Don't let the sun – or its owner, Angeles Duran – catch you crying. (Photo Credit: CC BY/Kevin Dooley/Flickr)
When Arthur Schwartz and Dorothy Fields wrote the song “I’ll Buy You a Star” for the musical “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” they had no idea that people would eventually take them literally. When the band Smash Mouth opined that “You might as well be walking on the sun,” they weren’t seriously suggesting that our spectral class, hydrogen-burning star should be considered real estate. But that is exactly what 49-year-old Spanish woman Angeles Duran has done. Duran registered the sun in her name at a local notary office in her home town of Salvaterra do Mino, reports the Daily Mail.
Angeles Duran has the registration papers to prove it
While simple logic might seem to dictate that a person cannot own the sun, Angeles Duran knows that jurisprudence has the very real ability to defy mere human logic. She told the online edition of the Spanish news periodical El Mundo that she decided to register as the sun’s owner in September after reading about how a man in the U.S. (Dennis Hope) had previously registered himself as the sole owner of the moon as well as most planets in the known solar system.
According to international agreement, no country may hold ownership of a planet or star. Being an individual, however, Angeles Duran was well within her legal rights to buy the sun.
“There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law,” she told El Mundo.
Making a buck off lots of gas
According to the documents issued to Angeles Duran by her local notary office, she is indeed the sun’s owner. More specifically, she owns:
“A star of spectral type G2, located in the center of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers.”
But what’s a celestial body without a means of monetization? That’s where Angeles Duran’s business savvy comes into play. According to the Daily Mail, Duran wishes to charge every single person who uses the sun a fee. She’d give half to Spain’s government – an inventive way to shake off the collapse of the euro – then split the rest between pension funds, research, ending world hunger and herself.
omg so true! people could sue her for cancer! or extreme heat that causes heatstroke
FINALLY,Someone who is not ashamed to own up to ownership of the sun!!! Let the law suit's begin!!!!!!!! Skin cancer victims we have someone to blame!!!!!! Hooray!!!!
This is funny. Too bad she can't be allowed to charge for the sun's light or rays which emit from it.
Otherwise I would start charging when I release gas in public.
Thats right I would run around the block everyday and pass gas and as I passed people I would accept gas tax and then tell everyone I was giving 1% to the poor.