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September 29, 2010

Think of the children

My high school was notorious for its old books. I graduated in 1998, yet many of my history books had the USSR on the map. The literature books were even older - I distinctly remember one having a name from 1978 in the section where the person writes his name. In the scheme of things, it wasn't that old, but it is mind-boggling to think that book had been shuttling around my high school since before I was even born. It sure puts things in perspective.

At the same time, every now and then we'd get brand new books, and I would feel so big and powerful knowing that book will still be in the hands of some pimply adolescent when I'm, well, 30. Naturally, I'd be big and famous (not a famous blogger, though), and books with my name would be hot commodities, traded around like Honus Wagner baseball cards. I wonder if any of my books are still in circulation?

Anyway, the cool part of those old books was how sometimes they'd be defaced. I was never much one for doodling on my books - they're to be treasured, not ravaged - but others were not so discerning. Usually writing a swear word or drawing a penis was enough titillation for the average Catholic high school student.

However, a sixth-grade student in Oklahoma brought home a book so terrible, so unspeakably vulgar, that the local news channel just had to do a story about it:

"My husband saw it. He took the book away from him and came out, handed me the book, and I was floored," said the mother, who asked not to be identified.

She said she confronted her son about the drawings.

"I asked him, I said, 'Are you doing this? I need to know the truth. Did you write in your book?'" the mother said.

She said her son told her his book had been like that since the beginning of the year.

Bethany Superintendent Kent Schellenberger said he apologized to the mother and the student for any problem this has caused them. However, Schellenberger said, the teacher had no idea the vulgarities were in the book.

Damn, was this Larry Flynt's text book? Was some sixth grader reading too much Tucker Max? What on earth did this book have written in it?

The images are too graphic to show on TV or post online...

Oh come on! Give us something here. How are we supposed to know how bad this is if we have no sampling? Inquiring minds in search of entertainment need to know. Bah.

Posted at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2010

Elmo bad?

It's been a tough week for Elmo. The furry resident of Sesame Street first had his recorded segment with Katy Perry cut from Sesame Street because Katy's clothes were a little too flattering. Katy then made a good-natured retaliation on Saturday Night Live. So, imagine Elmo's frustration when he just wanted to relax at the Winter Park, Fla. Guitar Center and instead got assaulted:

The attack occurred about 3 p.m. Saturday when the man dressed like Elmo went into the Guitar Center at the Winter Park Village, police said.

Police said the man was hired to perform as Elmo at a children's event at the Winter Park Village and took a break. Police said the man was browsing in the guitar store when the assailant walked in.

According to police, the attacker went right for Elmo, causing a disturbance in the store and starting a fight.

Elmo was able to fight off his attacker as punches were thrown and broke a few of the assailant's fingers, police said.

Geez! There is some man-dressed-in-costume rage lately. I'm glad Elmo is okay, but really - what could Elmo do to inspire such violence? Admittedly, his voice is a little hard on the ears sometimes, but he's no Fran Drescher. I cannot fathom.

Anyway, I'm sure your next question is, "what about the children?" Don't worry, they're good:

Police said Elmo was not hurt, and no children saw the fight.

Also, in case you were planning to base your next residence purchase on Elmo-related crime statistics, Winter Park (which is very nice, by the way) is still the place to be:

According to Winter Park police Lt. Wayne Farrell, he said he has never seen an Elmo attack in his 37 years of experience.

Posted at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2010

This is hard to bear

Bears are a continual source of amusement to me. Admittedly, ever since Stephen Colbert declared bears a national menace, they have had added cache. So, I'm always on the lookout for a good bear story. Today, we find a woman in Montana who let her dogs out, only to see a black bear set upon them. Like any good fighter (hint: a rolled up newspaper can be quite damaging!) she made do with what she had, freeing her dogs in the process:

The victim then opened the back door and saw a bear swiping at her dog and batting him around. She started to yell at the bear in hope of scaring him away, but the bear then charged at her. The bear swiped at her with his paw, tore through her pant leg and scratched her on the leg.

The closest thing to her was about a 12 to 14 inch zucchini, so she grabbed it, hit the bear on the head and the bear took off. The woman is okay and so is the dog.

She doesn't want to go on camera or to have her personal information released to the public. The sheriff's department is working on getting us some pictures of the scene and possibly getting us a phone interview with the victim.

This reminds me of the time I... Oh hell, I have nothing on this. Who knew zucchini could be so useful? That would be a good Hitchcock murder mystery: wife murders husband with a zucchini, and then chops up the murder weapon and puts it into a stew. If you want to go the Titus Andronicus route, you could also say the stew contained her husband. Yummy!

Posted at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2010

Oh South Bend

Our friends to the east in South Bend, where the above picture was taken, have made a bit of a boo-boo. Now, I am sad to say I've misspelled things a few times in my day, but never quite in such a high-profile location. However, "public" is so easy to misspell as "pubic," I almost always check for it. Anyway, here's the hilarity:
f you ever wondered how much difference just one letter can make when it comes to a message, ask the thousands of people who drove by a digital billboard near the intersection of Ironwood and State Road 23 between Thursday and Monday morning.
The ad urged people to go to the "southbendon.com" website for a look at the "15 best things about our pubic schools." That's right, the billboard said "pubic" instead of "public" schools. The letter "L" had been left out of the word public.
Doh! This isn't so bad, at least, as the occasional upside-down billboards that are seen around town.

Posted at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2010

Outrageous!

If there's one thing Buffalonians know how to do, it's drink. Judging by the Bills' record except for about a decade in the late 80's and early 90's, they sure can't play football. So Ralph Wilson Stadium's gigantic tailgating culture is one of the few things we have left.

So leave it to the No Fun League to stick its tentacles from outside the stadium to the parking lot. Take it away, Associated Press:

After 21 years in the same Ralph Wilson Stadium lot, Ken Johnson plans to take his 1980 Pinto grill, filing cabinet pizza oven and, yes, his bowling ball thumbhole shots of liqueur across the street.

The move was prompted after an NFL official threatened to shut down the tailgate Sunday by raising concerns with Johnson providing shots to all passers-by.

Johnson finds himself in middle of a debate over what was once considered permissible and quaint, and a league that’s grown concerned over how alcohol abuse turns away fans.

Now, quite obviously, excessive drinking and obnoxious fan behavior is a problem. The average NFL fan is well-behaved, but in every NFL stadium, there are a few louts who throw snowballs, curse at visiting fans, and generally make out-of-town visitors deem the city the worst place ever with horrible natives. That is not cool - and has to stop. I am not sure if harassing a guy handing out shots at a tailgate party is the way to do it. I don't suppose the NFL has any plans to cut out all the beer advertising and beer sales in its stadiums? Don't mind me, I'll just wait for hell to freeze over.

Posted at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2010

Sucka

I do love a good prank, but I also know that if I am going to prank someone, it should not be the police. Nevertheless, some particularly bold tricksters got one over on Los Angeles's finest:

An LAPD squad car got the Denver boot Monday from who police officials called a prankster rather than an overly-aggressive parking enforcement officer.

Los Angeles firefighters were called shortly before 4:30 p.m. to the intersection of Broadway and Temple Street to remove the boot that had been placed on the "black and white" parked near the downtown criminal courts building.

The tire lock normally reserved for the vehicles of those who accumulate unpaid parking tickets was placed on the patrol car while officers were in court.

Authorities said they did not know how or when the boot was put on the patrol car.

The boot, which was placed on front driver's side wheel, had its serial numbers scratched out.

The LAPD officers who were victims of the joke were not immediately available for comment, but the scene drew an abundance of smiles and double-takes from passersby as well as law enforcement personnel from several different agencies.

I can only assume LAPD is going to have every available officer on this.

Whenever I get the boot put on my car, which sadly has been more times than I can count, I've usually had to fork over $120 for the privelige of getting my car back, which is probably not even worth $120 anymore. (Curse you, Clark/Wellington plaza!) What does the LAPD do? They got some hardcore boltcutters and snipped the thing away.

Speaking of Denver boots, Chicagoans will probably be familiar with the Dunkin Donuts at the corner of Clark and Belmont. It has a good-sized parking lot, which also has parking for The Alley and some of those other stores where I'd get murdered if I walked into them. Anywho, I was walking to the Dunkin late one night, when I saw a car pull into the parking lot and its occupants make a dash for some business that did not have parking privileges. A guy was hiding in the dark corners of the lot, and within 15 seconds he had dashed out to that car, attached a boot to it, and scuttled back to his hiding place like a hermit crab. It was really quite amazing. I wonder if those guys work on commission? I wish I had stuck around to see what happened when the driver of that car came back.

It takes a special soul to be the sort of guy who attaches boots to cars for a living. Obviously it's perfectly legal, but extremely annoying and borderline predatory. Even I wanted to clock one of the guys who booted me, and I am fairly mild-mannered. I do not envy having to tell a rageaholic that he needs to pay $100 to get his car back. Unfortunately, there are no giant metal cutters in my trunk for the next time I get booted.

By the way, the last time I got booted, which was January 2009 during a snowstorm, I took special revenge by making the boot guy run my credit card rather than give him the pleasure of watching me find an ATM while he stayed nice and toasty inside the coffee shop. You think I'm making your job easier? Eat it.

Posted at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2010

A creative way to get fired

Back when I was in high school, we had an assembly where one of those goofy-but-entertaining motivational speakers gave us a presentation about STD's. I guess he was motivating us not to get STD's. Now that I think about it, that was rather progressive of my high school, because I went to a Catholic high school, where sex education usually consists of admonishments that if you do anything remotely sexual, God will strike you down, and then you will go straight to hell.

Anyway, part of this presentation included pictures of peoples' naughty bits, as ravaged by STD's. It was fairly awful, and it induced lots of cringes. Not the funny cringes, but the sort that make you never want to ever see that again.

So, my high school principal, dear Sister Gail, must have known what the guy was going to show us. Unfortunately for a school in Pennsylvania, those administrators did NOT know what their presenter was going to show. Furthermore, the presenter didn't know what he was about to show, either. Hilarity ensues:

Norwin High School seniors who were expecting a presentation from a Central Blood Bank rep got a surprise Friday when they saw pornography instead.
Channel 4 Action News' Bob Mayo reported that the Norwin School District sent parents a letter. It said "a few pornographic pictures that were on the representative's flash drive were briefly viewed" while preparations were being made to show the students a PowerPoint presentation.
"It was hardcore male pornography that was put up on the screen when the flash drive was put in. They tell me it lasted about 30 seconds, which is a long time," said attorney Peter J. Payne, who has been hired by parents of several students who attended the presentation.
Payne said he will be pursuing some form of civil action against Central Blood Bank.
"The parents are outraged. Every parent that I've talked to is very concerned. We're still talking about the senior class, but these kids are 17, 18 years old at the most," said Payne.
Student Ethan Dobranski described the sexually explicit images as "frontal male nudity, and there was one with, like, two people in there, but it was, like, from the back."

Oops! Now, the interesting part about this is that some of the parents want to sue. For what, I ask? Although I am sure some sort of lawsuit can be fashioned out of this, I really do not know for what. I am certain that most 17 to 18 year olds have seen something like this before, and are not going to be "traumatized."

As for the blood bank employee? I hope he takes a refresher course in how to use Powerpoint.

Posted at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

September 07, 2010

Hizzoner

So the big news today is that Mayor Daley has decided not to run for reelection in 2011. Da Mayor has been Mayor since 1989, which is longer than most dictators. It's really quite amazing to me. I've lived in Chicago since 2002, so Daley is the only Mayor I've known. For thousands of Chicago natives, he's been the only Mayor they've known.

Daley is choosing an expedient time to retire, as his approval ratings are at an all-time low. Crime is bad (or at least better documented), the budget is a mess, and everyone is plain annoyed. On the other hand, Daley did quite a few nice things - he did a lot to make Chicago an incredible place to live and visit. But I get the sense it's time to pass the reins to someone else.

Personally, I am scared as to who will be next Mayor. The vast majority of people who want to be Mayor will undoubtedly carry on the Chicago tradition of croneyism, clout and secrecy. Even if someone gets elected who isn't a typical Chicago politician, I can only assume he will soon fall into the same mess. Hell, it's happening to President Obama.

So, while we wait and see who decides to run, I salute you, Mayor Daley. Now go enjoy that ridiculous pension you will undoubtedly be receiving.

Posted at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2010

A legal travesty

You know, being a lawyer, I often think about why I decided to go to law school. Was it to help people? To improve my community? To make loads of money? We all have different motivations, but if you are one particular attorney in New York, you are going to use your legal education to have Ladies' Night at the bar deemed unconstitutional. Apparently drink specials and free admissions to entice women to patronize bars is a grave injustice, because men do not enjoy such luxuries. And one man has had enough of this freeloading.

Unlike in Minnesota, where Ladies' Night ran afoul of that state's Human Rights Act, there is apparently no such law in the Empire State. So, my colleague in the law, Roy Den Hollander, argued the 14th Amendment, with its provisions about equal protection, applied to bars, and therefore Ladies' Night, because a bar could not operate without a state-issued liquor license. See, the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law (except when it doesn't), only applies to state, local and federal governments - and not private businesses. So, argues Hollander, because a bar has a state-issued license, the state is sanctioning gender discrimination when it refuses to ban Ladies' Night.

He apparently lost in his original case, and he appealed it to Second Circuit in New York. The Second Circuit gave him the ol' Heisman.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected lawyer Roy Den Hollander's bid to outlaw the specials -- in which women are let into bars and discos for free or half-price -- on the grounds they violate gender equality laws, according to a Wednesday ruling.
New York state has no control over the matter because "liquor licenses are not directly related to the pricing scheme," at an establishment's door, the court said in its ruling on Den Hollander v. Copacabana Nightclub.
The ruling did not sit well with Den Hollander, who had sued the Copacabana, China Club, Lotus and other nightclubs for their use of the practice that he said violates the 14th amendment to the US Constitution.
Under the amendment's equal protection clause, the government has a duty to protect its citizens from discrimination.
Den Hollander, a self-proclaimed anti-feminist, has argued before judges that the state of New York, which issues liquor licenses to nightclubs, is complicit in promotional practices that "invidiously discriminate against men."
"The guys are paying for girls to party. I don't think that's fair," Den Hollander told the New York Daily News after the rejection by the court of appeals.

Wah-wah-wah. In a technical sense, think ladies' nights are discriminatory. For example, anything that excludes or differentiates women is sure to be controversial and subject to a legal challenge. However, I do have to question the wisdom of attacking a Ladies' Night. Is it really that bad? After all, when a dude shows up at Ladies' Night, he isn't subsidizing women - he has to pay $5 for a beer whether a lady pays 50 cents OR $5 for her beer. It is merely a tool to get women to come to a bar and get sloppy drunk, which for a guy who is at a bar to meet women, is EXACTLY what he wants.

I, for one, have no problem with those big bad femi-nazis trampling my rights in this case. Have that $2 martini, ladies! I'm cool with it.

Posted at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)

September 01, 2010

For the stalker in all of us

I think it should be fairly obvious that I am not technology-averse. I write this blog, I have a twitter page, I have a Facebook page, and on and on. But even I have to draw the line somewhere - and for me, that is when people are able to keep tabs on what I am doing, without my tacit consent.

For example, suppose I want to avoid somebody, or I make up a lie to get out of going somewhere I don't want to go. I mean, even *I* just want to stay on the couch and veg out. Used to be, all you had to do was take your phone off the hook and turn on some Morrison Hotel. Now, you have so many other things to avoid - Facebook might randomly post that I am playing a game, or update my location to say that I am, in fact, stuffing my face at Philly's Best. These sorts of things are all well and good, except when the internet is ratting you out.

Now, I have no sympathy for people who get busted after deliberately updating a Facebook page - for example, the genius who called in sick to work, and then posted pictures of himself drunk at a Halloween party on his "sick day." But, I do have sympathy for those whose lies are uncovered by the work of others, such as when a photo of you gets "tagged" or Facebook uses your phone's GPS to say where you are.

Blackberry, meanwhile, seems to have come up with the mother of all annoyances. Blackberry Messenger, or BBM - which sounds a little too much like a personal-ad staple for my liking - lets you know if the person you have sent a text message to has read it.

What possible good does this do? I, for one, do not want people knowing if I read their stupid message. I can reply to that message when I want, if I want. This message-read feature basically turns you into a hostage of the sender, because now you can be subject to all sorts of "why didn't you read my message" accusations. (However, I also think it's safe to assume that a text message has been read after two or three hours, unless that person is on safari or something.)

Social media and the internet is all well and good, but not when it starts to put out information about you that you don't want broadcast. Yes, in the scheme of things, whether or not you read someone's message is innocuous, but it can be frustrating. I, for one, hope it stops.

Posted at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)