A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: theft

Oct 18 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Picasso, Matisse paintings stolen in Dutch raid

Picasso, Matisse paintings stolen in Dutch raid

RTÉ News report of something which, I have to emphasize, happened in real life:

Paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and other famous modern artists have been stolen from a museum in Rotterdam.

…

The works stolen were Picasso’s “Tte d’Arlequin”, Matisse’s “La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune”, Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge, London” and “Charing Cross Bridge, London”, Gauguin’s “Femme devant une fentre ouverte”, De Haan’s “Autoportrait” and Freud’s “Woman with Eyes Closed”.

Jop Ubbens, chairman of Christie’s in Amsterdam, told Reuters the paintings would be worth “more than several million euros,” with the Picasso the best known of the stolen works.

Thefts like this don’t happen very often, because of how difficult it is to actually sell paintings as famous as these. Also, because real life is not a heist film.

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Oct 09 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Police arrest man for child pornography after tipoff from burglars

Police arrest man for child pornography after tipoff from burglars

Kim Hutcherson, CNN:

A central California man has been arrested for possession of child pornography, thanks to a tip from burglars who robbed the man’s property, authorities said.

Last month, a juvenile and a 19-year-old illegally accessed the property of Kraig Stockard, 54, of Delhi, California, according to a statement from Deputy Tom MacKenzie of the Merced County Sheriff’s Department. They broke into Stockard’s barn and stole approximately 50 CDs they believed were blank.

Stockard filed a police report on the incident on September 12, according to MacKenzie.

But the young people who stole the CDs were in for a surprise. When they began putting the discs into their computer, they discovered that some of them contained pornographic images of children, the statement said.

Despite having obtained the CDs under decidedly shady circumstances, the pair decided to report Stockard to the police.

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Sep 09 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Lauren Steussy for NBCSanDiego.com:

A man dressed as Gumby attempted to rob a Rancho Penasquitos 7-Eleven early Monday morning — but his efforts failed, in part because the clerk couldn’t take him seriously.

The suspect told the clerk at the store on Carmel Mountain Road that he was robbing the store, San Diego Police Detective Gary Hassen said.

The clerk, thinking the man was playing a prank, responded that he didn’t have time and that he had to clean. Video surveillance shows the suspect fumbling in his pocket for a non-existent — or inaccessible — gun.

What.

(Photo from MSNBC’s PhotoBlog.)

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Sep 04 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Nevada ‘scrappers’ hit new low of stealing metal from Washoe County cemetery

Nevada ‘scrappers’ hit new low of stealing metal from Washoe County cemetery

Jaclyn O’Malley for the Reno Gazette-Journal, with contributions from the AP:

In July, a 35-year-old man allegedly pillaged Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery in Reno and stole more than 150 bronze vases that were meant to hold flowers for the deceased, Reno police said. Brett Taylor Allen, who has been charged with burglary and possession of stolen property, told investigators during an interview that he was “ashamed” of his grave-robbing, according to a report. He was released on bail Aug. 16.

Cemetery operations manager Sophia Mitchell said a staff member in July noticed that flowers were thrown on a sidewalk instead of resting in their bronze vases. Mitchell discovered that about 150 of the vases were missing, while flowers remained in the bronze ring that formerly held the vases.

Thefts of metals, copper in particular, have been on a big rise in the past few years. But cemetery vases? Really? Sigh.

And we’re not the only ones. Double sigh.

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