TURN WEIRD n e w s
The elegant, expansive, gleaming new glass-and-concrete indoor stairway at the Common Pleas Courthouse in Columbus, Ohio, opened recently, to mostly rave reviews for its sense of space and light, creating the feeling of walking suspended on air. However, as Judge Julie Lynch and other women soon discovered, the glass partitions at each step make it easy for perverts to gawk from underneath at dress-wearing women using the stairs. “(Y)ou’re on notice,” Judge Lynch warned her sister dresswearers, “that you might want to take the elevator.” Cultural Diversity A clumsy smuggler (who managed to get away) failed to contain the dozens of king cobras and other snakes he was transporting from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to Hanoi (probably to be sold illegally to restaurants). After panic broke out on the train and police were called, the snakes were collected and turned over to a sanctuary. (Upscale restaurants can charge as much as the equivalent of $500 for a meal of king cobra, beginning with the selection of the snake, and having it killed at tableside, on to a serving of a snake’s-blood appetizer. In one survey, 84 percent of Hanoi’s restaurants were serving illegal wild animals of some sort, including weasel, monitor lizard and porcupine.) Latest Religious Messages In July, after India’s Supreme Court ordered an inventory, a Hindu temple in Trivandrum was found to contain at least $22 billion worth of gold, diamonds and jeweled statues given as offerings to the deity by worshippers over several centuries. The wealth was until now believed to be the property of India’s royal family, but the Supreme Court ruling turns it over to India’s people. V. 22 | NO. 51
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Authorities believe the “$22 billion” figure is conservative. The notorious Santa Croce monastery in Rome was closed in May (and converted to an ordinary church) on orders from the Vatican following reports about Sister Anna Nobili, a former lapdancer who taught other nuns her skills and who was once seen lying spreadeagled before an altar clutching a crucifix. Santa Croce was also an embarrassment for its luxury hotel, which had become a mecca for celebrities visiting Rome. Questionable Judgments Roy Miracle, 80, of Newark, Ohio, passed away in July, and his family honored him and his years of service as a prankster and superfan of the Ohio State Buckeyes with a commemorative photo of three of Miracle’s fellow obsessives making contorted-body representations of “O,” “H” and “O” for their traditional visual cheer. In the photo, Miracle assumed his usual position as the “I” — or, rather, his corpse did. Cutting-Edge Research It’s good to be an Arizona State University student, where those 21 and older can earn $60 a night by getting drunk. Psychology professor Will Corbin, operating with National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants, conducts studies of drunk students’ memories, response times and decisionmaking processes through extensive questioning — after he has raised their blood-alcohol level to precisely 0.08 percent (which Arizona regards as presumed-impaired for drivers). Students are served one type of vodka cocktail, three drinks’ worth, in a bar-like room on campus, and after 15 minutes to let the alcohol be absorbed, the questioning and testing begin. (At the end of the night, taxis are called for the students.) Least Competent Criminals Ryan Letchford, 21, and Jeffrey Olson, 22, were arrested in Radnor, Pa., in July after they had broken into a police van for the purpose of taking gag photos of themselves as if they were under arrest. However, the men somehow locked themselves inside the van, and neither they nor a friend they had called to come help could figure out how to open the doors. Finally, they were forced to call 9-1-1. Police arrived, unlocked the van, arrested the men and locked them back up — inside a cell.
of the
CENTURY
A look back at the news the Metro Spirit was covering at the turn of the century
August 10, 2000 In the Metro Beat story, Stacey Eidson looks into allegations of police misconduct in the Sheriff’s Department. Since last October, the Augusta Human Relations Commission has received 28 complaints alleging police brutality or misconduct by the officers of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Department. All the complaints were sent to the internal affairs division of the sheriff’s department for review. All of them came back unwarranted. Even though the human relations commission is tasked with the responsibility of reviewing social disturbances, when it comes to issues dealing with the sheriff’s department, [Human Relations Commission Director] Frank Thomas says the commission’s hands are tied. Following the shooting death of an unarmed black man named Alfaigo Davis by two white deputies on Feb. 21, 1998, there was an outcry in the black community for the formation of a citizens’ review board. This board would be responsible for reviewing disciplinary matters and civilian complaints involving the sheriff’s department. But last year, after months of vowing to work with the human relations commission to establish the mediating body, Sheriff Charlie Webster decided there would be no citizen’s review board. Commissioner Lee Beard said, regardless of who hears citizen complaints, the sheriff’s department needs to seriously look at claims of police brutality. “Chief Hatfield, there is a lot of this going on in the community,” he said. “And as a top person in the sheriff’s department, I would hope that you would bring this to the attention of the sheriff and other personnel in your department, so they can work on this.” “Gentlemen, I will be delighted to convey that request to the sheriff, but I will come back only when he instructs me to,” Hatfield said.
The commissioners were taken aback by Hatfield’s response. “I think the chief made it clear who his boss is,” Mays said. He suggested that, if such an attitude of separation exists among the commission and the sheriff’s department, maybe the commission should take a “hands off” approach to the sheriff’s department in the future. Beard agreed, stating, if the sheriff was not willing to discuss such serious issues with the commission, that maybe the commission should review its relationship with the sheriff’s department. “I think Chief Hatfield’s answer was very clear and I hope the commissioners understood his answer,” Beard said. “But I also hope that the commission understands that the pendulum swings both ways. Later in the paper, Music Director Donald Portnoy was profiled. Remember him? This was back before anyone had heard of a guy named Z, of course, or dreamed of calling the Augusta Symphony anything but the Augusta Symphony. Not only are Augusta Symphony’s Masterworks selling out, Maestro Donald Portnoy is bringing the symphony to all residents of the CSRA. The Discovery Series, which started out as an interactive program between Symphony members and elementary students in the CSRA, has been continually expanded over the past five to seven years. This program now includes a Minority Outreach Program for inner-city schools and Discovery Concerts for elementary- and middleschool students throughout the CSRA. Portnoy said that music has a positive effect on everyone and no one should be excludedfromthekindofexperienceanorchestra can bring to a person’s life. “I am very proud of what we have been able to accomplish with the outreach programs,” said Portnoy. “I think by targeting young people of all backgrounds, more people will take an interest in music.”
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