Weekly Daily Brickbats Archive 2003 November 1-31

For the past three years, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania officials have sent Jamie Walling a summons for jury duty. And for three years in a row, she has failed to show up. Walling isn't a scofflaw. She's dead, a fact that's driven home each time summons arrives at the home she had shared with her mother. "When you bury a child and get stuff like this through the mail, it's very upsetting," said Donna Walling.

When Lisa McClelland entered Freedom High School in Oakley, California, like a lot of young people she just didn't' fit in. She joined the Gay-Straight Alliance. But other school clubs didn't seem as welcoming. The Black Student Union was for African Americans. Latinos had Latinos Unidos. There was an ALOHA Club for Asian Americans. McClelland was white, so she and some of her friends decided to start a Caucasian Club. But the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People says it is "vehemently opposed" to the club. "The club, in name, seems like a backdoor approach to separation," said Darnell Turner, the chapter's vice president. Perhaps McClelland should start an irony club.

Davidson County, North Carolina, Sheriff Gerald Hege had better like the color pink. He had some of the cells in his jail painted that color, and there's a chance he might see the inside of one now. Hege likes to boast his jail is one of the toughest in the nation, with 24-hour lockdown and no TVs or newspapers. But he has now been charged with 15 counts of embezzlement and obstruction of justice.

Following a series of pit bull attacks, the Italian parliament passed a law banning children and criminals from owning "dangerous" breeds of dogs. What's a dangerous breed? Well, it isn't clear what criteria lawmakers came up with in picking the 92 breeds on its list. Breeds that look dangerous, such as Dobermans and bullmastiffs, got targeted, as did breeds that, unfairly or not, have a reputation for being dangerous, such as pit bulls. But so are such menacing breeds as the corgi and the Border collie.

When Rafael Lanizante went to the Regional Hospital in Comodoro, Argentina, for help with a toothache, the hospital turned him away. Was it lack of insurance? Not enough space in the hospital? No, the hospital said Lanizante was dead. "The only explanation I can come up with is that in 1979 I got my truck stolen along with my ID and driver's license. Maybe the criminal was using my documents and died a year later," he said. Police are trying to find out what happened, but in the meantime, Lanizante can't get any medical care because he's officially dead.