La vita e bella

Today's bandwidth will be dedicated to odd and/or wonderful things. For example, the flock of geese in Colchester, England that mugged a student and stole his cellphone. After pecking at him until he dropped the phone, one of them grabbed it in its beak and "disappeared into the undergrowth" with the rest of the flock close behind. Is this some kind of gang initiation ritual for geese?! Story here.

Let me raise a toast to "Paris je t'aime," which accomplishes the strange feat of being at the same time a wonderful date movie and also a work of art that culminates in an epiphany of infinite compassion for the human race. What a delight.

And another toast to five-year-old Hannah Klamecki, who was lost in a boating accident with her grandfather on Wednesday night, only to wander out of the woods on Saturday morning naked, covered with scratches and poison ivy, holding a handful of wild raspberries. Her grandfather's body had been found in rapids not far from their boat; the family was reeling from that grief and from the expectation that her body would be found next. But no: after the accident she grabbed hold of a branch, pulled herself from the river, and walked through the forest for two and a half days. As she put it, "I went searching all over the world" for help.