Berman Bits - Online
The Column | Archived Columns | History | Politics | Justice of the Peace | Berman Group | Donate | The Blog | Home

"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful."

Volume 15, Number 25, June 20, 2010

This is why your mother says to wash your hands after handling money: A St. Louis company worker found $58 — packed in dog poop. Steve Wilson works for DoodyCalls Pet Waste Removal. On a recent appointment, he noticed money sticking out from doggie doo. Wilson wasn't sure what to do, but eventually pulled out the bills, sanitized them, placed them in a plastic zip-locked bag and returned them to the customer. It turned out to be $58. The company said the money was in tatters, but the serial numbers were still readable, which means the bills could be returned to a bank and replaced with new money. The Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists says Wilson is the first person in his profession to find and report money in dog poop. (www.azcentral.com)

Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family. David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man fought with his wife and two children for the remote control because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show. "He said, 'No, I want to watch soccer,'" according to a police spokesman (I bet he really said, “No, I want to watch football.” Just sayin’). "That is when the argument came about. "In that argument, they started assaulting him." Malefo said Makoeya got up to change the channel by hand after being refused the remote control and was attacked by his 68-year-old wife Francina and two children, 36-year-old son Collin and 23-year-old daughter Lebogang. Malefo said he was not sure what the family used to kill Makoeya. "It appears they banged his head against the wall," Malefo said. "They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead." (Huffington Post) (Walls don’t kill people; walls kill people.)

Gratitude, or another reason to appreciate the country and keep sending our troops to die in Afghanistan: “Afghan President Hamid Karzai said this week that Japan -- not the U.S. -- takes priority over other nations when it comes to mining his country's vast mineral deposits.” (HuffPost) BTW, Japan has never deployed troops to Afghanistan, but it did donate $5 billion on the condition that the money would not be lost to corruption. You know, we could do that….

At least he comes by it honestly: Catholic Youth Organization coach Michael Kman, 45, was charged with various misdemeanors regarding an alleged attempt over a several-month period to fix kids' basketball games for Kman's Our Lady of Lourdes church team in East Pennsboro Township, Pa. According to police, Kman sent multiple text messages to referees Jay and Jon Leader, offering them as much as $2,500 if certain games reached the "right outcome." The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg has suspended Kman from coaching. In Kman's day job, he is a financial consultant. [Patriot-News (Harrisburg)]

Not long ago, engaging in a 300-year tradition of the Dussera holiday in India's Tamil Nadu state, Hindu priests ritually whipped 2,000 young women and girls over a five-hour period as penance for a range of sins, from insufficient studying to moral impurity. Said one sobbing yet inspired lash recipient, to an NDTV reporter, "(W)hen we are whipped, we will get rid of our mental and physical ailments and evil spirits." [New Delhi Television]

From the US Census Bureau: “The idea of Father's Day was conceived slightly more than a century ago by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Wash., while she listened to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who was left to raise his six children on a farm. A day in June was chosen for the first Father's Day celebration - 100  years ago, June 19, 1910, proclaimed by Spokane's mayor because it was the month of Smart's birth. The first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was issued in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Father's Day has been celebrated annually since 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it permanent.” These days? Approximately 84% of custodial parents are mothers… just sayin’.

Happy Father’s Day to those who are, were, have, or had real fathers! In honor of the day (and the man), a few quotes to wrap us up: (1) "A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be." (2) "Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards." Robert Orben. (3) “"My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." Clarence Budington Kelland. (4) "My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, you've had a great life." Elbert Hubbard. (5) "If you think about it seriously, all the questions about the soul and the immortality of the soul and paradise and hell are at bottom only a way of seeing this very simple fact: that every action of ours is passed on to others according to its value, of good or evil, it passes from father to son, from one generation to the next, in a perpetual movement."Antonio Gramsci. Bonus: (As a former high school teacher, I love this one) "I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week." Mario Cuomo.