Deluxe panorama of official corruption

We had a beautiful Atlanta Patriots meeting today it being the second Saturday of the month. Any of you in the Atlanta area who aren't attending yet? You miss am awful lot -- this is our strongest club. The Executive Director brought trenchant news items from many directions. Dr. Steven Yates updated us on the progress and contents of his new book. Our hostess, Patriot Pat, passionately expounded the need for people to speak out against corruption despite the dome of silence the media et al. put over any topic that has any merit. Late in the first half, an old friend of ours suddenly returned as from the grave: Sam Patriot, a prisoner of conscience just released from the gulag!

The oatmeal cookies at this Ryan's were outstanding. If any of you would like to see the Toccoa Patriots resurrected, let me know.

..............Speaking of corruption, the grandaddy of all "weird news" sites has quite a blotter full at the moment. Bon appétit!

/\/.\/\/.

http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/nw110626.html

It was not difficult to find critics when the Orlando-area government job-service engine Workforce Central Florida said it was spending more than $70,000 of federal stimulus money to help the laid-off by handing out 6,000 satiny capes for jobless "superheroes" to "fight" "Dr. Evil Unemployment." ("Absolutely absurd" was the reaction of a laid-off customer-service representative.) Several critics interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel noted that such an awkward program further erodes the unemployed's fragile self-respect. WCF, though, remained convinced. In the words of a spokeswoman, "Everyone is a superhero in the fight against unemployment." [Orlando Sentinel, 4-15-2011]

Parents were puzzled in June after Dry Creek School District in Roseville, Calif., passed out questionnaires asking for biographical details of prospective students, including whether or not the child has been delivered by C-section. Parents told Sacramento station KOVR-TV that school officials were refusing to explain why they wanted to know that. [KOVR-TV, 6-4-2011]

An April Associated Press story, citing federal government sources, reported that 247 people on the terrorist "watch list" were nonetheless legally permitted to purchase guns in 2010 -- about the same number who did so legally in 2009. [Chicago Tribune-AP, 4-28-2011]

In May, a federal appeals court reinstated the Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit filed in 2007 by Darrell Miller after he was fired as a bridge maintenance worker by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Miller had been medically diagnosed with a fear of heights, and could not work on many projects, but a lower court dismissed his lawsuit, concluding that working at heights was an unavoidable condition of bridge maintenance. (The appeals court said that a jury "might" find that bridge maintenance could be done in "teams" with one worker always on the ground.) [WorkersCompInsider.com, citing Miller v. IDOT, 5-10-2011]

http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/nw110626.html

Former Camden, N.J., police Sgt. Jeffrey Frett pleaded guilty in May in a scheme to qualify for early retirement by arranging to be shot in the leg (to be attributed to random street violence). The plan deteriorated, police said, when Frett's wife (the designated shooter) missed his leg, merely ripping a hole in his uniform pants. [Philadelphia Daily News, 5-12-2011]

The recent Memorial Day weekend was a time of reflection for the residents of Long Island (N.Y.)'s Shelter Island, who were honoring a soldier from the neighborhood who had recently been killed in Afghanistan. The local American Legion placed new, heavy-duty American flags on telephone poles along a parade route, but only afterward was informed that Long Island Power Authority, which owns the poles, is required by state law to charge an unwaivable rental fee for the poles. [WCBS-TV, 5-24-2011]

Unclear on the Concept: India's Ganges River has become famously polluted, in part by reverent Hindu pilgrims who toss "offerings" (such as clothing, statues and the cremated ashes of loved ones) into it in hope of prosperous lives and holy afterlives. Hindu immigrants in New York City, without access to the Ganges, have called upon Jamaica Bay as a stand-in. The formerly quiet waters adjacent to JFK International Airport now ebb and flow with similar offerings that ultimately litter the bay's federal recreation area shoreline. Hindu community leaders in New York, with only mixed success, constantly urge greater environmental sensitivity. [New York Times, 4-21-2011]