DemocracyBlues
Randy Richardson, 42, vying unopposed forthe Riceville, Iowa, school board (having agreed to run just because he has twokids in school) failed to get any votes at all—as even he was too busy onelection day (Sept. 8) to make it to the polls (nor were there any write-ins).To resolve the 0-0 result, the other board members simply appointed Richardsonto the office. Riceville, near the Minnesota border, is a big-time farmingcommunity and registered voters queried by TheDes Moines Register said they just had too much fieldwork to do that day.
MedicalMarvels
Researchers recently came upon a smallcommunity in the Dominican Republic with an unusual incidence of adolescentboys having spent the first decade or so of their lives as girls because theirpenises and testes did not appear until puberty. A September BBC News dispatchreferred to the boys as “Guevedoces” and credited the community for alertingresearchers, who ultimately developed a drug to replace the culprit enzymewhose absence was causing the problem. (The full shot of testosterone thatshould have been delivered in the mother’s womb was not arriving untilpuberty.)
LeadingEconomic Indicators
The serpentine queue extended for blocksin September in Lucknow, India, after the state government of Uttar Pradeshannounced 368 job openings (almost all menial), resulting in about 2.3 millionapplications, 200,000 from people with advanced degrees (even though the$240/month positions required only a fifth grade education, according to an AssociatedPress dispatch). About 13 million young people enter India’s job market eachyear.
FinerPoints of the Law
* People for the Ethical Treatment ofAnimals (PETA) filed a federal lawsuit in California in September on behalf ofan endangered crested black macaque that wandered up to an unattended camera ona tripod and clicked a selfie. The camera belonged to photographer DavidSlater, who claimed copyright to the photo even though “Naturo” actuallysnapped it. The shot might be valuable to Naturo since it has become viral onthe Internet. (Though the photo was taken in Indonesia, Slater’s publisher isbased in California.)
* Jose Banks, now 40, filed a $10 million lawsuit in 2014 against the federal government because jailers at Chicago’s high-rise Metropolitan Correctional Center failed to guard him closely enough in 2012, thus enabling him to think he could escape. He and a cellmate had rappelled 17 floors with bed sheets, but Banks was re-arrested a few days later. Still, he claimed that the escape caused him great trauma, in addition to “humiliation and embarrassment” and “damage to his reputation.” (In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals turned him down. Wrote the judges, “No one has a personal right to be better guarded.”)
RecurringThemes
Many in conservative Jewish communitiesstill practice the tradition of Kaporoson the day of atonement, but the critics were out in force in New York City’sBorough Park neighborhood in September to protest the ritual slaughter there of50,000 chickens. (A synagogue raises money by “selling” chickens to members,who then have butchers swing the chickens overhead three times, thustransferring the owners’ sins to the chickens. Ultimately, the chickens arebeheaded, supposedly erasing the humans’ sins. Protesters ask, why not justdonate money?) A judge refused to block the ritual but ordered police toenforce the sanitation laws governing the beheadings.
Readers’Choice
(1) In August, Che Hearn, 25, who policesaid had just shoplifted electronics items from the Walmart in Round LakeBeach, Ill., was picked up while on foot near the store. Police found thatHearn had actually driven his car to the Walmart but that while he was insideshoplifting, a repo agent (who had followed him to the store) had confiscatedit. (2) Astronaut Edgar Mitchell (the sixth man to walk on the moon) told areporter in August that “my own experience talking to people” has made it clearthat extraterrestrials are trying “to keep us from going to war” with Russiaand that U.S. military officers have told him that their test missiles were “frequentlyshot down by alien spacecraft.”
© 2015 CHUCK SHEPHERD
