Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Read Free Book Online Page B

competitive eating contests, anyone who vomits on the plate or table is disqualified .
----

ERNIE CHAMBERS
SUES GOD

    Only someone totally crazy would try to sue the Lord Almighty, right? Certainly not a state senator with nearly 40 years’ experience .
    T HE “ANGRIEST BLACK MAN IN NEBRASKA”
That’s a label Ernie Chambers has worn proudly since he was first elected in 1970 to represent Nebraska’s 11th district in the state legislature. Never one to shy away from controversy, Chambers, an Independent, once called the U.S. a “hypocritical society,” saying, “The public doesn’t look for politicians to tell the truth or to deliver on their promises, and politicians know this.” Another favorite target was the Catholic Church, which Chambers once said was “more effective as a criminal enterprise than the mafia.” Yet he still managed to get reelected eight times.
    In the 2000s, Chambers didn’t let up. But after the Nebraska legislature voted to limit state senators to two terms, Chambers was disqualified from running again in 2008. “They had to change the constitution to get rid of me,” he said.

SUFFERING THE WRATH
    But Chambers had one more big fight in him: In September 2007, he filed a lawsuit against “God Almighty,” which sought a permanent injunction against the Lord from creating “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.” Chambers claimed these horrors affected his constituents, thus making it harder for the senator to do his job.
    Case dismissed, right? Not so fast. Courts must take all lawsuits seriously, however ridiculous they seem. Dismissing it by denying the existence of God would have obvious PR ramifications in a deeply religious state. With this in mind, the judge needed a good reason to toss it out. The reason seemed clear enough: God was not a resident of Douglas County, so the court had no power to compel God to appear, and the case could be dismissed. So the case was dismissed, right? Not so fast.
----
A woman in France married her boyfriend in 2009. What’s so odd about that? He died in 2008 .
----

SEEKING THE LORD
    Chambers refused to give up. He argued that God exists in all places, so it stood to reason that He should be considered a resident of Douglas County. The court countered that since God had no address, there was no way to send Him papers informing him the lawsuit had been filed. “As an all-knowing being,” said Chambers, “God should already know that the lawsuit had been filed against Him.” This back-and-forth continued as the courts tried every trick in the book to shut down the lawsuit: Did Chambers and God first attempt to resolve the issue out of court? Chambers said he’d tried to contact God on several occasions, and met with failure each time: “Despite reasonable efforts to effectuate personal service on Defendant, God has been unable to do so.” Did God even exist? Chambers drew attention to the fact that in Nebraska, few state employees would be willing to deny the existence of God outright.
    Was anyone taking this case seriously? Chambers said he was: “This is a lawsuit against a Defendant who has perpetrated much harm on the human race.” Ironically, he said he actually wanted to bring attention to all of the frivolous lawsuits that were currently bottlenecking the judicial system. “Anybody can sue anybody, even God,” he said. But both his proponents and his critics were unsure if Chambers was saying that was a good thing or not.

JUDGMENT DAY
    The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that God could not be located and compelled to appear. Chambers, of course, appealed—and the arguments continued. Finally, in February 2008, Nebraska’s Court of Appeals tossed out the lawsuit a second time, ruling that courts decide “real controversies, not abstract questions or issues that might arise in a