People petition for Batman to save them from crime
Residents in Marseille, France have officially asked for a Batman to come help them with skyrocketing crime. The mock petition, titled “Will it take Batman to save MarseilleIJ” has thousands of signatures and a Facebook page for the group has more than 4,000 fans. Europe’s current “Capital of Culture” is also considered “Europe’s most dangerous place to be young.”
More than a quarter of the 800,000 population is living below the poverty line, and there have been 13 gang-related killings so far this year. In 2012, authorities intercepted around 300 Kalashnikovs.
The petition says increased police presence in the city hasn’t been effective at curbing crime rates, and accuses politicians of empty rhetoric and sound bites. (UPI)
Single men wash their bedsheets just 4 times a year, study says
If you’re a single man, you may go to bed with a clear conscience but you rarely sleep on clean sheets. At least that’s according to a new study, which found that single men on average clean their bedsheets only four times a year.
In comparison, single women change their sheets every two weeks.
And while cleanliness numbers surge for married couples, it appears the credit for the median boost for guys primarily belongs to women. In fact, it may be that the men are dragging the women down, as the average washing frequency among couples is once every 2.3 weeks, with women doing 81 per cent of the washing.
As “How Stuff Works” points out, the average person spends about a third of his or her entire life in bed. In other words, the old saying, “As you make your bed, so you must lie on it,” may have more meaning than originally intended. But are these single men literally sleeping in beds of filthIJ Or are the women perhaps overdoing it a bitIJ Turns out, it mostly depends on your own standards of cleanliness. (Yahoo News)
Hong Kong’s paper crafters work to feed hungry ghosts
At a workshop in an old Hong Kong neighbourhood, paper craftsman Ha Chung-kin uses delicate sheets of paper and sticks of bamboo to fashion a huge, expensive boat that will soon be consigned to the flames.
The Hungry Ghosts festival that has prompted Ha’s exquisite labour centres on a superstition that the spirits of the dead return to Earth during the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which runs from August 7 to September 4 this year.
Five metres (16 feet) long, Ha’s boat is one of numerous paper offerings ordered by Buddhist temples at this time of year, when many Chinese around the world tread more cautiously and make an extra effort to appease the roaming souls. All kinds of items made of paper — including clothes, “gold” and “silver” ingots, mansions and boats — are burned to ensure the ghosts have enough to tide them over until the next year. (Reuters)