True Stories: Pagan holidays, stupid criminals, heroic animals

You can’t say it’s been a slow news week. The pope retires, the president gives the state of the union address, people you’ve never heard of are given Grammy awards. There even was a giant meteor that hit Russia, knocked down buildings and caused injuries to a few hundred people. (Say, wasn’t that how the zombie apocalypse was supposed to start?)

Then, there was the cruise ship that was left adrift with no air conditioning, no working toilets and accommodations normally reserved to Somalian refugees.

I hope they at least kept the bars open. Let’s not forget the manhunt for the rogue cop in California, soon to be a TV movie no doubt.

And in Britain, a European food company has been making frozen lasagne with horse meat and selling it as beef.

With these in the mainstream news, you’d think it would be hard to find stranger ones out there, but there have been even odder new stories, the ones I like to call True Stories.

But what about Festivus? Out of Missouri comes word that the University of Missouri has added Wiccan and Pagan holidays to the list of days when tests shouldn’t be scheduled. According to a Fox News report, it’s an effort by the university to cover everyone’s beliefs and make accommodations for all religions. So, along with Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah, the University of Missouri now recognizes Samhain, Beltane, Ostara, Mabon and Chinese New Year as special days on which not to schedule exams or use as deadlines.

Stupid criminal No. 1. At Batesville, an officer was driving past a house when he noticed a vehicle parked in back that struck him as suspicious, so he stopped and got out. As he was walking around to the front of the house, the officer encountered a man with a bag. Asking him what he was doing the man, whose car was registered to a Little Rock address, said he’d stopped by to pick up a few things for a relative who was out of town for a funeral. The items included jewelry. Unfortunately for the man with the bag, the house belonged to the officer’s mother, who was not out of town for a funeral. The burglar was promptly arrested.

However, Comedy Central still is acceptable. A teacher at a West Liberty, W. Va., college wants her students to be more selective in sources they use for research in her political science class. Wanting them to use legitimate sources, the instructor asked students to not use fictitious parodies of real-life news as sources — specifically the satirical The Onion, and Fox News. Students and some parents were upset, and a college spokesman noted the teacher is only there for this year filling in for another instructor. However, she did lift her ban, apparently making it all right for students to use information from The Onion for their papers.

Stupid criminal No. 2. The city of Sugar Land, Texas, recently was voted the No. 2 safest in America. Apparently, two teenagers didn’t get that news before they burglarized a home, setting off a burglar alarm. Five blocks away when the call went out was Police Chief Doug Brinkley, who quickly responded. A neighbor said she’d seen two teens climb the fence in the back yard, and the pair soon were in custody. Oh, by the way, the home they’d burglarized belonged to Chief Brinkley.

It’s nice when stereotypes flop. A lot of people think pit bulls are nothing more than vicious, dangerous animals that should be banished. A Wellston, Okla., family may beg to differ. Tuesday morning, Rhonda Westenberger and her sister, Evelyn, were awakened by their pit bill, Baby, according to KOCO. Rhonda said Baby wouldn’t quit barking and kept jumping on them. When the women did wake up, they discovered their house was in flames and were barely able to get out in time. However, they had five other dogs still trapped in the burning house. Baby went back into the house and rescued the other pooches, including that had been hiding under a bed and she had to grab by the scruff of the neck. Baby was hailed as a hero.

Stupid criminal No. 3. In the town of Plymouth in the UK, Toby the British Giant Rabbit apparently frightened off a burglar who was in the process of burglarizing his owners’ house. According to the Plymouth Herald, the lady of the house was awakened by the sound of thumping during the night, realized it was the rabbit, and went back to sleep. In the morning, she and her soon-to-be husband discovered a few items missing downstairs along with a host of other valuables strewn across a sofa. Toby, who weighs in at nearly 10 pounds, was upset and not his usual self. With the valuables left behind and the rabbit’s condition, police surmised that Toby’s thumping frightened the interloper, who fled leaving most of his loot behind.

Never get between a cop and his donuts. According to a report in the Gwinnett Daily Post, a Lawrenceville, Ga., man allegedly hijacked a Krispy Kreme truck and led police on a chase across the county. The paper reported the purloined donut truck ran several red lights, went off the road several times and hit a mailbox. When the accused donut thief tried to flee on foot, officers chased him down and “he was apprehended by K9 dog bite.” Alcohol was believed to have been involved.

See, there still are True Stories of the strange to be found out there.

You just have to keep an eye out for them. Now, back to the hard news of meteors, broken cruise ships and politics gone wild.