Kristin AddisThe first time it happened haphazardly. I was in my early 20s. A friend and I deplaned at Liberia, a tiny airport in Costa Rica, thinking we could get a bus to our next destination. We emerged from the gate confused and lost, seeing that there were no buses around. Desperation started to well…
via This Woman Hitchhiked Around the World (And Lived to Tell the Tale) — Thought Catalog
#Kristin Addis#travels#world#hitchhiked#beatnikhiway.com#ana_christy
A tiny bit of compassion can have a huge impact.
Two weeks ago, Ehab Taha, a 26-year-old from Canada, was riding public transit in Metro Vancouver when a large man he described on Facebook as “suffering from drug abuse and\or mental health issues” became aggressive in his train car.
The man was alarming fellow passengers “with erratic movements, cursing, shouting” until a 70-year-old woman decided to reach out and help him by extending her hand and grabbing his.
EHAB TAHAThe sweet gesture soothed the man. Eventually he sank to the floor of the train as tears flooded his eyes.
“It was quite incredible how much he calmed down in a split moment,” Taha toldHuffPost Canada. “It was the most touching thing I’ve ever seen.”
Moved by “the incredible display of humanity,” Taha snapped a picture of the two holding hands and posted it to Facebook.
“I spoke to the woman after this incident and she simply said, ‘I’m a mother and he needed someone to touch.’ And she started to cry,” he wrote in the caption for the photo.
Although the woman felt a great amount of empathy for the man, like most, she was initially petrified to interfere.
“She was very brave,” Taha hold HuffPost Canada. “She even mentioned that she thought about what would happen if he stabbed her with the pen — because he had one in his hand — but she said it was more important he didn’t feel alone.”
#metro_canada#subway#acts_of_kindness#ana_christy#beatnikhiway.com#drug_abusive
This woman knits cosy hats and jumpers for homeless greyhounds at Christmas
Alison Lynch for Metro.co.ukWednesday 2 Dec 2015 8:27 am
This woman knits cosy hats and jumpers for homeless greyhounds at Christmas
Just some greyhounds in Christmas hats (Picture: Caters)
Dog lover Jan Brown (aka Knitty Jan) has spent more than 4,000 hours knitting cosy hats, jumpers and snoods for homeless greyhounds.
Fifty-two-year-old mum Jan from Seaburn in Sunderland, started making her cheery knits five years ago and has now hand-knitted over 300 jumpers for abandoned dogs.
Each one is made with love and can take her up to 20 hours to complete.
She started knitting her woolly hats, scarves and jumpers for Greyhound Rescue Northeast, a small family-run rescue centre based in Tyne & Wear, in 2008. They rescue retired greyhounds, whippets and the odd lurcher and find them new homes.
Caters 3
This guy LOVES his pom pom hat (Picture: Caters)
To keep up with demand, Jan quit her job in 2012 and started knitting full-time. She now sells her knits to dog owners around the world, via her Knitted With Love website, with all profits going towards supplying jumpers to rescue centres across the UK, free of charge.
Kerry Elliman from the Birmingham Greyhounds Protection says her help is invaluable: ‘Jan’s been absolutely amazing for us – she’s saved us a lot of money that we need to spend on vet bills for our greyhounds.’
At Christmas, Jan ramps up the festive knits, making Father Christmas outfits, woolly antlers and Christmas hats for the pups.
‘I can’t think of anything I would rather do than knit woolly clothing for dogs,’ Jan says. ‘I have spent over 4,000 hours knitting but it’s all worthwhile when I see them sporting their new jumpers and hats.
PIC FROM CATERS NEWS – (PICTURED: Australian customer Donna Matthews with her pets and jumpers ) – Meet the mum who spends more than 4,000 hours knitting Christmassy jumpers for abandoned dogs. Jan Brown, 52, from Seaburn, Sunderland, has hand-knitted more than 300 of her festive designs to give a warm woolly gift to homeless greyhounds at Christmas. Each jumper can take the up to 20 hours to complete and are sent to pet rescue centres across the country. Since starting five years ago she has made Father Christmas outfits, antlers to even woolly hats, scarves and snoods for dogs as well as reconditioning old blankets into coats. SEE CATERS COPY.
Australian customer Donna Matthews with her dogs in their knits (Picture: Caters)
‘It’s really sweet seeing them in their festive Christmas jumpers and it’s giving much needed help to the rescue centres,’ she adds, explaining: ‘Greyhounds have very thin fur so they really feel the cold during the winter so my gifts help keep them warm during walks.
‘There are so many dogs that won’t be rehomed this Christmas so for many of them it’s the only gift they will get.’
#greyhounds#knitting#hats and jumpers#donna matthews,#ana_christy
Photos by Ben Ritter
I was recently asked by our global editor to track down a burqa for a music video we were planning to shoot, I guess because I’m the fashion editor. I didn’t know a thing about Islamic clothing—or that you can’t just go to the burqa shop and get one. Turns out it’s a giant pain in the ass. But I did find the one I wanted, eventually.
As I scrolled through countless websites looking for hijabs, niqabs, khimars, abayas, jilbabs, and other religious-tinged garments, I began to notice that no one has anything positive to say about any of them. Nearly every news story I’ve ever read with the word burqa in it labels the garments as oppressive to women, and the only articles I found by females who’d actually worn them had been written about their experiences walking the streets of Muslim countries.
After watching 74 YouTube videos and parsing 108 Google search pages, I couldn’t find one article or video explaining if burqas were comfortable or how Americans reacted to seeing someone resembling the Grim Reaper float by them in line at Starbucks. I figured that the only way I’d really know what life was like for women who have been consigned to wear the least-revealing piece of clothing of all time was to dress up as one of them.
My little fashion-cum-social experiment started when Ben Ritter arrived to photograph me as I figured out how to assemble my burqa. There were a number of different types available online from various countries, and for whatever reason I decided to go with the Saudi Arabian variant. Saudi burqas consist of five pieces and seemed in much more in line with my idea of a “proper” burqa than the Afghan version with bedazzled “fashion sleeves.”
My dog Bowie was really confused by my outfit. The only other time I’d seen her this freaked out by me was when I dressed up as a pregnant nun on Halloween.
The final look. We hadn’t left my house but I was already bitching about how hot it was. I wanted to go naked under the abaya but since burqas are supposed to be outwear, I wore it over a crop top and the shortest shorts I could find in my closet.
Walking around the East Village or Brooklyn surrounded by people we knew seemed like a waste of time, so we hopped on a train uptown to pretend we were tourists. No one really paid much attention to me except the woman on the bench behind me who was sitting with her children. She dragged them to the other end of the platform when she saw me step onto the train. What a bitch!
Oh you know, just hanging out with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones (and Allah) on the subway platform.
When we got out of the subway it started to rain really hard. Lucky for me, I didn’t need an umbrella—one of the few pluses of wearing a burqa. I’m a native New Yorker, which means I had never been to the Empire State Building. So we went there. I didn’t realize the significance of visiting one of the tallest buildings in New York dressed in Islamic garb until we reached the entrance. I felt like a jerk.
Once we reached the roof things got really uncomfortable. I could tell all the foreigners were talking shit about me in their native tongues. The group behind me also followed us around, presumably because we were taking so many photos.
While I posed for pictures we noticed that one of the security guards was following us around. I guess he was trying to figure out if we were pulling some stupid stunt (we were) or casing the joint (we were not).
We ended up taking one of those cheesy green screen photos before we left. The girl in charge of the booth said we didn’t have to have our picture taken if we didn’t want to. This annoyed me, so we jumped right in and made her snap one. Doesn’t Ben look like he just married a virgin?
When scaring tourists got boring, we decided to walk further uptown to Central Park in an attempt to bother some locals. The burqa was dragging through puddles so I ended up having to hold the front with both hands. Although completely inconvenient, it wasn’t all that bad and I found myself pretending I was a dainty princess in an elegant gown.
A big gust of wind nearly blew me down the block. I caught my reflection in a doorway and thought I looked like Batman, so I made Ben take a picture. All of the cold air blowing through the sleeves of the khimar felt really good.
I had to keep taking breaks to rest. The rain had stopped and it was so humid I was starting to sweat in places I’d never sweat before. If I had to wear something like this in the desert I would most likely die…
I wanted to fulfill a life-long fantasy of running through Sheep Meadow, but it was closed so we decided to shoot by the pond instead. It was such a pity because all of the layers I was wearing made me feel like Kate Bush; we could have gotten some amazing burqa-dance photos.
The most important thing I learned during the day was how to smile with my eyes. I hate smiling but assumed no one wanted to see an angry bitch in a burqa, so I put in the extra effort. Nice, huh?
Eventually I had to give up on the smiling because I started breathing like Johnny Depp’s mom inWhat’s Eating Gilbert Grape. The fact that the park smelled like wet horseshit didn’t help.
“I’m. Over. This.”
I was starving and couldn’t eat a hot dog, so I made the horrible choice of trying to eat an ice-cream bar. It was a stressful experience for me, but passing park-goers were happy to watch me struggle as I lifted the mouth flap ever so shyly to shove ice cream in my face. I didn’t want to give any of those creeps the satisfaction of snapping a photo so I ate it as fast as I could and got ice cream all over the inside of the niqab. It was disgusting.
Six hours later, after a number of complications, I finally ripped the goddamn thing off. I’ve never been so happy to go home.
At the end of the day I was proud of what I’d accomplished. Not only did I face up to some of my own fears by putting myself on display, I’d also learned to be more conscious of the way I treat people on the street, no matter how they’re dressed or what they look like.
Eight out of ten people that I came in contact with while wearing a burqa acted as if I didn’t even exist, which actually made feel worse than the looks I received from busybodies who were offended by my presence. I have a newfound respect for the women who chose to wear these kinds of garments, but I will never do anything like this ever again because it suckkkkked.
UPDATE: A Response to the Detractors of Our Burqa-for-a-day Article (Spoiler: We’re not sorry.)
Updated: 15 Aug 2014 13:55 GMT+02:00
After a baggage search revealed nothing, female officers conducted a body search of the 43-year-old woman and discovered “certain irregularities and deformations in both breasts”.
At that moment, the suspect started to act nervously and “confessed that she was carrying implants with cocaine inside,” the statement said.
The woman was taken to a hospital where the implants were removed and found to contain 1.7 kilos (3.74 pounds) of the drug.
Although unusual, it is not the first time Spanish police have seen drug smugglers using breast implants to try to beat detection.
In December 2012, a Panamanian woman arriving in Barcelona from Bogota was found with 1.4 kilos of cocaine in her fake breasts. Her recent insertion wounds were still bleeding under bandages.
Other techniques have included drugs hidden under wigs, mixed into a cast put on a leg, and shaped and hardened into crockery.
Spain has a special police unit that checks “hot flights” from major drug-trafficking countries.
So far this year, in Madrid airport alone, the squad has seized around 500 kilos of cocaine and six kilos of heroin, and had made 189 arrests.
For more stories about Spain, join us on Facebook and Twitter
FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — A Frederick, Maryland, woman says she was served a bag of marijuana with her fast-food order at a Sonic drive-in.
The Frederick News-Post (http://bit.ly/1yTXRXX ) reported Friday that Carla McFarland says she found the little plastic baggie in a container along with the French fries she bought Wednesday in Frederick.
McFarland says she complained to a manager and called police. She says a manager later told her an employee had been fired after saying the bag must have slipped from her apron.
Franchise owner John Louderback confirms that the employee no longer works there.
The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office says it’s investigating the matter.
McFarland isn’t laughing. She says her two young children were in the car, within easy reach of the bag.
Sonic Corp. is based in Oklahoma City.
ORLANDO, FL (WKMG/CBS) – Tavish Smith might be the happiest and friendliest arrestee, but the night she arrested was no laughing matter.
WATCH THE WOMAN EATING POT IN THE BACK OF THE PATROL CAR
VIDEO:
Video:
A woman is caught on camera eating marijuana in the back of a patrol car!
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid2810881984001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAACCtbLTE~,Euz3dgEqY7HHnml0C4H3s_4ESNnSUNZS&bclid=0&bctid=3639158524001
After crashing her truck, driving down the wrong way of a highway she crashed again.
Police surveillance showed Smith wiggling out of her handcuffs, reaching into the front seat and stealing the sandwich bag the trooper found in her car.
“Good ole marijuana, right there in the passenger’s seat,” the trooper said. “My car’s smelling like the stuff you had in your seat.”
When she couldn’t get back into her handcuff, that’s when she’s busted.
“Do you have your handcuffs in front already?” The trooper asked. “Did you slip out?”
Smith said no.
“I could have sworn I just saw you scratch your nose,” the trooper said.
“Oh yeah I did,” Smith said.
“Stay in your handcuffs please,” the trooper said. “I hope that’s not why this marijuana bag was open over here. “Bags of weed just don’t go missing inside a police car.”
Her misdemeanor charges for minor hit-and-run, DUI and drug possession were bumped up to a felony for eating the evidence.
After an evening out drinking, a Tennessee woman became so angry with her live-in boyfriend for failing to make a McDonald’s pit stop that she struck him three times with his own vehicle.
Crystal Greer Brooks, 33, Santiago Hernandez, 41, and a second man were traveling in Hernandez’s truck early Thursday morning when Brooks got mad because “they didn’t stop at McDonald’s,” according to a Kingsport Police Department report.
Brooks demanded that Hernandez pull over. When he complied, Brooks replaced him in the driver’s seat of the Chevrolet S-10. While Hernandez was standing in front of the truck, Brooks drove into him, knocking the father of her child to the ground. She then “pulled forward and struck him 2 more times with the truck,” police charge.
A responding officer noted that Hernandez had abrasions on his arm and back, and his “clothing appeared torn, consistent with being dragged on the pavement.” Brooks denied plowing into Hernandez, claiming that he had actually jumped on the truck’s hood.
Seen in the above booking photo, Brooks was arrested for aggravated assault and booked into the Sullivan County jail, where she remains in custody.
MOST people seek advice in paying off debts but one woman tried to get out of paying them by having a SEX CHANGE.
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By Andy Wells/Published 29th January 2014
DRASTIC: The woman became a man in an attempt to avoid paying back debts [GETTY]
At her wits end, she made the dramtic decision to have a complete sex change operation in an attempt to become a different person and avoid having to make the repayments.
Bailiffs said: “The debtor changed gender to try to escape liabilities.
“During our investigation, we found out that the woman doesn’t exist anymore, and now a man exists.”
Now a man called Andrian, he got a new passport with completely different details and managed to borrow even more money.
“If a debtor thinks he can escape that way, he’s very much mistaken”
Bailiff spokeswoman Yevgenia Zarynsh
However, he will still have to pay the debts back, despite his decision to change sex.
Bailiff spokeswoman Yevgenia Zarynsh added to AFP: “He will be liable all the same, despite the gender change.
“It’s futile. He’ll still have to pay them back.
“If a debtor thinks he can escape that way, he’s very much mistaken.”
Andrian, who has built up more debts in the form of unpaid taxes, is still on the run.
A New York City gossip reporter revealed herself today to be the woman behind 300 Sandwiches, a food blog she started because her boyfriend once told her that if she made him 300 sandwiches, he’d buy her an engagement ring. So why isn’t this already a terrible straight-to-Blockbuster movie starring overgrown Disney Channel stars? Probably because a movie about Stephanie Smith’s arrangement with her boyfriend sounds — how do I put this gently — like a bit of a shit sandwich.
Stephanie Smith’s attempts to pass her boyfriends demands as somehow cute, like a big-eyed puppy in a vest scratching the door to go outside, only serve to make her situation sound worse. Here’s Smith explaining, in her own words, the adorawful way the 300 Sandwiches Sammichesproject came about.
Each morning, he would ask, “Honey, how long you have been awake?”
“About 15 minutes,” I’d reply.
“You’ve been up for 15 minutes and you haven’t made me a sandwich?”
To him, sandwiches are like kisses or hugs. Or sex. “Sandwiches are love,” he says. “Especially when you make them. You can’t get a sandwich with love from the deli.”
“You’ve been up for 15 minutes and you haven’t made me a sandwich?” is bound to go down in history as one of the great lines of romantic prose. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? I don’t know, can the summer’s day make me a fucking sandwich?
But maybe I’m rushing to judgment. Maybe things get better as the article progresses (spoiler alert: things will not). Take it away, Ms. Smith:
Eric devoured the sandwich as if it were a five-star meal, diving in with large, eager bites. “Babes, this is delicious!” he exclaimed.
As he finished that last bite, he made an unexpected declaration of how much he loved me and that sandwich: “Honey, you’re 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring!”
I paused.
Was our happily ever after as simple as making him a few sandwiches?
This is the exact plot of that controversial unaired episode of Sex and the City when Samantha talks the gals into getting that hot new designer lobotomy and Charlotte somehow ends up with a MacArthur Genius Grant and Carrie becomes a Scientologist before they convince Big to get their brain parts back.
So, to fast forward through more of Stephanie Smith trying to pass off a guy who sounds like a less funny MegaDick version of Daniel Tosh as her Prince Charming, we get to the whole reason Smith wanted an engagement ring in the first place: Because It’s Time. Because if you don’t get married, even if you’re happily partnered with a sandwich-obsessed douchebag, when you turn 40 you collapse in on your own barren womb and form a pulsating spinster star from which not even light can escape.
Ten sandwiches or so in, I did the math. Three sandwiches a week, times four weeks a month, times 12 months a year, meant I wouldn’t be done until I was deep into my 30s. How would I finish 300 sandwiches in time for us to get engaged, married and have babies before I exited my childbearing years?
My mother was the voice of reason. “Relationships are a marathon, not a sprint,” she said. “Take it one sandwich at a time.”
I made sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. I made sandwiches to get myself out of the doghouse — like No. 67, a scrambled egg, smoked salmon and chive creation that combined some of Eric’s favorite things to make up for my being 45 minutes late for dinner the night before.
Hurry, hurry, hurry! Must rush to be impregnated with the seed of a man who uses the word “Babes” as a pet name! Must pop out babies that are half you half him! The world needs more of that guy! Make copies of yourselves! Make so many copies!
Despite her embarrassing efforts, Smith isn’t quite there yet; her piece is called “I’m 124 sandwiches away from an engagement ring!” and the whole thing reads like it’s written in the voice of a realtor headshot. Everything’s great! Everything’s so great!
Today, I’ve made and blogged about 176 sandwiches. Over the months, my creations have grown more complex — lobster rolls, bánh mìs, pulled pork. No matter what’s on the menu, Eric smiles and says thank you. He’s just happy I cook for him at all.
“You women read all these magazines to get advice on how to keep a man, and it’s so easy,” he says. “We’re not complex. Just do something nice for us. Like make a sandwich.”
That settles it. Eric, spokesperson for men everywhere, has declared it: all women have needed to do this whole time is make sandwiches. Every magazine that you gals like to read can go ahead and close up shop; MEN HAVE BEEN SOLVED BY ERIC THE SANDWICH WHORE.
Even though we now know, collectively as a Lady Monolith, how to please men, collectively as a Man Monolith, a few loose ends were left untied in Smith’s piece. Namely: how complicated a sandwich are we talking here? Would Eric still light up Stephanie’s ring finger if she just half assed the last 124 sandwiches by making him a pile of peanut butter on folded bread monstrosities? What is the minimum number of ingredients required for Eric to count it as 1/300th an engagement ring? Are there any substitutions for sandwichmaking? What’s the sandwich-to-blowjob conversion rate (my boss suggested that 1 BJ is worth 2 4-or-more-ingredient sandwiches; I’m inclined to agree)?
But I’m optimistic that these two crazy kids can make it work. After all, if a relationship between two thirtysomethings can’t thrive on a combination of desperation and entitlement, then what hope do any of the rest of us have?
(Final sandwich suggestion: 2 slices of sourdough bread with a positive pregnancy test in the middle.)
[NYPost]
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