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Backyard Barnyard
The Department of Agriculture reported recently that in four of America's largest cities—New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Denver—nearly one home out of 100 keeps chickens either for a fresh egg supply or as pets, giving rise to chicken services such as Backyard Poultry Magazine, mypetchicken.com and Julie Baker's Pampered Poultry store. Among the most popular products are strap-on cloth diapers for the occasions when owners bring their darlings indoors, i.e., cuddle their "lap chickens." Also popular are "saddles" designed to spare hens mating injuries—owing to roosters' brutal libido, which sometimes costs hens most or all of their back feathers in a single encounter.
Great Art!
The weather in Hong Kong on April 25 wreaked havoc on American artist Paul McCarthy's outdoor, 50-foot-tall piece of "inflatable art" in the West Kowloon Cultural District. "Complex Pile" (a model of an arrangement of excrement) got punctured, which mostly pleased McCarthy's critics since his recent work, reported the South China Morning Post, has often centered around bodily functions.
Police Report
News of the Weird has reported several times on the astonishing control that inmates have at certain prisons in Latin American countries, with drug cartel leaders often enjoying lives nearly as pleasurable as their lives on the outside. However, according to an April federal indictment, similar problems have plagued the City Detention Center in Baltimore, where members of the "Black Guerrilla Family" operated with impunity. Between 2010 and 2012, corruption was such that 13 female guards have now been charged, including four women who bore the children of the gang's imprisoned leader, Tavon White. Cellphones, drugs and Grey Goose vodka were among the smuggled-in contraband, and the indictment charges that murders were ordered from inside. (Baltimore City Paper had reported 14 stories in 2009 and 2010 on the gang-related corruption at the center, but apparently state and federal officials had failed to be alarmed.)
Frequent Flyers: (1) Chicago police have arrested Ms. Shermain Miles, 51, at least 396 times since 1978, under 83 different aliases, for crimes ranging from theft (92 times) to prostitution and robbery. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, she is a virtuoso at playing "the system" to delay her proceedings and avoid jail time. (2) Alvin Cote, 59, passed away in February of poor health in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, following a "career" of 843 public-intoxication arrests.
Somewhat Backwards DUI: Danielle Parker was hospitalized and awaiting DUI charges after a crash near Gaston, N.C., in March, even though she had been in the passenger seat of the car. She had handled the wheel momentarily because Brittany Reinhardt, 19, in the driver's seat, was busy texting. (Reinhardt, apparently sober, was charged with "aiding and abetting" a DUI.)
The Weirdo-American Community
The biggest news out of Newtown, Conn., recently—not involving the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School—came when local environmental officials announced on April 29 that they were investigating the finding of "200 to 300 one-gallon plastic jugs" filled with urine in a home "in a state of disrepair." No charges were filed against the homeowner, but officials sought to assure neighbors and users of the property that no health hazard was present.
Readers' Choice
(1) Stan Worby, 39, made headlines internationally in February when, dressed as Batman, he hauled fugitive Daniel Frayne, 27, into a Bradford, England, police station. It turns out he was just helping his friend Daniel turn himself in (on an outstanding arrest warrant). In a separate incident in April, the two "friends" were arrested together and charged with burglarizing a garage in Bradford. (2) In a confessional in the April GQ magazine, the sports writer Buzz Bissinger (creator of TV's "Friday Night Lights") admitted that his later-in-life fame had enabled a narcissism that caused him to impulsively buy 81 leather jackets in a three-year period, plus 75 pairs of boots, 41 pairs of leather pants, 32 pairs of upscale jeans, 10 evening jackets and 115 pairs of leather gloves, among other extravagances and aberrations.
The Department of Agriculture reported recently that in four of America's largest cities—New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Denver—nearly one home out of 100 keeps chickens either for a fresh egg supply or as pets, giving rise to chicken services such as Backyard Poultry Magazine, mypetchicken.com and Julie Baker's Pampered Poultry store. Among the most popular products are strap-on cloth diapers for the occasions when owners bring their darlings indoors, i.e., cuddle their "lap chickens." Also popular are "saddles" designed to spare hens mating injuries—owing to roosters' brutal libido, which sometimes costs hens most or all of their back feathers in a single encounter.
Great Art!
The weather in Hong Kong on April 25 wreaked havoc on American artist Paul McCarthy's outdoor, 50-foot-tall piece of "inflatable art" in the West Kowloon Cultural District. "Complex Pile" (a model of an arrangement of excrement) got punctured, which mostly pleased McCarthy's critics since his recent work, reported the South China Morning Post, has often centered around bodily functions.
Police Report
News of the Weird has reported several times on the astonishing control that inmates have at certain prisons in Latin American countries, with drug cartel leaders often enjoying lives nearly as pleasurable as their lives on the outside. However, according to an April federal indictment, similar problems have plagued the City Detention Center in Baltimore, where members of the "Black Guerrilla Family" operated with impunity. Between 2010 and 2012, corruption was such that 13 female guards have now been charged, including four women who bore the children of the gang's imprisoned leader, Tavon White. Cellphones, drugs and Grey Goose vodka were among the smuggled-in contraband, and the indictment charges that murders were ordered from inside. (Baltimore City Paper had reported 14 stories in 2009 and 2010 on the gang-related corruption at the center, but apparently state and federal officials had failed to be alarmed.)
Frequent Flyers: (1) Chicago police have arrested Ms. Shermain Miles, 51, at least 396 times since 1978, under 83 different aliases, for crimes ranging from theft (92 times) to prostitution and robbery. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, she is a virtuoso at playing "the system" to delay her proceedings and avoid jail time. (2) Alvin Cote, 59, passed away in February of poor health in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, following a "career" of 843 public-intoxication arrests.
Somewhat Backwards DUI: Danielle Parker was hospitalized and awaiting DUI charges after a crash near Gaston, N.C., in March, even though she had been in the passenger seat of the car. She had handled the wheel momentarily because Brittany Reinhardt, 19, in the driver's seat, was busy texting. (Reinhardt, apparently sober, was charged with "aiding and abetting" a DUI.)
The Weirdo-American Community
The biggest news out of Newtown, Conn., recently—not involving the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School—came when local environmental officials announced on April 29 that they were investigating the finding of "200 to 300 one-gallon plastic jugs" filled with urine in a home "in a state of disrepair." No charges were filed against the homeowner, but officials sought to assure neighbors and users of the property that no health hazard was present.
Readers' Choice
(1) Stan Worby, 39, made headlines internationally in February when, dressed as Batman, he hauled fugitive Daniel Frayne, 27, into a Bradford, England, police station. It turns out he was just helping his friend Daniel turn himself in (on an outstanding arrest warrant). In a separate incident in April, the two "friends" were arrested together and charged with burglarizing a garage in Bradford. (2) In a confessional in the April GQ magazine, the sports writer Buzz Bissinger (creator of TV's "Friday Night Lights") admitted that his later-in-life fame had enabled a narcissism that caused him to impulsively buy 81 leather jackets in a three-year period, plus 75 pairs of boots, 41 pairs of leather pants, 32 pairs of upscale jeans, 10 evening jackets and 115 pairs of leather gloves, among other extravagances and aberrations.
© 2013 CHUCK SHEPHERD
