Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev appears to have taken a lesson from Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen: “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” However, Aliyev has modified it to “victory first, votes second.” The authoritarian regime was slightly embarrassed when the state media released the results of the election showing Aliyev winning with 72.76 percent of the vote. The problem is that the polls had not opened yet.
Category: Bizarre
It seems that restaurants are struggling to find any novel fad to gain recognition but this one has been baffled. People get together with friends for a Friday night dinner and they go to Brooklyn’s “Eat” restaurant where they are promptly told that they must eat their meal in silence. Could be a bit rough on a first date.
Continue reading “Shut Up And Eat: New York Restaurant Bars Conversation By Patrons”
Donald Eugene Miller Jr. is truly a dead man walking. He went to Judge Allan Davis at Hancock County Probate Court to inform the court that he was very much alive despite Davis’ ruling that he was deceased in 1994. He was surprised, however, when Davis said that there was nothing he could do. Miller was dead in the eyes of the law and that was the end of it . . . and him. It is not clear how Miller will rid himself of the first legally recognized status as an undead Zombie life form.
There is an interesting case out of France this week where four former members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church have been arrested and charged with torture, barbarism, and kidnapping of Antoinette, a 19-year-old Cameroonian. Their defense is novel: consent. Her former boyfriend, Eric Deron, who fashions himself to be something of a prophet, insisted that they were performing an exorcism by tying her to a mattress in a crucifixion position and kept her alive with small amounts of oil and water.
Kuwait is reportedly developing a test that it says will be able to “detect” homosexuals to prevent their entry into that country and other Gulf nations. It is perfectly bizarre, but Kuwait believes that it is possible to have some type of anti-gay detection system. It is not clear what type of test it would be since, despite stereotypes, leaving a Barbra Streisand album in the middle of a rope snare on the floor of the terminal may not catch all gay men. (Indeed, as a Broadway show fan, I would be the first hanging upside down in the Kuwait airport clutching a copy of Funny Girl). I have long wondered where all of those phrenologists went after the collapse of their “science” in the detection of criminals from head shapes.
In a recent interview, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia holds forth on the usual subjects such as originalism and repeats his view that “if a state enacted a law permitting flogging, it is immensely stupid, but it is not unconstitutional.” However, the most interesting part of the New York Magazine piece came with Scalia’s discussion of the supernatural. Scalia warns that the Devil has become much more “wilier” and harder to spot in society. It appears in both constitutional text and spiritual life the devil is in the details.
We previously discussed a lawsuit against retailer Abercrombie & Fitch over a rule barring the wearing of religious headscarves in their business. Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has handed down an important decision in favor of the store involving a woman in Tulsa Oklahoma who said that she was passed over for a job due to her religious dress. The federal government supported Samantha Elauf, 17, in her claim of discrimination, but the court ruled 3-0 against the arguments of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Continue reading “Abercrombie Wins Appeal Over Employee’s Right To Wear Headscarf”
Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger
The Laramie Project is a play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the torture-murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student in 1998. Mutilated and almost dead, he was found tied to a barbed wire fence just outside Laramie, Wyoming. That fence was the inspiration for the play’s logo. Matthew Shepard died of his injuries shortly after being taken to a local hospital. The murder was called a hate crime, but in 1998 there were few hate crime laws, and there was none in Wyoming.
Shortly after Matthew Shepard was killed, Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project went to Laramie and interviewed dozens of local people about the murder. The play draws on over 400 hours of interviews with residents of Laramie, as well as company members’ own journal entries and published news reports. The Laramie Project is divided into three acts. Eight actors portray more than sixty characters in a series of short scenes.
The play has been performed all over the US and internationally as well. Venues have included high schools, colleges, and community theaters across the US. As of this writing, The Laramie Project has also been performed at professional playhouses in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Not surprisingly, Fred Phelps and his merry band of haters have frequently picketed The Laramie Project.
Continue reading “The Ole Miss Incident: The University is Tested Once Again”
The Saudi legal system is back in the news today with another report of an abomination from the Sharia-based courts in the Kingdom. It appears that Saudi judges do not want to be outdone by the punishment against woman videotaped dancing in the rain. According to this report, a Saudi court has sentenced four men to up to 10 years in prison and 2000 lashes for the crime of dancing “naked” in public. Like the women in Pakistan, the men were left exposed due to a posting on YouTube. The medieval Sharia legal system took it from there.
Justin Baker, 20, may have thought three times is the charm for selling drugs but it is not quite same if you sell the drug three times to the same undercover police officer.
It may be true that “good fences make good neighbors,” but is it also true that bad donations make for bad cases? This week, Tim Bernaby, 44, pleaded guilty and was given a $100 fine for stealing two letters and 13 Christmas cards written by Frost that were left in a donated desk. The status of the property complicated the criminal case with both the availability of the property and a key witness in doubt. As for the donating family, they insist it never intended to give away the valuable letters and cards. The donor, who has since passed away, saw no need to take the property to a more secure location. After all, Frost himself said “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.” In this case, it would be walling in property worth tens of thousands of dollars and walling out one Tim Bernaby.
We have previously followed the suspensions and discipline of students under zero tolerance policies that are used by teachers to justify zero judgment or responsibility. I have long criticized zero tolerance policies that have led to suspensions and arrests of children (here and here and here and here). Here is a prior column on the subject (and here).Children have been suspended or expelled for drawing stick figures or wearing military hats or bringing Legos shaped like guns or even having Danish in the shape of a gun. Despite the public outcry over the completely irrational and abusive application of zero tolerance rules, administrators and teachers continue to apply them blindly. If you do not have to exercise judgment, you can never been blamed for any failure. That seems to be the logic out of Harmony, Florida where teachers have suspended eight-year-old Jordan Bennett for using a finger as a play gun. This is only the last of such absurd finger gun cases. In the meantime, a student in Rhode Island was suspended for having a key chain with a tiny gun the size of a quarter on it.
Continue reading “Florida Student Reportedly Suspended For Using Finger Gun In Playground Game”
Jehovah’s Witnesses in Arkansas will soon be called to be witnesses of a different kind for John Baldwin, 35. Baldwin is charged with aggravated assault after firing 13 times at the Jehovah’s Witnesses who approached him in his front yard. After Baldwin told Laura Goforth, 47, and Rachel Boshears, 55, to get off his lawn, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were leaving when one of them heard Baldwin tell his wife “Get me my 9.” (A referenced to his Springfield XDM-9). While Isaiah 43:10 may proclaim “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen,” these pious folk will soon be called by a more earthly authority to bear witness.
Police have made an arrest in the extraordinary case of a gang of bikers who terrorized a family of Alexian Lien, 33, in New York City. One of the bikers filmed the entire chase and attack and then posted it on YouTube. He may have succeeded in incriminating his colleagues, including Christopher Cruz, 28. Cruz was charged with reckless endangerment, menacing, reckless driving and acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17. (Update: A second suspect — Allen Edwards, 42, of Queens, charged with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and menacing. He is believed to be the man seen on video below striking the Range Rover windows with his fists.).
Continue reading “New York Police Make First Arrest in Biker Attack on Family (Updated)”
Destiny Desbrow certainly had a marriage ceremony that would be hard to forget. It has the usual features of most weddings: a cake, a ring, and an audience. However, the location and time was a bit odd. She married Danne Desbrow just minutes after he was sentenced to 53 years to life for murder by Judge Patricia Cookson who not only had sentenced him but baked the cake for the wedding.