Monday 10/6/08

Human Interest News   —   Posted on October 6, 2008

By The Editors of WorldMag.com

Rowing her boat
It took her 99 days to row from San Francisco to Hawaii, but distance rower Roz Savage isn’t even half-way done. After successfully rowing the Atlantic in 2005, Savage set out on May 25 to row across the Pacific Ocean. Landing on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu finished just the first portion of a three-part journey of about 7,200 miles. For the first leg of the trip, Savage stowed a pair of laptops and four iPods filled with audiobooks to break up the monotony of her voyage. She says she will embark on the next leg of her journey, designed to raise awareness of ocean litter, next spring.

Sandwich ruse
Nothing can ruin a lunch hour faster than discovering some unknown perpetrator has stolen your ham-and-cheese right out of the office refrigerator. Sherwood Forlee thinks he has a solution. The New York–based design engineer is trying to market a sandwich bag that camouflages a normal sandwich as a moldy disgusting sandwich by painting on translucent green splotches on the bag to ward off would-be lunch thieves.

Bird house
Trouble came into the lives of Don and Fran Roy of Manchester, N.H., and is refusing to leave. That’s because Trouble is the name the Roys have given to a homing pigeon that has made their house its home. They’ve tried to throw the pigeon into the air, but Trouble swoops around the yard and then returns. From an identification band, the Roys have traced the bird to Dan Sizczynski, of Dingmans Ferry, Pa., but he says he gave the bird, along with dozens of others, away, and he isn’t sure to whom. No animal shelter has been willing to take Trouble. “We’re worried about it,” Fran Roy told the New Hampshire Union Leader. “We haven’t the heart to take her out in the wild and let her go.”

Crazy talk
In terms of outrageous Detroit politicians, City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers has a long way to go-but she’s off to a good start. Walking out of an elevator in a Detroit courthouse, Conyers began screaming at news media that had assembled in the lobby. “You are all evil! Please leave me alone!” she shouted at reporters who had not even asked a question yet. Conyers has had altercations with other city officials, but she’ll have to step up her antics to match those of disgraced former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was forced to resign from office on Sept. 18 in connection with two guilty pleas to felony charges of obstruction of justice.