A year into Hill’s sit, the California State Legislature passed a bill to protect the tree but not the grove. “Even with the new protections,” Hill told a reporter. “Luna and the slope she stands on will be destroyed under the Headwaters Forest Agreement and Habitat Conservation Plan, along with hundreds of other steep, unstable slopes and thousands of acres of virgin and residual old growth. The government once again has turned its back on the local residents and the endangered species that it is required to protect.”
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Japanese politician Matayoshi Mitsuo believes he is Jesus Christ. He has never won an election.
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During Hill’s second year, Pacific Lumber began to offer its own concessions. P.L. representative John Campbell regularly talked with Julia from the bottom of the tree, attempting to negotiate a settlement. But he wouldn’t guarantee that Luna’s grove would be spared after Hill came down, so there she remained. “My bottom line is protection in perpetuity for Luna, and a substantial buffer zone around her to protect her fragile ecosystem.”
Finally, on December 18, 1999, Pacific Lumber/Maxxam Inc. signed a preservation agreement and deed of covenant to protect the giant redwood and a 20-foot buffer zone around the tree. After 738 days, Hill had won her battle. She climbed down Luna, and her feet touched soil for the first time in more than two years.
STILL STANDING
Today Luna remains protected, at the center of a grove stretching 200 feet in every direction. Because of its isolation deep in the forest, the grove isn’t really a tourist destination. However, members of a nonprofit group called Sanctuary Forest regularly visit to ensure that the promises made by the company are being kept. As for Pacific Lumber, the firm filed for bankruptcy, Hurwitz and Maxxam Inc. pulled out, and in 2008 a new company—whose majority shareholder is the clothing chain The Gap—was created with a corporate mission to log using sustainable forestry practices.
Hill became a motivational speaker and wrote a book about her adventure. She also co-founded a nonprofit group that trains small groups to work toward social change. At last report, Hollywood is making a feature film about her two-year adventure.
But at her core, Julia “Butterfly” Hill will always be an activist. “When you see someone in a tree trying to protect it,” she said, “every level of our society has failed.” In 2002 she joined a protest outside of Occidental Petroleum’s offices in Ecuador to stop construction of an oil pipeline through the Amazon rain forest. “The little gringos have been arrested,” said Ecuadorian President Gustavo Noboa, “including the old cockatoo who climbs trees.”
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There are urban “ghost towns” in Detroit—entire city districts that have been completely abandoned.
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LOUD NOISES!!!
The world’s so damn loud we can’t even hear ourselves complain!
BACKGROUND
The 20th century was by far the loudest hundred years in human history. Since the Industrial Age took full swing in the late 1800s, life has become louder and louder. Very little has been done to curb noise pollution, despite overwhelming evidence that prolonged exposure to excessive auditory stimuli adversely affects learning abilities, concentration, and stress levels in humans and even in wildlife. Without any real support from state or federal governments, some local municipalities have come up with their own noise-violation procedures. Some examples:
RECORD TIME
In Uncle John’s Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader, we reported about Paul Sacco, a Colorado judge who sentenced teen noise violators to a few hours of listening to Barry Manilow music. In 2009 Sacco expanded his catalog of music-as-punishment to include the Barney theme song and an hour-long marathon of the Styx song “Come Sail Away” as sung by South Park’s Eric Cartman. The tactic may be catching on. When a Miami Beach driver was caught blasting 50 Cent in his Jaguar at 5:00 a.m., Judge Jeffrey Swartz sentenced him to two hours of the Verdi opera La Traviata. (Reportedly, it turned the offender into an opera fan.)
TRAIN IN VAIN
There are very few problems dire enough to make citizens volunteer to pay a tax increase to get them fixed, but that’s exactly what happened in a neighborhood of Vancouver, Washington. Residents got tired of the loud train whistles that blew every time a locomotive came through. “You can’t even talk on the phone,” said one local. So they asked the city government to erect barriers to keep cars off the tracks when the trains are coming—thereby eliminating the need for the whistles. Officials said no; they didn’t have the $1 million it would cost. “Fine,” said the residents, “Then we’ll pay for it. Raise our property taxes. That whistle is driving us crazy.”
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The Japanese have a theory that beauty is imperfect and changeable. It’s called wabi-sabi.
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GOING CUCKOO
The residents of a Phoenix, Arizona, neighborhood complained to city officials about the bells of Cathedral of Christ the King Church. They chimed on the hour, every hour, every day, every week. “It makes us feel like captives in our own homes,” said one citizen. Officials finally put an end to the siege: They took the church’s bishop, Rick Painter, to court, where he was sentenced to probation. From now on, if the church bells ring on any day but Sunday, the church will be fined and the bishop will go to jail.
WITCHY WOMAN
It wasn’t the bonfire in her yard that prompted Brenna Barney’s neighbors in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to call the cops—it was her incessant chanting. Barney is a practicing Wiccan, and she was performing elaborate rituals “in celebration of the New Moon.” When the police arrived, Barney fought back (which led to a resisting-arrest charge), arguing that they were violating her religious rights. The cops disagreed. So did her neighbor, Vicki Denova, who defended the 911 call: “To be honest, your choice is your choice as long as you’re not affecting other people.”
REVENGE OF THE NOISE-MAKERS
In the middle of the night in May 2009, Marsha Coleman of Salem, Oregon, couldn’t sleep because of the loud party going on next door. So she went over and asked the neighbors to please keep it down. Bad move: After she got back home, some of the drunken revelers showed up on her porch and banged repeatedly on her door. Frightened, she called 911. A deputy rushed to Coleman’s house and was in the middle of taking her statement when they heard another series of loud knocks on the door. Then they heard a slurring voice yell, “This is the Marion County Sheriff!” The deputy opened the door and found one of the partiers, 32-year-old David Bueno, whose party ended right there, as he was arrested for impersonating an officer and disturbing the peace.
For more people and machines driving us crazy with their incessant noise, cover your ears and head over to page 409.
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When an earthquake hit LA in July 2008, the first “news outlet” to report it was Twitter.
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TEEEEEEEETH!
Stories about those little, white, hard things that grow in your head.
WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?
In March 2009, a customer at a Walmart in Falmouth, Massachusetts, was looking at a wallet he was thinking of buying when he unzipped one of its pockets—and found 10 human teeth inside it. Since there was no blood on any of the teeth, police could not use DNA testing to identify who they belonged to. A Walmart spokeswoman said it was an “isolated incident.”
PULLING STRINGS
A young girl had a loose baby tooth, so her parents tied a string around it…and attached it to a remote-controlled car. Mom then sent the car flying cross the living room and—pop!—out came the tooth. The parents filmed the event and put it YouTube. It has since been viewed more than 270,000 times. (The little girl, it should be said, was unharmed and seemed to get a kick out of the whole thing.)
WE’RE PRETTY SURE IT WORKED
In September 2009, Darrel Vandervort of Lakehurst, New Jersey, was arrested after he pulled several of his teeth out with a pair of pliers—and sprayed blood around a
female friend’s apartment. Police said Vandervort was trying to frighten the woman.
PEARLY WHITES
Are you bored with your boring old jewelry? Of course you are! And that’s why you should get some new pieces from Australian jewelry designer Polly van der Glas, who makes rings, pendants, and necklaces—decorated with human teeth. “I have been collecting hair, teeth, and fingernails for years,” she says. “They line the shelves of my apartment in beautiful jars.” Prices go up to about $690 (U.S.) for a sterling-silver ring…with four large teeth sticking out if it.
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PCs infected with software that allows hackers to control them remotely are called “zombie computers.”
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MIGHTY MOUTH
Japanese researchers announced in 2009 that they had successfully implanted the jaws of several mice with “tooth seeds,” which later grew into mature, healthy teeth. The seeds were made up of cell tissue programmed with genetic instructions for growing teeth, and, the researchers said, the discovery could one day lead to growing replacement teeth, and perhaps even organs, in humans.
HOT CAPS
Seattle resident Shane Carlson was arrested in January 2010 and charged with several break-ins of cars, homes and dental offices. Carlson had been stealing old teeth from the offices, police said, and selling the gold fillings and caps he pried from them, netting up to $10,000 per robbery. The thefts had been going on for months, and police were only able to identify Carlson when someone found a bagful of teeth—roots and all—on a Seattle sidewalk, and forensic investigators found Carlson’s fingerprints on several of them.
SINKER BALL
Security guards at New York’s Citi Field were called to a restroom during a May 2009 baseball game between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves…because a woman had gotten her arm stuck in a toilet. One of her gold teeth had fallen in, she said, and she’d tried to retrieve it. It took several hours to get the woman unstuck—and she never found her gold tooth. (The Mets also lost, 8–7.)
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
Elizabeth Smith of Florence, South Carolina, went to a dental clinic in 2006 to have a single cracked tooth repaired—but when she came out of the anesthesia, she found that all sixteen of her upper teeth had been removed. The clinic then tried to cover up their error by changing Smith’s medical records, according to the ensuing lawsuit. In 2009 a jury finally ruled in Smith’s favor and awarded her $2 million in damages. She plans to use the money on restorative surgery as soon as possible, her lawyer said.
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Q: What is digital emunction? A: It's a fancy way of saying “picking your nose.”
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HELP WANTED: IN HELL
Think the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery? Think again.
POSITION: Tomato picker, in the town of Immokalee, Florida, regarded as the “tomato capital of America.” Perks: Room and board (sort of).
Job Description: Working 10 to 12 hours a day picking tomatoes. Work very fast for 10 hours and you can make about $50 a day.
Meals: You get two meals a day—eggs, beans, rice, tortillas, and sometimes some meat. That’ll cost you $50 a week.
Lodging: Home is the back of a box truck in a garbage-strewn backyard. You have to share it with a couple of other people. There’s no toilet, so you’ll do your business in a bucket in the corner of the truck. The room costs you $20 a week. The “shower” is a hose in the yard. (Cold water only.) Each shower you take costs $5.
Days Off: You don’t get days off. If you don’t go to work, even if you’re sick, you’ll be beaten. If you try to run away, you’ll be beaten and locked in the truck, or chained to a pole in the yard.
Getting Paid: Some weeks you’ll receive some of your pay, sometimes you won’t get anything. And remember, everything costs money—the room, the showers, the meals, and more—so within a few months you may actually owe the boss money. Seriously. If you work for years, you may end up owing tens of thousands of dollars. You will actually be worse off than a slave.
TRUE STORY: The conditions described above were the actual conditions endured by 12 Mexican and Guatemalan men for two and a half years. They were all offered work by the Navarettes, a family in Immokalee, with promises of room and board and riches, and ended up living in squalor and earning nothing but debts. In 2007 they finally escaped, and six members of the Navarette family were arrested. Brothers Geovanni and Cesar Navarette received the stiffest sentences, each getting 12 years in prison. The worst part of the story: Authorities believe that there may be thousands of people living in similar conditions in south Florida. (And they may have picked the tomatoes that are sitting in your refrigerator right now.)
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“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” —Hemingway
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SHOW ME THE STUPID
Okay, then. Read the stuff below.
Subject: Two unidentified thieves in Melbourne, Australia
Background: In October 2008, the thieves looked in through the window of an empty model home and saw a large plasma-screen television.
Show Me the Stupid: The thieves smashed through the home’s front door—and discovered that the television was made of cardboard. Like the home, it was a model, only for display. Police said the intruders took out their frustration…by messing up a bed (which was real).
Subject: Jorge Espinal, 44, of Ft. Worth, Texas
Background: Espinal got an itch on his back late one night in May 2008.
Show Me the Stupid: He grabbed the first thing handy to scratch it with—a revolver—and shot himself in the back. Espinal was treated at a hospital and released.
Subject: Michael Sampson, 41, of Salina, Kansas
Background: Sampson was on trial in a Salina courtroom in November 2009.
Show Me the Stupid: During the trial, the judge saw Sampson sitting at the defense table holding his thumb and fingers in the shape of a gun—and “firing” the imaginary gun at witnesses for the prosecution. He also made throat-slashing gestures. Sampson was charged with four counts of making a criminal threat and one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness.
Bonus Stupid: Sampson was in court on charges of driving on a suspended driver’s license and littering. He was found guilty of the suspended-license charge, but his sentence worked out to only 10 days in jail, and he was acquitted of littering. His courtroom threats, however, mean that he now faces several years in prison.
Subject: Joseph Whittenton, of Jacksonville, Florida
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The AlterG antigravity treadmill lets you run while being lifted by air pressure. Price: $25,000.
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Background: In May 2008, someone broke into a Hungry Howie’s pizza shop and stole an undisclosed amount of cash. Police watched surveillance video, and arrested Jacksonville resident Joseph Whittenton a short time later.
Show Me the Stupid: How were police able to identify and arrest Whittenton so quickly? Because he worked at Hungry Howie’s Pizza…and was still wearing his uniform when he carried out the robbery. He was jailed on burglary charges.
Subject: A man in Northern Territory, Australia
Background: Constable Wayne Burnett of the Northern Territory Police pulled over a vehicle on a highway south of the town of Alice Springs in 2008.
Show Me the Stupid: The driver had a case of beer sitting in one of the car’s seats—with a seat belt around it—and a small child sitting on the floor, unrestrained. “This is the first time I’ve seen beer take priority over a child,” said the constable. The driver was fined $750 ($710 U.S.).
HE MUST REALLY HATE PANDAS
There are fewer than 2,000 endangered giant pandas left in the wild. In 2009 Chris Packham, an English naturalist and author, came up with a controversial plan to deal with them: “It’s time to give up on the cute and cuddly panda and let them go, because we just can’t afford it.” Packham argued that precious conservation dollars could
be used more effectively to save other, more resilient endangered species. He pointed out that pandas, which used to be carnivores, have adapted poorly to a bamboo diet ever since they were pushed from their lowland forest homes due to development. Plus, pandas are slow to reproduce and…aren’t really the most intelligent of the large mammals.
Not surprisingly, the backlash from Packham’s fellow conservationists was harsh (people called him all sorts of names that we can’t reprint here). “Boy, I really upturned the apple cart,” he said. “I’m sorry I upset people. I don’t hate pandas, I love cuddly animals. I love all animals!”
* * *
Tickets to President Obama’s “free” inauguration sold online for as much as $20,000 apiece.
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THE WORMS
CRAWL IN
Patient: “Doctor! Doctor! I’ve got an autoimmune disease!” Doctor: “Take 2,500 parasites and call me in a month.”
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy Page 32