oddly enough

oddly enough

Mom who swore at meeting not guilty of disorderly conduct

PITTSBURGH

A mother of two who swore at a school board because she didn’t think members were doing enough to address her concerns about bullying has been found not guilty of disorderly conduct.

Johanna Boratko, 41, appealed her conviction stemming from a Greater Johnstown School Board meeting in March. She acknowledges swearing as she stormed out of the meeting but had argued that the frustrated utterance – the f-word followed by another crude term applied to the board as a group – was protected First Amendment speech.

A Cambria County judge who heard her appeal of the summary offense, which is similar to a traffic ticket, agreed.

Although Boratko’s language was “inappropriate” and “probably offensive,” authorities didn’t prove she “intended to cause ‘inconvenience, annoyance or alarm’ as required by the statute,” Senior Judge F. Joseph Leahey wrote.

Driver uses mannequin to drive in carpool lane

BREA, Calif.

A California driver has been cited for using a mannequin – not the required human being – to drive in the carpool lane. The Orange County Register reported that Brea police found the mannequin Wednesday inside a truck on the congested 57 freeway.

The truck veered out of the carpool lane close to an officer’s motorcycle. As the officer attempted to warn the driver to be careful, he noticed the passenger wasn’t a passenger.

Police say the driver acknowledged using the mannequin in the carpool lane for some time. The driver told police that he would now accept that he needs to sit in traffic like everyone else.

‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ mansion sold

RHINEBECK, N.Y.

A dilapidated New York mansion believed to have inspired the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses” has sold at auction for $120,000.

Long Island-based Maltz Auctions said the 24-room Wyndclyffe Castle sold Wednesday.

The mansion was built in 1853 in Rhinebeck as the country house of Manhattan socialite Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, a member of a wealthy family and aunt of American novelist Edith Wharton. The property’s elegance is said to have prompted owners of nearby Hudson Valley estates to build even bigger mansions, giving birth to the idiom “Keeping up with the Joneses.”

Associated Press