A cornucopia of craziness… Banner month for the Weird, Wild and Wacky A bunch of offbeat gems in the news lately - and most of them dovetail into one core issue of mine or another: Toxic chemicals, prescription drug-related crime, social decay, pets and more. Enjoy… Homeless habeas corpus? New Yorkers may soon have a new way of dealing with the homeless, if one enterprising antique gallery in the city's ritzy-titsy Upper East Side gets its way. The proprietor of the high-end boutique is hauling four of these perennial loiterers into court and suing them in Manhattan Supreme Court… For a MILLION BUCKS. That's not all, either. If the plaintiff wins his judgment, the bums will have to stay at least 100 feet from the gallery's entrance at all times. According to a recent article in the New York Sun, the lawsuit's major complaints include a two-year pattern of not just daily loitering and harassment of the patrons, but frequent public intoxication and, uh - evacuation, if you get my drift. How they'll pay the damages if convicted is anyone's guess. Perhaps they'll counter-sue the shop for discrimination (all is possible in the Big Apple)… Drug thug no match for rednecks Once again, it doesn't pay to be a criminal in rural America. According to a recent Associated Press story, a shotgun- and handgun-wielding gunman bent on obtaining prescription painkillers (and anti-anxiety drugs) invaded - and shot up, apparently - a small-town pharmacy in West Virginia. Yet despite his bluster, armaments, and maniacal actions, he ended up with a knot on the head and a mug-shot instead of medication. The four hostages the gunman took at the shop got the better of him - by giving him some of the very pills he demanded, then beating him unconscious! Guess he should've tried his little stunt in the big city, where they have the good sense to capitulate to criminals. And where people aren't so smart. They should call them "toxmetics" More worrisome than weird, wild or wacky: A UK advocacy group claims that the average woman who wears mainstream cosmetics may be absorbing as many as 175 toxic chemicals every day! Some of these (like formaldehyde, the stuff they use to preserve dead tissues) have been linked to serious health problems - including cancer. I've got nothing witty to say about this. I just hope that this advocacy group's goal - the increasing use of natural, non-toxic cosmetics (yes, they exist) gains traction. On BOTH sides of the Atlantic. Keep reading, for what would an edition of the Weird, Wild and Wacky be without an animal-related bit… Prozac for a sour puss I smell a new market for anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs: Pets. According to a recent UK Daily Mail item, a depressed cat named Twiglet became one of Britain's first felines to be prescribed a Prozac-like drug. According to the attending veterinarian, the poor puss suffered from "anger management issues" (I swear, I'm not making this up). Also according to the doc, these "issues" resulted from the stress of being bullied by other neighborhood cats… But now, with a daily dose of the drug, the spring is back in Twiglet's step. She has stopped overeating, lost 40% of her body weight, is roaming her garden environs without fear - and clearly living with much greater self-esteem. Whether or not she'll kill herself like so many others who've taken these drugs remains to be seen. | 
