Climb every ladder, ford every stream
Texas farmers approximately 75 miles from the Mexican border near Falfurrias have taken to installing ladders on their property to allow illegal aliens to climb over their fences in the course of trespassing so they'll stop making holes in the fences (which allow the farmers' cattle to escape). The ladders aren't used very much, apparently because the illegals assume there's some catch.
— Boston Herald
What can be greater than gators?
Women's handbag designers, uncertain about the effect of Hurricane Katrina on Louisiana's alligator habitats, spent the winter searching for new supplies of hides. Last fall's gator harvest saw prices rise 50 percent from two years earlier; forcing Ralph Lauren, for example, to raise the price of its most prestigious alligator purse to $14,000. Hide prices were expected to rise another 50 percent this summer. Alligator shoes, shirts and coats have also soared in price, and the alligator-paneled piano sold by Giorgio's of Palm Beach now costs $950,000.
— The Wall Street Journal
Captivating prison art made from candy
Inmate Donny Johnson, serving three life terms in solitary confinement at the Pelican Bay State Prison in California, was the beneficiary of a showing of his acclaimed paintings at a gallery in the Mexican tourist village of San Miguel de Allende. Because of Johnson's isolation, his only ""brush"" is made from strands of his own hair; his ""canvases"" consist of blank postcards; and his medium is colors from decomposed M&M candies. Nonetheless, at least six of the paintings, which the Times reporter called ""powerful,"" have sold for $500 each.
— The New York Times
Flat-iron ritual
Despite education campaigns by women's groups, approximately one-fourth of girls in Cameroon still undergo ritual ""breast-ironing"" at puberty as their families attempt to squash their developing bosoms to make them sexually unattractive to boys and reduce their temptation to marry. The most popular ""ironing"" instrument is a heated wooden pestle, mashed painfully against the chest. Some girls are supportive, however, like the one who told BBC News in June that she just ""wanted to (stay in) school like other girls who had no breasts.""
— BBC News
