Daily Oddities

Welcome to Daily Oddities, 3WI’s brand spanking new daily round-up of the odd, eye-popping and occasionally important news of the day from places we think you should be reading about

Friday, September 4th, 2009

The Oddities have suffered a little with me under the yoke of work. There may yet be hope (*I do have a huge backlog) but I’ll alert everyone properly if that actually happens. For now, sit tight. A plan is in the works.

Wednesday, June 16th, 2009
There’s a lot to talk about in the World today, so lets jump right into it. You know about Tehran and you know about Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech, so we’re skipping that and getting straight down into the stuff you didn’t hear.

GLOBE:
More than a billion people go hungry, says the World Food Program. That’s about as many people who will contract malaria this year, a statistic that’s broken down masterfully by the country in a multi-part feature for the Global Post. Check out India. As long as we’re chatting about weird statistics, who knew that traffic was hazardous to your health? Well, ok, everybody, but who had a study to scientifically prove it’s hazardous to your health? The World Health Organization, that’s WHO. (hahahaha). Finally, a UN commissioned study with empirical evidence that climate change is effecting human migration. Which, if you’ve never heard of Tuvalu, might be news.
In other global news, the Cuban Five, whose pictures were emblazoned across whitewashed walls of local groceries and in the posh lobbies of upscale hotels when I visited Cuba in 2003-04 will not have another day in court, after what is at least five years (one for each of them!) of trying. The five stand accused of spying for Havana.
On the opposite side of the earth (and also in Brooklyn) the Guardian has a retrospective of female suicide bombers, more coverage of the refugees post-Tiger surrender and The New York Times has 4 Brooklynites (none of them M.I.A.) arrested and convicted of sponsoring the Tamil Tigers to the tune of millions. From Flushing or Staten Island, we might have expected…but this!
Some interesting stuff out of Russia: Global Post notices absurdly ostentatious oligarches reining it back. John Vinocur at the Times has some advice for Obama in Moscow next month. In sum: your shit will not work with the Russians, Mr. Smiley Pants President.
Finally, China still defies explanation, US Asians hate girls and Al Gore is once again the butt of a hilarious joke. (Guest Apperance by Rahm Emanuel)

Cali: IN BRIEF—Arnold wants everyone using ebooks, Kevin says that cub reporters should read the OC Register want ad like a bible, the Valley has at least 22 confirmed cases of HIV (yes, it’s deadlier than the swine flu), which is about 22 more than it can cope with. San Francisco finally exposed for it’s hypocracy vis-a-vis Latinos, while LA says roach coaches can breathe easy.

B’klyn: Just two today. Chicago-style license fraud on your Nathan’s hotdog, and the loveable Ms. Cyclone and the Mermaids out for blood in Manhattan.

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
We’re starting this round of Daily Oddities with something everybody wants–a job! Today’s odd job listings include counting bees in New York City and catelouging controlled substances for the NYPD. Awesome much?

Now that you’re gainfully employed, lets take a quick gander around the globe.

GLOBE: Things are getting ridiculous in Russia, where the racing collapse of the post-Soviet economy (again) is producing the largest anti-Putin uprising ever, as even Russians admit Medvyedev has nothing to do with it. In other news, is this the fattest crime reporter you’ve ever seen? Is Moscow the best place ever to major in police blotter?

In India, small time farmers may soon be eligible for micro-insurance policies protecting against climate change. After much whining in at the UN, Sri Lanka has some revised numbers of this year’s war dead (cue streamers). It’s a lite news week for Mexico, where only one horrific, deadly event seems to be capturing headlines. Finally, even more weirdness emerges on the Cuba front: today, we learn that a US couple in their 70s has been spying on the US for Havana for the past several decades, before they were duped by American intelligence with Cuban cigars. Really?
B’klyn: As always, lots to report from the big B (not him, the other big B). Someone in the blogosphere just discovered Sunset Park. Welcome, interloper. You are being watched. Nextdoor, Borough Park’s Maimonadies Hospital’s massive baby boom explained to frumi Yiddish blog in non-miraculous terms. In other health related news, a man is arrested after swimming in sewage at Coney Island, the Astroland star is now at the Smithsonian, and ice cream truck wars keep on keeping on (incidentally, i think Ice Cream Truck wars are a perfect example of water finding it’s own level. ie, as much as I ❤ Gothamist, this is about as hardhitting as they get vis-a-vis original reporting). Finally, someone lives for $8,000 a year, and we think that rocks (and also smells, just a little).
Cali: Oakland will issue ID’s to undocumented immigrants in a push to help them get better social services and generally live like the rest of us. Another reason Oakland is “an island of calm in a sea of chaos.” In yet more absurd, self-referential riffing, the LATimes pens a first person opinion piece about the controversy they invented by deciding, more or less randomly, to redraw the neighborhood maps for all of LA. The New York Times has a super-exciting story about Mixtec Radio, which broadcasts an hour and a half of all Mexican indigenous-language talk-show from California across the country. Witch Baby is burning after a conservative group decided to torch Francescia Lia Block’s Baby Bee-Bop, to which Lia Block was like, oh snap, cool. And, oh yeah, Villaraigosa has a new reporter-girlfriend, Lu Parker.

Thursday, May 28, 2009
B’klyn:Running away to join the circus has never been so depressing. More than 500 people lined up for 150 jobs at Ringling Bros’ Barnum and Bailey in economically depressed Coney Island Thursday. Equally joyless, ICE CREAM WARS continue in Bensonhurst, where parents would like Mr. Softee to  hit the road. In other news, NYC taxi service is about to get a bit Commie-er, with shared rides planned by the TLC.
Cali:Fairfax High School elects a gay-boy to be prom queen, and school’s out for summer (forever) in the LAUSD.
GLOBE: Another day, another fail in Sri Lanka, where the UN has rejected a war crimes inquery, despite some 5000 civilian deaths since January. Faschism is up up up in Hungary, where Jews and Roma (the usual suspects) are under attack. And a Manchester United fan drove his bus into a crowd of celebrating Barcelona fans in Nigeria.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
B’klyn: Bushwick is the place to be and the place to beat this summer in Brooklyn–another Beauty Bar, this one with fixtures from a Lancaster, PA salon, opens this weekend, to glitter and much applause.  On the down-market end, the Costco in Sunset Park will begin accepting food stamps (making iit a lot like the McDonalds in Bushwick). A hipster at Lorimer J-train was mugged by a troupe of dancers,  a cat named Tina Turner is still missing. In horrifying news,Maimonides Medical Center, which last year was the epicenter of the Brooklyn measles epidemic, is now ground zero for the killer H1N1 virus, which claimed 2 more New Yorkers this week. Horrors.
Cali: The Golden Gate Bridge turns 72 today! Columbo, the glass-eyed TV detective, is the subject of a vicious custody battle in Los Angeles. Or rather, Peter Falk, the 81-year-old actor who played him is, while wife and daughter duke it out in court. Meanwhile, the guys who duked it out in Bush v. Gore are back at it, this time on the same team (pst, the gay one!) rattling their judicial sabers at the next phase of the Prop 8 battle.  GO TEAM
GLOBE: It’s BAAACK! Facebook is back in Iran. Mexico wants a statue to the first swine flu survivor (which we can only imagine in a ’28 days later’ sort of  destructo scene).  And that’s the show, folks!
Tuesday–May 26, 2009
Cali: Everyone goes apeshit when the state supreme court upholds  H8. Friends @MatthewMBrown and @jess_jacobs sustain personal physical injury.

Globe: 3WI had H1N1. No news.
Monday–May 25, 2009
Cali: Cigarette tax? Moi? With the state economy barrelling from insolvent to non-existent, California is considering a $1.50 pack-tax hike. Say bye-bye to those $4.50 Camel Lights  😦
B’klyn: Brooklynites incensed over the ubiquitous ice-cream truck jingles and averse to joy have staged a fight in the only yuppies they know how–ironic posters and a Yahoo Group. Nerds and total nerds will also want to keep their eyes peeled for Google’s Big Brother (and the Holding Company) Van aka the Street View Vehicle, which is updating it’s view of the 5 boroughs this week. Which is GREAT if, like me, you use streetview as your memory’s  external hard-drive. Oh, and you will definitely want to be checking this out. BROKELYN.

GLOBE: No Facebook in Iran. In Spain, police busted a prostitution and trafficking ring that used voodoo curses to enslave Nigerian immigrants. Things really are that bad in Sri Lanka, where the brutal end of a 26-year long civil war saw an abnormally high number of child casualties, according to the UN. In India, ‘Slumdog’ stars’ Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail’s homes were razed by authorities in Mumbai.