Countdown to 2008: Sarah's Top Ten Ridiculous News Stories of 2007

7. All in the Family
It wasn’t enough that the Eagles sucked so bad this year. No, we also had to be regaled with seemingly endless sordid tales of Garrett and Britt, those two wacky kids who can’t seem to stay off the drugs and out of their cars. The first time around they both got taken in on the same day. Reid took a leave of absence last year at the end of the season to try to straighten them out a bit, but this summer all hell broke loose again, and the boys landed themselves in the big house. The judge also had some parenting wisdom to pass on to the Reids, which seemed a bit self-indulgent to us. Yes, his two kids are f-ed up. Yes, it probably has something to do with his profession one way or the other. But he’s got three other kids who don’t shove Percocets up their asses…. Not yet. That’s got to count for something.

6. Could I Get a Goose Instead of a Hug?
Look, we like animals as much as the next guy. But goddamnit, don’t try to tell a Philadelphian what they can and can’t eat, even if it’s bad for us. Hugs for Puppies, a local advocacy group, took on foie gras this year in an attempt to not only encourage people to not eat it, but to be irritating to boot. In their infinite wisdom, they decided that they would take on the likes of London Grill and Le Bec Fin. Now, Le Bec Fin is just funny, or rather the idea of telling a Frenchman one of his delicacies is immoral is just funny. But Terry McNally ain’t no slouch either. After a few rounds in and out of the courts, some local restaurants slashed their prices on the stuff, in order to encourage more people to try it. You can even get a shirt. This one makes it to “ridiculous” because considering the amount of violence and poverty the city labors under, we just don’t give a fuck about a goose’s liver. (Apparently, Anthony Bourdain doesn’t give a fuck about puppies.)

5. Wit’ English
Joey Vento went before the City Commission on Human Relations this week, reviving national coverage of the great “Speak English” debate (p.s. 92% of respondents to the AOL poll agree with him). We’re not sure if it’s really about free speech or if it’s about Jim Crow era personal politics, but we’re sick of the whole thing, and not just because we eat at Jim’s. We agree with the Daily News that the sign is “a boorish attempt to intimidate the influx of immigrants while reassuring English-speaking Americans that we still dominate around these parts,” and we really question whether there were incidents when folks tried to order in Spanish or French, or if there is some accent prejudice going on. All we know is when we head to a hole in the wall Mexican joint round those parts, we most certainly mangle the Spanish language, and yet we’ve never had to endure too stern a look much less a sign telling us to get the inflections right. And come on now, everyone knows what queso means. But we want to take this opportunity to thank Joey Vento for bringing Philadelphia into the national news cycle with this one; all those stories about the murder rate were starting to make us look too good.

4. Upper Darby Guns
To say Philadelphia has a problem with guns is like saying we have a habit of electing Democratic mayors: pretty much obvious to a blind horse on crack. So imagine our surprise when the Upper Darby Police Department stood accused of selling surrendered firearms to local gun shops, that, in one case at least, then turned around and sold them to people who used the firearms in violent crime, including the murder of a cop. Brilliant. The only thing we can figure is the cops were worried about job security. Unfortunately, boys, there’s little danger of the city running out of gun crime. Morons.

3. Perv Lawyer
Not only did Larry Charles bring new meaning to the word “pervy” when he befriended a family with the express purpose of molesting their 14-year-old daughter, he brought new meaning to the word "stupid" when he chose the Criminal Justice Center where he worked as the venue for said molestation. The place was closed for MLK day, and it did not occur to Mr. Charles that someone might think it strange, him taking a random minor into an abandoned courtroom. A security guard wandered in to check, and found the lawyer with his drawers round his ankles and the girl in tears. The only good part of the story is that his stupidity took him off the streets; he pleaded no contest in September to charges that he sexually molested six girls. And we thought lawyers only raped your wallet.

2. Rape Judge
Call us old fashioned, but we have this notion that when someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, and you force him or her to do so at gun point, it seems like a pretty cut and dry case of what the kids call “rape.” Not so, says Judge Teresa Carr Deni. No, see, because the woman held at gunpoint and gang-raped by four men was a prostitute, and since she had agreed to have sex with two of the men for money, the whole thing is just “theft of services.” H’What? Not only that, Deni accused the woman of diminishing true cases of rape. Our heads spin off their axles. Luckily it didn’t fly with anyone else, and the woman not only got a new hearing, the judge got spanked by the bar just before Election Day. Sadly, she is still with us, but it was a nice gesture.

1. Milton Street
Enough said.

Image Credit: Flickr user Sage