The Column

Saturday, October 17, 2009

They Vote And Reproduce: Balloon family and others

(In the interest of readability and to keep this blog more or less cleaned up, I will regularly present a roundup of some of the more, well, bizarre news stories making the rounds. It's called "They Vote And Reproduce" partly to remind you that they really do walk among us.)

Yesterday we held our breath while waiting for a balloon to land. And exhaled slowly when we learned a six-year-old boy was not aboard.

Since then, there have been more questions than answers about the family of Falcon Heene, the youngster who was later found hiding in the attic.

While this was going on yesterday afternoon, the Internet was alive with dispatches -- some even true -- about the incident. One only has to go to Twitter to get a handle on how closely people watched everything. Nothing beats a six-year-old child in extreme danger to whet the public appetite.

But there was an air of incredulity about it all. A number of people suggested a story of an airborne child named Falcon -- that's just to bizarre to be true. Although local law enforcement officials say it's probably not a hoax, they still have a lot of questions of the Heene family.

It got stranger, especially when the youngster blurted out to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that they were doing this for "the show." There are a few other revelations you may or may not have heard:

- The boy's parents had acted (I guess that's what you call it) in at least one reality TV series. Shoot, the whole family is a walking reality show of its own.

- The family was seriously into storm chasing and strange scientific experiments. So if you hear of Colorado graveyards being plundered for parts, local authorities may want to give them a jingle.

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Not doing the dog any favor

McClellanville is a little village just a sniff down Highway 17 from Charleston, and it's country. It's one of those places where Charleston County's animal control department is not really welcome, and people let their dogs run untethered. The town is small enough that everyone knows everyone else, and knows one another's dogs.

So this guy out there is driving and hits a dog. Thinking him severely injured and wanting to put him out of its misery, he starts whaling on him with ... a borrowed hammer and machete. Another man then arrived on the scene, took the weapons, and used them to beat the fool out of the driver.

Both men were arrested. The dog? Last I heard, he was alive and doing OK.

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I usually call this 'pain'

This is from the Charleston Post & Courier:

An 89-year-old Huger man who last month told deputies that someone entered his mobile home and sliced his throat during a robbery has admitted that his wounds were self-inflicted, authorities said Wednesday ...

Isn't whacking yourself over the head with a hammer a lot easier? Mind you, neither method of self-inflicted injury is very convincing, but I'm just wondering ...

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Is this what you call a 'pot head'?

In Central Pennsylvania, a man found out how to not get rid of his dope. Police say he had it under his ball cap, and when he removed it he couldn't find his stuff.

Well, of course not. It wasn't in his cap any more -- it was stuck to his forehead. In front of a cop.

It almost makes sense. With his stash stuck to his forehead, he couldn't see it. However, it doesn't mean no one else can.

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Bragging on Facebook, Part 3,963

Fugitives of the world, take note: If you’re having the time of your life hanging out in Cancun, you probably shouldn’t brag about it on Facebook. And you definitely shouldn’t add an ex-Justice Department official as a friend. Take it from Maxi Sopo, a 26-year-old who had spent the last...

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