Is This a Great Country, or What?
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 second-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 the 33-year (and counting) exemption from property taxes for the Garden’s four square blocks (“among the most valuable [plots of land] on Earth,” according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio)—a government gift, in 2014 alone, worth $54 million.
Great Art!
The three-week February exhibition of Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera consisted of a blank wall in Chicago’s West Loop gallery—with the artist present only in the sense that he was residing in a narrow, 10-foot crawl space behind the wall with only a single sign alerting patrons (“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.
Owlfest
(1) A motorist smashed into a power pole at 2 a.m. on Feb. 25 in Tukwila, Wash., because, he explained, he was “chasing an owl.” (Police somehow found him to be sober and did not charge him.) (2) Officials in Salem, Ore., posted signs in February to warn joggers on a popular running path that they might be attacked by a rogue owl or owls, after four people were aggressively pecked at by dive-bombers. (One design for the sign came from cable TV personality Rachel Maddow.) (3) A bar called Annie the Owl was scheduled for a special one-week event in London in March, for patrons to sip drinks while domesticated owls perch on their shoulders. Interest was so keen that a lottery was required for tickets.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
The Continuing Crisis
America’s Least Interesting Couple: 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—more than 10,000 in number—and continuing, according to a February ABC News report. "We've never had a fight," he said. Their romance continues over, for example, playing "Boggle" at breakfast or having candlelit dinners with wine. (Bonus: Kirsten has hoarded all of the letters, filed by date, in 25 boxes.)
Perspective
The “Pedophile Loophole”: The Mississippi Department 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 (or, as a reporter for The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson wrote, “What happens in college, apparently, stays in college"). The MDE, which issues educator licenses, thus may never learn of the inappropriate behavior of the student teacher.
Least Competent Criminals
■ Embarrassing: Surveillance video released in February by the Irish Independent showed a small-time burglar trying to break into a car at 1 a.m. in front of the Pheasant bar in Drogheda, Ireland, by smashing a window with a brick—but also showed that the brick rebounded and knocked the man out, bloodying him. Gerry Brady, owner of the bar, was just closing up and found the burglar dazed, but 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.
■ Least Industrious Criminals: (1) Deputies in Santa Rosa County, Fla., arrested Kevin Barbour, 37, after he fled, on foot, from a recent traffic stop. Deputies chased him awhile, then called for K-9 backup, and by the time the dogs arrived, a sound resembling a “snorting wild boar” saturated the area. A snoring Barbour was found asleep under a trailer and arrested. (2) Michael Cassano, 38, was arrested in Lodi, N.J., in February, after allegedly robbing the Hudson City Savings Bank of about $4,000. He was spotted minutes later, a block away at a Dunkin Donuts, sipping coffee.
© 2014 CHUCK SHEPHERD
