Valerie Hoff & Leigha Baugham
The woman dubbed the "Mansion Madam" was back in her mansion Sunday night after a tour of adult nightclubs and she and one of the men arrested in connection with her case spoke exclusively with 11Alive News.
Police have accused Lisa Ann Taylor, an exotic dancer, and Nicole Probert of running a high-end prostitution ring out of Taylor's million-dollar home and charging prices up to $10,000 for sexual acts.
Taylor and Probert were arrested earlier this month on racketeering, prostitution and drug charges.
Taylor told 11Alive's Valerie Hoff Sunday that she is making money from her appearances but she is also paying a price. Taylor said that after dancing jobs in Detroit and Ontario over the weekend, the 42-year-old adult entertainer was also counting her injuries.
"My knees are going to be completely bruised, my legs are sore. I can't believe I can still do splits," said Taylor.
Taylor, whose stage name is Melissa Wolf said she was very well received at the nightclubs, but she had hoped that her dancing days were over.
"It's not what I want to be doing. I want to be doing real estate. I really do, I'm 42-year-old and I'm working with a bunch of girls who are 21. I'm old enough to be their mother," continued Taylor.
As Taylor prepared brunch for friends, she called herself a normal, everyday person who happened to have led an x-rated life earning money through dancing, her adult website and videos.
Taylor defended her lifestyle saying, "That's how I make my living and it’s a legal way to make a living."
Charles Hill, a former roommate of Taylor's said he saw no signs of prostitution in the months he lived in Taylor's Sugarloaf home.
"This is a pretty boring house to tell you the truth," remarked Hill.
Hill was also arrested in connection with Taylor's alleged prostitution ring and charged with conspiracy to possess cocaine, a charge he denies.
Taylor will hit the road again this week, and her waning career has been revitalized…at least for now.
Taylor said, "I hope I get a book deal and a movie deal of this because I don’t know what I'm going to do after that."
Lisa Ann Taylor Hits the Road, Tours Adult Clubs
Castro: his last battle
Ed Vulliamy and Andreas Schipani
The Observer
Hugo Chavez said yesterday his great friend Fidel Castro is fighting for his life. Ed Vulliamy and Andreas Schipani report on the Cuban revolutionary's career of constant struggle
In 1997, two men sat down, with others, to dinner in Havana. One was John F. Kennedy Jnr., eldest son of the assassinated US President. The other was 'El Jefe Maximo' - the Maximum Chief - Fidel Castro. What a meeting: Castro and his guest's father were the men who, in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, took the planet closer than ever before, or since, to blowing itself up.
The talk over this meal of shrimp and ice cream, recalls Inigo Thomas, a friend of Kennedy who was present, was 'all about the past', and the discourse largely 'a series of Castro speeches interspersed with questions for John'. Kennedy gave Castro a copy of The Kennedy Tapes . Castro said he was reading books by Winston Churchill and Stefan Zweig, and asked Kennedy what he thought of Richard Nixon. Kennedy replied diplomatically that Nixon had been 'courteous' towards his family. Near the end of the evening, Castro explained his decision not to admit Lee Harvey Oswald to Cuba, prior to Kennedy's assassination. At 2am the encounter ended, Castro saying how much he admired Pope John Paul II - about to make a visit - for rising at five, two hours after he was accustomed to retiring. Two years later the young Kennedy died. A decade on, the world's longest-surviving ruler nears his own end.
'Fidel is in the Sierra Maestra again, battling for his life,' said his friend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. 'I wish he could live another 80 years. But Fidel Castro is one of those men that will never die.' Cuba has maintained intense secrecy around Castro's health, which forced the revolutionary leader to relinquish power to his brother Raul on 31 July, but reports in last week's El Pais newspaper claimed he had undergone three risky intestinal operations - none of which had been successful.
Although the Cold War is frozen in the past, the era recalled by the older man that night over dinner is not a closed chapter. More people across the Latin American sub-continent are looking to the Cuban leader for inspiration than ever before, as popular - and especially young - opinion swings against the United States. But the world's most instantly recognisable leader, who has left his iconographic mark on history, is about to enter the Pantheon of memory.
Castro, 'El Comandante', is most often known to his people as 'Fidel', even to his face. They 'argue with him, they claim him', writes Gabriel Garcia Marquez. If for some reason they don't want to speak his name, Cubans run a finger across their chin to indicate the beard.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz: the man who outwitted 10 US Presidents, and outlived most of them. The man born out of wedlock who took his mother's surname as his own, who led an impossible revolution which has survived even more impossibly, and whose image Diego Maradona has tattooed on his leg. But there are few places where that figure is visible to most Cubans; the personality cult of Fidel is a singular one. It strikes one only after some time in crumbling but effervescent Havana that his image is nowhere to be seen, except maybe on the odd postcard or book cover in a shop window. No statues, no Castro Boulevard, no posters - the only face on a government building and on T-shirts for tourists is that of Che Guevara. With its peeling grandeur and dichotomies between hedonism and communism, sensuality and fear, Havana is on the edge of Fin-de-Something, but Fin-de-What, exactly?
Born on a sugar plantation owned by his father, to a household servant, Castro grew up aware of both his privileges and the things which kept him apart from Cuban society - educated by Jesuits, he was never baptised.
By the time he was a law student in the 1940s, Castro had already cast himself as a revolutionary (though not yet a communist), in the mould of his idol, freedom fighter and writer Jose Marti, who, at 15, set in motion the revolt which would expel Spanish colonialism. Castro saw himself as completing the revolution Marti had begun. He joined the Orthodox Party, but his willingness to participate in mainstream electoral politics evaporated after the coup of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. After the disastrous armed attack on Moncada Barracks in Santiago in July 1953, Castro was arrested; at his trial he gave a speech famed for the line: 'History will absolve me.'
Unexpectedly released, Castro journeyed to Mexico, where he met Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and plotted the overthrow of the Batista junta. A band of 82 guerillas returned but, after trekking through mango swamps, they were ambushed and half of them captured or killed.
The ensuing narrative is revolutionary legend. The peasantry was won over, Batista fled and Castro marched triumphantly into Havana in January 1959.
For all Guevara's convictions, Castro's revolution was not at first communist; indeed Castro's 'adventurism' was criticised by the Communist Party and Castro travelled to New York to court US support. It was not until after the fiasco of the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion by the CIA, signed off by JFK, that Castro declared himself a 'Marxist-Leninist', and embraced Moscow. The missile crisis was a consequence. Khrushchev decided that a deployment of missiles would deter a further invasion of Cuba and enhance Soviet influence, and the construction of missile installations was detected by US intelligence.
Khrushchev, foreseeing the calamitous consequences of a war, sidelined Castro, offering Kennedy a withdrawal of the missiles in exchange for a guarantee not to invade Cuba and a secret US withdrawal of missiles from Turkey. The US imposed a total trade embargo on Cuba, punishing the Cuban people for more than 40 years and inevitably driving Castro into becoming the USSR's grateful client state in the Americas. Castro consolidated his power at home - thanks to both repression of dissent and popular resentment of Washington. Meanwhile, Cuba began exporting revolution abroad: the 1970s saw Cuba dispatch thousands of troops to fight in the anti-colonial war waged by Angola's MPLA and during the years of US-backed dictatorships and coups in South and Central America, Cuba acted as haven and training ground for armed guerrilla resistance.
The ebb and flow of Havana's relationship with Moscow ended with the collapse of communism, after which Cuba became beholden to China, both economically and politically. But China's whimsical attentions were no substitute for Soviet aid. By 1994 waves of economic refugees were making the perilous trip across the Florida straits to America. Castro, meanwhile, embarked on Cuba's present chapter, of life as a revolutionary fortress in a capitalist world, compromising - needs must - with the winds of the market and the need to import hard currency.
Cuba is, as a result, a country with a higher life expectancy than the US. Cuba exports doctors all over the continent. The music, as everyone knows, is sublime. But Havana is a place where one can buy an ice cream with dollars in 30 seconds while Cubans wait for an hour to pay in pesos. A fat Dane breakfasts with the same 14-year-old girl for the third day running - a notorious branch of the tourist industry on which Havana thrives, but which Castro pretends does not exist.
In this world of dichotomies Castro inhabits a strange penumbra: a man so familiar, yet enigmatic and mercurial. Cubans are not even sure whether he is really married, whether reports of a secret wedding to Dalia Soto del Valle - mother of five of his six sons - are true.
There have been a few recent insights into the man who crossed into the 20th century and turned 80 last year. The Secret Life of Fidel Castro , aired on Florida TV in 2002, had home movie footage, showing Castro with his grandchildren playing around a swimming pool, and a man who lives without luxury.
The following year came Comandante by Oliver Stone, in which he brazenly defies Stone's over-polite challenges on human rights, calls Nikita Khrushchev a 'wily peasant' and admits to crushes on Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot.
In 2004 came two biographies, one by a German, Volker Skierka, who captures Castro's inflated, narcissistic sense of himself and his destiny. But he points out that he is almost alone among dictators in not having fleeced his people. No Swiss bank accounts, no personal wealth.
Castro travels in one of two identical jets - partly out of paranoia, partly out of necessity, for the CIA has been trying to assassinate him ever since he took power. The inept attempts included spraying a television studio with LSD, an exploding cigar, slipping poison powder into a pair of his boots, poisoning a scuba-diving wetsuit proffered as a gift and dynamiting a conch shell in one of the President's favourite waters. Even conventional attempts by snipers and grenade-throwers were thwarted.
No one who meets Castro - let alone struggled alongside him - is unaffected by the experience. Few were closer to him than Huber Matos, who joined Castro's 26 July movement in the Sierra Maestra and swiftly became 'Comandante' of the Oriente front. Matos resigned from the revolutionary government, was accused of treason and imprisoned for 20 years in October 1959. He now lives in Miami. 'Once I achieved the rank of commander, we fought even harder. But since the day I met him, I had my reservations. Castro is a pretender of magisterial dimensions. He was always looking to convince me that everything he was doing he was doing humbly, for the people. But Castro turned out a man who used lies and dirty tricks.'
Another hero and 'Comandante' was Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, who went on to join the 'Alpha 66' revolt against Castro. 'I remember Castro talking to us about a revolution that was "as Cuban as the palm trees",' he recalls. 'A democratic revolution, not the dictatorship of the proletariat or anyone else. And I feel more pain at the betrayal than from all those years in jail, trying to kill time before it killed me. The hardest thing in life is to break with something in which you put your faith. But Castro is like a fox - no, more a wolf. Both the hunter and the hunted. And the more the hunter went after him, the cleverer he became.'
Dissident Oswaldo Paya calls Castro 'a dangerous man'. 'Dangerous to the region, Cuba and the Cubans. But in the end the Cuban people, and democracy, are more dangerous to him than he is to them.'
The Cuba that Castro will leave behind is in part his creation, in part that of the calculated punishment of the US embargo. Ideological Marxism has not been the calamitous disaster it might have been. There have been terrible failures of collectivised sugar production, but coffee, tobacco and other Caribbean products are exported. A day in the resolve and order of a Havana school would leave most British parents with a sense of wilful longing. The hospitals are famously effective by many standards: Cuba caters for the health needs of its own people like no other Caribbean country.
But there is a terrible poverty trap in Cuba and those who live - crowded with their extended families - in the crumbling colonial houses eke out a living with their ration books and little else.
The perilous flotillas of desperation which cross the Florida straits are indicators in themselves. In Cuba, blacks tend to be poorer than Hispanics, but that is the same across Latin America.
The breezy sensuality of the Cuban island and its people masks grotesque human rights abuses. Castro says openly and repeatedly he will not tolerate what he calls 'enemies of the revolution'. Cuba executes by firing squad; homosexuality is forced underground, continually harassed. Religion - often an entwinement between Catholicism and Santeria voodoo - is tolerated in theory, but priests are persecuted in practice.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, President of Mexico from 1988 to 1994, masterminded talks between Castro and President Bill Clinton. 'Castro's life has to be framed inside the context of Cuban independence after 400 years of being a Spanish colony and then passing into US hands. Most of all, it has to be understood within the context of the most dramatic Cold War confrontation, the Cuban missile crisis. Subjected to an interminable blockade imposed by the US, and its constant harassment, [Castro achieved] something unique in today's world. His legacy remains in the remarkable advance in healthcare and education of the Cuba people, and on his defence of Cuba's sovereignty.'
Not every reaction to Castro is political, and not many photographers have been able to take close-up portraits. But Amelia Troubridge is one of them, and her recollections of a 1997 encounter illuminate an additional impact Castro can have, even on a 22-year-old.
'It was at a big dinner,' she recalls, 'I was three tables away, but the German ambassador, at Castro's table, fancied me and asked if I wanted to meet the Cuban leader. There's no doubt what was going on - I was a sexy, tanned, blonde chick and Castro is a flirt. And I tell you, when you have the attention of Fidel Castro, when he decides he wants to talk to you, there is nothing else in the world, the whole room goes silent. He started speaking, and I just felt buried in his beard. They were the best and longest five minutes of my life.'
Castro is a night owl. One former British diplomat says that he would arrive at an ambassador's residence, unannounced with a bottle of whisky, and invite Her Majesty's envoy to join him in drinking most of it. Among those who have been summoned for late dinner or drinks was Ernest Hemingway. But more recently paying homage to Castro has become fashionable. Steven Spielberg described his visit as 'the eight most important hours of my life'. There was an audience with Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, who likened Castro to Nelson Mandela. The then 71-year-old found meeting the brace of supermodels a 'spiritual' experience.
More penetrating was novelist Marquez, who wrote a characteristically elegant and penetrating profile of 'The Fidel I Think I Know' as part of the 80th birthday celebrations. 'His devotion is to the word,' wrote Marquez. 'His power is of seduction... He has a language for each occasion and a distinct means of persuasion according to his interlocutors... He is capable of discovering the most minimal contradictions in a casual phrase.'
Castro the law student was such a talented baseball player that, the legend goes, in 1949 he was offered a $5,000 bonus to join the New York Giants team. His refusal is lore among fans of the national sport, stars of which are divided between those who follow Castro's example, and those who go. The greatest, Lazaro Vargas, is among the former, having snubbed $6m to join the Atlanta Braves. He explains how 'Castro is my leader and my model. He taught me it is a sweet feeling to walk down the street knowing that no one can buy you.'
That Castro has the hearts of many of his people is undeniable; his funeral will be a national wake. A reporter covering the trial at which Castro insisted that 'history will absolve me' was Marta Rojas, now 73, still close to El Jefe Maximo, of whom she says: 'The first time I saw him, a few steps ahead of me, I was still a journalism student. It was September 21, 1953, the day the Moncada trials started. It is the same image I have of him today: converting himself from the accused into the accuser. That day, with his hands cuffed, he raised his arms and banged them yelling, "you cannot try a man, any man, cuffed like this". It was then when he turned from being the defendant to the accuser. And I still have that image of him.'
In 2003 Castro unleashed his latest, maybe last, overt sweep against dissent, seizing and jailing 75 opposition activists, only 15 of whom have been released. In its typically, comically fumbling way, the CIA updated its psychological profiling of Castro, looking for signs of senility, noting that Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution and Leonid Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan in their twilight years. But in the event, remarkably, it is not Castro who is creating his legacy any more - it is history itself.
Marquez wrote that Castro's 'vision of Latin America in the future is... an integrated and autonomous community, capable of moving the destiny of the world'. For decades, such a vision seemed a pipedream, with Latin America either subjugated by pro-American dictatorships or economically and politically beholden to the US.
But over the past five years alone, a gyre has turned across Latin America, not necessarily behind Castro, but certainly in his slipstream. It is hard to think of another leader of whom one can say that, as they die, a momentum swells behind their vision, inspired by it and by him - a second wave propelled by another, younger generation.
The 21st century has seen governments elected to power harbouring varying degrees of antipathy towards US hegemony in Latin America - or at least some robust sense of 'an integrated and autonomous community' - in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and even, almost, Mexico. The spirit of Fidel Castro runs like a rip-tide beneath that wave, whether he intended it or not, and whether consciously or not. History may, after all and against all the odds, absolve him, and will certainly never forget him.
Many people think like Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the Argentinian Nobel Peace Laureate, who deems him 'one of those who show commitment and coherence between what they say and do. He has left a gesture of solidarity to all the peoples of Latin America; a legacy of resistance, autonomy and sovereignty'.
William Jose Benitez is a student of social work in Venezuela, and a member of the National Institute of Youth: 'For me,' he says, 'Fidel is one of the greatest leaders and thinkers of the past 100 years. He has done what almost no one has ever done. For Latin American students like me, he is still the paradigm, the reference point. He has left his seed in today's Latin America, and what we are living today is its manifestation - the awakening of the people of Latin America thanks to revolution led by Fidel.'
Then you have the crowd on the concrete steps of Havana's stadium as Lazaro Vargas drives a curveball past second base. 'Fidel! Fidel!' shouted a man called Manuel, holding his palms aloft, as though to hail El Jefe Maximo, but then, with a puckish grin full of mischief, whipping the left palm behind him and making as though to wipe his backside with it.
· Additional archive research by Isabelle Chevallot
Born for Revolution
1926 Born out of wedlock on a sugar plantation on 13 August, his father was the owner, his mother was the housemaid.
1945 Attends Havana university and becomes embroiled in the turbulent student politics gripping a Latin America rebelling against US influence.
1950 Marries Mirta Diaz Balart, graduates from law school and begins representing largely poor clients.
1952 Fulgencio Batista overthrows the government of President Carlos Prio Socarras.
1953 Amid growing anger at the Batista regime, Castro leads disastrous attack on the Moncada Barracks with 100 supporters. He is released after two years in jail and flees to Mexico, where he meets Che Guevara.
1956 Castro and his rebels land in Cuba and begin guerrilla war against Batista.
1959 Castro's victorious forces march into Havana. One of his first acts is to limit landholdings to four square kilometres and ban foreign ownership. Within a year he has drifted away from the rest of Latin America, where revolutions never happened and sealed an oil deal with the Soviet Union, which US-owned refineries refused to process. Castro nationalises refineries, US breaks off relations.
1961 Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles approved by President Kennedy fails.
1962 Tensions between US and Cuba mount. Khrushchev sends nuclear missiles to prevent a second invasion. US creates quarantine zone around Cuba. Crisis defused by a secret 'swap' - removal of US missiles targeting USSR from Italy and Turkey for the removal of missiles from Cuba. US embargo of Cuba starts.
1975 Cuban troops are deployed in Angola to support Marxist MPLA.
1985 Cuba's military support transformed into civil programmes. Castro one of the leaders of non-aligned nations, despite Soviet ties.
51 Miss America hopefuls welcomed to Las Vegas
REVIEW-JOURNAL
They stepped to the microphone and, singing the praises of the United States from Alabama to Wyoming, introduced themselves, reveling in the knowledge that one of them would be crowned Miss America 2007.
In all, 51 Miss America contestants were officially welcomed to Las Vegas on Friday. It should have been 52, but Miss Virgin Islands' flight was delayed; the 51st contestant is from the District of Columbia.
Las Vegas is the site of the Miss America Pageant for the second year in a row. The telecast will be Jan. 29 from the Aladdin Theatre.
This year's contest comes at a bizarre time in the pageant world. In December, Miss USA Tara Conner came close to losing her crown for allegedly partying a bit too hard, while Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees lost her crown a short time later after racy photos of her hit the Internet.
The nonprofit Miss America program is unrelated to the Miss USA/Miss Universe pageant family. But as contestants prepared for introductions at the Aladdin on Friday afternoon, the excitement of tourists, gawkers and pageant fans signaled that Miss America had lost none of her luster.
This from a hotel employee talking to a buddy: "I wish I'd have brought my camera."
This from an excited woman who caught a glimpse of the contestants preparing for their big entrance: "They are here!" as if she hadn't believed it until that moment.
And even this from a guy whose excitement and devotion began to border on creepy: "Yeah, bring it on."
Shelley Hiestand of New Zealand heard about the ceremony on the radio and decided to check it out.
"My mum was into beauty pageants," she said. "She won a mother-daughter competition when I was 6 years old."
Sam Daines and Cleo Kiley are from South Africa but are studying for MBAs in North Carolina. They were visiting Las Vegas for a break before resuming classes and checked out the ceremony out of curiosity.
"I think it's just the novelty, why we're here," Daines said.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman presented roses to the contestants as they took the microphone to introduce themselves with enthusiastic plugs for the states that had sent them here.
The crowd favorite was Miss Nevada, who drew applause and cheers for her simple but effective line, "I'm the hometown girl, I'm from Las Vegas, and I'm Caydi Cole of Nevada."
Cole, 22, a graduate of the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts, said she was born and raised here, her parents were born and raised here, and her grandparents weren't born here but have lived here a long time.
Cole, who advanced to the Miss Nevada pageant in July after winning the Miss Clark County crown, performed a jazz vocal to "Blues in the Night" for the talent portion of the state pageant. She described the Miss America experience as "surreal" but said it's exciting, too.
According to the Miss America organization, the pageant began in 1921 as an Atlantic City businessman's gimmick to extend the summer tourist season.
Today, the organization says, the pageant is the world's leading provider of scholarships to young women.
The new Miss America will succeed reigning Miss America 2006 Jennifer Berry.
Preparing for Fidel Castro’s death
As reports of President Fidel Castro’s grave condition continue to leak out of Cuba, authorities in South Florida are keeping a close watch on the island nation and are preparing for every possible scenario that could occur after his death.
Authorities from the U.S. Coast Guard said there is no indication there will be a mass exodus from Cuba after Castro’s death is announced, but added that they are prepared if one were to occur.
“We do have plans if there is a mass exodus from any Caribbean nation,” said Jennifer Johnson, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Miami. “That could be Haiti, the Dominican Republic. It could be Cuba, but the plan is not Cuba-centric.”
The plan, dubbed “Operation Vigilant Sentry,” was developed by the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Coast Guard spokeswoman Tasha Tully said.
Though officials would not reveal details of the plan, they did say it requires contributions from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
The plan includes instructions on how to handle interdictions at sea, landings in South Florida, the processing of refugees, providing medical care, community relations, border control and detention, Coast Guard officials said.
The plan got its first test in 2004 when authorities anticipated a mass migration from Haiti when the government of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide collapsed.
The plan was last tested in 2006 during a table-top exercise in Broward County.
“In March we’re going to be testing it again,” Tully said. “Each time we test it we learn where we can improve.”
Lt. David Johnson, of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office’s Special Operations Group, said Castro’s death will have an effect on South Florida. The Collier Sheriff’s Office is integrated into the national plan, he said, but also has developed local plans specific to Collier County.
The Sheriff’s Office has had periodic meetings to discuss its mass migration plans, and those meetings have become more frequent recently, Johnson said. But even if a mass migration were to occur, most likely Monroe and Miami-Dade counties would receive the brunt of the impact, he said.
“Our response will be directly proportional to the degree that we are affected,” he said. “Our contingency ranges from absolutely nothing at all happening, business as usual, to mass migrations that, according to DHS, could involve thousands. To what degree we will be affected in Collier County remains to be seen.”
In the case of a mass migration, state and local agencies would act as support for federal agencies, said Jorge Pino, a spokesman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“We would do anything and everything needed to try to help our federal partners and our state partners,” Pino said. “We do have emergency plans for any catastrophe that could occur in the state of Florida. ... We’re just a spoke in the big wheel.”
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office also has a contingency plan in place in case of a mass migration, but officials declined to elaborate on what that plan entails or how the Lee County Sheriff’s Office would work with other agencies, Deputy Angelo Vaughn said in an e-mail.
The Naples police department is in the process of putting the final touches on its own mass migration plan, police Chief Victor Morales said. The Coast Guard agreed Friday to provide training to Naples police officers in handling a mass migration event, Morales said.
If Cubans flee in droves when Castro dies, those intercepted at sea likely will wind up at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where nearly 400 men captured in the war on terror are held. Military officials say they have begun planning for a possible mass exodus, scouting potential sites to detain migrants in tents while keeping them far from the prisoners suspected of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
Castro, 80, hasn’t been seen in public since he temporarily handed over power to his brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, and underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July. A Spanish newspaper reported Tuesday that the Cuban leader faces a “very grave prognosis.”
In past periods of turmoil, thousands of Cubans have taken to the sea. The Coast Guard has tried to intercept them before they reach land. Under the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy, Cubans intercepted at sea are generally sent back while those who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay.
A Closer Look At The Acts Of Lisa Ann Taylor & Nicole Probert
In a scandal reminiscent of the Heidi Fleiss debauchery of the early 1990's, Gwinnett residents Lisa Ann Taylor, 42, and Nicole Probert, 30, were escorted away by policemen on January 3, 2007, on charges of prostitution. Talk of the arrest began to buzz shortly after the arrest for a few reasons:
1) The bust took place in one of metro Atlanta's most tony communities, the exclusive Sugarloaf Country Club.
2) One of the women charged is also known as the infamous "Melissa Wolf", a one-time adult movie star and Penthouse Pet.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
News of the alleged illegal activities broke shortly after a tip from concerned citizens who remarked on the number of comings and goings from Taylor's sprawling 4,000+ square foot mansion. The women, who presented themselves as real-estate agents, were investigated. However, reports resulted in no evidence linking their activities to real estate. As a matter of fact, further accounts from nearby neighbors revealed complaints of vulgar behavior and extremely noisy parties. Other reports indicated that both women (who each had separate properties) had a stream of male visitors who would only remain for short periods of time.
ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES
Another reason for the high profile arrest was due in part to the drug charges which are also pending against the two. According to officials, both Taylor and Probert were charged with conspiracy to possess cocaine. These charges follow accusations that the pair sold the drugs at their frequent parties.
On January 16, 2007, search warrants were issued for residences belonging to Taylor and Probert, respectively. The searches conducted by police, however, are being aimed at internet activity. It is claimed that Lisa Ann Taylor and Nicole Probert set and confirmed their "appointments" online via Taylor's adult website. Officials are also reviewing the logs which list the visitors to the Sugarloaf Country Club property. The country club's Homeowner's Association has advised police that they are ready and willing to cooperate with authorities in any way requested.
LITTLE BLACK BOOK TO BE OPENED?
Also similar to the Heidi Fleiss investigation more than ten years ago, is the police interest in the "little black book"---that is, the list of clients said to have utilized the services of both Probert and Taylor. The detailed computer files and documents retained by Taylor are the main target of the investigation at this time. What the police are looking for specifically, are records of financial transactions which correlate to the logs of visitors to the mansion. With this information they have a more solid case, and will begin to focus on the "clients" listed in the documents. Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter indicated that the arrests of "clients" could take place in Atlanta, as well as other cities where both Taylor and Probert have been conducting business.
Most of the clients listed in the documents need not fear felony prosecution. According to authorities, two men have already been charged with pandering, which is a misdemeanor. However, three men with direct connections to the drug violations have been arrested on felony charges. In many cases, the fine for pandering, which is a maximum of $5,000, will cost considerably less than the "dates" the women were offering.
GOOD FOR BUSINESS?
Ironically, the swarm of media attention has had a completely opposite effect than was intended for the pair of women. Seated in her attorney's office in north metro Atlanta, Lisa Taylor looked directly into the cameras and stated : "I don't have enough weeks in the year now" for new strip club bookings. She also indicated that the media attention has been "very good" for her. On the heels of that statement, she also admitted that she was scheduled to perform in adult nightclubs in both Canada and Detroit, over the weekend.
Lisa Ann Taylor Back In The Grind
This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Vatican - The State of Rogues?
The top crime neighborhood in the world isn't in Sao Paulo or Lagos. It's not the Bronx in New York, or even Wedding in Berlin. It's the small city ruled by Pope Benedict XVI, which apparently sees more criminal cases per capita than any other part of the world.
The Vatican's attorney general Nicola Picardi released the astounding statistic at the start of 2007: The tiny nation's justice department in 2006 had to contend with 341 civil and 486 criminal cases. In a population of 492, that measures out to 1.5 cases per person -- twenty times the corresponding rate in Italy.
By this measurement at least, crime is soaring in the Vatican in spite of a security force that would put a police state to shame. The seat of the Catholic Church has one Swiss guard for every four citizens, not to mention museum guards and police assigned to the Vatican by Italy.
Picardi did say that most criminal cases were matters of pickpocketing or purse-snatching. The rest amounted to other petty crimes like fraud and forgery -- committed not by kleptomaniacal nuns but by a handful of black sheep among the 18 million pilgrims and tourists who visit St. Peter's Cathedral, St. Peter's Square and the Vatican Museums every year. About 90 percent of these crimes go unpunished, which is not a measure of Christian mercy but a sign of the perpetrators' favorite method of escape. They can break for the border -- a few meters away -- to Italy.
Even if it did prosecute every pickpocket, the Vatican wouldn't have room in its jails for so many sinners, since it has no prison system. Criminals sentenced to prison in the Vatican have to serve time in Italy, with costs covered by the papal state.
Picardi releases similar alarming statistics almost every year, when he makes his annual report on the state of the Vatican's security. He'd like his country to join the Schengen Agreement, a 1985 treaty signed by EU nations to bring down border controls and allow cooperation among justice departments and police. Picardi would even like to promote cooperation between the Vatican and some non-EU nations. So far, though, he hasn't achieved either ambition.
Pope Benedict XVI recommended another strategy in a speech to Vatican security personnel. "Let us pray," he said, "for the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary." He may have been thinking of the weeks in April 2005 when Pope John Paul II was dying. A total of 6 million pilgrims arrived for vigils in St. Peter's Square, and not a single incident of pickpocketing was reported.
Costs keep students from first-choice colleges
Mary Beth Marklein,
USA TODAY
Fewer college freshmen are attending their top choice of schools, and many appear to be doing so not because they were rejected by their first choice but for financial reasons, a national survey shows.
More than two-thirds (67.3%) are attending their No. 1 choice, the survey says. Of those who are not, 52.6% said they were accepted and opted not to go.
That was "quite surprising," says John Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, which conducted the survey, out today. "The general assumption is that if you're not going to your first choice, it's because you didn't get in."
The survey, an annual snapshot of student behavior and beliefs, is based on responses of 271,441 first-time, full-time students at 393 four-year colleges and universities and is adjusted to reflect the 1.3 million freshmen who entered four-year colleges last fall.
Most students cited "academic reputation" and evidence that graduates "get good jobs" as "very important" reasons for attending the college where they're now enrolled. For students attending a school other than their first choice, "the cost of higher education is really the trump card," says survey research manager Victor Saenz.
•One in five attending their second choice said they "could not afford my first choice." Among students attending their third or fourth choices, 26% and 28.4%, respectively, said affordability was the reason.
•Students enrolled in a school other than their first choice were more likely than those at their first choice to cite "the cost of attending this college" as one of their top five reasons for enrolling.
•Students attending their second or third choice were more likely than those attending their top choice to include money-related concerns as very important factors in their decision. Students attending their fourth choice or lower were the most likely of all to cite reasons related to cost.
The number of students attending their top choice has fluctuated over the years, but has generally declined from 77.2% in 1974 when the question was first asked. This year, the number attending a choice other than their first is up 2.5 percentage points from last year and 4.2 percentage points from a decade ago.
Rising tuitions likely explain some of the attention to finances. Second- or third-choice colleges may also be luring top students away from their top choice by offering merit aid, says David Hawkins, director of public policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
An increase in the numbers of college-bound low-income students is also a factor.
While 64.1% of students said they have "some" or "major" concerns about their ability to pay for their education, low-income and middle-income students were most likely to choose a college based on financial issues, Pryor says.
Storms in Europe Kill 46, Disrupt Travel
Europeans labored Friday to restore services across the continent after hurricane-force winds toppled trees, brought down power lines and damaged buildings, killing at least 46 people and disrupting travel for tens of thousands.
Berlin's new main train station was shut down after a two-ton girder fell from the side of the glass facade onto an outdoor staircase. The station was evacuated after the beam plummeted 130 feet Thursday night, but there were no injuries.
"I can see maybe the glass falling, but not the steel," said Thomas Mueller, an electrician who had stopped by the downtown station to survey the damage. "They just built this thing eight months ago."
Virtually the entire German national railway system shut down during the storm, with trees over many tracks and overhead power lines down, and services were being restored gradually Friday.
"We've never had such a situation in Germany," Deutsche Bahn CEO Hartmut Mehdorn said.
Off the coast of France, a coast guard tug was called upon to tow a damaged British container ship containing explosives to safety, a day after its crew of 26 was rescued from the stormy seas.
More than 1 million homes had no electricity in the Czech Republic, which was hit by winds of up to 112 mph, another 1 million households in Germany suffered power losses, while tens of thousands in Poland and Austria also were hit with outages.
The flow of Russian oil through a Ukrainian pipeline to other parts of Europe was restored Friday after a temporary shutdown caused when the storm knocked out power to a pumping station. The interruption occurred Thursday night on a section of the Druzhba, or Friendship, pipeline from the city of Brody in western Ukraine to Slovakia and Hungary, but Oleksandr Dikusarov, a spokesman for the Ukrtransnafta pipeline company, said the flow of oil was fully restored Friday afternoon.
The storm led to the deaths of at least three people in the Czech Republic, 12 in Germany, 14 in Britain, six in the Netherlands, three in France, two in Belgium and six in Poland.
It was the highest death toll from a storm in Europe since 1999, when gales downed trees and driving snow brought on avalanches, killing more than 120 in three days.
Climate researchers had been predicting stormy weather this year for parts of Europe, saying that unusually high temperatures in the North Atlantic, around 1 to 2 degrees above normal _ would allow winds to accumulate more moisture and surge in energy.
"In times of rapid climactic change, extreme events arise more frequently," said Peter Werner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research.
Europe has been experiencing an extremely warm winter and has already been hit by several wind storms.
Most of the people killed in the storm were motorists, but in Germany they also included two firefighters _ one hit by a falling tree and the other dying of a heart attack _ and an 18-month old infant in Munich hit by a terrace door that was ripped from its hinges.
In London, a toddler was killed when a brick wall was knocked over by the wind and collapsed on him.
Frankfurt Airport reported that flights were again leaving regularly Friday after some morning delays and 200 cancellations Thursday.
National carrier Lufthansa canceled 331 flights across Germany on Thursday, affecting nearly 19,000 passengers, but intercontinental flights were largely on time again Friday, spokesman Thomas Jachnow said.
British Airways canceled 34 incoming flights to London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports and the two main London-to-Scotland rail routes ran reduced services.
Eurostar was running full service again, after one early Paris-to-London train was canceled. Meanwhile, London Bridge station was reopened after being closed after part of a roof collapsed.
British train companies warned of delays through the day as repairs were carried out.
Thousands of Dutch commuters were stranded overnight when the service was halted on all trains because of obstructions to the tracks and downed power cables.
By early Friday, most Dutch trains were running again after engineers worked through the night to clear debris and repair power lines, the railway said.
German subways, trams and buses were largely back in service, but only a few long-distance trains were running.
"Bringing the service back is like a puzzle _ it goes bit by bit and we're now at the first pieces," railway spokesman Martin Walden said.
The German Weather Service said the storm was the strongest to hit the country since 1999. The highest winds were felt in the southern state of Bavaria, where gusts of up to 126 mph were recorded.
Castro in "slow, progressive" recovery
Reuters
Cuban leader Fidel Castro is making a "slow but progressive" recovery although his condition is serious due to his advanced age, a Spanish doctor who has examined him said on Friday.
Castro, 80, has suffered complications after undergoing surgery to his digestive system but could return to his normal life if he manages to make a full recovery, Dr Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido said.
"I have recent information that his recovery is slow but progressive," Garcia Sabrido, who examined Castro in Havana late last year and is a consultant to the Cuban leader's medical team, told Reuters.
Garcia Sabrido, head of surgery at Madrid's Gregorio Maranon hospital, said the outlook for any patient of Castro's age who had undergone complications after surgery, was very serious.
"For a patient of his age, who has had complications after an operation, it's always going to be a general prognosis," Garcia Sabrido said, when asked if Castro was in a "very serious condition," as reported by Spain's El Pais newspaper this week.
U.S. scouting out Gitmo sites in case of mass exodus after Castro death
BEN FOX
Associated Press
If Cubans flee in droves when Fidel Castro dies, those intercepted at sea will likely wind up at this base where nearly 400 men captured in the war on terror are held, creating ``an incredible challenge'' for U.S. forces, the base commander said.
Military officials say they have begun planning for a possible mass exodus, scouting potential sites to detain migrants in tents while keeping them far from the prisoners suspected of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
Most of the current prisoners, captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, have been held at this U.S. base in southeastern Cuba without charges since 2002.
A sudden surge of migrants would return Guantanamo to an earlier role. More than 40,000 Haitian and Cuban migrants were held at the base in the 1990s when political and economic turmoil in their countries prompted a mass movement toward U.S. shores.
``We continue to plan for the possibility of that happening again,'' Navy Capt. Mark Leary, the commanding officer of the base, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.
But it would be much more difficult next time. In the 1990s, Guantanamo Bay, which covers 45 square miles of land and water, was a sleepy Navy outpost with plenty of open space. Now, the land where most of the migrants were held is occupied by Camp Delta _ a prison complex with varying levels of facilities behind tall fences and coils of razor wire.
The United States would have to increase troop levels to provide additional security and bring in more food and other supplies, most of which now come in a barge every two weeks.
``Logistically, it would just be an incredible challenge,'' Leary said.
Planning for a potential exodus has not involved Cuban officials, Leary said. Top officers based at Guantanamo Bay regularly meet with their Cuban counterparts to discuss low-level practical issues such as how to fight fires that frequently rush through the dry brush that surrounds Guantanamo Bay.
Castro, 80, has not been seen in public since he temporarily handed over power to his brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, and underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July.
In past periods of turmoil, thousands of Cubans have taken to the sea. The U.S. Coast Guard has tried to intercept them before they reach land. Under the so-called wet-foot-dry-foot policy, Cubans intercepted at sea are generally sent back while those who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay.
Luis Diaz, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman in Miami, said officials there aren't expecting large numbers of migrants. ``Since (Fidel Castro's) brother took over, we've seen a decrease in migrants. A lot of people expected the opposite, but our numbers indicate there has been a decrease,'' Diaz said.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which the U.S. began leasing from Cuba in 1903, is made up of two sections on either side of the 2½-mile wide bay. Most of the facilities, including the detention center, are on the eastern side, while the base airport is on the western side. People cross the bay in a ferry.
If the base suddenly had to hold thousands of migrants, officials say it would likely be on the western side, where the military could erect temporary shelters until the migrants could be returned home.
Business good and bad for suspect in suburban prostitution case
Lisa Ann Taylor's real estate career may be in jeopardy, now that she's accused of running a prostitution ring at her suburban Atlanta mansion, but business is booming for the adult entertainer who is preparing for sold-out audiences on a whirlwind exotic dancing tour.
The 42-year-old former Penthouse model told reporters Wednesday that she had been trying to get out of the adult entertainment business and was excited about a budding real-estate career. But all that came to a sudden halt earlier this month when she and another woman were arrested on prostitution, racketeering and drug charges.
Taylor's real estate license was inactivated. A lien was placed on her million dollar home.
But her adult entertainment Web site, where she goes by the name Melissa Wolf, buzzed with traffic. At one point it became overloaded and shut down. Her upcoming shows at adult entertainment clubs in Canada and the midwest are booked.
"Business is good right now," Taylor said, citing upcoming shows in Detroit, Milwaukee, Wis., Allenton, Pa., and dates in Ontario and British Columbia. "I don't have enough weeks in the year."
Still, Taylor said the experience has been bittersweet. She said her work has been a welcome distraction and provided needed income to pay her bills and fight her case, but her arrest has pulled her back into the life she had been trying to escape.
"I was an adult entertainer one day, and all of a sudden in a lot of trouble the next," she said.
If she is found innocent, Taylor said she would like to move on.
"If I'm creative, maybe I'll sell my story. Hey, Cribs, you want to come see my house?" she asked half-jokingly, referring to the popular MTV reality show where celebrities flaunt their extravagant homes.
Wearing Chanel sunglasses, a low-cut white top and a black and white pinstriped pantsuit, and sporting a French manicure, she faced a gaggle of local news media at her lawyer's Norcross office and vowed to fight the charges.
She could face up to 37 years in prison.
"I try not to think of it too much right now," Taylor said. "I'm scared a little. But I'm confident in both of my attorneys."
She also admonished her accusers, who include some of her neighbors.
"My question to them is that if I'm having these wild parties at 4 and 5 in the morning, what are they doing up at that time in the morning peeking through my windows? Shame on them," she said.
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter says Taylor and Nicole A. Probert, 30, were operating a call-girl service out of Taylor's mansion in a gated neighborhood north of Atlanta. The women also are accused of procuring drugs for their clients and friends.
Porter has promised to bring charges against the clients as well as the suspected prostitutes. Since the case became public, several men have been arrested on pandering charges.
Sphere: Related ContentTwo More Of Lisa Ann Taylor's Client Charged in Brothel Case
Tracey Christensen
Two more arrests were made in an alleged prostitution ring and the Gwinnett County woman accused of running a brothel from her posh mansion was expected to speak out Wednesday.
Two more men have been charged by Gwinnett County authorities in connection with a case alleging that two women ran a high-priced brothel out of a home at the upscale Sugarloaf Country Club.
Warrants were issued Tuesday for Kerry Philip Kruzel, 43, of Cumming and Marc Alfred Garzon. Kruzel is the third man so far to be charged with a misdemeanor of pandering in connection with the case. Garzon is charged with a felony of conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
Police contacted Kruzel by telephone Tuesday and informed him of the charges that were being filed against him. At that time, Kruzel said he would turn himself in at the Gwinnett County Detention Center. Authorities, at first, had trouble contacting Garzon but he surrendered at the jail Tuesday evening.
Police said Lisa Ann Taylor and Nicole Probert were running a high-end prostitution ring out of their home and charging prices up to $10,000 for sexual acts. Taylor and Probert were arrested this month on racketeering, prostitution and drug charges.
Prosecutors allege that Taylor, an exotic dancer, was running a house of prostitution out of her million dollar home.
Taylor, who uses the stage name Melissa Wolf, was expected to speak to the media at her attorney's house in Norcross around 2:00 p.m. Wednesday before leaving for dancing engagements in Detroit and Ontario, Canada. Taylor maintains her innocence.
A total of eight people have now been charged in the case.
Police have saved us, but from what?
JIM COSTELLOE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Whew!
The Gwinnett County police have done it again. Saved us all from the unseemly underbelly of the criminal underworld. First, they closed up shop in what we now are told was a newly developed Sugarloaf red-light district by arresting "Luscious" Lisa Ann Taylor ( I thought of that one myself) and "Naughty" Nicole Probert. Then, as if that wasn't enough, they whiled away countless hours following innumerable leads and have so far charged two men they say actually paid for sex with one of these women. Two men! Can you believe that?
One of the men allegedly paid $600 to have sex with the "Naughty" one. I have to wonder why he supposedly received such a monster discount from the $10,000 police say the accused women charge some men. Maybe he had a coupon. Or one of those frequent buyer punch cards. The one where you buy 10 at the regular price, then get one free, or in this case, for $600. I have one for TCBY. The hole they punch looks like a little ice cream cone. I wonder what shape a prostitute would use to punch a card? Hmmm
Anyway, from the time these alleged "Mansion Madams" were arrested, Gwinnett County authorities made no secret that they would be going after the really big prizes in this criminal enterprise, the true danger elements, those who give us nightmares — the men who paid for sex.
At first, when I heard this news, I was truly upset. Our own county was going to waste countless tax dollars tracking down the men who paid for sex, which as it turns out, is only a misdemeanor. I could understand following the supposed drug trail, but sex?
I by no means mean to infer that I find men who solicit sex from women to be of any better character then the women who sell sex. I just couldn't imagine that there is a whole lot of good that comes from actively seeking out these people, no matter which side of the equation.
I saw the result of the police actively pursuing customers as being one in which families were broken up because Daddy paid a few bucks for a quickie on his way home from work. And all for what? A small fine or a couple of nights in jail. I could not see how this could be in the best interest of our community. It seemed like the ultimate waste of time and money. Boy, did I have it wrong.
I learned a valuable lesson. Always trust your police force. Unless of course you hail from Great Britain and make the inexcusable mistake of jaywalking across a downtown Atlanta street (we all know that no one would dare do such a thing). Outside of that, you should always trust them. But I digress.
The lesson learned is that, although it is rarely publicized, the police see things we could never understand. In this case, they saw the two women they arrested on prostitution charges and thought to themselves, "Someone is actually paying $10,000 for this?"
I thought the same thing myself (and it did give me nightmares), but I never recognized the underlying danger.
See, our beloved police force knew that whoever these men were, they must be extremely unstable and a danger to the citizens of Gwinnett County, maybe even all of Georgia. They saw that any man who engaged Ms. Probert or Ms. Taylor, especially if they were indeed paying as much as $10,000, must be on the ledge, walking a fine line between insanity and reality, and that one misstep could set them off.
Just think about that. You can feel it, can't you? Your life passing before your eyes? Sometimes we dodge bullets we never even knew flew by.
Now that I know the police have this under control, I feel like I can again take my children out into the front yard to play or take a walk without looking over my shoulder. I no longer feel the need to dive for cover behind a bush or tree when a car drives by. Nope. Life in Gwinnett County is safe again, and all is right with the world.
Jim Costelloe is a husband and father of two who lives in Suwanee and works in the commercial mortgage industry.
Today in history - Jan. 17
The Associated Press
Today is Wednesday, Jan. 17, the 17th day of 2007. There are 348 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Jan. 17, 1945, Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.
On this date:
In 1893, the 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, died in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70.
In 1893, Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
In 1917, the United States paid Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
In 1919, pianist and statesman Ignace Jan Paderewski became the first premier of the newly created republic of Poland.
In 1945, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody.
In 1961, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned against the rise of "the military-industrial complex."
In 1966, a U.S. Air Force B-52 carrying four unarmed hydrogen bombs crashed on the Spanish coast. (Three of the bombs were quickly recovered, but the fourth wasn't found until April.)
In 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first U.S. execution in a decade.
In 1994, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 60 people and causing $20 billion in damage.
In 1995, more than 6,000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.
Ten years ago: Speaker Newt Gingrich agreed to submit to a reprimand by the House and pay a $300,000 penalty as punishment for his ethics violations. Israel handed over its military headquarters in Hebron to the Palestinians, ending 30 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank city. A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history.
Five years ago: Enron fired accounting firm Arthur Andersen, citing its destruction of thousands of documents and its accounting advice; for its part, Andersen said its relationship with Enron ended in early December 2001 when the company slid into the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. A Palestinian gunman walked into a confirmation party in northern Israel and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing six people; the gunman was killed by police.
One year ago: The Supreme Court protected Oregon's assisted-suicide law, ruling that doctors there who helped terminally ill patients die could not be arrested under federal drug laws. Hostage American reporter Jill Carroll appeared in a silent 20-second video aired by Al-Jazeera television, which said her abductors had given the United States 72 hours to free female prisoners in Iraq or she would be killed. (Carroll was freed unharmed on March 30, 2006.) California executed convicted killer Clarence Ray Allen a day after his 76th birthday.
Today's Birthdays: Actress Betty White is 85. Singer-actress Eartha Kitt is 80. Actor James Earl Jones is 76. Talk show host Maury Povich is 68. Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is 65. Rhythm-and-blues singer William Hart (The Delfonics) is 62. Rock musician Mick Taylor is 59. Rhythm-and-blues singer Sheila Hutchinson (The Emotions) is 54. Singer Steve Earle is 52. Singer Paul Young is 51. Actor-comedian Steve Harvey is 50. Singer Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) is 48. Actor-comedian Jim Carrey is 45. Actor Joshua Malina is 41. Singer Shabba Ranks is 41. Actor Naveen Andrews is 38. Rapper Kid Rock is 36. Actor Freddy Rodriguez is 32. Actress Zooey Deschanel is 27. Singer Ray J is 26. Country singer Amanda Wilkinson is 25.
Thought for Today: "If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military." — President Truman (1884-1972).
The Ultra-Honest Resume - How to Write a Resume That Passes the Verification Test
When it comes to resumes, most job seekers know that honesty is the best policy. Never say you graduated from college when you didn't or make a job last a year longer than it really did. But the verification process many employers use for resumes can trip up even workers who aren't trying to fool anyone. All it takes is a little carelessness, a poor memory of what happened eight years ago, or the acquisition of a former employer to turn a resume into a liability.Many companies hire outside background checkers to verify resumes and job applications. These companies note every inconsistency and piece of information they can't confirm -- even the difference between starting a job on April 1 and April 5 -- although some problems are treated more seriously than others by employers.
source
Tags: inconsistency | Ultra-Honest | workers | verify | VERIFICATION | trying | TREATED | takes | starting | seriously | seekers | resume | problems | policy | others | Memory | longer | information | honesty | HIRE | happened | GRADUATED | fool | EMPLOYER | difference | confirm | companies | comes | college | checkers | carelessness | background | applications | Acquisition | Stuff | passes | money | april
Britney Spears's $40,000 Night in Vegas
Britney Spears and Isaac Cohen have taken their hookup to new heights: a Fantasy Tower suite at The Palms in Las Vegas.
Sources tell PEOPLE the couple stayed in the tower's $40,000-a-night, two-story Hugh Hefner Sky Villa on Saturday, where a Jacuzzi pool, a glass elevator, an 8-ft. rotating bed and a full bar are among the amenities.
"They seem very happy together," says a source who spotted the two, who started dating in the past month. Hotel officials had no comment.
The trip was Spears's first appearance in Las Vegas since hosting a much-talked-about party at Pure nightclub on New Year's Eve – where, her rep told PEOPLE, she fell asleep.
It was a different scene Saturday night. Spears and model-actor Cohen, both 25, danced and smoked cigarettes at 8½, a gay club off the Strip, before leaving after about an hour.
Sunday night was even busier. After dinner at Social House and taking in a performance of Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity, the couple fueled up on Red Bull and then hit the Coyote Ugly bar.
But after that, Cohen slipped back into the hotel while Spears moved on to Pure with several of her dancers and revisited her VIP table from New Year's Eve. She sipped Dom Perignon, danced to Madonna and stayed till about 3:30 a.m.
This is the second weekend in a row that the couple have been seen together. On Jan. 6 they hung out on a powerboat off Marina del Rey, outside L.A., and the next night met up at the W Hotel's Whiskey Blue bar in Westwood.
Martin Luther King - 1929-1968
Making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday recognized the importance of his life and writings in an appropriate manner. One is sometimes astonished to remember, thinking back on his relatively brief public life, from Montgomery in 1955 until his death in Memphis in 1968, that the Civil Rights movement was already well on its way when King emerged among a host of equally remarkable men and women as its principal figure.
source
Tags: astonished | writings | training | thinking | remarkable | relatively | recognized | principal | ORGANIZERS | NONVIOLENT | movement | manner | importance | host | holiday | equally | emerged | brief | birthday | Rights | People | MONTGOMERY | Memphis | martin | Luther | civil
Martin Luther King - 1929-1968
Making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday recognized the importance of his life and writings in an appropriate manner. One is sometimes astonished to remember, thinking back on his relatively brief public life, from Montgomery in 1955 until his death in Memphis in 1968, that the Civil Rights movement was already well on its way when King emerged among a host of equally remarkable men and women as its principal figure.
By background and training, Martin Luther King, Jr., was well prepared to make the most of the nonviolent revolution which, in transforming the South, provided a training ground, a school, a university-without-walls for social change. Just as the Wobblies, socialists, feminists, and anarchists in the decade before the First World War, educated labor organizers and reformers for the radical 1930s, so the new abolitionists of the Civil Rights movement taught later generation about nonviolent resistance, agitations and community organizing.
In remembering the names of leaders in the antiwar and draft resistance movements during the 1960s, as well as later campaigns against the nuclear arms race and the war on Iraq , one can point to many who went South during the earlier period - on Freedom Rides, in voter registration campaigns, and the Selma march. For example, Philip Berrigan taught in a black school in New Orleans before he burned draft files in Catonsville, Maryland in 1968; Abby Hoffman ran a "Snick" (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) shop in Worcester, Massachusetts, before he initiated his "revolution for the hell of it" on the Lower East side in Manhattan; Howard Zinn and Staughton Lynd taught in black colleges in Atlanta before Zinn initiated RESIST in Boston and Lynd championed labor law in Youngstown, Ohio. Similarly, Rosa Parks disobeyed an Alabama law upholding segregation and Dorothy Cotton and Fannie Lou Hamer challenged traditional roles of women before Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem issued their feminist manifestos.
"The son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of preachers," as he tactfully reminded the clergymen addressed in "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta , Georgia . Educated at Morehouse College in Atlanta and Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania , he had been ordained a Baptist minister in his father's church at 18. In 1955, he completed a doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University . That December, he called for a citywide boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery , Alabama , while serving as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in the shadow of the state capitol building. From then until his death in 1968, he coordinated and inspired nonviolent movements for social change through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, focusing on the rights of working people, especially African Americans, and, later, resistance to the American war in Southeast Asia .
I sat in a Harlem department store, surrounded by hundreds of people. I was autographing copies of Stride Toward Freedom, my book about the Montgomery busy boycott `955-56. As I signed my name to a page, I felt something sharp plunge forcefully into my chest. I had been stabbed with a letter opener, struck home by a woman who would later be judged insane. Rushed by ambulance to Harlem Hospital , I lay in a bed for hours wile preparations were made to remove the keen-edged knife from my body. Days later, when I was well enough to talk with Dr. Aubrey Maynard, the chief of surgeons who performed the delicate, dangerous operation, I learned he reasons for the long delay that preceded surgery. He told me that the razor tip of this instrument had been touching my aorta and that my whole chest had to be opened to extract it. "If you had sneezed during all those hours of waiting," Maynard said, "your aorta would have been punctured and you would have drowned in your own blood." In the summer of 1963, the knife of violence was just that close to the nation's aorta.
Although King's name and achievements are known to many people, the deeper implications of his life, as the lives of many peacemakers, are often trivialized or forgotten. This is particularly true of his deep, persistent commitment to nonviolence. However, in Stride Toward Freedom (1958), he gives an account of his spiritual odyssey, from his reading of Thoreau in college to his study of Marx, Gandhi, Reinhold Niebuhr, and A. J. Muste during seminary.
Although he sided with Gandhi, King had to come to terms with Niebuhr's critique of pacifism. In the intellectual struggle that ensued, King noticed that Niebuhr "interpreted pacifism as a sort of passive resistance to evil expressing naïve trust in the power of love." But this was a serious distortion," King concluded.
My study of Gandhi convinced me that true pacifism is not non-resistance to evil, but nonviolent resistance to evil. Between the two positions, there is a world of difference. Gandhi resisted evil with as much vigor and power as the violent resister, but he resisted with love instead of hate. True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power, as Niebuhr contends. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love.
Just how fully King took this principle to heart-and to the streets-is indicated not only by his positive peace-building, but also by his rejection of violence in the struggle for black equality and his resistance to the war in Vietnam . The piece of writing for which he is best remembered, however, is a classic essay, equal in power and eloquence to the Declaration of Independence and Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963), addressed to eight Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish clergymen who called King's civil disobedience to segregation in Birmingham "unwise and untimely," describes the historical, religious, and political justifications for his actions and helped thereby to win a nation to his cause. Reprinted in newsletters, newspapers, pamphlets, and anthologies, it has become the Common Sense of the second American Revolution.
In bringing together the principles of 19 th century American abolitionists and resisters-Garrison, Thoreau, Adin Ballou-and the practical teachings of Tolstoy and Gandhi, King gave the tradition of nonviolence a new and solid grounding in the American experience. Near the beginning of "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he says that in any nonviolent campaign, there are four steps: "(1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; (2) negotiation; (3) self-purification; and (4) direct action." Then King shows how he and his associates met each of these conditions in Birmingham . He concludes with this argument for the justice of the black liberation movement.
Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth , we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of he Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they build the homes of heir masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation-yet out of the bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
Eventually overcoming the indifference of the Kennedys, with President Lyndon Johnson supporting Civil Rights legislation in 1965, King continued his campaign for justice and peace. Although he was counseled not to by his former compatriots, in 1967, at Riverside Church in Manhattan , , he gave an historic speech now referred to as "the Declaration of Independence from the Vietnam War. " The speech, which indicated an astonishing knowledge of the history of Vietnam and the implications of the war in South East Asia , stands as one of the truly great speeches by an American. Within a year, he was assassinated.
In retrospect, it is almost impossible to believe how much Martin Luther King, Jr., accomplished in his short lifetime, as the man now regarded as the most significant figure in the history of nonviolence in the U.S.
Sphere: Related ContentToday in history - Jan. 15
The Associated Press
Today is Monday, Jan. 15, the 15th day of 2007. There are 350 days left in the year. This is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Jan. 15, 1929, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.
On this date:
In 1559, England's Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
In 1777, the people of New Connecticut declared their independence. (The tiny republic later became the state of Vermont.)
In 1844, the University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.
In 1942, Jawaharlal Nehru was named to succeed Mohandas K. Gandhi as head of India's National Congress Party.
In 1943, work was completed on the Pentagon, now the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense.
In 1947, the mutilated remains of Elizabeth Short, the 22-year-old aspiring actress known as the "Black Dahlia," were found in a vacant Los Angeles lot.
In 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League 35-10 in the first Super Bowl (although the matchup was then officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game).
In 1973, President Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam, citing progress in peace negotiations.
In 1976, Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford in San Francisco.
In 1987, entertainer Ray Bolger, perhaps best known for playing the Scarecrow in the 1939 MGM musical "The Wizard of Oz," died in Los Angeles at age 83.
Ten years ago: A bitterly divided Israeli Cabinet agreed to withdraw troops from most of Hebron and rural West Bank areas, approving an accord wrapped up hours earlier by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The crews of the shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir had a raucously joyful meeting, hours after their spacecraft had docked.
Five years ago: Attorney General John Ashcroft said that John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old Californian who had fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, would be charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and could face life in prison if convicted. (Lindh received a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to supplying services to the Taliban and carrying explosives in commission of a felony.) Arthur Andersen LLP said it was firing senior auditor David B. Duncan, who had organized a "rushed disposal" of Enron documents after federal regulators requested information about the failing energy company. Former Chicago mayor and Illinois Supreme Court chief justice Michael Bilandic died at age 78.
One year ago: After a seven-year journey, a NASA space capsule, Stardust, returned safely to Earth with the first dust ever fetched from a comet. Michelle Bachelet was elected Chile's first woman president. Kuwait's longtime ruler, Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, died; he was replaced by the crown prince, Sheik Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah.
Today's Birthdays: Actress Margaret O'Brien is 70. Singer Don Van Vliet (aka "Captain Beefheart") is 66. Actress Andrea Martin is 60. Actor-director Mario Van Peebles is 50. Actor James Nesbitt is 42. Singer Lisa Lisa (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam) is 40. Actor Chad Lowe is 39. Actress Regina King is 36. Actor Eddie Cahill is 29. Rapper/reggaeton artist Pitbull is 26.
Thought for Today: "I refuse to accept the idea that the 'is-ness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the 'ought-ness' that forever confronts him." — Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968).
Top 10 eBooks everyOne Is Buying!!!!
Unbox Video Downloads
Toys And Games
Tools And Hardware
Sports And Outdoors
Software
Office Products
Musical Instruments
Music
MP3 Downloads
Miscellaneous
Magazine Subscriptions
Kitchen And Housewares
Kindle Store
Jewelry And Watches
Industrial And Scientific
Health And Personal Care
Home And Garden
Grocery
Gourmet Food
Gift Certificates/Cards
Electronics
DVD
Computer And Video Games
Computers
Classical Music
Cell Phones And Service
Camera And Photo
Books
Beauty
Baby
Automotive
Apparel And Accessories
VHS
