Ginger bashing

Ah, the caprices of youth. Or, according to the Associated Press:

Authorities say a 12-year-old boy assaulted by a group of middle-school classmates in Southern California may have been targeted after an Internet posting that urged students to beat up redheads.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Erickson says the boy, who is redheaded, was kicked and hit in two incidents Friday at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas. As many as 14 students participated in the attacks.

Erickson says the attackers may have been motivated by a Facebook message announcing that Friday was “Kick a Ginger Day.” The posting may have been inspired by an episode of the TV show “South Park.”

The upshot is that the victim wasn’t seriously injured, but what the hell is wrong with these morons?

No, seriously. Say what you will about society’s ills, or bad parenting, or whatever. But how bored and stupid do you have to be that this sounds like a good idea?

So long, and thanks for all the news

Mark Memmott brings us the news:

Carl Kasell, who has been on the air with NPR since 1975 and has brought listeners the news of joyous events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and tragedies such as the 9/11 attacks in 2001, is planning to give his final newscast on Dec. 30.

In case you can tune in, it’s scheduled for 11 a.m. ET that day.

We should not be heartbroken, though; Mr. Kassell will continue in his position as judge and scorekeeper—and, presumably, prize—on NPR’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me.

Thanks, Carl. It’s been a good run.

Justice, freedom, and necessity

One to keep an eye on. Peter Daniels explains:

A three-judge panel of a US federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of outspoken civil liberties lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted in 2005 of assisting terrorism by transmitting the contents of a press statement by her client, the blind Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in 2000. Also convicted at that time were Ahmed Abdel Sattar, who is presently serving a 24-year term for assisting the cleric, and Mohamed Yousry, a translator who was sentenced originally to 20 months.

The appellate court also ordered the revocation of Stewart’s bond, and she surrendered to prison authorities on November 19 to begin serving a 28-month sentence.

The latest decision was not unexpected considering the present political and civil liberties climate. An additional ominous note was injected, however, by the judges from the Second Circuit of the US Court of Appeals; they ordered the trial judge, John Koeltl of the Federal District Court, to hold another hearing on December 2 to consider resentencing Stewart to a longer term on the grounds that she had lied at the trial.

Koeltl had shocked the authorities in October 2006 when he sentenced Stewart to a term less than 10 percent as long as the 30 years called for the prosecution. At the time, Koeltl, in part voicing a broad and widespread sympathy for Stewart, especially in New York, called her “a dedicated public servant who had, throughout her career, represented the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular” ….

…. A further indication of the mood of the higher court judges was the partial dissent of Judge John M. Walker, who called the sentence “breathtakingly low.” Walker was not satisfied with the majority decision merely sending the case back for resentencing, claiming that it “trivializes Stewart’s extremely serious conduct with a ‘slap on the wrist.'”

Stewart denounced the appellate decision, pointing in particular to the recent decision to try some of the Guantanamo defendants at criminal trials in New York. She said that the timing of the decision in her case, “coming as it does on the eve of the arrival of the tortured men from offshore prison in Guantanamo,” was intended to intimidate lawyers who would be defending these men.

“If you’re going to lawyer for these people, you’d better toe very close to the line that the government has set out,” said Ms. Stewart. Otherwise, she added, you “will end up like Lynne Stewart …. This is a case that is bigger than just me personally.” Stewart’s attorney, Joshua Dratel, said that an appeal to the Supreme Court was possible.