Volume 13, Number 13, March 30, 2008

(As regular readers know, I sometimes include some personal comments before the actual column begins. I won’t be doing that anymore [for the most part] as many of those comments have a new outlet and will now show up in a new blog I recently started. Check it out at: http://jpdave.blogspot.com/ and feel free to join the crowds and leave a comment - already one has poured in! The first couple of entries were to just get my feet wet, but recent offering seems to be more enjoyable and come close what a blog should be [and are reminiscent of the old Berman’s Bits from years ago, if you know what I mean]. Please take a look and see what’s happening.)

Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, times are tough everywhere! In the worst slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (where 80 percent of the people “live” on less than $2 a day), rice now sells for 30 cents a cup (double the price of a year ago), according to an Associated Press dispatch, leaving the poorest of the poor to keep going mainly on "cookies" made with dirt. Choice clay from the central plateau is at least a source of calcium and can be baked with salt and vegetable shortening (I wonder how much “prime” clay is….). However, recently in the La Saline slum, it was noted that the price of dirt, too, has risen about 40 percent. This whole thing reminds me of an old saying which isn’t suited for mixed company, so let me just say (somewhat obliquely) that if Number Two ever became valuable, the poor would be born without a certain piece of their anatomy.

Next, your dollars at work (from Bloomberg News). Good Bookkeepers Wanted: Pentagon investigators discovered not long ago that a small South Carolina company fraudulently collected $20.5 million in shipping costs, including one invoice of $999,798 for sending two washers (cost: 19 cents each) to a base in Texas. According to the Bit, the Defense Department was said to have a policy of automatically and unquestioningly paying shipping bills labeled "priority" (kinda like our blank-check spineless Congress and Bush).

Finally, what’s in a title? Quite a bit, I guess. A self-help guide called If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs has been voted the oddest book title of the year. It beat out tough competition from another book entitled I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen to win The Bookseller magazine's prize, reports the BBC. Cheese Problems Solved managed a third place in a poll which attracted 8,500 votes. Joel Rickett, deputy editor of The Bookseller, said of the winner: "So effective is the title that you don't even need to read the book itself." He added that it "makes redundant an entire genre of self-help tomes". The manual, whose author is named Big Boom, is described as a "self-help book, written by a man for the benefit of women". Bookseller's contest began in 1978, and the roll-call of previous winners includes High Performance Stiffened Structures, Living with Crazy Buttocks and How to Avoid Huge Ships.

Yahoo News had a Bit I could see happening with the ever-effervescent Miss Jessica. A man hoping to cheer up a sick relative at Wilcox Memorial Hospital hadn't considered one of the visitation rules: No horses allowed. The man thought the patient would enjoy seeing his stallion, said a spokeswoman at the hospital. So, the man and the horse entered the hospital and rode an elevator up to the third floor, where they were met and stopped by security personnel, Security managed to get the man and the horse out of the hospital, with "just a few scuff marks," she said. The hospital has a pet visitation policy, but it's for dogs and cats, not horses. "On Kauai, we have a very warm inviting atmosphere at Wilcox," the spokeswoman said. "We just hope people understand this is not a place for a horse." The man's good intentions were further dashed when his relative was brought out to see the horse. "That's not my horse," the patient said to hospital staff.

A Philadelphia agency has ruled that English-only signs at a famous cheese steak shop are not discriminatory. The Commission on Human Relations says in its ruling that the signs at Geno's Steaks do not violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance. Joe Vento posted the signs at his shop back in October 2005. They read "This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING 'PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.' "Critics allege the policy discourages customers of certain backgrounds from eating there. They say the signs discourage non-English speakers from going to the shop. Vento says he has never refused service to anyone because they couldn't speak English. Good for him. As the old saying goes, this is America – why do I have to press one for English?

It was an idea. From CNN-Money, back a couple of years, in a breath-taking display of proof that playing too many video games destroys one's ability to think clearly, a group petitioned the Chinese government to add competitive video gaming to the 2008 Beijing Olympic competitions. The group’s rationale?  Young people aren't interested in watching the Olympic Games on television; this will encourage children to watch more television.  Oh good! Ed Hula, editor and founder of Around the Rings, an Olympic newsletter states, "[Lobbying for] video gaming would be like asking the IOC to approve power smoking." I haven’t heard video gaming on the current schedule, so I guess the petition failed.

From KNTV, a Bit about a nice save. A woman is out of harm's way after losing control of her car and accidently driving into the waters of the Oakland Estuary. But on the upside, she saved her morning coffee. Authorities say the car went into the water after its 22-year-old driver apparently lost control of her car while reaching for a cell phone. After the car became lodged in stilts under a home on the water, the driver was able to get out of the car and make it back to shore. Onlookers say she came ashore still cradling her coffee cup (coffee in one hand, a cell phone in the other? No wonder she had problems! In the words of the Ever-lovely Miss Kim, put down the phone and drive!).

A Berman’s Bits Classic features Reneria-Martinez of Washington State who was caught after stealing a tractor-trailer truck when he called 911 to request medical help after drinking from a cup in the cab that he thought contained a drink but had actually contained the driver's tobacco-spit.  He said he couldn't breath after he realized what he just drank.  I can't either – eeeuuuwww!. (The Columbian [Washington State])

An upstate New York man entangled in a dispute over his water bill is not being allowed to pay off his debt with a check written on toilet paper. Ron Borgna tried to settle his $2,509.66 bill with a check written on floral print, two-ply toilet paper, but it wasn’t accepted. The disagreement began almost two years ago when Borgna received a $422.90 water bill. Borgna claims he was overbilled. With additional charges, penalties and late fees that bill has grown. After a short argument, Borgna was escorted out of the building and says he is appealing the judgment against him in small claims court. Information from: The Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin

Finally, from My Way News, prosecutors say a video shows a Connecticut correction officer running a 40-yard-dash in women's clothing and high heels - at a time he had claimed he was too injured to work. Garrett A. Dalton of Naugatuck has been charged with workers compensation fraud. He's accused of taking part in a radio station's contest for Hannah Montana concert tickets last year. Not only did he have to dress in drag but he had to carry an egg on a spoon. Authorities were alerted after someone saw Dalton in a TV news report. Prosecutors say the 41-year-old collected more than $5,000 in workers' compensation after he reported a work-related injury last summer. Court documents do not list an attorney for Dalton, and his phone number is unlisted. And no, he didn't win the contest.

Later.