Odds and Ends

HALSEY, Ore. - Some workers seem to live at the office, but the principal at Central Linn High School really does.

Michael Bremont, 31, routinely spends 80 hours a week on the job, arriving well before school starts each morning and leaving long after the final bell.

Frustrated by how little he was seeing his family, Bremont approached his district superintendent last year with an unusual request. He wanted to live in an unused building on campus.

District officials loved the idea, and spent $2,000 renovating the place. Bremont pays $500 a month in rent, plus his electricity costs, so the district has made back what it spent.

And Bremont is becoming a more involved father. One recent evening, when his after-school duties included supervising the year's first girls and boys home basketball games, Bremont took a break to walk across the parking lot and join his family for a tuna casserole.

Once the game started, Bremont was able to sit with them.

"It's been really wonderful," he said.

---

EAGLE PASS, Texas - A life-size fiberglass statue of Jesus that was found in the Rio Grande has ended up in a police department's evidence room, but law officers say it can't stay there much longer.

Border Patrol agents found the statue on a sandbar in the river Aug. 31. When agents first saw it from the air, they thought it was a body and launched a rescue attempt.

Police have kept it for 90 days, waiting for an owner to come forward. They say it now must be disposed of as unclaimed property.

"We see every day a steady flow of people coming in and paying homage to it," Police Chief Juan A. Castaneda said. "We've had them come from different parts of the country."

City Manager Jesus M. Olivares says the city has decided to donate the statue to someone who could share it with the public. He placed the issue on the City Council's agenda for Tuesday.

---

PITTSBURGH - Officers Matt Turko and Tom Weger are on Pittsburgh's bladder beat.

Since November 2003, Turko and Weger have patrolled the city's South Side, one of the country's oldest Victorian-era shopping districts in the country by day - but one of the city's best places to drink at night. They bust bladder-heavy revelers looking for relief in alleys, the sides of houses and in dark corners.

"It's a target-rich environment," Weger said.

Turko and Weger have handed out more than 220 citations for public indecency. Emptying your bladder in the wrong place can also empty your wallet. Each ticket comes with a $300 fine.

Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Bill Joyce, whose zone covers the South Side, started the Pub Patrol last year amid complaints by neighborhood residents and business owners tired of people using their bushes, trees and buildings for last-minute latrines.

"How would they feel if someone walked into their neighborhood and began urinating on their own homes?" Joyce said.

---

TRENTON, N.J. - Lawyers and federal judges in New Jersey are preparing to argue over new rules that would largely outlaw... arguing.

The rules would apply to civil cases, where some judges of the U.S. District Court of New Jersey think the verbal exchanges are a waste of time.

If the changes are adopted, judges would not schedule argument days to debate motions, and the word "argument" could even be deleted from the rules. Instead, lawyers would be required to have a hearing request accepted by a judge.

Lawyers say it would set a perilous precedent.

"It is very hard to just understand the issues from written papers," said Joseph Hayden, an officer of the Association of the Federal Bar of the State of New Jersey.

Hayden's group approved a resolution last week urging judges to regularly schedule oral arguments on serious or complex motions.

Some judges say the rule changes would formalize what is already standard courthouse practice. Many don't grant oral arguments unless there is a question left unanswered in legal filings.

All district judges will vote on the rules changes, with a majority needed for ratification. A vote has not yet been scheduled.