HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-11-23, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23,1994. PAGE 5.
The perfect
honeymoon
Niagara Falls. The second greatest
disappointment for every
American bride.
Oscar Wilde
Old Oscar was a grouch. Everyone knows
that the honeymoon is a magical time. He
hasn't yet had the pleasure of walking into a
faceful of wet pantyhose on the shower
curtain; she doesn't yet know that this slob
she married leaves enough whiskers in the
sink to stuff a mattress.
On the honeymoon, everything is perfect.
That's the way it's supposed to work out.
Doesn't always.
Last year Thrifty Car Rental got a great
idea: why not sponsor a "Honeymoon
Disasters" contest - give customers a chance
to share their tales of newlyweds bliss gone
wrong?
So they did. Thrifty even offered a first
prize package that included a second
honeymoon to the city of the winners choice,
free airfare, free accommodation...
- and of course a free car rental, courtesy
of Thrifty.
Turns out a lot of people have had bum
honeymoons. One of the first entries Thrifty
received came from a Doctor Jacqueline
Hott of Great Neck, N.Y. Jacqueline's brand
new mother-in-law chose the period of the
newlyweds' honeymoon to have some
surgery done. This meant that Jacqueline and
her new groom had to babysit the groom's
(International Scene
By Raymond Canon
Somalia —
an un-disaster
BY RAYMOND CANON
The efforts of the United Nations to
restore some semblance of order in the east
African country of Somalia leaves a sour
taste in the mouths of many people in
Canada and elsewhere.
The first soldiers, mainly American,
arrived in the glare of large-scale publicity.
The media were actually the first group of
people to meet them when they came ashore.
They quickly became bogged down in the
politics of the place where the local rules
changed almost from town to town and street
to street and the soldiers present could be
excused from thinking that they had found
themselves in a 1990's version of Vietnam.
Very little, if anything, went right. The
Canadians, who formed part of the UN
contingent, came under a considerable cloud
for the simple reason that several of our
soldiers were charged with the deaths of
Somalians and, at the time of writing, one
has already been found guilty and sentenced
to five years in a military prison plus a
dishonourable discharge.
Among other questions that were raised
during the revelation that some of our
troupes had been involved in a killing and
the subsequent trial were two important
ones. The first was that, on the basis of all
the evidence presented, it appears that the
soldier found guilty may well have been
something of a scapegoat. The most likely
suspect for the killings has been declared
mentally incompetent and thus unfit to stand
trial. Somebody else had to be the fall guy
and one was found.
The other was the fact that the Canadian
nine-year-old brother plus the family dog,
name of Poopsie.
Poopsie took? to the new member of the
family instantly. And seriously. "Poopsie
decided he loved me more than my husband
did, and didn't allow us to sit next to each
other in the car," says Jacqueline. "And as
for the bed..."
No amorous mutts spoiled the wedding
night of Michael J. Gallen of San Diego,
California. Only problem was the bridal
chamber was a little bright. Mike's new wife
took care of that by artfully draping her
negligee over the lampshade.
What with one thing and another, Mike
and the Missus didn't notice the fire until it
was burning quite briskly. Which is how
they came to be running down the hall naked
on their wedding night.
Closer to home there was the newlywed
nightmare of Thomas Vecchione, who took
his new bride rafting in the Grand Canyon.
Tom's wife, who sounds higher strung than
Steffie Graf's tennis racket, got outraged
when Tom grabbed the last chocolate
bonbon. Wrenching the wedding band from
her finger she shrieked "This marriage will
never work!" - and fired it into the night. An
elderly fellow rafter found the ring wedged
in a crevice. "I can always find a wedding
ring," he explained. "I've had to find my
wife's six or seven times, just like this."
The Vecchione's were 'reunited' in a small
impromptu ceremony on the beach. They
should be fine from here on in as long as
Mrs. Vecchione doesn't hit a crisis.
Like running out of milk or something.
Ah, but all honeymoon experiences pale
beside that of David and Jamie Barber of
regiment over in Somalia was not on normal
peacekeeping duties. It was on war alert
because of all the violence and infiltration
going on; this sheds a different light on the
reactions of the soldiers to Somali
infiltration.
However, this is something of a secondary
show in the fiasco that is taking place in
Somalia. The UN is spending about $2
billion there in trying to restore order and it
can be considered as money down the drain
since the country has returned to the anarchy
that existed when the UN troupes first
arrived. One of the main players in this
anarchy is General Muhammad Farrah
Aideed, whose wife was discovered living in
London as a refugee, but who found both
time and money to fly back to Somalia to be
with her husband when he took time off
from running his fiefdom in Mogagishu, the
capital.
Gen. Aideed may not be responsible for all
the attacks on the UN Troupes but let's look
at some of the evidence. A Zimbabwean
company of 186 men were stripped to their
shorts and robbed of all their weapons,
uniforms and vehicles. This assault was led,
believe it or not, by women and children.
The Egyptian soldiers under the UN
gained such a reputation for graft that they
were moved from the port to the airport.
They are reported, for a fee, to look the other
way while somebody loots or even steals UN
vehicles which are later sold for a goodly
sum on the black market. Nigerians have
been found selling security passes while the
Bangladeshis sell the fuel out of their own
vehicles.
One private firm which has a large
catering contract with the UN in Mogadishu,
has twice so far, seen its manager threatened
with murder if he did not give in to Somali
Escondido, California.
They might have known it was going to
get rough when the septic line ruptured right
beside the buffet table at their outdoor
wedding ceremony. They persisted, got
hitched while the guests gagged and retched,
and then the Barbers hied off to honeymoon
in San Francisco.
Where they ran into a riot by radical
activists. To cheer up his wife, David
ordered 96 long stem American Beauties and
had them delivered to their hotel room while
they were out.
The hotel maid promptly threw the flowers
out.
On the last day of their honeymoon David
broke his video camera and cut his wrist
badly enough to require stitches.. He sat
bleeding quietly in a hospital emergency
ward for several hours, which meant that he
and his wife missed their return flight home.
And of course when he tried to buy a new
pair of tickets, he discovered his credit card
was overdrawn. And then...
No. Let's draw the curtain on the Barbers'
barbarous honeymoon right here. On the
bright side, their nuptial reign of terror did
win them first prize in the Thrifty contest.
They chose to spend a weekend at beautiful
Hilton Head, South Carolina.
I couldn't resist. I phoned David Barber up
in Escondido to find out how his second
honeymoon went.
"Well...he said ruefully, "I probably
shouldn't say this because Thrifty's been so
good to us but...
"When we got to South Carolina, they
didn't have any rental cars left on the lot for
us."
demands for half of the profit from his
enterprise, threats made in front of two
Egyptian officers.
This took place at the port of the city
where the company is located and it should
not come as any surprise since, as I indicated
above, it was the Egyptians who were
involved in graft at the port.
Perhaps the most telling comment came
from one of the senior officials of the UN in
Somalia who stated that what the
organization was trying to do there was
"install the short of junta that the Americans
got rid of in Haiti and then run like hell."
With comments like that, it should come as
no surprise that the poor Somalians will end
up having to endure the same miserable
conditions which brought the UN to the
country in the first place. The first book to
be written on this mission should be entitled
"Somalia, A Lesson in Utter Frustration."
As for the Americans who were the first to
arrive with such fanfare, they left long ago,
having realized that the only smart thing to
do was cut their losses and run.
Letter to the editor
THE EDITOR,
Let Your Light So Shine
Here's to the glow that does not gleam
With bright and dazzling rays.
Illumination, it would seem
Is not a prime these days.
That soft glow really emanates
A warm and cosy lustre;
A calm serene initiates;
After the day's last fluster.
One point of two time has to meet
- potential for a scrimmage -
An adequately lighted street
Or a tender, soulful image.
Clare Vincent
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Sometimes you can
see black and white
This is not a black and white world. Those
of us who have spent any time here at all
developing some common sense must, in all
honesty, acknowledge that most issues are
coloured with grey.
But not everything needs to be that
difficult. There are limes when facts just
lead you on a natural course. It is
unfortunate then that when presented with a
black or white choice, there are some who
still choose to muddy it with grey.
Last week I wrote a column about drunk
driving, after which I covered provincial
court, where there were several impaired
driving cases on the docket that day. They
all pled guilty and they all paid the piper.
During their appearances the words
impaired and judgement popped up several
times. Obviously, since the reason these
individuals are charged is that their
judgement was impaired. The fact that they
got behind the wheel of a car when that
judgement was impaired made them guilty
of a crime because they were in essence not
acting consciously.
Sounds fairly black and white to me.
However, there was a new twist to this, last
week when a news item indicated that if
you're drunk and commit other crimes,
apparently the colours begin to mix.
I was appalled to hear that for a second
time, a judge has dismissed charges of
assault against a person on the grounds that
he was drunk. (The defendant that is, though
I did wonder.) A Quebec judge determined
that the defendant was not guilty of beating
his wife because he was intoxicated and
therefore not conscious of his actions. Had
they said the attack had not been severe, had
they said there had been provocation, I
might have gone along, but because he was
drunk! I sat waiting for the punch line, but it
never came.
Doesn't this set a rather dangerous
precedent? The more I thought about it the
scarier the answers became.
Now, admittedly when people know only
half the story before saddling up and getting
on their high horse, it can be a fatal ride, but
I just couldn't think of any details that would
possibly alter the fact that while booze may
be an excuse it shouldn't be a defense.
To me, (and I can't be alone on this, can
I?) it seems that if you drink and drive
possibly causing injury or death you are
guilty of a crime, but this ruling says that to
break another crime while drunk, you can't
be held responsible. When a car becomes a
weapon because of the driver's inability to
function he is responsible for his
irresponsiblity, yet if that same person gets
drunk and uses his hands to hurt someone,
we have to let him go because he didn't
know what he was doing?
Giving benefit to His Honour, it can't be
easy to sit and listen to both sides of a
depressing story with objectivity, being fair
to all parties and unbiased toward all. After
all judges are only human.
But, how anyone with any conscience, let
alone brains, could in all seriousness,
provide an out for accountability through
alcohol is beyond me. While all the groups
fighting drug abuse work to leach people
that alcohol and drugs may put them out of
control, causing them to act out of character,
this judge sent a dangerous message — if
you’re under the influence you might gel
away with ....
Let's hope there aren't loo many judges
who can't see black and while.