Wow, a link by popular demand -- both Mark and Yuval sent me this story on local immigration judge Thomas Ragno, who's been placed on leave after making Tarzan jokes at a Ugandan refugee's hearing. Yes, that's a FoxNews link, but they had the most complete article -- Ragno has been cited for "injudicial" conduct before. From the little I've seen of the courts in this town, it's sadly not suprising that someone could remain on the bench with an attitude like this.

In other semi-shocking local bureaucracy news, it looks like Wilfredo Laboy, superintendent of the troubled Lawrence public schools, has gotten some support despite failing the state writing test for teachers...the same test failed by 20 teachers in his district last year whom he then placed on unpaid leave. interestingly, the portion he failed involves transcribing a passage from an audiotape...is that relevant or fair for instructors who are not native English speakers, like Laboy? Hmmmmmm...