Editorial: Casual Fridays 1/21

Not concierge, but parole officer

If you ever spend time in prison, you’re… Not concierge, but parole officer

If you ever spend time in prison, you’re probably not thinking about its amenities. Well, the Associated Press is reporting that a centuries-old Russian prison is installing tanning beds for its inmates. Administrators of the 240-year-old Butyrskaya prison say the beds represent an effort to offset the hazardously low levels of sunlight that can reach cells. If she by chance gets arrested again, I think we now know the facility where Lindsay Lohan will request to transfer.

C-Section for a C-Class

Anything that makes pregnancy easier is usually a good thing … right? According to an Associated Press report, Massachusetts police say a thief posing as a valet at an emergency room stole the car of a woman in labor. Wearing a uniform-style shirt, the suspect purportedly volunteered to park the woman’s car, and when she complied, he drove away. So it seems that stealing a candy from a baby is as easy as stealing a car from its expecting mother.

Emergency booty call

Stories of people misusing the 911 system often circle the media, but a story about a Lexington, N.C., man takes it to another level. MSNBC reports that the 42-year-old man was arrested and charged with dialing 911 to ask for a prostitute. The arrest report showed that he asked for “a hooker and an escort to get boots,” according to the article. We’re just glad that no one went to fulfill the caller’s desires, because of course that officer would then be called a dirty cop.

Is that powder falling from the sky?

For centuries, pigeons have been respected for their ability to transport messages across large distances with pinpoint accuracy. But could such praise be hampered if pigeons were to use their internal GPSs to fuel drug addiction? According to azcentral.com, on Tuesday police found a pigeon that carried 45 grams of different drugs, among them a cheap form of cocaine, into a prison in Colombia. We think this pigeon’s feats bring a feathery reality to the term “jailbird.”

Never too young to learn

Children, especially girls, commonly play with dolls to simulate motherly behaviors, but the typical behavior list used to be limited. Well, according to KPRC Local 2, a Canadian woman has finally created the MamAmour birthing and breast-feeding doll. Intended to give kids ages 3 and up a more exclusive window into a mother’s experience, the $130 dolls arrive complete with placenta and umbilical cord. In the sake of child safety, of course, we just hope the dolls come with safety scissors for when the cord needs cutting.