In court, male lawyer turns up as woman

WELLINGTON: A bald, mustachioed lawyer turned up at court wearing a skirt and blouse and toting a purse to protest a lack of care and sensitivity among New Zealand's male-dominated judiciary, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Rob Moodie, 67, a former rugby player, pipe smoker and secretary of the police union, arrived at Wellington's High Court on Monday in a navy blue woman's suit complete with diamond brooch and lace-topped stockings over his hairy legs, The Dominion Post reported. ``I will now, as a lawyer, be wearing women's clothing,'' Moodie was quoted as saying. He said he wants the court to address him as ``Ms. Alice'' and that his wife and three children support his protest. His attire, he insisted, is to highlight the insensitive ``old boys' network'' of New Zealand's judiciary. ``My confidence in the male ethos is zilch. It's a culture of intimidation, authority, power and control,'' the high-profile lawyer said. Although he is heterosexual, he was born with an innate understanding of the female gender, Moodie said. ``I prefer and relate to the gender which is involved in the creation and nurturing of life: giving, sharing and also, I believe, fairness,'' he told the newspaper. Calls to Moodie's family home in the town of Feilding, about 165 kilometers (100 miles) north of the capital, Wellington, rang unanswered Tuesday. His protest was prompted by frustration over a long-running case involving a farming couple held responsible for a bridge built by the army on their land that collapsed, killing a beekeeper. He told The Dominion Post that the ``last straw'' was last month's Court of Appeal ruling that ordered the couple who have already sold their farm to fund their legal efforts to pay the army 10,000 New Zealand dollars (US$6,200; euro4,900) in costs. On a practical note, Moodie said he was unsure which toilet he would be allowed to use at the court house. ``I call it a flash of lace at the urinal,'' he told the newspaper.

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Pig slurry used to clean polluted pond

HELSINKI - Finnish engineers have poured pig manure into a contaminated pond next to an old mine, saying the bacteria in the slurry will clean up metals in the water.

Mining company Outokumpu dumped 450 cubic meters of pig slurry into the waste water near the closed Kangasjarvi mine, which once produced zinc, copper and sulfur.
"Pig slurry contains bacteria that bind metals that are in the mine water and they will sink to the bottom. We have used this system to clean mine waters at various mines," Eero Soininen, Outokumpu's mine reclamation manager, told Reuters.
"Around 15 years ago we noticed mine water got cleaned by itself at our Foldal mine in Norway. We studied the water and found bacteria that eat sulfides."
It takes around 2 to 4 years for sulfide-eating bacteria to get their job done.

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Gays accused of discrimination in resort town

PROVINCETOWN, Massachusetts - Provincetown, New England's summer gay capital, is facing a rise in harassment and discrimination. But this time it's straight people who say they are being ridiculed as "breeders" and "baby makers."

Less than a decade after a successful campaign to end violent paroxysms of "gay bashing" in the beach town at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, police and town officials report a resurgence in tension between gays and straight people.
Police Chief Ted Meyer said straight people complained of being called "breeders" over the July Fourth holiday weekend, and that in one serious incident a man was charged with assaulting a woman who signed a petition to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, the only state where it is legal.
Equally troubling, he said, Jamaican workers in Provincetown say they have been the target of racial slurs.
"It's been a series of issues," Meyer said.
The flare-ups in a town that overflows in summer with a colorful mix of gay couples often openly holding hands or kissing, cross-dressers and flocks of curious tourists coincide with a planned vote this year in the state Legislature on an amendment to ban gay marriage -- a measure that has rallied activists on both sides of the issue.
Gay-marriage advocates have set up a Web site -- www.knowthyneighbor.org -- that publishes the names of people who have signed the petition, including at least two locals in Provincetown who say they have been singled out and verbally abused by gays since their names appeared on the Web site.
Town officials said the town is struggling to strike a balance between protecting the right to freedom of expression for petition signers, and ensuring its gay majority contain their anger at what many see as an assault on their hard-won right to marriage.
Police would not classify the slurs and name-calling as "hate crimes." But a town meeting was called last Friday to discuss whether social attitudes were changing in the gay resort village with a population of 3,431 that swells to 60,000 in summer and includes a large number of Jamaicans.
"We have business that we haven't talked about as a family," Town Manager Keith Bergman said. "The impact of the same sex marriage petition is high on that list."
Some gays expressed shock at being accused of discrimination after years of suffering harassment.
"There are still a lot of straight people who treat gays badly," said Steve Bowersock, 35, an artist who owns the Bowersock Gallery on the town's main Commercial Street.
Bowersock, who was once married to a woman, said he moved to Provincetown in 2004 with his partner because it gives gays a political voice. He admits he sometimes discriminates against straight people he finds offensive
"If there's a straight couple and I hear them in the background going 'oh fags', I'm like 'hello, where the hell do you think you are?' So in turn I get mad," he said.
"If I see someone nervous like a big butch guy, and you can just tell he's a redneck, I'll grab my partner and I'll kiss him. It's not being mean, but 'hello you're in our town'."
The Rev. Henry J. Dahl, pastor at St. Peter's Church, said several of his parishioners had complained to him of being singled out and verbally abused after signing the petition.
"I don't think it's totally unexpected that there would be some reaction to people who signed the petition," he said. "Let's just hope we can have civil discourse."
Joe Solmonese, president of gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, said the petition signers invited trouble by taking a position that says "loud and clear that you believe that gays and lesbians should be treated as second class citizens."

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Two killed in Britain as inflatable art takes off

LONDON - Two women died and 13 people were injured when they fell from a huge inflatable sculpture after it broke its moorings and flew into the air in a park in northeastern England, police said Monday.

Up to 30 people were inside the walk-in exhibit, which has been shown around the world, when a gust of wind blew it 9 metres above the park in Chester-le-Street Sunday.
"All of a sudden it just started rising like a balloon," witness Mark Spooner told BBC television. "(It was) flinging people all over. Then it just seemed to flip over in the air."
The victims, aged 68 and 38, had been walking through the artwork with children when it took off. A three-year-old girl was seriously injured in the freak accident.
"(The) inflatable exhibition broke its moorings and tipped those using it on to the ground," police said in a statement.
Designed by artist Maurice Agis, the exhibit, called Dreamspace, is 5 metres high and made out of plastic sheeting. Half the size of a soccer pitch, it has walls that change color as visitors wander through its maze of corridors.
It was brought to earth after it drifted into a pole.

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Thief robs police on release from custody

BERLIN - Police in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt were stunned when a thief they had just released from custody stole an officer's bicycle on his way out and rode off on it, authorities said Thursday. "They could scarcely believe his cheek," said a spokesman for Ingolstadt police. "It's almost impossible to beat."

Police had earlier arrested the 22-year-old man of Tunisian origin after he was caught stealing handbags and only released him on condition he report back to them later.
After he was set free, an observant officer spotted the man helping himself to the bicycle outside the station. Police gave chase and quickly re-arrested him, the spokesman said.
"He claimed he thought it belonged to a friend," he added. "He won't be getting out of jail so quickly this time."

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At swinging convention, sex is on everyone's mind

LAS VEGAS - Vera Rhodes has come a long way from her conservative upbringing in Pennsylvania's Amish community

There she was a virgin until she married at age 30. Now, she is an enthusiastic 54-year-old member of the millions-strong "swinging" community who speaks openly of her encounters with multiple sexual partners.
"Last night it was really special," said Rhodes, who is divorced and makes a living giving massages in the Midwestern state of Iowa. "There was a couple from Mexico, a couple from Virginia and a couple from Ireland, from Australia."
"I like to participate in life as much as possible," she said with a broad smile.
Rhodes was among some 3,000 people gathered Saturday at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas for the annual Lifestyles conference, a five-day, $700-per-couple event that offers a mix of seminars, socializing and sex.
Early Saturday, Rhodes was back for more, joining the action in a suite where more than a dozen couples were having sex.
The conference organizer, Robert McGinley, 72, president of The Lifestyles Organization, estimates that there are 3 million swingers in the United States alone. He founded his group in 1969 and began holding the annual conferences in the 1970s.
He said his firm brings in millions of dollars in annual sales from organizing tours to swinger-friendly resorts, Internet sites and from conferences. The Las Vegas event is the largest annual U.S. swinging event, he said.
"The lifestyles community is rapidly expanding," he said. "It's an expanding economic powerhouse."
MOSTLY MIDDLE-AGED
The crowd at the Stardust appeared mostly middle-aged and middle-class. And many were nowhere near as active as Rhodes. Organizers estimated that perhaps 40 percent of the couples were attending their first conference.
"I'm still thinking about it; we've been monogamous for 26 years," said one middle-aged newcomer from Palm Springs, California, who said she was raised a Roman Catholic.
At one seminar, several women were overcome as the presenter demonstrated a sexual device -- one passed out in the packed room.
For all their enthusiasm, few of the swingers tell family and friends about their hobby.
"Socially, we're pariahs," said Drew Alexander, 40, who attended with this wife Tina, 38. "We're behaving in a way that's completely against the ingrained Catholic values."
Another couple did not want their names printed but were far from shy. They made love early Saturday in the hospitality suites where couples wandered from room to room to watch the action at close range. They emerged from their experience beaming, saying seeing others sparked more passion.
One attendee who stayed completely on the sidelines was the man behind the event.
"I've never been a big swinger, that's not the point," McGinley said. "What I would like to do is bring a new understanding of sexuality in our lives and our relationships."

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Missile falls off truck onto New York highway

NEW YORK - A missile fell off a truck and onto a New York highway on Friday, but the weapon did not have a warhead and posed no danger, police said.

WCBS radio reported it was a Tomahawk cruise missile. Police and fire department officials could not confirm that.
The cargo came loose when the truck carrying it collided with another truck on a motorway in the Bronx.
"It was a military-type missile but it was inert. There was no danger and no one was harmed," a police spokesman said.

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First China alternative marriage Web site thrives

SHANGHAI - Online marriage brokers are common in China, but a young Chinese Web site is thriving by turning the traditional idea of marriage on its head.

Called "Marriage for Asexuals" (www.wx920.com), the site claims to be the first and biggest online marriage broker for "asexual" people in China. It says it has attracted 7,000 members since it was launched last year.
Its rapid success illustrates the expansion of the Internet in China, the increasingly permissive nature of Chinese society -- and the way in which small but growing minorities of people are stepping away from traditions that have dominated culture for thousands of years.
"I came up with the idea to help a friend, who lost his sexual abilities after an accident," said the 33-year-old founder of the Web site, who works full-time for an information technology company in the remote southern province of Guangxi.
A Communist Party member and a volunteer social worker, the founder was willing to identify himself only by his Internet name Lin Hai, as he chose not to tell his parents and co-workers about the site because he worried about their reactions.
"At the beginning I couldn't believe so many people from all over China were drawn to my Web site," said Lin.
Sixty percent of the site's customers are people who cannot have sex, Lin said. The rest are "comrades," the Chinese nickname for homosexuals, who sign on in search of an opposite-sex spouse, often to relieve social and family pressure.
NEW FORMS OF MARRIAGE
The site is particularly daring in a Chinese context because of the culture's strong emphasis on heterosexual marriage and child-bearing. Confucius taught that not having children was the height of filial impiety. Under Chairman Mao, a person's "work unit" or employer often acted as matchmaker.
But "Marriage for Asexuals" is an example of the way in which the institution of marriage is being modified and adapted, mostly in China's cities, by breakneck economic and social development.
So-called "DINK" marriages, standing for "double income and no kids" -- it is fashionable to use the English acronym -- have become popular among young urban professionals. Such arrangements wouldn't raise an eyebrow in the West, but in China they are still viewed as something of a radical lifestyle choice.
"I have no time to raise kids, or even to go through pregnancy," said a manager in her late 30s at a Japanese company in Shanghai. "I'd rather save the money and time to live more happily with my husband."
Underlining the still-controversial nature of her choice, the manager was willing to give her name only as "Ms. Liu."
Another innovation is "marriage on weekends," where couples deliberately live apart on weekdays to maintain their independence.
"There is much more space for unconventional marriages, as the government gradually withdrew from people's private lives after 1978," said sociologist Sun Zhongxin of Fudan University.
The Chinese government does not hesitate to block or censor things on the Internet that it does not like, but Lin said he had not received any official criticism or warnings over "Marriage for Asexuals."
MIXED TONES
The Web site is tastefully designed in a pastel shade of green, featuring traditional Chinese music and a romantic picture of a Western man and woman at the top of the home page.
It includes discussions of asexual marriage as well as a contacts section through which people can meet each other. It is free of charge, but accepts donations.
"I want a Beijing boy who is outspoken, upright and who treats my parents well," wrote "Beijing Girl" in a typical posting. "I am a translator, tall and slim, and I earn 2,000 ($250) to 3,500 yuan per month."
The tone of some other postings is more tragic in a country where homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder until 2001, and where it remains stigmatized in many places.
"My parents threatened to never see me again or even to commit double-suicide if I do not have a baby soon," said a Mr. Wu in a posting.
"Many co-workers look at me like a jerk, an impotent, or a sick person, just because I've been married for 10 years and have no child yet."
($1 = 8.00 yuan)

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