1. GIRL HICCUPS FOR FIVE WEEKS STRAIGHT, GETS A HUG FROM KEITH URBAN, KILLS A WALMART EMPLOYEE. Sometimes life is just a random string of events – a tangle of bewildering occurrences out of which we struggle to knit a meaningful narrative (like a doily, say). Take Jennifer Mee of St. Petersburg, Florida, a 19 year old girl who suffered from five consecutive weeks of hiccups in 2007. She even ended up on television and got a warm hug from Karl Keith Urban. Eventually the hiccups stopped. Then she met a guy online and lured him to a house, where she and a couple of colleagues attempted to rob him at gunpoint. Gunfire ensued. What I can’t figure out is: did Karl Keith Urban’s hug cure her of her hiccups? Or did he plant a post-hypnotic suggestion in her mind to kill someone? Religion, science and philosophy have failed us in our quest to determine the relative evil of Karl Keith Urban.
2. WHAT A DOUCHE. New Toronto Mayor Ron Ford, who has taken a break from dropping anti-Asian remarks and threatening to kill his wife, entered the Toronto Congress Centre to the strains of Eye of the Tiger, gleefully crying out, “Toronto is now open for business, ladies and gentlemen!”
3. “ONE GLANCE WILL BE ENOUGH TO JUDGE”. Fed up with women wearing sexy clothing, Mayor Luigi Bobbio of Castellammare di Stabia has ordered police to start imposing fines of up to 300 Euros on women who display too much leg or cleavage. Mayor Bobbio said that he had faith in the police force’s ability to make snap judgments. But what if the police force go into a strip club, where nubile young ladies gyrate to Euro beats, slowly removing article after article of skimpy clothing until… they’ll have to be fined? I think they should think about that one for a while. That’s a 300 Euro question.
4. OF COURSE, 300 EUROS WILL SOON BE THE PRICE OF A SANDWICH. The World Bank predicts a rough ride for the forseeable future as economic volatility and unpredictable weather events drive the price of food up over the next few years. Global wheat and maize prices have already jumped 30% over the last few weeks. So hoard your backyard wheat farm, and don’t throw out that decorative maize wreath. Soon it’ll be a precious source of food.
5. A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU IN HAITI, A CHANCE TO BEGIN AGAIN IN A GOLDEN LAND OF OH WAIT NEVER MIND. A cholera epidemic is raging through Haiti and subjecting people to the unpleasant experience of death by diarrhea. Or more specifically, death my massive fluid and mineral loss. Through diarrhea. The real tragedy is that cholera is treatable if you have the infrastructure to prevent it and the supplies to treat it. Haiti has neither.
6. YOU HAVE UNTIL APRIL TO BUY YOUR BENSON & HEDGES WITH YOUR VENTOLIN REFILL. Saskatchewan pharmacies will stop selling cigarettes in April 2011. I always thought it was weird, way back when I was a smoker, that a place with an array of prescription drugs would also sell burning cancerous death to its customer. Kind of like a hospital where they hit you over the head with a hammer, for a small fee.