Bits & Pieces
Bits and pieces from this reporter's notebook.
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Looks like Congress has managed to do nothing again, and it's gonna cost us a pantload. With great hoo-hah and much internecine party wrangling, they agreed to federalize airport scanners — the people, not the machines — and pay 'em $30,000 a year. Among the federalizing conditions were that the screeners be American citizens and that they be at least high school graduates. Well, seems like that would upset too many applecarts, so the feds decided to help non-citizens — of which there were many holding these jobs already — become fast-track naturalized. And then they decided that they didn't have to be high school graduates, since fully a quarter of those now on the job aren't. Now considering that a man walked through a Tampa screening station with a 9mm automatic pistol which carried 12 bullets in the magazine and one in the chamber — folks, that's not a small gun — ya gotta wonder if our illustrious on Capitol Hill didn't simply give these incompetents a hefty raise.
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Speaking of ineptitude at the airports, UAL mechanics voted 99% to authorize a strike. It wasn't likely to happen, since the White House had signaled that the president was ready to order a mandatory cooling off period. Which makes it all the more foolish for the employees to make the threat. I mean, if you had a ticket to travel on United over the holidays, wouldn't you irate just at the thought they might strike? And wouldn't you wonder how good these mechanics could be if they acted so stupidly?
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Showing that the UAL mechanics were not the least publicity-conscious in the world, the widow of a New Hampshire man who died when his plane was hijacked and crashed into of the World Trade Center Towers is suing United for wrongful death. Through her lawyers, the woman is blaming the airlines for the hijacking and her husband's death, demonstrating a paucity of character that in a just world would exile her and her attorneys to Jalalabad.
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Lucky in the courtroom was a woman who left her child in her car when she went to work. Not so lucky the child, when the temperature climbed past 90 and she baked to death. Somehow she won a judge who took pity on her and her loss. He ruled that she was not guilty, even of involuntary manslaughter.
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Hoping for the same judge is a drug ring that used mothers with young babies as drug couriers; the drugs were hidden in their formula cans. One set of parents who rented their child to drug runners, started when the infant was only three weeks old.
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Also winning with the system, Charles Schwab, a man worth some four billion big ones, who was given $564,000 in U.S. tax dollars because he owns 1,550 acres in the heart of California rice growing country. The money is an agricultural subsidy; the land is used for duck hunting.
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Finally, another winner, the City of New York, which was recently voted one of the politest cities inthe country, along with Charleston, South Carolina. Wondered outgoing Mayor Rudy Guiliani, what were they drinking?
Da-deet-da-deet-da-deet-deet....Finally, they may have real cause to raise their glasses in Cyprus, where Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash went to dinner at the home of the Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clarides last week, reciprocating a dinner earlier in the month. The two will open formal talks in two weeks to see about reuniting the island nation that has been divided since 1974.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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