Hero Judge Teabags Birther To Tune Of $177 Large
Brooklyn judge Arthur Schack pulled out his punking thesaurus the other day to slap down birther Christopher Earl Strunk's latest frivolous lawsuit (of around 20), which claims that your Barry Soetoro is not eligible to run for preznet.
In a written order, Schack went all Gabe Kotter on Strunk, saying that his 2011 suit was "fanciful, delusional and irrational," and that Strunk's sister was so low that she plays handball on the curb (probably). Lest Strunk miss the point of this dozening and think about suit No. 21, Schack also charged him $167,000 for opposing attorney's fees, and fined him $10k, for larfs.
Strunk took the whole thing in stride, as a man who aspires to Orly Taitzdom naturally would. "I’m going to have this thing overturned and I’m not going to pay a dime,” he said. Such optimism is reasonable, given that Strunk was merely pointing out the Jesuit-led, Roman Catholic voter-fraud conspiracy that involves hundreds of people and pretty much all high-ranking officials in New York. Everybody knows about that one.
This kind of smackdown is nothing new for Schack, who used to teach social studies in public school (no shit!), and later was the lawyer for the Major League Baseball Players Association. When he's not ranking on birthers, he likes to cockblock bank foreclosures on the slightest technicaliity, and generally swagger about being awesome.
Schack also supplied a little film criticism in his order, in memory of the late Roger Ebert: “If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code,’ ” he wrote. We have already written a pitch letter for the screenplay, so mitts off!
[ NYDN ]
She had pulmonary hypertension. It turns out to have been kind of remarkable that she survived the first pregnancy without developing any noticeable symptoms, but it meant her heart was really screwed up after the second.
These days, I believe there is a kind of implantable drug pump that can buy some folks (and it's almost always women) quite a few years, but back in 1992, it was pretty much: if you have enough symptoms to lead to the diagnosis, you've a got a year or two. In her case, fifteen months.
It was sad. Explaining to your four-year-old that Mommy has died, and will never be back, is an experience that I'm glad most US Americans don't need to have. And explaining to the former toddler, a couple of years later, why he doesn't have a Mom like everybody else, is also no real fun.
But, it was also twenty years ago, we weren't in a war zone, and we've muddled through so far. If you and I ever meet IRL, I will gladly accept hugs. I am a fan of hugs.
But time and life have a way of easing even great pain. (Opportunity for a magazine joke, there). It's milestones that stimulate reflection. My older boy got married last October. I had to have a few stern words with myself. The father of the groom isn't supposed to cry.
I appear to be rambling. Thank you for your good thoughts.