† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: Terry Marotta-Lopriore, a 57-year old paralegal married to a real estate broker, offers a unique service that brings in extra money for their three children and comforts her clients: cemetery visitor for hire. The New York Times reports: 

 

Advertising in a local newspaper and in fliers she distributed in surrounding towns, she offered her services: “Continue your signs of love and respect for your loved ones who have passed. If you are unable to visit your loved ones for whatever reason, I can help. Whether you need flowers delivered, prayers said or just a status on the condition of the site, I will visit any Westchester or Putnam County cemetery on your behalf. Proof of my visit will be either e-mailed or sent to you through the mail.”

 

After laying the flowers on Cristy’s grave, Mrs. Marotta-Lopriore pulled a digital camera from a pocket of her blue jeans and began taking pictures to send to Cristy’s mother, Carmela Akyildiz, who saw the flier in a supermarket in Harrison, where she lives.

 

“I had never heard of anyone doing anything like this, and I just thought it was a great idea,” said Ms. Akyildiz, who was five months pregnant when Cristy was stillborn. “Though I do go to the cemetery to see my daughter, I’m often busy with work and my two other children and I can’t always get there.”

 

† Take The Veil Off, Or Go Home: Under a law proposed by the government of the Australian state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, a woman who refuses to remove her face veil when asked to do so by police could be sentenced to a year in prison and fined 5,500 Australian dollars ($5,900), The Associated Press reports:

 

Critics say the bill smacks of anti-Muslim bias given how few women in Australia wear burqas. In a population of 23 million, only about 400,000 Australians are Muslim. Community advocates estimate that fewer than 2,000 women wear face veils, and it is likely that even a smaller percentage drives.  …

 

"I don't care whether a person is wearing a motorcycle helmet, a burqa, niqab, face veil or anything else - the police should be allowed to require those people to make their identification clear," State Premier Barry O'Farrell said in a statement.
 

The laws were motivated by the bungled prosecution of Carnita Matthews, a 47-year-old Muslim mother of seven who was booked by a highway patrolman for a minor traffic violation in Sydney in June last year.

 

An official complaint was made in Matthews' name against Senior Constable Paul Fogarty, the policeman who gave her the ticket. The complaint accused Fogarty of racism and of attempting to tear off her veil during their roadside encounter.

 

Unknown to Matthews, the encounter was recorded by a camera inside Fogarty's squad car. The video footage showed her aggressively berating a restrained Fogarty and did not support her claim that he tried to grab her veil before she reluctantly and angrily lifted it to show her face.

Matthews was sentenced in November to six months in jail for making a deliberately false statement to police.But that conviction and sentence were quashed on appeal last month without her serving any time in jail because a judge was not convinced that it was Matthews who signed the false statutory declaration. The woman who signed the document had worn a burqa and a justice of the peace who witnessed the signing had not looked beneath the veil to confirm her identity.

Other states including Victoria and Western Australia are considering similar legislation.

† What Freedom Of Religion Means To Muslims: Part II: Saturday saw the birth of a new nation, the Republic of South Sudan thanks to a peace process that was brokered by President George W. Bush that ended decades of sectarian violence. The Washington Post reports:

 

The 2005 peace accord ended a grinding war between the largely Arab, Islamic northerners and the southerners, who are mainly Christian and animist and had long complained of discrimination. The plan provided for limited autonomy for the south until a January referendum on secession.

 

Over the years, an influential coalition of U.S. lawmakers, religious groups and grass-roots organizations has coalesced around ending the north-south war and the fighting in Darfur, where more than 300,000 people died as militias backed by Sudan’s ruling party brutally put down a rebellion. [Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir] was subsequently charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court.

 

Obama was initially accused by activists of neglecting Sudan. But over the past year he has intensified his efforts, as the peace accord appeared in danger of collapse. He attended a special U.N. meeting on Sudan, pressed world leaders to support the peace process and sent Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to offer a “road map” of incentives to Bashir’s government. They included delisting it as a state sponsor of terrorism, establishing full diplomatic relations and lifting economic sanctions that were imposed by President Bill Clinton. But implementation of the road map has been stalled by the recent violence. …

 

South Sudan will be Africa’s first new country since Eritrea became independent in 1993. Shattered by decades of war, it will begin its life as one of the world’s poorest nations, with huge numbers of villages lacking schools, clean water or sanitation.   

Unfortunately, the creation of South Sudan has only increased the woes of Christians and animists living in the Arab Muslim north, who are now being driven from their homes, reports WaPo columnist Michael Gerson: 

An elderly man, Deng Deng Arop, tells me that their Arab neighbors had pressured them to leave. “They said, ‘You have to go to your own country. If you don’t go to the south, you will see what happens to you.’ ” Long lines of southerners waited to board trains. “They wanted to keep our sons by force,” says Deng, who reports that an official in charge of the refugees had prevented it.

 

Gerson notes that the civil war continues in the form of armed conflict along the border separating the two Sudans, and that “it would be an easy slide from a border conflict to a general war - with a new flag carried into battle and new victims of a war that pauses but does not end.” Its falls to President Barack Hussein Obama - who has been accused of being indifferent to the plight of Africans, as compared to his compassionate conservative predecessor - to ensure this does not happen.

 

† Not Your Father's (Or Your) Sex Education(second item): During an interview on HBO's eponymous talk show "Real Time With Bill Maher," Maher “managed to say a number of fairly uncomfortable things” to Chaz Bono (née, Chastity; née, a girl), Mediaite reports:

 

“[W]e have artificial limbs, artificial hearts… cars that can park themselves… how are they doing with dicks?”

 

Given the way the question was framed (for maximum shock value), Bono replied rather calmly, answering that it isn’t going as well as expected because there just isn’t that much money to be made from it. “There’s a lot more money in your iPod parking your car than there is making a functioning penis for a transgendered man.” … Awkward as the conversation was, however, Bono did respond seriously to Maher’s actual questions, concluding that “there are not a lot of us and most people don’t understand us to begin with so it’s kind of a hard issue.”
 

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: In response to the October 16, 2010 goring death of Bob Boardman, 63, a local musician, nurse and diabetes educator who positioned himself between an aggressive 370-pound male mountain goat and other hikers, officials at WA’s Olympic National Park have unveiled an action plan meant to “prevent hazardous encounters with mountain goats is to not let them get habituated to human presence.”  As part of the plan, visitors to Olympic National Park are being advised not to urinate along backcountry trails so as to avoid turning trails into “long, linear salt licks” that attract aggressive mountain goats, Peninsula Daily News reports: 

The plan … also urges visitors and park staff to keep at least 50 yards distance from all mountain goats regardless of the animals’ behavior.  …

 

It calls for one-week trail closures in areas where goats persistently follow people and repeatedly enter campsites.

 

It also calls for “approximately” two-week closures when they also exhibit threatening postures when encountered on a trail, and if they will not leave an area without aggressive hazing, such as shouting, arm-waving and throwing rocks to keep them at a distance. …

 

During those closures, staff will implement “aversive conditioning” such as setting off sirens and compressed air horns, and shooting rubber projectiles and bean bags.

 

Aversive conditioning will be employed by park staff for all goats that habitually do not move off a trail at a hiker’s approach, even if the animals are easily shooed away. …

 

The plan includes six levels of response to goat sightings, from solely observation to lethal removal for goats that attack or corner a person.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Look Before You Leap: Part II): The concept of early intervention to reduce risk of chronic illness has been pushed all the way back to the womb, with researchers aiming to alter the uterine environment to influence metabolic processes. The Wall Street Journal reports on a British study in which non-diabetic obese women who are pregnant will be given Metformin, a drug that treats type-2 diabetes, to lower blood glucose levels and prevent insulin resistance in the developing fetus caused by excess glucose passing through the placenta in the hope of reducing risk of obesity and type-2 diabetes after birth:

 

Our health is determined by many factors. People's genetic makeup can predispose them for various disorders. And lifestyle can reduce or exacerbate health risks.

 

But in recent years, researchers have painted an increasingly clear picture of how important babies' time in the womb is for health. Studies have shown that poorer uterine environments can increase the risk of many diseases in adulthood, including coronary heart disease, breast cancer and diabetes, according to David Barker, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. Besides helping to set our body's metabolism, conditions in the womb also can program hormone-production levels and how well some organs, like the liver, will work later in life, says Dr. Barker, a pioneer in the field of fetal programming.  …

 

The U.K. study getting under way is aimed at reducing the risk of obesity in children born to obese mothers. The study, thought to be the first to attempt fetal programming on a large scale in humans, has so far enrolled about 15 patients. Researchers aim to recruit about 400 women over the next two or more years, says Jane Norman, a professor of maternal and fetal health at the University of Edinburgh who is leading the trial. …

 

Early intervention in the womb has the potential to be more effective in preventing obesity compared with telling children and adults later in life to eat better and exercise more, he says.

 

"You can say it's extreme to start medications in pregnancy, but what gives you the most bang for your buck - educating kids later or changing something in the womb for a short period of time that will have an effect for years and years?" Dr. Iriye says.

 

In theory, prenatal metabolic re-programming could work to improve health later in life, and avoid supersized babies. But someone needs to explain to NARAL why anyone would go through all this trouble for a mere clump of cells.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II): In response to last summer’s Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment applies to states, which struck down a Chicago ordinance that effectively banned handguns, the city enacted a new ordinance that required gun owners to get firearms training while also banning firing ranges within the city limits, and now the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals enjoined the ordinance on the grounds that the plaintiffs have “a strong likelihood of success on the merits.” Unbowed, the Chicago City Council defiantly passed a new ordinance allowing firing ranges – as long as they were not within 1,000 feet of a school, park, place of worship, day care center, liquor store, library, museum, hospital or residential district, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Looks like another lawsuit is in the offing.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Those Who Can’t Teach, Cheat): A state investigation found that cheating on standardized tests occurred at 44 Atlanta public schools and involved at least 178 teachers and principals, The New York Times reports:

 

The findings of the investigation, which was conducted by a former state attorney general and a former county district attorney, will be delivered to district attorneys in three counties where cheating most likely took place.

 

Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta called the release of the investigation “a dark day for the Atlanta public school system.”

 

The cheating, he said, showed a complete failure of leadership that hurt thousands of children who might have been promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards.

 

At the center of the cheating scandal is former Superintendent Beverly L. Hall, who was named the 2009 National Superintendent of the Year and has been considered one of the nation’s best at running large, urban districts.

 

Dr. Hall, who announced in November that she would be leaving the job at the end of June, left Tuesday for a Hawaiian vacation.

 

Dr. Hall is a veteran administrator of the New York and Newark public schools. She took over the Atlanta district in 1999 and enjoyed broad support. Under her administration, Atlanta schools had shown marked improvement in several areas.

 

Still, the investigation shows that cheating on the state-mandated Criterion-Referenced Competency Test began as early as 2001, and that “clear and significant” warnings were raised as early as December 2005. Dr. Hall’s administration punished whistle-blowers, hid or manipulated information and illegally altered documents related to the tests, the investigation found. The superintendent and her administration “emphasized test results and public praise to the exclusion of integrity and ethics,” the investigators wrote.

 

† UpdatesTo Previous Posts (fifth item, The TSA Emperor Wears No Clothes: Part II): The Transportation Security Administration is being accused of racism – but not by CAIR or some other front for Islamofascist terrorists. Passenger Laura Adiele tells MSNBC’s Richard Lui that after she went through a full body scan at Seattle’s SeaTac airport last month, TSA agents insisted on inspecting her hair because it was too “poofy,” The Blaze reports:

 

She resisted at first, but said she agreed to it once TSA officers threatened to have her arrested. She’s speaking out now, charging the only reason her hair was searched is because she is black.

 

“I played the race card in this because I looked around and didn’t see anyone else being searched in that way,” Adiele said. “The whole thing seems fishy to me, I had TSA agents laughing at me while I was standing there, I was barefoot, everyone was watching, it was really uncomfortable.”

 

Afterward, she said an African American flight attendant came up to her and confided that she’d had the same experience and was seeing it happen with more frequency to other passengers. 
 

Meanwhile at that same airport – on the very day new screening procedures for kids went into effect (penultimate item) – a six-year-old boy was subjected to an enhanced pat-down – twice, reports The Daily Mail of London: 

'They just treated him like he's a terrorist- he's a six year old boy,' his distressed father Alex Long told King5 News.

 

The young boy and his brother were on a surprise trip to Disneyland when the TSA subjected him to two invasive pat-downs after he set off detector. …

 

'Immediately after this happened I hugged my son and he started crying and saying 'I don't want to go to Disneyland',' his sad mother Jenine Michaelis of Kirkland said.

 

This poor family’s trip to Disneyland was ruined by a Mickey Mouse government agency.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Christian Lopez, the 23-year-old lifelong Yankee fan who grabbed the home-run ball Derek Jeter slammed into the stands - his historic 3,000^th career hit – and did something for which he will be remembered in the annals of baseball lore, along with his hero’s achievement. Yahoo! Sports reports:

 

“What do you want for the ball?” the stadium security man asked.

 

“I just want to give it to Jeter,” Lopez said.

 

People at times like this don’t say such things. People see a payday. They see riches in the hundreds of thousands of dollars memorabilia collectors offer to pay for balls like the one Lopez held. Lopez is 23. He is a 2010 graduate of St. Lawrence University but only has a job selling cell phones for Verizon. He has plans to go to graduate school. He has a pile of student loans left over from his undergraduate days and he still lives with his parents at their home near West Point to save money. …

 

Eventually the security man returned and even though Christian Lopez had asked for nothing he began to offer things: four seats in a suite for the rest of the season, front row seats in the Legends Suite for Sunday’s game, some autographed jerseys and autographed balls. Lopez nodded. It all sounded great but he really just wanted to give the ball to Jeter.

 

“He deserves this, he worked hard for it,” Christian said.

 

Who knows how much the ball would have been worth. Early estimates had it going for anywhere from $250,000 to $400,000. No one will ever find out for sure. … Eventually someone led him into a room where he was introduced to Jeter and presented him the ball. This seemed a good trade to him.

 

As Lopez explains: "Money's cool and all, but I'm only 23 years old. I have a lot of time to make that. His accomplishment is a milestone."