Jack of all Days

Arrested for swearing in own home: Dawn Herb faces up to three months in jail and a $300 fine if she’s convicted of using foul language inside her Scranton, Pa., residence. “The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling (for my daughter) to get the mop,” she said, according to The Times-Tribune. “A guy is yelling, ‘Shut the [expletive] up,’ and I yelled back, ‘Mind your own business.’” Her next-door neighbor, an off-duty cop, eventually called police. Herb was charged with disorderly conduct. “It doesn’t make any sense. I was in my house. It’s not like I was outside or drunk,” Herb, a mother of four, told the paper. “A cop can charge you with disorderly conduct for disrespecting them?” Yep. Apparently they can and do in Scranton.

Arrested for standing on the street: When Matthew Jones of Brooklyn lingered on the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenuein New York, gabbing with friends as other pedestrians tried to get by, something unusual happened: He was arrested for it. A police officer said Mr. Jones was impeding other pedestrians and charged him with disorderly conduct. After trying twice to get the charges dismissed, Jones has taken his case to the Court of Appeals, which heard arguments this week. According to the original complaint against Mr. Jones, the officer “observed defendant along with a number of other individuals standing around” on a public sidewalk in June 2004. Mr. Jones was “not moving, and that as a result of defendants’ behavior, numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around defendants.” Fortunately for Jones, New York’s highest court appears to believe he has a leg or two to stand on: “Isn’t that lawful conduct?” wondered Judge Robert S. Smith. Later he added, “Your conduct can’t be illegal just because an officer notices it.”

Sidewalk chalk nets 6-year-old potential $300 fine: A 6-year-old Brooklyn girl’s family was threatened with a $300 fine after a neighbor complained to the city about the girl’s blue chalk drawings. The absurd warning from the city Sanitation Department arrived Oct. 5, a few days after Natalie Shea scribbled a blue flower on her parents’ 10th St. stoop in Park Slope. The Sanitation Department claimed that Natalie’s drawings amounted to “graffiti.” The letter was automatically churned out after a neighbor complained to the city’s 311 line. The city told the family it had 45 days to remove the doodles or face the hefty fine. Natalie, a first-grader, doesn’t understand all of the fuss. “My mom got a ticket for graffiti, and it wasn’t even graffiti,” she said. “I think it was chalk. It was art, very nice art.”

Short people ‘have a chip on their shoulder’: Speaking as a shortie (under 5’0) I think this is a bunch of baloney, but in the interest of keeping you informed to the latest scientific findings on the vertically challenged, get a load of this one from the journal Clinical Endocrinology, which claims that short people have an unhealthy attitude to life. Short men and women apparently complain of poorer mental and physical health than those of an average height. Researchers examined more than 14,000 responses to the 2003 Health Survey for England. They were then asked to rate their health on a range of indicators such as mobility, pain and depression. Those in the shortest height category - men shorter than 5ft 4in and women shorter than 5ft - reported much poorer health, according to the report. Apparently, short people would rate their health 6 percent higher health rating if they were around three inches taller.

Mothers Against Mothers: Don’t these people have anything better to do? Guess not. From the Phoenix New Times, it seems that Mothers Against Drunk Driving is claiming all legal rights to the phrase “Mothers Against,” and has sent a cease and desist letter demanding that “Mothers Against Illegal Aliens” change its name.