Kapow! Shazaaaaam! Holy Roman Candles Batman!

I am so depressed about this article from the NY Times - In Tiny Courts of N.Y., Abuses of Law and Power - that I will give you just a few choice quotes before something else.

After a black soldier was upset about being called "that colored man" by a witness, Judge Pennington said it was ok, because “I mean, to me,” he testified, colored doesn’t preferably mean black. It could be an Indian, who’s red. It could be Chinese, who’s considered yellow.” Or a Simpson, obviously.

Justice Kadur heard a speeding case against her son in her own kitchen, then tried to cover up their family relationship in record books, the commission said, by misspelling his last name.

Justice Ralph T. Romano: Arraigning a man in 1997 on charges that he had hit his wife in the face with a telephone, he laughed and asked, “What was wrong with this?” Arraigning a woman on charges that she had sexually abused a 12-year-old boy, the justice asked his courtroom, “Where were girls like this when I was 12?”

A woman in Malone, N.Y., was not amused. A mother of four, she went to court in that North Country village seeking an order of protection against her husband, who the police said had choked her, kicked her in the stomach and threatened to kill her. The justice, Donald R. Roberts, a former state trooper with a high school diploma, not only refused, according to state officials, but later told the court clerk, “Every woman needs a good pounding every now and then.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

So let's see my fireworks photos instead!






Phew. Much better.