We previously discussed the unease that many of us felt with the celebrations that occurred over the killing of Bin Laden and the later use of the killing to bolster the Obama campaign. This discomfort increased recently with an Obama commercial that unfairly suggested that Governor Mitt Romney would not have ordered the operation to go forward. Just in case anyone thought that was a tasteless and baseless campaign pitch by an overzealous Obama aide, the President himself just reaffirmed that message in a press conference with the Prime Minister of Japan this afternoon. It appears that, while the Administration will again bar the release of photos to the media and the public of the operation, they are eager to drag the body of Bin Laden behind the presidential limo to every possible campaign stop.
Category: Society
Dr. Anna Mackowiak is being accused of a horrific act of vengeance against her ex-boyfriend, Marek Olszewski. The Polish dentist had agreed to treat Olszewski for a toothache despite their breakup just days after they broke up. After being given a high dose of anaesthetic, Mackowiak ripped out every tooth in Olszewski’s mouth. It must be welcomed news for Dr. W.B. Galbreath that there is some other dentist who looks worse today.
Continue reading “Dentist Under Investigation After Removing Every Tooth From Mouth Of Ex-Boyfriend”
Dr. Arnold Smith, 70, an oncologist, has been arrested in a bizarre alleged conspiracy to kill the lawyer, Lee Abraham, who represented his ex-wife in their divorce in the 1990s. What is amazing is how the hit men were stopped in the act by two investigators visiting the lawyer at the most opportune time.
Continue reading “Mississippi Doctor Arrested For Allegedly Hiring Hit Men To Kill Lawyer”
The video below shows two bicyclists who were struck by a car in Berkeley, California — victims of a hit and run. That would normally be the end of it except that one of the bicyclists had a bike-mounted camera and put the video on YouTube. Later police identified the Black Acura Integra of suspect Michael Medaglia, who was arrested.
Continue reading “Bike-Mounted Video Camera Leads To Arrest of Hit And Run Suspect”
On our blog, we have all been enriched by the commentary and insights of Larry Rafferty. Larry is an attorney from Chicago and, despite being a White Sox fan, I asked Larry to be one of our weekend bloggers after reading his uniformly civil and insightful thoughts on legal and political issues. I was not aware until recently about Larry’s father and his disappearance after World War II. Last week, the Chicago Tribune ran a story about Larry’s father, Air Force Capt. Lawrence Rafferty, who was buried at Arlington this year. Mark Esposito and his wife were in attendance representing our community with the Rafferty family and friends. Larry’s mother, Frances, 89, (shown below) was present to see her husband given the honor that he so richly deserved. Captain Rafferty now has a place with other American heroes at Arlington and I wanted to share his incredible story with members of our blog.
Continue reading “In Memory of Captain Lawrence E. Rafferty — American Hero”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
On September 16, 1962 Edward R. Murrow, who was the greatest TV Journalist and a particular hero of mine http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=murrowedwar, premiered the opening of Public Television on Channel 13 in New York City. You can watch that very short broadcast in this link so you can understand the mission of this station at its beginnings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gr-QxU1Sz0
At the age of 17, I watched Mr. Murrow enthralled as he laid out the defined purpose of this station, which was to provide educational, non-commercial television, that would innovate new programming to educate/inform and amuse its’ listeners. This opening occurred two weeks after the death of my mother. My father (who would die a year later) and I watched this show together, bonded by the sorrow we shared and by the fact that Ed Murrow had been someone whose news shows we three had watched together for a decade. Given that he was a ninth grade dropout, my father was a man of intellectual depth who read Camus, Sartre and was a devotee of avante garde cinema. He passed his tastes on to me. So for us, this was a momentous event, given the inanity that characterized much of commercial TV with its’ intellectual paucity. This beginning initiated an emotional link with me to the concept of public TV that has lasted ever since.
In the years that followed Channel 13 would become an anchoring member of the Public Broadcasting System. I was a dedicated viewer and modest financial contributor via yearly membership. I could go into a litany of the presentations that informed me, moved me and entertained me through the years, but that is not my purpose here. Somewhere along the way from the beginning of non-commercial television until today, I became skeptical about contributing to it, while still availing myself of it’s’ services. I write about why this skepticism developed and why it remains. Continue reading “PBS: Why I Watch, But Don’t Contribute”
We have been discussing the increasing disciplining of students and teachers for comments and photos on social media sites. Just yesterday in a story out of Indiana, we saw students expelled for comments viewed as bullying. Now, Georgia legislators are moving to make this controversial trend an actual law for schools to discipline students for mean comments on sites like Facebook. This comes at the same time that a lawsuit shows how the common law can serve as an adequate protection for victims, in my view.
Emily Herx, a teacher at the St. Vincent de Paul school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has sued the school and the Catholic Diocese, for allegedly firing her for using in vitro fertilization (IVF) to try to get pregnant. Herx (shown here with her husband) says that the local pastor told her that she was a “grave, immoral sinner” for using the process. It is another example of the growing tension between discrimination laws and religious freedom, the subject of a past column. The case could prove quite important in defining the outer reaches of the “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination laws.
Continue reading “Teacher At Catholic School Allegedly Fired For Using IVF As “Grave, Immoral” Act”
We have another case of school kids being punished for statements made outside of school on a social media site. I have previously criticized this trend where both students and teachers are being denied free speech rights as schools extend their reach into homes and private lives. In this case, you have three Grade 8 girls from Griffith Middle School on Facebook dishing about how they would love to kill. It is in my view clearly a basis for the girls to be called into the office with their parents. However, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has sued a Northern Indiana school over the disciplining of the girls.
Continue reading “Unfriended: Three Indiana Teens Expelled Over Facebook Banter”
We previously looked at the robbery of a diamond dealer in New York who picked up a prostitute at a bar and then woke up at a hotel without what is now being reported to be half a million dollars in diamonds. It turns out that the suspect, Erika Cooper, 34 (AKA Bianca Williams) was not the swiftest thief. She was not only captured on the security cameras of the Cosmopolitan Hotel but the victim, Kurt Kaiser, had her home telephone number. She is now the subject of a manhunt in New York.
Women’s groups are justifiably worried about the domination of Islamic parties in Egypt and the move to rollback on the hard-won rights of women in that country. Now, according to the Daily Mail and various other news sites, legislators are pushing not only to lower the age for marriage for girls but to protect “farewell intercourse” where a husband can have sex with his dead wife up to six hours after she died. If true, both pedophilia and necrophilia would be divinely ordained, according to Islamic clerics in the country. It is not clear if this is a hoax with some people in Egypt reportedly denying the report while others continue to report the story. [Update: A new article is contesting the truth of the necrophilia part of the story]
The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today in the immigration case of Arizona v. United States. I published a column in USA Today yesterday on the case. I discussed the case yesterday on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show and will be updating this blog with developments and I will be on NPR’s Here and Now to discuss the case at noon. Continue reading “Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments Over Arizona Immigration Law”
The start of the trial of John Edwards had a couple of surprises with the testimony of Edwards’ first top aide, Andrew Young. The Court has drawn an interesting line on what can be admitted and what is to be excluded in the salacious trial — a line that has largely worked against Edwards.
Continue reading “Edwards Trial Starts With Critical Testimony — And Rulings On Admissibility”
There is an interesting story out of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn District Attorney routinely releases the names of charged individuals — as do all prosecutors. However, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has decided not to release the names of Orthodox Jews charged with child sex abuse in deference to their “tight-knit and insular” community. That seems like preferential treatment given a particular religious group — a group with considerable political power in New York.
Skyscanner has conducted a poll to answer that elusive question that has perplexed philosophers and travelers and traveling philosophers for ages: what is the perfect seat on an airplane? Well, wonder no more. The answer is 6A.