May 20, 2008 03:27 am It's good to hear that the families of Trista Zinck and Neil Bornstein finally feel that the court system has delivered to them a measure of justice. It's been a long time in coming. In 2003, Newburyport High School student Trista Zinck was killed and her boyfriend Neil Bornstein suffered lifelong injuries after being struck by a car driven by William White, who police say was so drunk they had to help him walk after they chased him down and arrested him. There was little doubt that the initial sentence handed down by the court was light, given the magnitude of the harm White caused. He spent less than three years in jail, but he was required to refrain from drinking for five years after his release. He was 18 when the accident happened, and he was given a second chance to straighten things out. That chance was thrown away. White was caught drinking a 24-ounce beer at the '99' restaurant in Seabrook, and that landed him before a judge yet again. This time, he was sentenced to five to seven years of additional jail time. Judge David Lowy aptly observed that, "The fact Mr. White even had a drink again, that alcohol ever touched his lips, indicates he just doesn't get it." In the aftermath of the sentencing, the Zincks and Bornsteins expressed some satisfaction in the sentencing. "This was the first time I heard a judge get it," Mary Zinck said. "I used to feel bad for him," Carolyn Bornstein said. "I believe in second chances, but he had a third and fourth chance. And he is now 24, and he has to figure out for himself that he has a problem." Friends and family members testified that White has tried to straighten out his life by going back to school, but by failing to heed the message that the court sent, he put all those efforts at risk. Now he is paying the price for it.
Our view: Myanmar's leaders among world's worst It is possible that there is no worse government on the planet than the military junta running Myanmar. A cyclone May 3 devastated the southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. While the official government death toll is around 32,000, the United Nations estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 may have been killed by the storm. The death toll may push into the millions as the storm's victims, their homes and crops destroyed, now face starvation and disease. The world has rallied to help the victims of Myanmar. But the paranoid military government in control since 1988 has allowed only a trickle of foreign aid into the country. The rulers fear foreign influences and the damage to their reputations if they are seen needing outside help. So Myanmar's people suffer as aid piles up along the border in Thailand, waiting for a general's whim to allow it in. The military previously had seized two planeloads of relief supplies from the U.N., prompting the organization to suspend for a time its aid shipments. To boost their prestige, some of Myanmar's generals have seized foreign aid containers and written their own names on them, to fool the people into believing they were helping rather than simply adding to the people's misery. Other members of the military who should be helping rescue people and repairing damaged roads are instead chasing down foreign journalists who dare to report on the devastation. Meanwhile, in the middle of this madness, the government held a referendum vote on a new constitution designed to consolidate its hold on power. It is unfortunate that it takes a tragedy of this magnitude to focus the world's attention on the brutishness of Myanmar's government. Myanmar's generals have earned a place along with North Korea's Kim Jong-Il as the worst leaders in the world. A government that places a higher priority on its power and prestige than on the basic survival of its people is unworthy of rule.
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