To help usher in the springtime, I'll begin with some lively animals.
The first of these was a seabird that, unable to ring the emergency
services, persisted ![[The cormorant seeking treatment]](images/patientbird.png)
in tapping at the door glass of a Bremen
hospital's emergency department until nurses took a closer look and
![[The cormorant receiving treatment]](images/surgery.png)
noticed the fishing hook caught in its beak. The city's fire
department helped capture the cormorant and snip off the three curved
points of the treble hook. Cihat Cirit and other medical staff then
removed the remainder of the hook, treated the wound, and released the
bird in the park behind the Klinikum Links der Weser facility
Long-time reader Tina has sent a follow-up to the Clippings item about the German supermarket overrun by wayward sheep. Penny Burgsinn was so delighted about the free nationwide publicity and overnight image boost that, on its own initiative, it donated enough winter fodder to cover the entire herd - 700 sheep in total - for the entire season. In addition, it renamed itself 'Penny Schafsinn', launched a large-scale visual advertising campaign with life-size sheep prints in the entrance and along the walls of the premises, and commissioned a sheep statue for its car park.
Turning from ![[The canine caught with a bag]](images/dogdumpcam.png)
Germany to Italy yields less wholesome relations with
animals. Surveillance cameras installed by the Sicilian city of
Catania to dissuade fly-tippers captured a small dog setting a bag of
rubbish at the roadside, on multiple occasions. While acknowledging
the cunningness of the resident who trained his dog to dump refuse
![[The canine delivering a second bag]](images/dogdumping.png)
illegally, the municipal police stressed that 'ingenuity can never
excuse incivility'. And their environmental unit were able to
identify the human culprit anyway and fine him.
The herd of runners at the US half-marathon championship recently
offered a reminder that humans too can be led astray easily. Roughly
3 km from the finish line, a guide vehicle directed the three top
female runners the wrong way. By following it, leader Jess McClain,
then Ednah Kurgat and Emma Hurley, handed the victory to runners who
had been more than a minute behind them. McClain ended up ninth.
While acknowledging that the course was not well-marked, organisers
USA Track & Field denied an appeal, citing the fact that lead vehicles
'are provided and managed by the local organising committee'.
Avon and Somerset Police report on an officer who came to the attention
of their professional-standards department for being overly productive
when working from home. That is, the keystroke rate from her laptop
computer on most shifts in April and May of last year was abnormally
high. Upon questioning, she admitted to using a corner of a picture
frame to weigh down the keys so that the machine could not enter sleep
mode when unattended amid 'challenges' in her personal life.
Detective superintendent Larisa Hunt said that, while 'Sergeant X had
some mitigating circumstances, it's unacceptable for an officer to act
in this deliberate and deceitful way by abusing the trust placed in
her, by making it appear she was working when she was not'. A hearing
found her guilty of gross misconduct, and she has been dismissed
without notice and barred from work at all UK law-enforcement agencies.
The Commerce City, Colorado, police often visit the busy junction
of US-85 and East 60th Avenue to ensure that pedestrians selling
items and services don't impede motorists. The enforcement actions
took a new turn with a recent call about a problematic unicyclist.
The culprit was a fire-juggler who began pedalling back and forth on
![[The brightly clad performer entertains motorists and semi-annoys cops]](images/notapedestrian.png)
the pedestrian crossing each time the light turned red for vehicles.
Deeming his act 'both quite good and quite illegal', the department
pointed to violations such as a few failures to vacate the crossing in
time. They stated: 'Let's all take a moment to appreciate this man's
talents, then all agree that we aren't going to do stuff like this.'
A family in Kuala Lumpur caused considerably more automotive mayhem, by failing to activate their car's child safety locks. This enabled a two-year-old child to wriggle free of a relative's hold and open the left-rear door on the approach to a roundabout. A motorbiker moving between lanes at the time collided with the door, creating a domino effect. According to Traffic Investigation and Enforcement Department chief Mohd Zamzuri Mohd Isa, the accident involved four cars, two motorbikes, and two hospital trips.
Last year, a sewage-pipe rupture in Japan's Saitama Prefecture caused a sinkhole to open and swallow the cab of a lorry. This drew public attention to Japan's ageing infrastructure and prompted someone to donate 500,000 yen in cash to help with Osaka's water system, one of the first to be modernised after the war. Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama reports that the mystery donor has now returned with 21 kilos of gold bars for the waterworks bureau. While 'it's a staggering amount, and I was speechless', this is expected to cover little more than one of the system's 133 two-kilometre sections of dilapidated pipes.
Next, we have an update on the Massachusetts couple who, thanks to eBay, kept receiving bizarre parcels (from a funeral wreath and live spiders to porn magazines 'misdelivered' to neighbors), death threats, and other harassment stemming from their e-commerce newsletter (see http://theanna.org/clip/july2020.html#horsehead). US District Judge Patti Saris has announced that a settlement of David and Ina Steiner's lawsuit has been reached. Meanwhile, most of the seven former eBay workers directly implicated were handed custodial sentences, and eBay, Inc. agreed to pay a $3M penalty to federal authorities to avoid prosecution for such actions as conspiring to break into the Steiners' garage to attach a GPS tracker to their car.
'My mom takes it and I thought it helped her with her stomach-aches'
explained Indiana seven-year-old Jessa Milender after admission to
hospital with nearly hourly vomiting, gut pain, and diarrhoea. The
injectable 'stomach medicine' she'd taken was 60% of the contents of
mother Melissa's multi-dose pen of weight-loss medicine.
Emergency-room medics put Jessa on IV fluid, rang Poison Control for
advice, and discharged her when the symptoms eased. However, Melissa
reported, 'the only thing that she wanted to do was drink water, but
then she would throw it up'. Back in hospital, 'she didn't eat for
six days straight' before recovering properly and returning home,
where the weight-loss drug is now under lock and key.
After a night out in Maidenhead, a woman staying at a hotel on her own
for the first time awoke with a start: a man who'd been at the same
party earlier was sexually assaulting her. The man, Kyran Smith, had
provided Travelodge desk personnel with her name and claimed to be her
boyfriend, so they provided her room number and a key card.
He was handed a 7.5-year jail term for the assault and trespassing,
and Travelodge offered the victim, in her late 20s, a 30-pound refund
alongside assurances that reception staff had followed established
security procedures. She denounced the amount as 'very insulting'.
As for procedures, 'if [...] the room booking is just for me, why
would you think it's okay to let someone in in the middle of the night
while I'm asleep? At least wake me up or phone the room or come up to
the room. Anything is better than just giving someone a key card.'
Finally, a Long Island grandfather's concretisation of a standard
pre-road-trip reminder came under threat when New York's Department of
Motor Vehicles deemed his 'PB4WEGO' licence plate 'derogatory,
contemptuous, degrading, disrespectful, or inflammatory'. Biting back
against their destruction order, Seth Bykofsky cited free speech and
asked state officials whether there could be any true public objection
to 'this simple plea, in the hope of avoiding that dreaded, "I HAVE TO
PEE," just minutes after hitting the road'. After all, 'the worst I've
gotten has been a gentle roll of the eyes from my kids and
grandkids.'
Governor Kathy Hochul replied: 'We'll get it back for you. I think
everybody should be reminded to pee before you go.'