America's next official victim group may be roaring your way on their Harley-Davidsons. Bikers are sick and tired of rampant anti-biker bigotry, so they are seeking status as a legally protected class in Ohio, Georgia, South Carolina and several other states. The idea is to end all the ridicule, the tattoophobia, the tendency among apprehensive roadhouse owners to seat them at remote tables. "To me, it's kind of like the back of the bus," said a Harley-riding Georgia state senator, shrewdly adopting the rhetoric of the civil rights movement. Watch for new legal militance among owners of gas-guzzling SUVs -- bigots make fun of them, too.
Yes, it's time for this column's annual roundup of new and creative breakthroughs in the everyone's-a-victim movement.
The world thinks that actor Robert Downey Jr. is suffering from drug addiction, but actually he may be a victim of "acquired situational narcissism," a term coined by therapist Robert Millman, who made up the term. Millman says ASN is the result of adulation early in life, complicated by pressure and fame later on. In a sense, the real culprits are the sycophants and enablers who follow famous people around, cleaning up after them. "There is always somebody to pick up the pieces for them because of who they are," lamented Mark Greenberg of the Betty Ford Center, which picks up pieces itself for various celebs.
Feeling victimized by HBO's "The Sopranos," a Chicago-based Italian-American group argued in court that the popular Mafia crime show was unconstitutional under Illinois law. The American Italian Defense Association (AIDA) said the show violated the state constitution's "dignity clause," which prohibits hostile communications based on religion, race and other affiliations. A failed hit. The suit was dismissed.
In Chicago, a woman who makes $175,000 a year embezzled nearly $250,000 from her employer to pay for shopping binges. In court, she argued that she was suffering from a compulsive shopping disorder, and that what appeared to be a crime was actually an attempt to "self-medicate" the depression behind shopaholism. Her theft-is-medicine defense worked. No jail time. Just probation and six months of home confinement on weekends.