Former International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a French court that he was unaware of the “prostitutional character” of women involved in orgies at luxury hotels in Paris and Washington D.C. were prostitutes. The much ridiculed defense is only the latest development in a bizarre criminal prosecution in France, where prostitution is legal but not soliciting or running a prostitution business – a curious line to draw for criminal cases.
Category: Society
There is a horrible triple murder being investigated this morning in North Carolina where three people from a Muslim family were allegedly murdered by Craig Stephen Hicks, 46. Some are speculating that Hicks’ strong atheist views may have been a factor after reading this “anti-theist” positions on the Internet. He has been described in some media account as a “radical atheist” though atheists have rarely engaged in violent acts against religious persons. UPDATE: Police have said that the dispute was not religiously motivated but a dispute over a parking space.
We have yet another example of the twisted view of women in the Saudi Kingdom and the equally twisted view of what appears to pass for an intellectual in Saudi Arabia. Saudi historian Saleh Al-Saadoon told the Saudi news show Rotana Khalijiyya that the reason women in the West drive is that they “don’t care if they are raped on the roadside.” It was particularly offensive from a Saudi academic in a country long accused of having a culture that excuses rape.
Jenifer Lynn Patterson, 24, is facing a serious charge this week after the North Carolina mother used her 4-year-old son to smuggle drugs to an inmate at Columbus Correctional Institution. The question is whether in addition to the charge of felony introduction of drugs into prison facility should be combined with a move to sever her parental custody of her two children.
We have previously discussed the problem in some countries like China where drivers routinely drive on sidewalks. Russia is also notorious for some horrendous drivers. One group however has started a campaign to confront drivers, leading to some tense confrontations on sidewalks as the videotape below indicates. It raises an interesting legal question of this type of citizen action. The line between citizen action and vigilantism can blur if it involves property damage, even though this is relatively slight. Indeed, there is admittedly a certain satisfaction in seeing these cars marked with a large sticker after such reckless conduct.
Continue reading “Video: Russians Confront Drivers Using Sidewalks To Avoid Traffic”
There is a fascinating lawsuit in California where Anna Marie Phillips has sued A California woman P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Inc. for charming a dollar extra for gluten-free food. Phillips says that gluten diets are necessary for people with celiac disease and thus the added charge violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Continue reading “P.F. Charges: Restaurant Chain Sued Over $1 Charge on Gluten-Free Dishes”
The University of Michigan has spent $16,000 on a campaign to get students to use “inclusive language” and stop using certain words and phrases. Around campus, posters give examples of the now verboten words like “crazy,” “insane,” “retarded,” “gay,” “tranny,” “gypped,” “illegal alien,” “fag,” “ghetto” and “raghead.” In fairness to the school and students, there program is broader than just the listing of offensive terms and phrases. The campaign is also featured on Facebook.
Principal Jazmine Santiago is under funding over school spending this week but it is not the usual tension between added teachers versus greater school supplies. Santiago is accused to effectively using school funds in the struggling PS 260 in Flatbush to build her own private gym with a bench press, pull-up bar, treadmill, elliptical machine and thigh exerciser. While Santiago says that she shares the equipment with older students, the oldest students at the school is only 11 years old since they top out at 5th grade.
Continue reading “New York Principal at Struggling School Accused Of Building Private Gym”
By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“That no person whatsoever in this Jurisdiction shall joyn any persons together in Marriage but the Magistrate, or such other as the General Court, or Court of Assistants shall authorize in such places where no Magistrate is near.”
-Lauues and Libertyes of Massachusetts (1648) (Legal Classics Library Ed. 1982)
First Things is a highly regarded ecumenical journal on religion and society. Its editor, R.R. Reno, recently posted online a document entitled “The Marriage Pledge.” The pledge is a reaction to the expansion of same-sex marriage recognition across the country, a phenomenon which conflicts “with the Christian understanding of marriage between a man and a woman.” To protest these changes, Christian ministers who sign the pledge agree that they “will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage” and “will no longer sign government provided marriage certificates.” As of this writing, the pledge has attracted over 400 signatories.
The Marriage Pledge is an unfortunate document, however, and more than a little ironic. It is ineffectual because it presumes a level of importance that the clergy does not have in the formation of lawful marriages, and it abandons religious believers in the process. Those who understand something of the history of marriage will correctly perceive the pledge as a form of witless moral witness.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In another example of bizarre and horrific treatments of children by relatives the Lincoln County Missouri Sheriff’s Office accuses a family of staging a frightening kidnapping of their six year old son because they believed he was being too friendly with strangers and needed to be taught a lesson.
Several felony charges later, the family is now being taught that lesson in the county jail.
Continue reading “Family Accused Of Kidnapping Boy To Teach Him Not To Talk To Strangers”
There is a growing scandal in the Bronx that has led to the resignation of two legal aid attorneys (Ryan Napoli and Kumar Rao) and calls for the defunding of Bronx Defenders, an organization that represents over 35,000 indigent persons each year under a $20 million annual contract with the city. The controversy erupted after the release of the video below entitled “Hands Up” featuring a popular rap artist and noting sponsorship and participation by the Bronx Defenders. The video includes repeated images to two African-American men about to shoot a white police officer and lyrics call for the shooting of police officers.
Attorney Timothy Griffin, 55, has been sentenced to a six-month prison stint in a pile up of criminal and unethical conduct, including the theft of $1.8 million from a non-profit Jewish cemetery. It turns out that he was not the first professional to victimize the cemetery.
I had the pleasure this month of writing a piece on free speech in the leading policy magazine in Switzerland, “Schweizer Monat.” The piece is published in German (Charlies falsche Freunde or Charlie’s False Friends), which is particularly cool for my son Benjamin who is taking German at McLean High School in Virginia. The German version can be found here. Germany is currently our fifth highest supplier of readers with Switzerland close behind. Ironically, Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein also wrote a piece in the same issue this month. The translated column is below:
Rev. Wayne Marlon Jones, 53, has been criminally charged in a case where police say that he sexually assaulted a woman during exorcisms and defrauded her over the course of years. The case could raise questions over questions of consent and religious beliefs.
Continue reading “Toronto Pastor Charged With Sexually Assaulting Woman As Part of Exorcism”
There was a shocking arrest for many in the Texas bar this week when former dean of Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law John B. Attanasio was charged under prostitution laws. Attanasio, 60, is free on $500 bail for the class B misdemeanor.
Continue reading “Former SMU Dean Arrested On Prostitution Charges”