[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
FRIDAY JULY 29
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You can post as many stories as you like, but you will only get paid for One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can only earn WRZ$ once a day.
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -5)
2:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them short, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
All payments will be made at THE END of the weekly news cycle.
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

Bear climbs perimeter fence outside shuttered N.Y. prison



A man driving on a New York road captured video of an unusual sight: a black bear climbing the perimeter fence at a closed prison.

Vito Cafagna said he was driving past the Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, Dutchess County, this week when he spotted the bear breaking into the prison.

Cafagna captured a short video showing the bear making its way over the perimeter fence.

"Seeing all of my new wildlife neighbor animal friends in their natural habitat has been one of the best parts about moving to the Hudson Valley from Westchester," Cafagna told WZAD/WCZX.

The maximum security prison was closed in March.

[Fatima99]

Nan has 600-pound willy statue on top of her grave because it was 'her dying wish'



A nan has shocked locals after a 600-pound willy statue appeared on the top of her gravestone, which her family says was "her dying wish".

The gravestone, which tends to represent the person buried there, caused quite the stir as Catarina, a 99-year-old grandmother, had her piece unveiled.

While traditional crosses or towers weren't on the mind of the 99-year-old, it would appear that a massive penis was, with the monument erected on top of the headstone - making for quite the memorial.

Grandmother Catarina had reportedly always wanted a penis on the top of her grave and her family were happy to oblige, ordering a specialist to mould the member and place it on the grave.



The massive stone member has been called a "recognition of her love and joy for life," as grandmother Catarina enjoyed calling the family "verga," a Mexican slang word which translates to "c*ck".

Grandson Álvaro Mota Limón says that when his grandmother used the word, she meant for the usually-vicious insult to be a compliment.

Limón said that his 99-year-old grandmother meant it to mean "integrity, courage, passion, and at the same time, love and joy".

That love and joy is now centre stage on the gravestone, protruding from the peak of the shrine to Catarina's life.

Limón, a former mayor of hometown Doña Cata, where Catarina grew up, added: "She wanted to break the paradigm of everything Mexican, where things are sometimes hidden because of not having an open mind.

"She was always very avant-garde, very forward-thinking about things."

Despite the bizarre request, the family obliged and planted a penis on top of her gravestone monument, much to the delight of locals.

Isidro Lavoignet was the engineer behind the bizarre penis piece and says he has been sent some unusual gravestone requests in his day, with families wanting to stick strange, unique pieces to the headstone.

[ozswede]

Flung pickle token: artist asks $10,000 for McDonald’s burger ingredient

A NZ$10,000 artwork consisting of a single slice of pickle plucked from a McDonald’s cheeseburger and flung on to the ceiling of an Auckland art gallery is a deliberately “provocative gesture” designed to question what has value, the artist’s gallery says.

The work, titled Pickle, belongs to Sydney-based Australian artist Matthew Griffin, and is one of four new works in Fine Arts, Sydney’s exhibition in Auckland hosted at Michael Lett Gallery.


Matthew Griffin’s ‘Pickle’, 2022, an artwork exhibited in Auckland that comes from a McDonald’s cheeseburger

Some fans are relishing in the work calling it “genius” and “brilliant”; others have called it “moronic”.

“Part of a rich late-night tradition,” said one post on social media.

Another pointed out the gulf between the way the gesture is handled in a gallery versus the restaurant: “I got kicked out of a McDonald’s by the police for doing this when I was a teenager, now it’s art.”

Writing for ArtForum, Wes Hill said:“Griffin has garnered a singular reputation for what we in Australia call ‘taking the piss’ – a sardonic undercutting of self-seriousness and spin.”

The piece calls to mind Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous artwork titled Comedian – a ripening banana duct-taped to the gallery wall during Art Basel in Miami, in 2019, which sold for US$120,000. It was then plucked from the wall and eaten by the New York performance artist David Datuna.

Generating different responses to the work is part of the work’s joy, said Ryan Moore, the director of Fine Arts, Sydney, which represents Griffin.

“A humorous response to the work is not invalid – it’s OK, because it is funny,” Moore said.

Griffin’s work appeals to Moore because as well as using humour as a device, it follows in the traditions of contemporary art and questions “the way value and meaning is generated between people”.


‘Pickle’ in its wider context.

The inevitable question of whether Pickle is “art” does not bother Moore.

“Generally speaking, artists aren’t the ones deciding whether something is art is not – they are the ones who make and do things. Whether something is valuable and meaningful as artwork is the way that we collectively, as a society choose to use it or talk about it,” Moore said.

“As much as this looks like a pickle attached to the ceiling – and there is no artifice there, that is exactly what it is – there is something in the encounter with that as a sculpture or a sculptural gesture.”

The pickle is stuck to the ceiling with its own sticky sauce and has shown no sign of decay, nor is it peeling off – “if you go to McDonald’s all around the world, you’ll see things stuck on the ceiling”.

Michael Lett Gallery co-director, Andrew Thomas, said Pickle was been an important inclusion in the exhibition, allowing those encountering Griffin’s work for the first time to “think broadly about the various ideas it encapsulates”.

“There have been many smiles, closely followed by some interesting and engaged conversations,” Thomas said.


The piece titled Pickle, by Australian artist Matthew Griffin, has had a mixed reaction from social media.

The work carries a NZD$10,000 price tag, and will cost the buyer another NZD$4.44 for a cheeseburger. The institution, or collector who owns it, will be given instructions on how to recreate the art in their own space.

“It’s not about the virtuosity of the artist standing there in the gallery throwing it to the ceiling – how it gets there doesn’t matter, as long as someone takes it out of the burger and flicks it on to the ceiling,” Moore said.

“The gesture is so pure, so joyful … that is what makes it so good.”

Mooo! Deputy chases down escaped cow at Iowa fairground



A sheriff's deputy working overnight security for a county fair in Iowa ended up putting his cowboy skills to the test when a cow got loose and went for a wander.

Bremer County Sheriff's Deputy Jackson Smith, who has only been with the department a short time, was working night security at the Bremer County Fair when a cow named Scarlet escaped from her barn and went wandering the fairgrounds around 3 a.m. Tuesday.

Sheriff's Sgt. Sean Hartman, who runs the sheriff's office Facebook account, had stopped by to check on Smith and ended up capturing photos and video of the ensuing chase.

The Facebook photos show Smith running after the cow before safely returning her to the barn.

View: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/07/28 ... 659037819/

[goldie0608]

California Fruit Stand Employees Find a Lost Wallet — and It Turns Out to Be William Shatner's

"It was a race to try to figure out who was gonna contact Mr. Shatner first," Gilroy Police Department Officer Mark Tarasco told KABC-TV



While picking up some cherries at a local fruit stand, William Shatner got separated from his phone. Luckily for the star, the owner made getting it back to him a top priority.

Last week, the Star Trek actor, 91, stopped by the Fruit Barn on Pacheco Pass Highway in Gilroy, California, to buy some fruit, according to KABC-TV.

At the time he came by, owner Gary Tognetti was taking a break and his daughter and her friend were manning the stand, The Washington Post reported. However, as the actor drove off, the girls noticed there was a wallet in a corn bin.

When his daughter brought it to his attention the following day, Tognetti was taken by surprise once he discovered who it belonged to. "You've got to be kidding me," he told the newspaper he recalled thinking.

Still in disbelief, the farmer contacted his friend Officer Mark Tarasco with the Gilroy Police Department to ask for help locating the star.

"I told him, 'Hey, we found this wallet,' and he wasn't quite sure if I was telling a little joke," Tognetti told KABC-TV.

"I told Gary, 'Hey, let me help you out.' I was on my way to work, met up with a few folks there to include Sgt. John Ballard who has some detective experience," added Officer Tarasco. "And I asked him, 'Hey, how do I get a hold of a celebrity?'"

But what the officers lacked in celebrity-finding experience, they made up in effort. According to Tarasco, "It was a race to try to figure out who was gonna contact Mr. Shatner first."



In the end, finding the Miss Congeniality actor took less than two hours. Officer Tarasco told KABC-TV that celebrity status aside, they did their due diligence in making sure Shatner's wallet was actually his.

Once confirmed, "they actually FedExed it that Thursday, and he had it by Friday," Tognetti told The Washington Post.

To show just how grateful he was to everyone involved, Shatner shared a special message on Twitter this week.

"I would like to thank Gary and Natalie of B&T Farms @TfarmsB for their extreme honesty in returning my lost wallet. They are obviously good citizens," the Emmy winner wrote. "I would also like to thank Officer Mark Tarasco and Sergeant John Ballard from the @GilroyPD."

"My best, Bill," he signed the note.

Looking back, Officer Tarasco loved the thrill of helping such a celebrity. "When you get to talk about something and laugh about it, and pass on the experience to other people – to include my family, my parents, big fans and all that – it's cool," he told KABC-TV.

For Tognetti, he's thinking of ways to use this in bringing in some new costumers. "I thought about putting a sign up, 'William Shatner was here,'" the owner told The Washington Post.

[prokroustis]

75-mile-long mirror-clad skyscraper will house five million people in the Saudi desert



Excuse me?

A 75-mile-long desert skyscraper clad in mirrors will have its own high-speed railway, a sports stadium and vertical gardens where vegetables are harvested by robots.

Leaked architectural designs claim that Mirror Line, an entire city of five million people built on stilts as high as the Empire State Building, will be the largest structure in the world and have to “bend” to the curvature of the Earth.

But the building – developed at the whim of Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince – may not see the light of day as Mohammed bin Salman’s futuristic Neom megacity being built on the Red Sea coast is beset by hitches as officials scramble to keep up with his wildly ambitious visions.

The Mirror Line is mooted to cost around $1trillion and has no set completion date, but experts think it would likely take as long as 50 years. The kingdom is vastly rich and is currently enjoying a massive windfall revenue from high oil prices.

Not all of Saudi Arabia’s dream construction projects are completed. The planned world’s tallest skyscraper was put on hold after the last oil boom petered out.

The Mirror Line is just one part of the wider Neom development that the crown prince, 35, known as MBS, hopes will attract foreign investment into the kingdom to diversify its economy away from oil.

[BigGlen]

This Day In History July 29



July 29 is the 210th day of the year (211th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 155 days remain until the end of the year.

Pre-1600
587 BC – The Neo-Babylonian Empire sacks Jerusalem and destroys the First Temple.
615 – Pakal ascends the throne of Palenque at the age of 12.
904 – Sack of Thessalonica: Saracen raiders under Leo of Tripoli sack Thessaloniki, the Byzantine Empire's second-largest city, after a short siege, and plunder it for a week.
923 – Battle of Firenzuola: Lombard forces under King Rudolph II and Adalbert I, margrave of Ivrea, defeat the dethroned Emperor Berengar I of Italy at Firenzuola (Tuscany).
1014 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Battle of Kleidion: Byzantine emperor Basil II inflicts a decisive defeat on the Bulgarian army, and his subsequent treatment of 15,000 prisoners reportedly causes Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria to die of a heart attack less than three months later, on October 6.
1018 – Count Dirk III defeats an army sent by Emperor Henry II in the Battle of Vlaardingen.
1030 – Ladejarl-Fairhair succession wars: Battle of Stiklestad: King Olaf II fights and dies trying to regain his Norwegian throne from the Danes.
1148 – The Siege of Damascus ends in a decisive crusader defeat and leads to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.
1565 – The widowed Mary, Queen of Scots marries Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Duke of Albany, at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, Scotland.
1567 – The infant James VI is crowned King of Scotland at Stirling.
1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: English naval forces under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France.

1601–1900
1693 – War of the Grand Alliance: Battle of Landen: France wins a victory over Allied forces in the Netherlands.
1775 – Founding of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps: General George Washington appoints William Tudor as Judge Advocate of the Continental Army.
1818 – French physicist Augustin Fresnel submits his prizewinning "Memoir on the Diffraction of Light", precisely accounting for the limited extent to which light spreads into shadows, and thereby demolishing the oldest objection to the wave theory of light.
1836 – Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.
1848 – Great Famine of Ireland: Tipperary Revolt: In County Tipperary, Ireland, then in the United Kingdom, an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put down by police.
1851 – Annibale de Gasparis discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.
1858 – United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.
1871 – The Connecticut Valley Railroad opens between Old Saybrook, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut in the United States.
1899 – The First Hague Convention is signed.
1900 – In Italy, King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated by the anarchist Gaetano Bresci. His son, Victor Emmanuel III, 31 years old, succeed to the throne.

1901–present
1901 – Land lottery begins in Oklahoma.
1907 – Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp runs from August 1 to August 9 and is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.
1914 – The Cape Cod Canal opened.
1920 – Construction of the Link River Dam begins as part of the Klamath Reclamation Project.
1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
1932 – Great Depression: In Washington, D.C., troops disperse the last of the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans.
1937 – Tōngzhōu Incident: In Tōngzhōu, China, the East Hopei Army attacks Japanese troops and civilians.
1945 – The BBC Light Programme radio station is launched for mainstream light entertainment and music.
1948 – Olympic Games: The Games of the XIV Olympiad: After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, open in London.
1950 – Korean War: After four days, the No Gun Ri Massacre ends when the US Army 7th Cavalry Regiment is withdrawn.
1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
1957 – Tonight Starring Jack Paar premieres on NBC with Jack Paar beginning the modern day talk show.
1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
1959 – First United States Congress elections in Hawaii as a state of the Union.
1965 – Vietnam War: The first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.
1967 – Vietnam War: Off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134.
1967 – During the fourth day of celebrating its 400th anniversary, the city of Caracas, Venezuela is shaken by an earthquake, leaving approximately 500 dead.
1973 – Greeks vote to abolish the monarchy, beginning the first period of the Metapolitefsi.
1973 – Driver Roger Williamson is killed during the Dutch Grand Prix, after a suspected tire failure causes his car to pitch into the barriers at high speed.
1976 – In New York City, David Berkowitz (a.k.a. the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.
1980 – Iran adopts a new "holy" flag after the Islamic Revolution.
1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
1981 – After impeachment on June 21, Abolhassan Banisadr flees with Massoud Rajavi to Paris, in an Iranian Air Force Boeing 707, piloted by Colonel Behzad Moezzi, to form the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
1987 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel (Eurotunnel).
1987 – Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and President of Sri Lanka J. R. Jayewardene sign the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord on ethnic issues.
1993 – The Supreme Court of Israel acquits alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free.
1996 – The child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act is struck down by a U.S. federal court as too broad.
2005 – Astronomers announce their discovery of the dwarf planet Eris.
2010 – An overloaded passenger ferry capsizes on the Kasai River in Bandundu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulting in at least 80 deaths.
2013 – Two passenger trains collide in the Swiss municipality of Granges-près-Marnand near Lausanne injuring 25 people.
2015 – The first piece of suspected debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is discovered on Réunion Island.
2019 – The 2019 Altamira prison riot between rival Brazilian drug gangs leaves 62 dead.
2021 - The International Space Station temporarily spins out of control, moving the ISS 45 degrees out of attitude, following an engine malfunction of Russian module Nauka.

[Governor3]

Robot Cat Servers Are Descending on NYC Dim Sum Parlors
They deliver dumplings. They sing songs. They’re faster than you’d think. Should they replace humans?

BellaBot, a robotic cat that appears to enjoy delivering Philly cheesesteak dumplings

This week in unpredictable headlines: Robotic cat servers are descending on dim sum parlors in Brooklyn and Queens. The robots can cost owners as much as a 2022 Kia Forte. In exchange, they perform basic duties, like carting around boba and bamboo steamers of har gow, an unlikely and somewhat dystopian solution to cut down operating costs.

BellaBot, the name of the robot most commonly found in New York City restaurants, is outfitted with plastic cat ears and a dozen animated facial expressions. It comes from maker Pudu Robotics, a company based in Shenzhen, China, that recently made landfall in the United States. After debuting at a tech trade show in Las Vegas in 2020, the robots started popping up at restaurants across the United States last August.

Eater critic Robert Sietsema spotted one holding court at New Mulan, a dim sum parlor located above a Flushing food court. Earlier this month, Brooklyn Magazine caught another telling jokes on the floor of Dimmer & Summer, a dim sum restaurant new to Cobble Hill.

The robots cost around $16,000 each; they are programmed with a restaurant’s layout and navigates the floor using laser sensors. Staffers load them with food, punch in the table where an order is headed, and off they go, moving at speeds that can exceed a meter per second. En route, they’re programmed to dodge staffers, bat their eyelashes at customers, and sing happy birthday in voices that would feel right at home on Sesame Street.



However cute, BellaBot is ostensibly a cost-cutting measure, says Michael Wang, chief operating officer of WowRobee, the company that oversees United States marketing and sales for Pudu. “The labor cost is higher in New York City than other places,” he says. “Owners are using the robot to reduce labor costs.”

The robotic servers have been making waves in Detroit, Dallas, and a handful of other United States cities. New York City, where WowRobee is headquartered and labor costs are among the highest, is poised to become the company’s biggest market nationwide. The bots found an early following at dim sum parlors in Queens and Manhattan Chinatown, especially at old-school spots looking to attract new customers.

“Traditional Chinese are getting old,” Wang says. “They need younger customers,” many of whom are more active on social media.

In Bayside, restaurant chain Kyuramen introduced two robots in its dining room to cater to parents with young children and help get the word out about the new location, which opened this summer, according to a spokesperson for the business. The robots, which deliver bowls of ramen and drinks to tables, are also used at the chain’s New Jersey outposts in Long Beach and Cherry Hill.

enny Mei, owner of Dimmer & Summer, became one of the first restaurateurs to use the bots in Brooklyn when he opened his Cobble Hill dim sum restaurant earlier this month. He purchased BellaBot to “cut down the running costs” and “improve efficiency” after piloting a similar robot at Dumpling Legend, a restaurant he operates in Flushing Meadows, Queens.

BellaBot hasn’t eliminated the need for any of the restaurant’s front-of-house staff, who still unload bamboo steamers from its shelves to avoid customers from burning themselves. “It’s a marketing tactic,” a manager at Dimmer & Summer admits. The robot is there to turn heads and clog up social media feeds, he says — and if the restaurant’s early crowds are any indication, it seems be working.

In its current form, BellaBot is essentially a screen on wheels, not unlike the touch-screen kiosks already found in fast-food restaurants across the country. But Wang has bigger plans. In three to five years, he expects the bots to be capable of fulfilling many of the roles traditionally performed by human servers, like placing dishes on tables.

“The robot will never say, ‘I don’t want to do this,’ ‘I am sick,’ ‘I am not happy,’” Wang says. “The only disadvantage is that the robot does not have arms.”

Humans are apparently still good for that.
https://ny.eater.com/2022/7/28/23271442/robot-cats-nyc-dim-sum-restaurants
------------------
uh-huh. I mean, really, what could go wrong? - Gov

[PennySerenade]

Chapman Hits Two Home Runs, Jays Win



Tigers 3 Blue Jays 5

Sometimes a game changes on a moment. Tonight, for a bit, I was worried that moment was happening at the top of the eighth.

Jays up by 2, Yimi Garcia in. He gave up a leadoff double to Robbie Grossman. Then he got a popup into short left field. Lourdes Gurriel and Bo Bichette went after it from different directions. It looked like Lourdes was calling it, but Bo, running from the other direction, may not have heard. They collided, and the ball dropped, putting the tying run on base with no outs. Bo was rubbing his collar bone area after, I hope he’s ok. Garcia walked the next batter to load the bases.

Yimi then got Miguel Cabrera to hit a medium fly to right. George Springer, who just moved over to right, kept the runners from moving up. Eric Hasse hit a fly deep to score a run on a nine-pitch at-bat.

That got John Schneider to bring Jordan Romano in. Romano got a ground ball on the first pitch to end the inning.

We got that run back in the bottom of the eighth. Lourdes Gurriel reached on a Jeimer Candelario error. Matt Chapman walked. Santiago Espinal, against a right-hander (who he doesn’t hit well) put down a good sac bunt. I’m not a fan of the bunt, but late in the game in a one-run game is the time you might do it. John, in the post-game, said he took the bunt off when it was 3-0 and put it back on at 3-1. Danny Jansen followed with a fly ball that was just a couple of feet short of a home run in the left-field corner. But it did score a run.

The bad news, after Danny’s sac fly, Springer hit a fly out and grabbed his elbow right after. Hopefully, it isn’t serious, but it didn’t look good.

Romano didn’t need the extra run, pitching a 1, 2, 3 ninth.

Before that?

Yusei Kikuchi looked very good. He went 5 innings, allowed just 2 hits (unfortunately, one of them was a Willi Castro home run that just hit the top of the fence and bounced over), just 1 walk, with 5 strikeouts. He came out after 67 pitches. It was his first game back from the IL, and they weren’t going to push him past 75, so getting him out after the five good innings was smart.

Adam Cimber pitched a clean sixth. Tim Mayza gave up a home run in the seventh.

On offence, it was the Chapman show. He had two home runs (both no doubters), three RBI, and a walk.

As a team, we had 10 hits. Alejandro Kirk and Bichette each had two hits. Kirk also took off to steal second (which had everyone laughing, but the pitch was fouled off, so we’ll never know if he would have been safe.



Vlad, Springer, Lourdes and Jansen had a hit each. Vlad almost had another. He lined a ball to center at 113.3 MPH but Willie Castro made a terrific catch. I’m sure if I had tried to catch that, every bone in my hand would have shattered. Vlad hit a ground ball at 113.3 MPH that was a ground out earlier in the game. His softest hit ball of the game, only 103.6 MPH, was his only hit, a double. His three other at-bats were harder hit balls.

Vlad had a very good game with the glove too. He made a great stretch to get a Chapman throw and get an out to lead off the ninth. He made a nice catch on a popup down the right-field line.

Jays of the Day: Chapman (.270 WPA), Romano (.198), Kikuchi (.162). Let’s give an honourable mention to Kirk (.088) for the steal attempt and the hustle double. And Vlad (.054, plus the glove). And Lourdes (.076).

Suckage: Hernandez (-.170, 0 for 4, leaving 6 on base). Garcia had the number too, but that was because of the Bo/Lourdes collision. I guess I’d rather have both of them try for it than no one try.

And in case anyone missed it in Sports Centre and Show Me Yours...

Game Ball Fouled In The Third Inning!

[lush]

Massachusetts Exonerates the Last Salem ‘Witch’
July 29, 2022*

• It took three centuries, but an innocent woman’s name is finally cleared.

It can take a long time to get the justice you deserve. We’d say 329 years is way too long, though.

But that’s the time it took for Elizabeth Johnson, Jr., to get her name cleared of crimes she didn’t commit. Johnson was the last of the Salem “witches” who hadn’t been exonerated for making pacts with the forces of darkness.

Now, she’s finally been pardoned. Lawmakers in Massachusetts formally exonerated Johnson on May 26.

“We will never be able to change what happened to victims like Elizabeth but at the very least can set the record straight,” Massachusetts Senator Diana DiZoglio told NPR.

In total, 36 people were found guilty of witchcraft and devil worship during the Salem Witch Trials between 1692 and 1693. Out of the lot, 25 were either executed or died during imprisonment. Additionally, more than 200 people were accused of being in league with Satan.

All of them had received posthumous exonerations, though — all except Johnson. At least she’s now officially innocent, for what it’s worth.




A Victim of Circumstance

But who was Elizabeth Johnson? And what caused the people of Salem of accusing her of witchcraft?

Johnson, as far as we could find out, was born in either 1670 or 1671. She was 22 years old when accusations of witchcraft landed her in the courtroom.

What was it about Johnson that made people with she was a witch, though? The reason most likely lies in the fact that, according to testimonies, Johnson was mentally disabled.

Courthouse News Service reported that during Johnson’s trial, her grandfather described her as “simplish at the best.” A defender of the accused witches, Boston merchant Robert Calef, called Johnson and another defendant, Mary Post, “the two most senseless and ignorant creatures that can be found.”

The language Johnson’s grandfather and Calef used is insensitive by today’s standards, but Johnson clearly had some intellectual problems. They may have contributed to her confessing to devil worship and witchcraft.

In 1693, the witch courts found Johnson guilty and sentenced her to death by hanging.

Fortunately for Johnson, the sentence was never carried out. By the time she was convicted, the witch trials had started dying down as people realized that maybe they were slaughtering innocent women over nothing.

As such, then-Governor of Massachusetts William Phips threw out Johnson’s death sentence. Johnson is believed to have died of natural causes in 1774 and was buried in an unmarked grave.


Justice at Last — Thanks to Kids

In the centuries following the witch trials, all but one of the accused — including Johnson’s mother — received an official exoneration, striking their “crimes” off the record. But Johnson never received the justice she deserved.

We may never know why. DiZoglie suggests that Johnson’s mental difficulties and the fact that she never married led to people thinking she wasn’t important enough for a pardon.

However, an unexpected party picked up Johnson’s case in 2019. Carrie LaPierre, an eighth-grade civics teacher, was teaching her class about the Salem Witch Trials and Johnson’s name came up.

That gave LaPierre an idea. Her students could contact Massachusetts lawmakers and lobby for Johnson to finally receive an exoneration.

LaPierre’s kids weren’t initially that excited about trying to clear the name of a woman 300 years dead. But when local media started reporting on their class’ efforts, their interest increased exponentially.

Finally, LaPierre and the students caught DiZoglio’s ear. Some legal wrangling later, the question of Johnson’s exoneration ended up in front of the state lawmakers.

She still wasn’t important to get her own bill, though. Her pardon was part of a budget bill whose passage probably had nothing to do with Johnson.

But at least she’s officially no longer a convicted witch. LaPierre also thinks that getting Johnson’s name cleared was an important lesson for her students.

“Passing this legislation will be incredibly impactful on [the students’] understanding of how important it is to stand up for people who cannot advocate for themselves and how strong of a voice they actually have,” she said.


Forgotten by Everyone

Although Johnson’s death sentence falls under the Salem Witch Trials in the public eye, she wasn’t actually from Salem. In fact, Salem wasn’t even the hotbed of the witch hysteria.

Out of the 156 people accused of being witches in Essex County, Massachusetts, only 12 were actually from Salem. The supposed witches were from all over the surrounding towns, but the largest number of trials took place in Andover, 15 miles northwest of Salem.

In Andover, the authorities accused 45 people of witchery. One of them was Johnson, who lived in the town.

Salem has become synonymous with the witch hunts for a couple of reasons. As the county seat, Salem was where the trials and executions took place.

Additionally, Salem has happily embraced the injustice of its past because it’s good for business. The witch trials draw plenty of tourists to the town.

Andover, on the other hand, has tried to sweep its witch-hunting days under the rug as much as possible. Unfortunately for Johnson, she apparently got caught by the broom as well.

“Elizabeth’s story and struggle continue to greatly resonate today. While we’ve come a long way since the horrors of the witch trials, women today still all too often find their rights challenged and concerns dismissed,” said DiZoglio.

‘Naked hermit’ who spent 29 years alone on tropical island returns for final goodbye


Masafumi Nagasaki, 87, had to come back to city life after falling ill on his remote island (Picture: Reuters)

An 87-year-old Japanese man who spent nearly three decades living on a remote island has been granted his wish to see his former home one last time.

Masafumi Nagasaki worked as a photographer before becoming fed up of civilisation in his fifties.

Leaving behind his wife and two rumoured children in 1989, he moved to Sotobanari, a densely vegetated, unpopulated 1km-wide islet with no fresh water hundreds of kilometres south of Japan’s mainland.

After 29 years of solitary living he was discovered by a local fisherman lying almost unconscious on a beach in 2018.

Doctors were brought in amid concerns for his health and found he needed hospital treatment.

On his first visit from outsiders in 2012, he said he had been living entirely off the island except for a weekly donation of water and rice cakes paid for by his family.

He told reporters at the time: ‘I don’t do what society tells me, but I do follow the rules of the natural world. You can’t beat nature so you just have to obey it completely.’

His health condition forced him to return to city life on the mainland, where the government gave him accommodation and a small amount of money to cover basic necessities.



But he struggled to make friends and was treated with ‘contempt and a little bit of fear’ by his neighbours, according to Spanish explorer Alvaro Cerezo, who discovered Masafumi some years earlier but decided to keep his life a secret.

The pensioner, who had been used to living completely naked bar a pair of sandals, managed to keep his clothes on in public.

But he showed intense frustration at the pollution caused by city living and obsessively went around collecting litter wherever he went.

He said: ‘In a quintessential society like that of the Japanese, there was hardly anyone who could either understand his eccentric way of life or his extreme desire to live naked on a desert island.’


The pensioner had been living self-sufficiently bar a small donation of rice cakes and water (Picture: Reuters)


He had to survive insect bites and intense typhoons (Picture: Reuters)

His difficulty adapting was worsened by the pandemic, which forced him to spend a large chunk of the past four years in isolation.

In a bitter twist of fate, the virus forced him to spend most of his days in a room much smaller than the tiny island where he would not have been at any risk of catching it.

Mr Cerezo added: ‘His tiny room became like his desert island where he could isolate himself, as it was the only place where he was able to live with clothes off and feel free like he did for the last 29 years.’

The 87-year-old returned to Sotonabi earlier this month with the help of Mr Cerezo’s company, Docastaway, which offers tourists ‘castaway’ experiences where they spend two to five weeks alone on deserted islands.

Footage shows Masafumi throwing his hands in the air and laughing with joy after reaching the shore.





He has now returned to the mainland city, but was ‘luckily not sad to leave’, Mr Cerezo told the New York Post.

He added: ‘It seemed he was satisfied to have had the opportunity to bid farewell to his island.

‘Perhaps in a few years from now, if he still desires to spend his last days on Sotobarani Island and feels his time is right and he is ready to depart this world, we will be there to help him undoubtedly.’

Masafumi is thought to be the longest-lasting known voluntary castaway in history.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/29/hermit-w ... ated-posts

Hot air balloon weekend festival in N.J. lifts off




The sun was creeping over the horizon Friday morning as dozens of hot air balloons launched into the sky. And just in case the real sun wasn’t ready, there was a 135-foot one, with 65-foot-wide sunglasses.

The New Jersey Lottery Sunny Days sun-shaped balloon inflated first at the New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning preview inflation and launch Friday morning at Solberg Airport in Readington.

The real sun did pop in and out of the clouds for the 6 a.m. launch, kicking off the festival which runs through July 31.
Balloon festival


Taking pictures of passengers inside the balloon before take-off. New Jersey Lottery Festival of ballooning preview at the 39th annual New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning at Solberg Airport in Readington, N.J. July, 29, 2022

Pilot Ken Loesser let his passengers walk inside the balloon and take some pictures before he heated the air up for lift-off.

The balloon festival will have up to 100 sport and specialist-shaped hot air balloons flying in mass ascension Friday night at 6:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Saturday night has an 8:30 p.m. balloon glow.

The festival has food music and entertainment over the three days.

Watch: https://www.nj.com/hunterdon/2022/07/wa ... s-off.html

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

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​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
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The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

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[ozswede]

Shakin' bacon? Belgian researchers study pigs' response to music

Scientists in Belgium are investigating a farmer's claim that different styles of music affect the behaviour of his pigs.

Piet Paesmans first noticed the phenomenon when his son started singing a tune in the barn during a sluggish insemination session his sows seemed excited and started wagging their tails.

"I thought this is too good to pass up, we should try that with the other pigs too," Paesmans told reporters from his farm halfway between Brussels and the Dutch border.



He has since created a playlist to coincide with different parts of the day, playing energetic music when he wants the pigs to be active and lullabies at the end of the day.

"Jolly dance songs are the biggest hits. They really start wagging their tails and when it's really dynamic they even start dancing around and frolicking. Rock music is too strong, they don't like it," Paesmans said.

The farmer tipped off a team of researchers who have secured 75,000 euros ($76,770) of financing from an EU fund and the Belgian region of Flanders to investigate the claims.



According to project coordinator Sander Palmans, not much is known about pigs' reaction to music but Paesmans' experience chimes with existing knowledge of the effects of sounds in general on animals.

"There is without a doubt an effect of specific noises on animals. So it's really possible that music can have the same effect," he said, adding that it could help relieve boredom which has been linked to stress.



The findings could have practical impacts for the industry as meat quality is affected by stress in animals, Paesmans said.

"A top athlete needs to be completely fit physically, but also mentally. And that's just the same for pigs. When they are slaughtered, you can see when they've had too much stress ... It's really important for the quality of the meat."

The results of the research are expected by the end of the year.