O-Bits: Tigress and Euphrates Edition

There’s something especially heinous about misappropriating money from a funeral fund; it’s not just that they’ve taken advantage of people at their most grief-stricken and vulnerable but that the action besmirches the name of the person you were claiming to valorize. According to the BBC, a South African corruption study has found that more than $22 million was redirected from an economic development fund to deal with costs. Government officials “pocketed funds, ignored basic rules, and inflated costs.” In real terms this means  money t earmarked for build sanitation, hospitals, and other infrastructure improvements was actually spent on commemorative t-shirts . The report calls level of corruption “appalling” and blames both poor organization and out and out stealing. Mandela, and his legacy, deserves better.

A tigress killed in India by an illegal electrified fence was given a fitting send off by  wildlife expert Wasif Jamshed, the Daily Mail reports.A funeral pyre was built and it was cremated, he said, so she could make her way to heaven. He had rescued the animal and brought it to his reserve after the tigress was accused of killing four people.

And finally England’s The Sun sends an undertaker who finds his job makes it hard to meet women out on a blind date. Sam enjoys his work, says there’s no typical day. and says his upbeat manner surprises people when they find out what he does for a living. He doesn’t seem like the type to skim money off of burial fees. When not at work, you’ll find him down at the rugby pitch, playing a game that reminds O-Bits of American football on steroids, with maybe a touch of bad acid: pumped up and mean. But he does like animals…

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.

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