Lead Story
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In a December dispatch from New Delhi, Reuters reported on India’s recent crackdown on violations of wildlife protection law and its repercussions for the nation’s snake charmers. Facing stricter enforcement of statutes against capturing or keeping endangered cobras, many snake charmers have left the profession their families have practiced for generations. Others continue to perform their traditional routines–except without the snakes. Perhaps understandably, revenues are down; one veteran charmer told the reporter, “We are hardly earning half of what we used to earn before.”
At a December media conference in New York, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster fielded questions from a roomful of Wall Street analysts, who according to several bloggers present seemed stunned by the idea that his company wasn’t interested in generating profits. Asked if Craigslist would consider running sponsored ads like Google does, Buckmaster explained that users had expressed no desire to see such ads, so the answer was no. In the same month a spokesperson for Wal-Mart, long known for its aggressive stance against its North American employees joining unions, confirmed that a branch of the Chinese Communist Party had been established at the company’s Chinese headquarters in Shenzhen.
Least Competent Criminals
More people who recently shot themselves by accident: Manranzana Grimes, 16, leg, running with gun in waistband, lived (Canton, Ohio, September); Gregory Quinn, 49, thigh, removing gun from waistband while driving, lived (Lewistown, Pennsylvania, November); unidentified man, 23, testicle, then calf, replacing gun in waistband during alleged kidnapping attempt, lived (Wichita, Kansas, November); Evando Minor, 19, scrotum and leg, getting out of cab with gun in waistband after allegedly holding up driver, lived (Baltimore, November).
