Lead Stories
In January literature professor James Miller of the University of Western Ontario testified at the child pornography trial of John Robin Sharpe in Vancouver, British Columbia, arguing that Sharpe’s self-published writings were comparable to the work of Dante and Charles Dickens. Miller described Sharpe’s book Sam Paloc’s Boyabuse: Flogging, Fun and Fortitude as “transgressive literature” that “celebrates, in a ritual way, alternative visions of culture” and “reveals the seismic ironies in the new world order associated with globalization.” Two months later a judge acquitted Sharpe of the charges pertaining to his writing but convicted him on two counts of possessing child porn photos.
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In Italy, where more than a third of all men between ages 30 and 34 still live with their parents, an appeals court ruled in April that Marco Andreoli, a 29-year-old unemployed attorney, still has the right to be housed and financially supported by his parents. The son owns property and has access to a $200,000 trust fund, but he objected when his father cut off the $658 monthly allowance he’s received since his mother and father divorced.
Last month high school students in Palm Beach County, Florida, took a standardized state history test that required a score of only 23 percent correct answers for a passing grade and only 55 percent for an A….And that same month, parts of U.S. air force spy planes that should have been destroyed wound up in private hands through bureaucratic error and were put up for auction on eBay.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.
