Berman’s Bits

Volume 12, Number 1, January 7, 2007

          Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, the Associated Press carried a Bit I find quite disturbing – concerns over drunken driving have increased in Japan (as well they should) after a series of alcohol-related accidents last year. For example, back in August, a drunken driver collided with another vehicle carrying a family of five, plunging them off a bridge and killing three children. The incident meant stepped-up roadside spot checks by police, who also plan to stiffen penalties for drunken driving (ooh, that’s scary). Meanwhile, the Toyota Motor Corp. is coming up with a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption.  Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream (sounds good in theory unless one puts on aftershave). The system could also kick in if the sensors detect abnormal steering, or if a special camera shows that the driver's pupils are not in focus. The car is then slowed to a halt, the report said. The world's No. 2 automaker hopes to fit cars with the system by the end of 2009. Similar technologies, such as alcohol ignition interlocks, are in use in the U.S. and elsewhere (but obviously not widespread enough as we still have a problem. Just last week in this column there was the clown stopped for the fourth time who said, "You can charge me with whatever you want. It's not going to stop me from drinking and driving."). By the way, why do I find the Bit above disturbing? That because people can’t be more responsible, such a tack is even needed! Does anyone not know drinking and driving is bad?

     Next, on the other hand, maybe there is a glimmer hope – the end of this Bit made me smile. One Robert Nuranen handed the local librarian a book he'd checked out for a ninth-grade assignment — along with a check for 47 years' worth of late fees .The man said his mother misplaced the copy of "Prince of Egypt" while doing some house-cleaning. The family came across it periodically, only to set it aside again. He found it last week while looking through a box in the attic. "I figured I'd better get it in before we waited another 10 years," he said after turning it in with the $171.32 check. "Fifty-seven years would be embarrassing." The book, with its last due date stamped June 2, 1960, was part of the young Nuranen's fascination with Egypt. He went on to visit that country and 54 others, and all 50 states, he said, but he never did finish the book. Nuranen now lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches seventh-grade social studies and language arts

     Finally, National Public Radio reported late last year that perhaps thousands of prison inmates are using cell phones (which are contraband in all correctional facilities) and that the problem has gotten so bad that Maryland state Sen. Ed DeGrange said he was sitting at his desk recently when an inmate called him on a cell phone with a list of general complaints. Also, a warden in Texas reported getting a call from the mother of an inmate, demanding that the warden do something to improve cell-phone reception in the prison so she can chat more easily with her son. (Cell phones in prison? As I live in a dead zone, prison is sounding better and better – can you hear me now?)

     One Twilight Zone episode I saw last week (New Year’s marathon) starred Donald Pleasance as a teacher who was forced into retirement and contemplated suicide because he felt he hadn’t made any difference in his students’ lives. Before doing away with himself, he returns to his classroom where he finds eight or ten former students who had all died and returned to let him know just what he had given them and how it had made a difference in their lives. It was quite the emotional episode (if you know me, you’ll know why). Your assignment: if you are able to do so, let a teacher you had know that s/he made a difference in your life.

     In a recent article online from The Citizen of Laconia (NH) offering explanation of and reaction to Saddam’s hanging and the death penalty in general, it was stated in the last paragraph that the NH Department of Corrections does not at present have a lethal injection system constructed. If one were to be built, it is likely to cost the state millions. WHY? What has to cost millions? Why have we accepted the mind-set that everything has to cost so much? Seriously.

     In a related Bit, Last year, a U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that Scott Panetti remains eligible for execution in Texas despite his delusional and schizoaffective disorders and the opinion of one law professor that Panetti is the "gold-plated craziest" death-row inmate he'd ever seen. Charged with murder after having been drug-addicted since childhood and in mental institutions 14 times, Panetti was nonetheless permitted by his trial judge to act as his own lawyer (and employed a "strategy" of claiming to be under the control of a "Sarge Ironhorse"), and not surprisingly, he lost the case. (Uh, couldn’t something be said for his not having adequate representation?)

     Many of you know I am a Justice of the Peace and have performed several weddings. From Ananova, here’s a Bit that hit home. A bride who jokingly replied 'I don't' during the vows found the joke was on her when the registrar refused to go ahead with the ceremony. Tina Albrecht, 27, was to marry fiancé Dietmar Koch, 29, at a castle in Steyr, Upper Austria, but after the receptionist tried to bring a bit of humor into the ceremony by saying "I don't" before correcting herself, the authorities called the wedding off. Under Austrian law, if either party replies to the key question in the negative the wedding is cancelled and cannot be rescheduled for a further 10 weeks - to prevent forced marriages. Ms Albrecht said: "We had to send all our guests home and now we have to wait until March before we can try again. In retrospect it was probably not so funny." Gee, you think?

     Finally, speaking of weddings, a heartwarming story – how many of us get to celebrate two silver anniversaries? A former nurse has celebrated her silver wedding anniversary - for the second time. Eileen George wed for the first time in 1952 and celebrated 25 years of marriage with her husband Patrick before he died in 1977. She brought up four children alone in Edmonton, North London. When her youngest son, Ian was ten he made friends with the nine-year-old son of divorcee Ronnie George at a social club. Romance blossomed between Eileen and Ronnie and the couple married in 1981. Eileen who now lives in Devon with Ronnie said: "It never dawned on me that two silver weddings was unique until my daughter Jacqueline mentioned it." According to the Sun, Ronnie said the secret to a happy marriage is: "Let your wife be the boss." (To his advice I say ‘Ha!’ – I am the boss in my house… and I have my wife’s permission to say so! So there!)

     Later.