Thursday, February 21, 2008

St. Patrick's Day causes spats as it falls during Holy Week this year

COLUMBUS, Ohio - That famous saint named Patrick will have his green-drenched party this year, but it's unclear when the guests are supposed to arrive.

For the first time since 1940, St. Patrick's Day will fall during Holy Week, the sacred seven days preceding Easter.

Because of the overlap, liturgical rules dictate that no mass in honour of the saint can be celebrated on Monday, March 17, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

But a few Roman Catholic leaders are asking for even more moderation in their dioceses - they want parades and other festivities kept out of Holy Week as well.

Bishop Kevin Boland of the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, wrote to practically every agency in his city, from the Chamber of Commerce to the Board of Education, saying the diocese was changing the date of its celebration this year.

In response, the citywide Irish festival was moved to Friday, March 14, when schools will close and bagpipe-driven parties will carry into the streets.

More than half a million people stream into the Southern city for the festival, one of the country's largest St. Patrick's Day affairs, said Bret Bell, Savannah's public information director.

Savannah bars will be open March 17, but no organized events will be held that day, he said.

"The city has a very strong Irish Catholic community, a very traditional Irish Catholic community," Bell said. "They attend mass regularly. And the last thing they want to do is get in the bad graces of the Catholic Church."

Philadelphia has also moved its parade date to avoid giving offence, and Milwaukee is hitting the streets sooner than usual, too.

But in Columbus, the Shamrock Club is going ahead with its March 17 parade, drawing protests from the local bishop. A handful of Irish-American politicians have lined up behind church leaders, breaking with tradition by refusing to march in the parade.

In a letter last fall, the Catholic Diocese of Columbus told the Shamrock Club, the group that organizes the parade, that Bishop Frederick Campbell wanted "all observances honouring St. Patrick" - religious or otherwise - removed from Holy Week.

"It's not a sin to celebrate your Irish culture," countered Mark Dempsey, the club's president.

"Actually, you're born Irish first," he said, "and then you're baptized Catholic."

Not all Columbus Irish groups agree. Members of the local chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a national Irish Catholic organization, will skip the parade and will instead join the March 15 parade in Dublin, a Columbus suburb.

In New York and Boston, with legendary St. Patrick's events planned by the cities' large Irish communities, bishops are taking a hands-off approach, saying the church has no part in planning civic celebrations.

The Archdiocese of New York, which has St. Patrick as a patron saint, will hold the liturgical celebration for St. Patrick on March 14. Edward Cardinal Egan will then say mass on Monday, the same day as the parade, and will review the procession from the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling said.

Boston's parade remains set for Sunday, March 16, which is Palm Sunday and the first day of Holy Week.

Other public dustups over St. Patrick's Day have erupted in past years, including a protracted fight between gay Irish groups and city leaders in New York and Boston over the right to march in the parades, which the Catholic Church has steadfastly opposed.

But a calendar conflict is a rare event: Holy Week won't clash with St. Patrick's Day again until 2160. This year's peculiar schedule also sees the feast day of St. Joseph - honoured by Catholics as the husband of the Virgin Mary - celebrated March 15, four days early.

Italian enclaves in many U.S. cities mark St. Joseph's with their own parades, but not on the level inspired by his Irish counterpart, so that shift hasn't produced any public grousing.

The St. Patrick's Day clash has a touch of the Christmas commercialism debate, about a holiday whose religious roots are tangled up in decidedly secular traditions. In most St. Patrick's traditions, parades are intertwined with mass.

"It's kind of a test of clerical power, in a way," said Mike Cronin, co-author of "The Wearing of the Green: History of St. Patrick's Day." "I think there's a real issue then around organizing committees saying, 'Do we need the church, or do we not?"'

The United States remains one of the few countries in the world to retain any religious traces of St. Patrick's Day, Cronin said. In Ireland, where the government sponsors the Dublin parade, the holiday has morphed into an arts festival that draws millions of people, he said.

Recognizing that, bishops there have moved the feast of the country's patron saint to March 15 this year. March 17 will remain an official Irish day off work and the Dublin parade will go on as scheduled.

Had Ireland's bishops shown the same insistence as some of their American counterparts, Cronin said, their comments almost certainly would have been ignored.

"It'd be like the (American) bishops arguing to move Super Bowl Sunday," he said.

The conflict is uncomfortable for some Irish-American Catholics. Franklin County Treasurer Ed Leonard bowed out of the Columbus parade but hopes a resolution might be reached.

"We wouldn't be celebrating St. Patrick's Day," he said, "were it not for the religious component of it."

Man, 18, charged after allegedly stealing camel marionette in Kingston, Ont.

KINGSTON, Ont. - An 18-year-old man from Kingston, Ont., has been charged with theft after a large marionette of a camel was stolen from a local store.

Police say a man went into Sultan's Bazaar, browsed for a while, and then on his way out pilfered the $65 marionette.

Police say the man ran down the street with the camel in hand, with a witness giving chase.

The witness called police, who say they quickly identified the suspect.

Officers went to a home in the city and allegedly found the stolen puppet in clear view in the hallway.

Nathan Pettigrew was charged with theft under $5,000.

Scientists' row over G spot nears a climax

After more than half a century of debate and bedroom exploration, a row about the location of the fabled G spot may be settled at last, the British weekly New Scientist says.

The G spot, named after a German gynaecologist called Ernst Graefenberg who first mooted its existence in 1950, is said to be a highly sensitive area in the vagina that, when stimulated, gives a woman a powerful orgasm.

But where the G spot is located has been clouded by evidence that is subjective or downright contradictory, and some experts have even concluded that it does not exist.

The answer, according to Italian researcher Emmanuele Jannini, is that, yes, the G spot does exist, but only among those women who are lucky enough to possess it, New Scientist reports.

Jannini, of the University of L'Aquila, used ultrasound to scan a key vaginal area among nine women who claimed to experience vaginal orgasms and 11 who said they didn't.

The target was an area of tissue on the front vaginal wall located behind the urethra. Tissue was notably thicker in this space among the first group of women compared with the second, the scans revealed.

Jannini, who reports the research in full in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, says the evidence is clear: "Women without any visible evidence of a G spot cannot have a vaginal orgasm."

"For the first time, it is possible to determine by a simple, rapid and inexpensive method if a woman has a G spot or not," he believes.

Some experts question whether what Jannini calls the G spot is a distinct structure or the internal part of the clitoris, whose size is highly variable.

Others say more work is needed to confirm Jannini's belief that the G spot is missing in women who don't experience vaginal orgasm. The G spot could be there in all women, but with differing degrees of sensitivity, they believe.

Women who do not have a G spot should not despair, according to the New Scientist report.

"They can still have a normal orgasm through stimulation of the clitoris," said Jannini.

Beijing to bring in extra pandas for Olympic games

Beijing Zoo is expanding its panda exhibit for the 2008 Olympics and will ship in up to 10 more for visitors to see during the August Games, an official said Thursday.

The zoo is expanding its facilities to accommodate the additional animals and is also building a Giant Panda Museum which will document efforts to save the endangered species, a zoo spokeswoman told AFP.

"The pandas will be on loan from the Wolong Giant Panda Centre, but the numbers to be brought in are still under negotiation," she said.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, up to 10 more pandas would be brought in from Wolong, the world's most successful panda breeding centre located in southwest China's Sichuan province.

The panda exhibition is the most popular attraction at the Beijing Zoo and currently houses seven of the animals.

A record number of pandas have been bred in China in recent years, with 31 born and 25 surviving at breeding centres around the nation in the first 11 months of 2007, earlier press reports said.

In 2006, 33 pandas were born, with most of the new births in both years occurring at the Wolong centre, where artificial breeding techniques are continually improving, the reports said.

The giant panda, known for being sexually inactive, is among the world's most endangered animals.

As of November last year, China had 239 giant pandas in captivity, including 128 at the Wolong centre, while about 1,590 other pandas are thought to be living in the wild.

Drunk driver parks at police station

Police in the western Canadian town of Wetaskiwin didn't have to do much work when they arrested a drunk driver at the weekend -- he had parked his car next to their offices and wandered inside.

Police discovered the man as they drove by early on Saturday morning to respond to an unrelated call. Although the police office was locked, the lobby was open.

"There was a vehicle parked about 10 feet outside our front door. The gentleman had walked into the front lobby and he was displaying many indications of being intoxicated," Constable Mark Scheck said on Wednesday.

"So at that point we did take him into custody ... it's pretty unusual," he told Reuters by phone from Wetaskiwin, some 45 miles south of Edmonton, Alberta.

The 28-year-old man has been charged with impaired driving.

New York City man accused of taking $2M from account of man with same name

Prosecutors say a Brooklyn man withdrew $2 million from an account after a bank error gave him access to funds managed by a man with the same name.

Benjamin Lovell has been arraigned Tuesday on grand larceny charges. The 48-year-old salesman says he kept trying to tell officials at Commerce Bank that he did not have a $5 million account. But he says they told him it was his account and he could withdraw the money.

Prosecutors say the bank confused Lovell and a man with the same name. They say Lovell has subsequently lost much of the money on bad investments.

A call to Commerce Bank seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Jimmy Buffett to open restaurant in Waikiki

Expect occasional appearances by singer/author Jimmy Buffett at a new Waikiki restaurant that will bear his name and is expected to open later this year on Kalakaua Avenue in the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber.

It will be known as Jimmy Buffett's At The Beachcomber and will occupy a prominent location on Kalakaua Avenue above Macy's on the hotel's lobby level.

The deal is a partnership with Outrigger Enterprises Group and will be the first Hawai'i restaurant for the singing entrepreneur, probably best-known for the song "Margaritaville."

It's not clear whether patrons will be "nibblin' on sponge cake," but margaritas will be served. And Barbara Campbell, vice president of retail development for Outrigger, said there will be live music and food, with a Hawai'i flair that should make the restaurant different from the Margaritaville-named restaurants Buffett has in other cities.

"They are designing this restaurant for Hawai'i; it's really customized," she said. She said the deal is part of a $21 million renovation of the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber.

She said the $15 million restaurant project will take up more than 21,000 square feet in an area that fronts Kalakaua and was home to the late Don Ho in his last years, to the Blue Hawai'i showroom and to the Hibiscus Cafe restaurant.

She said Outrigger had been in discussions with the entrepreneurial singer for two years. "Jimmy absolutely loves Hawai'i and had been looking at locations for five years," she said.

Campbell said Buffett is not directly involved in restaurant management but "expect him to visit at least at twice a year."

In a written statement about the project, Buffett said:

"From the first time I rode a wave at Canoes on Waikiki I began to figure out how I could get back to Hawaii on a more regular basis to that One Particular Harbour. I have written many stories and songs inspired by my time in Hawaii and can't wait to see what the future holds in the land that is so far but yet so near."

Campbell said Buffett's other restaurants have a reputation of serving quality food and live entertainment along with the celebrity concept, something not all chain themes have achieved.

She said the restaurant will be designed with an architectural style that combines Buffett's image with the flavors of Hawai'i, with open-air lanais and the interior design of an "indoor island" setting.

She said the restaurant is slated to open in November, with construction beginning next month.

Actor Sharif ordered to pay valet $318,190 over altercation

Will actor Omar Sharif pay up in dollars or euros?

That's what parking valet Juan Anderson is wondering after the film star was ordered to pay him $318,190 as a result of a 2005 altercation outside a Beverly Hills restaurant.

Sharif, best known for his roles in the movies "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago," allegedly punched Anderson in the face when the valet refused to accept a 20-euro note as payment for retrieving his Porsche sport utility vehicle at Mastro's Steakhouse.

The actor and a female companion had just finished a $500 dinner at the North Canon Drive restaurant. Anderson, who believed he was not authorized to accept foreign currency, said he was bloodied by the attack.

Anderson, 50, alleged that Sharif angrily called him a "stupid Mexican." Anderson is from Guatemala. Sharif, 75, later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge. In early 2007 he was ordered to pay a $100 fine and attend anger-management classes. He was also placed on two years' probation by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.

Anderson sued Sharif for assault and battery, emotional distress and commission of a hate crime. A 2005 state law prohibits racially motivated violence.

On Tuesday, Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Joe W. Hilberman awarded Anderson $318,190 in damages. Sharif, who earlier characterized the incident as a parking lot argument, did not appear at the trial.

The actor could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

It was unclear what currency Sharif will use to pay the judgment. That amount is the equivalent of 217,000 euros.

But Anderson's lawyer, John Carpenter, said collecting the cash in any currency could be difficult. Sharif is in Egypt, Carpenter said.

The Beverly Hills parking lot incident was not Sharif's first altercation. In 2003, he was fined $1,700 and given a one-month suspended sentence for head-butting a French police officer.

"It made me the hero of the whole of France," the actor later told the New Yorker magazine. "To head-butt a cop is the dream of every Frenchman."

California's budget gap at $16 billion

SACRAMENTO -- California's budget shortfall has swollen to $16 billion from $14.5 billion, according to the state's chief budget analyst, who says the governor's proposal for closing the deficit is so flawed that her office took the rare step of drafting an alternative state spending plan for legislators to consider.

The plan offered by Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill, whom lawmakers of both parties look to for advice on fiscal matters, calls on lawmakers to raise taxes by at least $2.7 billion. It urges them to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans for a 10% across-the-board reduction in state spending, suggesting that such an approach is short-sighted.
Hill says the lawmakers should target a dozen tax breaks she says are ripe for modification or elimination. They include tax credits that individuals can claim for dependent children and seniors and that companies can claim for research and development as well as for hiring low-income workers.

And she suggests eliminating a loophole that allows buyers of yachts to avoid paying sales tax if they keep their newly purchased boats out of California for 90 days. Democrats call it the "sloophole."

Democrats embraced Hill's ideas. But the governor and Republican lawmakers said they would continue to block any tax increases.

"While I believe that we should begin negotiations with all ideas on the table, I have been very clear in my position against raising taxes to fix Sacramento's spending problem and our budget," Schwarzenegger said.

The increase in the size of the deficit, detailed in a report Hill released this morning, essentially erases the emergency spending cuts lawmakers have made so far to bring the budget into balance.

Those actions, approved by the Legislature and governor late last week, amounted to about $2 billion in service reductions, largely in school programs and healthcare for the poor.

Lawyers divided on death penalty system

Defense lawyers and prosecutors agreed Wednesday that California's death penalty system was deeply troubled but split over the causes and solutions.

During a hearing in Los Angeles before a state reform commission, prosecutors called for quicker appeals and amending the state Constitution to permit the California state Supreme Court to transfer some of the initial review of cases to state appeals courts.

Defense attorneys opposed the proposal, saying it would make the process more cumbersome.

Instead, they asked that the state pare the list of crimes that qualify for the death penalty and provide more funding for lawyers who represent accused killers.

But John Van de Kamp, chairman of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice who previously served as Los Angeles County district attorney and state attorney general, said the prospects of increased state funding were bleak.

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice was set up by the state Senate in 2004 to study the problem of wrongful convictions. Wednesday's meeting was the second focusing on the death penalty.

California has the nation's largest death row, with 669 condemned inmates, but has held only 13 executions since reinstating the death penalty in 1978. It takes as long as 24 years for some killers to complete their appeals before execution.

Before the hearing, two professors from Pepperdine Law School attempted to survey district attorneys around the state to learn how they decide when to seek the death penalty. But they met with little cooperation.

On Wednesday, San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Michael Ramos defended his resistance to the study.

"If you ask us to give detailed public information on each case, you will create a chilling effect" on how those decisions are made and it might lead to increased pressure on prosecutors from victims groups and police officers to seek the death penalty more often, Ramos said.

He also said that his office was very restrained in seeking death sentences and that he has "lost sleep" over what he called the "ultimate decision" a prosecutor can make: "taking someone's life."

"We had 142 murders in the county in 2007" but sought the death penalty in only one of them after top staff in the office reviewed the cases.

Ramos said he did not give weight to the fact that a death penalty case is considerably more expensive than one seeking a lesser penalty. "When you are deciding for a victim's family who has lost a loved one, it is hard to think about money," he said in response to a question about costs.

That comment struck a chord with Cliff Gardner, a veteran San Francisco defense lawyer who has gotten several death sentences reversed.

"When I heard Mr. Ramos, I was struck by his sincerity," Gardner said. "He said when he meets with victims, no decisions are based on money. What a marvelous way to practice law.

"When I take these cases," which could involve reviewing up to 100 boxes of material, "every decision I make is based on money" because there is a limit on how much the state will pay to represent a death row inmate, he said.

Typically, Gardner said, after he reviews the case record he makes a list of 40 areas to explore that were missed or botched by the trial lawyer. Then he has to tell his client "maybe I can only do seven of them. That is an inequity the system has to address," Gardner said.

After listening to more than a dozen lawyers, professors and a researcher from the Rand Corp., the commission heard moving testimony from Aba Gayle, whose teenage daughter, Catherine Blount, was murdered in Auburn in 1980. "The district attorney assured me that the execution of the man responsible for Catherine's murder would help me heal, and for many years I believed him."

She said she was consumed with a desire for revenge against Douglas Mickey, who was sentenced to death in 1983. But eight years after the killing, Gayle said, she had "a spiritual epiphany," forgave Mickey and has since visited him at San Quentin.

Two years ago, she said, a federal district judge overturned Mickey's death penalty because of the ineffectiveness of his defense lawyer. Gayle said she called the district attorney and asked him to drop his effort for execution.

"I told him I would be satisfied with a life sentence. I did not want state-sanctioned murder to tarnish the life of my beautiful child." But she said the D.A. ignored her request and asked the state attorney general's office to appeal the ruling. The case is still pending.

The panel has one more hearing scheduled on the issue, on March 28 in Santa Clara.