station.
Weirdly Sane Dad: It’s Sweden’s Carl-Magnus Helgegren--because his kids, 10 and 11, were obsessed with Call of Duty, and so Dad booked them for a “vacation” to Israel and the West Bank (shortly before the current fireworks), into hospitals and refugee camps, so they could see what real “war” looks like--rather than the abstract pixellated “damage” wrought by digital missiles. So far, Helgegren told TheLocal.se, it has turned the kids away from Call of Duty.
Updates: (1) In News of the Weird .M266 (2012), it was a pipe dream, but last week the towns of Dull, Scotland, and Boring, Ore., celebrated their second annual paired Boring and Dull Day. (2) A nip-and-tuck Republican primary for a Congressional seat in Tennessee is finally over (35-vote margin), with state Sen. Jim Tracy ignominiously distinguishing himself by losing to Scott DesJarlais, the Tea Party/pro-life M.D. who has admitted to eight extramarital affairs, encouraged a girlfriend to get an abortion, drawn a gun on his first wife in an argument, and had been reprimanded by the state for having sex with patients.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11008060/Italians-enraged-at-rise-of-Sicilys-new-Facebook-mafia.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/11011634/Islamic-States-new-icon-is-a-hipster-jihadi.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10343286/Woman-charged-over-knife-throwing
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2014/08/07/2-golfers-charged-after-fight-over-rules/
http://www.gazette.net/article/20140807/NEWS/140809324/1124/residents-question-plan-to-raise-water-fees&template=gazette
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_26273670/regulators-denvers-wrangler-bar-discriminated-when-it-turned
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-04/scarce-cemetery-space-creates-prices-to-die-for-cities.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/05/federal-spending-transparency-money-missing/13485581/
http://nypost.com/2014/08/04/texting-comic-to-sue-mta-for-subway-fall/
http://www.thelocal.se/20140808/swedish-dad-takes-kids-to-war-zone
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-28691197
http://www.wbir.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/08/scott-desjarlais-wins-nail-biter/13761367/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/08/desjarlais-tracy-tennessee-race_n_5660837.html
datelines 8/1/2014--8/8/2014 (Part II)
[Links, chronological, on Extended page]
Copyright 2014 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
[Ed. Note: There’s no coding here. I hate to code. However, Links to each story (14 in all) are on the Extended page, in chronological order. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s failing to exploit the blogging technology. Tough.]
The New Normal (Facebook-Inspired): First, a piece in L’Espresso magazine that a mid-or-so-level Palermo, Sicily, mobster, Domenico Palazzotto, 28, had created a Facebook page (with an ineffective pseudonym) showing his bare, tanned chest and fashionable beard, referencing his “business.” “Do I need to send a CV?” asked a potential applicant. “Yes, brother. We need to consider your criminal record. We do not take on people with clean records.” Then, another young hunk, the overeducated Egyptian Mr. Islam Yaken, created a page on a social media site called YK replete with narcissistic poses but inviting followers into his new vicious-jihad caliphate.
“It Was a Good Throw. It Hurt a Little Bit.”: So said a 20-yr-old man in court in Christchurch, New Zealand, low-balling the time a few months back when his angry girlfriend threw a kitchen knife at him, embedding it in his skull until doctors removed it.
Gentleman’s Sport: Two golfers in Uniontown, Pa., brawled on the 7th hole over the rule on “casual” water hazards (e.g., rain puddles). One got in a full 3-wood whack; the other dished out a fat lip, a swollen jaw, and an eye scratch.
The Way The World Works: It is crucial that we conserve water (e.g., low-flow toilets), plus if we do, your water bill goes down. Except if you do conserve; then, we don’t make enough money to pay for system maintenance. Then your water bill goes up. Unless you have to flush twice all the time.
Legal Technicalities: Denver’s The Wrangler gay bar denied that it discriminated against gay customer Vito Marzano. Vito can’t come in, they said, because he was dressed in drag, and we’re “bear”-oriented (“hypermasculine”). State agency sided with Vito.
Ironies: (1) If you think the Cost of Living is super-high in New York City or London, take a look at the Cost of Dying (or, rather, the cost of full burial, e.g., 756-sq-ft mausoleum in Brooklyn’s Park Slope goes for $320k). (2) Back in the day (well, 2008), Congress agreed to force agencies to publish how much they’re spending on each budget program, to make federal spending more “transparent.” So far, reports GAO, they’ve come pretty close for gov’t work: only $619bn (on 302 programs) still missing in action in the 2012 data.
Not My Fault: NYC stand-up comic Liza Dye is recuperating from her February 13th fall-and-drag on subway tracks (mangled leg) caused, said witnesses, because she was busy “texting” and wandered off the platform. She said she just fainted, and besides, it’s the transit authority’s fault for taking too long to stop the train.
Of Course! Jonathan Thomas, 50, director of a local Indiana animal shelter, was stopped for DUI and refused to get out of the car, and when officers reached in to pull him out, he “show[ed] his teeth to officers in an angry manner”--a look (“growling”) he later repeated at the station.
Weirdly Sane Dad: It’s Sweden’s Carl-Magnus Helgegren--because his kids, 10 and 11, were obsessed with Call of Duty, and so Dad booked them for a “vacation” to Israel and the West Bank (shortly before the current fireworks), into hospitals and refugee camps, so they could see what real “war” looks like--rather than the abstract pixellated “damage” wrought by digital missiles. So far, Helgegren told TheLocal.se, it has turned the kids away from Call of Duty.
Updates: (1) In News of the Weird .M266 (2012), it was a pipe dream, but last week the towns of Dull, Scotland, and Boring, Ore., celebrated their second annual paired Boring and Dull Day. (2) A nip-and-tuck Republican primary for a Congressional seat in Tennessee is finally over (35-vote margin), with state Sen. Jim Tracy ignominiously distinguishing himself by losing to Scott DesJarlais, the Tea Party/pro-life M.D. who has admitted to eight extramarital affairs, encouraged a girlfriend to get an abortion, drawn a gun on his first wife in an argument, and had been reprimanded by the state for having sex with patients.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11008060/Italians-enraged-at-rise-of-Sicilys-new-Facebook-mafia.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/11011634/Islamic-States-new-icon-is-a-hipster-jihadi.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10343286/Woman-charged-over-knife-throwing
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2014/08/07/2-golfers-charged-after-fight-over-rules/
http://www.gazette.net/article/20140807/NEWS/140809324/1124/residents-question-plan-to-raise-water-fees&template=gazette
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_26273670/regulators-denvers-wrangler-bar-discriminated-when-it-turned
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-04/scarce-cemetery-space-creates-prices-to-die-for-cities.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/05/federal-spending-transparency-money-missing/13485581/
http://nypost.com/2014/08/04/texting-comic-to-sue-mta-for-subway-fall/
http://www.thelocal.se/20140808/swedish-dad-takes-kids-to-war-zone
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-28691197
http://www.wbir.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/08/scott-desjarlais-wins-nail-biter/13761367/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/08/desjarlais-tracy-tennessee-race_n_5660837.html
Comments
Call of Dadly Duty: Hooray for Dad! Now, if we could just arrange a similar trip for all the politicians...
MTA: OK, she has a leg to stand on, but it's only the one, these days. Eejit. (See, Richard, I'm no moron!)
DUI growl: So, did the cops call for Animal Control with the noose on a stick?
Tennessee politics: Must have been a slow news day if they're reduced to reporting on normal behavior for politicians in the Bible Belt.
Low-flow: Oh, now there's a surprise. Not.
MTA: OK, she has a leg to stand on, but it's only the one, these days. Eejit. (See, Richard, I'm no moron!)
DUI growl: So, did the cops call for Animal Control with the noose on a stick?
Tennessee politics: Must have been a slow news day if they're reduced to reporting on normal behavior for politicians in the Bible Belt.
Low-flow: Oh, now there's a surprise. Not.
Posted by TheCannyScot in Atlanta, GA on 08/11/14 at 04:44 PM
Call of Dadly Duty: Good point, Scot. Politicians who dodged their military service were much more prone to sending others to their deaths. Probably sending politicians to the front lines would be more educational still. Too bad they can't send them to "go over the top" like soldiers had to in WWI. There's an educational experience like none other.
Posted by Harvey on 08/11/14 at 08:47 PM
@Harvey: Ya think we could simulate that using live ammo?
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 08/12/14 at 01:27 AM
You know the saying: Old soldiers never die.
They send young soldiers out to do that.
They send young soldiers out to do that.
Posted by Richard Bos on 08/12/14 at 05:49 AM
It is, indeed, normal for the area. Times are changing, though: just across the mountain, a cocaine-addicted Capone relative who lied about his DOC and his lack of a college degree lost a race couple of years back, then threw his son into two subsequent races, both lost as well. The only rationale for the DeJarlais win is the dual blessing conferred by the backwoods Christians forgiving the sinner, augmented by the backwoods sinners (my relatives, go easy) voting for their guy.
Posted by Angie unduplicated on 08/17/14 at 02:38 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Category: