This was done under the watchful eye of Denver County Court judge Larry Bohning, who presided over the third-degree sexual-assault trial. The defendant, a female Feldenkrais practitioner, had been charged with sexual assault after her client, a typist suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, claimed the woman had "deeply rubbed" her breasts during a 1996 session.
"We don't rub," protested the defense's expert witness, who had both prosecution and defense attorneys doing a semantic dance throughout her demonstration and testimony.
The case was dismissed two days later on a technicality (your tax dollars at work: The date of the alleged offense was missing from the original court summons), so the Feldenkrais lesson, although entertaining, was ultimately superfluous. But in the meantime, the six jurors undoubtedly gleaned some valuable information about moving and shifting--in those uncomfortable courtroom chairs.
Flack jackets: There's plenty of flak over the latest Ramsey revelation--that veteran PR whiz Charlie Russell is helping the Ramsey team. On Monday, Karsh & Hagan Communications hastened to issue a press release from its president, Pasquale "Pocky" Marranzino, noting that "Karsh & Hagan Communications does not now have, nor has it ever had, any relationship with the Ramsey family or their attorneys." All right, all right, already: But Karsh & Hagan has had a relationship with Russell: the shared venture (right down to a number in the current phone book) of Russell, Karsh & Hagan Public Relations. How convenient.
Much more mysterious than who's doing the public relations is why he/she hasn't convinced former FBI profiler and admitted Ramsey hire John Douglas to put a sock in it. On Monday, as the Ramsey team issued a statement clarifying that the information used in recent fliers and Sunday's Boulder Daily Camera ad profiling JonBenet's killer wasn't really a "profile" at all, Douglas was calling it just that on the Today show. And then, for good measure, Douglas threw in a prediction that the case would never be solved. You can't buy publicity like that.
Of course, several people have already been charged with Ramsey-related crimes: pilfering autopsy photos (Shane Smith, the photo-processing goon who pleaded guilty to that one, was recently arrested for indecent exposure), lifting morgue sheets and setting fire to the Ramsey mailbox. These last two acts were committed by J.T. Colfax, a current occupant of Boulder County Jail--and one who's been there long enough to catch on to a hoosegow tradition. Every Monday, he says, the jail hands out its "inmate commissary order form," which includes such brig basics as Tums, Low Rider magazine and beef jerky. But the real conversation stopper is #540: "white powered donuts."
"I thought I'd discovered this," says Colfax, "but it turned out everyone knew it. It's 'discovered' again every Monday night by new inmates who rush to tell 'the interesting thing' to their nearest non-snarling neighbor." Although the form is dated March 1996, the jail has yet to correct the typo. Powder to the people.
That's entertainment? Too bad MTV didn't think to add Colfax to the cast of its real-life soap opera, Real World. Instead, Boulderite Jason Cornwell joined the cast in Boston for 26 episodes taped between January and June and scheduled to air shortly. Meanwhile, two other local boys have made good on Comedy Central, where their South Park debuts this fall.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker have worked together before: on the movie Alferd Packer: The Musical, which they filmed four years ago at the University of Colorado. "People ask, 'Is the gore tastefully done?'," Parker said at the time. "And I say no--absolutely not. That would ruin it." Judging from early reviews of the pair's construction-paper-animation cartoon, they've become no more tasteful--which made them favorites at the TV critic confab still under way in La-La Land. The press kit handed to reporters details how Parker grew up in "South Park County," but he says he doesn't expect much respect from the folks back home.
That could be because Colorado has no South Park County. Parker, however, has another explanation: "There aren't many people in South Park, and those who are there don't get cable, so they're not going to be seeing the show.
