truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Wrestling in Turkey (I): Villages in western Turkey traditionally hold camel-wrestling matches during gala weekend festivals in winter, which is mating season and the only time bull camels will fight (and even then, not always). There is at least one professional league, and sometimes, camels embody the pride of an entire village. A female is paraded in front of two males, then led away, and the supposedly frisky bulls tussle but only occasionally reach a resolution in which one subdues the other by sitting on him, according to a dispatch in Germany's Der Spiegel. Usually, judges have to pick the winner on style, and sometimes the decision is easy, as one camel has simply run away.

A member of Pakistan's parliament stood his ground in August, defending news reports from his Baluchistan province that five women had been shot and then buried alive as tribal punishment for objecting to their families' choosing husbands for them. A defiant Israr Ullah Zehri told the Associated Press, "These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them," despite condemnation by Zehri's colleagues. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid," Zehri said.

Castrillo de Murcia, Spain, lacks a "running of the bulls" tradition, but since 1620, it has included in its annual El Colacho festival a "leaping over the babies." In late May, the town's infants are laid on mattresses in the village square, and people in red-and-yellow devil costumes jump over them and keep running, to symbolize the vanquishing of demons from their lives.

Serbians, who have previously, bafflingly, constructed large, reverential public statues of martial-arts actor Bruce Lee and movie characters Tarzan and Rocky Balboa, built one of reggae musician Bob Marley in August in the village of Banatski Sokolac. Also planned was a statue of British singer Samantha Fox, but that project fell through. One Serbian artist who helped raise money for the Rocky statue told The New York Times, "My generation can't find role models (at home) so we have to look elsewhere."

Rituals: The chairman of a Nigerian development company was charged in August with stealing what is now the equivalent of $5.5 million, and burning $2 million of that in cash so he could smear the ashes over his naked body in a nighttime "fortification" ritual in a cemetery.

In many ways, reported the Los Angeles Times in August, the Torajans of Indonesia's Sulawesi Island "spend a lifetime preparing for their demise," in that the most glorious highlight of their existence appears to be planning the elaborate celebration of the end of it. In fact, taking one's last breath is only the beginning of a lengthy tribute, such as the one for Toraja's last king, who died in 2003 but has not been put away yet, pending completion of the necessary ritual animal sacrifices. (In the interim, the deceased is considered more "sick" than "dead.") Said one local ("cheerfully," according to the Times), "Torajans! (We) live to die!"