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Well,
we haven't seen this one before! Here's a bit of legal maneuvering that's
so clever it's (almost) criminal: a Florida billionaire legally adopted
his 42-year-old girlfriend to shield his wealth from a lawsuit!
[Judge] Kelley had previously ruled that the trust set up for Goodman's two minor children could not be considered as part of Goodman's financial worth if a jury awarded damages to the Wilsons. According to the adoption papers, Hutchins is immediately entitled to at least a third of the trust's assets as his legal daughter since she is over the age of 35.
In a deposition taken in the lawsuit last May, Hutchins told attorneys she started dating Goodman in 2009.
William Wilson's attorney, Scott Smith, said Goodman benefits from the trust and is using it to try to shield assets. The attorney for Lili Wilson, Chris Searcy, argued in a motion that by adopting Hutchins, Goodman can now direct her to remove up to a third of the trust.
"By way of this adoption, John Goodman now effectively owns one third of the trust assets," Smith said. "It cannot go unrecognized that he chose to adopt his 42-year-old adult girlfriend as opposed to a needy child."
Jason Schultz of The Palm Beach Post reports: Link (Photo: Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post)
Plucky Andrea the stray cat used up a couple of her nine lives, but would not succumb to the animal shelter’s attempts to euthanize her.
Officials at West Valley City’s animal shelter in Utah say the cat named Andrea hadn’t been adopted for 30 days when shelter officials tried to put her to death in October. She survived, so they gassed her again.
Shelter officials detected no vital signs and presumed she was dead after the second try, so they put her in a plastic bag in a cooler. But when they checked the bag, they saw she had vomited on herself and had hypothermia but was alive.
The shelter then decided to stop trying to kill her.
“It was just one of those things where they thought this cat obviously really wants to live,” West Valley City spokesman Aaron Crim told the Salt Lake Tribune (http://bit.ly/ylvSDw). “Let’s give it a chance to find a permanent home.”
Andrea has since been adopted, and is settling well into her new home. Link -Thanks, Skully!
(Image credit: Community Animal Welfare Society)
Or at least…his dog incarnation from the films. That’s right, Berry, the gorgeous black dog that played Sirius Black when he was a dog in the movies, is now up for adoption because his owner doesn’t have time to take care of such an energetic senior dog. The only catch -you have to adopt his best buddy Porridge too, but they make a great pair and are both movie stars, so that really shouldn’t be much of a drawback.
Link Via The Mary Sue
A baboon in the Nairobi Orphanage has taken on quite the adorable little charge with this adorable little bush baby. The video is filled with pure cuteness.
Via Cute Overload
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Pedigree in New Zealand has launched an online toy that analyzes your face and matches you with a dog that is up for adoption. I was matched with Shadow, a 7-month-old male Huntaway {wiki} mix, which is a breed of New Zealand sheep dog. He’s a cute dog; too bad he’s in Auckland. Link -via Pawesome
Shannon Keith and Gary Smith started the Beagle Freedom Project to find new homes for beagles that have been used for research. They named their first rescue dogs Freedom and Bigsby, and videotaped the beagles’ first brush with the great outdoors. Be warned that the video, while not graphic, may be disturbing and you’ll want to have a hanky handy.
Anyone interested in fostering or adopting a lab beagle should be aware of the challenges these dogs have. They will not be accustomed to life in a home and will not have experience with children, cats, or other dogs. They will not be house-trained and accidents will happen, although they learn quickly. Many have gone directly from a commercial breeder to the lab, and have never felt grass under their feet or even seen the sun. They will have been fed a special diet formulated for lab animals and may be difficult to adjust to new foods. They will be unfamiliar with treats, toys, bedding and may never have walked on a leash. They will have lived in cages with steel wire floors and may have inflamed or infected paws from the pressure. They may be fearful of people initially and may have phobias from a lifetime in confinement or from being restrained. They are likely to have been surgically de-barked by the breeder and have an ID number tattooed in their ear. Please also be aware that although these beagles are considered healthy, you will be given very little information about the beagle’s medical history, and you will not be told its origins or what kind of testing they may have been used for.
The video of Freedom and Bigsby is at the home page of the organization. Link -via Nag on the Lake
Find a cat just right for covering up that hole in your couch! Scratch and dent models available! They’ve got girl cats, boy cats, and “used-to-be-boy” cats! The Winnipeg Humane Society adapted hard-sell local advertising techniques to finding homes for cats, with the help of Andy Hill from Kern Hill Furniture Co-op in Winnipeg. The midnight madness event is not real, but the Winnipeg Humane Society is, and will be glad to accommodate you during regular hours. -via Digg
A public service announcement from the Best Friends Animal Society. -via The Daily What
Richard Lorenc never knew his biological mother, and began searching for her at age 33. The Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services provided him with a name six weeks later: Lorenc’s mother is 62-year-old Vivian Wheeler.
It also informed him that both his mother and his maternal grandmother had hypertrichosis, known as werewolf syndrome. Each had facial hair, even as children. The letter further stated that his mother was born a hermaphrodite, with both male and female reproductive organs.
Wheeler’s facial fuzz had appeared at birth with an inch and a half of light hair covering her cheeks and chin. She says her mother wanted a daughter, and doctors were instructed to remove the male parts.
Wheeler claimed her father was humiliated by his bearded little girl, but it didn’t prevent him from capitalizing on her condition. She began working in sideshows at an early age, earning money to send home to her family.
Wheeler is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the woman with the longest beard -11 inches! Lorenc was reunited with his mother, and learned the story of how they were separated all those years ago. Wheeler is considering leaving her home of Bakersfield, California to live closer to her son in Kansas. Link
There are tons of cat photos around the net, but Petfinder.com has recognized that almost all of these feline fatales are happily-owned pets. To bring attention to Adopt-A-Cat Month and to celebrate homeless kitties in need everywhere, the site launched a new contest where you can vote for the cutest photos of homeless cats at a variety of shelters. The shelters with the most votes win kitty bed/scratching post combos and hopefully the kittens pictured will be adopted lickity split.
June is the Humane Society’s Adopt-A-Cat Month and what better way to celebrate than to take a look at some of the world’s most famous felines. Actually, there is one much better way to celebrate: if you have room in your home, why not open your heart up to a new kitty this year? Ok, enough with the preaching, on to the internet’s favorite pastime (outside of “adult” things) –kitties!
Throughout the centuries, famous animals have gotten headlines and attracted attention for heroic deeds and fascinating behaviors. Perhaps one of the earliest cats to garner this sort of worldwide attention was Faith, The Church Cat. Faith was adopted by the parishioners of a London church in 1936. In 1940, she gave birth to a single kitten. In early September of that year, she started insisting on being let into the church basement and then she carried her kitten downstairs. The kitten was retrieved twice by Father Ross, but each time she brought him back downstairs.
The next day, German air raids began to fall on London and the entire church was destroyed. When Father Ross discovered the church in ruins, he heard a faint meowing and discovered Faith and her kitten were safe under the rubble in the basement. He managed to grab the two cats and get out of the building just before the roof collapsed.
Faith was nominated for a Dinkin Medal but was determined ineligible because she was a civilian, but she instead received a special medal for bravery. The Archbishop of Canterbury even made a guest appearance at the medal ceremony.
Speaking of cats with military honors, let’s not forget Simon, a ship cat on the HMS Amethyst, who was in the business of catching rats. When the ship was attacked in 1947, Simon was wounded and wasn’t discovered for four days. The ship’s doctor nursed his wounds and soon the kitty was back to catching rats and he now had a new duty of keeping injured sailors company.
He was presented with a campaign ribbon when they reached port and it was announced that he would receive a Dicken Medal for animal gallantry, but he passed away in quarantine in England before the medal ceremony took place. Even in his death though, Simon was honored. He was buried in a special casket and given full naval honors.
Of course, a cat need not be in the military or involved with a war to be worshiped by the masses. Room 8 was a cat who showed up at Elysian Heights Elementary School in Los Angeles in 1952 and decided to spend the rest of his life there. Not surprisingly, given his name, his favorite classroom was Room 8. Over the summers he would disappear, but he always managed to reappear when class began again. Eventually the television news crews took notice and Room 8 became the most famous kitty in L.A. Throughout his life he received more than 100,000 fan letters, up to 100 in one day.
Anyone who remembers the Clinton administration is sure to remember Socks, the First Cat. While not the wildest pet to be owned by a president, there was something about Socks that drove the media crazy. They stalked him, even to the point where Clinton eventually had to tell them to leave the kitty alone. He went on his own publicity tours to nursing homes and schools. Later, he became the star of a Murphy Brown plot and the inspiration for a children’s book. Nintendo made a video game about him, but it was never released.
After Buddy was adopted though, Sock’s position seemed to falter in the Clinton household. The two pets never got along and eventually Socks was instead adopted by one of the president’s secretaries.
Perhaps the biggest cat-related news story in the last decade though was Oscar, the cat who could predict patient’s deaths. He lived in a nursing home and had an uncanny ability to recognize who was going to die next. When Oscar curled up with someone in the home, they almost always died in the next four hours. He correctly identified over 50 deaths before they occurred.
While the media and public seemed to be disturbed by the idea, the staff of the hospice feel that he actually helps calm those who are passing on and provides a remarkable connection between patients, their families, and the staff.
Tama is perhaps my favorite cat on this list, you may recall seeing this lovely station master before, but you may not know that she is credited with saving the Wakayama Electric Railway from bankruptcy and she is now the only female manager in the entire company. She’s even an honorary knight in Japan. Of course, all Tama really did was hang out at the station and look cute, which got her the position of station master, which brought in 1.1 billion Yen to the local economy thanks to tourist visits. But hey, it still takes talent to bring in that kind of money just based on your looks.
Sure plenty of people have service dogs, but when was the last time you saw a service cat? Wendy is a service cat who helps Jeff Ward cope with his post-traumatic stress disorder. The kitty acts as a social buffer to help soothe his anxiety in social disorders. While a lot of our readers seemed to have an issue with a man needing a cat to get through the day, I think Wendy’s fascinating if for no other reason than getting a cat to walk around with you on a leash is pretty impressive.
On a sad note, a few months after Wendy made national news, she was attacked by an unknown assailant who broke her pelvic bones. Luckily, she survived the attack and donors covered the cost of the surgery.
Morris is one of the best animals for a feature in Adopt-A-Cat month, as he was one of only a few actually picked up from an animal shelter. He was discovered by Bob Martwick in a Chicago animal shelter and was on the list for euthanasia because he had a torn eyelid from a fight before he came into the pound.
Martwick adopted him and named him “Lucky.” A while later, he found Nine Lives was looking for a cat representative and he sent Lucky into the boardroom alone. The cat jumped onto the table, head-butted the art director and then sat back and watched him. He was immediately hired and started spending his remaining years in first-class flights and five-star hotels.
There are probably thousands of cat internet stars these days, but Chase may be the most inspirational of all of them. After a tragic accident left chase without a nose, cheek skin or eyelids, she required a lot of daily maintenance including daily eye drops. The cat is not in pain, but her face is quite a shock to many people. Rather than keep her away from the public though, her owner has opted to use her as an inspirational icon to accident victims everywhere through the wonderful blog, Daily Tails of Chase. She also works as a therapy cat for Paws For Friendship, where she visits hospitals and schools to educate and inspire about disabilities. Chase teaches people that it’s ok to look a little different and that you can go through something horrible and still live a wonderful life.
The picture used above was by artist Namowal, who is a fan of Chase. Be warned if you click the link to Chase’s site, her appearance is rather disturbing for many sensitive viewers.
In 1984, Charlie Schmidt shot a video of his cat, “Fatso,” playing piano with the help of someone grabbing him under the belly, their arm was covered up by a shirt. In more recent years, he uploaded the video with some music added, with the title, “Cool Cat.” Then someone put up a video entitled “Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat,” (I can’t track down the original video) where the cat played vaudeville style after someone goofed up bad on another video. That’s when Keyboard Cat quickly became one of the biggest memes on YouTube, as seen above.
Soon enough, the video garnered national attention and was seen on G4’s “Attack of the Show” and “The Colbert Report.” More recently Charlie Schmidt made a video with his new cat, titled, “Keyboard Cat Reincarnated.” While the video wasn’t as successful as the original keyboard cat videos, it still made its rounds on the blogosphere, including Neatorama.
Keyboard cat might be a little better known, but he can’t actually play the piano. Nora can. Nora was a shelter cat who was adopted by a couple who taught piano lessons. She was always interested in the piano, but one day her owners came in the room, shocked to see the cat hitting the keys one at a time. When the cat started playing in front of students, the kids started photographing her and when someone took a YouTube video and posted it online, Nora became a star overnight. She now has a series of YouTube videos and her own website.
Casper, better known as Commuter Cat, was famous for lining up to ride a bus, boarding the vehicle and then riding a few stops down and exiting near a local fish and chips shop. Unfortunately, he recently passed away at the beginning of this year when he was struck by a hit and run driver. Before that though, he spent a four year stint riding the Number 3.
His owner said that she didn’t believe tales of his adventures at first, but when she saw the proof, she guessed he must have just followed all the people who board the bus at a stop just outside their home.
Maru became famous for loving to climb in boxes, but his video channel on YouTube has expanded to show him playing with a variety of objects. While it seems strange that a playful kitty would be enough to develop a fan following, it is very true in his case, as he has received over 50 million times and his YouTube channel is now the ninth most popular in all of Japan. He even had a book published in his home country in 2009.
While these cat video stars may not be famous enough to be known by name, let’s never forget these fabulous felines and their 15 minutes of fame.
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You’ve probably noticed that I didn’t include any fat cats, but that’s purely because Alex covered the issue so well in his Top 15 Amazingly Fat Cats post. If you’ve never read this one, you’ve gotta give it a view.
Now I know there’s probably hundreds more cats that are arguably just as famous and thousands more who deserve to be (I even had to cut out a few or this post would have taken up the whole front page), so share! Who is your favorite cat online or off?
StoryCorps has an entire series of recordings of people interviewing their mothers, such as the interview Joshua Littman conducted that was turned into an animated video. Some of these interviews were included in the book Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps. Friday, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast another StoryCorps interview, in which Scott Miller asked his mother Jackie about her decision to adopt him.
“We must have talked about it even before that,” 73-year-old Jackie told Scott at StoryCorps in New York City. “You know, we’re very methodical people.”
But while Scott Miller knew he was adopted, he didn’t know what prompted his parents to choose adoption to grow their family.
That’s when the 73-year-old revealed a family secret she’d been holding for over half a century. Link to audio. Link to text.
A house cat in Florida named Bobbi had six kittens and then nursed two other kittens for an animal shelter. Her latest assignment: three bobcat kittens!
The baby bobcats — two females named Midnight and Rain, plus a male, Storm — will be fed by Bobbi for up to four weeks, Big Cat Rescue president Jamie Veronica said.
The kittens were given those names because “we drove through a midnight rain storm to get them,” Veronica said.
A hunter brought the kittens to a veterinary clinic in Alabama earlier this month, Baskin said. Vets said they think the hunter shot the kittens’ mother. It is legal in many states, including Florida, to hunt bobcats for sport, Baskin said.
“He walked in with a shotgun in one hand and a bag of kittens in the other,” she said.
The bobcats will be sheltered for about 18 months and then returned to the wild. Link
There’s also video and a news story of how Bobbi came to be involved. Link -via Arbroath
When Tommy Larkin went looking for his long-lost brother Stephen Goosney, little did he knew how far (or in this case, how close) the search would take him:
“She gave me his name and asked me four or five times if I knew him,” Larkin said, referring to the person at the adoption agency who assisted the search. “I said I didn’t, and she kept asking me, if I was sure I haven’t met him.
“She told me, if I got the paper signed and back to her right away, she was sure she could have us meeting by the end of the week. I was like, ‘OK, well he is in Newfoundland.’”
Then, as he was pacing the living room, talking on the phone, he was given the address.
“I said: ‘No … I am looking at the house right now,” he said.
Turns out that the long-lost brothers had been living almost across the street from each other: Link
Nancy Hansen of Tennessee claimed that her 7-year-old adopted Russian boy was violent and psychotic, so she "returned" him by putting him on a flight to Moscow and hiring a driver to pick him up there and drive him back. Now, it’s an international incident:
When the lawyer she found online advised her the adoption could be reversed, Hansen booked the flight and paid the fee for a steward to escort Justin through the airport, she said.
She hired a driver in Moscow she found online to pick the child up from the Moscow airport, she said. She found "safe references" for the driver online, she said.
She then prepared a letter for Justin to present to Russian officials, which included a photo of the driver, whom she identified as "Arthur," she said.
Justin "had never been happier" than when he boarded the plane for Moscow, she said.
Russian child protection officials were not happy when the child arrived unannounced at their ministry Wednesday. Nancy Hansen said when they called her there was "a lot of yelling going on."
Link – Thanks Tiffany!
Previously on Neatorama: Could You Give Back Your Adopted Child?
Like many foster children who "age out" of the system, 23-year-old John had given up hope of ever being adopted. Then he met Mark Hauck and his partner, Tim Ferraro, who became his friends … and later, parents:
The soda shot out of John’s nose when Mark asked the question. He thought that maybe he hadn’t heard Mark correctly.
"We’d like you to be our son," Mark offered. "We’ll leave it up to you to decide."
But John didn’t have an answer. He asked for a few days to think about his decision. At first, John grew angry when he thought about their offer to adopt him.
"I don’t think I was used to the level of commitment they were offering," John said. "An adoption can’t end."
The permanency Mark and Tim promised was a striking contrast from his past. When John stirred trouble, the state moved him to another foster home. When he acted violently, the state punished him by sending him to residential treatment.
Several days later, John appeared at Mark and Tim’s door with his belongings. John decided he was tired of spending Christmas and birthdays alone. He realized, even as an adult, that he still needed parents to provide him advice — and compassion. He wanted a family of his own.
Link (Photo: Kevin Davis)
Halo Animal Rescue in Phoenix, Arizona confronted a tiny problem. A chihuahua puppy was left an orphan when its mother died in childbirth. Rescue worker Heather Allen called Animal Control and asked if they had any nursing mothers. All they had was a black cat with four kittens.
Knowing that without a mom the baby Chihuahua did not have long to live, Heather introduced the two. She says, “I just kind of just stuck the puppy in with the rest and hoped the mom wouldn’t notice much and she thought that was fine.”
Seven days later the baby Chihuahua, now named Liam, is still alive. Heather says, “She’s doing great, I don’t know if she’ll be litter-trained when she’s done, but she’s doing really well, she’s nursing and seems to be growing and doing great.”
(image credit: AZ Family)
Anita Tedaldi adopted a special needs baby from South America. After spending 18 months with the child, she felt that she and her family failed to bond with him and gave him back.
One day (I’m still not exactly sure what was different about that particular day) I was on the phone with Jennifer, our social worker, who merely asked “what’s up” when I blurted out that I couldn’t parent D., that things were too hard.
Read about her experience in her own words as published by the New York Times and reprinted by the Today Show: Link (image credit: Today Show)
Their customers always told Randy Joubert and Gary Nisbet, co-workers at a furniture store in Waldoboro, Maine, that they look similar enough to be brothers. They always laughed it off, but when Joubert looked for his birth parents, he found out that he’s been working side by side with his long lost brother:
Prefacing his line of questioning with the statement, “Don’t think I’m weird,” Joubert asked his co-worker a few pointed questions based on names and dates gleaned from his own adoption records.
Seconds later, Joubert realized that the man who had been on the other end of countless couches, mattresses and recliners since July wasn’t just a co-worker. Nisbet was the long-lost brother for whom he had been searching. [...]
It’s a story that seems too perfect even for a movie: Two brothers, born a year apart, grow up in adoptive families in neighboring towns and attending rival schools. As adults, each lives in Waldoboro but spends 35 years not knowing about the other’s existence.
Then they end up not only working for the same small business, in this case Dow Furniture in Waldoboro, but also riding together in the same delivery truck day after day.
But strangely, the story didn’t end there – check out this report by Kevin Miller of Bangor Daily News: Link (Photo: Gabor Degre/ Bangor Daily News)
An animal rescue helped save three baby bunnies that were attacked by a dog and orphaned. The clinic workers noticed that a one-legged homing pigeon that also resided at the clinic began watching the babies through their cage and even sleeping just outside the cage door.
”Then suddenly, there were only two bunnies in the cage. To everyone’s surprise there was the tiny bunny under Noah’s wing sound asleep! That little bunny rabbit had crawled through the cage, preferring a featherbed!”
Now Noah, the pigeon looks after the bunnies and makes sure they are warm and well-cuddled.
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Ulrock the rottweiler adopted this eight week old wolf cub and the pair is quickly becoming best friends. If you’ve ever wondered how well wolf cubs could get along with a domesticated dog, here’s your answer. They sleep together and even howl at the moon in unison. Little Beldaran the wolf was abandoned by his parents at only four days old.
Preserve director Heather Grierson, 49, said: ‘It’s a true love story that has touched the hearts of everyone who visits the preserve.
‘You just can’t be in a bad mood when these two are around. It’s impossible to look at them and not feel good.’
Mark and Nicky Webster’s children were taken away by UK’s social services after doctors found small fractures in their son’s leg, mistakenly thought as caused by physical abuse but later found to have a rare medical cause.
When they went to clear their names and get their children back, the courts said that it was too late …
The couple’s nightmare started in October 2003 when Mrs Webster took their second son to hospital with a swollen leg.
He was found to have a number of small fractures which doctors said could be caused only by physical abuse.
The following year they were permanently removed and put up for adoption after a one-day court hearing.
Medical experts later concluded that the injuries were not caused by violent twisting and shaking, but were symptoms of rare case of scurvy. [...]The Appeal Court ruled on Wednesday that even though the Websters ‘may well’ have been victims of a miscarriage of justice the adoption order on their eldest three children could not be revoked because the youngsters are now settled with their adoptive parents.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by philosophile.
