Across Difficult Country

From Malaysia comes word of a giant eagle with human facial features that’s been terrorizing workers on a palm fruit plantation. 1 According to eyewitness reports, “The eagle had the face of a man! The face was snow white just like feathers of the bird, but it had a hooked nose, deep set human eyes, a thin mouth and pointed chin.” 2 Given the perplexing nature of this encounter, it was inevitable that an old man in a nearby village would be consulted. Subsequently, an old man “warned them that a person coming face to face with such a bird would normally go blind.” Shortly thereafter the worker who sighted the man-faced eagle was struck in the eye by a “loose fruit”, and it took nearly three months before he recovered completely. 3 1 Notice the linked article includes an actual photograph of palm fruit trees similar to ones the man-faced eagle was observed in. 2 Palm fruits are kosher. 3 What did you expect?

A woman in Columbia, South Carolina had her 12 year old son arrested for opening his Christmas present too early . Given the ongoing disintegration of the American family it’s likely such incidents will become more common. Many of today’s parents, especially single mothers, are incapable of controlling their kids, so why not let the police handle it? Only the unruliest of brats would refuse to eat his vegetables and pick up his toys if he knew his belligerence would result in being Tasered, handcuffed, and taken downtown to spend the night in a jail cell. Sassing your mom is one thing, but sassing a burly cop with a billy-club and gun is another. At some point in the future expect a separate police force to be created that specializes entirely in child discipline.

A Londonderry man named Emmet Sweeney is causing quite a stir with his claim the Pyramids “ were built around 800BC when people had access to steel. That is a big reduction in the chronology ." Coming on the heels of the startling revelation Stonehenge didn’t exist prior to the 1890’s , it’s becoming obvious much of the past is more recent than previously thought.

“You must have noticed that more and more American movies are based on comic strips (the Superman series, Batman, the upcoming Dick Tracy), or on what might as well be comic strips (the Indiana Jones series, the so far only two Ghostbusters, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and scads more). You will also have noticed how many movies are sequels (the list is endless). What does this mean? It is the sinister confluence of two unwholesome manifestations: rabid nostalgia and a frenzy for playing it safe.” “Will audiences never get tired of invincible Good disguising itself in mask and cape and, with or without a faithful companion (Tonto, Robin, Lois Lane), foiling vincible Evil in the nick of time? And what is so fascinating - except to nerds, who can identify themselves, realistically, with the Clark Kent persona while dreaming themselves into the Other - about the cut-and-dried dual personality of the superman-hero?” - from John Simon's review of the movie "Batman" [ John Sim...

Some nights he could hardly sleep imagining how wondrous it would be. Seeds, all kinds of seeds in glass cases! Tractors! An entire wing of antique farm implements! A stuffed cow! And it could all be his, he was so close! If only it weren’t for that stubborn old bastard, refusing to let go... ____ On Tuesday US District Judge James Robertson ruled US currency unfairly discriminates against the blind as all American bills are the same size so the sightless can’t tell the different denominations apart. He’s given the Treasury 10 days to start working on the problem. Replacing existing currency with new notes of different sizes would be considerably expensive, not only for the Treasury but for industry (think of all the vending machines, ATM’s, etc., that would require retooling). A cheaper solution would be to keep bills the same size but print them using scented inks: Ones could smell like cabbage, fives like strawberry, ten-spots like cheddar, twenties like roast beef, hundreds like ...

Two weeks after she went missing, the corpse of a Florida woman was discovered “ wedged upside-down behind a bookshelf in her room in her family's home .” Apparently she’d been there all along, getting stuck while trying to “fiddle with a television set's plug at an outlet behind the bookshelf. Police said they suspect [she] was unable to breathe in the position and suffocated.” After reading of this bizarre tragedy I felt compelled to check behind my own bookshelves for dead bodies. Thankfully I found none, though I did find some sea otter carcasses, which I intend to mail to the editors of Cat Fancy magazine with a note reading “Murderers.” Elsewhere : The Chadian army has retaken Abeche .

“52 percent of dead sea otters washing up on California beaches were infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, the source of which was cat feces.” “Ten million tons of dog and cat excreta are disposed of each year in the United States; the city of San Francisco estimates that pet wastes make up 4 percent of its residential waste stream -- almost as much as disposable diapers. Poop B Gone, which had a prominent booth at the Pet Expo, is part of a rapidly growing service industry to help busy homeowners deal with pet wastes. In the areas of Long Island that they service, yard cleanup for one to two dogs runs $15 a week; litter box service is $59 a month for one or two cats, $105 for six to eight. I asked Mike, one of Poop B Gone's proprietors, if there was extra money to be made from the nutrient-rich dog wastes he collects. Has he considered a joint venture with a compost or energy entrepreneur? "No, we just have to pay the landfill to take it," he said.” - Salina, Kan...