Mary Josephine Ray, nation’s oldest
Mar. 9, 2010 | www.philly.com  |  Associated Press

WESTMORELAND, N.H. – Mary Josephine Ray, the New Hampshire woman who was certified as the oldest person living in the United States, died Sunday at age 114 years, 294 days.

Ms. Ray, who died at a nursing home in Westmoreland, was active until about two weeks before her death, her granddaughter Katherine Ray said.

“She just enjoyed life,” Ray said. “She never thought of dying at all. She was planning for her birthday party.”

Even with her recent decline, the granddaughter said, Ms. Ray managed an interview with a reporter last week.

Ms. Ray, born May 17, 1895, was the oldest person in the United States and the second-oldest in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group. She was also recorded as the oldest person ever to live in New Hampshire.

The oldest living American is now Neva Morris, 114, of Ames, Iowa; she was born Aug. 3, 1895. Nearly three months older than Morris is the oldest person in the world, Japan’s Kama Chinen, who was born May 10, 1895.

Ms. Ray was born in Bloomfield, Prince Edward Island, and moved to the United States at age 3. For 60 years she lived in Anson, Maine. She lived in Florida, Massachusetts, and elsewhere in New Hampshire before moving to Westmoreland in 2002 to be near her children.

Her husband, Walter, died in 1967. Survivors include two sons, eight grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and five great-great-grandchildren.

Morris, the Iowan now believed to be the oldest U.S. resident, lives at a care center. Only one of her four children, a son, is still alive.

Farewell Daisey Bailey, what amazing changes you must have seen in your life.

On the same day Mrs. Bailey passed, the world’s oldest living person passed on too. The article below had the following quote which is sorta wonderful, “like people who are good at sports, they’re good at living a long time.”

Daisey Bailey of Detroit, world’s oldest black, dies at 114
Nip of bourbon kept supercentenarian going, granddaughter says
Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News  |  March 09. 2010

Detroit — Throughout her 114 years of living, Daisy Bailey kept to more than a few habits.

Relatives marveled at her hard work; how she tended a garden and flower bed; and close ties she kept with loved ones.

“She had a beautiful personality,” said her granddaughter, Helen Arnold. “She would give someone her last dime.”

Bailey died of organ failure Sunday at Henry Ford Hospital. The Detroit resident was the fifth oldest person in the world and the oldest living black person as certified by the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks people who are 100 years and older.

She would have turned 115 March 30, said her granddaughter Helen Arnold.

Bailey was one of two supercentenarians, or those older than 110, who died Sunday. Mary Josephine Ray, who was certified as the oldest person living in the United States, died at age 114 years, 294 days, at a nursing home in Westmoreland, N.H.

Bailey’s family said she was born in 1895, in Watertown, Tenn. The Gerontology Research Group puts Bailey’s birthday a year later, based on U.S. census records.

Bailey’s great-grandson Morris Draper said she shared many stories of struggle and hard work in the South.

“She used to talk about how life was as for them and how hard they used to work in the fields to make a living ….raising (their) own animals,” he said.

Bailey came to Michigan in 1943 and settled in Pontiac. She worked as a domestic and babysitter during most of her working years, said Arnold.

When she wasn’t working, Bailey liked growing turnip greens, said Arnold.

Bailey’s secret to longevity? She liked “taking a nip” of old bourbon whenever she could, Arnold said.

Bailey was rarely ill and suffered mostly from mild cases of hypertension and arthritis, Arnold said. Arnold also attributed her grandmother’s long life to eating a lot of vegetables and pork. “She didn’t eat nothing but pork, no beef,” she said.

Robert Young, a researcher for the Gerontology Research Group, said centenarians like Bailey and Ray are “the cream of the crop.”

“Like people who are good at sports, they’re good at living a long time,” he said.

Dr. L. Stephen Coles, at UCLA School of Medicine and director/co-founder of the research group, said sometimes longevity is just a matter of genetics.

“It turns out people that are the longest lived have very bad habits,” said Coles. “Some of them smoke or drink and some of them do both. They still live a long time, and we don’t know how. They have very good genes.”

In 1989, Bailey moved to Detroit to be with Arnold after someone broke into her Pontiac apartment and stole money and her birth certificate. In the past decade, her health began to fail and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Bailey outlived all four of her children, Arnold said. “She was like my mom,” she said.

Services are 10 a.m. Friday at the One Greater Love Church, 12100 Holmur in Detroit.

Associated Press contributed.

Sacrificers: It’s religion, not abuse
By STEPHANIE FARR  |  Philadelphia Daily News  |  Philly.com  |  Dec. 14, 2009  |  farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225

ON NOV. 24 in Katmandu, Nepal, more than 200,000 animals were sacrificed as part of an ancient Hindu ritual celebrated just once every five years.

Half a world away and two weeks prior, on Friday the 13th, in Northeast Philadelphia, five beheaded animals – a cat, three chickens and the skeletal remains of a dog – were found near an Olney bike path in what Pennsylvania SPCA officials said was the 11th case of animal sacrifice documented in the city this year.

PSCPA officials said that they often see more animal sacrifices in the city between November and December because it correlates with “high holidays” celebrated by various groups.

But serious practitioners of religions in the city that call for animal sacrifices, such as voodoo, Palo and Yoruba (known outside of the tradition as Santeria), say that they are not responsible for sacrificial remains found in public parks and cemeteries.

“We don’t leave animals out,” voodoo priest and Temple University art professor John Dowell said. “These people who leave stuff in the parks, I don’t know what they’re doing.”

According to experts, like local anthropologist and folklorist Dr. Eoghan Ballard, and Dr. Randall Lockwood, senior vice president of anti-cruelty services for the American SPCA, sacrificial remains found in parks, especially those adorned with talismans like candles or pennies, are most often the work of religious novices, teens or satanic dabblers.

“The moment you start finding things which are elaborate I rule out many Afro-diasporic religions,” Ballard said. “If they display it out in some way, that’s usually somebody looking for attention or following a recipe book.”

Ballard said that in Afro-diasporic religions a sacrificed animal becomes part of the liturgical meal, not a disturbing public display.

“It’s sort of like the church dinner,” he said. “If it’s a legitimate tradition it follows a practice that’s akin to methods used in kosher and halal.”

Dowell, who is a priest, or hungan, at Le Peristyle, a voodoo church in Philadelphia’s Fern Rock section, agreed.

“Most people sit down and eat chicken and beef,” he said. “The animal is already dead and then you thank God. We pray over the animal first. It’s kept, it’s cleaned and then it’s killed. It’s done in a very respectful and humane way.”

Animal sacrifice is a misunderstood practice in major metropolitan cities, where it’s become more prevalent with increased immigrant populations and an increased interest in Afro-diasporic religions among the Anglo-American population, Ballard said.

“The main problem, more than anything, is that people assume a crime has taken place when in a different cultural context no one would assume that,” he said. “We can’t assume something sinister is going on when people practice alternate religions. There’s more and more of them here so we need to deal with it.”

He said that serious practitioners of Afro-diasporic religions are usually discreet about what they do with the remains of the sacrifice once the animal is consumed. The remains are usually thrown in a trash can, not displayed in a public park, he said.

“If a trash can tips over and a bunch of chicken bones spills out no one assumes they’ve sacrificed an animal – they assume they’ve been to KFC,” he said.

Dowell, who has himself conducted sacrifices, said that Le Peristyle works with area farms to obtain their animals, and suggested that sacrificing an animal, which is typically done by slitting the throat, is a more humane practice then buying meat from a store.

“It’s done in a very, very respectful way,.” he said. “The goat is numbed first and then it’s killed. The animal is not traumatized at all. When you buy meat a lot of those animals have been traumatized.”

About 96 percent of the sacrifices done at Le Peristyle are in celebration of festive occasions, and after the sacrifice the animal is eaten, Dowell said.

The other 4 percent, he said, are done if someone is very sick.

“Unfortunately, we do have to sacrifice the animal to heal someone,” he said. “In that case, something has to die for something to live.”

The practice itself is not illegal, though Nicole Wilson, PSPCA humane society police officer, said that a “person’s freedom of religion does not mean they have a free pass on animal cruelty issues.”

She said that different laws apply to livestock and domestic animals. As long as livestock, such as goats and chickens, are stunned – usually by a blow to the head – before they are killed, then no law is broken.

“If they are consistent in the method of killing, that is, they are meeting the standard for food consumption purposes, then they don’t even have to eat the animals,” she said. Dogs and cats, however, are afforded specific protections under animal-cruelty legislation.The ASPCA’s Lockwood said that even legitimate cases of sacrifice raise some concerns for animal-welfare advocates, including how the animal is treated, held and transported before the sacrifice and the effect that observing a sacrifice might have on children.

“What happens when children are exposed to a high-ranking authority or person of reverence participating in an act of cruelty?” he asked.

The religious novices, teens and satanic dabblers who leave behind horrific scenes – such as last year, when a beheaded rooster was found hanging from a tree in Greenmount Cemetery, with a bloody plate and knife nearby – are rarely caught.

If the sacrifices are traced back – which rarely happens – those who committed them are more likely to be charged with illegal disposal of carcasses, littering or zoning violations as opposed to animal cruelty, which is a harder charge to prove, Wilson said.

Ballard and Dowell want to dispel the myth that all animal sacrifices are disturbing and that organized, alternative religions are behind the bizarre animal-sacrifice displays found throughout the city.

“When somebody who is insane does something and they’re Baptist, we don’t associate their insanity with being Baptist,” Ballard said. “But if they claim some other religion we immediately associate it with that.

“That really is a cultural double standard.”

Random Seaworld Orlando show image

Killer whales: Other SeaWorld attacks
www.orlandosentinel.com  |  Feb. 25, 2010

Nov. 29, 2006: Kenneth Peters, SeaWorld San Diego’s most experienced trainer, was dragged to the bottom of a 36-foot-deep pool by a 7,000-pound killer whale named Kasatka during a show at Shamu Stadium. Peters escaped with puncture wounds and a broken foot after he calmed the whale by stroking it.

July 27, 2004: Ky, a killer whale at SeaWorld San Antonio, repeatedly slammed trainer Steve Aibel underwater during a show. Aibel, who was uninjured, had trained Ky for 10 years.

June 12, 1999: Kasatka, a dominant female whale, began acting strangely during a show, grabbed Peters’ leg and attempted to throw him out of the pool at SeaWorld San Diego. Peters was able to get out of the pool.

Nov. 21, 1987: John Sillick fractured his vertebrae, femur and pelvis while riding Corky the whale at SeaWorld San Diego when he was crushed between two whales during a show.

Sept. 30, 1987: Chris Barlow of SeaWorld San Diego was rammed in the stomach by a whale during a show. He was hospitalized but survived.

– Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, Sentinel research

Want to see more Jesus simulacra? Jesus on an iron. Jesus on a lid of marmite. Similarly, GOD was found inside an eggplant.

Pizzeria worker sees Jesus in sauce bucket on first Friday of Lent
thetimes-tribune.com  |  BY JEREMY G. BURTON, STAFF WRITER  |  February 25, 2010

When Mary Louise Salerno saw Jesus Christ in a bucket of pizza sauce, her instinct was not to alert the media or even to tell many friends.

She did not want people descending on her family’s West Scranton pizzeria, and she did not want to invite critics or doubters of what she felt was a clear sign.

“To us, it was something special,” Ms. Salerno, 65, of Old Forge said. “God smiled on us that day.”

The image of Jesus has a history of unexpected appearances, from rocks and windows to medical X-rays and a tortilla. Add to that a sauce bucket at Brownie’s Famous Pizzeria, a long-standing eatery on Luzerne Street. It happened on the first Friday of Lent.

Ms. Salerno was at Brownie’s and talking with her granddaughter, 23-year-old Jackie Krouchick, while she made a pizza. Her granddaughter is a single mother who she said is struggling through tough times. Ms. Krouchick told her grandmother she worried she was losing her faith.

As Ms. Salerno poured tomato sauce from a white plastic bucket, she urged her granddaughter to keep believing. That is when she saw it, the image of a man with long hair and a beard in the leftover sauce.

Bill Salerno, the owner of Brownie’s and brother of Ms. Salerno, said he was skeptical until he saw it for himself. Maryann Marsico, who works at Brownie’s, said even an atheist would find it unmistakable.

“My 2-year-old grandson knows who it was. … He just looked at it and said, ‘That’s Papa Jesus,’ ” Ms. Marsico said.

It was not lost on Ms. Marsico that Jesus appeared at Brownie’s at the start of Lent, a holy Christian time that also happens to spur pizza sales because observers are not supposed to eat meat on Fridays.

“I will never cheat and eat meat again,” she said.

The bucket was placed in a cooler for a while, and a family friend insisted on taking a video of the image, which was posted on YouTube. On Wednesday, though, Brownie’s washed the bucket out with Ms. Salerno’s permission.

The message had been delivered, she said, and she did not want the image of her Lord “just sitting there in a pizza place.”

Mr. Salerno, 55 and also from Old Forge, said he is not a churchgoing man but he is religious, and seeing Jesus on that pizza sauce bucket was all the proof he needs.

“Jesus is everywhere, even in a little pizzeria in West Side,” he said.

Contact the writer: jburton@timesshamrock.com

JFK airport control tower.

JFK tower allowed a kid to direct air traffic
FAA opens probe; child, apparently with supervision, made 5 transmissions
AP | March 3, 2010

NEW YORK – A child apparently directed pilots last month from the air traffic control center at John F. Kennedy Airport, one of the nation’s busiest airports, according to audio clips. The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it was investigating.

“Pending the outcome of our investigation, the employees involved in this incident are not controlling air traffic,” the FAA said in a statement. “This behavior is not acceptable and does not demonstrate the kind of professionalism expected from all FAA employees.” The agency declined to comment beyond the statement.

Recordings from mid-February — during a weeklong winter break for many New York schoolchildren — were posted last month on a Web site for air traffic control-listening aficionados.

The child can be heard on the tape making five transmissions to pilots preparing for takeoff.

In one exchange, the child can be heard saying, “JetBlue 171 contact departure.” The pilot responds: “Over to departure JetBlue 171, awesome job.”

The child appears to be under an adult’s supervision, because a male voice then comes on and says with a laugh, “That’s what you get, guys, when the kids are out of school.”

In another exchange, the youngster clears another plane for takeoff, and says, “Adios, amigo.” The pilot responds in kind.

The FAA said the control tower is a highly secure area for air traffic controllers, supervisory staff and airport employees with a need to be there. FAA spokesman Jim Peters said children of the tower’s employees are allowed to visit but would need to get approval from the FAA first.

The union representing air traffic controllers condemned the workers’ behavior.

“It is not indicative of the highest professional standards that controllers set for themselves and exceed each and everyday in the advancement of aviation safety,” the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a statement.

Good luck kid, good luck. Keep smiling.

Phila. Police Arrest Parents in Bizarre South St. Jewelry Store Heist
KYW.com  |  Monday, 01 March 2010 12:07PM  |  by KYW’s Mike DeNardo and John Ostapkovich

Police say they’ve arrested the man and woman who robbed a South Street jewelry store on Saturday and left their four-year-old son behind as they got away.

The couple was arrested together around midnight at a motel in the 7600 block of Roosevelt Boulevard. John Benson, 47, and Sheakia Stubbs, 31, are charged with robbery, child endangerment, and attempted murder.

South Detectives captain Laurence Nodiff (right) says the pair had their four-year-old son with them on Saturday when they grabbed more than a dozen rings worth about $50,000 and ran from the “Platinum and Ice” jewelry store at Sixth and South Streets (see related story).

The store owner chased them until, according to police, Stubbs slashed him in the neck with some sort of sharp object. The couple ran away, leaving the boy behind. The store owner required nearly a dozen stitches

DHS is caring for the boy (right), whom Nodiff says helped track down the suspects:

“The child, as a result of a debriefing by the Special Victims Unit, was able to give us some information to help us locate the parents.”

Police say Benson has 24 prior arrests, and Stubbs three.

The stolen rings have not been recovered. Nodiff says that police are willing to waive a charge of receiving stolen property if the items are turned in.

(Nodiff photo by KYW’s John Ostapkovich)