Manifest Absurdity
Post
02/05/07, Editorial, Hypocrisy on parade, Source.
03/05/07, Reuters, Naked man superglued to exercise bike, Source.
07/05/07, Sandy Cohen, Paris Hilton's jail time stint likely to add to her celebrity, Source.
04/05/07, Lubna Takruri, $65-million suit over a pair of pants, Source.
05/05/07, Rex Murphy, From pants to pucks: utter lunacy, Source.
02/05/07, Editorial, Hypocrisy on parade, (Back).
When Randall Tobias left behind the corporate boardroom nearly four years ago for public service in the Bush White House, part of his assignment was to bring a conservative, family-values approach to global AIDS relief. That involved steering one-third of available funding for prevention to groups promoting sexual abstinence and fidelity. Stringent guidelines also required aid recipients to impose limits on condom use and to take a public stand against prostitution.
Thus, there was no small irony in Mr. Tobias's abrupt departure last week from his latest job as the U.S. State Department's top official responsible for all foreign aid and development programs. The explanation for his exit was the usual "personal reasons." The real cause: This peddler of moral rectitude has been caught up in the biggest sex scandal to hit Washington in years.
The 65-year-old retired pharmaceutical executive has acknowledged using the expensive services (about $400 an hour) of Pamela Martin & Associates, which sounds like a bland consulting company but is actually "a high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behaviour." That's the description provided by its owner, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who has been charged with running a prostitution business for 13 years that catered to Washington's elite. Mr. Tobias, who insists he only received massages, is the first to fall on his sword, as it were, as a result of Ms. Palfrey's decision to deploy a scorched-earth strategy in her defence. But there will be others -- some, perhaps many, just as immersed in conservative values as Mr. Tobias. The alleged madam has handed her phone records listing up to 15,000 numbers to ABC News.
There is no shortage of hypocrites in public life, where the loudest exponents of virtue often turn out to have feet of clay. The list runs the gamut from the morally repugnant to the ethically challenged. Then there is former CIA director George Tenet, who stoutly defended the administration's Iraq policy until he pocketed an advance in excess of $4-million (U.S.) for a tell-all book in which he spares no one but himself from harsh criticism. The sex scandal will add more names to the hypocrisy rolls, but Mr. Tobias already has plenty of company.
03/05/07, Reuters, Naked man superglued to exercise bike, (Back).
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A gang stripped a South African man before supergluing him to an exercise bicycle while they ransacked his house, according to a report Thursday.
SAPA news agency said the attackers, dressed in suits, hijacked a man in his 50s and forced him at gunpoint to take them to his home in Johannesburg.
"The victim was then forced to strip, after which he was superglued to the seat of an exercise bicycle, his hands were superglued, as were his feet and then his mouth was superglued shut," SAPA quoted Mark Stokoe, a spokesman for emergency services Netcare 911, as saying.
The man was rescued about three hours later when his partner arrived home, SAPA said.
South Africa is battling one of the world's highest crime rates which has prompted concerns that violence might mar the 2010 soccer World Cup, which the country is due to host. A police spokesman could not immediately comment on the report. No one at Netcare 911 could be reached.
07/05/07, Sandy Cohen, Paris Hilton's jail time stint likely to add to her celebrity, (Back).
LOS ANGELES — Paris Hilton is so pampered she doesn't read her mail.
"I have people who do that for me," she told a judge.
Legal documents and traffic citations elude her.
"I just sign what people tell me to sign," she testified.
And based on statements from Hilton and publicist Elliot Mintz — who announced Sunday that he will no longer be working for her — she apparently took legal advice from Mintz but not her lawyers.
Facing a 45-day jail sentence — and perhaps her first brush with accountability — could be a reality check for Hilton. But regardless of how she handles it, it may make her more popular than ever.
"It will actually increase her star appeal in a very sick and demented way," said longtime publicist Michael Levine. "There's a segment of our society that's somehow engaged in the soap opera that is Paris Hilton, and this a very compelling plot line in the soap opera."
A judge ordered the socialite to report to a county jail in suburban L.A. by June 5 to serve 45 days for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. Her attorney has said he will appeal.
Mintz said in a statement Sunday that he and Hilton had parted ways over an apparent "misunderstanding she received from me regarding the terms of her probation."
He said Hilton was being truthful when she told a judge she believed — incorrectly, it turned out — that "it was O.K. for her to drive under certain circumstances" under the terms.
The 26-year-old hotel heiress, who parlayed her party lifestyle into worldwide fame, told the judge Friday that she didn't have time to talk with her attorneys about her probation. That dismissive attitude is part of her appeal, said veteran publicist David Brokaw.
"The premise of her fame is being naughty," he said. "This is a career move for her. It simply fuels the fascination. She can only win with this."
Hilton made her first public comments on the sentence to photographers assembled outside her home on Saturday night.
"I feel that I was treated unfairly and that the sentence is both cruel and unwarranted and I don't deserve this," she said as she left for a shopping trip with her mother.
Some celebrities have fared well after a stay in the graybar hotel. Martha Stewart started a TV show after her stint behind bars. Robert Downey Jr. rebounded with a recurring TV role that led back to the big screen. Others, including Bobby Brown, Heidi Fleiss and Fatty Arbuckle, weren't as fortunate.
Bad behavior means big publicity for Hilton, Levine said, noting that she wasn't maligned when her homemade sex tape surfaced on the Internet. Instead she became more famous than before.
"This is a girl who has total disregard for the rules of our society," Levine said. "And she's been rewarded for it."
Time behind bars isn't likely to impart any lessons for Hilton, said West Hollywood psychologist Jeremy Ritzlin. Jail time doesn't equal rehabilitation and the club-hopping Hilton would need extensive therapy to make lasting changes in her life, he said.
"It's going to make her very unhappy because she's not used to this. She couldn't buy her way out of it," he said. "But one 45-day trip to jail is not going to change her behavior."
Hilton's plethora of professional pursuits — which include a namesake perfume and handbag line, a fledgling music career and a starring role in the reality show The Simple Life — can probably survive 45 days without her.
"Production for 'The Simple Life Goes to Camp' wrapped in early April and will premiere Memorial Day," as planned, the E! network said in a statement. "We wish Paris all the best as she deals with this difficult time."
Hilton's fans filled her MySpace page with words of support over the weekend.
04/05/07, Lubna Takruri, $65-million suit over a pair of pants, (Back).
Trouserless judge tries to take cleaners to the cleaners.
WASHINGTON — A missing pair of pants has led to one big suit.
A customer got so steamed when a dry cleaner lost his trousers that he sued for $65-million (U.S.). Two years later, he is still pressing his suit.
The case has demoralized the South Korean immigrant owners of the mom-and-pop business and brought demands that the customer -- an administrative law judge in Washington -- be disbarred and removed from office for pursuing a frivolous and abusive claim.
Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are considering moving back to Seoul, seven years after they opened their dry-cleaning business in the U.S. capital, said their lawyer, Chris Manning.
"They're out a lot of money, but more importantly, incredibly disenchanted with the system," Mr. Manning said. "This has destroyed their lives."
The customer, Roy L. Pearson Jr., who has been representing himself, declined to comment.
According to court documents, the problem began in May, 2005, when Mr. Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington. A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.
Judge Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.
But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. Judge Pearson said those were not his pants, and decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.
Mr. Manning said the cleaners have made three settlement offers to Judge Pearson: $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000.
But Judge Pearson was not satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants. Because Judge Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighbourhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000 -- the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.
Mr. Manning said Judge Pearson somehow thinks he has the right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment.
The bulk of the $65-million demand comes from Judge Pearson's strict interpretation of Washington consumer-protection law, which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day. Judge Pearson counted 12 violations over 1,200 days, then multiplied that by three defendants.
Much of Judge Pearson's case rests on two signs Custom Cleaners once had on its walls: "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service." He claims the signs amount to fraud.
The case is set for trial June 11.
Sherman Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association, an organization that fights what it considers abusive lawsuits against small businesses, has asked that Judge Pearson be denied a renewal this week of his 10-year appointment. The association has also offered to buy Judge Pearson the suit of his choice.
Chief Administrative Judge Tyrone Butler had no comment on Judge Pearson's reappointment prospects.
Melvin Welles, former chief administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board, wrote to The Washington Post to say that if he were the judge in the case, he would throw out the lawsuit and order Judge Pearson to pay the Chungs for their legal expenses and their mental suffering. He also called for Judge Pearson's ouster and disbarment.
"The manifest absurdity of it is too obvious to require explanation," Mr. Welles wrote.
To the Chungs and their attorney, one of the most frustrating aspects of the case is their claim that Judge Pearson's grey pants were found almost right away, and have been hanging in Mr. Manning's office for more than a year. Judge Pearson claims in court documents that his pants had blue and red pinstripes.
But Mr. Manning said: "They match his inseam measurements. The ticket on the pants matches his receipt."
05/05/07, Rex Murphy, From pants to pucks: utter lunacy, (Back).
Either benign chance or, more likely, the wiliness of a Globe layout editor, placed two stories in Friday's paper in neat proximity.
On page two was the story of a judge's lawsuit over his pants. On page three the unfolding of the great folly over Shane Doan and the parliamentary committee's interrogation of his (alleged) misspeech some 17 months ago.
In the long battle against discrimination one of the most frequently cited axioms is that which says how a society treats its weakest members is a measurement of that society's real worth. On the basis of the page two story I wish to add a rider to that worthy maxim: How we look upon our judges when they do not have their pants is an index of civilization as we know it.
A judge in Washington is suing his dry cleaner, a South Korean immigrant, for $65-million (U.S.) over (he claims) a missing pair of pants. It is clear from the story that these are not the judge's only pants. So he has not been showing up in court in boxers or (spare Lady Justice) a thong, and therefore neither he, nor his court, can claim undue duress, manifest embarrassment, or cruel and unusual haberdashery.
But 65 million dollars! That's a larger sum than some non-competes. What are these pants made of? They must have a mighty threat count. (Note to self: Ask Russell Smith -- do pants have thread counts? If they don't -- should they? While I'm at it -- what is Egyptian cotton? Is it better than cotton cotton?)
Either these pants are woven with platinum threads, or the zipper teeth are composed of fragments of the Hope diamond. Trust a laundry litigator to validate the old ballad's telling chorus: For diamonds are a churl's best friend.
Still $65-million seems a little steep for pants whether lost allegedly or allegedly lost, and as far as I understand it is one of the very first principles of laundry-law that one should not get one's torts in a knot over small matters. But evidently the judge can't stand the dry cleaner and is pressing his suit while the poor beset Korean store owner is, alas, pressing everyone else's.
Still, starch and steam till doomsday, there is no way he's going to find $65-million to compensate the judge for the "ego damage," "pretension diminishment" "undermining his hauteur" and "annoyance to a manifest twit" (these are, it should be remarked, not legal terms -- they are my own) he so evidently feels as a consequence of one pair of trousers not on the premises.
I know the U.S. has a generous constitution, and the Americans have always been admirable in extending the scope of the citizen's rights and freedoms. But not even in the U.S. constitution is there a dry-cleaning amendment, nor is it likely the most activist court will "read into" the constitution a citizen's implacable right to "get back" his dry cleaning -- subject to massive penalty on the defaulter -- somewhere within weeks of its being "dropped off."
The beauty of this fable of American jurisprudence at its most frivolous and inane is that it provides such an excellent counterpoint to the even more inane and frivolous proceedings this week over Shane Doan.
Under stimulus from the transparent mischief of the Bloc Québécois, the House of Commons official languages committee (which is more and more becoming a ludicrous engine of officious busybodyism, the Uriah Heep of government watchdogs) summoned officials of Hockey Canada to answer questions over its factitious "insensitivity" to Quebeckers in the choice of Shane Doan as Team Canada's captain.
A more useless waste of Hockey Canada's time, a more insolent misuse of a parliamentary committee remit, it is impossible to conceive. The whole wasteful affair was pure pantomime for Quebec votes, a constructed controversy from the get-go, as despairing a piece of lunacy as the ridiculous judge's effort to harass an honest worker to get $65-million for (I'm guessing here) an ugly pair of pants.
Seventeen months have passed since the episode on the ice that gave the Doan controversy its minimal fuel. Hockey Canada has exonerated him. On top of all that Mr. Doan seems like a very decent human being -- a type that members of the Commons official languages committee may want first to research and then to emulate.
Why they should drag him into the sterile pit of minority-government politics, use their high powers to extend an exhausted contretemps, and play parliamentary skittles with his reputation is for them to know, and the rest of us to be embarrassed about on their behalf.
For like the silly judge, they have obviously cut themselves off from the capacity to be embarrassed on their own.
(Back)
03/05/07, Reuters, Naked man superglued to exercise bike, Source.
07/05/07, Sandy Cohen, Paris Hilton's jail time stint likely to add to her celebrity, Source.
04/05/07, Lubna Takruri, $65-million suit over a pair of pants, Source.
05/05/07, Rex Murphy, From pants to pucks: utter lunacy, Source.
02/05/07, Editorial, Hypocrisy on parade, (Back).
When Randall Tobias left behind the corporate boardroom nearly four years ago for public service in the Bush White House, part of his assignment was to bring a conservative, family-values approach to global AIDS relief. That involved steering one-third of available funding for prevention to groups promoting sexual abstinence and fidelity. Stringent guidelines also required aid recipients to impose limits on condom use and to take a public stand against prostitution.
Thus, there was no small irony in Mr. Tobias's abrupt departure last week from his latest job as the U.S. State Department's top official responsible for all foreign aid and development programs. The explanation for his exit was the usual "personal reasons." The real cause: This peddler of moral rectitude has been caught up in the biggest sex scandal to hit Washington in years.
The 65-year-old retired pharmaceutical executive has acknowledged using the expensive services (about $400 an hour) of Pamela Martin & Associates, which sounds like a bland consulting company but is actually "a high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behaviour." That's the description provided by its owner, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who has been charged with running a prostitution business for 13 years that catered to Washington's elite. Mr. Tobias, who insists he only received massages, is the first to fall on his sword, as it were, as a result of Ms. Palfrey's decision to deploy a scorched-earth strategy in her defence. But there will be others -- some, perhaps many, just as immersed in conservative values as Mr. Tobias. The alleged madam has handed her phone records listing up to 15,000 numbers to ABC News.
There is no shortage of hypocrites in public life, where the loudest exponents of virtue often turn out to have feet of clay. The list runs the gamut from the morally repugnant to the ethically challenged. Then there is former CIA director George Tenet, who stoutly defended the administration's Iraq policy until he pocketed an advance in excess of $4-million (U.S.) for a tell-all book in which he spares no one but himself from harsh criticism. The sex scandal will add more names to the hypocrisy rolls, but Mr. Tobias already has plenty of company.
03/05/07, Reuters, Naked man superglued to exercise bike, (Back).
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A gang stripped a South African man before supergluing him to an exercise bicycle while they ransacked his house, according to a report Thursday.
SAPA news agency said the attackers, dressed in suits, hijacked a man in his 50s and forced him at gunpoint to take them to his home in Johannesburg.
"The victim was then forced to strip, after which he was superglued to the seat of an exercise bicycle, his hands were superglued, as were his feet and then his mouth was superglued shut," SAPA quoted Mark Stokoe, a spokesman for emergency services Netcare 911, as saying.
The man was rescued about three hours later when his partner arrived home, SAPA said.
South Africa is battling one of the world's highest crime rates which has prompted concerns that violence might mar the 2010 soccer World Cup, which the country is due to host. A police spokesman could not immediately comment on the report. No one at Netcare 911 could be reached.
07/05/07, Sandy Cohen, Paris Hilton's jail time stint likely to add to her celebrity, (Back).
LOS ANGELES — Paris Hilton is so pampered she doesn't read her mail.
"I have people who do that for me," she told a judge.
Legal documents and traffic citations elude her.
"I just sign what people tell me to sign," she testified.
And based on statements from Hilton and publicist Elliot Mintz — who announced Sunday that he will no longer be working for her — she apparently took legal advice from Mintz but not her lawyers.
Facing a 45-day jail sentence — and perhaps her first brush with accountability — could be a reality check for Hilton. But regardless of how she handles it, it may make her more popular than ever.
"It will actually increase her star appeal in a very sick and demented way," said longtime publicist Michael Levine. "There's a segment of our society that's somehow engaged in the soap opera that is Paris Hilton, and this a very compelling plot line in the soap opera."
A judge ordered the socialite to report to a county jail in suburban L.A. by June 5 to serve 45 days for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. Her attorney has said he will appeal.
Mintz said in a statement Sunday that he and Hilton had parted ways over an apparent "misunderstanding she received from me regarding the terms of her probation."
He said Hilton was being truthful when she told a judge she believed — incorrectly, it turned out — that "it was O.K. for her to drive under certain circumstances" under the terms.
The 26-year-old hotel heiress, who parlayed her party lifestyle into worldwide fame, told the judge Friday that she didn't have time to talk with her attorneys about her probation. That dismissive attitude is part of her appeal, said veteran publicist David Brokaw.
"The premise of her fame is being naughty," he said. "This is a career move for her. It simply fuels the fascination. She can only win with this."
Hilton made her first public comments on the sentence to photographers assembled outside her home on Saturday night.
"I feel that I was treated unfairly and that the sentence is both cruel and unwarranted and I don't deserve this," she said as she left for a shopping trip with her mother.
Some celebrities have fared well after a stay in the graybar hotel. Martha Stewart started a TV show after her stint behind bars. Robert Downey Jr. rebounded with a recurring TV role that led back to the big screen. Others, including Bobby Brown, Heidi Fleiss and Fatty Arbuckle, weren't as fortunate.
Bad behavior means big publicity for Hilton, Levine said, noting that she wasn't maligned when her homemade sex tape surfaced on the Internet. Instead she became more famous than before.
"This is a girl who has total disregard for the rules of our society," Levine said. "And she's been rewarded for it."
Time behind bars isn't likely to impart any lessons for Hilton, said West Hollywood psychologist Jeremy Ritzlin. Jail time doesn't equal rehabilitation and the club-hopping Hilton would need extensive therapy to make lasting changes in her life, he said.
"It's going to make her very unhappy because she's not used to this. She couldn't buy her way out of it," he said. "But one 45-day trip to jail is not going to change her behavior."
Hilton's plethora of professional pursuits — which include a namesake perfume and handbag line, a fledgling music career and a starring role in the reality show The Simple Life — can probably survive 45 days without her.
"Production for 'The Simple Life Goes to Camp' wrapped in early April and will premiere Memorial Day," as planned, the E! network said in a statement. "We wish Paris all the best as she deals with this difficult time."
Hilton's fans filled her MySpace page with words of support over the weekend.
04/05/07, Lubna Takruri, $65-million suit over a pair of pants, (Back).
Trouserless judge tries to take cleaners to the cleaners.
WASHINGTON — A missing pair of pants has led to one big suit.
A customer got so steamed when a dry cleaner lost his trousers that he sued for $65-million (U.S.). Two years later, he is still pressing his suit.
The case has demoralized the South Korean immigrant owners of the mom-and-pop business and brought demands that the customer -- an administrative law judge in Washington -- be disbarred and removed from office for pursuing a frivolous and abusive claim.
Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are considering moving back to Seoul, seven years after they opened their dry-cleaning business in the U.S. capital, said their lawyer, Chris Manning.
"They're out a lot of money, but more importantly, incredibly disenchanted with the system," Mr. Manning said. "This has destroyed their lives."
The customer, Roy L. Pearson Jr., who has been representing himself, declined to comment.
According to court documents, the problem began in May, 2005, when Mr. Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington. A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.
Judge Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.
But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. Judge Pearson said those were not his pants, and decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.
Mr. Manning said the cleaners have made three settlement offers to Judge Pearson: $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000.
But Judge Pearson was not satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants. Because Judge Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighbourhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000 -- the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.
Mr. Manning said Judge Pearson somehow thinks he has the right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment.
The bulk of the $65-million demand comes from Judge Pearson's strict interpretation of Washington consumer-protection law, which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day. Judge Pearson counted 12 violations over 1,200 days, then multiplied that by three defendants.
Much of Judge Pearson's case rests on two signs Custom Cleaners once had on its walls: "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service." He claims the signs amount to fraud.
The case is set for trial June 11.
Sherman Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association, an organization that fights what it considers abusive lawsuits against small businesses, has asked that Judge Pearson be denied a renewal this week of his 10-year appointment. The association has also offered to buy Judge Pearson the suit of his choice.
Chief Administrative Judge Tyrone Butler had no comment on Judge Pearson's reappointment prospects.
Melvin Welles, former chief administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board, wrote to The Washington Post to say that if he were the judge in the case, he would throw out the lawsuit and order Judge Pearson to pay the Chungs for their legal expenses and their mental suffering. He also called for Judge Pearson's ouster and disbarment.
"The manifest absurdity of it is too obvious to require explanation," Mr. Welles wrote.
To the Chungs and their attorney, one of the most frustrating aspects of the case is their claim that Judge Pearson's grey pants were found almost right away, and have been hanging in Mr. Manning's office for more than a year. Judge Pearson claims in court documents that his pants had blue and red pinstripes.
But Mr. Manning said: "They match his inseam measurements. The ticket on the pants matches his receipt."
05/05/07, Rex Murphy, From pants to pucks: utter lunacy, (Back).
Either benign chance or, more likely, the wiliness of a Globe layout editor, placed two stories in Friday's paper in neat proximity.
On page two was the story of a judge's lawsuit over his pants. On page three the unfolding of the great folly over Shane Doan and the parliamentary committee's interrogation of his (alleged) misspeech some 17 months ago.
In the long battle against discrimination one of the most frequently cited axioms is that which says how a society treats its weakest members is a measurement of that society's real worth. On the basis of the page two story I wish to add a rider to that worthy maxim: How we look upon our judges when they do not have their pants is an index of civilization as we know it.
A judge in Washington is suing his dry cleaner, a South Korean immigrant, for $65-million (U.S.) over (he claims) a missing pair of pants. It is clear from the story that these are not the judge's only pants. So he has not been showing up in court in boxers or (spare Lady Justice) a thong, and therefore neither he, nor his court, can claim undue duress, manifest embarrassment, or cruel and unusual haberdashery.
But 65 million dollars! That's a larger sum than some non-competes. What are these pants made of? They must have a mighty threat count. (Note to self: Ask Russell Smith -- do pants have thread counts? If they don't -- should they? While I'm at it -- what is Egyptian cotton? Is it better than cotton cotton?)
Either these pants are woven with platinum threads, or the zipper teeth are composed of fragments of the Hope diamond. Trust a laundry litigator to validate the old ballad's telling chorus: For diamonds are a churl's best friend.
Still $65-million seems a little steep for pants whether lost allegedly or allegedly lost, and as far as I understand it is one of the very first principles of laundry-law that one should not get one's torts in a knot over small matters. But evidently the judge can't stand the dry cleaner and is pressing his suit while the poor beset Korean store owner is, alas, pressing everyone else's.
Still, starch and steam till doomsday, there is no way he's going to find $65-million to compensate the judge for the "ego damage," "pretension diminishment" "undermining his hauteur" and "annoyance to a manifest twit" (these are, it should be remarked, not legal terms -- they are my own) he so evidently feels as a consequence of one pair of trousers not on the premises.
I know the U.S. has a generous constitution, and the Americans have always been admirable in extending the scope of the citizen's rights and freedoms. But not even in the U.S. constitution is there a dry-cleaning amendment, nor is it likely the most activist court will "read into" the constitution a citizen's implacable right to "get back" his dry cleaning -- subject to massive penalty on the defaulter -- somewhere within weeks of its being "dropped off."
The beauty of this fable of American jurisprudence at its most frivolous and inane is that it provides such an excellent counterpoint to the even more inane and frivolous proceedings this week over Shane Doan.
Under stimulus from the transparent mischief of the Bloc Québécois, the House of Commons official languages committee (which is more and more becoming a ludicrous engine of officious busybodyism, the Uriah Heep of government watchdogs) summoned officials of Hockey Canada to answer questions over its factitious "insensitivity" to Quebeckers in the choice of Shane Doan as Team Canada's captain.
A more useless waste of Hockey Canada's time, a more insolent misuse of a parliamentary committee remit, it is impossible to conceive. The whole wasteful affair was pure pantomime for Quebec votes, a constructed controversy from the get-go, as despairing a piece of lunacy as the ridiculous judge's effort to harass an honest worker to get $65-million for (I'm guessing here) an ugly pair of pants.
Seventeen months have passed since the episode on the ice that gave the Doan controversy its minimal fuel. Hockey Canada has exonerated him. On top of all that Mr. Doan seems like a very decent human being -- a type that members of the Commons official languages committee may want first to research and then to emulate.
Why they should drag him into the sterile pit of minority-government politics, use their high powers to extend an exhausted contretemps, and play parliamentary skittles with his reputation is for them to know, and the rest of us to be embarrassed about on their behalf.
For like the silly judge, they have obviously cut themselves off from the capacity to be embarrassed on their own.
(Back)
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