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SNIP The baby-stealing crane Growing up, I was frequently confronted with the stork tale. Disney films, cartoons and picture books all told me that newborn babies were found and delivered to their parents by these elegant, long-legged birds. The original myth, however, has a darker twist, with the bird stealing – or rescuing, depending on your perspective – the baby. The myth can be traced back to ancient Greece, where cranes, which share many similarities with storks, were associated with stealing babies. In Greek mythology, Hera, the goddess of childbirth, turned her rival Gerana into a crane with an elongated...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n-d1ApBTFw Click the link. Nine minute video.

A Polish charity has been hit with a massive phone bill after a GPS tracker it had put on a stork was stolen. In April 2017, Polish environmental group EkoLogiczna placed a GPS tracker on the back of Kajtek, a white stork, to collect data about the bird’s winter migration route as well as its feeding habits. In the year that followed, Kajtek travelled some 6,000 kilometres but was last recorded on 26 April in the Blue Nile Valley in eastern Sudan.In a Facebook post, the group explains that “for unknown reasons” Kajtek stayed in the area for over two...

Klepetan has returned to the same rooftop in East Croatia for last 14 years He flies 5,000 miles back from Africa to be reunited with his partner Malena Malena cannot fly properly after being shot by a hunter in village in 1993 They bring up chicks every summer with Klepetan leading flying lessons Full title: The ultimate lovebird: Stork flies to the same rooftop in Croatia every year for 14 years to be reunited with its crippled partner who cannot migrate

Sad news to report from the Korn family. Shane Gibson, who performed as a live member for Korn from 2007-2010, has passed away at the age of 35 from complications due to a blood clotting disorder... Gibson went on to play with SchwarZenatoR, stOrk and others ...

As most of you have read or seen by now, a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant named William “Bill” Arkin has created quite a stir by viciously insulting American soldiers in Iraq. He wrote at his Washington Post blog, “Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security” column (1/30/07), that “… this NBC (Nightly News) report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work” re Iraq. The “report,” according to Arkin, featured “a number of soldiers (who) expressed frustration with...

"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord deliver us." (Old Cornish prayer.) They couldn't have meant these critters, they are good natured to a fault.

"I couldn't believe that our son has to pay child support to his abuser."I've previously discussed cases where boys who have been statutorily raped by older women are forced to pay child support to their rapists. Here's a new one, from Ohio. From Boy's parents sue to get his baby from mom, 21 (Columbus Dispatch, 8/16/08): LANCASTER, Ohio --- A Pickerington couple and their son are fighting for custody of a baby born to a Lancaster woman charged with having unlawful sex with the boy, who was 15 at the time of conception. A paternity test shows that the teen...

LOS ANGELES (AP) Brad Pitt's publicist says Angelina Jolie has given birth in Africa.

A pair of broody storks which tried to hatch golf balls pilfered from a German golf course have become parents after being given an abandoned egg to tend. The baby stork, nicknamed Steven, is under guard at Golf Park Krogaspe, near Neumünster in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. As reported in The Sunday Telegraph last week, the would-be parents built their nest on the course, not high off the ground as is customary with storks. Because the chick is vulnerable to predators such as stoats or foxes, the nest will be raised in coming days. "We need to get this...

A childless German couple finally found out why they weren't able to conceive — they had never had sex. Doctors at the Lübeck campus of the University Clinic of Schleswig-Holstein (search) in northern Germany described the case in a medical bulletin, according to Ananova.com. After eight years of marriage, the 36-year-old man and his 30-year-old wife went to the campus' fertility clinic to figure out what was wrong. Doctors gave them a battery of tests and were baffled — both husband and wife were healthily fertile. Then came the important question. "When we asked them how often they had had...

TELEVISION It's not pretty, but 'Animal House' defines a generation BY GLEN GARVIN ggarvin@herald.com LOS ANGELES -- Dean Wormer: Who dumped a whole truckload of Fizzies into the swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween the trees are filled with underwear; every spring the toilets explode. Marmalard: You're talking about Delta, sir. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. It was rebellious, it was anarchic, it was gross. It had kids getting wasted and puking and being promiscuous, sometimes all at once. Its heroes were drunks and slobs and Peeping Toms; its villains...

One brand of gin, the Dutch drink par excellence, has fans in an unlikely corner of the world – West Africa. It's especially popular in Ghana, and not only for drinking. Number one in the Ghanaian gin market is the Dutch distiller Bols, from the town of Schiedam. The distillery exports some 63,000 litres of gin annually to Ghana. Bols produces an extra strong blend of gin especially for the West African market, with an alcohol percentage of 42%. The drink is sold under the name Henkes Schnaps, and is so popular that a Bols employee in Ghana has...