bellaressa

Where is Michael Jackson's beloved pet chimp?

bellaressa — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:25:21 -0700

June 29, 2009, 5:20 PM EST

Entertainment Tonight

ET can tell you where Michael Jackson's former pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, is today.

Bubbles is alive and thriving at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Fla., according to the center's Web site.

The center reports that Bubbles was born in 1983 in a biomedical laboratory, and purchased as a young chimp by an entertainment trainer. The chimp was later acquired by Jackson and accompanied the superstar on his world travels. Bubbles retired at age six or seven, and thereafter lived at a California trainer's compound with his chimp buddy Sam until 2005, when he moved to the Center for Great Apes.

The Center's Web site reports that while Bubbles "is able to throw sand with amazing accuracy, he is extremely gentle with the youngsters, especially infant [chimp] Stryker. In fact, the baby can often be seen riding around on Bubbles' back."

His caregivers also report, "Bubbles can be sensitive and dramatic. If he has any kind of cut or scratch on his body ... no matter how small ... he will show it many times during the day to his caregivers and ask for sympathy."

The Web site notes that interested parties can "adopt" Bubbles, and give the following "adoption" information: "For a donation of $150, you will receive an adoption certificate, frame quality photograph with biography, and become a member of the sanctuary for one year. For $10,000 you can become my exclusive adoptive "parent" for one full year and have the opportunity for a unique overnight stay in a guest cabin on sanctuary grounds."

To find out how you can help Bubbles and other chimps like him, visit www.centerforgreatapes.org.

Color Me Purple

bellaressa — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:50:28 -0700

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Mary Norton Small Ostrich Feathers Evening Handbag

Ladies Lunch

bellaressa — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:36:40 -0700

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Monday Meeting & Presentation

bellaressa — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:21:49 -0700

Vivienne Tam Dot Print Petal Skirt

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Bulova Women's Bracelet Watch with Crystal Accents

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Green Brunch

bellaressa — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:51:22 -0700

Miss Selfridge Geo Floral Dress

Tory Burch - Reva Patent Ballet Flats

Ron Herman| EMMA & ME - Diamond Luck and Mini Heart Necklace

Stephen Webster Silver Dagger Earrings

Kew Half Colour Bangle Set

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Lunch Date w/ the girls

bellaressa — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:39:35 -0700

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‘Black man did it’ hoax sparks outrage

bellaressa — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 07:26:51 -0700

By JESSE WASHINGTON
AP National Writer
The Associated Press
Mon., June 1, 2009

PHILADELPHIA - It's an old lie, claiming that The Black Man Did It.

But it was trotted out again last week when a white mother from suburban Philadelphia said two black men snatched her and her 9-year-old daughter from their SUV and abducted them in the trunk of a black Cadillac.

Blacks across the country were outraged after Bonnie Sweeten was found in a luxury hotel at Disney World. Authorities quickly unraveled the hoax, but not before an Amber Alert, frantic searches and national news coverage that played into images of marauding black men.

Racial boundaries are slowly dissolving in America, with President Barack Obama the most obvious example. Yet Sweeten's story, plus the killing of a black New York City cop by a white officer days later, was a reminder that old ideas remain burned into many minds both black and white.

Furious and disgusted
Sweeten's story has provoked an outpouring of discussion among blacks, everywhere from doctor's offices to blogs. Syndicated radio host Warren Ballentine said his listeners are "furious, and they're disgusted. ... On a scale of one to 10, it's a 15."

"Their hope was that by Obama becoming president, the rest of America would take a look at black Americans and look at us for who we are and not what a stereotype is," he said.

The Black Man Did It lie last made news as recently as October, when a John McCain volunteer claimed a 6-foot-4 black man carved a B into her cheek (For Barack, evidently). Charles Stuart told it in 1989 after he killed his wife in Boston. Susan Smith told it when she drowned her sons in 1994 in South Carolina. Unknown numbers of black men were hanged for it back when lynching was a common practice.

And those are the ones we heard about. Law professor Katheryn Russell-Brown documents 67 racial hoaxes in the period between 1987 and 1996 in her book "The Color of Crime."

So after Sweeten and her daughter were found in Florida, with local newspapers reporting an investigation of whether the 38-year-old woman embezzled large sums of money, many blacks felt not only angry, but resigned and frustrated.

"Here we go again," thought Add Seymour, an Atlanta resident who works in public relations for Morehouse College.

'Lynch mob mentality'
"Not only are people going to use us as the stereotypical crime problem of America, but the problem is people believe it so easily," he said. "It's a lynch mob mentality out there. ... The first thing you think of when it comes to crime is a black man. It's crazy, and it's unfair."

It's also rooted in a confusing mixture of psychology, statistics and sociology, amplified by the media's tendency to focus on crimes against white women.

Seymour's blood starts to boil whenever people lock their car doors as he walks by - yet even blacks sometimes hit that button when black men are in the vicinity. "It's not just white people who act that way," Seymour said.

Common sense or racism?
Raqiyah Mays, a radio host on Kiss FM in New York City, drew a parallel between the Sweetney hoax and the killing of a black cop last week who was shot by a white policeman. The black officer was running after a suspect, his gun drawn.

"How many times have you seen a black man running down the street and thought something negative? As opposed to seeing a white guy running down the street and you think he's running late?" said Mays, who is black. "A lot of us are guilty of it because that's the way society has been set up."

One easy explanation is that black men are convicted of crimes at much higher rates than any other group. So was falling for Sweeten's lie racism, or common sense? And does Sweeten's blond hair have anything to do with the amount of media coverage her story received?

Media coverage questioned
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert recently wrote about the difference in coverage between the killing of a white female college student in Connecticut and the approximately three dozen Chicago public school students, mostly black, who have been killed this school year. He recalled an incident from early in his career, at another newspaper, when he heard an editor pondering the story of a dead child ask, "What color is that baby?"

"Editors may not be asking, `What color is that victim?' But, on some level, they're still thinking it," Herbert wrote.

Even without race, Sweeten's story was both sensational and nonsensical. It began when she called police, allegedly from a trunk, and said men had rear-ended her Yukon Denali at a busy suburban intersection, then abducted her and her daughter in broad daylight.

No one had seen it happen, and Sweeten somehow still had her cell phone. Black men also are scarce in Bucks County, which is 92 percent white and 4 percent black.

Authorities discovered that Sweeten had made the call from miles away, in downtown Philadelphia. Their attention turned to the airport, and Sweeten was soon found. She is free on $1 million bail, facing misdemeanor charges of identity theft and false reporting.

During a news conference after the hoax was exposed, Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry explained the charge of filing a false police report.

"It's a terrifying thing," she said, "for a community to hear that two black men in a black Cadillac grabbed a woman and her daughter."

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31050599/

U.S. citizens held as illegal immigrants

bellaressa — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:16:12 -0700

The Associated Press
Sun., April 12, 2009

Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native - in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write - signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.

These days, back home in California, "He just changes from one second to another. His brain jumps back to when he was missing," said his brother, Michael Guzman. "We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him."

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

It is illegal to deport U.S. citizens or detain them for immigration violations. Yet citizens still end up in detention because the system is overwhelmed, acknowledged Victor Cerda, who left Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2005 after overseeing the system. The number of detentions overall is expected to rise by about 17 percent this year to more than 400,000, putting a severe strain on the enforcement network and legal system.

'Regrettable'
The result is the detention of citizens with the fewest resources: the mentally ill, minorities, the poor, children and those with outstanding criminal warrants, ranging from unpaid traffic tickets to failure to show up for probation hearings. Most at risk are Hispanics, who made up the majority of the cases the AP found.

"The more the system becomes confused, the more U.S. citizens will be wrongfully detained and wrongfully removed," said Bruce Einhorn, a retired immigration judge who now teaches at Pepperdine Law School. "They are the symptom of a larger problem in the detention system. ... Nothing could be more regrettable than the removal of our fellow citizens."

Jim Hayes, ICE director of detention and removal, said he is aware of only 10 cases of U.S. citizens detained over the past five years. Even if combined with the cases found by the AP, "that's not an epidemic," Hayes said. He refused to identify any cases, citing privacy laws.

He added that agents investigate any claims to U.S. citizenship, but they often turn out to be false. He said U.S. citizens sometimes claim to be foreign-born, and that immigration officials never knowingly hold someone they can "definitively" determine is a citizen.

It's impossible to know exactly how many citizens have been detained or deported because nobody keeps track. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, testified at a U.S. House hearing last year that her group alone sees 40 to 50 jailings a month of people with potentially valid claims to citizenship.

"These cases are surprisingly, painfully common," she said.

The nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice found 322 people with citizenship claims in 13 immigration prisons in 2007, up from 129 the year before. That number does not include possible citizens in the nation's more than 300 other immigration prisons.

What is clear is that immigration detentions - including those of citizens - have soared in recent years. One reason is a heightened concern for security that arose out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another is a political climate that encouraged a tough stance on illegal immigration, especially after Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation almost three years ago.

After 2003, the nation launched several programs to detain more immigrants, including one that called on local police and sheriffs for help. Before 2007, just seven state and local law enforcement agencies worked with immigration. By last November, more than 950 officers from 23 states had attended a four-week program on how to root out and jail suspected illegal immigrants.

A Government Accountability Office investigation has since found that ICE did not ensure local officials properly used their authority and failed to collect data to assess the program. As a result, ICE is rewriting agreements with 67 agencies.

The program came under fire partly because it gives local officers so much leeway to decide who to stop. Almost one in 10 Hispanic adults born in the U.S. report that police or other authorities stopped them and asked about their immigration status in 2007, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey of more than 2,000 people.

It was a local sheriff's office that sent Guzman out of the country.

He was picked up near his home in Lancaster, Calif., on March 31, 2007, by Los Angeles County sheriff's department officers on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. He had tried three times to board a private plane, showing lottery tickets for passage on one attempt, officers said in a report. He had also stolen a car and told officers his mother's car was broken.

A judge gave him three years' probation and three months in jail for vandalism.

At the jail, Guzman told officers he was born in California, a response noted in official records. But a sheriff's employee still got Guzman to sign an agreement to leave the country without a hearing.

On the day he arrived in Mexico, Guzman called a relative to say he didn't know where he was, and asked a passer-by. The answer: Tijuana. Then the phone cut off.

Guzman was finally returned to California legally in August 2007.

Counseling
Now he can no longer stand the sun because it reminds him of Mexico. His family will not let him talk about the ordeal because it upsets him. He has frequent counseling sessions, but he is shaky, stutters and seems to hear voices, according to his brother.

"He is our brother, somebody's son, that they deported," said Michael Guzman. "California is like the main capital of Latin Americans. It doesn't matter whether you are a citizen or not. If you look Hispanic, they can question you. Deportation can happen to anybody."

Neither the sheriff's office nor immigration officials would discuss the case, citing pending litigation. The family has sued Los Angeles County and the federal government.

"When the whole story is told, people will see and understand what has occurred," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.

Jail sweeps
In the meantime, Guzman's mother, Maria Carbajal, often works the graveyard shift at a Jack in the Box because she is afraid to leave him alone during the day.

American citizens also have been caught in the net of increased workplace arrests and jail sweeps.

Workplace arrests rose from 517 in fiscal year 2003 to 6,274 in 2008. Julie Myers, former Homeland Security assistant secretary overseeing ICE, said agents quickly sort out which workers are citizens during raids. She added that federal law, court decisions and search warrants give immigration agents the authority to enter workplaces to question everyone inside, including citizens.

But the raids have already led to several lawsuits.

In 2007, 114 U.S. citizens and permanent residents sued after a raid on Micro Solutions Enterprises, a computer printer equipment recycler in Van Nuys, Calif. They alleged illegal detention and sought $5,000 damage each.

In 2008, the union representing workers at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants sued on behalf of eight citizens and legal residents caught up in raids.

In one case, three citizens and nine others, all Hispanic, sued after ICE agents raided their New Jersey homes as part of what was dubbed Operation Return To Sender. The lawsuit alleges that an immigration agent pulled a gun on one of the citizens, a 9-year-old boy.

A program to sweep jails and deport immigrants who have committed crimes is more popular. But critics fear the temptation is to deport anyone for anything because they are seen as bad seeds, even if they are American citizens.

Rennison Castillo arrived early at the Seattle immigration office on Oct. 28, 1998, to take his citizenship oath. He was dressed in a freshly starched Army uniform and was eager to grab a good seat. He sat in the second row.

Born in Belize, Castillo had lived in the U.S. since he was 7 and had served two years in the Army. But his superiors told him he could not stay in the Army without citizenship. So he took the citizenship test and passed easily, missing only one question, on the name of a locally elected official.

"I felt pretty good. I felt I definitely accomplished something, because having a citizenship to the United States was something that I felt proud of," Castillo said.

Seven years later, the U.S. government locked Castillo in a Tacoma, Wash., immigration jail. He had been picked up at the Pierce County jail, where he had spent eight months for violating a restraining order and for residential burglary.

'I'd love to go home'
At the holding cell, an officer asked if he wanted to go home. He thought she meant his home in Lakewood, Wash. "Yes," he answered. "I'd love to go home."

She chained him up and told him he would be deported.

Over and over, Castillo said, he told officers he was a citizen. He pleaded with them to check their computer files.

But officials said nothing in their records confirmed his citizenship or his military service. One officer actually recognized Castillo from their Army days at Fort Lewis, Wash., and mentioned their battalion, but told Castillo he couldn't help.

Then Castillo saw a number posted on the wall for the Northwest Immigration Rights Project. On the group's advice, he contacted a friend who pulled his military document from the trunk of his car.

Nearly eight months after he was transferred to ICE custody, Castillo was released. He discovered that immigration officials had two files on him, with different numbers, and has since filed a lawsuit. ICE declined to comment because the lawsuit is pending.

"I understand that nothing is perfect, nothing will be perfect, but I don't understand how they could make a grave mistake like that," he said. "Because if this happened to me, I'm quite sure it's happened to somebody else. What's going to happen to the next person it happens to?"

For Ricardo Martinez, born in McAllen, Texas, it was not being able to get back into his own country.

Even though he was a U.S. citizen, Martinez lived in Mexico between the ages of 5 and 17.

Like many border residents with family on the other side, he made frequent trips to Mexico. When he tried to return to the U.S. after a visit to Mexico in July 1999, he was turned away by border officers at Nogales, Ariz., because two copies of his birth certificate, issued years apart, had different hospital registration dates. Not proficient in English, Martinez said he had never noticed the error.

Told to get his documents in order, he got a U.S. passport and was able to get into the country. But the problem was not over.

In January 2006, he went back to Mexico to be with his dying grandmother. When he tried to cross back at Laredo, Texas, in March, he carried his birth certificates, his birth registration card, his passport and state ID cards from Nebraska, California and Texas, where he had worked.

But by that time border security had become far stricter. Agents looked up Martinez in their database and found the earlier problem at Nogales. They claimed his U.S. passport was fake, he said.

Martinez was taken to an inspection room, forced to remove his shoes, searched, handcuffed to a chair and held for two hours while officers questioned his documents, he said. He was told unless he confessed to fraud, he would be sent to prison for six to eight months, according to a court document filed in Martinez's lawsuit against the government.

"They told me if I didn't say I was from over there, they would put me in jail. I was frightened," Martinez said.

He said he asked to call his mother to help prove his citizenship, but was refused.

Martinez's stepfather, Florentino Mireles, said in a Feb. 27, 2008, affidavit that he called border inspectors to ask why they had taken Martinez's documents. The response, he said: An officer didn't believe Martinez was a U.S. citizen because he didn't speak English.

Afraid of jail, Martinez signed the papers. In an affidavit in his lawsuit, Martinez said he didn't understand that by signing he was admitting to not being born in the U.S.

'Bureaucratic bungling'
It took his parents two years to find an affordable attorney. Finally, at a meeting in Hidalgo, attorney Lisa Brodyaga showed border officers a copy of Martinez' birth certificate from his parents that included his footprints and a thumbprint and tax records showing he had worked legally in the U.S. Officials agreed he was a U.S. citizen and allowed him to cross the border.

Lloyd Easterling, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, declined comment because Martinez has sued. In court filings, the agency said Martinez denied being physically assaulted or subjected to excessive force and never filed a complaint against the officers.

Brodyaga said the cases of U.S. citizens detained or deported show more than bureaucratic bungling.

"I've been doing this for 30 years and I've seen bureaucratic bungling. This is more than that," she said. "This is an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, particularly for Mexican-Americans on the border."

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30180729/

Her secrets at age 115: Crispy bacon and sweets

bellaressa — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:16:42 -0700

PEOPLE.com

At 115 years old, Gertrude Baines enjoys life's simple pleasures, such as extra crispy bacon and sweets, as well as daily viewings of "The Price Is Right" and "Jerry Springer."

As friends and fellow nursing home residents looked on, the world's oldest living person turned 115 Monday at the Western Convalescent Hospital in Los Angeles. Gertrude Baines, born April 6, 1894, in Shellman, Georgia, to parents who were born into slavery, enjoyed her cake and ice cream as children sang "Happy Birthday."

"She said she didn't care what kind of cake or ice cream we got her, that she would eat anything. She's a sweet lady," hospital administrator Emma Camanag tells PEOPLE, as several other well-wishers complimented the supercentarian and lauded her longevity.

During the course of her long life, Baines was married to Sam Conly, with whom, in 1909, she had a daughter, Annabelle - who as a child died of typhoid fever. One of Gertrude's earliest memories is of taking a horse and buggy to church with her mother, Amelia, and her father, Jordan Baines, who had been a judge. Before moving west, she lived in Connecticut and Ohio, where she was employed as a cafeteria worker. Until 10 years ago she lived by herself in California, before moving into the convalescent home.

These days, she's confined to a wheelchair and rests in her room surrounded by several letters of proclamation from county and city government as well as photos of Barack Obama, George Bush and Sen. Diane Feinstein and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others. All recognize Baines as the oldest person in her state, her country - and in the entire world, a milestone she achieved Jan. 2 after the death of a Portuguese woman, Maria de Jesus.

Likes sweets and bacon
Not one to make a big deal of her stature, Baines enjoys life's simple pleasures, such as extra crispy bacon and sweets, as well as daily viewings of "The Price Is Right" and "Jerry Springer."

Last fall, she cast her vote for Barack Obama in the general election. The only other time she voted was back in 1960, for President John F. Kennedy.

When she feels up to it, she attends Pastor Warren Smith’s church service at the hospital. "She hasn't been herself in recent weeks," says Smith. (Baines was recently hospitalized and treated for dehydration.) "But she enjoys the service and nods to the music."

Pressed for her secret to longevity, Baines begs off the question. "She prefers not to have the title [of world's oldest]," says her nurse, Cynthia Thompson, who has looked after her for nine years and quotes Baines as saying, "Of all the people in the world, why do I have to be the one? I didn't ask for this."

Spruce up your résumé for FedEx’s free copies day

bellaressa — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:35:04 -0700

As the recession deepens and the stock market drops, some U.S. corporations are offering a helping hand to those most afflicted -- job seekers.

February job losses brought the nation’s unemployment rate to 8.1%, so there are plenty of people out there looking -- another 651,000 joined the jobless ranks last month, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

If you’re one of these people -- and even if you’re not -- you can get copies of your résumé made at the FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s) store near you -- for free.

On Tuesday, March 10, all customers can have 25 résumés copied free during regular business hours at any FedEx Office Print and Ship Center. The one-day-only event is good for black-and-white copies and valid only for orders placed and picked up at the store. Orders may be submitted in printed format or as a digital file; copies will be printed single-sided.

“We understand that the economy has affected many people in a very profound way, and we want to help,” said Brian Philips, president and CEO of FedEx Office, in announcing the offer. “Printing résumés is one small way we can use our resources to help those who need it.”

Bravo!

To find the FedEx Office center closest to you, visit FedEx Office or call 1-800-Go-FedEx (1-800-463-3339).