Lead Stories
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One proposal to remedy the “social discontent” of Iranian men, many of whom are postponing marriage because they can’t afford to raise families, has been to allow a form of prostitution that agrees with Islamic law: the men would enter into temporary marriages (lasting only a few hours) with the prostitutes, who would live in government-run brothels called “chastity houses.” About 300,000 prostitutes are already active in Iran, and the number is rising; according to an August dispatch from Reuters, at least one prominent cleric supports the chastity-house proposal.
In San Antonio in August, software consultant David Williamson replied to a summons for jury duty by sending the judge an invoice for $16,800: the court had asked him to be ready to serve anytime during the month, so Williamson figured the bill at his usual rate of $100 an hour for 21 full business days. For his trouble he was ordered to attend a contempt hearing–and then received a second summons for jury duty (he wasn’t selected).
Former real estate lawyer Mitchell Rothken, 44, is serving a three-to-nine-year prison sentence in connection with an embezzlement scheme he told a judge he concocted to finance his courtship of stripper Kymberly Barbieri. According to an August article in New York magazine, Rothken gave Barbieri over $1 million in gifts–including a house–but the pair never consummated their secret four-year relationship; when the affair became public at Rothken’s trial, it cost him his 21-year marriage and custody of his three sons.
