That's Using Your HeadIn the early 1930s, Hitler promised his Third Reich would stand for a thousand years, and in a few years, Germany was in ruins. Wax Hitler’s reign was even shorter.
From the very beginning, Madame Tussauds’ plan to include a wax Hitler into its new Berlin exhibit was met with controversy. It’s illegal in Germany to show Nazi symbols or glorify Hitler, and rightly so.
A few years ago, another German wax museum featured a wax Hitler, and the uproar brought the exhibit to a quick end. Madame Tussauds, however, said the museum’s aim was to depict German history - and how do you do that - they reasoned - avoid World War Two?
The museum promised sensitivity. Hitler would be depicted in his final days, a broken man on the verge of suicide, locked in a bunker as his twisted society was about to collapse.
Jewish groups were brought in to consult on the exhibit, and they voiced their approval. Still, on the museum’s first day, a 41-year-old man pushed passed two security guards, and ripped Adolf’s head off.
Richard Basler at Reuter’s Oddly Enough captures the “Big Furor Over Waxy Fuehrer” – and points out that guards remained on duty, even after Germany’s former head of state lost his head.
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Compelling Explanations
Lame: Ex-convict John Stephens told a Floyd County (Indiana) judge in December that he had a full-time job and intended to turn his life around, but had slipped when he tried to rob the Your Community Bank. "If I hadn't been watching the news and seeing (other successful) bank robberies," he said, he wouldn't have been tempted. He said he was especially impressed by one serial robber, who had made it look easy by vaulting over banks' counters. [WKLY-TV (Louisville, Ky.), 12-23-09]
In Kansas City, Mo., in December, the mother of Charles Irving tried to protect her 27-year-old son from a charge of being a felon in possession of a gun. She told police (without success) that he had needed the gun to protect her from vampires. [Kansas City Star, 12-8-09]
Rod Jetton, a former speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives and creator of Common Sense Conservative Consulting, LLC, was charged with felony assault in December after visiting a woman in her home in Sikeston, apparently for a sexual encounter. The woman later charged that Jetton punched her in the head and choked her into unconsciousness as his idea of foreplay, but Jetton said the "assault" was consensual, in that she was to utter a pre-arranged "safe word (phrase)" if things got too rough and that he would have immediately stopped. Jetton told police that the woman never spoke the agreed-on phrase "green balloons." [Kansas City Star, 12-7-09]
Copenhagen, one of the "greenest" cities in the world, endured an added 41,000 extra tons of carbon-dioxide-equivalent in December during the 11-day "climate summit." The 15,000 delegates required 2,000 limousines (only five of which were electric or hybrid) to get around town, and the world leaders arrived and departed in 140 private jets, some of which had to be "parked" overnight in Sweden because of airport congestion. [Daily Telegraph (London), 12-5-09]
In December, Obama administration officials, seeking to fulfill a campaign pledge of a more open federal government, held a multi-agency training session in Washington, D.C., on the Freedom of Information Act. The meeting was closed to the public. [Star Tribune (Minneapolis)-AP, 12-9-09]
A central purpose of the California Milk Board is to convince consumers to buy local dairy products to keep the spending in-state to help California's farmers, but the board acknowledged in November that its promotion campaign's advertising contract had gone to an agency in New Zealand. Said a board official: "We have a ... responsibility to spend (taxpayers') hard-earned dollars as efficiently as we can." [Los Angeles Times, 11-13-09]
The huge, $27 million statue ("African Renaissance") being built in Dakar, Senegal, was conceived to boost tourism and be a point of African pride, acting as a magnet for visitors and museum-goers. Problems have arisen (the statue was built by North Korean labor, has no distinct African theme, and features a female who reveals perhaps too much thigh). However, according to a November BBC News dispatch, Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade remains optimistic and has declared that, though the concept was his idea, he personally will magnanimously take only 35 percent of the revenue streams generated from visitors. [BBC News, 11-16-09; The Guardian, 1-5-10]
By 2004 presidential proclamation and 2007 statute, the U.S. government made it clear that no foreign official or family members would be allowed into the country if they are "involved in corruption" regarding oil or other natural resources in their home countries. However, as The New York Times reported in November, Equatorial Guinea's oil minister (and son of its president) owns a $35 million estate in Malibu, Calif., that he visits regularly in his Gulfstream jet even though the U.S. Justice Department regards him as a major agent of corruption. (U.S. companies manage Equatorial Guinea's oil production, and the State Department, even now, is reluctant to challenge the country, according to officials cited by the Times.) [New York Times, 11-17-09]
In Morehead, Ky., in December, two men, ages 44 and 18, were charged with theft for allegedly swiping an 18-inch-long bearded dragon lizard from the Eagles Landing Pet Hospital and trying, in two beverage stores, to exchange it for liquor. [WHAS-TV (Louisville), 12-22-09]
Daniel Gable, 61, was arrested for breaking and entering a neighbor's apartment in Fargo, N.D., in December. He had triggered the resident's "burglar alarm," which consisted of the stack of empty beer cans the resident places just inside his front door every night. [Fargo Forum, 12-30-09]
Lawyer Christopher Carroll was charged with misdemeanor battery in December for forcefully belly-bumping lawyer Jonathan Carbary during a courthouse hallway argument in St. Charles Township, Ill. Carroll said it was an accident: "We're both obese, middle-aged men." [Suburban Chicago News, 12-24-09]
In August 1993, Pentecostal preacher Sammy Rodriguez, 29, and 19 relatives from Floydada, Texas, set out in one vehicle on a pilgrimage, but as they passed through Vinton, La., Rodriguez sped away from police trying to make a traffic stop. When the chase ended, police discovered that all 20 people in the vehicle were naked. Rodriguez explained that the Holy Spirit had ordered him and his family on a journey and that they were to leave behind all possessions (supposedly to confuse Satan), which Rodriguez took to mean clothing, also. He pleaded guilty to the traffic charge, and, with donated clothing, the group went on their way. [Washington Post, 8-26-93]
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1 comment:
Dude, thanks for linking to my Oddly Enough blog. Please come back often...
bests,
Bob Basler
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