Deer assaults

ARIZONA Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clactus. Courtesy Greg Woodall

CALIFORNIA

There’s no doubt about it, says Connie Jenkins: A deer suddenly assaulted her small Honda while she was driving along a winding canyon to her home high above Malibu. Yet the suggestion in a letter from an expeditor for Farmers Insurance that she seek damages from the “third party” — which in this case would be the deer — seemed more trouble than it was worth. She paid the deductible herself, she reports, because “I’m pretty sure that doe has no dough.”

ARIZONA

We all know that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a fierce Republican, felt no qualms about angrily shaking her finger at President Obama when the two met at an airport during the presidential campaign. So it was not surprising that she recently got really assertive with reporter Dennis Welch. Brewer was waiting to speak about energy to the Western Governors’ Association when Welch popped the question: Where does she stand on the issue of global warming? Her answer, peppered with “you knows,” went this way: “Everybody has an opinion on it, you know, and I, you know, probably don’t believe that it’s manmade. I believe that, you know, that weather elements are controlled by different things.” After her convoluted answer, the governor walked away but then returned to “hit Welch with a closed fist, demanding: ‘Where in the hell’d that come from?’ ” Videos of the encounter, posted on the website of KTVK-TV, where Welch works, swiftly went viral, reports the Arizona Republic. Matthew Benson, an aide to Brewer, downplayed the incident: “The reporter himself is saying he didn’t think it was malicious and the governor did not mean any harm.”

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.