Cincinnati crime-fighter becomes local attraction

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Watch the streets of Cincinnati carefully: you may see a man clad in a mask and cape scouring the city in search of evil deeds and damsels in distress. Shadowhare, who (obviously) prefers to conceal his true identity has volunteered his services to the city’s citizens and civil servants … free of charge.

This is bigger than voting and jury duty combined.

This superhero is 21 years old – and clearly mature beyond his years. After all, who would take on such a daunting task? He leads a group called the “Allegiance of Heroes,” which includes Aclyptico in Pennsylvania, Wall Creeper in Colorado and Master Legend in Florida. “I’ve even teamed up with Mr. Extreme in California – San Diego – and we were trying to track down a rapist,” he says.

Shadowhare (and the Allegiance of Heroes) operates with “legal weapons,” such as handcuffs and pepper spray. When necessary, this crew conducts citizen’s arrests to bring justice to the community.

Here’s the shock: sometimes, Shadowhare and his fellow crime-fighters aren’t taken seriously by the folks in uniform. Imagine that! The Allegiance of Heroes, however, proceeds undeterred.

So, if a trip to Cincinnati is in your future, book your flights knowing that you have nothing to fear.

[Thanks, Dad]

Apparently you can’t strip in airports

by Mike Barish on

You’re late for a flight. Your clothes are wet and filthy. You have a change of clothes with you in the airport. What do you do? If you said, “find the closest restroom and put on your fresh duds,” then you are well on your way to staying out of jail in Salvador, Brazil.

It seems that two German tourists decided to just strip down and change their clothes in the middle of the Salvador airport. The two travelers said that they thought it “was normal” to change clothes like that in Brazil. Because it’s always Carnaval in Brazil, even at the airports.

Surely they must have had a good reason for attempting to get out of their clothes so urgently. Well, “one of them got wet during a boat trip and the other felt sick and vomited during the same trip earlier in the day.” Wait. He didn’t think to change his clothes immediately after vomiting? Did he spend the rest of the day in the vomit-covered shirt and only think to change when he got to the airport? How chunky was the vomit?

They have been charged with obscenity and could face up to a year in prison, where stripping down will have even worse repercussions.

No word yet on whether they continued to wear their German uniform of wool socks with sandals.

[Via Sydney Morning Herald]

Making light of Colombia’s crime problem

by Brenda Yun on


There was much debate in the comments on my article about “dangerous” travel destinations — most of which pertained to the current clean-up of Colombia’s city of Medellín. Having traveled to Colombia for three months during the spring of 2008, I believe Colombia as a country (particularly the dangers of traveling there) is largely misunderstood.

Take Mike Peters’s “Mother Goose & Grimm” comic strip that was published a week ago on January 2, 2009.

The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation, which includes over 500,000 coffee producers, were so offended by Peters’ suggestion that it is suing Peters “for damage and harm, detriment to intellectual property and defamation.” The federation is seeking no less than 20 million dollars, claiming that the cartoon links Colombian coffee to organized crime and “attacks the national dignity and the reputation of coffee from Colombia.”

As a cartoonist, Mike Peters seeks controversy, but this type is harmful to our already skewed perception of Colombia. Peters’s cartoon suggests that Colombia is a dangerous place. I’m not clear about how drinking Colombian coffee could be considered a dangerous activity, but there’s definitely a sense of fear in this comic strip with regard to crime in Colombia.

While I’m all for freedom of speech, I think in this particular instance Peters could have picked a topic that he knew more about or discussed a country that he really understood. Instead, this particular cartoon defames a nation and offers an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of Colombia and its coffee for all the world to see. I just hope readers will know the difference between sarcasm and reality.

[via the Associated Press]

Flight attendant foils kidnappers with flight attendant training skills

by Jamie Rhein on

Heather Poole, Gadling’s very own flight attendant who knows the moves to take care of herself and everyone else on a loaded plane, brought this China Daily article to our attention. In China, a flight attendant who two guys had kidnapped, got away by using the anti-hijacking techniques she learned in flight attendant training.

The attendant, an employee of Shanghai Airlines, learned — in preparation for the Beijing Olympics — how to stay calm, act obedient, keep the kidnappers engaged, discretely untie a rope, and make a run for it when the kidnappers weren’t paying attention to her. According to the story, one of the men got into her car at a green light and forced her to pick up another man at a different location.

They took her bank card and her pin number. Her quick thinking probably saved her life. It turns out that, last July, these two guys killed a woman motorist they had kidnapped. This was discovered after she told the police what had happened and they were able to apprehend this pair.

As this story points out, one that is corroborated by Heather’s Galley Gossip post on recurrent flight attendant training, flight attendants know the moves that make a difference in air travel. Maybe their theme song ought to be “Kung Fu Fighting.” Everyone knows Kung Fu fighting, fast as lightning … although in this case, rope skills and calm were the key ingredients.


That flight attendant is something of a hero … something these women are definitely NOT. Click the pictures to find out what kinds of trouble they were getting to in the air.


What is a “dangerous” travel destination?

by Brenda Yun on

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what it means to travel to a “dangerous” destination lately because I’m in the process of planning a 2-month trip to Cuba. While Cuba is not considered “dangerous” to citizens of other countries, it does send a little shiver up an American’s spine when thinking about the potential consequences of traveling there without a visa, which I might end up doing. I guess sneaking into Cuba through Mexico or Canada may classify more as “risky” rather than “dangerous,” but I am always willing to take risks so long as I know I will not inevitably put myself in danger. A possible $10,000 fine is quite a price to pay for a visit to a country closed to Americans, however, so I know it’s important to tread lightly.

So I proceeded to do some research on how to estimate a “dangerous” place in the world, and I found the results quite startling. According to Fabiola Hernandez over at Associated Content, the 5 most dangerous countries in the world are Colombia, South Africa, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Russia. Hernandez goes so far to say that, “You wouldn’t want to be caught dead living there, literally.” But do I trust her opinion? Not at all.
This list was generated from a kind-of-handy statistical website called NationMaster.com that spits out national information ranging from Agriculture to Terrorism. Hernandez seemed quick to compile her list by searching for “Crime — Murder per capita.” The “most recent” results of my search are the same as the results Hernandez found nearly two years ago, which leads me to believe NationMaster.com is not at all up-to-date and, therefore, its information is misleading.

I could not disagree more with Hernandez’s list. First, it is completely void of volatile countries in the Middle East. Secondly, I traveled in Colombia, the country at the top of her list, for three months during the spring of 2008 and never felt safer there. Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city that Pablo Escobar made famous, is largely misunderstood. While it may have been the “Murder Capital of the World” five short years ago, this city is quite safe, quite lovely, and quite a tourist hotspot.

I have never been to the other four nations on the list. While I’ve heard that these countries do indeed have their dangerous regions and cities, I know for a fact that there are also some really wonderful, worthwhile places within their borders that it would be a pity if fear prevented a traveler from going there.

I find Hernandez’s estimation of “danger” quite askew, and I feel lists like this are harmful and largely misinterpreted. Sure, the percentage of murders in a country is one thing that could make a place dangerous, but what about terrorism, civil war, theft, and rape? More importantly, fear is the thing that prevents so many travelers from leaving the “safety” of their home. I believe, with proper precautions, even the most dangerous place is just as safe as sitting on your couch. Additionally, you are seeing the world and experiencing life for real, in its rawest, most natural form.