I just hated it whenever the dog ate my homework and my teacher didn't believe me.
Okay, so I didn't have a dog but she didn't know that.
There were many good reasons otherwise too, she didn't believe those either.
Compelling Explanations
Hawaiian Airlines is suing Mesa Air Group on a business matter and believes Mesa's chief financial officer, Peter Murnane, has, or had, documents relevant to the lawsuit on his office computer but that, recently, conveniently, the documents had been deleted. Mesa acknowledged in a September court filing that Murnane had indeed recently erased a huge number of files from his office computer, but said he was merely deleting his massive collection of pornography. [Honolulu Advertiser, 9-26-07]
Anthony Azzapardi, 80, agreed in September in Bridgeport, Conn., to plead guilty in connection with a sexual encounter with a 5-year-old girl. Until recently, his story was that the girl had aggressively led him by the hand into the bedroom, pushed him down on the bed, and sexually assaulted him. [Connecticut Post, 9-21-07]
Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, an official with the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, was suspended in October when he was recognized in a hidden-camera TV documentary about gay priests. However, he told the La Repubblica newspaper in Rome a few days later that he is not gay, but was only pretending to make sexual advances to a man in order to gain the trust of "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity." [New York Times-AP, 10-14-07]
The Litigious Society
At press time, the top-notch Basketball Town recreational facility for kids in Rancho Cordova, Calif., was on the verge of closing permanently because its legal fees stood at about $100,000 and counting, for the lawsuit filed by a wheelchair-using man who said he was once prevented from attending a party there because the mezzanine level was not accessible to him. Even though a local benefactor offered to donate a $35,000 wheelchair lift, the acrimony generated by the plaintiff's intransigence, and counterclaims by the property owner and the facility operator, made most local observers pessimistic that the facility would survive, according to an October Sacramento Bee report.
[Sacramento Bee, 10-3-07]
[Sacramento Bee, 10-3-07]
Recurring Themes
Ticketed for DWEC (Driving While Eating Cereal): Four people were injured in Houston in October when a driver failed to stop for a red light while eating a bowl of oatmeal and collided with a transit bus. (Three passengers were hurt, in addition to the motorist, and witnesses said oatmeal was found all over the inside of the car, and also inside the bus and on the ground, according to a KPRC-TV report.) [KPRC-TV (Houston), 10-1-07]
Two weeks earlier, in London, Ontario, a driver accidentally lost control of his car while eating cereal, drove through a grassy median, and hit two oncoming cars (but no serious injuries resulted). [London Free Press, 9-16-07]
