A 36-year-old North Dakota woman who married herself in a commitment ceremony last March has now spoken about her self-marriage choice in an interview with Anderson Cooper.
The marriage took place among friends and family who were encouraged to “blow kisses to the world” after she exchanged rings with her “inner groom.” …
The Fargo-based yoga teacher also takes herself on dates to treat herself and “to invest in this relationship”.
According to a local Fargo newspaper, Schweigert first got the unusual idea from a friend.
“I was waiting for someone to come along and make me happy,” Schweigert told Inforum. “At some point, a friend said, ‘Why do you need someone to marry you to be happy? Marry yourself.'”
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a woman has chosen to tie the knot solo. In 2010, a 30-year-old Taiwanese woman married herself.
Guy Whittall, age 40, slept peacefully all night, only inches away from the 330 lb. reptile, and never even noticed his presence. Whittall learned that he had had a roommate when he heard the housemaid’s screams while eating his breakfast in the kitchen.
The really disconcerting thing about the whole episode is the fact that I was sitting on the edge of the bed that morning, bare foot and just centimetres away from the croc.”
According to Spiegel, her customers unaccountably became dissatisfied. (Clearly, she needed to whip them harder.)
Several sadomasochists eagerly responded to an advert posted by an Austrian woman farmer seeking clients. But they didn’t get the punishment they had hoped for. Instead, they found themselves doing farm labor in fetish gear, while paying for the privilege.
To sadomasochists keen on fresh air and the country life, it must have seemed like a dream come true. A 35-year-old woman advertizing herself as a dominatrix promised strict discipline to paying clients on her farm in the northeast of Austria.
Some 15 men responded to the advert posted in the Internet, and two or three took up the offer. “They didn’t get what they bargained for,” a spokesman for the Lower Austria police told SPIEGEL ONLINE, confirming reports in the Austrian media in recent days.
Instead of savoring the sweet pleasure of pain, the men found themselves consigned to farm labor such as chopping wood in the nude and mowing the lawn while wearing black fetish masks on the farm near the town of St Pölten. In effect, they were paying for the privilege of doing farm work.
“They had these clothes one wears in such circles, leather and plastic clothes and masks,” said the spokesman.
It is unclear how much they paid their mistress. After a week, they realized they had been duped and downed tools.
Shot two days ago by members of the Assumption Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness in Louisiana, an entire stand of trees is suddenly swallowed by an underwater sinkhole above a collapsing salt mine. The sinkhole is part of an ongoing environmental disaster in Bayou Corne, and efforts are underway to prevent it from spreading, however it has already forced the evacuation of an entire town.
1929 Stutz Model M with coupe coachwork by Lancefield of London.
Old Car Reports’ Car of the Week is the A.K. Miller 1929 Stutz Model M Coupe.
The story of A.K. Miller is legendary, even outside of Stutz collecting. The Vermont collector was born in 1906 and developed a taste for fine cars — what would be considered Classic cars today — and began gathering them when they were used cars. Commensurate with his frugal ways, Miller stored his valuable collection in dirt-floor wood sheds and lean-to’s on the primitive East Orange, Vt., farm he shared with his wife, Imogene.
Although great Peerless, Cadillac and Rolls-Royce cars passed through Miller’s hands, it was Stutz he preferred. A 1917 Stutz was Miller’s first car, and he occasionally drove it until he died in 1993. The other cars in Miller’s 40-some-vehicle collection were often parked on makeshift “wood stump†jack stands and left to gather dust while surrounded by spare Stutz parts. Miller would sometimes trade these parts, but he drove a hard bargain to his financial benefit and the misfortune of his fellow trader. It was not until his wife died in 1996 that it became clear what exactly was hidden in the wilds of Vermont, and more than car collectors were interested.
The Millers had essentially lived as recluses on their simple homestead. They had no children, and they had almost no paper trail. Their collection had been known to only a few outsiders, and the handful of people allowed to visit rarely caught a glimpse of more than a car or two. Only visitors from foreign lands were typically offered more than a peek, supposedly because Miller could be assured they were not from the IRS. Indeed, Miller had lived so far off the grid he was able to avoid paying state and federal taxes. He and his wife were also hiding more than cars and income — they had buried or otherwise hid millions of dollars in gold bullion and silver ingots around their property.
After Imogene’s passing, the Millers’ fortune captured the attention of car and tax collectors, and an auction was held by Christie’s, after which the IRS was to receive its due. Police scouted the property leading up to the auction to stop the shovels and metal detectors of treasure hunters, and the curious eyes and hands of car enthusiasts. When the auction was held Sept 7-9, 1996, about 35 “barn find†Stutz motor cars crossed the block, most fetching far more than their pre-sale estimates in front of a standing-room-only crowd.
One of the stand-outs in that sale was a special 1929 Stutz Model M with coupe coachwork by Lancefield of London. Lancefield often bodied Rolls-Royce and Bentley chassis, but it also held an association with Stutz of Indianapolis, Ind. The aluminum-sheathed Lancefield coupe body sat low on the Stutz chassis, thanks in part to a worm gear drive setup, but was made to look lower with Lancefield’s tear drop step plates and trademark low roof, cycle-type front and rear fenders and dozens of louvers that ran the length of the apron that masked the frame sides. In deep black, the masterpiece was sinister.
“They only built five of these coupes,†said Richard Mitchell, the Lancefield-bodied Stutz coupe’s present owner. “Two were sold to the Woolworth Brothers and this is one of the two. Of the two cars, only this one was supercharged. There is no record of the others; this is the lone ranger.â€
Pacific Standard gets the scoop from Sebastian Acker and Phil Thompson, who traveled to China to document the Copy Town phenomenon in a new book.
Hallstatt, Austria, is in China. So is the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, Christ the Redeemer, and a soon-to-be-completed Manhattan. There are others, too, and it’s all part of this weird (at least to us Westerners, or this one Westerner who is writing this) proliferation of what are being called “copy towns.†They’re villages and buildings and cities in China that are being constructed as replicas of non-Chinese places from around the world—and people are living in them. Hallstatt, China, has an artificial lake, and they imported doves to make it more Hallstatt-like. …
There are many different reasons as to why these towns exist. No one reason seems to be fully responsible, rather it is culmination of many different circumstances. One of the main reasons is China’s developing middle and upper classes; a significant portion of people have become very wealthy, very quickly, and these people want a way to showcase their wealth. They are allowed to do so in modern China, but under the Mao regime public shows of wealth would not have been possible. However, given China’s recent history, it does not have a societal model for prosperity. Under Mao, class divisions were squashed and declarations of wealth were not usually allowed, and so they have turned to the West for ways in which to display their new-found fortunes. This adoption of Western styles may be an attempt to pick up an already established ready-made social attitude.
Another reason for the towns could be the huge building bubble that is taking place in China. Vast numbers of new buildings are being built, many of which have never been filled. In order to attract residents to their developments, the construction companies may be creating copy towns so that they stand out amongst the myriad buildings opening every day. Ironically, it is their copied nature that makes them unique in the market.
But generally China has a long history of copying, especially within architecture and the arts. For centuries the emperors would replicate lands that they had conquered within their own palace gardens. These constructs would often include fauna and plants from the conquered regions. This ability to replicate and maintain the distant land demonstrated the emperor’s control over the original region.
Then there is also China’s desire to replicate the West and become a first-world country. A lot of Chinese people look up to the West as an ideal, so the construction of these towns could be seen as a way of accelerating their progress; a quick way of achieving through emulation.
Thamestown: “a new town in Songjiang District, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) from central Shanghai, China. It is named after the River Thames in England. The architecture is themed according to classic English market town styles. There are cobbled streets, Victorian terraces and corner shops.”(photo: triplefivechina.)
Cougar Mountain Zoo, Issaquah, Washington, October, 2011, Taj, a 370-lb. Bengal Tiger responds to toddler pressing her hands on the glass of his cage with obvious feline gestures of affection.
At zoos, one sometimes sees a side of large, dangerous animals which is essentially identical to the behavior of your pet at home. One day, at the Chicago Zoo, I watched with amazement as a White Rhino the size of a delivery van manifested recognizable ecstacy while a teenage zookeeper stroked her back with a large push broom.
