Best of, Round II

A continued tribute to the strangest things people have bothered to send to the paper over the last few months:

(You are seeing the entirety of this facsimile transmission.)

George sends us many, many letters, all of them faxed, most hand-written. Often they're letters to the editor (and actually, more well written and relevant than most), but this time, he sent us a poem. He called me the next day to say that he'd reconsidered and didn't want us to run the poem because "it might be libelous in some way."

Irene also writes frequently, usually to say she likes the articles of one particular freelancer, who also happens to be her friend. She also mentions every time that she's 105, and once sent us a newspaper article the local paper recently did on her. Then, this time, she sent us a letter on this stationery, which her son had made her. I think I'm just tickled that a 105 year old can take as much delight in herself and her birthday as a five year old does.

First Name: Janez, Slovenia, Europe
Day Phone: 00386 00386
City: Slovenia
Country: Slovenia

Comments: I am Janez P., from Slovenia, Europe and I am interested in
buying classic cars. Can you please tell me the title of a magazin or a
website, where you can buy classic cars.
Thank you for your help.
Yours sincerely,
Janez

What possesses a person in Georgia read about a canceled arts festival in a tiny town on the Caribbean, sense the "extreme danger" such a move represents, write a postcard in which you equate the "cowering officials" with Marxists and then mail it? Lighten up, Francis.

I hope she took the lace umbrella to the Roller Derby.

Miss Peggy, was many will remember, was always armed with a lace umbrella at the ready for the blazing tropical sun or the unfortunate soul who vexed her. ... She chose Costa Rica because of the rich Tico pura vida Central American fermentation she loved so well. ... Many of Peggy's friends here may not realize she was quite famous in her other lives. She was known for a time as "Peggy, Queen of the Roller Derby" during the war years.

Remember the obsessive, fasting filmmaker from last time? IT'S COMING TO FRUITION.

This is why it's ok to use a smile sometimes to get information from Latin American bureaucracies:

In a recent study by free-press experts, state ministries and agencies were quizzed on what they do to provide public information – such as budgets, salaries, contract details, administrative procedures, etc. – to the press and the public. "We had to pursue them and call and ask if they received it and resend the questionnaire. Even then we got a response of less than 50 percent of the institutions," said Carolina Carazo, who headed the study.

This was from a Perspective column on ways to "greenify" your life:
#7 This list can go on for miles. You get the idea. Almost nothing is exempt. How big if your list of what you can do? Mine is pleasingly large, pro-active and enjoyable.

They learn so young:

It's not like you need to go to Africa and stare deeply into the eyes of suffering children to know that something's wrong with this world.

Annelise, in her Young Writer's column urging people to shop with reusable bags

We need to expand our readership:

Nobody at Lake Arenal has done anything that I can report on this week - not that a few people haven't been doing things they haven't seen fit to tell me about - but the animals have been interesting. A thrashing of branches in an avocado tree proved to be the wild attempts of a frenzied squirrel trying to avoid the attacks of a clay-colored robin. Several times the squirrel came to the ends of branches as it tried to evade the swift assaults of the robin. Finally, it darted past the bird toward the trunk of the tree and fled through a series of interconnected trees. The attacker may have been the robin who has a nest in a bougainvillea bush beside our porch.

These next two are courtesy of the Public Security Ministry.

Best Shirt by Any Arrested Person

Thankfully, through the seizure of these 121 crack pellets and 16 bills worth not more than $42, the ministry was able to recoup the money they wasted in wages used to pay someone to arrange this:

Bravo to the local animal shelter, which found a way to make cute animals positively terrifying:

INANE LETTER OF THE QUARTER

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Letters wrote:

Dear Gene,

Thank you for the below letter, however it exceeds our 500-word limit. Would you be interested in trimming it to that length and then resubmitting it for consideration?

Best,

Holly

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 1:14 PM, GENE wrote:

Thanks Holly but I do not know what constitutes a "word" on your end of the line. Spaces? Punctuation? numbers? or simply words? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Gene