truesee's Blog

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/6307848/Weird-food-of-the-world.html?utm_source=Telegraph.co.uk&utm_medium=TD_food&utm_campaign=Travel1310

86-year-old charged with cat theft

Neighbors say it’s a case of a cat-napping

But the suspect – an 86-year-old woman – says she took in a stray cat, cared for it for almost a year and then was charged with theft.

A Fulton County judge will decide who gets to keep the long-haired, blue-eyed cat.

Fauniel Kliemt, 86, was arraigned Tuesday in State Court on a charge of theft of lost or mislaid property, a misdemeanor. She pleaded not guilty.

The alleged cat-napping dates back to 2007 when Kliemt’s neighbor gave her the cat, who she named Shatzie.

“The cat was a stray. She had been going to my next door’s neighbor and he didn’t want her,” Kliemt said Tuesday. “I had just lost my husband and I opened the door, and she came in.”

Kliemt, who was recently widowed, fell in love with the cat. She took the cat to the veterinarian, where she got her shots and spayed.

About eight months later, Kliemt was outside gardening when Kimberly Otey, who lives across the golf course, approached. Otey confronted Kliemt and snatched the cat out of the elderly woman’s hands, Kliemt said.

“She got very loud and very verbal,” Otey said Tuesday. “I picked up the cat and was going to take her.”

Otey’s husband broke up the dispute and called police.

Several hours later, Roswell police showed up at Kliemt’s house and charged her with theft, Kliemt’s lawyer, Stephen Berk said.

Instead of taking the elderly woman to jail, police released Kliemt on a summons to court. Officers allowed Kliemt to keep the cat as long as she showed up to court.

Two years later, the case is still pending – and the cat is still in the middle of the neighborhood tug-of-war.

Kliemt, who has paid more than $6,000 on a lawyer, said the cat has been living with her for three years now and considers her house her home.

“She’s an inside-outside cat, but she always comes back here,” Kliemt said from her home in the Horseshoe Bend neighborhood. “She sleeps in my bed every single night.”

Kliemt maintains she had the cat for about eight months before any one came looking for it. She said she didn’t see any signs up for a missing feline.

Otey insists she and her family hung signs and went door-to-door looking for the cat, which was purchased for the family’s daughter when she was 4 years old.

“We thought she was dead,” Otey said Tuesday.

Both women have offered to buy each other another cat as long as they can have the white-haired feline back.

“At this point, I want the cat back,” Otey said, who gave police photos and records proving ownership of the pet she called Chloe. “I’m sure she is her companion now, but right is right and wrong is wrong. Just because you love something, doesn’t make it OK to take it and keep it.”

Kliemt, who has lived in Roswell for about 35 years and has no criminal record, said she just wants the charges dropped and to keep the cat.

“I’ll pay whatever to keep this cat,” Kliemt said. “That cat really helped me tremendously. We had been married 60 years and I was never alone before.”

Otey said she is trying to teach her daughter a lesson.

“You can’t explain to a little kid that it’s OK for someone to take something and not give it back,” Otey said. “I know she’s old and it’s a sad story. I just don’t want this to be portrayed that I should get over this. Age is not an issue.”

LINK TO PHOTO AND STORY:

http://www.ajc.com/news/north-fulton/86-year-old-charged-161959.html

It’s a Fork, It’s a Spoon, It’s a ... Weapon?

Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York TimesZachary Christie with his mother, Debbie, his father,

Curtis, and the Cub Scout utensil that got him suspended from school

IAN URBINA

October 11, 2009

NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé by his side to vouch for him.

Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary was suspended and now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

“It just seems unfair,” Zachary said, pausing as he practiced writing lower-case letters with his mother, who is home-schooling him while the family tries to overturn his punishment.

Spurred in part by the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, many school districts around the country adopted zero-tolerance policies on the possession of weapons on school grounds. More recently, there has been growing debate over whether the policies have gone too far.

But, based on the code of conduct for the Christina School District, where Zachary is a first grader, school officials had no choice. They had to suspend him because, “regardless of possessor’s intent,” knives are banned.

But the question on the minds of residents here is: Why do school officials not have more discretion in such cases?

“Zachary wears a suit and tie some days to school by his own choice because he takes school so seriously,” said Debbie Christie, Zachary’s mother has hopes of recruiting supporters to pressure the local school board at its next open meeting on Tuesday. “He is not some sort of threat to his classmates.”

Still, some school administrators argue that it is difficult to distinguish innocent pranks and mistakes from more serious threats, and that the policies must be strict to protect students.

“There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife,” said George Evans, the president of the Christina district’s school board. He defended the decision, but added that the board might adjust the rules when it comes to younger children like Zachary.

Critics contend that zero-tolerance policies like those in the Christina district have led to sharp increases in suspensions and expulsions, often putting children on the streets or in other places where their behavior only worsens, and that the policies undermine the ability of school officials to use common sense in handling minor infractions.

For Delaware, Zachary’s case is especially frustrating because last year state lawmakers tried to make disciplinary rules more flexible by giving local boards authority to, “on a case-by-case basis, modify the terms of the expulsion.”

The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not before using the knife to cut and serve the cake.

In Zachary’s case, the state’s new law did not help because it mentions only expulsion and does not explicitly address suspensions. A revised law is being drafted to include suspensions.

“We didn’t want our son becoming the poster child for this,” Ms. Christie said, “but this is out of control.”

In a letter to the district’s disciplinary committee, State Representative Teresa L. Schooley, Democrat of Newark, wrote, “I am asking each of you to consider the situation, get all the facts, find out about Zach and his family and then act with common sense for the well-being of this child.”

Education experts say that zero-tolerance policies initially allowed authorities more leeway in punishing students, but were applied in a discriminatory fashion. Many studies indicate that African-Americans were several times more likely to be suspended or expelled than other students for the same offenses.

“The result of those studies is that more school districts have removed discretion in applying the disciplinary policies to avoid criticism of being biased,” said Ronnie Casella, an associate professor of education at Central Connecticut State University who has written about school violence. He added that there is no evidence that zero-tolerance policies make schools safer.

Other school districts are also trying to address problems they say have stemmed in part from overly strict zero-tolerance policies.

In Baltimore, around 10,000 students, about 12 percent of the city’s enrollment, were suspended during the 2006-7 school year, mostly for disruption and insubordination, according to a report by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore. School officials there are rewriting the disciplinary code, to route students to counseling rather than suspension.

In Milwaukee, where school officials reported that 40 percent of ninth graders had been suspended at least once in the 2006-7 school year, the superintendent has encouraged teachers not to overreact to student misconduct.

“Something has to change,” said Dodi Herbert, whose 13-year old son, Kyle, was suspended in May and ordered to attend the Christina district’s reform school for 45 days after another student dropped a pocket knife in his lap. School officials declined to comment on the case for reasons of privacy.

Ms. Herbert, who said her son was a straight-A student, has since been home-schooling him instead of sending him to the reform school.

The Christina school district attracted similar controversy in 2007 when it expelled a seventh-grade girl who had used a utility knife to cut windows out of a paper house for a class project.

Charles P. Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the University at Buffalo Law School who has written about school safety issues, said he favored a strict zero-tolerance approach.

“There are still serious threats every day in schools,” Dr. Ewing said, adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination and requires the kind of threat assessments that only law enforcement is equipped to make.

In the 2005-6 school year, 86 percent of public schools reported at least one violent crime, theft or other crime, according to the most recent federal survey.

And yet, federal studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and another by the Department of Justice show that the rate of school-related homicides and nonfatal violence has fallen over most of the past decade.

Educational experts say the decline is less a result of zero-tolerance policies than of other programs like peer mediation, student support groups and adult mentorships, as well as an overall decrease in all forms of crime.

For Zachary, it is not school violence that has left him reluctant to return to classes.

“I just think the other kids may tease me for being in trouble,” he said, pausing before adding, “but I think the rules are what is wrong, not me.”

Campbell Co. newlyweds arrested for burglarizing wedding chapel

Oct 09, 2009 2:07 PM EDT

SEVIERVILLE (WATE) -- A Campbell County couple was arrested on their wedding night and charged with burglarizing the chapel where they were married.

Brian Dykes and Mindy McGhee were married Wednesday at the Angel's View Wedding Chapel in Sevierville's Black Bear Ridge Resort. Then they rented one of the resort cabins.

According to a police report, a resort worker noticed the couple's car back outside the chapel around 1:00 a.m.

After the car left, the worker found the chapel had been burglarized and a lockbox with cash was missing.  

Sevier County sheriff's deputies found Dykes and McGhee at a Pigeon Forge restaurant.

The sheriff's department said the couple confessed and turned over a lockbox with nearly $500.

The couple is being held in the Sevier County Jail on bonds of $10,000 each.

Fingerprint points to $19,000 portrait being revalued as $100m work by Leonardo da Vinci

Antiques Trade Gazette 

12 October 2009

New scientific techniques have uncovered evidence that this picture is a previously unrecognised work by Leonardo da Vinci.

ATG correspondent SIMON HEWITT gains exclusive access to the evidence used to unveil what the world’s leading scholars say is the the first major Leonardo Da Vinci find for 100 years.

Is this 13 x 9in (33 x 24cm) portrait, in chalk, pen and ink on vellum, mounted on an oak board, a long-lost work by Leonardo da Vinci? That is the claim being made by Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of History of Art at Oxford University.

Catalogued as “German, early 19th century” and sold for $19,000 at Christie’s New York in the late 1990s, new scientific techniques have uncovered evidence that has convinced a growing number of the world’s leading Leonardo scholars that it is a previously unrecognised work.

ATG have had exclusive access to that scientific evidence and can reveal that it literally reveals the hand – and fingerprint – of the artist in the work.

The fingerprint is “highly comparable” to one on a Leonardo work in the Vatican.

Professor Kemp’s assertion is backed by scientific evidence obtained by the revolutionary “multispectral” camera pioneered by Lumière Technology of Paris.

Peter Paul Biro, the Montreal-based forensic art expert, examined the multispectral images and found a fingerprint near the top left of the work, corresponding to the tip of the index or middle-finger, and “highly comparable” to a fingerprint on Leonardo’s St Jerome in the Vatican (which, stresses Biro, is an early work from a time when Leonardo is not known to have employed assistants).

A palm-print in the chalk on the sitter’s neck “is also consistent in application to Leonardo’s use of his hands in creating texture and shading”, adds Biro, who is credited with pioneering fingerprint studies to help resolve authentication and attribution issues of works of art.

The Lumière camera has already been used to analyse Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and Lady with an Ermine; by the Kröller-Müller, Van Gogh and Cleveland Art Museums; and by the Art Institute of Chicago.

Multispectral analysis reveals each successive layer of colour, and enables the pigments and pigment mixtures of each pixel to be identified without taking physical samples.

For the vellum portrait, Lumière have been able to establish the composition of the materials used in both the original drawing and the restoration. It transpires, for instance, that the green of the girl’s costume was obtained by applying progressive strokes of black chalk to the yellowish surface of the vellum.

Lumière have identified the chalk as amphelite, a fine-grained black argillite (clay slate). Meanwhile flesh tints, and the amber tone of the iris, were achieved by leaving the vellum uncovered.

Infrared analysis reveals significant pentimenti throughout, with stylistic parallels to those in Leonardo’s Portrait of a Woman in Profile in Windsor Castle; and shows that the drawing and hatching were made by a left-handed artist (as Leonardo is famously known to have been), whereas restoration was carried out right-handed.

There is no other known work by Leonardo on vellum, although Professor Kemp (citing a passage in Leonardo’s Ligny Memorandum) points out that, when French court painter Jean Perréal visited Milan with Charles VIII in 1494, Leonardo quizzed him about the technique of using coloured chalks on vellum.

Professor Kemp suggests that Leonardo used vellum here because the portrait was intended to adorn a book of poetry in honour of the sitter; three needle holes along the left edge of the vellum indicate it was once bound in a manuscript.

The sitter’s costume and elaborate hairstyle reflect Milanese fashion of the late 15th century. Carbon-14 analysis of the vellum, carried out by the Institute for Particle Physics in Zurich, is consistent with such a dating [it gave a date-range of 1440-1650].

But who is the wistful, peach-skinned, flaxen-haired teenager?

After originally code-naming her La Bella Milanese, Professor Kemp – who dubs her profile “subtle to an inexpressible degree” – upgraded her to La Bella Principessa after identifying her, “by a process of elimination”, as Bianca Sforza, daughter of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (1452-1508), and his mistress Bernardina de Corradis.

Kemp believes the portrait must date from around 1496 when, aged 13 or 14, Bianca married the Duke’s army captain, Galeazzo Sanseverino (a patron of Leonardo’s). Tragically, she died four months after the wedding.

This would be Leonardo’s first known Sforza ‘princess’ portrait, although he painted two of the Duke’s mistresses: Cecilia Gallerani (Lady with an Ermine in the Czartoryski Museum, Cracov); and Lucrezia Crivelli (La Belle Ferronière in the Louvre).

After centuries of oblivion, the portrait resurfaced at Christie’s New York on January 30, 1998, as lot 402 in an Old Master Drawings (part II) sale as a Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress – catalogued as “German, early 19th century”, with a $12,000-16,000 estimate.

It sold for $19,000 (hammer) to New York dealer Kate Ganz, who sold it (for about the same sum) to the Canadian-born, Europe-based connoisseur Peter Silverman in 2007.

Ganz had suggested the portrait “may have been made by a German artist studying in Italy… based on paintings by Leonardo da Vinci”.

Silverman, an underbidder at Christie’s sale, had other ideas and mentioned the work to Dr Nicholas Turner, formerly Keeper of Prints & Drawings at the British Museum, when he bumped into him at the Polidoro da Caravaggio exhibition at the Louvre in January 2008.

Turner, who had seen a transparency of the work a few months earlier, told Silverman he suspected Leonardo’s involvement because of the “very high quality of the work overall, and the left-handed shading – his signature feature”, and directed Silverman to the renowned Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp.

Professor Kemp’s first reaction was that “it all sounded too good to be true – after 40 years in the Leonardo business, I thought I’d seen it all!” But, as he pursued his research, “all the bits fell into place like a well-made piece of furniture. All the drawers slotted in”.

Silverman is coy about the work’s current ownership, and the portrait has yet to be shown in public since its reattribution. However, Professor Kemp has recently completed a 200-page book about it (so far unpublished) in conjunction with Lumière Technology’s Pascal Cotte.

Attempts to display La Bella in a museum are said to have faltered because of financial concerns linked to insurance – as a Leonardo, the portrait has been valued by London dealer Simon Dickinson at $100m.

The portrait is now due to go on display next March at a show called And There Was Light: The Masters of the Renaissance Seen in a New Light to be held in the Eriksbergshallen, Gothenburg.

The exhibition’s artistic director is Alessandro Vezzosi, Director of the Museo Ideale in Vinci, Leonardo’s home town, and the first man to publish the portrait as a Leonardo in his book Leonardo Infinito last year.

Professor Vezzosi is one of a growing roster of Italian art historians who believe the portrait is an autograph work, including Mina Gregori, Professor Emerita of the Florence University and President of the Fondazione Longhi; Dr Cristina Geddo, an expert on Leonardo’s Milanese followers; and Professor Claudio Strinati, Head of the City of Rome Museums, who states that “the portrait constitutes a valuable addition to Leonardo’s oeuvre”.

To Professor Carlo Pedretti, head of the Fondazione Pedretti for Leonardo studies and widely considered the doyen of Leonardo da Vinci expertise, “this could be the most important discovery since the early 19th century re-establishment of the Lady with the Ermine as a genuine Leonardo”.

Days after fist fight in Claiborne County church, building burns to the ground

WBIR     

Last Updated: 10/7/2009 11:16:50 PM 

Couple give away their $425,000 home in competition that's FREE to enter

Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:54 PM on 12th October 2009

A couple have decided to give their $425,000 house away for free in a bid to settle their business debts.

Michelle and Paul Wood, both 50, have come up with the plan to give away the home they have lived in for 11 years in Allerton, West Yorkshire, as top prize in a competition in the hope they will make a profit from advertising revenue.

They decided on the unusual move when their business debts began to spiral after the luxury chocolate company they started in 2004, Theobrama in Harrogate, ran into trouble.

Prize: Paul and Michelle Wood are giving away their $450,000 home for free in a competition they hope will remove their business debts

They hope to make between $850,000 and $1million from advertising on the competition website to enable them to give their two-bedroom home away for free.

Things started to go wrong for their company when a banking error resulted in direct debit payments for a credit card not being paid.

Mrs Wood said: 'I hadn't even checked my bank account online so I had no idea that the payments hadn't been going out but then I went to get a business loan and the man said "do you know you have a court court judgment on your record?".

'The credit card company had taken action against us because of the banking error but I hadn't even been notified.

'I was dumbfounded and it meant that people were rejecting our applications for business loans.'

When the unfortunate couple did eventually get a loan and a new account, they ran into more problems in December 2007 when they claim a software developer took $12,000 from them and failed to deliver the programme.

After another failed venture into the animation industry, which they had worked on throughout 2008, the deflated couple decided to return to an idea they stumbled across in 2004.

Mrs Wood said: 'I remember seeing this woman in the paper, she was raffling off her house. She couldn't sell it because her neighbours were obstructing the sale, so she decided to raffle it instead.

'I remember thinking, we could do that, but then it got put to the back of my mind because we were trying to do so many other things over the years.

'When everything else seemed to go down the pan we decided to try it.'

Potential advertisers will be invited to pay for space on the competition website, which has 200 available slots a day.

It is hoped that the money paid for the adverts will help the Woods reach their target.

Mrs Wood, a mother-of-one, said: 'I am sure we will reach the target of $850,000.

'I've done the research and in three months about $850million is spent on advertising on the internet in this country.

'I am confident that we can attract at least a portion of that. Advertisers are looking for new places to put their ads all the time and we're going to be writing to big and small businesses over the next few weeks.

'The last few years have been like walking up hill, backwards, in concrete boots.

'But we have never stopped, not had a day off and have worked through the night some nights on this project and we think it will work.'

Competition entrants will get the chance of winning the 120-year-old stone-built property, which stands in 1,800sq ft of land, by answering daily questions correctly. 

The competition will run for 12 weeks from November 2 and people will get the chance to enter up to 20 times a day by clicking on sponsors links on the website. 

Each week one person who has answered a question correctly will be selected at random and put through to the overall final in January, where one lucky person will win the house.

Mrs Wood added: 'If we get to $850,000 that money will pay off our mortgage, business loans, creditors and various debts we're got along the way, so whoever wins the house will have no hidden costs.'

The couple, who have been married for 25 years, said they had made sure that all pitfalls had been avoided and ensured the house competition was legal by asking questions which require the entrants to exercise skill, judgement or knowledge, rather than those that rely wholly on chance, as they do in a lottery.

The couple have contacted the Gambling Commission and taken legal advice, and the couple now hope to move nearer to their daughter in Newcastle at the end of the competition.

Mrs Wood said: 'We have lived in the house since 1998 and it is a lovely house. Over the years, we have done it up ourselves.

'It has taken a long time but it looks really lovely and will be a great prize for someone.'

LINK TO PHOTO OF  COUPLE AND HOUSE:

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219807/Couple-away-425-000-home-free-enter-competition.html#ixzz0TkpZM3Gd

God is not the Creator, claims academic

The notion of God as the Creator is wrong, claims a top academic, who believes the Bible has been wrongly translated for thousands of years.

 Richard Alleyne

Telegraph UK

Science Correspondent

5:45PM BST 08 Oct 2009

The Earth was already there when God created humans and animals, says academic Photo: PA

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".

The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth"

According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of nothing.

Prof Van Wolde, who once worked with the Italian academic and novelist Umberto Eco, said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration.

She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but not the Earth itself."

She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient texts.

According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which monsters were living, covered in darkness, she said.

She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was wrong with the verb.

"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"

She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground.

"There was already water," she said.

"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding."

God came later and made the earth livable, separating the water from the land and brought light into the darkness.

She said she hoped that her conclusions would spark "a robust debate", since her finds are not only new, but would also touch the hearts of many religious people.

She said: "Maybe I am even hurting myself. I consider myself to be religious and the Creator used to be very special, as a notion of trust. I want to keep that trust."

A spokesman for the Radboud University said: "The new interpretation is a complete shake up of the story of the Creation as we know it."

Prof Van Wolde added: "The traditional view of God the Creator is untenable now."

Atlanta News 12:45 p.m. Saturday, October 10, 2009

King siblings to meet in court

The children of Martin Luther King Jr. are to meet in court Monday for the next chapter in a family financial fight that friends say threatens to soil their father’s legacy.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville has tried to encourage an out-of-court settlement of what is, at its core, a feud over the company that controls King’s legacy and an estate worth millions of dollars. He has appointed an auditor to investigate the dispute.

Barring a settlement, jury selection will begin in a suit filed against Dexter King by his two siblings.

The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, a King family intimate, said he remains hopeful the family can resolve the dispute without a protracted public court fight.

“People are hurt and saddened to see Martin’s children at each other’s throats instead of finding a way to resolve their differences through love and nonviolence,” he said. “They owe it to their family legacy not to foul it up with fights, bitter court fights and that sort of thing. It is contrary to what the King legacy is all about.”

Bernice, 46, and Martin Luther King III, 51, say they have sued their 48-year-old brother Dexter in part to protect that legacy. They have demanded he hold a board meeting of King Inc., the corporation that he heads and that controls the use of their father’s papers, intellectual property and materials. The last formal board meeting occurred before their mother, Coretta Scott King, died in January 2006. Dexter’s lawyers say there also were meetings by telephone.

The three siblings are the only board members. Lawyers for Dexter and King Inc. say the only purpose of a board meeting would be for Bernice and Martin to remove their brother as president and CEO of the corporation and take control.

“If their only goal is to have a coup at the corporation because of their personal feelings about Dexter, that is no way to run a corporation,” said Lin Wood, an attorney for King Inc. “The question now is whether the children want to come together and act in the best interest of the corporation. At this time, I’m not sure three siblings can make that decision. There has been so much acrimony. ... There is no trust on either side.”

Wood said King Inc. needs a custodian to run the corporation in its best financial interest — an offer he said Dexter has made to his siblings to resolve the litigation. If King Inc. doesn’t survive the battle, all the siblings stand to lose financially and will have more trouble protecting their father’s legacy and the use of his works, Wood said.

Attempts to reach Jock Smith, an attorney for Bernice and Martin, were unsuccessful.

Former King associate Lynn Cothren said King Inc.’s future should be decided by the three siblings.

“If Dexter knows they want to call the meeting in order to fire him, I guess what he needs to do is call the meeting,” said Cothren, a longtime special assistant to Coretta Scott King for 23 years. “If you’re going to be voted down, then you need to take it like a man, and if you don’t have the confidence of the other shareholders, then you need to step down.

“That is the way any corporation is run.”

The siblings’ yearslong feud burst into public view when Bernice and Martin filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court in July 2008. They accused Dexter of mishandling funds from King Inc., improperly taking money from the estate of their mother and acting unilaterally regarding both parents’ estates without their permission or knowledge.

The fight involves division of money from the $32 million payday for an archive of their father’s papers; the claim that Dexter misappropriated money from his mother’s estate; resistance from Martin and Bernice to a $1.4 million book deal for their mother’s autobiography and to a Dreamworks movie deal on their father’s life negotiated by Dexter. In April, Dexter’s two siblings complained they were unaware of an $800,000 licensing deal reportedly to benefit the King Center that he brokered with a foundation that is raising money for a King memorial on the National Mall.

Dexter countersued and sought to force Bernice to provide love letters between his parents that were crucial for the autobiography.

Dexter has prevailed in most court hearings to this point, Wood said. Glanville has ordered Bernice and Martin King to pay part of Dexter’s legal fees because they “have unnecessarily expanded and protracted the proceedings.” According to Wood, the judge has indicated he intends to dismiss the claim that Dexter misappropriated money from his mother’s estate if the case goes to trial.

For years, Dexter ran the family business “as his mother wanted” with little interference from his siblings and with the support of the eldest child, Yolanda, who died at age 51 in 2007, Wood said. But after she died, Martin and Bernice more aggressively questioned their brother’s judgment.

One legal problem for the siblings is that the bylaws of the corporation require 80 percent of the directors to be present at a board meeting for a vote to be taken. With only three of the original five members now alive, that means no substantive meeting can take place if one of the directors doesn’t attend. Dexter’s siblings say that allows him to maintain control.

“Mrs. King, it seems to me, wanted to give Dexter some extraordinary edge and that is what created the problem,” Lowery said. “He has more than his share of power and authority. They all got to give a little to work it out.”

Judge: Man's a 'vexatious litigator'

Kimball Perry 

Cincinnati Enquirer 

October 8, 2009

Saint Torrance isn't a lawyer but he's kept the Hamilton County courts busy with the dozens of lawsuits he's filed.

The Westwood man has sued tenants, utility companies and judges, prompting one judge to take the unusual step of ordering Torrance to file no more lawsuits without first getting permission.

Torrance "has repeatedly wasted the resources of the State of Ohio, Hamilton County, and this court by filing frivolous lawsuits and motions having no foundation," Common Pleas Court Judge Ralph "Ted" Winkler wrote in an Oct. 5 order.

Winkler declared Torrance a "vexatious litigator," or someone who files suits to harass or malign.

That designation prevents Torrance from filing any more suits in Hamilton County unless he first gets permission from the presiding judge.

Torrance, 42, responded to Winkler's order by filing a complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court.

Since 2007, Torrance has filed 21 lawsuits in Hamilton County courts and 16 complaints in the Ohio Supreme Court.

Many of the Supreme Court complaints are against Hamilton County judges who ruled in favor of those he sued.

"I've been in that courthouse 20 years and have not got paid on one of my cases," Torrance said after Winkler's order.

That's because they are ill-considered, often indecipherable and rarely based on the law, Winkler countered.

In one case, Torrance sued a free, online auto valuation service after it valued his vehicles - which Torrance believed were worth thousands of dollars - at $500 each.

"They told me my vehicles were junk," Torrance said. He sued and lost.

What particularly invoked Winkler's ire was Torrance's suit against Time Warner Cable after his Internet service was disrupted.

"Some days it was out for weeks at a time," Torrance's suit noted.

That was the second such suit he filed against Time Warner. After the first, Winkler warned Torrance to stop filing needless lawsuits. Winkler ruled in favor of Time Warner in both cases but the company's attorneys were so exasperated by Torrance, they asked Winkler to declare him a vexatious litigator.

"This is the first time I've had it come up. I think it's pretty rare," Winkler said.

Torrance files the suits himself, he said, because the attorneys he has hired in the past were inept.

"They didn't do their jobs," he said.

Torrance, also known as Torrance Smith, said he is a disabled veteran trying to make it in the world with the help of his belief: "God made this law, not man and man is the one who bends it," Torrance said.

"All the judges in Common Pleas Court are not actually following the law," he said.

He sued many of them to make that point.

In addition to Winkler, Torrance has sued or filed complaints against all of the judges in the Cincinnati-based 1st District Court of Appeals - because they upheld the rulings of other judges who ruled against him - as well as Hamilton County judges Beth Myers, William Mallory, Norbert Nadel, Ethna Cooper, Jerome Metz, John "Skip" West, Dennis Helmick, Fanon Rucker, Lisa Allen, Julie Stautberg and three magistrates.

"If a judge follows the law and he doesn't like it, he files a complaint against the judge," Winkler said.

For good measure, Torrance also filed complaints against Prosecutor Joe Deters and at least one of his assistant prosecutors, Clerk of Courts Patty Clancy and the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati.

"He's got too much time on his hands," Winkler said. "We have to do something to stop the frivolous cases."

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107927/a-recipe-for-riches.html?mod=career-leadership

Man, 81, went out for pizza, turned up in Indiana

Margo Rutledge Kissell, Staff Writer Updated 9:07 PM Saturday, October 10, 2009

HARRISON TWP. — An 81-year-old Dayton man with Alzheimer’s disease who had been missing for more than 24 hours was found safe Saturday, Oct. 10, in a small Indiana town 80 miles away where he had run out of gas.

Paul Youngerman had been reported missing to Dayton police at 4:41 p.m. Friday after his wife said he had gone out to pick up a pizza at Marion’s Piazza on North Dixie Drive in Harrison Twp. but didn’t return.

He was found about 5:40 p.m. Saturday in Knightstown, Ind., a town of 2,100 residents about 36 miles west of Richmond.

Knightstown Police Chief Danny Baker said Youngerman’s concerned family members were on their way to pick him up. The elderly man appeared in good condition but very confused, he said.

Youngerman’s daughter, Pam Kimmel, was thankful he was OK.

“Oh, my heavens, you don’t know how bad,” she said. “It’s been a long 24 hours.”

After Youngerman had run out of gas on a state route south of Knightstown, a nurse who had been passing by checked him out and got him a couple of gallons of gas, the police chief said. A police officer who was sent out to assist directed Youngerman to a gas station in town but then noticed the man did not stop and kept driving out of town.

When the officer turned on his lights — and later his sirens — Youngerman continued to drive until the police chief came to assist the officer. He was able to get Youngerman to stop the beige 2001 Buick LeSabre by pulling in front of him.

When questioned, Youngerman said he had been visiting his wife in rehab but couldn’t remember which hospital when the chief asked. When Baker asked what town, Youngerman responded, “I can’t remember.”

Baker said, “I told him 'You follow me. We’re going back to get you gas.’”

The chief said he used that as an opportunity to start making some phone calls. “All the red flags went up on this one,” he said.

Youngerman provided a correct home phone number but when the chief called it, the line was busy.

Using the man’s driver’s license, Baker called Dayton police and learned Youngerman was missing. The chief later connected by phone with the family, who expressed tremendous relief that he was OK.

“We don’t know how he ended up there,” Kimmel said. “I’m just glad they found him.”

Kimmel said her mother had been in rehab at a nursing home after having open heart surgery three weeks ago and had just returned home Monday.

Kimmel said that while her mother was away, her father had stayed with her. He has not been driving very much but offered to pick up the pizza from the restaurant because it was less than three miles away and he assured his wife he knew where he was going.

LINK TO PHOTO AND STORY:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/man-81-went-out-for-pizza-turned-up-in-indiana-341634.html

  President Barack Obama, speaks at the Human Rights Campaign national dinner, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By Christine Simmons

Associated Press Writer /

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama reaffirmed his campaign pledge to end the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military in a speech Saturday, but offered no timetable or specifics for acting on that promise.

He acknowledged to a cheering crowd that some policy changes he promised on the campaign trail are not coming as quickly as they expected.

"I will end 'don't ask-don't tell,'" Obama said to a standing ovation from the crowd of about 3,000 at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay civil rights advocacy group.

The law was passed by Congress in 1993 and signed by President Bill Clinton, who also promised to repeal the ban on homosexuals in the military but was blunted by opposition in the military and Congress. Obama said he's working with Pentagon and congressional leaders on ending the policy.

"We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve the country," Obama said. "We should be celebrating their willingness to step forward and show such courage ... especially when we are fighting two wars."

Obama said it was no secret "our progress may be taking longer than we like." He followed this by asking supporters to trust his administration's course.

"I appreciate that many of you don't believe progress has come fast enough," Obama said. "Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach."

Some advocates said they already have heard Obama's promises -- they just want to hear a timeline. Cleve Jones, a pioneer activist and creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, said Obama delivered a brilliant speech, but added "it lacked the answer to our most pressing question, which is when."

"He repeated his promises that he's made to us before, but he did not indicate when he would accomplish these goals and we've been waiting for a while now," said Jones, national co-chair of a major gay-rights rally expected to draw thousands of gay and lesbian activists to the National Mall on Sunday.

Obama also called on Congress to repeal the Defense Of Marriage Act, which limits how state, local and federal bodies can recognize partnerships and determine benefits. He also called for a law to extend benefits to domestic partners.

He expressed strong support for the Human Rights Campaign agenda -- ending discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people -- but stopped short of laying out a detailed plan for how to get there.

"My expectation is that when you look back on these years you will look back and see a time when we put a stop against discrimination ... whether in the office or the battlefield," Obama said.

Obama's political energies are focused on managing two wars, the economic crisis and his attempt to reform the health care system.

His message Saturday was one of unity and support for a group that has funneled large amounts of money into Democratic coffers.

"I'm here with a simple message: I'm here with you in that fight," Obama said.

Obama also addressed those who do not favor advancing gay rights. A recent Pew Research Center poll asked about homosexual behavior, and about half said it is morally wrong. "There's still laws to change and there's still hearts to open," Obama said.

Since Obama took office in January, some advocates have complained that Obama has not followed through on promises on issues they hold dear and has not championed their causes from the White House, including ending the ban on gays serving openly in the military and pushing tough nondiscrimination policies.

Richard Socarides, who advised Clinton's administration on gay and lesbian policy, said Obama delivered "a strong speech in tone, although only vaguely reassuring in content."

"The president and Nobel winner came and paid his respects, but tomorrow many will ask: What's his plan, what's his timetable?"

In the past, Obama has urged the gay-rights community to trust him. In June, he pointed to some initial efforts, such as a presidential memorandum he issued that expands some federal benefits to same-sex partners.

Obama publicly has previously committed himself to repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they don't disclose their sexual orientation or act on it. But Obama hasn't taken any concrete steps urging Congress to rescind the policy, and his national security adviser last weekend would only say that Obama will focus on overturning it "at the right time."

Obama also pledged during the campaign to work for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. But lawyers in his administration defended the law in a court brief. White House aides said they were only doing their jobs to back a law that was already on the books.

The gay community is somewhat split as to whether Obama should be expected to produce results right away.

The Human Rights Campaign, which invited Obama to speak at its dinner Saturday night, holds out hope of seeing more action.

"We have never had a stronger ally in the White House. Never," Joe Solmonese, the group's president, said at the dinner before Obama spoke. In an interview, he said the Obama administration has been working with the group on a range of issues "on an almost weekly and sometimes daily basis."

Obama noted new hate-crimes legislation, which would make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation. Approved by the House this week, Obama predicted it would pass the Senate and promised to sign it into law.

Two-year-old with same IQ as Einstein

Oscar Wrigley, a two-year-old with the same IQ as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, has become the youngest boy in Britain to be accepted into Mensa.

Chris Irvine

Telegraph UK
8:00AM BST 10 Oct 2009

Assessors at the Gifted Children's Information Centre in Solihull said Oscar, with an IQ of at least 160, is one of the brightest children they have every come across.

He has been ranked in the 99.99th percentile of the population and has been ranked off the scale as the Stanford-Binet test cannot measure higher than 160

Oscar's father Joe, 29, an IT specialist from Reading in Berkshire, said: "Oscar was recently telling my wife about the reproductive cycle of penguins.

"He is always asking questions. Every parent likes to think their child was special but we knew there was something particularly remarkable about Oscar.

"I'm fully expecting the day to come when he turns around and tells me I'm an idiot."

Mother Hannah, 26, told The Daily Mail: "He amazes everyone. We knew at 12 weeks he was extremely bright. He was unusually alert."

Mrs Wrigley, a housewife, added: "His vocabulary is amazing. He's able to construct complex sentences.

"The other day he said to me, 'Mummy, sausages are like a party in my mouth'."

Dr Peter Congdon, who assessed Oscar, said he was a "child of very superior intelligence".

"His abilities fall well within the range sometimes referred to as intellectually gifted. He demonstrated outstanding ability," he said.

John Stevenage, Mensa's Chief Executive confirmed Oscar had been accepted aged two years, five months and 11 days.

"Oscar shows great potential. Converting that potential to achievement is the challenge for his parents and we are delighted that they have chosen to join the Mensa network for support", he said.

The youngest British child to join Mensa is Elise Tan Roberts, from Edmonton, North London, at two years, four months and 14 days, with an IQ of 156.

LINK TO PHOTO OF OSCAR WITH PARENTS:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219368/The-boy-aged-Einsteins-IQ-Why-little-Oscar-Britains-youngest-boy-accepted-Mensa.html?ITO=1490

Girl, two, with IQ of 160 praised for 'wonderful imagination' - Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5479138/Girl-two-with-IQ-of-160-praised-for-wonderful-imagination.html

Man on foot robs McDonald's drive-thru

WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL

STAFF REPORT

October 9, 2009

Winston-Salem police are looking for a man who walked up to the drive-thru window of a McDonald's last night and reached through the window to steal cash.

The robbery occurred just before 9 p.m. at the McDonald's in the 100 block of Akron Drive. Police said the man reached inside the window and scuffled with an employee who tried to stop him. The robber was able to take an undisclosed amount of cash from the register's drawer before running away.
Officers using a police dog were unable to find the robber.

The man did not display a weapon during th robbery.

The robber was described as a black male in his early 20s, 6 feet to 6 feet 3 inches tall, about 180 pounds, wearing a blue hoodie, baggie jeans and a ball cap.