Katherine Benjamin

Most of us don't have to worry about being misquoted because we aren't famous and no one really cares what we say, no matter how many followers we might have on Twitter. But when you are well-known, being misquoted must be really annoying. People will start to think you believe whatever was allegedly said. And in the most extreme cases, these made-up quotes become a defining part of a person's image. So let's try to correct the record a little bit and figure out who actually said what.

When you were a kid, SeaWorld was like an aquatic circus, a happy place where animals did tricks for your amusement and you went home with a Shamu stuffed animal. But then the documentary Blackfish dropped and suddenly lots of people saw the theme parks as twisted prisons for poor innocent whales and other animals tortured into entertaining humans.
But there are more terrible things than even that movie showed. Here is a roundup of many of the sick and twisted stuff that happened at SeaWorld.

People all over the world dream of being pop stars, but perhaps nowhere else more than South Korea. While their northern neighbors are wondering where the next meal is coming from, South Koreans are obsessing over every detail of their K-Pop stars' lives and striving to be as much like them as possible. This regularly leads to really weird and creepy incidents, but those "lucky" enough to actually be an idol are still expected to appreciate it, no matter what hell they're put through.

The first lady has a complex job. She isn't paid and isn't even really an official position, but she has to always look perfect, represent her country well, and champion her own causes. We expect a lot from a person who only got there because someone she married happened to win an election.
But not all first ladies toed the line. Some of them found ways of being themselves in a manner that was a little un-first lady-like. Some of them were just outright weird.

Without geniuses, the world would look nothing like it does today. One brilliant person can change history, create amazing art, or simply do things us normies could only dream of. But the ironic thing is that the world might actually have been a much nicer place if some of the most intelligent and talented people of all time had never existed. Sure, anyone can be a jerk, but these big brains seemed to take it to the next level.

It's hard being a tourist. You're in an unfamiliar city or country, maybe you don't speak the language, and you're trying to cram in all the must-see things before you drop from exhaustion. This usually involves seeing famous works of art, some statues, maybe a fountain or two. And for most people this works out fine. They come, they see, they leave everything intact. But then there are the other tourists. Maybe bad luck follows them around or maybe they just have one moment of stupidity.

If the name doesn't ring any bells, Warren Jeffs has been the head of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints for the past decade and a half. The FLDS is a branch of Mormonism that broke off from the main group in 1890 when the main LDS group banned polygamy. The 10,000 or so practitioners live in Arizona, Utah, Texas, and Canada, and Jeffs is their prophet.
But the strangeness of this church-cult goes a lot deeper than that. Jeffs himself is a lawbreaking creep.

There's nothing people want to discover more when they move into a new house than a secret passage. Secret rooms are cool, too, but a passage has so much more potential — it can lead anywhere. And while you might be desperately pulling books out of your bookshelf, looking for the one that makes it swing out, some people have been finding them in much more interesting locations. Some of the most famous buildings in the world have secret passages and tunnels built in.

They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. And this has been bad news for basically everyone throughout history because kings were in charge of everybody for a long time. With no one around to tell them no, being head honcho kind of went to their heads. This meant a lot of them were technically sane but developed a lot of strange habits.

Women haven't always had it as good as men. Most of the time any power they might have had was through their husbands. But whether they ruled as a consort or in their own right, many ladies managed to be just as crazy as the guy in charge. There are plenty of women throughout history who were completely bizarre on their own merits. Theses are just some of them.

New York City. The Big Apple. Gotham. Home to the Trumps, the U.N., and Spider-Man. It's the city so nice they named it twice. It's moved beyond just famous to infamous, and some have argued it's the center of the world. But when you're that important, people are going to start talking about you, and not everything they say is going to be nice.
Lots of rumors have emerged over the years about the city that never sleeps. Some of them are flattering but most, not so much.

The Academy Awards. For those who love films, or actors, or even just celebrity gossip, Oscar night is like the Christmas of the pop culture calendar. Is there anything more fun than watching beautiful people dressed up in outfits that cost more than your car, watching the joy on the winners' faces and the fake passiveness on the losers' faces? And these days no Academy Awards viewing would be complete without hopping on Twitter and arguing with strangers about who was egregiously snubbed.

The internet is amazing. It has given us access to nearly all the information in the world, right at our fingertips. It allows us to work from home, stream shows for hours, and show off everything from our food to our wedding. It has become a vital part of our lives, with some people getting genuinely panicky if they lose access for any length of time. And now with smart phones, that hardly ever has to happen. You can't escape the internet.
And that might be a bad thing.

My winning short story for the June 2012 contest.

You're probably pretty impressed with your amazing feats of memory if you manage to remember when your next dentist appointment is or get all your groceries when you accidentally leave your list at home. But there are people out there who have achieved real mental feats, ones that shocked the world and got them in the record books. These are people with brains so big you wonder how they still fit in their skull.