Brickbats
It took Brian Seaton nine months and cost him £10,000 to clear his name after police in Leicestershire, England, charged him with possessing a knife in public without good reason. Seaton had accidentally left a Swiss army knife in his luggage, and it was discovered when he arrived at the airport for a trip to Spain. The knife was a retirement gift from Seaton's employer of more than 20 years: the Leicestershire Police Department.
An Indian court has issued an arrest warrant for Richard Gere. The actor kissed Indian actress Shilpa Shetty on the cheek at a New Delhi event to raise AIDS awareness. A judge called the kiss, which outraged Hindu nationalists, an obscene act in public. If convicted, Gere faces up to three months in jail.
An unnamed Indiana man spent 17 months behind bars for stealing a soda. It seems that jail officials, his lawyer, and the judge in his case all thought he'd been released a year earlier. Only after a new warden took over and ordered a review of all the prisoners' files did anyone discover he was still in jail.
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was possessed by a demon. Or so says literature distributed at Enloe High School, a public school in Raleigh, North Carolina. When a representative from a Christian ministry spoke to a class there, he handed out material that included a pamphlet called "Do Not Marry a Muslim Man," which warns against marrying a Muslim for his "dark good looks, education, financial means, and the interest he shows in you."
Meanwhile, Malaysian authorities banned the weekly TV talk show Sensasi after a guest, actress Rosnah Mat Aris, addressed gossip linking her to a younger man. The actress noted that Muhammad's first wife was older than him. Broadcast regulators accused Rosnah of offending community values.
Georgette Prince was coming out of an Akron, Ohio, convenience store when a man pushed her back into the store, pointed a gun at her, and told her to get on the ground. When she did, he pulled her hands behind her and handcuffed her. Outside, another man pointed a gun at her 12-year-old son, Davonte, ordered the boy out of the vehicle he was sitting in, and forced him to the ground. The armed men were part of a SWAT team that was raiding the store as part of a shoplifting investigation. SWAT team members and other members of the sheriff's office say their treatment of Prince and her son was "according to the book."
Ahzar Zaidi of Roswell, Georgia, faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for having too many cars. A city ordinance bars homeowners from having more than four autos visible from the street. Zaidi has four cars. But when his children come home from college, the number of cars at his home goes up to six.
Before you shake your moneymaker in New York City, make sure the bar you're in is licensed for that sort of thing. The state Supreme Court has upheld a city ordinance banning social dancing in bars, restaurants, and any club that doesn't have a cabaret license.
