Chinese judges play hardball: After trials in two separate cases in September (in the Chinese province of Henan and the city of Zhuhau), four men were found guilty of defrauding government banks and promptly executed. (According to figures released by China’s Supreme Court in September, more than 4,200 people convicted of fraud in the last five years have received either the death penalty, life in prison or another “heavy penalty.”) And a week after that, in Shenzhen, China, a couple was fined the equivalent of $94,000 and ejected from their home for violating the country’s one-child rule.
The continuing crisis: The Art and Science Collaborative Research Lab at the University of Western Australia is growing what it calls “victimless leather,” a substance with the feel of the real thing but made without killing animals, according to an October report on Wired.com. Their work-product (a substance grown using excess mouse and human bone cells) is, now early in the process, only about 3 square inches, but as it expands, its form will be shaped into a jacket. The developers expressed disappointment at some early reaction to the project from people who focus on the ethical issue of using human cells but ignore the ethical issue of killing animals for their skin.A theme restaurant for cats (the Meow Mix Cafe) opened in New York City in August, allowing owners to dine with their kitties and eat similar dishes (“Deep Sea Delight” mackerel for felines, tuna rolls for humans). No dogs are allowed, and visitors’ catnip must be checked at the door.
Leading economic indicators: In 1999, recently widowed Mary Corcoran, who was already set to receive a $1.4 million settlement from Union Pacific Railroad in the death of her husband, met Chicago lawyer Joseph P. Dowd in a bar, and Dowd convinced her that she needed better legal representation. Dowd called a hotshot Chicago law firm, which examined the case, concluded that Corcoran could not expect more than $1.4 million, and thus bowed out without charging Corcoran. Dowd, however, continues to bill Corcoran for the customary “finder’s fee” (10 percent, or $140,000) stemming from the single phone call he made to the Chicago law firm. According to an August report in The New York Times, Dowd is back in court, demanding not only the $140,000 but five years’ interest.
The Catholic Diocese of Orange County, Calif., which should be alarmed about facing millions of dollars in abusive-priest lawsuits, has quietly since 1998 bought up at least 10 luxury townhouses (some in beach communities; one $2 million house for the monsignor) for its priests, despite plenty of room for them in 56 church rectories, where priests traditionally have lived. According to an investigation by the OC Weekly of Santa Ana, just the 10 identified properties have a total value of about $8.8 million. (For comparison, the diocese gives about $300,000 a year to charity.)
Creme de la weird: In a weird-behavior genre that has been out of the news for several years now, the Taipei Times reported that a man went to the emergency room of the National Taiwan University Hospital on Sept. 6 with an empty Taiwan-brand beer bottle lodged in his rectum, it having been inserted “wide-end first.” Doctors took two hours to remove the bottle and said that the man had a history of such inappro-priate insertions.
Least competent criminals: It’s a bank robber’s dilemma: He needs to put on his mask soon enough so no one can see his face, but not too soon as to have his intentions revealed. In unrelated attempted bank robberies in Hampstead, N.C. (Carolina First Bank, September), and Versailles, Ill. (Farmers State Bank, June), alert employees merely walked over and locked the doors when they spotted men approaching the banks wearing, respectively, a ski mask and a face-covering stocking. The police were quickly called in both cases, and suspects were in custody minutes later.
2004 CHUCK SHEPHERD
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2004.
