Year enders

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(Host) While other journalists are reflecting on the biggest news stories of 2003, commentator Bill Seamans recalls a few that didn’t make the top ten list.

(Seamasn) Yes, it’s time again for that annual correspondent’s ritual – clean out the file of stuff we squirrelled away during the past year but didn’t use and didn’t have the heart to throw away until now because it’s become a space issue. Here’s a small sample:

This one is from Mount Holly, New Jersey that fits the season’s pleasantries. The town folk there thought their regular traffic signs were just too dull so they put up new kinder, friendlier ones: Free Speeding Tickets Ahead they say – Come Meet Our Judge – Exceed 25 Miles Per Hour. Looks like they should change their town’s name to Mount Jolly…

Some lightweight legal history in this clipping from Houston – where a Texas Court of Appeals ruled that the traditional American digital hand signal exchanged by frustrated motorists in extremus – which some consider very rude – is not necessarily disorderly conduct. The custom was said to date back to the Romans who called it DIGITUS IMPUDICUS – or impudent finger…

And here’s a sad obit note: the real 007 passed away last October at his home in Scotland…Patrick Dalzel-Job, whose heroic wartime exploits made him the model for James Bond, died at the age of 90. He served with Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, in undercover raids in Europe during World War Two…

Having pushed aside my old notes of private conversations with various Middle East leaders I borrowed this item from CBS’s 60 Minutes which particularly impressed me – that Yasser Arafat is sending $100,000 a month to his wife Suha to support her lifestyle in Paris where she has been living for the past three years. CBS also claimed that Yasser has spread a Billion dollars among various shelters around the world to assure a comfortable retirement…

And from Yasser’s part of the world another item I didn’t get to use – that the Israelis have come up with a contraption that enables a shooter to aim and fire a pistol around a corner without exposing himself. The trick is a small high resolution camera attached to the gun – yes, our special forces are interested…

And a last scrap from my unused file – Did you know that the Air Force and Navy are sending enlisted personnel to butler school to assure good domestic service for their Generals and Admirals? They’re going to the Starkey International Institute for Household Management, said to be the country’s premier school for domestic help – so says Slate magazine. The Army trains its own servants at its advanced culinary school at Fort Lee, Virginia.

Now the next chance I get I’ll just have to ask General Wesley Clark, if he misses his Army servants now that he’s a civilian.

This is Bill Seamans.

Award-winning journalist Bill Seamans is a former correspondent and bureau chief for ABC News in the Middle East. He spoke to us from our studio in Norwich.

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