Off-Topic -- more Coincidences - 2017

[Fishface]

Poor Fayne! His name is legion!

[Fishface]

Earlier today I posted a link to a video shot at Fowlerville High of two boys in a fistfight. Well, I only had one home visit today and the kid showed me a video taken at her own high school, 7 miles down the road in Howell, of 2 girls punching each other's lights out. What are the odds?

[Fishface]

Oh, here's another. I read in The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South about an incident that happened on Wednesday, October 31st. I am of course acutely aware that this year Halloween, October 31st, falls on a Wednesday.

[Fishface]

This hasn't happened to me in a while but in reading The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South tonite I noticed tomorrow is the anniversary of the rape discussed in the book. If it was a rape.

[Fishface]

Another! I was just posting at TC Anniversaries ang griping about how I couldn't find photos of any of the victims of the South African serial killers showing up in November. At the very least you can normally find photos of the killers, I groused. Oh, no, not here. Can't find a snap of Bongani Mfeka to save my life.

And I got the mail today. In the biggest envelope was Byleveld: Dossier of a Serial Sleuth, and what did I find but 3 photos of Bongani Mfeka. Still don't have one of any of the poor women he killed, but it's a start.

[Fishface]

Total weirdness. A couple of hours ago I posted a trivia question about Vincent Chin's murder, which happened after an argument started in a metro Detroit strip club. I just went to my little news app and this popped up:

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local...

A man is in a Detroit hospital, near death, after being beaten up in a local strip club.

[Fishface]

I'm not sure how much of a coincidence this is, but I just learned that Whitey Bulger's given name is James. He of course was just found in his prison cell with his eyes gouged most of the way out and his tongue excised.

Not knowing his full name before this, I naturally noticed that the only other James Bulger I've ever heard of is poor Jamie Bulger, who was kidnapped from a shopping center and battered to death by 2 10-yr-old boys.

Never name your son James Bulger. It seems likely to end in tears.

[Fishface]

So today at the polling place I discovered that not one, but two of the judges running for election in my area are named Cavanaugh. Miriam (who's been a Circuit Court judge here for quite a while) and Megan. Nobody named Brett, thank Scrod. I rather wonder how Miriam and Megan will do in light of recent events.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "So today at the polling place I discovered that not one, but two of the judges running for election in my area are named Cavanaugh. Miriam (who's been a Circuit Court judge here for quite a while) ..."

How did they do? At least they start with a C. Brett's name starts with a K.

[Fishface]

I'm still trying to find a simple way to look it up, but while looking I found this:

https://thelivingstonpost.com/judge-c...

I finally found election results in the Lansing State Journal, but it doesn't mention either of the Cavanaugh races. The county website says so far it only has unofficial results, and it won't let you see those without downloading new software.

[Fishface]

I found Megan Cavanaugh. She was running for Michigan Supreme Court but lost despite getting a healthy number of votes.

I can't find Miriam Cavanaugh anywhere!

[Fishface]

Koren's right about this coincidence -- dead right, you might say -- so I'm posting this here as well as in Crime Headlines.

As we await the outcome of what many are calling the new Watergate scandal, there's been a news headline about a man named Woodward accused of killing a man named Bernstein:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la...

[Fishface]

This one is epic. I've been recommending books on the Great War all morning to people and was just in the act of "pinning" an article full of excerpts of letters written the day of the Armistice. As I pressed "save" I happened to look at the clock on the wall and saw it was 11 a.m. -- 100 years to the minute from the war's end.

[Fishface]

Koren wrote: "How did they do?"

I still can't find any election results that mention Miriam Cavanaugh, but it now says she was running unopposed, so I assume she is still Probate Court judge for my county. Funny, I could have sworn the ballot said she was running against someone else. I know Mike Hatty was unopposed.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "This one is epic. I've been recommending books on the Great War all morning to people and was just in the act of "pinning" an article full of excerpts of letters written the day of the Armistice. A..."

That is amazing. 11 a.m on 11/11.

[Koren]

In the book I am reading now, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder there is a character named John Turner and his older brother Al Turner. My husband's name is Al Turner and he has an older brother John Turner. We got a chuckle out of that.

[Fishface]

And are they similar in other ways, too?

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "And are they similar in other ways, too?"

No. The characters in the book only took up a few paragraphs. John Turner was an orphan that showed up on the Wilder's doorstep and Rose took him under her wing. He later went to military school and sometime after that they must have had a falling out and she sent him on his way. Al Turner is barely mentioned. Oh, and we laughed again when she hired someone to stay with them when she was gone and her name was Corrinne, same as me only spelled wrong. LOL!

[Fishface]

Clearly this whole book has cosmic significance for you.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "Clearly this whole book has cosmic significance for you."

It brought back childhood memories.

[Fishface]

This one disturbed me a bit. Last night I was watching MY COUSIN RACHEL, a Daphne DuMaurier story about a family in mourning after a man died of a brain tumor. Today in a meeting in my boss's office, she burst into tears and told me that one of my co-workers is going on medical for treatment of a brain tumor.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "This one disturbed me a bit. Last night I was watching MY COUSIN RACHEL, a Daphne DuMaurier story about a family in mourning after a man died of a brain tumor. Today in a meeting in my boss's offic..."

That's sad.

[Fishface]

I really think he's going to be OK though. Man, I hope I'm right.

[K.A.]

Minor coincidence: last night during a wakeful period I was trying to remember the author of the short story upon which the Hitchcock film 'The Birds' was based. I knew it was the same author of The House on the Strand...and oh, yeah...Rebecca...aha! Daphne DuMaurier! And then I was reading through posts here and viola...

[Koren]

ReadingThe Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop by Steve Osborne today, he said that the 9/11 attacks were the Pearl Harbor of his generation. Today is the 77th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

[Fishface]

This morning I finished reading Cause of Death, which included the case of a man so disfigured by his killers that a specialist had to reconstruct his face. So at Meijer's today I noticed that the man in front of me in the checkout line bore a striking resemblance to the victim in that case, Sabir Kilu. I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it because the woman he was with was kind of all over him, and I didn't want to stare. But as they were paying for their stuff she turned around and I realized that she works right down the hall from me. She didn't introduce me to the man. Sabir, is that you!?

[Fishface]

Fishface wrote: "So yesterday I was driving to an appointment and was surprised to hear "London Calling" on the radio, from the album of the same name by the Clash. They never play that song and rarely anything fro..."

Remember this coincidence? I kept hearing "London Calling" and "I'm A Rebel Just For Kicks" on the radio, played together again and again. Well, this morning I actually had my elderly disc of London Calling in the player in the car, and after playing the title song I switched to the radio to see if I could find some news. The song they were playing when I turned on the radio was "I'm A Rebel Just For Kicks."

[Fishface]

I signed out one of the agency cars today to go to some appointments, & as I was driving back from the first meeting I happened to look at the odometer. I noticed that the number of miles on the car was exactly the same as the ID number on my mortgage. I gazed in astonishment for another second and the numbers flipped over. If I hadn't looked at exactly that moment I would have missed it.

[Lucille]

Fishface wrote: "Fishface wrote: "So yesterday I was driving to an appointment and was surprised to hear "London Calling" on the radio, from the album of the same name by the Clash. They never play that song and ra..."

It’s like deja vu all over again.

[Lucille]

Fishface wrote: "I signed out one of the agency cars today to go to some appointments, & as I was driving back from the first meeting I happened to look at the odometer. I noticed that the number of miles on the ca..."

I am gazing in astonishment that you can remember the ID # of your mortgage lol

[Koren]

Lucille wrote: "Fishface wrote: "I signed out one of the agency cars today to go to some appointments, & as I was driving back from the first meeting I happened to look at the odometer. I noticed that the number o..."

I was going to say the same thing. How do you know your mortage ID number? (I didnt even know there was such a thing).

[Fishface]

I just got through mailing my winter tax bill to the mortgage co. so they can pay it out of my escrow. I have a horrible time remembering #s and had to go over it like 63x so it got written down properly in the letter I sent them. So that's the only reason I noticed it on the odometer.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "I just got through mailing my winter tax bill to the mortgage co. so they can pay it out of my escrow. I have a horrible time remembering #s and had to go over it like 63x so it got written down pr..."

You have a good memory.

[Fishface]

Not for numbers!

[Lucille]

Fishface wrote: "Not for numbers!"

I’ve got a trick memory too, and certainly NOT for numbers. With some rare exceptions: I can recall the phone number of an old boyfriend only because I was pretty young at the time and I psycho-called him lmao.

Oh and just to frame this specific memory in more “spiritual” (pardon the expression) terms: It’s also the universe’s way of reminding me to take my meds lolol.

[Lucille]

Fishface wrote: "This morning I finished reading Cause of Death, which included the case of a man so disfigured by his killers that a specialist had to reconstruct his face. So at Meijer's today I no..."

Those forensic reconstructions are AMAZING.

[Fishface]

Here's a genuinely nasty one. The last TC I finished reading, Dark Secret: The Complete Story: The True Account of What Happened to Little Alex Suleski, concerns the torture murder of a small child. I just passed the halfway point of Torture Killers II, and found a case of torture killing that happened 1 year to the day earlier. Also the murder of a girl. Also down South. Also completely awful.

[Fishface]

As you all probably know I have been perseverating quite a bit on the Shelly Brooks case, far more since I found out that he was killing women right in the Mack-Chalmers area of Detroit where a friend of mine from high school, who was later a college roommate, lived.

Well, when I was looking up stuff about Westley Allan Dodd for his trivia question a couple days ago, I discovered that he used Shellie Brooks as an alias when he was living in Vancouver. What are the odds that one serial killer busted in the 1980s would use the same name as another serial killer who wouldn't even be heard of for more than 10 years?

The same GIRL'S name?

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "As you all probably know I have been perseverating quite a bit on the Shelly Brooks case, far more since I found out that he was killing women right in the Mack-Chalmers area of Detroit where a fri..."

I would say the odds would be pretty high.

On another topic, I was driving by myself and thinking about how fast time goes and how people born in 2000 are already 18 years old, adults! Seems like it was only a few years ago we all thought the world was going to come to an end at midnight on January 1st. As I was thinking this a song came on the radio- Dont Blink by Kenney Chesney, which is a song about how fast time goes.

[Lucille]

Fishface wrote: "As you all probably know I have been perseverating quite a bit on the Shelly Brooks case, far more since I found out that he was killing women right in the Mack-Chalmers area of Detroit where a fri..."

Freaky/freakie

Oh and meant to say: While I didn’t recognize Westley Dodd’s name initially (cause I am horrible with names), the second I saw his pic I said “oh that guy, right.” I’ll remember him forever now as Shellie. Hope the hangman’s calculations were off that day.

[Fishface]

Wait, the hangman's calculations? What does the hangman ever calculate -- besides the length of the rope?

[Lady ♥ Belleza, Gif Princesa]

Fishface wrote: "Wait, the hangman's calculations? What does the hangman ever calculate -- besides the length of the rope?"

The length of the rope depends on the weight of the person being hanged. Too long and the person's head will pop off, too short and the person slowly strangles to death. The right length and the person's neck breaks.

"The trick to a successful hanging is to have the victim drop an appropriate distance through a trapdoor before the rope goes taut against his neck. If he drops too far, he’ll have picked up so much speed that the noose might decapitate him. If he doesn’t drop far enough, he could remain conscious as he slowly strangles to death. But if you get the “drop” just right, the knot of the noose will snap against his neck—and either kill him or knock him unconscious."

Linky

[Fishface]

Well, exactly, but I was asking whether Lucille refers to other calculations of some sort.

[Lady ♥ Belleza, Gif Princesa]

Fishface wrote: "Well, exactly, but I was asking whether Lucille refers to other calculations of some sort."

Maybe she wanted a slow painful death.

[Lucille]

Fishface wrote: "Well, exactly, but I was asking whether Lucille refers to other calculations of some sort."

Nope Lady B got it. Both times.

[Fishface]

So I spent a lot of time this year wondering what to put in this year's Christmas card to one particular person, who lived across the street from me when I was growing up on the east side of Detroit and who improbably turned up at an office Christmas party 30 years later and 75 miles west, because he'd left his wife and married someone who worked down the hall from me. While waiting to see what sort of response I might get, I started reading Gosnell's Babies: Inside the Mind of America's Most Notorious Abortion Doctor, and saw that person's name staring up at me from the page. I take this as a sign that we're going to have lunch together soon.

[Koren]

Fishface wrote: "So I spent a lot of time this year wondering what to put in this year's Christmas card to one particular person, who lived across the street from me when I was growing up on the east side of Detroi..."

I think you will.