Berman’s Bits

Volume 12, Number 37, September 23, 2007

     Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, from News of the Weird, a few months ago, National Hockey League player Derek Boogaard, known as quite the  "tough guy" with his enthusiasm to start or enter a fight (verified by yours truly with a trip to YouTube), opened the Derek and Aaron Boogaard Fighting Camp in Regina, Saskatchewan, to train teenage hockey players in that highly essential skill. (Lest you look down on such an offering, consider it as something like our own basic training for soldiers.)

     Next, from London’s Evening Standard, some advice I should consider (should I ever return to print). The local government's tourist information center in Swindon, England, told author Mark Sutton that his World War I-themed book, "Tell Them of Us," could not be sold in its bookstore unless Sutton demonstrated that he had liability insurance, not for potentially libelous passages but in case readers, for example, suffered paper cuts turning the pages. Swindon Borough Council spokesman Richard Freeman said, "We have to cover every eventuality." (In my case, I was told that have to have coverage for people falling asleep while reading my column – especially while they are driving.)

     Finally, from Ananova, the case for Handicapped Accessibility. Police in Germany say they have arrested a burglar in a wheelchair. Officers say they caught Michael Maier, 43, in his wheelchair, red-handed. He was allegedly using a chisel and a screwdriver to open the front door of an office. A police spokesman said: "He had already broken open the door of a shop further down the street, but had given up and moved to the next building as the first didn't have wheelchair access." What ever happened to equal opportunity?

     Also from Ananova, a bizarre idea from Germany (or is it?) A German politician has fallen out of favor of her party after she called for a seven-year time limit on marriages. Controversial conservative CDU/CSU party politician Gabriele Pauli said all marriages should be limited to save the costs of a divorce and encourage partners to try harder. She said after that couples should apply to have their marriage extended. CDU/CSU party members dismissed the idea as "irresponsible and stupid blather" and "completely absurd and out of the question". Spokesman for the Munich-Freising archbishopric, Winfried Roehmel, also said: "A marriage limited in time is a contradiction in itself, because no one gets married to separate again later." (No, but with over half of all new marriages already ending in divorce….)

     Another moment of silence for bureaucracy and the ongoing demise of common sense. From the BBC News, a store check-out clerk demanded Tony Ralls prove he was old enough to buy his two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon.  Mr Ralls asked to see the manager who put the wine back on the shelf.  The grandfather-of-three said he had refused to confirm he was over 21 as it was a "stupid question."  Mr Ralls, a retired insurance firm regional manager, said he expected the store manager to resolve the situation but he was disappointed.  "I felt like saying 'What do I look like? Are you a fool?' "He picks up the wine and, in the manner of a child taking home his ball, says 'Well, we won't serve you'."  The pensioner abandoned his shopping on the conveyor belt and left the store - but not before demanding a complaints form and phone number for the store’s' headquarters.  Mr Ralls said: "It is bureaucracy gone mad. If the check-out lady, who was about 40, had asked me with a twinkle in her eye perhaps I would not have been so tetchy.  "But she asked me the question with a perfectly straight face and I said I wouldn't dignify the question with an answer.  "And if the manager had explained that all the staff had to ask everyone because they had previously been fined, but said I was clearly over 21, it would have been fine - but he showed no sense of humor."  Mr Ralls added that he felt embarrassed to return to the supermarket and wanted an apology for "the stupid and unnecessary confrontation."  By the way, Ralls is 72 years old.

     Feisty! Lest you are thinking ill of the British, consider this Bit from Utah. A 70-year-old woman was arrested in a dispute over her brown lawn. Betty Perry is charged with resisting arrest and failing to keep up her landscaping, both misdemeanors.  She was arrested after failing to give her name to a police officer who visited her home. During a struggle, Perry fell and injured her nose. She spent more than an hour in a holding cell before police released her. "I ask the citizens of Orem: How many of you would like to have your great-grandmother taken from her home with bruises and blood and placed in handcuffs for failing to water her lawn?" her attorney said. "Let's bring sanity back to law enforcement," she said. The mayor and City Council apologized, and the police department said the situation could have been handled differently. But the city attorney still is pressing charges, and Perry is due back in court next month.

      Oops! From Reuters, a Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in agonizing pain after medical examiners started their autopsy.  Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was wrong when he started bleeding. They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face. "I woke up because the pain was unbearable," Camejo said, according to a report in leading local newspaper El Universal. His grieving wife turned up at the morgue to identify her husband's body only to find him moved into a corridor -- and alive. Reuters could not immediately reach hospital officials to confirm the events. But Camejo showed the newspaper his facial scar and a document ordering the autopsy.

     Finally, a sweet Bit from the BBC. Earlier this year, a New York art gallery was going to exhibit a milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ just ahead of the time leading up to Easter. The 6-ft sculpture, entitled 'My Sweet Lord', depicts Jesus naked on the cross. The sculpture, by Canadian-born artist Cosimo Cavallaro, was to be displayed at Manhattan's Lab Gallery. Mr. Cavallaro used 200 lbs of chocolate to make the sculpture which, unusually, depicts Jesus without a loincloth. Catholic League head Bill Donohue called it "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever". "The fact that they chose Holy Week shows this is calculated, and the timing is deliberate," Mr Donohue said. The gallery's creative director, Matt Semler, said the gallery was considering its options in the wake of angry emails and telephone calls. "We're obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offense people have taken," he said. "We are certainly in the process of trying to figure out what we're going to do next." Mr Semler said the timing of the exhibition was coincidental. UPDATE: the exhibit was cancelled and Semler submitted his resignation.     

Later.