- Take a deep breath, relax and put down that collapsible
riot baton you’ve been carrying with you for protection, Tampa Bay residents,
because the elusive “Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay” has finally been caught. The
mischievous member of the rhesus macaques species has been tormenting the collective psyche of
this quiet community for weeks, but a local veterinarian finally snagged the
elusive creature. Dr. Don Woodman finally corralled the monkey Wednesday and fired
the tranquilizer dart that brought the primate down. For three long years, the
threat of this terrifying money has been hanging overhead in Tampa Bay and now,
the nightmare is over.
"We know he's been hanging around the Tampa area
for roughly three years," Woodman said. "We've been chasing him for
three years." As Woodman exited the facility where the mystery monkey was
taken, local media swarmed around him with questions and members of the
community also stopped by to see if they could catch a glimpse of the critter. Woodman
plans to take blood from the monkey and test to make sure the animal is healthy
and not suffering from any diseases. Part of the reason for the testing is to
make sure that a woman who was scratched by the monkey after it jumped her
doesn’t have anything to worry about from a health standpoint. Once the testing
is complete, animal tracker Vernon Yates and Woodman plan to find the monkey a
good home. Neither man believes there is any reason to put the monkey down, but
after the reign of terror he has carried out in the past three years, it may be
a good idea to reconsider that plan……..
- A small number of successful athletes – especially boxers –
have long had ties to the dirty – literally – and lowbrow “sport” of
cockfighting. Taking two roosters, strapping razorblades to their feet and
betting on which one of them will peck and slash the other one to death has
appealed to a handful of boxers, including multi-time champions Roy Jones Jr.
and Manny Pacquiao. Jones said a few years ago that he raised roosters and
fought them as a way to relax away from the ring and Pacquiao renounced the
sport earlier this year as part of his efforts to clean up his life and save
his marriage. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is going the other direction
and raising chickens not to fight them, but because he likes them and wants to
keep them safe. As Radiohead tours the United Kingdom in support of their
latest album, “The King of Limbs,” Greenwood sat down for an interview and
admitted that he
enjoys looking after chickens in his spare time. He expressed anger over the
damage a local fox has done to his animals in recent years and said that
although his chickens are reliable egg-layers, rogue foxes can inflict “crime
scene” if they get into the coup. “The chickens are OK. Pretty good layers. Eggs
taste great," Greenwood said. “We get foxes every few years and it all
goes a bit ‘crime scene’ when that happens – lots of burials.” The good news is
that unlike Jones and Pacquiao’s interactions with chickens, at least
Greenwood’s fowls are merely dying when nature runs its course………
- Flipboard is turning over a new leaf in its quest to
become the next big “must-have” app for smartphones. Known as the app that
turns news items into more visually appealing content, Flipboard has evolved by
adding audio
support to its Android version. Beginning Thursday, the app's users will be
able to add audio content from sources like National Public Radio and Public
Radio International to their news mix. The app can also be connected to a
SoundCloud account so sounds can be shared with others and after launching the
Android version Thursday, the Flipboard development team announced in a blog
post that the audio feature will be added to versions of Flipboard for the
Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle "in a few days.” Flipboard
first dinged the technological radar when it debuted for the iPad in 2010, but
it didn’t debut for the Android OS until June of this year. It is also integrated
with Google's social network, which means users’ Google+ activity – for the
five Google employees who use Google+ and only then because they are corporate
forced to – also appears in Flipboard's magazine-style format. If anyone
actually used Google+, they would be able to interact directly with Google +
from within the app and perform tasks such as +1-ing a posting (the Google+
equivalent of a Facebook "like") as well as share, comment or reply
to postings. Flipboard’s audio component was introduced to Flipboard's iOS apps
in May and adding that new aspect isn’t just a blatant cash grab on Flipboard’s
part – although it is that. The change also makes the app accessible to
visually impaired users when they turn on the VoiceOver features in an iOS
device and the gestures to control Flipboard change and everything on pages is
read aloud. Simply tap a title on a page and it would be read aloud. Maybe this
isn’t such a terrible idea……….
- Someone should tell Washington Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall that it’s a
terrible, delusional and just plain pathetic look for nine-year veteran and
former Pro Bowl starter to refuse to give credit to an opponent who flat-out
beat him. Hall was one of a trio of Redskins defensive backs left grapsing and
air and attempting futilely to bring down Giants receiver Victor Cruz after
Cruz hauled in a 77-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Eli Manning and making
a house call that gave the Giants a 27-23 lead with 1:13 left in the game.
Manning’s long bomb to Cruz came just 19 seconds of game time after Washington's
Robert Griffin III put his team on top with an excellent TD pass of his own to
receiver Santana Moss. Manning responded with a great throw, Cruz made the
catch and then simply outran Hall and the other Redskins chasing him and
recorded the game-winning score. Hall remains unconvinced that anything special
happened. "We tried to vary it as much as possible," Hall said. "I
feel we gave him that play. We just had one guy set his feet and one guy not do
this. I could have thrown that ball and he would have scored. It wasn't
something where he was a rocket scientist and he figured something out. We just
played that as bad as possible." In other words, we beat ourselves and the
Giants didn’t beat us. It sounded eerily like the sour grapes spewed earlier
this year by Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews, who said the Packers
beat themselves during their playoff loss to the Giants last season and refused
to give the Giants credit. Hall, who has been burned dozens of times during his
career and should be used to it by now, followed suit and Manning had a little
something for him when those comments got back to him. "I appreciate him
giving it to me," the two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback deadpanned.
"Thank you. No, I didn't think it took a rocket scientist to figure it
out, either. We had a guy running open and you hit him. It doesn't bother me.
If that is the way they want to put it in their heads, then that is fine."
Manning is funny that way because he’s so low-key that even when he’s insulting
and disrespecting someone who is clearly being an idiot and a sore loser, he
barely raises his voice or cracks a smile. Maybe Hall should take notes………
- Berlin
already had one Holocaust memorial, the Memorial to the Murder Jews of Europe,
but Germany’s capital city now has another one after Chancellor Angela Merkel
and other dignitaries gathered on Wednesday to christen a memorial in
the heart of Berlin to the 500,000 ethnic Sinti and Roma murdered by the Nazis.
With the official opening of the memorial, Germany remembered the Holocaust's
forgotten victims. A violin soloist played a mournful song and political
leaders and survivors approached a dark pool close to the German parliament
building, the Reichstag. "This memorial commemorates a group of victims
who, for far too long, received far too little public recognition — the many
hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma who were persecuted by the Nazis as
so-called gypsies," Merkel said. "The destiny of every single person
murdered in this genocide is one of unspeakable suffering. Every single
destiny, fills us, fills me, with sadness and shame." Her reference to gypsies made note of
the designation the Roma have been given by many across Europe as they show up
in major cities and around popular tourist attractions begging for money. The
memorial is something of a living entity, as a fresh flower will be placed on
the triangular surface at the center of the reflecting pool every day. Israeli
artist Dani Karavan designed the memorial and a chronology of the Nazis'
extermination campaign appears next to the reflecting pool. The Nazi regime not
only persecuted Jews, but also took discrimination against Sinti and Roma to
alarming levels during the 19300s. These groups were sent to concentration
camps and from 1934, subjected to forced sterilization as a result of the
Nazis' "racial purity" laws. When they were sent to death camps, they
were forced to wear uniforms bearing a "Z" for "Zigeuner"
(the German word for "gypsy"). It wasn’t until 1982 that a German recognized
Nazi persecution of the Roma on racist grounds leader even , more than 30 years
after West Germany acknowledged the murder of 6 million Jews and began to pay
compensation to Israel. Both German politicians and Roma leaders attended the ceremony
and many spoke about the discrimination social exclusion and abject poverty Europe's
12 million Roma face today………
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