Did the Vatican steal the foreskin of Jesus as part of a secret plot?

In 1983, as the residents of Calcata, a small town 30 miles north of Rome, prepared for their annual procession honoring a holy relic, a shocking announcement from the parish priest put a damper on festivities. “This year, the holy relic will not be exposed to the devotion of the faithful. It has vanished. Sacrilegious thieves have taken it from my home.” Not since the Middle Ages, when lopped-off body parts of divine do-gooders were bought, sold, and traded, has relic theft been big news. But the mysterious disappearance of Calcata’s beloved curio is different. This wasn’t just the residuum of any holy human—nor was it just any body part. It was the foreskin of Jesus Christ, the snipped-off tip of the savior’s penis, the only piece of his body he supposedly left on earth. Some suspect the village priest sold it for a heavenly sum; others say it was stolen by thieves; some even suggest Satanists or neo-Nazis are responsible. But the most likely culprit is an unlikely one: the Vatican. (via Slate)

He has hiked through 20 countries around the world in search of rare cheeses

Trevor Warmedahl was working as a commercial cheesemaker in Seattle when he realised he was using milk that came from animals he never saw. So, he quit his job and set off on what has become a global odyssey to discover places that still make cheese the old-fashioned way. In 2019 he arrived in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and lived alone in a yurt with a dog as his companion. He soon discovered that dairy was sacred there: the women flicked milk into the air before cheesemaking, a gesture of respect called a milk libation. He visited homes where whey bubbled over central hearths and fresh, unripened byaslag cheese covered tables. After hiking to shrines, he noticed people offered dairy products as a symbol of purity. As summer unfolded and city-dwellers migrated to the Mongolian steppe to farm, Warmedahl itched to join. He jumped on a Soviet-era coal-powered sleeper train for a rickety overnight ride across the Gobi Desert. On the journey back to Ulaanbaatar, he met a local who invited him to stay with her herder family on the Zavkhan grassland. (via the BBC)

When a stray cat from Paris traveled 98 miles into space for 13 minutes

Cats are known for their curiosity, but Félicette took hers far beyond the places most felines ever explore. On Oct. 18, 1963, the small black-and-white former stray became the first and only cat to survive a trip into space. Her journey lasted less than 15 minutes, yet it made her part of an important chapter in the early years of space exploration. Decades later, her contribution received a lasting tribute in the form of a bronze statue in France. Before Félicette’s flight, the United States and the Soviet Union had sent animals into space to help scientists understand how space travel affected living bodies. Famous examples included Laika, a dog launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, and Ham, a chimpanzee sent into space by the United States in 1961. France had previously sent rats, but researchers at the Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique selected Félicette from a group of 14 cats trained for the mission. (via People)

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.

He was the trickster god of the counterculture and tried to levitate the Pentagon

Ed Sanders is an American maverick; a musician, poet, activist, journalist and author whose greatest hit remains his bestselling 1971 book The Family, in which he chronicled the lives, crimes and trials of Manson and his followers. Sanders was well placed to report on crazed hippies, having played a pivotal role in launching the US counterculture – though he very much espoused peace, love and consciousness-raising, rather than Manson’s apocalyptic worldview. Aged 87, Sanders is speaking with me as Fugs Film!, a feature-length documentary about the Fugs, the offbeat folk-garage-psych band Sanders initially led from 1964-69, and re-formed in the 1980s, gets its UK premiere this week. Sanders was a Zelig of the Lower East Side, friendly with Ginsberg (“A great man”), William Burroughs (“Unnerving, brilliant”), a then unknown Jimi Hendrix (“He was trading as Jimmy James. We gave him his first wah-wah pedal. Nice, talented guy”), to name just a few of his associates. In concert, the Fugs shared bills with the Velvet Underground, the Stooges and the Grateful Dead. (via The Guardian)

A black bear stole honey from a library on the anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh

A Mono County bear decided to celebrate Winnie-the-Pooh’s anniversary by breaking into the Mammoth Lakes Library.  On Wednesday, a little after 6 a.m., the black bear entered the library and enjoyed staff refreshments: peanut butter, peach cups, cookies and a jar of honey, Mono County Free Libraries posted on Facebook. The bear was caught on camera walking around the reference desk and the new releases section before leaving. Despite the bear’s entry, nothing inedible was damaged. “This morning the Mammoth Lakes Library had a special visitor before the doors opened for patrons,” the Mono County Office of Education. “We can only assume the new Li-BEAR-ian was looking for a copy of Winnie The Pooh, published 100 years ago today!” The original Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends Eeyore, Piglet, Tigger and Kanga are historic stuffed animals on display at the New York Public Library. (via SFGate)

This is what a starfish looks like when it's walking along a beach

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com