Daily Brickbat

Absurd news bites, served fresh every day.

Charles Oliver | November 30, 1999

(Page 4 of 17)

Townhouse Crackers (10/31)
Carol Segal, a retired electrical engineer, wants to build townhouses on six acres of land he owns in Union Township, New Jersey. He's been trying to get government approval for the project for several years. And he says in meetings with city officials they kept suggesting people he should partner with on the project. After he rejected all of those proposals, the township committee voted unanimously to seize Segal's property and name its own developer to build the townhouses. Three days before that vote, two other developers hosted a fundraising dinner for Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, who is also head of the local Democratic Party, that raised more than $70,000. Cryan and the five town council members,who are all Democrats, say it is just coincidence those are the developers they are negotiating with to build the townhouses.

The People's Party (10/28)
Mohammad Mohsen Sazgara organized an Internet referendum for Iranians to vote on their preferred political system. For that, he was tried and convicted of trying to topple the county's Islamic government. Sazgara, who lives in the United States, was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison. Ali Afshari, leader of an Iranian student group, was earlier sentenced to six years in prison for publicity against the regime.

Not Their Cross to Bear (10/27)
Britain's chief inspector of prisons has told guards at Wakefield prison not to wear unauthorized pins. "We were concerned to see a number of staff wearing a flag of St. George tie pin," wrote Anne Owers. She added that St. George's Cross could be "misinterpreted" as a racist symbol. St. George is the patron saint of England, and St. George's Cross is the national flag of England.

Big Guns (10/26)
German police are investigating the family of Prince Ernst August of Hanover for illegal firearms possession. The investigation started after the family put a collection of antique muskets, pistols, and armor up for auction. Investigators found that some of the guns were in working order. They seized the weapons and are trying to determine if the owners had permits for them.

Pricks (10/25)
Alex Lagman, 17, has diabetes and must monitor his blood sugar four to 10 times each day. That's why he keeps a testing kit with him at all times. But the Tempe, Arizona, Union High School district has told him he must keep the kit at the school nurse's office. His family says that isn't practical. The nurse isn't always there. He'd miss class when going there for testing, and sometimes he needs to test himself quickly. The school says it has a policy that bans the lancets he uses to prick his finger. But The Arizona Republic says the school district hasn't provided it or the family with a copy of that policy.

You May Not Kiss the Bride (10/24)
Alon Orpaz and Tehila Salev got married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Pushkar, India. And at the conclusion of the ceremony, the Israeli couple kissed each other. This outraged the priests at the temple, who called police. The couple was charged with public indecency and a court sentenced them to 10 days in prison or an $11 fine. They paid the fine.

Walesing Away (10/21)
Welsh police are investigating British Prime Minister Tony Blair for an alleged hate crime. According to a book by a former Labor Party adviser, Blair shouted "fucking Welsh" at the TV while watching his party's poor showing in the 1999 elections for the Welsh Assembly. Police are investigating that claim.

Money Down the Drain (10/20)
Students these days don't usually shower after gym class. Officials in the San Francisco Unified School District say the showers in its middle and high schools are almost never used, except occasionally by the sports teams. But the district will have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make the showers handicapped accessible to bring them into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Meanwhile, some schools say they already don't have the money to replace damaged chalkboards and desks. Other school systems have taken out their showers and replaced them with other things, such as weight rooms, but San Francisco officials say it will be cheaper just to make their showers ADA compliant.

Beam Me Up,Scotty (10/19)
The Scottish government plans to create "health enforcers" whose job it will be to seek out people with poor health, bad eating habits, smokers and those with a family history of medical heart disease or cancer and, well, nag them into seeing a doctor. The enforcers will target the poorer areas of the country because people in those areas reportedly receive less medical care than richer people.

Police Powers (10/18)
Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, doesn't want to wait on those messy courts to punish yobs. Blair says experienced senior officers should be able to seize driver's license and cars and issue anti-social behavior orders. The accused would eventually get their day in court, he says, so the police action would only be temporary unless a court continues it.

Give Me Land, Lots of Land (10/17)
South African officials have said they won't follow Zimbabwe's practice of forcibly seizing land from white farmers and redistributing it to blacks. Well, as long as the farmers sell at the price the government offers. The government says it will take the farm of Hannes Visser, after Visser rejected an offer of $276,000. Visser wanted $473,000 for the 1,235-acre farm.

Separation of Church and Bar (10/14)
Jersey City, New Jersey, says it will use its power of eminent domain to seize the Golden Cicada Bar. The city wants the land so a private Catholic school can build an athletic field. Just 185 of the 934 students enrolled in St. Peter's Preparatory School live in Jersey City.

Prescription for Disaster (10/13)
The Washington, D.C. Council has unanimously passed a law forbidding drug companies from selling their products in D.C. at an "excessive price." The bill gives the government and private citizens the right to sue drug companies over prices and places the burden on proof on the companies to show their prices aren't excessive. Excessive is defined as being at least 30% more than prices in Germany, Canada, Australia or the United Kingdom.

Don't Want to Live Like a Refugee (10/12)
Three years after moving back to Russia, Alexander Razumovskaya still hasn't been given the citizenship he was promised. He and millions of other ethnic Russians moved back to Russia from other Soviet Republics after the USSR broke up in 1991. They were promised citizenship or permanent registration. But many of them still haven't received it. Why? The local authorities who are supposed to process them find it too lucrative to leave them in legal limbo. They refuse to give them registration, then "fine" them for not having it. Those without citizenship are also taxed 30 percent of their income, instead of the 13 percent citizens pay.

Physician, Heal Thyself (10/11)
After Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, Dr. Mark Perlmutter traveled from Pennsylvania to help treat the sick and injured. That's how he found himself on the tarmac of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport administering chest compression to a dying woman. And that's where he found himself ordered by an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop treating patients because he wasn't registered with the agency. FEMA says it doesn't accept volunteer physicians and uses only doctors who have FEMA credentials. Perlmutter says he was the only doctor at the airport and asked to keep treating patients until a FEMA-certified doctor arrived, but his request was rejected.