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January 25, 2012

Charles Oliver: It couldn't happen here

— Georgia state Rep. Pam Dickerson, D-Conyers, has introduced a bill that would make it a crime to photoshop someone’s head on a nude or lewd image and post it on the Internet. If her goal was to provoke someone into pasting her photo on a nude or lewd image and posting it on the Internet, a Google image search shows she has succeeded.



Students at the newly opened Corner Canyon High School in Utah voted to name their school mascot the Cougar. Principal Mary Bailey, backed by school board members, rejected that name, calling it “insensitive to women.” They decided that the mascot will be called the Charger, which to me seems insensitive to people with credit card debt.



Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and five other Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would create a “reasonable profit board.” The bill would enable an unelected three-member panel to determine what a “reasonable profit” is for any company in the petroleum business and confiscate any profits above that level. But Kucinich says the oil industry is only the start and the board could later be empowered to rule over other industries. It looks like Orren Boyle is now drafting legislation for Kucinich.



In California, Indian tribes have kicked out some 2,500 members over the past 10 years and hundreds more members currently face being removed. Critics say many of these removals are driven by casino gambling, a $7 billion a year industry for California tribes. Fewer members means fewer people to divide that money among. But the tribes insist they are just making sue that all of their members are Indian enough to be members. In any event, there’s little those who are kicked out can do about it. Under federal law, most tribes are free to set, and change their membership standards. “The tribe has historically had the ability to remove people,” said Kevin Bearquiver, Bureau of Indian Affairs deputy director for the Pacific region. “Tolerance is a European thing brought to the country. We never tolerated things. We turned our back on people.”



Chelsea, Mass., housing authority director Michael E. McLaughlin resigned last year after local media revealed he was earning a $360,000 yearly salary. The Boston Globe reports that McLaughlin put in just 15 full workdays in Chelsea that year. Citing phone records, the paper says he didn’t go to Chelsea at all on almost half the workdays in 2011. Yet somehow on the day he resigned he signed a check to himself for $81,578 for unused vacation days and a second $114,237 check for unused sick days. The federal government has taken over the operations of the housing authority.



In North Carolina, Gaybbriel Cofield pleaded guilty last year to selling crack cocaine and agreed to allow the government to confiscate his grandmother’s house and two other houses that belong to her. Cofield did not own any of those houses, though he had been living at his grandmother’s house. That apparently doesn’t matter to the federal government, which sent marshals to seize the properties. The grandmother is fighting to keep her house and other property in court.



Charles Oliver is a staff writer for The Daily Citizen. Got a suggestion for It Couldn’t Happen Here? Email it to him at charlesoliver@daltoncitizn.com.

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