There is a bizarre case involving a well-known race jockey, Paul Quinn, in England who urinated on woman after struggling with her for possession of her cell phone. Quinn was drunk and wanted to make a call. When the woman resisted, he grappled with her and then inexplicably urinated on her. However, it was not the act (which even celebrities have been known to do in close quarters) but the charge that caught my attention: sexual assault.
Category: Society
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
For Ralph Waldo Emerson it was the triumph of principle. Washington found it inexorably linked to virtue, and George Bernard Shaw said it was “health and a course to steer.” Singer Cheryl Crowe said it is whatever doesn’t make you sad, and comedian Johnny Carson said it is “a tiger in your tank and a pussy cat in your backseat.” When Jefferson wrote defiantly that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, he still only mentioned three: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Whatever happiness is, it is a common quest and virtually universally misunderstood in the cacophony of money, sex, and digital splash that passes for it in the West. When parents are asked about the single most important outcome in their children’s lives the answer is invariably ” to be happy.” Why then is the human feeling of happiness so elusive in the modern world with all of our advances in science, technology, nutrition, medicine and standard of living?
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.
~LEO TOLSTOY, War and Peace
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
While touring about America’s roadways, it’s not unusual to see a vanity plate or bumper sticker that says “God Is My Co-Pilot”. It’s not unusual to see someone with a dog as a co-pilot. Can a corporation be your co-pilot?
We’ll soon find out thanks to Citizens United and Jonathan Frieman of San Rafael, California. Mr. Frieman was pulled over for driving alone in the carpool lane. He argued to the officer that he did actually have a passenger. In the form of articles of incorporation. Upset (and reasonably so) over the Citizens United ruling, Frieman says he had been trying for years to get pulled over, ticketed and get a chance to take his argument to court that corporations and people are not the same. His mission was accomplished in October when he was pulled over for driving alone in an HOV lane, ticketed and slapped with a $481 minimum fine.
It’s a common sense argument based in the reality that corporations are a legal fiction and not a real person. We’ve seen this argument in play here and in other media since the controversial – many if not most might say ridiculously bad – decision of Citizens United was rendered in 2010. But will it work in traffic court?
Submitted by: Mike Spindell. guest blogger
On New Year’s Eve my wife and I saw the movie “Les Miserables”. We’d seen the musical on Broadway and had been enchanted by it. The music from it is superb and this musical fully deserves all the acclaim it has received through the years. As much as I loved the stage version of “Le Mis”, the movie took all of the greatness of the stage and added something to the mix that lifted it into subversive social commentary. That is what I’m going to write about, but first for those who are unfamiliar with either the source book, or the musical adaptation, a very brief synopsis is needed to set the scene.
The story begins after the French Revolution and the defeat of Napoleon. The Royal Dynasty has been restored to power and the freedoms of the Revolution have been lost. The protagonist of this work is Jean Valjean. He was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor because of the ramifications of his stealing a loaf of bread for his starving sister. Imprisoned he is noticed by one of his Jailers, Javert, who notes Valjean for his almost super-human feats of strength. Valjean is paroled after serving his time and subsequently breaks parole. He is chased by Javert for the rest of the tale. The plot of the 1,900 page (in French) novel is summarized in detail at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables Details of the play and the movie are available here: http://www.lesmis.com/.
The ingredient added to the movie, which couldn’t have been done on stage were scenes depicting the abject poverty of the common people and the poor. With the visual nature of film and what will probably be Academy Award makeup, costuming and art direction, you can see a recreation of the life of the French lower classes in the 18th Century. These descriptions run true to the original novel which was so rich with detail. The book “Les Miserables” was intentionally revolutionary for its time as best summed up by the author Victor Hugo in the preface to the novel:
“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.”
Hugo’s eloquence above and its implications for our current time is the subject that I want to discuss. Continue reading ““Les Miserables” and the Shape of Things to Come”
As reported in the media, we resumed hearings this week in the the World Bank case (Chang v. United States) with testimony from the top lawyer at the Metropolitan Police Department, Terry Ryan, as well as other officers.
We have previously seen absurd examples of disciplinary actions taken under zero tolerance rules for drugs and guns (here andhere and here). This includes cases involving kids using finger guns (here). Now Roscoe R. Nix Elementary School in Montgomery County has joined these ranks by suspending a six-year-old boy for making a finger gun with his hand and saying “Pow.”
Continue reading “Terror Tots III: Maryland Student Suspended For Use Of Finger Gun”
We have another lap dance accident (here and here and here). The latest injured party however is the stripper herself. Lauren Block was giving a lap dance on the second floor of Christie’s Caberet in The Flats in Cleveland when she reportedly tried to do a flip on the customer’s lap. It took her over the balcony and she landed on the first floor on her head.
We have been following cases where sperm donors have been held for child support or alternatively sought parental rights. The latest such case is out of Kansas where the state is pursuing a sperm donor for child support. William Marotta responded to an advertisement by a lesbian couple to donate sperm, but, after the couple split up, the state insisted on being given his name as the father and pursued him for monthly support payments.
Continue reading “Kansas Demands Child Support Payments From Sperm Donor”
We have often discussed the continuing crackdown on student free speech in high schools. The latest such case involves Courtni Webb, a seventeen-year-old student at California’s Life Learning Academy who was suspended for writing in a poem in a personal notebook that she “understand[s] the killings in Connecticut.”
New Year’s Eve I wrote about my shock in watching the crude and often unhinged conduct of Kathy Griffin on CNN with Anderson Cooper. We switched over to the networks due to her bizarre behavior, but it appears it got worse as the night went on. Griffin followed her juvenile antics with a simulation of giving Anderson Cooper oral sex on national television. CNN’s response to this controversy is rather muted. While a “wardrobe malfunction” in the Superbowl merited weeks of discussion, simulated oral sex on a host appears to merit a return for Griffin to CNN the next day to joke around with Cooper about their wild time in Time Square.
The Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) has filed a lawsuit with the Internal Revenue Service that raises an interesting question. The group challenges the government’s different treatment of religious and non-religious non-for-profit organizations. While tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations must file a detailed application form, fee and annual information to obtain and maintain their tax-exempt status, churches and other religious organizations are exempted from the requirement to file the reports and fees. The lawsuit alleges that the added expensive and detailed paperwork is a form of discrimination against non-religious groups.
Continue reading “Group Challenges Different Treatment By IRS of Religious and Non-Religious Groups”
People are hoping to see less of Robert Moore, 48, but a court released the defendant who was arrested in Plymouth after “spraying urine to and fro into the flower beds while making noises like an elephant.” Despite his lawyer admitting that Moore has a “raging alcohol problem” and exposing himself of children, he was released and given another chance to tackle his drinking.
There is rising concern in Zanzibar that it is poised to be the next the next country to fall to extreme Islamic rule. While long a favorite for tourists for its beaches and resorts, the Saudi-based Wahhabi movement has established hundreds of schools and programs with money from Saudi Arabia and Dubai. The result is rising criticism of what Suleiman Ali, director of Radio Al-Noor, called the outbreak of “social freedoms.”
Continue reading “Islamic Leaders Denounce Outbreak of “Social Freedoms” In Zanzibar”
I suppose the good news for the Church of Scientology is that Belgium is no longer calling it a cult. The bad news is that it has moved on to calling is a criminal organization in a comprehensive set of charges ranging from extortion to fraud to privacy breaches to the illegal practice of medicine. The charges follow years of investigation into labor contracts that led to raids on Church properties in 2008. In 2009, Scientology was convicted of fraud in Paris and fined almost $1 million.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
If you are like me, you remember the violent response by the FBI, DHS and local police forces to the many “Occupy” movement protests last Fall. In those protests, the police used incredible force and firepower to break up peaceful protests and make a mockery of the First Amendment. The police responses always seemed to be coordinated from city to city and there were allegations that the FBI and other governmental agencies were aiding the local authorities in stamping down the First Amendment rights of the Occupy protestors. Now, a treasure trove of documents was released pursuant to a Freedom of Information request by a group called The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. Those documents expose a level of governmental intrusion into the privacy of protestors and governmental and private bank partnerships designed to crack down on legal protestors. Continue reading “Who Occupied the Occupy Movement?”