Visiting parents the law

California activist Jonathan Frieman finally got his day in court in January, but a Marin County judge quickly rejected his argument that he is entitled to use the state's carpool lanes accompanied only by a sheath of corporate papers in the passenger seat. (During the 2012 Republican primaries, Mitt Romney famously asserted a corporation's general right under the law to be treated as a "person.") The judge decided that the state legislature's carpool law was intended only to reduce traffic clutter and that driving with no passenger except corporate papers was unrelated to that goal. Frieman told reporters that he had been carrying the papers around for years, hoping to be challenged.

The U.S. Congress may suffer dismal popularity ratings (less savory than head lice, according to one survey), but it is saintly compared to India's legislatures, which contain six accused rapists at the state level and two in the national parliament. Thirty-six local officials, as well, have been charged with sexual assault (according to India's Association for Democratic Reforms). In fact, the association reported in December that 162 of the lower house of Parliament's 552 members currently face criminal charges. The problem is compounded by India's notoriously paralyzed justice system, which practically ensures that the charges will be unresolved for years, if not decades.

Many Japanese men seem to reject smartphones in favor of a low-tech 2002 Fujitsu cellphone, according to a January Wall Street Journal dispatch because it can help philanderers keep their affairs from lovers' prying eyes. The phones lack sophisticated tracking features - plus, a buried "privacy" mode gives off only stealth signals when lovers call and leaves no trace of calls, texts or emails. A senior executive for Fujitsu said, "If Tiger Woods had (this phone), he wouldn't have gotten in trouble."

China's national legislature passed a law in December to establish that people have a duty to visit their aged parents periodically. China's rapid urbanization has not developed nursing homes and similar facilities to keep pace with the population, and sponsors of the law said it would give the parents a legal right to sue their children for ignoring them.

Four days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., officials at Public School 79 in New York City decided it would be a good time for a full-blown lockdown drill - with no advance warning. Though P.S. 79 is a high school and not an elementary school, it is composed of about 300 students with special needs (autism, cerebral palsy, severe emotional disorders) who, with their teachers, were startled to hear the early- morning loudspeaker blaring, "Shooter (or, possibly, "intruder"), get out, get out, lockdown." One adult said it took her about five minutes to realize that it was only a drill. Still, said another, "It was probably the worst feeling I ever had in my life."

In November, Tokyo's Kenichi Ito, 29, bested his own Guinness World Record by a full second (down to 17.47 seconds) in the 100-meter dash - on all fours. Ito runs like a Patas monkey, which he has long admired, and which (along with his self-described monkey-like face) inspired him nine years ago to take up "four-legged" running. He reported trouble only once, when he went to