Published: August 22, 2008 04:34 pm            

Charles Oliver: It couldn't happen here?

Gene Busch says he watched recently as three different law enforcement agencies stopped one boat on the Niagara River three different times. He says the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office first stopped the boat carrying two men and three women. Later, a sheriff’s auxiliary boat checked them out, and finally the Coast Guard. In fact, boaters complain that getting stopped multiple times on the Niagara is becoming more common. Law enforcement has beefed up activities in the area allegedly in response to terrorism concerns. “After running the gauntlet, the crowning glory is when you pull your boat onto the trailer and have the State Police or sheriff’s deputies checking for trailer registration and inspection of it,” said Busch.



Toi Pruitt, her three children and her boyfriend Joe Pulliam planned to move into a house Pruitt and Pulliam bought in Black Jack, Mo. But city officials refused to issue the family an occupancy permit. Officials say that because the children aren’t related to Pulliam the family doesn’t meet the city’s definition of a family. What do you think George Washington would say if you told him that 230 years after he fought to win America’s freedom his countrymen would need permission from the government to live in their own home?



The group Disabled American Veterans canceled a speaking invitation to Dick Cheney after getting a look at his security demands. Cheney wanted all the vets to be in the hall two hours before his arrival and for them not to leave until he finished speaking. They couldn’t even leave to go to the restroom. The group says that’s a big demand for many of its members, who are elderly or who have permanent injuries from their military service.



Vincent Provenzano, 16, and his friend Justin Currytto, 17, took one look at a vacant city-owned lot in Greenwich, Conn., and knew just what they had to do. The two, along with some friends, spent weeks clearing poison ivy and brush, then they scrounged up plywood, concrete and paint and turned it into a replica of Boston’s Fenway park that they could play Wiffle ball in. It turned into one of the most popular sites for children in the city, and soon the teens found themselves organizing Wiffle ball tournaments for several teams. And if you guessed that it also brought complaints from neighbors, threats of lawsuits, warnings from police, code enforcement and the tree board, you know what local government is all about. “People think we should be home playing ‘Grand Theft Auto,’” said Jeff Currivan, 17. The city may tear down the field. But don’t worry. Now that local officials know just how popular Wiffle ball is, they’ll likely spend millions of dollars building a state-of-the-art Wiffle ball field, away from any residential neighborhoods, and hire adults to organize the games.



Remember a few months ago when Texas Child Protective Services and law enforcement seized 468 children from families in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That’s when we discovered that a single anonymous (and it turns out fraudulent) phone call alleging child abuse is all a judge needs to issue a search warrant. Well, you may remember authorities claimed to have found 31 underage girls in the group were either pregnant or had already given birth. That claim was denied by the church members. And authorities began to backtrack just a few days later, grudgingly admitting that 15 of those “girls” were, in fact, adults and one of the minors they said was pregnant wasn’t. So today, after all the dust has settled, how many underage mothers were there in the church? Two, at most. It turns out that odd-looking polygamous cult members are actually more trustworthy than people who work for Texas CPS.



Charles Oliver is a staff writer for The Daily Citizen.

        

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