You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2006.
By Noah Barron
The Los Angeles City Council met Friday to honor police domestic violence prevention efforts and promote awareness about crimes against women.
Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton addressed council members and the media in the City Hall rotunda, thanking the Domestic Abuse Response Team (DART) officers and pledging to redouble efforts to reduce domestic violence. A woman is the victim of violence at the hands of a husband or boyfriend every 15 seconds in the city of Los Angeles; 30% of female homicide victims nationwide are killed by their partners.
Commentary: pasty pundit pummelled by pumped-up motion-picture pugilist in pointless publicity put-on.
VANCOUVER, B.C.—It was over less than three minutes after it began. Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka tried for a cheap jab right after touching gloves, but Uwe Boll was unimpressed. The mammoth German came fast and strong, drilling blow after blow into Lowtax’s head and chest. The best the smaller man could do was keep his gloves up and try to stay on his feet. He was, after all, a Web forum manager with no boxing experience and Uwe Boll fought for nearly 10 years on the German amateur boxing circuit. Boll knocked Lowtax down three times with punishing hooks to the head. At one point, Lowtax landed a single light poke to Boll’s torso and then retreated, raising his hands above his head in glee, as if to say “I actually hit him!” After the final knockdown, Lowtax threw in the towel, first flopping dramatically onto the mat, then lifting his arms mock-triumphantly again, Andy Kaufman-like, to cheering fans. He had gone into the ring with the “Raging Boll” and survived.
Imagine discovering your kindly elderly neighbor has a hidden Nazi past. It’s a plotline torn from fiction such as the 1998 film “Apt Pupil.” But 83-year-old Elfriede Lina Rinkel’s San Francisco neighbors received just such a shock.
The year was 1944. Rinkel, then 22, took a job at a Nazi slave labor camp for women called Ravensbruck, where she worked with a trained attack dog. During Rinkel’s year at the camp, over 10,000 women died, many from disease, exhaustion and were executed in gas chambers.
[Editor's note: Today is my mother's birthday. As the editor-in-chief of this here blog, I decree that this is news. My mother is the sweetest, smartest, funniest, most caring, most moral and above all, most selfless person you're likely to meet. And you can quote me on that. Happy Birthday.]
Pope Benedict XVI apologized Sunday for using quotations from a medieval text that criticized the Muslim faith. He said he was “very sorry” for reading passages in his address last week from a 14th century manuscript which called the teachings of Muhammad “evil and inhuman.” Many Muslim groups expressed dissatisfaction with the Pope’s apology and demanded a fuller statement.
The number of spinach-related E. coli cases 109 people in 19 states, including 55 hospitalized and one death of a 77-year-old woman in Wisconsin. Another packaged-spinach manufacturer recalled some of its products Monday. Salinas produce company Ranch Fresh Foods joined Natural Selection Foods in recalling bagged spinach mixes in the wake of the outbreak.
Country rock legend Willie Nelson and four other people were cited Monday for possession of psychedelic mushrooms and marijuana in Louisiana. The citations came after state police performed a commercial vehicle inspection on Nelson’s tour bus and found a pound and a half of pot and .2 pounds of narcotic mushrooms. No arrests were made.
