Week in ReviewProverbs 13:24 Lisa R. Russell of Largo, Florida, stands accused of child abuse for offering three teenage boys $20 to beat up her 16 year-old son. She was fed up with his threats and stealing and thought that she might teach him a lesson. However, when the three boys showed up at her house, the boy locked himself in his room. Not to be deterred, the trio went after his two friends, fracturing the jaw of a 14-year-old. The mother, Lisa R. Russell, not only watched the attack but also asked the attackers not to damage the TV. Russell's son was placed in the care of a family friend. Russell and two of the three assailants are currently in police custody. The entire episode proves the old truism that, if you want to abuse your child right, you had better do it yourself.
The New Year's Eve festivities in Brasstown were slightly modified this year after a threatening call from People for the Ethical Treatement of Animals (PETA) regarding the annual "possum drop," a beloved ritual among the rustic folk of little North Carolina community. In accordance with longstanding tradition, a live possum, caught by locals and fattened up for weeks prior to the event, is placed in a clear plastic cage attached to a rope and dropped at midnight on December 31st from the roof of the local gas station, then promptly freed. Having learned about the practice through an article in The New York Times, outraged at its apparent cruelty to Appalachian opossums, the animal rights activists made an angry phone call to host of the Possom Drop Clay Logan shortly before the event, warning him not to use a live possum or risk legal action brought by the organization. Though townsfolk complained that "their small town fun had been spoiled by big city ways," they had to admit, postmodern carpetbagging notwithstanding, that PETA President Ingrid Newkirk "sure had a purty mouth."
When policemen pulled over 55 year old Sandy Long of Oregon for a minor traffic offense, they looked in the window of his car and saw a man dressed in drag. The suspect then sped off and proceeded to cruise down the interstate a few miles under the speed limit. Several times he left the town and the jurisdiction of the policemen, technically a free man, only to return to the clutches of Toledo police Officer Rick Fisher. The runaway transvestite Long ultimately pulled up just past the local police station during shift changes. A cadre of tired, overworked, angry police officers trapped him in the parking lot, broke the car windows to grab hold of the man in drag, and forcefully shifted the car into park, to which Long responded with appropriately feminine shrieks. Long, currently in prison on $10,000 bail, bereft of wig, makeup, and feminine attire, continues to tease burly men in uniform, prison stripes in this case, and enjoys getting it in the end.
Watch out the next time you mispronounce a word; you could be put under the knife to improve your English skills. Mothers in South Korea, frantic for their children to achieve flawless English, are sending their toddlers to undergo a type of tongue surgery, called a frenulotomy, in which the thin tendons underneath the tongue are cut. This surgery, normally performed only when the tissue under the tongue is abnormal and causes speech impairments, is believed to make the tongue more flexible and better equipped to form English words. Flawless English abilities have become a status symbol in South Korea and many parents think that their children will have a "leg up" in the business world if they can speak the language without a trace of their native Asian accent. This new rush towards surgery is only the most desperate measure in a trend that has been growing in South Korea since the government made elementary school English classes mandatory four years ago. But experts say that the surgery is definitely not necessary to achieve flawless English speaking abilities, and that speech practice is much more effective than the operation. It seems that many South Korean parents are catching on, however; in addition to the frenulotomy craze, some children are even being sent overseas as preschoolers in order to learn "perfect Engrish."
Spc. Robert "B.J." Jackson was denied access to Crush nightclub in Clive, Iowa, last week because the shoes that he wears with his prosthetic legs weren't fancy enough. B.J., who lost his legs in an explosion in Iraq last August, was wearing black suede Nike tennis shoes that had been "specially inclined to fit his prosthetics". He was out with his wife Abby and another couple for one of the first times since he relearned to walk this past November. Abby told reporters that her 22 year old husband was carrying a cane, and had explained his situation to the bouncers, even mentioning that he had received the injury in Iraq. Brandon Beveridge, who was out with the couple, remembers "seeing the steel" when B.J. lifted up his pants to prove his story true. But Tom Baldwin, owner of the club, claims that the group did not explain the situation to his bouncers at all. If the story told by the couple turns out to be true, then the "casually swank joint," as the club calls itself, has just violated both state and federal law for proper treatment of the disabled.
After finding suggestive text messages on her son's cellphone, a concerned West Palm Beach (FL) mother contacted the authorities to investigate. His teacher, Mrs. Flannigan, 49, it arose, had seduced the 11 year old in an affair spanning over 18 months. Flannigan, currently undergoing a divorce said to be unrelated to the accusations, had come under the radar of authorities once before, when her husband alerted the police after she confided in him feelings experienced after having kissed a 12 student. Police have concluded that there was no sexual abuse involved but that the child and Mrs. Flannigan had kissed. They also have recorded evidence of Mrs. Flannigan confessing her love to the now 13 year old boy and of her encouraging him to lie about the nature of their relationship. Mrs. Flannigan will soon be on paid leave from the elementary school where she taught pending the results of the investigation. A spokesman for the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) said that, as a woman, Mrs. Flannigan is ineligible for membership, but that the organization agrees in principle with her work.
Students at Everest Junior High School in Washington, D. C., are suing the school district and students who replaced mayonnaise with wood glue on the condiment table in the cafeteria. Six students, all of Southeast Asian descent, mistook the glue for mayonnaise, putting it on their sandwiches. The students received medical treatment for having ingested the glue. Their parents claimed a racial motive for the prank. The students responsible were cited for disorderly conduct and suspended from school. It remains unclear whether punitive damages will be awarded to the parents of the glue eaters, since every other elementary schooler eats his glue furtively, when the teacher is not looking, and rewarding such behavior could set a bad precedent.
Ronald Edsforth, a Dartmouth history professor, chairman and sole member of the War and Peace Studies Department, and for years mainstay of the "Worst Professors" page in the Freshman Issue of The Review, announced to his former students Sunday via email that he would be "made redundant" in July after 11 years on the job. Reviled by many students as overly political, Edsforth assured his old pupils that his departure was unrelated to any negative evaluations of his classes and that his superiors had "nothing but praise" for his work to date. Even so, departing with grace was apparently out of the question, as unnamed individuals peppered various buildings with posters protesting his dismissal. A valiant effort, but no swim team.
The ski resort town of Killington will consider seceding from Vermont over what they call "a tax system that treats Killington unfairly," claiming that the town sends $10 million in revenues to the state each year, but receives only $1 million in return. While Vermont state officials were not worried by the possibility, Killington officials say they are quite serious. "We have no rights, we have no justice, no representation," the Town Manager said. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, told the other 49 states, "you ain't seen nothin' yet."
The Dartmouth Center for Women and Gender is seeking vaginas to perform in its latest production of The Vagina Monologues. Auditions begin January 12. Women who are looking to participate can email "Khristina Gonzalez" for more information.
Advocates of irresponsible sexual practices and judicial activism everywhere scored a major legal victory in late December as U. S. District Judge Joseph DiClerico struck down a law of the New Hampshire legislature requiring parental notification for minors seeking abortions and allowing for judicial approval in lieu of parental notification. Minors currently therefore require parental constent for mundane medical procedures, but not for explosive political ones.
Although environuts whine about harmony with nature, Mother Nature showed herself less than maternal recently in Uganda and Tanzania, where baby snatching chimpanzees have begun abducting and eating human children. Some of the wee victims werefound with their limbs chewed off and bodies mauled. The most recent case of predation occured when hungry scimians took a female infant of three months from her mother, tending a nearby potato field at the time. Armin Meiwes, Cannibal of Rotenburg, has an alibi.
In unrelated New England judicial fun, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in a 3-2 ruling last month that a Dartmouth College professor cannot use homosexual adultery as a reason for divorce. Justice Joseph P. Nadeau, on the grounds that that New Hampshire law defines adultery as "sexual intercourse" outside of marriage, and that sexual intercourse, as defined in Webster's Dictionary of the English Language, denotes the sexual union of a male and a female reproductive organ, "which clearly can only take place between persons of the opposite gender," Nadeau wrote. Although he stressed that "This appeal is not about the status of homosexual relationships in our society or the formal recognition of homosexual unions," the ruling has been seen as conservative, at least in terms of precedent, as defining intercourse as including homosexual sex could have legal implications for gay marriage. The Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston accordingly submitted an amicus curiae brief in the case, arguing that cheating is cheating, regardless whether between men and women, men and men, or, as in this case, a bi-curious wife and an scavenging butch.
At his trial, Armin Meiwes, Cannibal of Rotenburg, spoke of a network of some 800 maneaters across the paradise of postmodern Europe, over 400 of whom he admitted to having contacted. Upon reviewing the files from his computer, as well as "two truckloads" of printed emails and chat conversations, detectives found that Meiwes had indeed posted an advertisement looking for a "young man to eat." After of year of investigation, police have found 200 of the Hessian Hannibals, including an American "who was looking for a victim to chop into three segments and then dine on," as well as a German "who wanted to be eaten around the table on Russian Orthodox Christmas." In an apparent nod to Malthus, Meiwes allegedly wrote to one cyberfriend that cannibalism could "solve the problem of overpopulation and famine at a stroke." Despite all this evidence, however, including a homemade video tape in which he shares a dish of pénis flambée before dispatching his victim Bernd Jergen Brandes with a knife to the neck, the trial seems to be heading in favor of Mr. Meiwes. In answer to charges from prosecutors that Meiwes murdered "for sexual satisfaction," an act which under German law carries a life sentence, the defendant maintains that he killed his victim on demand, a crime punishable by only five years in prison. Meiwes claims to have spared one of his penpals after the potential manmeal got cold feet at the last minute. Another he simply did not like, and a third "was too fat." Authorities told The Review that the case represents the worst case of Teutonic aesthetics divorced from morality ever. Rehab is for Quitters Iowan Travis Talbot,13, recorded a blood alcohol content of .329 (nearly four times the legal limit) after drinking more than half a bottle of vodka. Talbot says that he and some friends got the alcohol from an older teenage friend. "I remember sitting on a couch and accidentally hitting my head on a wall. I don't remember anything after that," Talbot said. His parents, Mark and Sandra Leckington, have been charged with child endangerment causing serious injury for their failure to react to the condition of their son. Talbot was unconscious for several hours, during which his mother attempted to wake him by putting him in a cold bath and splashing his face, calling 911 only after their son begged them to do so. When the paramedics finally arrived, they found Talbot with purple lips and a pale face. Talbot was hospitalized for fourteen hours. Following his first experience with vodka, the teen says he plans "never to drink again." Reached for comment, Scottish bard Robert Burns called Talbot a "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie," and told The Review, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley." |
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