To any aspiring novelists who like to copyright but can’t spell their own middle names correctly, I didn’t write this. It says “Reuters.” I just comment on it, or rather, blog about it.

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has ruled that a couple could not name their son “Friday” and ordered that he instead be called Gregory after the saint whose feast day he was born on.

“I think it is ridiculous they even opened a case about it,” the family’s lawyer, Paola Rossi, told Reuters by telephone from the northern city of Genoa on Tuesday.

Friday/Gregory Germano was born in Genoa 15 months ago. The parents registered him as Friday in the city hall and a priest even baptised him as Friday — unusual in Italy since many priests insist that first names be of Christian origin.

“We named him Friday because we like the sound of the name. Even if it would have been a girl, we would have named her Friday,” the boy’s mother, Mara Germano, told Reuters.

When the boy was about five months old, a city hall clerk brought the odd name to the attention of a tribunal, which informed the couple of an administrative norm which bars parents from giving “ridiculous or shameful” first names to children.

The tribunal said it was protecting the child from being the butt of jokes and added that it believed the name would hinder him from developing “serene interpersonal relationships”.

The Germano family appealed but lost their case this month and the story was carried on the front page of a national newspaper on Tuesday.

When ordered to change the name, the parents refused and the court ruled the boy would be legally registered as Gregory because he was born on that saint’s feast day.

“I really doubt this would have happened to the child of parents who are rich and famous,” the boy’s mother told Reuters, recalling that some famous Italians had given their children unorthodox names such as “Ocean” or “Chanel”.

The appeals court ruled against Friday because it recalled the servile savage in Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe and because superstitious Italians consider Friday an unlucky day. (huh? -DL)

“I am livid about this,” the boy’s mother said. “A court should not waste its time with things like this when there is so much more to worry about.”

“My son was born Friday, baptised Friday, will call himself Friday, we will call him Friday but when he gets older he will have to sign his name Gregory,” she said.

“Serene interpersonal relationships”? I’m going to start asking all the Gregorys I know if they have them. Then again, if they had this here, we’d be saved from the horrors of Apple (Paltrow), Pilot Inspektor (Jason Lee), Banjo (Rachel Griffiths) and Saint Shiloh of Pitt.

When I read this headline in Tuesday’s edition of the Daily Breeze, I assumed it was ironic, or tongue in cheek.

Chuck Norris - The GOP’s Oprah

But the headline is completely serious.

I realize that the Breeze leans to the right. And I realize that the Breeze loves to focus on South Bay success stories and that Norris was raised in Torrance, graduating from North High in 1958.

But, really, the star of Good Guys Wear Black is a political player?

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has stunned the Republican establishment by jumping out to a wide lead in the Iowa presidential caucus - now little more than two weeks away.

Huckabee has a small organization, not much money, and scant support from prominent conservatives. Even in the evangelical community, which forms the former Baptist minister’s base of support, most of the big names have backed other candidates.

So what explains his meteoric rise?

Two words: Chuck Norris.

“The Norris endorsement may be a bigger factor in Iowa than evangelical support for Huckabee,” conservative commentator Robert Novak wrote Saturday in a piece titled “Huckabee’s Oprah.”

“Norris may be no big deal in New York and Washington, but he is a folk hero with ordinary Iowans.”

I grew up a fan of Norris’ old, post-Bruce-Lee kung fu flicks. I worked at the Northridge Four Cinemas when we played The Octagon and I saw it like 100 times.

But I had no idea he was a player in the game.

Though Norris got to know Ronald and Nancy Reagan through a charity tennis tournament, he did not become politically active until 1988, when George H.W. Bush ran for president.

Norris was asked by Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager to introduce Bush at a rally.

“People were calling Bush a wimp,” Norris said. “So I went out to emcee the rally, and 20,000 people showed up. Next thing I know I’m on the campaign trail.”

Before that election, Norris had never voted. Perhaps as a result, his political loyalties today are much more the result of personal connections than of a particular ideology.

Norris’ endorsement of Huckabee should be taken with a grain of salt:

Norris came to Huckabee after reading about him on a Christian Web site, TheRebelution.com. He researched his positions, and liked what he saw, but found a deeper affinity in Huckabee’s life story.

“Mike hasn’t lived an isolated, out-of-touch life like so many politicians,” Norris wrote in a column on the conservative site WorldNetDaily.com, in late October. “Mike and his sister grew up poor, not privileged.”

Norris also cited Huckabee’s values, which are rooted in his faith, and compared him to King David.

Though he had not met Huckabee, Norris felt compelled to endorse him.

Huckabee had shown some dark-horse potential at the time, but he was still an obscure candidate. After the Norris endorsement, Huckabee said in an online video, “Everything in my campaign changed.”

“Our Web traffic went completely nuts,” Huckabee said. “There were people who suddenly said, `He’s a serious candidate.”‘

Judge dismisses charge against woman who cursed her overflowing toilet

SCRANTON, Pa. - A woman who was cited for loudly cursing at her overflowing toilet — and then at a neighbor who told her to quiet down — has been acquitted on First Amendment grounds.

District Judge Terrence Gallagher dismissed the disorderly conduct charge against Dawn Herb, 33, ruling Thursday that she was within her rights when she let loose a string of profanities Oct. 11.

Although the language she used “may be considered by some to be offensive, vulgar and imprudent … (it is) protected speech pursuant to the First Amendment,” the judge wrote.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — A Scottsdale man inadvertently shot himself in the buttocks Thursday morning. Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Daniel Leatherman, 26, heard a disturbance outside his apartment and saw a man he knew fighting with a cab driver. Leatherman told police that the man, Cody Nunn, 25, had assaulted him in the past, so he grabbed his gun and went outside. Leatherman told police that he accidentally dropped the gun while hiding it behind his back and shot himself in the derriere. Nunn and Leatherman’s friends took him to a local hospital. When police arrived, Clark said Nunn was drunk and disruptive. He was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct. Leatherman was released from the hospital later Thursday. There were no phone listings for Leatherman or Nunn*.

*Well of course not! Can you imagine the calls they got when they were listed?

Just wanted to take a moment to note that former Los Angeles Angels pitcher Brendan Donnelly (most recently a member of the Boston Red Sox) is named both in the Mitchell Report and on the list of those who crossed the picket line in the 1994 major league baseball strike.

The incredibly mediocre field of GOP Presidential candidates rates poorly with the American people — even with Republicans:

Three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters across the country appear uninspired by their field of presidential candidates, with a vast majority saying they have not made a final decision about whom to support, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Not one of the Republican candidates is viewed favorably by even half the Republican electorate, the poll found.

~~~

On the Republican side, in contrast, Mr. Giuliani is viewed favorably most frequently, and that is by only 41 percent. Senator John McCain is viewed favorably by 37 percent, and Mr. Romney by 36 percent. Mr. Huckabee is viewed favorably by 30 percent, and 60 percent say they do not know enough about him to offer an opinion, suggesting that he may be vulnerable to the kind of attacks that his opponents have already been mounting against him.

Those are the numbers among those considered likely Republican voters. How can the GOP faithful be so indifferent to outstanding candidates like Mitt Romney, to whom the National Review gave a ringing endorsement as “none has everything — all the traits, all the positions — we are looking for. . . . has less foreign-policy experience than Thompson . . . . [and] plagued by the sense that his is a passionless, paint-by-the-numbers conservatism?”

Bush kills a children’s health care bill:

President Bush vetoed a children’s health measure on Wednesday afternoon, effectively killing Democrats’ hopes of expanding a popular government program aimed at providing insurance to children in lower-income and middle-income families.

Bushspeak:

“I continue to stand ready to work with the leaders of the Congress, on a bipartisan basis, to reauthorize the S-Chip program in a way that puts poor children first, moves adults out of a program meant for children, and does not abandon the bipartisan tradition that marked the original enactment of the S-Chip program,” Mr. Bush said.

Bush’s comment reveals his native unfamiliarity with the meaning of simple words. He has no fucking clue what the word “bipartisan” means. He thinks it means “do it exactly my way,” just as he thinks “disassemble” means “not tell the truth.”

The law Bush just vetoed passed by a 64-30 margin in the Senate, and by a 265 to 142 margin in the house, with significant support from Republican lawmakers. That would be “bipartisan,” in any language other than the Bush lexicon.

I live in sort of a confusing neighborhood.

Technically, I live in Los Angeles. By “technically,” I mean my mayor is Antonio Villaraigoso, my neighborhood high school is Venice High. But my zip code — 90230 – is in Culver City. It’s a bit confusing, but you get used to it.

Recently, I found out I live in Del Rey. I guess they picked the name because we’re just east of Marina Del Rey and Playa Del Rey. And without the Marina or the Playa, we’re just Del Rey.

We have a neighborhood council. Bill Rosendahl is our city council person. I live in “Area F.”

Photo courtesy the Del Rey Council web site

Anywhooo …

One of the best parts of our neighborhood is the running track/bike track that runs down the middle of Culver Boulevard. It’s hard to describe in sentences — you sort of have to be there — but Culver has a center divider with a really nice jogging path and a a bike path. Those of us who jog and walk the path are like a little family. We wave to each other and mumble “good morning” in between breathes. (My favorite people to run into are the little, old Japanese couple who walk together hand-in-hand. He also carries a walking stick, which he handles the way a Samurai handles a sword.)

The jogging path runs as far east as McConnell, across the street from Ronnie’s Diner, where the cops from Pacific Division eat breakfast. It runs east into Culver City proper, stopping just a couple of blocks from Vet Park and Sony Studios.

For about a year, the path has been sort of wrecked because of the widening of the 405 freeway. Construction crews widening the freeway at the Culver overpass used the path to store girders and park trucks. And even though that sort of sucked for the joggers, it was easy to see how convenient it was to use the path while the freeway work was going on. The freeway certainly needed widening and losing use of the path for a while was a small sacrifice for the greater good.

~~~

But, recently, someone decided to go to far. They’ve decided to permanently destroy the path while rearranging the intersection of Sawtelle Boulevard at Culver. It’s not clear what is exactly happening there, but they’ve added some lanes and paved over the entire jogging/bike path where it went under the freeway. You can no longer job all the way from Ronnie’s to Sony — Los Angeles has been cut off from Culver City.

There was never anything wrong with the intersection. At all. It was a little confusing for drivers encountering the “two Culvers” for the first time and in the morning it was a little backed up due to the freeway on ramp, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as a thousand other intersection in the County.

But someone, somewhere decided to improve it. And in doing so, ruined one of the nicest things about the area. The jogging path isn’t exactly a trail through the Oregon mountains, but it was a little oasis to get in a work out in a dense, highly-urbanized neighborhood.

Now, it’s gone.

And, I’m very sad.

~~~

I can’t figure out how this happened. I don’t know who made the decision. I’d like to know — if you know, let me know. I tried talking to the construction guys, but I’ve gotten more info out of street corner dope dealers.

It’s a conspiracy, and I want answers.

Bush says he wouldn’t be President if he hadn’t stopped drinking whiskey:

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, President Bush spoke more candidly than ever before about his past alcohol addiction.

“I doubt I’d be standing here if I hadn’t quit drinking whiskey, and beer and wine and all that,” the president disclosed Tuesday to ABC News’ Martha Raddatz during an exclusive tour of the White House residence.

The president told ABC News he quit drinking over 20 years ago — cold turkey.

“I had too much to drink one night, and the next day I didn’t have any,” Bush said. “The next day I decided to quit and I haven’t had a drink since 1986.”

If ever this nation needed a drink somewhere, it was in Bush’s hand each day since 1986.

His cumulative hangovers would be nuthin’ compared to the hangover this dry drunk has given this country and the world from his 5 year binge of incompetent, authoritarian, civil rights shredding and war-mongering.

I blame the whiskey. Where were you, whiskey, when we needed you?

The Borowitz Report:

“Elsewhere, in response to the controversy over the CIA’s waterboarding videotapes, President Bush reaffirmed his Administration’s opposition to videotaping.”

(h/t to BalloonJuice)