Doing what I say, not what I do, and more

Good week for:

Doing what I say, not what I do, with the news that the leader of one Mexican drug cartel called “the Family” has insisted that when gang members are not selling cocaine and murdering rivals, they attend gang-run classes in ethics, values, and personal improvement, and abstain from drugs and alcohol.

Total makeovers, after Andrea Wachner of Los Angeles hired a stripper to attend her 10-year high school reunion in her place. Wachner, a self-conscious geek in school, used a hidden earpiece to coach her stand-in, who wore, and then shed, a slinky dress and fishnet stockings.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Tinker Bell, a 5-pound Chihuahua belonging to Dorothy Utley of Michigan, who was lifted into the sky by a violent storm and carried away. After a fruitless, two-day search, a pet psychic told Utley to go to a wooded area a mile away, where she found the very hungry but frantically happy dog.

Bad week for:

Keeping kosher, after the first case of swine flu was confirmed in Israel. “We will use the term ‘Mexican flu’ in order not to have to pronounce the word ‘swine,’” said Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman of the ultra-religious United Torah Judaism party.

Zoran Bulatovic of Serbia, who cut off his finger and ate it to protest a textile company’s refusal to pay some of its workers for years. “It hurt like hell,” admitted Bulatovic.

Eating out, after the New York Post revealed that some trendy Manhattan restaurants are making up for a downturn in business by sneakily charging diners for bread, the butter to go with it, tap water, and the ice in drinks.