News of the Weird, February 3, 2013

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M304 (News of the Weird, February 3, 2013)
by Chuck Shepherd

Lead Story

* California lawyer Jonathan Frieman finally got his day in court in
January, but a Marin County judge quickly rejected his argument
that he is entitled to use the state's carpool lanes accompanied only
by a sheath of corporate papers in the passenger seat. (During the
2012 Republican primaries, Mitt Romney famously asserted a
corporation's general right under the law to be treated as a
"person.") The judge decided that the state legislature's carpool law
intended only to reduce traffic clutter and that driving with no
passenger except corporate papers was unrelated to that goal.
Frieman told reporters that he had been carrying the papers around
for years, hoping to be challenged. [San Francisco Chronicle, 1-8-
2013]

Cultural Diversity

* The U.S. Congress may suffer dismal popularity ratings (less
savory than head lice, according to one survey), but it is saintly
compared to India's legislatures, which contain six accused rapists
at the state level and two in the national parliament. Thirty-six local
officials, as well, have been charged with sexual assault (according
to India's Association for Democratic Reforms). In fact, the
Association reported in December that 162 of the lower Parliament's
552 members currently face criminal charges. The problem is
compounded by India's notoriously paralyzed justice system, which
practically ensures that the charges will be unresolved for years, if
not decades. [Wall Street Journal, 12-30-2012]

* Many Japanese men seem reject smartphones in favor of a low-
tech 2002 Fujitsu cell phone, according to a January Wall Street
Journal dispatch--because it can help philanderers keep their affairs
from lovers' prying eyes. The phones lack sophisticated tracking
features--plus, a buried "privacy" mode gives off only stealth
signals when lovers call and leaves no trace of calls, texts, or e-
mails. A senior executive for Fujitsu said, "If Tiger Woods had
[this phone], he wouldn't have gotten in trouble." [Wall Street
Journal, 1-11-2013]

* China's national legislature passed a law in December to establish
that people have a duty to visit their aged parents periodically.
China's rapid urbanization has not developed nursing homes and
similar facilities to keep pace with the population, and sponsors of
the law said it would give the parents a legal right to sue their
children for ignoring them. [Associated Press, 12-28-2012]

Latest Religious Messages

* Redemption! Senior pastor Claude Gilliland III was forced to
admit to his flock at the New Heart Church in Cleburne, Tex., in
January that he is a convicted sex offender and that he and his wife
had worked in the pornography industry. Gilliland, 54, served four
years in prison in the 1990s for sexually assaulting his ex-wife, but
in January was nonetheless defended by his congregation. "If we
believe in the redemptive work of Christ," said one parishioner,
"then this man is a miracle." (Gilliland believes he needs no
redemption for the assault, for he was innocent of that--but that he
had done other bad things during that time that did require
redemption.) [WFAA-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth), 1-6-2013]

* God and Shoes: (1) "Prophet" Cindy Jacobs said in a January
Internet broadcast that God has revealed Himself to her by
mysteriously removing critical shortages in her life, such as her car's
well-worn tires that kept rolling. "I remember one time that I had a
pair of shoes that I wore and wore and wore and wore and wore and
it just--for years, these shoes did not wear out." (2) Dublin, Ireland,
inventor David Bonney recently decided to change the marketing of
his new shoes to "Atheist Shoes." Two years earlier, he had started
the business selling "Christian" shoes that contained water in the
soles so that wearers could walk on water. ["God Knows"
videocast, 1-9-2013, via RawStory.com, 1-9-2013] [Irish Times, 12-
8-2013]

Questionable Judgments

* Four days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn., officials at Public School 79 in New York City
decided it would be a good time for a full-blown lockdown drill--
with no advance warning. Though P.S. 79 is a high school and not
an elementary school, it is composed of about 300 students with
special needs (with autism, cerebral palsy, severe emotional
disorders), who, with their teachers, were startled to hear the early-
morning loudspeaker blaring, "Shooter (or, possibly, "Intruder"),
Get out, Get out, Lockdown." One adult said it took her about five
minutes to realize that it was only a drill. Still, said another, "It was
probably the worst feeling I ever had in my life." [New York
Times, 12-19-2012] peter.smagorinsky

* Neighborhood observers reported in December that the asbestos-
removal "crew" working at the former YWCA in Middleburg
Heights, Ohio, consisted merely of volunteer teenagers who are
students at the local religious Buckeye Education School. State
regulations require that asbestos (known to cause deadly respiratory
illnesses) be handled only by certified contractors using hazardous-
materials gear. Buckeye and other officials, while emphasizing that
the students were volunteers, declined to say who authorized them
to work. [WKYC-TV, 1-8-2013]

* In November, Tokyo's Kenichi Ito, 29, bested his own Guinness
World Record by a full second (down to 17.47 seconds) in the 100-
meter dash--on all fours. Ito runs like a Patas monkey, which he has
long admired and which (along with his self-described monkey-like
face) inspired him nine years ago to take up "four-legged" running.
He reported trouble only once, when he went to the mountains to
train and was shot at by a hunter who mistook him for a wild boar.
[The Guardian (London), 11-16-2012; Reuters, 4-18-2012]

Perspective

* Generally, clients are held to account for their lawyers' errors
because the lawyers are their "agents," but death-row inmates might
be treated differently, for they usually do not select or pay for their
lawyers--and because the stakes are so high. Alabama, though,
looks at the problem unsympathetically, according to a January New
York Times report. When an Alabama death-row inmate misses an
appeals-filing deadline only because of his lawyer's error (in murder
client Ronald Smith's case, only because lawyer C. Wade Johnson
was an often-incapacitated methamphetamine addict), the client
forgoes the appeal. The Smith case is currently before the U.S.
Supreme Court. (Alabama also remains the only state in which
judges overrule juries and impose the death penalty instead of life in
prison.) [New York Times, 1-7-2013]

Fetishists on Parade

* William Michael Martin, 45, was charged in January with
burglary of the East Texas Medical Center in Lufkin, Tex., where he
went apparently in search of women's underwear and employees'
personal photos, which police said he used as masturbation aids. At
his home, police discovered a cache of women's underwear and
several beach balls, which officers learned from photos were so that
Martin could put them under his clothing and pose as pregnant.
[KTRE-TV (Lufkin) via Houston Press, 1-11-2013]

Most Pathetic Criminals

* Benjamin Greene, 22, was charged in December with shoplifting a
nude blow-up doll from a Spencer's Gifts store in Spartanburg,
S.C., but on closer inspection, the doll was less than met the eye. It
was one of the manufacturer's "Super Star Series" of dolls
suggesting resemblances to celebrities like Jessica Simpson and
Lindsay Lohan, but which are apparently all the same generic plastic
doll resembling no human. The packaging on Greene's $19.19
"Finally Mylie![sic] Love Doll" suggests singer Miley Cyrus
("finally" presumably to honor Cyrus's having recently turned 18
and "legal"), but it, too, was the generic plastic doll. [The Smoking
Gun, 12-13-2012]

Readers' Choice

* (1) In December, the Illinois Times reported that emergency
workers were called to a Springfield, Ill., church to rescue Father
Tom Donovan, who said that he had been playing with a pair of
handcuffs in the rectory and accidentally got stuck. He was also
wearing "some sort of gag," according to the police report. The
church told reporters that Father Donovan immediately went on
administrative leave and was unable to answer questions. (2)
Donald Blood III, 55, was charged with DUI in December in Dorset,
Vt., after driving into a yard, thinking it was a parking lot. It was
actually historic property: the 1852 home in which Bill Wilson, the
founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was born and which is "a place
of sanctuary where people can come to give thanks to God for their
new lives." [Illinois Times (Springfield), 1-3-2013] [Associated
Press via Yahoo News, 12-27-2012] scott.huber neb.rodgers
john.mcgaw

Thanks This Week to Peter Smagorinsky, Scott Huber, Neb
Rodgers, and John McGaw, and to the News of the Weird Board of
Editorial Advisors.

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