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MONDAY, May 14, 2012

5-14-2012

DINNER BELL -- Amid an immediate outcry from its readers, Time Magazine is running a controversial cover on its May 21 issue -- Los Angeles stay-at-home mom Jamie Lynn Grumet, dressed in designer jeans and hand on hip, with her 3-year-old son suckling her breast.  Reaction was mixed with some readers outraged and others who saw the cover as a depiction of a perfectly natural act.  All agreed, however, that Time went a tad over the line by showing a milk mustache on the kid.

MONKEY BUSINESS -- At Knowsley Safari Park in Merseyside, Great Britain, design engineers from Hyundai turned loose forty baboons to test their "child-proof" New Generation i30 sedan's cup-holders, spill-proof plastic upholstery, infant seat and dashboard controls.  A spokesperson for the company said the car "passed with flying colors," although she did admit that the sunroof did seem to accumulate "an unacceptable residue of thrown feces." 

MOMMY DEAREST -- Fifty-0ne year old Thomas Parkin faces up to 80 years in prison accused of eleven counts of fraud, forgery, grand larceny and perjury for dressing up as his dead mother to collect her monthly Social Security checks for six years.  Then, as his mom, he sued their landlord charging fraud, appearing at a DA's hearing "wearing a red cardigan, lipstick, manicured nails and breathing through an oxygen tube," according to prosecutors.  He was exposed when a bailiff saw him in the hall attacking himself -- "Some son you are... you never call, you never write!" 


SWIFT JUSTICE -- After five years of faithful service, 58-year old Wisconsin bank employee Yolanda Quesada was fired by Wells Fargo after the bank received a report from the F.B.I. that at age 18, Miss Quesada had been convicted of shoplifting.  A Wells Fargo spokesperson told reporters "... company policy forbids continuing to employ anyone with a criminal record."  When asked why it had taken forty years for his agency to deliver the rap sheet, a spokesman for the Bureau pointed out that the request for clearance was sent to them by stagecoach.



SAVING FACE -- Eduardo Saverin, one of the co-founders of Facebook renounced his American citizenship to avoid the massive tax bill he would have been saddled with when Facebook goes public later this month.  Eduardo lives in Singapore which has a more tax-friendly system.  He didn't defect outright, though.  He notified the government that he'd stay if Barack Obama and a majority of the Supreme Court friended him him -- and none did.




Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills   All Rights Reserved 


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