Brickbats
Thai police arrested a man in Bangkok for reading 1984 in public. The arrest was part of a crackdown on protests of the May 22 military coup.
When Jennifer Lohss got her Arizona driver's permit, everything looked fine. Well, except for the fact it had someone else's photograph and signature. After a local TV station asked the state's Motor Vehicles Division about the flawed permit, officials discovered they had issued at least eight permits with the wrong photo.
When jazz bassist Christian McBride arrived in Canada for a concert, he discovered his bow was missing from his luggage. It turns out the U.S. Transportation Security Administration had seen the bow when it searched his bags and confiscated it because agents believed, wrongly according to McBride, that it contained ivory.
Thomas Mathieu, 70, says he recalls feeling a low blood sugar incident coming on, so he pulled his car over into the turn lane and parked. That's the last thing Mathieu, who is diabetic, remembers until he awoke to being beaten by San Antonio, Texas, cops. The beating left him with three broken ribs and cuts and bruises over his body. Cops say he refused multiple orders to step out of his car.
Bertram Dahl says city officials in Beebe, Arkansas, originally supported his plans to open a church in a building behind his home. Then they found out it was a pagan church, not a Christian one, and he got a cease-and-desist letter from the city code officer. The town's mayor refused to talk to a local TV station about Dahl's plans, and when a reporter tried to talk to Dahl's alderman, the alderman responded, "That man's god isn't my God."
San Marino, California, Mayor Dennis Kneier has been cited for littering after he was caught on video tossing a bag full of dog feces onto a neighbor's yard. The neighbor, Philip Lao, says he believes Kneier was upset by his opposition to a city dog park. Kneier faces a fine of $250 to $1,000.
Officials in Campbell, Wisconsin, have placed police chief Tim Kelemen on leave after he admitted using a Tea Party activist's name and email address to create accounts on pornographic, dating, and insurance websites from both his home and work computers. Kelemen was apparently upset that Tea Party activists have protested and filed a federal lawsuit over the city's decision to bar political protests on a pedestrian walkway on Interstate 90.
Some students from Utah's Wasatch High School and their parents are upset that some girls' photos were altered in their yearbook. The yearbook staff covered up the exposed shoulders and collarbones of females in some headshots, though not in all of them. They also covered up one girl's visible tattoo. Wasatch County School Superintendent Terry E. Shoemaker defended the alterations but said staffers should have been more consistent.
Charles Oliver