Sometimes the news is funnier than a comedy special and as weird as Ripley's. If you tried to make up the following news items from this week, people would not believe you. But in fact, these tidbits of information are actually items coming from the Associated Press wire about your fellow Americans. I'm sure it will make you proud.
Let's start in Miami where a nursing home has accused union organizers of using voodoo to scare Haitian-American employees into joining the union. The nursing home earlier this year said that union organizers were planting lines of pennies and half-empty water cups in a effort to convince the Haitian employees that voodoo was at work in the nursing home. Apparently the voodoo either worked or didn't, depending on your position. The workers voted to join the union and federal officials have denied an attempt to overturn the vote.
I'm sure you heard Tuesday about the Boston surgeon who left the operating room in the middle of surgery to make a bank deposit. If Letterman had concocted the story you wouldn't believe it. But in fact, the surgeon said he was facing a "financial crisis" and when handed his paycheck in the operating room, he took a 35-minute "break" and dashed to the bank. That just proves that physicians are more concerned with their bank loans than with trial lawyers. A lawsuit is inevitable.
But there's more.
Over the years you've undoubtedly heard of countless manufacturer's recalls from swingsets to lawnmowers. Well here's a new twist. A medical center in Galveston, Texas, is recalling body parts sent to research institutions around the country because of the fear of AIDS or other infections. It seems that the body parts - feet, knees, and elbows - were used in tissue transplants. But someone forgot to run a series of tests and, as a result, the medical center feared the tissue might be contaminated. Thus the first in the nation body parts recall.
Voters in Florida, who are trying to unseat California as the weird capital of the nation, have an interesting question on the November ballot. With almost 500,000 signatures, the issue would make it unconstitutional to cage pregnant pigs in Florida. Though not one pig farmer in the state uses the method and despite the fact that Florida raises few pigs, the animal rights activists got to work collecting signatures and now Florida voters can vote in favor of free range pregnant pigs.
These are but a few of the oddities that greet our world everyday. And you thought your life was weird? Not by a long shot!